We’ve all seen the success of marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon, and eBay. It’s amazing that sites like Etsy are generating product sales of up to $65 million in a single month.
However, these physical product marketplaces must take thousands, if not millions, of dollars to set up and maintain, right?
Well, that’s not necessarily the case, since using a few tools like WordPress, a hosting plan, a marketplace theme (like Marketica,) WooCommerce, and WC Vendors can allow you to create a physical marketplace website on the cheap. And I’m going to show you exactly how to do it, step by step.
Marketplaces generally offer profile creation platforms for both merchants and buyers, so keep reading to learn more about how you can build a physical product marketplace with a modest amount of money.
Remember that many marketplace solutions exist, but I have crunched the numbers, and WordPress with WooCommerce and the WC Vendors plugin is by far the cheapest and most robust option out there.
Creating Your Physical Product Marketplace
Step 1 – Get Your Domain and Hosting First
The first step to building any website, regardless of whether or not it’s a marketplace or not, is to find hosting and a domain name. Hundreds of hosting companies exist, but we recommend using Bluehost because of its security and reliability. Not to mention, the Bluehost customer support is top-notch, and the backend is rather user-friendly. You might want to skim through my full Bluehost review first.
Go to the main Bluehost homepage to get started. Click on the big Get Started Now Button to proceed.
Select which plan you want to opt for, and move onto the next page. The Standard plan is usually good to get started since it’s affordable and gives you all the storage and support you need. On the next page, you can choose a new domain name or transfer one you have purchased before.
Punch in the domain name you have selected and click on the Next button. This will tell you if the domain name is available, and how much it is going for right now.
If you already have a domain name you can paste that into the field on the right and walk through the process to have it transferred over to Bluehost. This generally takes just a few minutes.
Punch in your account information such as your name, address and email address. Scroll down to the Package Information module to select which one you want to pay for.
Keep in mind that all of these payment plans are billed per year, but they get cheaper if you decide on committing to more years.
Feel free to uncheck all of the add-ons, since you can usually find things like backup tools and search engine plugins for free. Fill out your billing information, then click on the Submit button at the bottom of the page.
Step 2 – Install WordPress through Bluehost
After you create your Bluehost login details and finish paying for your hosting account, you will be logged into your CPanel. This is the backend hosting area where you can manage items like domains and site files.
Now it’s time to install WordPress, the best free and open source content management system in the world.
Luckily, Bluehost provides a one-click installation solution for WordPress. Find the Website Builders header on the main page of your CPanel and click on the WordPress icon.
This is an extremely simple process since it walks you through step by step. Follow the directions, and it should only take you around five minutes to have WordPress on your Bluehost hosted website. At the end of the process, create login details for WordPress and navigate to the backend URL to login.
Step 3 – Search for a Marketplace Theme on Themeforest
Start by going to ThemeForest and searching for a marketplace theme for WordPress. There are several options out there for you, some of which are easier to use than others. Here's a list of a few physical marketplace themes that we really like:
All of the above themes support WooCommerce, but Marketica also integrates with the WC Vendors plugin. So, it might be a little easier to use when walking through this tutorial.
There are plenty of other marketplace themes to choose from, but make sure you do your research to check that the theme supports the selling of physical products. For instance, the popular Marketify theme supported both digital and physical products in the past, but that has changed to only digital items.
It'd be pointless to buy a theme that only supports digital products, so complete a Ctrl + F to search for any mentions of “physical” on the sales page. You can also browse through the comments and reviews, ince users are often talking about whether or not a marketplace theme allows for both digital and physical products.
Will This Work With Any Theme?
Yes, most themes work fine with WooCommerce and WC Vendors. The only problem is that they might not look all that great. You're free to test out your current theme with the marketplace configuration, but I would recommend at least finding a theme that is made to support a WooCommerce store.
That way your site will have built-in eCommerce tools like shopping cart icons and checkout modules.
Step 4 – Download the Theme
After you purchase a theme, Themeforest will ask you to download it to your computer. You can also find the theme file in your ThemeForest account.
Install and activate the theme on your WordPress site. This might require some additional configuration depending on the theme you went with. For instance, some themes ask you to download and install demo data, while others will go through the process of installing WooCommerce for you.
Step 5 – Install both WooCommerce and WC Vendors.
WooCommerce provides the ecommerce functionality, while WC Vendors has the settings for configuring vendor profiles. It's also great for giving users a chance to buy products from multiple vendors.
In addition, WC Vendors doesn't work without WooCommerce, so it's important that both of them are installed from the start.
Step 6 – Go to WC Vendors
Most of the settings from both WooCommerce and WC Vendors are ready out of the box. But there are a few things we need to cover.
