How To Create Online Marketplace In India

All of us have come across some or the other online marketplace while surfing for products online! 

But, have you ever wanted to build your own marketplace website one day? 

If yes, you have just come to the right place. We are going to explore the Indian ecommerce market and have a detailed discussion on how to create online marketplace in India this coming year.

Well, first things first!

Multi vendor marketplace is the hottest business model today.

Wondering why? 

To answer this, let us look at some of the buying habits on multi vendor marketplace India:

• 400-450 million online shoppers will shop on Indian marketplaces by 2027
• 8% is the CAGR of retail ecommerce worldwide 
• ~20 marketplaces in India have achieved more than $1 billion in GMV, creating profitable brands
• 3X growth in sales on Indian marketplaces from 2022 to 2027 
• 95% of the online shoppers have purchased from one or other online marketplace
• 48% of the online buyers prefer going straight to an online marketplace
• 54% of the online buyers feel that these marketplaces have changed the way they shop
• 91% of the customers make online purchases on their mobile devices
• 61% of the customers are willing to pay extra to get same-day delivery 

Source: Statista, Money Control, Intelligence Node

Reason enough to create online marketplace in India? It sure is. 

Looking right at the figures, we are sure you are also awestruck by the tremendous growth of online multi seller stores in India. Before we dig deeper into the how to create part, let us understand the what and why of online marketplaces. 

What is an online marketplace?

An online marketplace is categorized as an ecommerce portal where multiple vendors come together on a single platform to sell similar or different products and services. The ecommerce business model is also popularly known as a multi vendor marketplace. 

The vendors on the online marketplace platform upload, display and sell their products and services to the vast customer base. These vendors pay a commission to the marketplace owner for selling their products on the marketplace and using varied features like shipping, logistics, etc. The marketplace is solely managed and run by the admin/owner, while the inventories and order fulfilment is taken care of by the vendors. Some popular examples of ecommerce marketplaces are Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, etc.

Why do enterprise businesses need to create online marketplace in India?

It is for the amazing success of marketplaces like Amazon in India, that there has been a rage for online marketplace business models among enterprise brands. With a zero inventory business model, multi vendor marketplace is the best way to digitize the sales channels of enterprise brands with a wide distributor network. It is easy to scale, helps vendors penetrate the new Indian market, and helps the business owners create multiple revenue sources. 

Enterprise businesses can focus more on their business growth strategies, brand visibility etc and worry less about the inventory and shipping part of the business in an online marketplace set-up. Sellers on the marketplace get a wider audience base along with freedom from the burden of IT maintenance and customers can enjoy a wide range of products available at competitive pricing on the online multi seller store. 

What is the best way to create online marketplace in India?

Climbing your way up in the ecommerce industry in India requires careful planning and strategic thinking. To create online marketplace, enterprise businesses can opt for either of the two options here:

• Build the online store from scratch
• Use a turnkey enterprise ecommerce solution

While both the options can be used to create the end product, building an online multi seller ecommerce store from scratch is a time-consuming and resource-intensive process. But, when you choose a turnkey marketplace solution to build your marketplace website, you not only save your resources but can also go to the market in record time. 

However easy building an enterprise brand might seem to you, finding the best marketplace software is surely an uphill task. Don’t you agree? 

Why choose a SaaS-based ecommerce solution to create online marketplace in India?

Launching your online multi vendor store is indeed an important step that can’t be done wrong. When you choose a SaaS-based turnkey ecommerce solution, you make sure that the site is suitable for the customers and easy to scale up at any given point. Large enterprise businesses around the world are using the turnkey SaaS ecommerce solutions for the host of benefits attached.

