Marketplace solutions

Online marketplace development for both sides of the trade

A marketplace is a store where someone else holds the stock and you hold the trust. We build vendor onboarding, commissions, payouts and dispute handling on WooCommerce or as a custom Laravel platform.

  • Backed by 300+ PHP builds
  • Commissions and payouts built in
  • One project manager throughout
Get a free quote See our work
What is included
  • Seller onboarding
  • Listings and catalog control
  • Commissions and split payments
  • Payouts and statements
  • Ratings and dispute handling
  • Search and discovery
Get a free quote Reply within one business day. NDA on request.
The problem

Where marketplaces run into trouble

Marketplace founders usually arrive with a clear picture of the buyer experience and a thin one of everything behind it. Who is the seller named on the invoice? When does the vendor get paid, and what happens to that money if the buyer asks for a refund a week later? Who answers when a parcel does not arrive?

Those rules are the product. The catalog and checkout are the familiar part. What decides whether your marketplace earns trust is the money flow and the policies around it. We help you settle them first, then choose between a WooCommerce multi-vendor setup and a custom marketplace on Laravel, depending on how far your model is from a standard shop with many sellers.

  • Payouts are done by hand

    Every week someone exports orders, subtracts commission and refunds in a spreadsheet and sends bank transfers one by one. It works for ten vendors and collapses at fifty.

  • Vendors list anything, any way they like

    Without required fields, category rules and approval, the catalog fills with duplicate products, missing sizes and blurry photos. Buyers cannot compare offers, and search results look like a flea market.

  • No process for an order that goes wrong

    A buyer wants a refund, the vendor disagrees, and both email you. There is no record of who said what, no rule on who pays for return shipping, and the money has already been paid out.

  • Supply and demand grow at different speeds

    You have sellers with no buyers in one category and buyers with nothing to buy in another. The platform gives you no view of searches with zero results or listings that never sell.

What we do

What we build for buyers, sellers and operators

Buyers see a shop. Sellers see a business tool. You, the operator, need a control room. A marketplace build covers all three.

Seller onboarding

Application, document and bank-detail collection, approval steps, and identity checks handled by the payment provider, ending in a storefront the vendor can fill without training.

Listings and catalog control

Category-specific attributes, required fields, bulk upload by CSV, moderation queues and shared product pages where several vendors offer the same item.

Commissions and split payments

Commission by vendor, category or product, fees and taxes calculated per order line, and payments split at checkout through Stripe Connect or a comparable provider.

Payouts and statements

Scheduled payouts after a holding period, automatic adjustment for refunds, and a statement for each vendor that reconciles orders, commission, fees and transfers.

Ratings and dispute handling

Verified-purchase reviews for products and vendors, a dispute thread with evidence and deadlines, and an operator screen to decide the case and move money accordingly.

Search and discovery

Faceted search across all vendors with typo tolerance, ranking that weighs relevance, price, rating and delivery, and reports on the searches that found nothing.

Typical projects

Kinds of marketplace we work on

01

A multi-vendor product marketplace

Independent sellers with their own storefronts, a shared cart and checkout, shipping calculated per vendor, split payments and a vendor dashboard for orders, stock and earnings.

02

A services marketplace

Providers with profiles, packages and availability, requests or instant booking, payment held until the job is marked complete, messaging and two-way reviews.

03

A B2B wholesale exchange

Verified business buyers, minimum order quantities, quote requests, negotiated prices per buyer, and invoices with payment terms instead of card-only checkout.

04

A rental or listings marketplace

Owners list items or spaces with calendars and deposits, renters book dates, and the platform handles deposits, damage claims and payout after return.

In depth

Money flow first, platform second

Decide who sells, who collects and who refunds

Start with the legal and financial model, ideally with your accountant in the room. Either the marketplace is the seller and vendors are suppliers, or vendors sell directly and the platform takes a fee. That choice sets who issues invoices, who owes sales tax or VAT, and who carries a chargeback. It also shapes the payment setup. Split payments through a provider such as Stripe Connect keep vendor money out of your bank account and move identity checks to the provider, which is usually what a new marketplace wants.

WooCommerce multi-vendor gets you to market fast

Plugins such as Dokan, WCFM Marketplace and WC Vendors turn a WooCommerce store into a marketplace with vendor dashboards, commission settings and payout options. If your model is many sellers, physical or digital products and a standard checkout, this gets you live quickly and lets you test demand before investing heavily. The limits show with unusual flows: services with milestones, quotes and negotiation, shared catalogs with competing offers, or a heavily reworked vendor dashboard. Each of those is possible, and each pushes more custom code into a plugin stack that updates on its own schedule.