First of all, you'll notice that WC Vendors is located underneath the WooCommerce tab in WordPress. Click on this WC Vendors tab to proceed.
Step 7 – Adjust the Comission Rate
The first order of business is to adjust the commission rates. For instance, you might want to give your vendors 80% of all sales, while you take 20%.
It's also a good idea to approve new vendor applications, so you should check that option off. You can also specify if you'd like people to apply to become vendors. The shipping and tax settings are completely up to you, but most of the time the default values are fine.
Step 8 – Configure What to Hide from All Vendors
Go to the Products tabs under WC Vendors. The only purpose of this section is to hide certain pages from all vendors. So, if they'd like to add a product in their vendor shop, it might omit some fields or options.
In this instance, we're only talking about making a physical marketplace like Etsy.
Therefore, you should select the Virtual and Downloadable checkboxes to hide those from vendors. Keep in mind that you can absolutely sell both digital and physical products, but for now we're removing the digital part of the equation.
Step 9 – Set up Permissions
The Capabilities tab details all of the permissions you can set. Most of these can be left as the default values, but you still want to walk through them to see if any of them need to be changed just for your website.
The main area of concern is the Products header. It basically asks you if you want there to be an admin approving all products uploaded to the site. This is great for quality control, but you're going to have a tough time with a large site.
You can also make it so that no vendors can't edit or remove products after they've uploaded them.
Step 10 – Configure Pages
The Pages tab reveals all of the pages automatically created by the WC Vendors plugin. For example, it generates a vendor dashboard and Shop Settings page.
You don't have to mess much with this section, but it's important to view the pages and understand where they are located.
Step 11 – Set Up Payments
The Payments tab is one of the most important parts of configuring your physical marketplace. That's because it connects you to the PayPal AP gateway. More importantly, you set how often you're going to pay your vendors.
This might seem like a quick setup to some webmasters, but you should think about the consequences of each selection.
First of all, you can set the Instant Pay setting to automatically pay your vendors after a sale. In order for this to work, you must also set the Payment Schedule as “Now.” If you choose anything else for the payment schedule you shouldn't have the Instant Pay box checked.
Several payment schedules are available. You can pay out on monthly, weekly, daily, and other schedules. Keep in mind that a quick payout could cause problems with chargebacks. You also might find that you lack enough funds to pay out vendors that quickly.
On the other hand, you don't want your vendors to wait that long for their payouts. Otherwise, the merchants will become unhappy and leave your marketplace. I personally think a weekly or bi-weekly payout is fair.
Although you can always go back to WC Vendors and adjust the settings, what we walked through above is pretty much all you have to do.
Step 12 – Set Up Customer Registration
As mentioned before, most of the WooCommerce settings are completely fine from the start. However, there is one checkbox you want to check in order to give your customers a more fluid experience. It involves the customer registration area. By default, WooCommerce only asks for customers to register during the checkout process.
Unfortunately, customers often like registering prior to shopping while in a marketplace. Therefore, we want to show a registration link right on the account page.
Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts.
Under Customer Registration, you'll see a checkbox marked “Enable Customer Registration on the My Account Page.”
Place a check in the box. Now, when you jump to the frontend of your website and navigate to the My Account page, your customers will see the option to register.
Is Your Physical Marketplace Ready?
Technically, yes. We've walked through all of the required settings to make your marketplace completely functional.
However, we have some tips to continue making it better:
- Continue designing your site and A/B testing things like the checkout. You're more than likely going to find that certain pages don't work and that some settings need to be changed.
- Think about testing out multiple themes before landing on one.
- Consider upgrading to the premium version of WC Vendors. It has strong tools for vendors like the ability to make coupons, a more impressive submission interface, and the option for you to set up more complicated commissions.
That’s it for building a physical product marketplace with WordPress, WooCommerce, WC Vendors, and the theme of your choice.
With this tutorial, you’re well on your way to making a site similar to Amazon or Etsy, and hopefully, you start bringing in buyers and sellers from all over the world! That said, drop a line in the comments section if you have any questions.
Hello, regarding WordPress. Do you know if there exist a theme where you can login as a sales manager (for “on the road”), sell products to client and by consequence:
* update the inventory of a product
* create automatically a shipping label (for a new or existing client)
This is not a typically e commerce site, more an “ERP” kind of website to manage inventory and prepare parcel labels.
thanks for the info
Hello thanks for this article it helped a lot I still have a few questions.
1. Are there anymore fees involved besides Bluehost like for WooCommerce and WC Vendors.?
2. The website I want to create will allow the sellers who post their items to sell like Etsy but with a small monthly flat fee, how do you set that up so they can pay that?
3. Payments, buyers buy the items from the seller where does this money go until I pay it out weekly or bi-weekly? Is there a fee for that?
