Amazon, eBay, and Flipkart are the established names in the online shopping market. They have done incredibly well in the area of the multivendor marketplace.
The multivendor marketplace is an ecommerce extension. For sellers, it converts an online store into an online marketplace. Sellers can have full access to management of products, their sales, bills, shipments and offers/schemes. This multivendor marketplace extension charges the vendors in exchange for this service.
The difference between e-commerce store and multivendor marketplace store
E-commerce store
In this format, only two parties are there, store owners and buyers.The store owner has the right of selling to buyers. The administrator can add, delete and manage products. He/she collect the revenues directly from sales.
Multivendor marketplace store
Here not only store owner and buyers, but other sellers are also involved. Store owner and seller, both can be in the area of selling products. Here not only administrator, but the seller can also add, delete and manage products. The end part is different. Like e-commerce, the administrator can only collect revenues. After deducting the commission, revenue is given to the particular seller.
Benefits of Magento multivendor marketplace
It seems a win-win model for all store owners, vendors, and customers.
For store owner
The store takes a commission for different vendors depending upon the services they avail.
For vendor
The vendor gets to sell his/her products through multichannel. At the same time, one doesn’t have to worry about SEO things, maintenance of portal, and other marketing strategies.
For customer
For one product, the customer gets many choices related to price and quality. And then he/she can go for what fits in his requirement.
Features provided by Magento
1. Vendor group
It allows creating groups of vendors depending on their commissions. For example, there would be a gold, silver, platinum or normal group decided as per commission was given by the vendors.
2. Vendor account
This means registering a new account, creating the password, forgot password systems etc. It also includes approval of account after necessary authentication is performed.
3. Vendor dashboard
It gives an overlook about the business to a vendor about his/her store. It includes credit amount, sales information, last few orders, last some transactions, some reviews etc.
4. Vendor product management
This as a product management panel. A vendor can view, add, delete or edit product information. But these modification goes to the admin first for approval. Once admin approves them, changes start reflecting on the portal.
5. Multiple shopping carts
For end customer, the shopping cart is parted as per vendors and then the customer can choose to proceed.
6. Vendor order management
The vendor can have a look at order information. He/she can add comments and create shipment details also.
7. Vendor shipment management
Shipments can be created here also. Vendors can create the shipments as per orders and prepare the printed invoices accordingly.
8. Vendor credit account
After the customer pays for the order, the money goes into the admin account. But vendor can see his share/credit from his/her credit account.
9. Different payment methods
The vendor doesn’t have to worry about payment gateways. The store provides different portals like credit card payment, debit card payment, payment through some non-bank authorities’ wallet or cash on delivery etc.
10. Transaction management
If a customer reports a query regarding a delivery or an invoice, then transactions page will help a customer care person to resolve a query on the spot.
11. Multi-language support
It is a huge benefit. A customer or a vendor doesn’t have to be profound in one language. He/she can opt for the language of comfort.
12. Help feature
Sometimes a vendor doesn’t understand a particular feature or a new arrival or any other technical matter. Help feature takes the vendor to the relevant place.
13. Upgrade support feature
Regarding performance, it can be about the speed of an application, about new arrival of the scheme, or any other things which need enhancement. Upgrade support feature ensures that vendor stays and progress in the competition.
Magento and WordPress
WordPress with Marketify
It is a theme of WordPress. It is for digital producers who can download easy digital sources to create multi-vendor marketplaces. It is very much cost effective and it has a very user-friendly interface.
Its registration process is also very simple. Vendors are given a front-end from where they add or edit products. The vendor doesn’t have to go to WordPress dashboard.
Magento with Marketplace
It is an extension of Magento. It said to be the very much robust version of the multivendor marketplace. Magento multivendor marketplace covers almost all functions of the multivendor marketplace. It offers good search functionality as well.
In short:
Small vendors want to penetrate in the e-commerce market. But at the same time, they don’t want to bother about application development, its maintenance, and SEO. They always search for those who can handle above things for them. In this case, the multivendor marketplace is a perfect, efficient and cost effective solution for such vendors.