Marketplaces

Development of an marketplaces

E-commerce is developing rapidly. In the last year, 2.64 billion people made purchases online and brought $5.8 trillion in revenue to the global market, and this figure could grow by another 39% in the coming years. If you also want to start selling online and gain access to an unlimited number of buyers, we will help you do everything right from the beginning: we will provide competent consulting and technical implementation of the online store at all stages.

Why should you invest in the development of an online store right now?

Recent years have shown that the future lies in online sales. This is beneficial both for companies that get access to a large audience and reduction of operating costs, and for customers themselves - because it is much easier to buy something in a few clicks using a smartphone and order delivery to the door, than to spend a whole day shopping.

But despite the huge number of existing online stores, they still cannot fully cover demand - users are constantly faced with long delivery, inconsistent quality, high commissions and frequent lack of necessary items in warehouses. If you are ready to offer your audience an effective solution to these problems now, then you are likely to succeed in the market.

How to start a successful Marketplace in 5 steps

Developing an online store from scratch may seem like a difficult task, but in fact, the path from a business idea to a successful product in the E-Commerce segment can be completed in five simple steps. Let's analyze each of them in more detail.

Choosing a business model

If you already have an offline point of sale, then everything is simple - you create an online store in which you can sell a catalog of products to a wider audience. If you are planning to launch a startup, there are several options for building a business model:

• Dropshipping. You focus only on sales, and you pass the order data to manufacturers or suppliers who deliver directly to the buyer. Your profit in this model is the difference between the wholesale and retail price of the product, and you do not have to deal with inventory or warehouse management. This is a good option for novice entrepreneurs, but building a company with a serious turnover in this way is unlikely to work.
• Classic online store . You buy goods, build warehouse logistics, advertise and sell your goods through the site. This is the optimal business model, because you yourself manage delivery times, monitor quality compliance, can implement loyalty programs and use other marketing tools to increase sales.
• Own production . The model implies that you do absolutely everything: production of goods, storage, distribution and marketing. In fact, you create your own brand under which you manufacture and sell products. Such a business can give a higher profit, depending on the type of goods, but will require serious investment at the start.
• Marketplace . You do not sell goods, but only act as an intermediary between other retailers and their buyers, providing a digital space for their interaction. There are enough successful cases in this segment: Amazon, Airbnb, AliExpress and others.

Search for developers

When the idea is formed and there is a clear vision of the product, you can proceed to technical development. And here there is a choice: assemble your own team, which will be fully involved in the processes and will be able to give a cool result, hire qualified employees according to the outstaffing model, or outsource the project. Each of the approaches has its pros and cons, so let's figure it out:

• In-house team. In this case, all responsibility for finding employees, organizing the technical infrastructure and managing the team falls on your shoulders. You can look for specialists on freelance exchanges, through vacancies or with the help of acquaintances. You need to prepare for a tiring interview and flipping through hundreds of resumes, so you won't be able to quickly form a team of 5-10 people - the process can take several months. Plus, in the future you need to think about salaries, taxes and team building, which requires additional resources. On the other hand, in this case, you fully control the processes and manage priorities, so with a competent approach, you can get an excellent result at the end.
• Outstaffing. This is a great option if you decide to manage the development process yourself, but want to avoid red tape, taxes and developer onboarding. In this case, you hire experienced and qualified specialists in an IT company, who actually become part of your team for the entire period of cooperation. You pay for their time, and all HR issues are solved by the service provider company, due to which it will be much faster to bring the product to the market.
• Outsourcing. In this case, you delegate the task of technical development of the online store to an already coordinated team and pay for the result. Of course, you will still have to participate in the implementation of the project, but at a minimum - you will agree on mockups, functionality, strategy and other important issues, you will be able to control the work of specialists, but all organizational aspects are decided by the contractor, thanks to which you can fully concentrate on the development of your business.

Our company covers the needs of customers. We can outsource the implementation of the online store, provide individual employees to strengthen your own team, or allocate an already formed team to implement the project using the outstaffing model.

Choosing the functionality of the marketplace

The functionality of an online store can include various features and tools that ensure the convenience of customers and the effective management of the store from a business point of view. The choice of specific modules for such a project is an individual matter. It all depends on your business strategy, target audience and many other variables. Therefore, we will consider only the most important functions that most likely need to be developed:

• Registration. The user's personal account with the ability to save selected products, view order history and manage personal information. It will help you get to know your audience better and run effective loyalty systems.
• Catalog of goods. A space where visitors can browse products using various filters and categories.
• Search for goods . Allows you to quickly find the desired products by keywords or phrases.
• Shopping cart . Ordering interface.
• Payment system . Integration of payment gateways that will allow you to accept payment online.
• Reviews and ratings . The opportunity for buyers to leave reviews about products and evaluate the quality of service. The module plays an important social factor and can seriously increase conversion.
• Administrator panel . An interface for managing the product catalog, orders, customer base, content and promotions.
• Analytics and reporting . Analytics system for tracking sales, user behavior, effectiveness of marketing campaigns and other key business indicators.

The functionality of the online store also affects what technologies will be used for its development. We always try to choose the optimal stack that best meets the needs of the project. For example, it can be:

• For the server part : PHP, Python, Java or their frameworks, Node.js
• For the client part : HTML, CSS, JavaScript or Vue/React frameworks.
• UI/UX : Figma, Moqups

Technical implementation

When the business model is formed and a qualified team is selected, which will deal with technical implementation, you can start developing an online store. In our team, this process consists of several key stages:

• Collection of information . We study the client's ideas and conduct a market analysis.
• Projecting . We create a project prototype, design functionality and describe technical documentation.
• Creation of UI design . We draw an individual design of the user interface.
• Programming . We implement the client and server parts of the store using the selected technology stack.
• QA testing . We test the functionality and check the project for compliance with the initial plans.

Support and development of the online store

When the online store is ready and tested, it is placed on a public server and becomes available to users, but the technical work on the project does not end there - its technical support and development begins, as part of which:

• Feedback from users is collected and analyzed.
• Ideas are formed on how to improve the final product.
• New features are created and implemented at the technical level.

This cycle is usually iterative and can last throughout the life of the product. It helps the online store to meet the current needs of the target audience and always remain in demand on the market.

Advantages of developing an online store at AVADA MEDIA

Ordering the development of an online store from our team, you get:

• High download speed . In e-commerce, speed is of the essence. If a visitor has to wait longer than 3 seconds for a page to open, they will almost certainly go to your competitor. Therefore, when developing the site, we pay great attention to optimization and increasing productivity.
• Full integration with external services . Implementation of CRM, warehouse accounting system and accounting software will allow you to automate internal processes as much as possible and speed up customer service. You will not lose leads and reduce the operational burden on the staff.
• Access to any payment systems . We will select and integrate any payment services on the site. Thanks to this, customers will be able to quickly and easily make purchases in your online store, paying in a way that is convenient for them.
• Modern and convenient UI/UX design . We create an individual and convenient interface that helps customers navigate the functionality and make purchases comfortably.
• High security . We use advanced data protection and transmission mechanisms, so commercial information and personal data of customers are completely safe.
• Convenient admin panel . An effective and functional admin will help you easily manage products, promotions, blog articles and other content on the site. Any employee can handle filling out the online store, even without prior training or programming skills. Also, the admin panel will help you monitor analytical data in real time for effective business management.

If you intend to launch a successful online store, contact our team by filling out the feedback form, and we will call you back shortly to discuss the project.