I’m sure I have other questions, but from your article since you mention 2 of these things, maybe you can be more specific?
Thank you for your time
Hi Bogdan,
thank you for your view on the different marketplaces on the market, it was very helpful to me.
What kind of platform do you think is best to use for P2P (bartering/swap) job board platform? As i want to develop a job swapping (or bartering, but without an alternative currency) platform, no payments are required. Focus would be more on the competences of the users then on the actual job – to tackle to supply/demand part-
After looking into different options, i think my best option would be marketify. Any thoughts on this?
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Peter.
Hello, I also think Marketify would be a good option. Most probably you will need to add some new custom features so I will be easier for you to find a good WordPress developer to help you.
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I’m trying to build a site for people to sell handmade crafts, much like etsy. I went to the link provided for easy digital downloads and downloaded the front end submissions plug in. It was $194. After installing it, I started having issues. This product only allows for the sale of digital downloads. When I asked tech support they offered a refund. I asked if I could swap it for a physical product version. Tech support stated they have no physical version of this product only digital. Any suggestions on where I can get a plug in like this so we can sell actual physical products?
Thank you in advance
Hi Amberly
The Simple Shipping extension adds some simple shipping features to Easy Digital Downloads.
Marketify + EDD is one of the cheapest solutions for building a marketplace.
Here you can find a list of other multi-vendor online solutions.
Hope this helps.
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I really don’t understand why Bogdan is saying this when the makers of EDD and Simple Shipping are telling people not to use their plugins for physical products. Anyone can do a search for “physical” in the comments section on Themeforest and see that the developers say this again and again.
Perhaps Bogdan likes to make people suffer….
I am trying to build a secondhand textbook marketplace to be used on college campuses. I hope to reduce costs to the customer by eliminating shipping. My website would act as a matchmaker for buyers and sellers and the purchase would go through the website. After the buyer receives the book I would send the seller their money (after I take my cut). Is this something I can do with Marketify? Are there other themes I should try?
Hi Zachary, you can do this using Marketify theme but you will need to find a developer to help you make the necessary changes to the theme.
In the articles below you can find some alternatives to Marketify: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/ecommerce-selling-advice/the-best-ecommerce-platforms-shopping-carts-for-multi-vendor-ecommerce-marketplaces
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi, i am actually looking to create a online marketplace where users can sell their used items or trade them. May i know if Marketify would work for this platform? And if it does, would i be required to purchase any additional plugins to make it work?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Victor,
The theme doesn’t allow trading it is a digital files and physical goods marketplace (if you use Easy Digital Downloads Simple Shipping to add additional functionality to sell physical goods). You would need to customize the theme for your purposes but it is definitely possible.
Cheers!
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi – are there any updates to Victor’s question (i.e. tutorials/training videos)? I’m looking to do something similar to what Victor is trying to achieve.
Not at the moment Brandon.
Cheers!
I am looking to create a marketplace platform that allows the vendors to pay a monthly fee for using the market place , please how do I go about this using marketing . Is it even possible ?
Also , does marketify on WordPress allow the vendors have a storefront of their own and can they self ship as well as edit their product variants if they wish ?
Hoping to hear from you soon, thank you
Hello, I don’t think these features come out of the box so you might need to hire a web developer to help.
Hi! Need some advice for marketing this type of website model. Have created the site and have a good amount of vendors, but getting traffic is a real challenge. We are active on all social media sites and have tried facebook ads. Free or inexpensive techniques would be best. Anything helps. Thanks for your time!
Hi Beth,
Check out the articles below for more marketing tips:
https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/50-unbeatable-ecommerce-marketing-tips
https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/top-50-best-online-shops-and-key-marketing-tactics-to-learn-from-each-one
https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/3-ways-ecommerce-companies-should-use-social-media-for-marketing
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi
in marketify theme,
pls tell me what is a creativ id set?
can i use wc vendors instead of easy digital downloads?
Sorry, in all of this it was not clear whether each vendor can be set up to receive payments directly from the purchaser to their own paypal account, rather than go through the admin paypal account. Then the site commission is paid from this account to the admin paypal account. As an admin I don’t want to be in the middle of the transaction if there are disputes, and I want the user credit card to show the name of the vendor, not the main site name. This way they know who they paid, and if there is a dispute I am not involved.
Does simple shipping provide each vendor with the ability to set their own rates and shipping methods? Are there any integrations available Simple Shipping with other couriers to auto-calculate shipping amounts?
Thanks!
Great questions. I’d love to know the answer to this too.
Hey guys, the Commissions add-on included in the Easy Digital Downloads Marketplace bundle will allow you to do just that.
