It’s 2020, and we are all aware of the existence of eCommerce marketplaces. Platforms like Amazon, eBay have shown us how eCommerce platforms can earn a huge amount of success and revenue.
Many have ventured into the eCommerce industry, hoping to become an extraordinary example like the ones we mentioned already. However, they can have a little hard time choosing the right method to create marketplace with Magento or equivalent technology.
An eCommerce platform can be developed in two ways-
- From scratch (using PHP, Python, ROR, to build the backend.)
- With open-source eCommerce platforms (e.g: Magento, Shopify, WordPress, etc. )
While both methods have their own merits, we have to consider the lack of resources of eCommerce startups. Developing an eCommerce platform from scratch takes a lot of time and costs a lot. This is why for startups it is better to choose a development with open source eCommerce platforms with options like Magento Marketplace.
Is Magento the right choice for marketplace development?
Let’s find out in the following steps:
- Valid reasons why you should choose open-source Magento
- How strong is the Magento architecture
- Popular application and modification of the MVC architecture
- Types of Magento Marketplace you should know about
- Must-have features for MVC Magento marketplace development
- Technology Stack to know about
- Magento community vs enterprise edition – A comparison
With this article, we are going to talk about developing your eCommerce marketplace with the help of Magento. But before we get to that, we need to talk about why you should create marketplace with Magento.
1. Reasons Why You Should Choose Open-source Magento?
While many industry specialists will prefer developing an eCommerce platform from scratch, for startups it can be very problematic. This method not only costs more but it also takes up a lot of time and effort. For a startup with a limited budget, this can harm the business.
Choosing open-source Magento, on the other hand, will save a lot of development time as well as save budget. There are, however, a few more reasons for choosing Magento.
a. Responsive Development
Magento is a platform specifically created to develop a mobile responsive eCommerce marketplace. The Top New York Magento Development Agencies ensured that any kind of marketplace created using this platform is accessible through all types of devices.
b. A Versatile Content Management System
With Magento, the shop owners are able to use the visual page editors to edit their product pages easily without any fuss. Even those who are less talented with coding are easily able to optimize the interface to be a user-friendly one.
c. Building A Spacious And Powerful Ecommerce Marketplace
A Magento 2 marketplace website is capable of supporting up to 500,000 products and handles about 80,000 products every hour. This powerful and spacious quality of the marketplace websites makes it ready for future growth. However, the complexity of the size and the website creates special hosting needs.
d. Browsing Related Products Easily
It is easy to add the feature of browsing related products with Magento. This does not only enhances the UX but also improves sales.
e. Third-party Integrations Made Easy
Magento makes it easy for developers to integrate third-party tools such as Paypal, Mailchimp, etc. It also allows for third-party tools integration for website data analysis. Hence it is easy if you create marketplace with Magento.
f. Customizable Security Options
When developing eCommerce websites using Magento, the developers can customize the security of their eCommerce websites. Adding multiple levels of security using Magento is easy. The marketplace building platform comes with standard PCI data security, captcha enabled login screens, and for additional security a secondary password prompt. Magento also makes vendor management easy, for a secure shopping environment for the customers.
g. Support Of A Huge Community
There’s no doubt that a huge community is already using Magento to create and maintain the marketplace website. You can find Magento developers spread worldwide, capable of creating an amazing eCommerce website, all thanks to the support of the huge community.
2. A Quick Look At Magento Architecture
The Magento architecture is a mix between the Zend framework and the MVC architecture. This combination offers users unlimited control and flexibility.
Since it is based on the Zend framework, the codebase is not only secure but scalable as well. Zend Framework comes with an object-oriented library of codes that provide better support for the developers. The code used to build Magento has three specific quality to it-
a. Flexibility
Creating a marketplace with Magento ensures that the customization of the platform remains smooth. The code used to develop Magento is quite flexible and easy to modify, making the platform easy to scale in the future.
b. Scalability
As much as Magento’s code can be customized, it still remains upgradeable, which means that using Magento for eCommerce marketplace development will make sure that the website can be upgraded as the business grows.
c. Speed and security
Magento code is the top of the market when it comes to speed and security. The developers applied best practices to increase the flow and efficiency of the website and the online store.
3. Application And Modification Of The MVC Architecture
While the Magento architecture does follow the MVC pattern, it also adds some of its own modifications to it as well.
A simple MVC structure divides up the codes into three parts- Model ( the main application), View (the reusable objects on the interface used by the Controller to perform tasks) and Controller ( how the model is presented to the user)
When the Controller is asked to perform a task, it employes Model to process data and puts forth the results using the view.
Magento, on the other hand, has added some additional sun-blocks to the traditional MVC structure. This modification helps Magento to support bigger eCommerce marketplace systems.
As we can see from the image above, the Model in Magento’s MVC structure is divided into two parts and the View is divided into three structures. The helpers are in this case module-specific. This doesn’t only help the developers to manage a complex eCommerce system, but also helps the website to grow with the business.
4. Marketplace Types
Before we start talking about the development and features, you need to choose what type of marketplace you want to build.
When it comes to Magento marketplace development, there are two types you can go with. The first is a single vendor marketplace and the second is multi-vendor marketplaces.
a. Single Vendor Marketplace
The single vendor marketplaces usually represent a website where a single company, sells its products. This can be either a B2B marketplace built using Magento or a simple B2C eCommerce website. In this scenario, there are only two parties involved, the buyers and the sellers. These stand-alone websites will be perfect for you if you have a business that makes a specific brand of products and wants to sell that one particular website, avoiding competition.
b. Multi-Vendor Marketplace
Multi-vendor marketplaces such as Amazon, or eBay have a number of vendors selling various products on one platform. In the case of a multi-vendor platform, we have three kinds of users, system admin, vendor, and the end-user or customer.
