What is the Best Startup Marketplace Software?

[Mightymarcoose]

As mentioned on a couple of other posts, I am starting a new niche marketplace. I've spent much of the last week speaking to devs and have come to the conclusion that Magento is the way to go. The problem being that it isn't made for marketplaces, and requires a lot of custom work. A couple of quotes I have received have been 200k+. This amount of money isn't feasible when I need the majority of my budget for marketing.

I have spoken with Shopify devs who told me that although it is brilliant for a standard online shop, it isn't really suitable for marketplace.

This leads me to CS Cart which seems to tick a number of boxes. It has built in multi-vendor/marketplace functionality and so forth.

I'm hoping that there might be members on here who have experience of running successful multi-vendor sites who could point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

 

[Solly]

Allbymama uses Woocommerce and it seems to be fairly successful.

 

[mattk]

Your question is a but like "Which is the best mode of transport?" There are too many factor to consider in order to give an informed answer.

Presumably you have a set of documented requirements, use cases, objectives etc? Why don't you link to them and people may be able to give you a bit more of a detailed answer.

 

[Anesu Mutsau]

Its hard to give you a clear cut answer without knowing your objectives, the traffic you expects, how will the platform fit in you process etc. If you pm with more info I will give you a few options to look at!

 

[NickGrogan]

come to the conclusion that Magento is the way to go. The problem being that it isn't made for marketplaces

If Magneto is not made for marketplaces, which it's not, how on earth have you decided that's the way to go?

If it needs £200k+ of development, its certainly not the right answer.

 

[paulyh]

You could check out Sharetribe, it is a hosted platform for building online marketplaces.

If not then something like ixxocart, which is made for multi-vendor sites. If you want to use WordPress, then WooCommerce with WC Vendors is a pretty good combination.