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
really….why are you misleading people. Simple Shipping does not do that
Hi, is there a way I could use this feature to let customers to add their products to my website, and have something where people can create a profile and get hired to do a certain job? Something like Fiveer. Would kindly appreciate a response. Thanks!
Hi Ishaan,
You can do this by adding Easy Digital Downloads into the mix.
This article explains how: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/ecommerce-selling-advice/how-to-build-a-digital-product-marketplace-like-amazon-with-wordpress-marketify-and-the-edd-bundle
Best,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi,
Love this theme – nice and clean. Wondering if you can set this up for MULTIPLE vendors – ie the concept is – you have let’s say 15 DIFFERENT vendors that are posting their products. Is this possible?
THANKS
Lynn
Hey Lynn,
That’s totally possible!
Cheers!
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Do the bundles also come with mobile apps?
Hi Melyssa,
No, the extensions included are:
Commissions
Wish Lists
Frontend Submissions
Reviews
Points and Rewards
Social Login
Recommended Products
Acquisition Survey
See more info here.
Cheers,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi, Its so much useful information for me hat you provided. I have a small question. I am trying to build a marketplace for selling physical goods, So do i need to purchase again easy downloads plug in ? And Once customer paid/purchased the product, which payment gateway receives money, Vendor or Me initially? So do i need to deduct the commission and share the cost to vendor? How it works?
You should use EDD for physical products as well (see Step 4). For taking commission you can use an add-on like Commissions for EDD and commissions are automatically split betwen you and the vendor.
Best of luck!
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi Bogdan,
I wonder if there’s any limitation to designing my own marketplace using Marketify. Assuming that I want to build a very sophisticated marketplace website that has as many features as Etsy, can Marketify be my solution, or should I start everything on my own and from scratch?
Besides, I want to know if I want to launch my website locally, would I be able to change the language shown to my customers when they visit my site?
Hi Kit,
A WordPress developer could definitely advise you better on this. In my opinion customizing an existing theme like Marketify should be easier than building a new one from scratch.
Translating the theme can be done quite easy: http://marketify.astoundify.com/article/721-create-a-full-translation
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
hello dear, am kind of confuse. I want to build a market place to sell things mostly physical items. I don’t know exactly what bundle to buy from marketify as I will be having multiple vendors. plsss help
Hi Belle,
For selling physical products you’ll only need to buy the Marketify theme. If you’re planning to add digital products as well you’ll need to add Easy Digital Downloads intro the mix.
This article explains how: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/ecommerce-selling-advice/how-to-build-a-digital-product-marketplace-like-amazon-with-wordpress-marketify-and-the-edd-bundle
Best of luck,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
I’m trying to set up a marketplace where consumers can send their item into a business to have the business perform a service on the item. The consumer will purchase the service then mail the item to the business and the business will perform the service. (This is backwards from many other models, but with this specific type of service this is how it has to be done.) With many online businesses, the consumer purchases an item, then the seller gets the shipping info and ships the item to the consumer. I need to set up my marketplace so that the consumer is the one who ships the item to the seller so the seller can perform the service. Is there anyway to set up shipping this way? Is it possible to use Ship Station?
Hi , thanks for all the information, would the word press marketify help me in building a website like freelancer where people post their products and services and buyers choose from them? Also would it be possible to search by Zip code for vendors? feature google map for vendors locations?
Hi Gus,
That’s possible, you’ll just have to use an extra plugin, like Easy Digital Downloads, if you are planning to sell digital products.
See our guide below:
How to Build a Digital Product Marketplace (Like Fiverr) with WordPress, Marketify and the EDD Bundle.
Best of luck,
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi,
Great article. I have a question, i want to make a cake marketplace, people will sale their now cake to other people in their neighborhood. The customer go to the ” baker’s home” to take his order. It’s not a physical marketplace and not a digital marketplace, but can I use Marketify theme to create this marketplace?
Best regards,
Hi Sam,
You can use Marketify but you will definitely need to customize the theme.
Best,
—
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi,
Great article, really insightful. Just a quick question from me, how would the inventory or a seller be managed using this theme? Is there an additional plugin which is required?
Hi Baba,
You’ll be able to manage your inventory and sellers from the admin. You’ll also be able to communicate with sellers via the sellers profile.
Best of luck,
Best,
—
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Do you know if there is a way to create an iOS app using Marketify?
Hi Tracy,
Not sure if that’s possible. Did you contact their support?
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hey!
I also want to build a Marketplace that all sellers can create a profile and be able to sell physical products. But I’ll build it in Persian language.
1- My first question is: should you install any plugins first. Then switch the language from English?
2- I would like customers to chat with various private sellers about just the product they want to buy. how can I fix it?
Hi Hami,
Here’s a guide on how to translate the Marketify theme.
