28 March, 2024
Apptha Multi Vendor Marketplace

How To Build A Magento Marketplace Store Like Amazon Ebay & Etsy With Apptha Multivendor Script?

Next to social platforms, online marketplace stores are those which create a lot of buzz as the number of online shoppers are almost in par with the number of socialites.  

It is obvious that multi-vendor stores earn big than exclusive or brand-specific ecommerce stores but how much do they actually earn? Well, here is the statistics that reveals the revenue of the top players in ecommerce industry last year.

Top eCommerce Websites and their 2015 Revenue in USD

  • Amazon 2015 B2C e-commerce sales 107 billion USD
  • Ebay net revenue in 2015 6.1 billion USD
  • Etsy’s 3rd quarter 2015 revenue was close to 65.7 million USD

Do these statistics inspire you to get your own multi-vendor store? If ‘Yes’, read on…

Amazon, eBay and Etsy are arguably the world’s best marketplaces which rule the ecommerce industry and websites like Alibaba (China) and giving a stiff competition to the frontrunners of the domain.

These online marketplaces have not only made things easy for many retail sellers to get their products hosted but have also, with their success rate, have inspired many aspirants to start their own multi-vendor store.

How to Build an Online Marketplace Store?

If you choose to create a marketplace like Etsy, Ebay or Amazon, things might get complicated if you decide to build a marketplace website from the scratch. Well, that’s not the only way as there are plenty of marketplace website building scripts on various platforms, thanks to the advent of technology for making things better.

Why Magento & Why Apptha Marketplace Script?

Before getting into a readymade script selection, you should be firm with the platform first. In e-commerce, when you aim big, Magento is the only solution which can keep things running smoothly in a longer run. Magento is built for scalability, security, it is compatible towards other integrations and can be customized to any extent.

Zero Worries for Your Marketplace Website’s Look & Feel

When it comes to marketplace, the part often overlooked is the design. Getting a perfect look for your multi vendor store is equally important like getting the technicalities right.

Apptha Marketplace script saves you from shelling out separate capital for a theme design by providing two free themes, Marketplace Pro and Marketplace Blaze

Marketplace Pro is a mobile and fluidic responsive theme that can help you create a FlipKart like look. Marketplace Blaze is also mobile and fluidic responsive and comes with 5 different color options to choose from.

Apptha Marketplace Theme

Apptha’s Marketplace script is one of the highly preferred modules which has powered 1000+ multi-vendor websites. Here is a collection of case studies and client testimonials that vouch for its quality.

Apptha Multivendor Marketplace Casestudies

Getting Started with Apptha Multi Vendor Script ?

Choose your domain name first. You need not worry about getting a reliable hosting as Apptha’s marketplace script is cloud-ready. You can get your multi vendor store hosted on Amazon AWS cloud and as an additional surprise you get 1 year hosting free. You can instantly go live after getting your installation and configuration done.

 Installing Apptha Marketplace Software

After purchasing the extension, login to www.apptha.com. Kindly go to My Account-> My Downloadable Product for downloading the package.

Get Apptha Marketplace Now! After downloading, go to the admin panel of your Magento site.

1. Go to System-> Magento Connect-> Magento Connect Manager and upload the package.

If you come across “Access Denied “ / “404 Error” message when trying to access the Marketplace settings page after installation, please follow any one of the steps given below:

Go to Admin->System->Permission->Roles, edit the role then save.

(OR)

Log-out your admin and log-in again.

If you are using a custom template, then please move the files to your custom theme. By default, the package will be installed in the default Magento template.

Generating the License Key

To generate the license key, Select “Generate License” in the left hand side of your account in www.apptha.com. Using your ‘Order number’, ‘Product name’ and the ‘Domain name’, you can generate your license key.

How to Apply the License Key

Go to Admin-> Marketplace-> Configuration-> General Configuration-> License Key -> Apply License Key and save it.

Note: If you are using our Marketplace in your localhost or IP address, please enter the License key as “CONTUS”.

After saving the settings, go to Admin-> System-> Configuration-> Design-> Under Themes tab-> Default. Enter “superstore” here. Also enter “apptha” in the package name.

How to Configure Apptha Marketplace Script?

Once you are done with activating the license key, you can carry with the other settings in the Configuration.

Apptha Marketplace Configuration

Email ID: Select the mail id for sending email notifications.

In ‘Enter Facebook page’ and ‘Enter Twitter page’ fields, provide your Facebook and Twitter page URL, respectively.

Footer Copyright: Enter the copyright text which has to be displayed in the front-end footer copyright section.

