What is the best platform to build a marketplace?
There are many platforms available in the market, which you can choose based on your need and budget. Among them are top platforms like OpenCart, Shopify, Woo-commerce which are widely used. If you want to choose any one of these then we recommend visiting the OpenCart platform to start an online venture.
OpenCart is an open-source platform that gives more control over online marketplace stores. OpenCart comes with a paid enterprise edition and a free community edition. There are thousands of reasons to choose OpenCart as an online marketplace. The features below make OpenCart a popular alternative.
Flexibility
We have said earlier that OpenCart is an open-source platform, which provides all the source code easily. It allows you to customize extensions and add-ons.
Freely Available
OpenCart offers its community edition for free, which is something to consider for any start-up company if it has a low budget.
SEO Edge
OpenCart offers effective site optimization for its SEO feature, which manages oncoming traffic. Having SEO Edge increases the total sales of any website.
Manage multiple stores
There is a special feature in OpenCart that allows the management of multiple levels from a single admin panel.
Provides Responsiveness
Mobile devices have become an important part of our day-to-day life. A significant percentage now shops on mobile devices. The OpenCart platform promises a user-responsive design on the screen.
Mobile-Friendly
OpenCart also provides you with the facility of the mobile app, so that you can convert your online store into OpenCart app.
Advanced Search
A robust and advanced search feature is a plus point for any website. Any customer will prefer an easy and efficient search process that will filter the products for them.
Efficient Order Management
OpenCart handles all the functionality related to orders for invoices, shipments, credit memo, orders, etc. very nicely.
Promotional & Marketing tool
OpenCart has tools like catalog and cart promotion rules, multi-tier pricing, etc., which help in growing your business.
Developer Friendly
OpenCart allows uninterrupted integration of third-party modules and services including web/cloud services. Your question indicates that you want to start a multi-vendor marketplace. Thus, we are sharing this type of feature of OpenCart which is a must-have in any online marketplace.
Easy Registration Process for Seller
To make a successful market venture, it is necessary to attract sellers towards their products. For this, there is a need to create vendor registration, in which all necessary details of sellers are captured in a user-friendly manner.
Product Creation
Sellers on your site should have the facility to select products, manufacture the product and import/export, etc. In the context of this, if we say – Simple Products, Configurable Products, Bundle Products, and Grouped Products are many types of allowed products. OpenCart provides us with many such facilities like sub-sell, cross-sell, related products which is a plus point.
Product Attribute
Every single product is unique in its own way. Thus, it is important that the vendor is able to create features that can be used at the time of product manufacturing.
Commissioning System
Seller for each purchase of products the power to set a number of conditional rates allows the store owner to receive earnings through sellers.
Robust Shipping and Refund structure
Any online marketplace should pay close attention to its shipping and refund policy because if any customer faced any problem like shipping, payment and refund policy, etc. then he will not make a purchase on your site.
Sturdy order management
OpenCart provides sellers with a panel where they can easily keep track of the orders for their products. This includes facilities like creating invoices, shipments, and credit memo for orders placed.
Rate the Seller
This is a feature that allows customers to rate sellers for their products and services. The rating given by the customer has a great impact on the frequency of orders for the seller’s product.
There are many such features to start an online marketplace, some of which have been mentioned above. You can customize OpenCart based marketplace for these features. Apart from this, you can also go for some ready-to-use modules that cover all the above-mentioned features.