Regarding your second question, there are a few WordPress plugins, like AuthorChat, that allow authors to chat with each other.
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi Tracy,
did you have tha chance to try a plugin thant converts this theme to a native app?
Hello,
I tried your Quiz and found Opencart as a solution for my needs. But I am not sure if Opencart is a true market place or just a e commerce solution. I want to know if I use this, other sellers will be able to set up their stores inside my market place?
Although I mentioned at the beginning that i am not a developer, I am not sure if I will be able to use it.
Let me know what do you think?
Thanks,
Mousumi
Hi Catalin – thanks for the wonderful article. I’ve been trying to set up my marketplace up through Marketify, but I don’t see the ability to pay all of our sellers out?
Like, after the buyers buy from our site from multiple vendors, how do we actually take our commission and pay them out? This does not seem possible to me.. would love your assistance.
Hi Jason,
You can use EDD for physical products as well. For taking commission you can use an add-on like Commissions for EDD.
Best of luck!
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hello Catalin,
I am creating a physical products ( specialty food items ) marketplace. Users need to post their request if the product is unavailable , like it is possible on Yelp. Also need communication between users and vendors to be visible to all users on the site.
Please advise.
Thanks,
Mousumi
Hi Mousumi,
Services like WpCurve can help you with this kind of fixes.
Best of luck,
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hello,
Thanks for your suggestion. Wpcurve cannot help with the feature selection.
I am looking for real use cases / clients who have used Marketify. Can you please share some links. Marketify does not even have a support we can talk to for these issues. How do we communicate with them?
Hi, I was wondering if I can use IMPREZA from WordPress for my site and download EDD with that to build a marketplace where I have vendors selling their products and have a profile or shop page ? Will that work together ?
Hi Felicia,
EDD will work with any WordPress theme.
You can check out our full Easy Digital Downloads review for more info.
Cheers!
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hey great article.
I need some help, i want to creat a marketplace where people can rent holiday houses, mobile home and so one.
Now i want to create a paid membership area so the have to pay a little fee to place there products( houses and so one.) after that the wil be redirected to the marketplace login and can upload there products. Voor customers they can go directly to the shop and rent a place if the want, They wil have direct contact with the owner and not with me an there wil be no payment out what so ever, true the website. But i am at the end of my knowledge so pleas give me some advice how to get started with this
Hi Henry,
You might need to build some custom features on an existing platform.
Services like WpCurve can help you implement the desired features.
Best of luck!
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi Catalin,
My question is, can you apply requirements to the products uploaded by the (designer in my case)? Like price point minimums and aesthetic requirements? Please let me know!
Hi:
Can admin choose not to show a vendor’s web site in the listing?
Thanks, Holly
I like ur article and wants to follow it to set up an ecommerce in nigeria. Can I use the payment gateway prevalent in nigeria outside paypal.
Hi!
I was wondering, if I set up an ecommerce site, how do I make money off of it? Would I get commission off of each product bought like how eBay takes commission off of each transaction?
Great Article By the Way!
Yes, you can set a commission for each transaction.
We’re glad you liked the article btw!
I am looking to create a website where customers can book tours through your site through other vendors. Am I able to do this with this with this setup?
Hi, if i am creating a directory for tours – how do i setup bookings and vendors for them to list their own tours ? I am so confused!
Hi, if i am creating a directory for tours – how do i setup bookings and vendors for them to list their own tours ? I am so confused!
If I set up a marketplace theme, what would be a good place to start to bring in traffic? This I mean in relationship with having other users post to your website? Is it best to go free for a couple of months, to draw people to the marketplace and sell their items? Also it seem like establishing social media connections, seo marketing stratagies, a lot of content, and other forms of digital marketing would help. Please let me know any input that would help me. I haven’t found blogs or content on this topic yet.
Hi, I am wanting to use a payment API like Armor Payments with my physical product marketplace. Can this be used with WordPress and Marketify?
Very interesting! I would like to create a marketplace for latinamerican crafts. Is marketify available in spanish?
Not sure Alma but you can ask their support team? Best of luck!
Hello together,
first of all thanks a lot to Catalin for the post.. It helped me a lot making a clearer picture what is needed!!
I believe I will face very similar problems as Alma is doing since I would like to make a marketplace in Europe..
How has been doing ever since Alma? Is it possible to customise Marketify with languages/ currencies?
Thanks and best..
Hi, any update on the availabily in other languages (spanish) ?
Thanks
Hi Gregoire,
Here’s a short guide from the developers on how to translate the Marketify theme.
The theme is not multilanguage, so you can use only one language at a time.
Best of luck,
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi Catalin!