Here is a list of advantages of opting for the SaaS-based turnkey ecommerce solution:

• Cost effective solution as against the custom made online marketplace
• Quick to go to the market unlike building the solution from scratch
• Little to no technical knowledge needed to create, tweak or design 
• Cutting-edge technology that keeps you ahead of the competition
• Automatic upgrade options keeping enterprises from the hassles of manual upgradation 
• Seamless integrations to build innovative marketplace India solutions 
• Customizable backend and frontend solutions 
• Easy and quick to pivot to a variety of business models using the in-built solutions

StoreHippo, the best marketplace software is built on MACH architecture that helps enterprise businesses build agile solutions. With its decoupled headless architecture, StoreHippo offers a better creative control to businesses whilst also giving them freedom to experiment with unique business needs. It offers 300+ inbuilt features and 120+ integrations making it easy to build innovative marketplace solutions for enterprise business. 

What are the top 10 features needed to create online marketplace in India 

To create a successful marketplace website in India and be able to offer the best to all parties involved, enterprises need to look for some basic features in the online marketplace software they choose. These features are categorically used to make the buying journey smooth for customers, the selling process efficient for the sellers and doing business easy for the admin(s). 

Here is a list of the top 10 features needed to create online marketplace in India:

1. Easy to build, run and grow

Your online marketplace should be easy to use for all parties involved, i.e. the seller, the buyer and the admin. Making not only the buying easy for the customers, but also selling on the platform easy for vendors and managing the marketplace easy for the admin(s).

2. Easily customizable

The marketplace website should have inherent flexibility that makes it easy to customize and change as per changing market demands.

3. End-to-end vendor management solution

The online marketplace software you choose must offer a complete vendor management solution that makes the onboarding process easy for sellers and can be done in a few clicks. It should offer a separate vendor dashboard to the sellers giving them the freedom to add products and manage their orders.

4. Order management system

With a comprehensive order management system to manage the orders, inventory shipment etc, it becomes easy for the vendors to manage the supply chain. 

5. Omnichannel solution with a focus on m-commerce

The new-age customers like to shop on the go via multiple touchpoints. When you create a marketplace app for your customers, and are available on various channels, you get recognized as a customer centric enterprise brand.

6. Multilingual support

India is a multilingual nation. The marketplace software with multilingual support is one of the important features to look for while building your marketplace portal in India. With support of multiple local languages, brands can reach far-off locations pan India. 

7. Gamut of marketing features

While choosing the marketplace India software, make sure it offers a gamut of marketing features to help you grow your business and reach unexplored markets in India. Look for features, like a powerful discount engine, dynamic forms, support for notifications, chat etc.

8. Inbuilt support for taxation and invoicing 

The best marketplace software is one that offers an inbuilt tax engine to automate and simplify your taxes. It should enable you to calculate common and unique taxes easily with its simplified tax rules. And having GST support is a must to handle various GST taxes for vendors across India. 

9. Multiple payment options 

When you offer multiple payment gateways to your customers, you let them know that you value their money. With multiple secure payment options on your marketplace website, you can sell better and increase your conversions. 

Enterprise brands can find all these features and much more at StoreHippo. The marketplace solutions from StoreHippo are built on cutting-edge technology that helps the brands tap the ecommerce market of India. With the plug-and-play solutions from StoreHippo, businesses can build customized marketplaces across various industry verticals. 

10. Streamlined logistics

A marketplace builder that offers integrated logistics support, enables your vendors to grow their business manifold. You can boost your customer reach and increase conversions manifold by offering streamlined and timely deliveries. 

How to create online marketplace like Amazon for Indian markets?

The ecommerce marketplace India is flooded with a plethora of multi vendor online stores like Nykaa, Amazon, Flipkart, Indiamart, etc. Enterprises everyday are coming up with out-of-the-box disruptive business models which need unique solutions to be implemented. With  a turnkey, fully hosted and managed multi-vendor marketplace solution like StoreHippo, businesses can build a highly scalable online marketplace for the diverse Indian markets. 

Let us look at the step-by-step process here: 

1. Chalk out a business idea

Irrespective of the product you are planning to sell, you are going to face fierce competition in the Indian market. So, you might want to narrow down your business idea to a potential audience segment. Or, even better, find the perfect market segment by first conducting a customer survey to understand the existing market scenario. Then you have a marketplace website that caters to the needs of your audience.

