right now I am looking at setting up a marketplace type of service. It is not an auctioning platform, but user interaction is somewhat similar. I need users to be able to sign up, offer a product on the marketplace. With the same sign up the user should also be able to buy the products, other user have added to the marketplace.
I have looked at several eshop solutions, but all the ones I found, assume that there is only a single shop owner who is adding products. I have not found a solutions that has the ability for users to add products themselves.
Is there a readymade solution, that would support this kind of marketplace model? Would it be possible/How difficult would it be to adapt one of the existing eshop solution to add an interface for users to add products to the shop and connect link it to them in the database?
I am really looking forward to some feedback, thanks a lot in advance!
Every person who signs up needs to have the ability to buy AND offer, so in this way it is closer to Amazon Market Place/Ebay.
But the whole payment will be processed directly through the site. We will collect the money, give the customer a certain time to complain about the product/service, and pass the money(after deducting a service fee) on if there is no complain.
So in this way the mechanics are much more like an eshop with a separate module to pay out the money again. But this should be fairly easy to build.
The big questions are:
is there a readymade marketplace system
is it possible to add a module where any user can add products to an existing webshop
is there maybe a webshop which already has something like the amazon function where you can sell used books (not the market place, on the product pages: Have a look here) which can be extended/adapted
Is your goal to build a virtual mall or to support multiple sellers on a single platform like Amazon Marketplaces / eBay? I ask because the former is probably doable with a modification while the later really requires a significant customization / new development to differentiate from a basic store and be useful to end users.