I am currently working on setting up an online marketplace in which only users with a specific domain email address (ex. college.edu) can register. Each college.edu domain will have a separate site (4 colleges = 4 sites) and I do not want someone from college1.edu to be able to access the page for college2.edu users. Would this require downloading Multisite and then setting the wp-email-restrictions onto each separate site page? Or is there a better way to do this? Thanks!
Hi
Can you provide a few real life physical Marketify Multi-Vendor websites examples that we can view other than the demo?
thanks,
Tom
Hi Catalin,
I want to create a marketplace for services and want to show the location where the service needs to be performed. How can I integrate that feature into this platform.
Thanks,
Arun
Hi
Thanks for the article I have found it really useful I do however have a question, how would I generate money from items sold and listed like Etsy does please?
Thanks
Secondly, my website is going to have old items in which all vendors will have a quantity of 1. On the demo site I was viewing I saw that in the cart area people were able to edit quantity. Could I remove this? One last question, are there any additional plugins to add a “send best offer” button? That way buyers would be able to send their best offers for consideration by the vendors. Thank you for your time
Hi Catalin,
Thank you so much for this article, it’s really helpful. I have read all of the comments and having really found and answer to one of my questions, so I’m hoping you can help me out. I am trying to create a page that is 100% digital products, and I see that I should download Simple Shipping along with EDD frontend submissions. I am wondering if, after you download those items, you will be able to put in a price as a vendor, as well as remove the “download prices and files” piece. Please let me know when you get a chance, thank you
Hi Catalin, thank you very much for this useful blog post. If I was to create a marketplace using WordPress and Marketify and then find that it didn’t include all the festures I wanted to use for my website, would it be possible to hire a web developer to amend the coding behind the website to develop the extra features that I wanted? Or would I have to start all over again? Thanks, Lucy
Yup you could definitely hire a developer for this!
Great article
I am not that technical so will probably show this to someone as I am looking at a business opportunity. I’m sorry if I missed it in the original post but could you tell me:
How does the marketplace take the commission? For example, etsy charges $0.20 per listed item and a commission of 3.5% – how does this marketplace achieve the same thing?
Also, I was hoping to have a standard account in which a user could sell any item for free (or a small listing free) and then the option for a business account where they get additional features, is this possible?
Can this be used in the same way say, Poshmark or another marketplace allows anyone to buy or sell their items but a percentage of the sale would go to the site itself for the fee of using the marketplace?
Thanks!
Two quick questions if you dont mind:
1. As Marketify is primarily designed for digital products, are there extra features available to handle physical products?
Such as:
Vendors setting their postal rates
2. With regard to payment gateways, most marketplaces solutions send the full paid amount firstly to the admin and then the admin manually sends the payment (less commission) to the vendor. Personally I dont want to work it this way as doing this puts a responsibility on the admin for disputes etc. The other way is to split the payment using Paypal adaptive payments or Strip connect for example, where the vendor is paid directly and a commission goes to the admin, this way the payment gateway deals with disputes returns etc.
Is it possible to implement this with Marketify?
Thanks
Hi Kevin!
For physical products, I would recommend going with the following addons:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/simple-shipping/?ref=4612
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/frontend-submissions/?ref=4612
For your second question, I believe this is what you’re looking for:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/forums/topic/marketify-commissions-paypal-adaptive-payments/?ref=4612
The Commissions extension sends out payments to users instantly through PayPal adaptive payments.
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/commissions/?ref=4612
Previously RUBEN asked about physical products, my concerns is same. looking for market place for 100% physical product. Also will it support and what is EDD means?? The physical products requires world wide shipping and lots of variables of the products.
is that possible to do and supports from smart devices ???
Hi Yeti,
I have been through the same thing for the past week. Getting good information seems to be impossible!
Hey guys,
Thanks for chiming in. EDD was built for digital products, but you can technically make a completely physical marketplace out of it.
Several methods are available, but your best bet is to go with the following addons to help with shipping and frontend submissions.
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/simple-shipping/?ref=4612
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/frontend-submissions/?ref=4612
Hi
marketify is a market place where you can only sell digital products correct?? I see it in 1 place where it says you can sell physical products that require physical shipping. But majority places only talks about digital products.
Pricing is confusing too to invite other vendors to sell
can someone simplify to me
Hi Yeti,
We revised the post to clarify a bit in terms of physical products.
Although you could technically make a physical marketplace other plugins or additional coding, most people will also need the following addons for a complete physical product marketplace:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/simple-shipping/?ref=4612
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/frontend-submissions/?ref=4612
After implementing those addons, EDD turns into a great solution for selling physical products.
Hi, I have a question, I am a bit confused because the tittle says build a physical product marketplace but I read that somebody in the comments said that you couldnt use EDD for physical products.