2. Register the domain name 

Well, before you put your shoulder to the wheel, you need to find and register your domain name. And much to your surprise, a domain name is what makes people remember you. Make sure you choose a short, simple and attractive domain name for your enterprise business. An authentic registration is going to help you at various points like ensuring a secured site, or accepting payments. You will also be attracting a good flow of vendors on your marketplace India website with an SSL certification. 

3. Choose an ecommerce platform

This very step defines the success of your enterprise business. The type of the platform you choose helps you build a reliable and user-friendly platform for your customers. With SaaS-based turnkey ecommerce software solutions like StoreHippo, you can build your desired business model in half the time and cost. 

StoreHippo offers 360-degree ecommerce solutions with a richness of in-built features that help you customize your ecommerce platform to your unique business needs. Built on MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture, StoreHippo gives greater creative control to implement personalization and build innovative, tailor-made solutions for your online marketplace platform. 

What makes StoreHippo the best software for marketplace India?

• StoreHippo enterprise ecommerce platform offers 300+ inbuilt features to help build, run and grow your business
• Built on the mobile-first principle all stores built on StoreHippo are PWA
• Inbuilt marketing tools, customizable themes, a tax engine and CMS
• Peak load tolerance with inherently scalable infrastructure
• 120+ pre-integrated solutions, 60+ integrated payment gateways and 30+ integrated logistics solutions

4. Onboard vendors & add product pages

Now that you have your online marketplace platform ready, the next step would be to onboard vendors and list products on the marketplace. Since you have chosen the best ready-made solution for your online store, you can use the in-built tools to onboard vendors and add products seamlessly. Like StoreHippo comes with:

• Individual vendor accounts and simple registration processes
• End-to-end vendor onboarding and management solutions 
• User-friendly dashboards to help sellers manage their day-to-day business operations
• Full approval flow control with the admin to approve or reject vendor products
• Easy product management that helps upload bulk products using CSV

5. Design your marketplace storefront

Once you have added products and onboarded vendors on your online marketplace, it’s time you jazz it up well. StoreHippo comes with an in-built theme designer where you can choose from the rich themes library and play around to create the most stunning online store for your enterprise business. With the drag and drop feature, you can quickly align your store design with your promotional events or upcoming festivals by changing the design and banner with no coding required. 

6. Market and promote the enterprise business 

Building an online marketplace website comes with the great responsibility of attracting high quality traffic. Given the cut-throat competition, you might want to compel your customers with an effective marketing campaign before you start selling. StoreHippo comes with the following tools to help you attract customers: 

• Offer quick discounts using the powerful discount engine 
• Easily create dynamic landing pages to promote products specific to a geography, user segment, time or device 
• Engage your customers with the in-built unified notifications via email, browser and push
• Boost reputation, audience base and conversions using your affiliate network
• Use the in-built SEO tools and blog engine to rank higher on SERPs

7. Go live and start selling

With all the details in place and with the best marketplace software at your disposal, you are all set to start selling in the Indian ecommerce market. However, it is wise to first test your site for any hiccups and fix those (if any) rather than going to the market and being intimidated by your customers. And when it's all sorted, you can start selling your products and run a successful business. 

Enterprise businesses can create their online marketplaces quickly and seamlessly in a few simple steps with the help of comprehensive marketplace software from StoreHippo. 

Why is StoreHippo the best marketplace software to create online marketplace in India?

StoreHippo is categorized as the best marketplace software for its end-to-end solutions designed for a variety of enterprise business models. It is built on pure headless architecture that helps brands build extremely customized and personalized buyer journeys. StoreHIppo enables the brands to quickly add new customer touchpoints using the same backend logic and APIs used for building their online marketplace website. 

The enterprise brands can quickly penetrate to the corners of the Indian ecommerce market  and win the local Indian customers with hyperlocal ecommerce solutions from StoreHippo. It comes with an in-built delivery boy management software that enables businesses to manage their own fleet of delivery boys seamlessly. Brands can also communicate with these local customers in their native language using the multilingual feature from StoreHippo. 

