A Marketplace site is all that every eCommerce business owner is wishing to have by his side. Marketplace model of eCommerce has a name for providing loads of opportunities and choices to everyone who is involved in it. From Website Owner, Marketplace Seller to Marketplace customers, everyone gets something enlarged as compared to an inventory model of eCommerce.
Having a marketplace website is not a big task, having a successful marketplace is. You cannot just develop a marketplace site without considering some situations that need to be fulfilled. Here, I am enlisting some questions and factors that you should consider before starting a Magento Marketplace. In fact, you must consider this situation in almost all the eCommerce platforms.
Magento was originally developed as an inventory based eCommerce site
A marketplace site comes out as providing a burden-free experience in most of the cases for a marketplace owner. He/she does not need to worry about maintaining an inventory of products, shipping the products to the customers, etc. Everything seems to be so perfect. However, shifting from an inventory model to a Magento marketplace would not be an easy task.
Magento eCommerce platform has been originally designed to serve as an inventory based eCommerce site. So, it is required to extend its original functionalities by developing a Magento Marketplace extension that delivers the functionalities required by a marketplace site. So, when you are thinking of getting a Magento Marketplace extension, you should essentially look into these factors. You should look if your Magento Marketplace extension is able to handle the below core functionalities of a marketplace:
Magento Marketplace – Seller registration
Sellers are the most important part of any marketplace site. Without sellers, it is just a regular eCommerce site. So, in your Magento marketplace extension, you should essentially look if it can manage the seller registrations. Look for the following features for managing seller registrations:
- Sellers should be able to register a separate seller account.
- There should be an option for Marketplace admin to approve/disapprove a seller account request.
- Only approved sellers should be allowed to sell on the marketplace.
- Sellers should be able to upload products only in allowed categories
- Approved sellers should be able to access a seller panel from where they can:
- Update their shop profile and seller details
- Input their shop policies
- Upload the products is allowed categories
- If they wish to sell products from new categories, they should be able to request a new category access from the admin
- Receive orders from customers
- Manage orders and update the order statuses
- Track the report of sales made
- Track the amount of commission paid to admin
- Communicate with the marketplace admin
Marketplace Admin–Seller management
The marketplace admin is the owner of the website or is a representative of the owner. Admin should have all the ethical accesses that will make sure that everything is going smoothly on his website. A Magento marketplace admin should have the following accesses to manage his website properly:
- Admin should be able to approve/disapprove a seller account request.
- Admin should be able to view the details of the sellers.
- Admin should be able to activate/deactivate a seller anytime he wishes to.
- Admin should be able to add a shipping option for the sellers to use.
- Admin should be able to approve/disapprove a new category request.
- Admin should be able to approve/disapprove a product uploaded by a seller.
- Admin should be able to track the sales made by a seller.
- Admin should be able to track the commissions earned on different sales made.
A Magento Marketplace from the customers point of view
Customers are the inseparable part of any business activity. Without having a proper scope for customer management, no eCommerce site can even survive for a day. Even a marketplace site needs a proper system to manage the customers. Lucking Magento being a very efficient platform provides inbuilt functionalities to manage the customers. So, you don’t have to worry much about customer management in your Magento Marketplace. However, you should tally that if:
- Customers can browse all the approved products from all the sellers.
- Customers can see the basic Seller information like Seller or shop name.
- Customer can place orders for the products from any seller on the site
- Sellers can receive the order placed for their product.
- Sellers can check if payment for the order had been made.
- Sellers can update an order’s status.
Finally,
These are the basic Marketplace functionalities that you should look in a marketplace extension. Even in your search for a Magento Marketplace extension, these features are equally important to look for.
You can check out this Magento Multi-Vendor Marketplace extension to know how a proper Magento Marketplace extension works for you.
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