I am trying to build a physical product marketplace which will be probably 100% physical and also including shipping delivery. Can marketify and wordpress support this?
Hey Ruben,
PHysical products are possible with EDD, but most full-fledged marketplaces will need to incorporate both the Simple Shipping and Frontend Submissions add-ons to make it all work perfectly:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/simple-shipping/?ref=4612
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/frontend-submissions/?ref=4612
Hi – great article, thanks.
In my situation i want the buyer to be able to purchase a sellers item, but not pay for it until the item has been received by the buyer.
Essentially the buyers payment would be held until the item is received, at which point the transaction completes.
Perhaps the buyer would enter their Paypal details at the time of purchase and once the item is received the buyer ‘approves’ payment? The transaction would then complete.
Can i set something like that up?
Thanks
Hi Ingrid, hmm this one’s tricky. Not sure if you can achieve this, as fraudulent purchases could go through the roof…
Agreed Catalin.
I’ve since reviewed this with a 50% deposit left by the seller upon confirmation of purchase, with the remaining 50% transferring to the seller upon delivery/collection of item. This way, both buyer and seller have some skin in the game.
It’s not a bad idea, but I’m pretty sure you’d have to hire a developer to gain the functionality, since I can’t find anything that work work with the Marketify/EDD setup.
Is there any way for the site admin to hold payment while the product ships. Say 2 weeks?
Not sure Luke, you have to contact support for that sort of info. Cheers
Thanks for the article Catalin. Is it possible to sort the products by location in this theme?
Yup!
Hi, another question on sorting and filtering: Can buyers sort and filter by any parameters that are defined for all the physical goods?
Say you’re on a marketplace for shoes and you need to filter shoes size x only. Next you want to sort the results by price. Would that be possible?
Thank you for your help!!! X
Yes, filtering is available just as you described, and you can set your own parameters if needed for physical products.
If you need more functionality, this is a solid plugin:
http://www.designsandcode.com/wordpress-plugins/search-filter-pro/?ref=4612
Is there a way to run this alongside listify the site could have directory listings as well as buy/sell classifieds?
Hi Kait,
You have a few options here.
The first is using the Listify Theme with Easy Digital Downloads. This should work fine for offering both directory listings and buy/sell classifieds, but it would probably take quite a bit of customization on your end.
The other option is to use both Listify and Marketify on separate subdomains, where you could link to both areas from the navigational menu, and manage each page like you would two different websites.
Can I have a marketplace where it’s peer to peer selling. Where the buyer can also be a seller?
Of course but you will need to do some tweaks or hire a developer to help you with this.
Hi there!
I was curious if their vendor page is as easy to get going as eBay. Ultimately I want to make it as simple for my vendors to set up as possible. Most of them aren’t computer savvy. I want them to be able to take a picture, pick a category for their product, price it, description, set delivery/shipping options and be done!
I am looking for very simple. Do you think marketify would support this? I tried playing with WooCommerce and it didn’t seem like it would give me what I want.
I was really hoping to find a solution that doesn’t involve 10s of thousands of dollars to get running.
Thanks a bunch!,
Louis
Hi Louis, It’s as simple as you can get with WordPress. Your vendors will need to login to the WP dashboard though.
Also, if you’d like a more user friendly solution (with a a beautiful frontend layout,) consider getting the Frontend Submissions add-on: https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/frontend-submissions/?ref=4612
You get a discount if you purchase it with the Marketplace Bundle:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/marketplace-bundle/?ref=4612
Hope this helps!
Hello Catalin
Just to confirm the price of 199 USD I pay is only for one year and than I have to pay 199 – 30% again to use the bundle or is this only if I want to stay in the update / support group?
Nice article … How about selling tickets for events? Think etsy for workshops. Does it stay more or less the same or is anything else needed? Especially with regard to dates, times and venues playing an important role.
Thanks for any thoughts on that
Hi Stephan, I’m sure this can be done with most of these apps, but you will need to tweak them accordingly or get help from a professional developer. Cheers
Hey Stephan,
After a little research, I believe these are the add-ons you’re looking for:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/edd-event-tickets/?ref=4612
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/edd-bookings/?ref=4612
One’s more for selling tickets, while the other one is for allowing people the chance to book reservations and appointments through your marketplace.
Hope this helps!
I would like to use Marketify to create a marketplace for physical products, do you think I can integrate into the website a link to oush the customer onto a shipping website and also a payment website outside my website? Thank you.
Hi Cate,
Shipping and payment processing is already included through the Marketify/Easy Digital Downloads combination. However, if it’s required to include a link to lead to completely different pages from the product pages, you would most likely have to customize the source code to reflect that link on every single product page.
do i need to buy Easy Digital Downloads – Frontend Submissions ? to do the vendor profile ?