Built on mobile-first technology, StoreHippo enables all enterprise brands to quickly create a marketplace app from the central admin dashboard. All the stores built on StoreHippo are PWA stores that can run seamlessly even on entry level mobile devices and work with poor internet connectivity as well. StoreHippo comes with 60+ integrated payment gateways, 30+ logistics solutions and a gamut of marketing tools offering the brands a one-stop solution for all their ecommerce needs.

Businesses can seamlessly create hybrid solutions without the need of any additional plug-ins or extensions. With the drag and drop design tool, enterprises can quickly elevate the look and feel of their online marketplaces. It also enables the businesses to offer lucrative marketing strategies with its in-built marketing tools like discount engine, SEO and blog engine, unified notifications etc.

Conclusion

With the ecommerce world around us brimming with opportunities, now is just the right time to create online marketplace. And, with such a detailed discussion above, we are sure you have access to the right tools and technologies to create a conversion-oriented marketplace website in India. 

Are you ready to create online marketplace for the Indian ecommerce industry with StoreHippo? Explore the extensive features of the best marketplace software by starting your 14 day trial now. 

FAQ 

1. How much time will I need to create an online marketplace in India?

The time needed to create an online marketplace depends on your choice of method. Enterprise brands that build their marketplace from scratch will need a little extra time (12-24 months on average) and resources compared to brands that choose a turnkey ecommerce solution which might typically take 4-8 weeks. StoreHippo is a SaaS-based ecommerce platform that helps you create an online marketplace in a fraction of the time as compared to building your marketplace from scratch. If you are looking for customizations and have unique requirements, it might take a few extra weeks to tweak the platform. 

StoreHippo ecommerce solutions support a variety of business models like B2C, D2C, B2B, B2B2C, or any hybrid business models. You can seamlessly go to the market with one business model and pivot to another model or create hybrid business solutions for your brand.       

2. Will it be possible to create a customized marketplace website for different regions of India (say North India, south India etc.)?

Yes, it is possible to create customized solutions for the different regions of India, helping to cater to diverse audience groups. StoreHippo is built on a decoupled headless platform that comes with various tools and features to help you create online marketplace based on the unique requirements of your brand. You can build multiple sub-stores based on locations, audience segments, etc. StoreHippo multistore solutions help you create multiple sub-stores right from your admin dashboard. You can create unique URLs for each of the sub-stores and also create multiple mobile apps for different locations with the mcommerce solutions from StoreHippo. 

You can also offer multilingual content to engage with your customers in their native languages. StoreHippo comes with 100+ languages to help you seamlessly translate your website into the language of your choice. You can also customize the shipping solutions, and digital payments, or personalize the pricing on different sub-stores, etc with the StoreHippo marketplace website builder. You can also create unique designs for all of your sub-stores based on different demographics like location and audience.   

3. How can I create an online marketplace India that is accessible even in smaller towns and cities of India?

StoreHippo enterprise ecommerce solutions help you build a marketplace that is easily accessible even in smaller towns and cities in India. Wonder how? Built on a mobile-first technology, StoreHippo helps build PWA websites that look, feel, and work like mobile apps even on entry-level devices and in areas with poor internet connectivity.

As the smartphone penetration is huge in smaller cities and towns of India, you can target the customers on their mobile devices. With StoreHippo online marketplace builder, you can seamlessly build conversion-oriented Android and iOS mobile apps at zero additional costs without any coding. You can engage with customers from tier II and tier III cities by creating responsive designs and easy navigation on mobile apps with StoreHippo.     

4. Is it possible to implement different fee structures for vendors from different categories selling on my marketplace India?

Yes, it is possible to implement different fee structures for vendors from different categories selling on your marketplace India. StoreHippo website builder helps you manage vendor-specific offers, discounts, taxes, fees, shipping, etc based on multiple different factors. You can offer special discounts to your premium vendors or relax shipping charges to promote them on your marketplace India. With StoreHippo you can also set up vendor-specific discounts and shipping charges and promote the bestselling products or vendors. You can also implement a percentage or fixed commission for different vendors on your marketplace with StoreHippo solutions. 