Seller Configuration Settings Tab

Under the seller configuration settings tab, administrator can i) set approval settings for seller subscriptions, ii) define templates for email notifications between seller and admin, iii) customize seller profile page and enable additional options for sellers etc.

Seller Configuration

Seller Subscription – Payment Settings

Merchant PayPal Id: Enter your PayPal ID here.

Enable Sandboxmode: Enable the sandboxmode for testing by choosing ‘Yes’.

Select Notification Email Template for Admin: Set whether you require a notification or not when a seller subscribes

Enable Subscription: The subscription feature can be Enabled/Disabled here.

Shipping Cost: Shipping cost, if set to ‘Yes’, will provide an option for sellers to set shipping cost for each product. If ‘No’ is set, seller based shipping price will automatically be enabled.

Seller Subscription Plans – Define time based subscription plans

Plan Name, Subscription Period Value, Product Type which can be offered via subscription, Validity Period, Subscription Fee, and the limit for number of products to be added can be declared here.

Seller Subscription Plans

Product Configuration

Automatic approval of seller products, defining product types, providing custom product adding option for sellers, seller notifications for new product approval, enabling product sold count, providing bulk product upload option for seller, enabling YouTube product video import option can be done under the product configuration section.

Product Configuration

Seller Management

This grid is completely dedicated for handling various seller details. Seller registration approvals, information fields like Seller Name, Email, Contact, Customer Registered Date, Number of products, Commission (in percentage) and Customer status can be managed via this grid.

Manage Sellers

Payments Grid

All sorts of payment transaction details between administrator and seller can be managed via this grid. Store name, Email ID, Amount received, Amount Remaining, Customer History, Payment mode, Comments etc are a few among the fields provided here.

Payments

Products Grid

Product information like Name, Type, Seller ID, Email, SKU, Price, Quantity and Status are the details which can be viewed by admin using this grid.

Seller Product Adding

Orders Grid

Admin can view all the orders through this grid. Admin can credit product sold amount to a seller for product refunds. Seller Details, Order ID, Product Details, Product Price, Seller’s Earned Amount, Commission Fee, Acknowledge Status, Acknowledge On and Order Date are the order details which can be accessed by the admin.

Order Management

Category (Menu creation) classification

The categories created in the admin panel will be displayed as menus and their sub classifications, in the front end.

Go To Admin -> Catalog -> Manage Categories -> Select Default category and then click “Add Subcategory”. The subcategories can then be added which will appear as a list when hovering is done over a menu.

Category settings

Add Category

Name : The name field can be used to provide the name of the category

Is Active: Choose ‘Yes’ in this field to get the category activated in the front end. Thumbnail images can be added as well.

With this, we are concluding the basic configuration settings for building a marketplace site using Apptha’s marketplace script.

We would be glad to help if you are up for more. Check out our complete Installation and User Guide for more detailed instruction.

Get a hands-on experience on your Marketplace store

Apptha’s Marketplace Demo

Alex Sam is a digital marketer by choice & profession. He munches on topics relating to technology, eCommerce, enterprise mobility, Cloud Solutions and Internet of Things. His other interests lies in SEO, Online Reputation Management and Google Analytics. Follow Me Socially: Habr , Dev.to & Viblo .

8 Comments

  1. Duminda Perera Reply

    Hello Apptha Team,

    My development team just installed your marketplace software. We need to customize the seller management tab with additional information to make our marketplace store with unique functionalities. We need help in this, could you guide me to get it done.

    1. Ramanathan Reply

      Dear Duminda,

      You can contact our customer support team to make your customization as per your wish. visit apptha.com and chat with our live experts.

  2. Errata Carmona Reply

    Am interested to start a marketplace store and need to add my local vendors to sell their products. Also, I need a seller location map, so that customers can reach them directly to their stores. Is it possible to integrate with this marketplace script.

    1. Ramanathan Reply

      Dear Errata,

      Yes with this marketplace script you can add seller location map. For more features you can visit apptha.com and chat with our live experts to get it done.

      Thanks!

  3. Robb Brock Reply

    I’m very eager to make a multi vendor marketplace which is similar to the website template like etsy. Moreover, I don’t have any technical knowledge, so could you please explain more about starting a multi vendor marketplace with this ready made software.

    1. Ramanathan Reply

      Dear Robb Brock,

      Thank you for contacting us. One of our customer support executive will contact you with your given email. In the mean while could you share your contact no or skype ID to reach you as earliest.

  4. Laura Skelley Reply

    I want to run an online multivendor store. So, how can I start with this readymade marketplace software, please guide me to proceed further?

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