Yup!
Thank you Catalin , i think you should mention that on this post because it cost almost the same as Marketify them , and it the single most important plugin,
thank you again for this amazing effort
regards
Thanks for the suggestion Rami. I added some clarification about the Frontend Submissions extension in the post. You can also save by going with the Marketplace bundle: https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/marketplace-bundle/?ref=4612
This gives you the Frontend Submissions addon and quite a few others.
Hi Catalin,
Thanks very much for the article. Very useful. However, I’m panicking a bit now as I’ve been following the steps and purchased each product based on your suggestions only to find that on its site EDD says its add-on is not suitable for physical product marketplaces. Also, the bundle you suggest above is way pricier than the article suggests…
Am I missing something?
Many thanks
Vicki
Hi Vick, I’ll be happy to help you via email, is this address valid? [email protected]
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
Hi Vicki, I’ll be happy to help you via email, is this address valid? [email protected]
–
Bogdan – Editor at ecommerce-platforms.com
How do I make a product page that lists all of the products?
Hi Luke,
Take a look on their FAQ and submit a ticket if you don’t find what you’re looking for.
Cheers
can i use this theme for effective marketplace in whitch sellings are only handmade gifts?
yup
Thanks for this Catalin – all the comments around Easy Digital Downloads and Marketify seem to suggest this is for downloads marketplaces only and not physical products as EDD does not support multiple variable products with different shipping rates (though for the sector I’m thinking about, this might not actually be a problem most of the time). Are there any other limitations you can think of, specific to physical products?
Yup, the Marketify theme requires you to install Easy Digital Downloads since it uses the EDD payment processing functionality, even for physical products (bummer). Everything else from EDD is pretty much left unused.
Hey there Catalin! This post looks as if it was posted just weeks ago but a LOT of these comments are from 2015. So, just to clarify, does the EDD download still apply or is it not needed anymore?
Hi Gigi, we’ve updated the post so all information is current. Hope it helps. Best
This was quite a timely/ useful article. I do have one question though – If i wanted to create a free marketplace (its more for a social cause for a bunch of nonprofits to create their own smaller stores), how could i do that? Is it easy to just disable the payment feature?
Hi Kate, yeah you can disable the payment feature but you’ll need to hire someone (a developer) to do that as it’s not a built in feature.
Hi Kate! 🙂 It’s not possible to get in touch with you directly but I’m hoping you get an email alert of this reply! I’ve been doing just that (a marketplace for nonprofits) and really want to get in touch with someone who wants to do the same, searching for collaboration! Please write me as soon as you can to [email protected]
I have been tasked with a similar project. Not for non-profits, as such, but the marketplace is being offered by a social enterprise, to its micro and small-business members.
I will reach out createbw and see where there may be opportunity to collaborate.
I am not looking to disable the payment feature, so much as have each vendor handle their own payments.
Catalon, the additional questions I have that you *may* have insight and direction on:
There is requirement that members of the social enterprise are provided automatic discounts by all vendors in the marketplace. Separately all vendors, a co-op of sorts, should all be afforded a discount too.
Are there plugins that handle this scenario?
The other question is how well do any of the solutions handle a mix of vendors:
– vendor a – digital downloads / virtual goods only
– vendor b – services only
– vendor c – Physical, Real, Tangible Items that must be delivered
– vendor d- a mix of the above
thanks for any insight you might have!
Hi AB,
For giving out discounts to certain members and vendors, you could use the Points and Rewards extension, which basically gives people discounts when they gain a certain amount of rewards. You can set parameters for a certain amount of points to go to a user when they purchase something, but I would assume you would use it by manually adjusting point balances on the backend.
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/points-rewards/?ref=4612
However, this add-on is probably more what you’re looking for: https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/discounts-pro/, since it allows for discounts upon checkout when someone with a certain user type is purchasing something.
Here are a few other options to play around with:
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/restrict-content-pro-member-discounts/?ref=4612
https://easydigitaldownloads.com/downloads/discount-code-generator/?ref=4612
To answer your second question, you can technically offer a mix of vendors with the Marketify/Digital Downloads Combination. Vendor A, C and D should have no problems. For Vendor B with services, it requires you to basically setup a digital download vendor who simply sends out a receipt after the purchase is made. Then the service can be completed and sent to the buyer.
Hope this helps!
Awesome article! Very detailed and informative! I am wondering does this same process allow you to create a digital product marketplace wherein authors offer digital products for downloadable sale? If so, that’s exactly what I am looking for. Thank you!!
Hi Andrew. You can do this by adding Easy Digital Downloads into the mix.
Check out this post to see how to set it all up: How to Build a Digital Product Marketplace with WordPress, Marketify and the EDD Bundle.