5. Do marketplace website builders in India offer marketing tools or will I need to buy paid software?

Depends solely on your choice of marketplace platform. If you choose StoreHippo enterprise solutions, you get access to a gamut of marketing tools to target your audience. With the built-in powerful discount engine from StoreHippo, you can implement multi-level discounts on your online marketplace. You can recover abandoned carts using the PUSH notifications feature from StoreHippo and can create personalized discounts coupons to attract, engage, and convert potential buyers. With the built-in comprehensive SEO engine, you can rank your enterprise business higher on SERPs by creating unique URLs, meta descriptions, meta tags, etc. You can also offer personalized content to your customers using the built-in blog engine from StoreHippo. You can however also integrate StoreHippo with paid software of your choice for your marketing needs . 

6. Will I need third-party apps and software to run my marketplace website seamlessly?

Some marketplace builders might require you to do so. However, if you create a marketplace website with StoreHippo you will not need additional plugins or paid apps and extensions to manage your business operations like orders, deliveries, etc.. . StoreHippo is a fully hosted and managed enterprise ecommerce solution that comes with plug-and-play solutions to help you build and run your marketplace smoothly. 

However, StoreHippo supports multiple integrations with the tools and software of your choice using its headless API structure. You can seamlessly integrate with multiple third-party apps and softwares like CRM, ERP, analytics, accounting, etc. You can also integrate with different live chat and chatbots to offer a smooth customer support channel on your marketplace.  

7. Does turnkey ecommerce solutions help create a safe and secure online marketplace India?

When you create an online marketplace using turnkey ecommerce solutions like StoreHippo, you can secure your customer data and other useful information. StoreHippo comes with a robust multi-layer security with highly secured payment gateways. You also get a free SSL certificate for your marketplace website directly from the StoreHippo admin. As you build a PCI DSS compliant ecommerce store with StoreHippo, you can ensure payment safety and protect sensitive information like passwords, customer details, etc.          

8. What customer support solutions will be needed on my online marketplace India to ensure my customers are happy and satisfied?

You do not need to worry about customers support solutions as you choose StoreHippo as your technology partner. With StoreHippo, you can also integrate with the customer support servicing software of your choice. 

To help you ensure customer satisfaction on your online marketplace India, StoreHippo helps you seamlessly connect with your customers through automated tools and features like SMS, push and email notifications, social media integrations, live chat, chatbots, etc. 

9. How can I ensure quick shipping and timely delivery on my online marketplace India?

As you create an online marketplace with StoreHippo, you can ensure quick shipping and timely deliveries. StoreHippo comes pre-integrated with 30+ logistics solutions to help you streamline an efficient supply chain. You can pick and choose to integrate with more than one shipping solution to optimize the cost. StoreHippo also offers a built-in delivery boy management system to help you manage your own fleet of delivery boys and ensure error-free deliveries. With StoreHippo’s built-in logistics management system you can also import multiple orders from all of your sales channels and align them for timely hassle-free deliveries.   

10. If I want to expand my marketplace outside of India, how do I deal with shipping and payments across borders?

If you choose StoreHippo marketplace website builder to create your online presence in India, you can seamlessly explore the global markets as well. StoreHippo comes with built-in solutions to help you deal with shipping and payments across borders. With the multi-currency support from StoreHippo, your customers can seamlessly make payments in their native currencies. You can integrate with StoreHippo’s 60+ domestic and international payment gateways to create a frictionless payment process. You can also enable IP-based auto switch or set different currencies for different locations. Your customers can also choose the currency of their choice while checking out. And as for global shipping solutions, StoreHippo online marketplace builder helps you integrate with multiple global shipping partners to streamline quick deliveries to global customers as well. You can also connect with local vendors from global markets for quick deliveries.