The vendor sells products through its separate panels. The admin panel is used to manage the vendor and customer activity on the platform.
Now that we know about the different kinds of market place types you can create using Magento, it’s time to see what kinds of features you will need for both kinds of marketplace apps.
5. The Must-have Feature List to Create Marketplace With Magento For Single & Multi-vendor Platform
The features between single and multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace are not really that different. This is why we have presented these features to you in a compact table below.
| Features | Single vendor marketplace | Multi-vendor marketplace |
| Sign in & sign up | Two kinds of sign in and sign up features for admin and users. Secure sign in and sign up with two-factor authentication. | Three different kinds of sign in and sign up feature, for admin, vendor, and the user. |
| Profile management | The admin will be able to manage various user profiles on the website. | With the same feature on a multi-vendor platform, the admin will be able to manage both user and vendor profiles. |
| Smooth UI/UX design | The UI/UX will determine the ease and efficiency of the users on the platform. This will make sure that they come back to the website again. | Similar to the single-vendor marketplace, the smooth UI/US design will not only make sure of repeat customers, but it will also attract many vendors on your platform for its popularity. |
| Notifications | Users will be able to receive notifications about new products, sales, and various offers. | As the users receive notifications about new products, sales, and offers, the vendors will be able to receive notifications about the number of orders, delivery, payment and many more. |
| Easy check out | The user should be able to easily check out once they have chosen a product. | Similar to the single vendor marketplace, the customer should be able to quickly check out without having to go through numerous steps |
| Management panel for the admin | The admin panel will help the admin to keep up with all the users registered on the website, the orders placed, deliveries and payment details, report generation and many more. The admin panel is necessary to manage the overall function of the website. | Similar to the single vendor marketplace, the admin panel on the multi-vendor marketplace helps the admin to manage orders, products, deliveries. It also enables them to keep in contact with the vendors. |
| Payment gateways | On both the single-vendor and multi-vendor marketplace websites, you will need to add a payment gateway. Gateway such as Paypal, PayU money are quite popular among the developers. | Similar to the single-vendor eCommerce website, you will need a payment gateway for easy payment. |
| Category management | This feature is necessary for a single vendor website only if it happens to sell more than one kind of product. | It’s an important feature for the multi-vendor module created using Magento 2, as different vendors will sell different kinds of products, and the customers need a way to choose from the categories. |
| Feedback and reviews | It enables users to leave reviews on various products. | It enables the users to leave reviews on various products and vendors. |
There are many other features such as marketplace booking in Magent for sellers that let them update their products. However, if you are beginning with an MVP, then the above features are a must.
6. Tech Stack For A Magento Marketplace Development
Choosing the right tech stack is important for the development of any project. Not choosing the right tech stack for development can hamper the development process. And that’s why we have provided you with the tech stack you need to develop a scalable Magento Marketplace solution.
| Front end | HTML 5, CSS 3, Magento 2.0 |
| Back end | Magento 2.0 |
| Server | MySQL |
7. Magento Community vs Enterprise Edition: Which One To Choose?
Now that you have made the decision to build your eCommerce marketplace with Magento, you have to choose which version you want to use.
When it comes to choosing Magento versions, there are two types- Magento Community Edition and Magento Enterprise Edition.
The community edition is the free edition that anyone can use to create a marketplace with Magento. It needs zero investment, which is why it has become quite popular among eCommerce startups.
Magento Enterprise Edition or Magento Commerce is the paid version perfect for big and medium marketplace development. So which one to choose? Which one will be perfect for you? Let’s find out. Here are some major comparisons between the two editions to understand which one you will need for your business.
Security Requirements
If you need a robust security system backing your eCommerce website, then choosing the Magento Enterprise solution would be a better idea for you. When it comes to security, the enterprise edition is far ahead of the free edition. With Magento enterprise edition you will get access to secure payment gateways, regular scanning for any kind of security breaches, external penetration testings, and many other security supports.
Performance Quality
If your eCommerce website is a small one with fewer resources on it, choosing the Community version would be better for you, as it provides faster performance to small marketplace websites. And if you are still in need of better functionalities, then you can just add the third party Magento marketplace extensions to your website.
On the other hand, if your website happens to be a bigger one with numerous resources and handling a lot of orders and traffic, choosing the Magento Enterprise edition would be a better decision. With the enterprise edition, you will get many additional features such as deploying your software through the Enterprise cloud to increase the deployment speed.
Scope For Future Growth
Before you make the choice, you have to consider the business requirements for the future. If you want to grow your eCommerce platform in the future and offer a number of products from more than one vendor, then you should definitely choose the Enterprise edition. It is built to be scalable and support the future growth of the business.
The Difference Between Functionality
There isn’t much difference between the Community and the enterprise edition. Both these versions offer the same functionalities such as RMA functionality, Customer segmentation, content staging, Advanced ACL and many more.
The only difference, however, is the fact that with enterprise version you get access to additional features. So if you want to take advantage of the additional functionalities of the enterprise version, then you should choose the Magento Enterprise version.
So Which One Should You Choose to Create Marketplace With Magento?
The answer to the question is pretty simple. If you are just getting started with the eCommerce platform, choosing the Magento Community edition is going to be the right decision. It’s affordable and easy to integrate, therefore perfect for a brand new small startup.
On the other hand, if you are starting out a new business and plan on expanding it, even more, investing in the enterprise version will be a better idea. The additional features of this version will make it easy for your business to scale in the future.
Conclusion
The development of modern eCommerce marketplace websites has certainly become popular and profitable. With that in mind, you will need to choose the right platform to build your website on. And choosing Magento is going to help you to grow your business in the future. And in case you need help, feel free to contact us, cause we would love to help.
