In this day and age, when eCommerce is growing at a fast pace, online marketplaces are the most efficient way to make everybody satisfied: buyers, sellers and marketplace owners; all in one app, making marketplace app development a promising field.
The buyers prefer to make all purchases on marketplace apps, where they have lots of options for prices, comparing items and buying them in the same place, instead of dozens of separate eCommerce sites.
The sellers already have their target audience present, which is very compelling.
Marketplace owners have many ways to generate revenue such as obtaining a percentage from every deal and advertising.
The competition needs to be taken into consideration, so the best option would be a mobile application and a website, because more than half of the people who buy online, purchase through mobile phones. Mobile websites are the second best option. Trying a simple version website first, to ensure it has potential in your chosen niche, is a very good beginner’s choice.
Necessary features
Ideally, it must be profitable for the site owner, the seller and the buyer. This means the site has to have an intuitive layout, so everybody can sign up with email or their social media profile, with two different user modes, seller or buyer profile.
• A short tutorial with images is advisable.
• The buyer‘s account must contain information about their past and current orders and payment method.
• Grouping products into logical categories is very necessary, so users can find with ease the product they wish to buy.
• Search and filters are very important. It makes search predictive and filters products by price, range and rating.
• For sellers, your marketplace platform should have statistics, to help them gauge people’s interest in their product, with the number of views and number of people who added a product to their wish list, product admin panel for listing all details about a product and editing possibilities.
• Recommended products suggested to the user is an excellent way to drive sales, based on previous searches and wish list.
• The shopping cart is part of every retail application. It is appealing to add discounts, coupons and reward points.
• The payment method should be simple and fast, security being a primary concern.
The costs of development
The bulk part of the price depends on the hourly rate of the development company. Take into consideration that applications developed in the USA are the most costly, whereas Eastern Europe has the best quality to price ratios and companies from Asia are generally the cheapest.
Additional prices depend on your extent, third party services, tools and technologies applied.
If the marketplace app should run on both Android and iOS, the price doubles.
Another very important step to consider is a technical specification created by a business analyst, so you will have a clear view of the final budget you need.
The last step to take into account is optimizing your profile for the app store’s search engine after you upload it, making sure to update your app when new libraries and OS come out.