When custom Laravel pays for itself

Choose custom when the transaction is not a simple cart: bookings, bids, escrow-style release, recurring contracts, or matching logic that sets you apart. A custom platform lets us model orders, sub-orders, ledgers and payouts explicitly, with a double-entry ledger so every cent is traceable. It takes longer to reach launch, so we often suggest proving the idea on WooCommerce or with a manual process first, and building custom once the rules have settled.

Trust is a set of features

Buyers trust a marketplace when listings are consistent, reviews are tied to real orders and problems have a visible process. Vendors trust it when statements match their bank account. Put the dispute flow, the holding period before payout and the vendor statement into the first release. They are far harder to retrofit once money has moved without them. Search belongs on that list too. A marketplace catalog is messier than a single store, with the same product described five ways, and attributes normalized at listing time do more for search quality than any ranking tweak later.

A first release with one category and one flow

Launch a single category or city with onboarding, listing, checkout, split payment, payout, reviews and disputes working end to end. Recommendations, a vendor mobile app and advertising products for sellers can wait until both sides are active. Onboard the first twenty vendors by hand if you have to. It shows which fields and documents the signup form really needs.

Process

How a marketplace project runs

  1. 1

    Model workshop

    A free session on who sells, who collects payment, commission, refunds and payout timing. We bring the questions, and you bring your accountant if you can.

  2. 2

    Platform and first scope

    We recommend WooCommerce multi-vendor or custom Laravel for your flow and quote a first release limited to one category and one transaction type.

  3. 3

    Build the money flow

    Onboarding, checkout, split payment, refunds and payouts are built first and tested in the payment provider sandbox with sample vendors.

  4. 4

    Catalog, search and trust

    Listing forms, moderation, search, reviews and the dispute process are added, then the whole flow is run with pilot vendors.

  5. 5

    Launch and reconcile

    After go-live we check the first payouts against vendor statements and provider reports, and tune onboarding at the steps where vendors drop out.

Deliverables

What a marketplace operator holds at the end

  • A documented money flow from checkout to payout
  • Vendor statements that reconcile with the payment provider
  • Onboarding a seller can complete without your help
  • A dispute process with a full record of each case
  • Platform code and marketplace data that belong to you
FAQ

What marketplace founders should settle early

Should we start on WooCommerce or build a custom marketplace?
Start on WooCommerce with a multi-vendor plugin if you sell products through a normal cart and want to test demand quickly. Go custom if the transaction itself is unusual, such as bookings, quotes, milestones or bids, or if the vendor experience is your main selling point.
How are vendors paid?
The usual setup splits each payment at checkout: the vendor share goes to their connected account and your commission to yours. Payouts follow a schedule you set, often after a holding period that leaves room for refunds. Vendors see a statement for every transfer.
Who is responsible for tax and invoices on a marketplace?
That depends on whether the marketplace or the vendor is the legal seller, and on the countries involved. It is a question for your accountant or tax adviser. Once it is answered, we implement invoicing, tax calculation and reporting to match.
How do you keep product data consistent across vendors?
With category-specific required fields, controlled attribute lists, image rules and a moderation queue for new vendors. Trusted vendors can be moved to auto-approval. For catalogs where many sellers offer the same item we build shared product pages with competing offers.
Can you add buyer and vendor mobile apps?
Yes, once the web platform has an API. Buyers and vendors often get separate apps or separate modes in one app. The backend side is described under Laravel backends for Flutter apps. For a first release, a responsive vendor dashboard is usually enough.
What happens when a buyer and a vendor disagree?
The buyer opens a dispute from the order, both sides add messages and evidence, and deadlines keep it moving. If they cannot agree, your team decides in an operator screen that issues the refund and adjusts the vendor balance. Every step is logged.
How big does the first version need to be?
Smaller than most founders plan. One category, one transaction type and one payment provider, with the complete flow from vendor signup to payout. That is enough to learn where supply or demand is short, which should guide what you build next.
Related

WordPress Marketplace Development

Laravel Marketplace Development

WooCommerce

Cross-Platform App Development

eCommerce Stores
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Walk us through your marketplace model

Tell us who sells, who buys and how money should move between them. We answer within one business day with our questions, a suggested starting platform and a free quote.

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  • NDA on request
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