The rise of sharing economy has caused the growing number of marketplaces — online services that connect customers and service providers. The online marketplace is a unique business model beneficial for all the members of the process.
Service provider or product
They can benefit from having an additional sales channel and the ability to reach more potential clients.
Marketplace owner
You have a chance to build your own business without producing goods or providing services directly. You are a middleman, a third party that takes over the operational part of transactions and charges a fee for his services.
Customer
The one who can view and compare more products or services to choose the one that matches his needs better.
Building a successful online marketplace
Developing a marketplace requires a specific approach, first of all, because this product has to target two completely different audiences: producers and service providers, on one hand, buyers and consumers on the other hand. Satisfying the needs and expectations of both groups is the key to success.
Market analysis
Dreaming about developing another Airbnb? Then we have to disappoint you, duplicates aren’t interesting to anyone. A marketplace web app won’t reach success unless it offers something unique. It is important to research your competition, to analyze their offers, and find out what can make you stand out from the existing services.
Choice of monetization model
To generate revenue, each marketplace needs an efficient and democratic monetization model. One-time payment, monthly subscription, or percentage from each transaction – it is important to choose the one (or a combination of several), which works best for your particular audience.
Choice of payment gateway provider
A marketplace receives money from a buyer as prepayment and transfers money to a seller after the deal is completed. As a result, the payment gateway should be able to hold the funds in escrow, to make payments secure and prevent marketplace app users from fraud.
Build a marketplace MVP to test it with target audience
A marketplace application will grow only if it solves the real problem of its users. Building an MVP and showing it to your audience at an early stage may prevent you from developing a product that users won’t appreciate. Timely feedback helps to create an attractive sales channel for service providers and convenient shopping platform for customers.
Expertise in launching successful online marketplaces
We work with marketplaces from all around the world starting with idea polishing through agile development with multiple iterations up to a successful launch and beyond. Marketplaces developed by Clockwise Software can be found on app stores and are downloaded by users from all over the world.
Continuous support
We are ready to take responsibility for each software product developed by Towa Software High Performance Teams. That’s why, we do not farewell our customer when the product goes live, but offer comprehensive support to quickly fix any issues discovered upon active usage of the application.