The three-sided platform
A marketplace is harder than a store because you're serving three parties at once: shoppers who want one trustworthy checkout, vendors who want to manage their own products and see their earnings, and you, who takes a commission and keeps quality high. Every one of those needs its own interface and rules.
We build the vendor onboarding, the seller dashboards, and the admin controls so the platform runs without you touching every order.
- Vendor onboarding, storefronts, and self-service product management
- Per-vendor dashboards for orders, inventory, and payouts
- Commission models: flat, percentage, per-category, or per-vendor
- Admin moderation — approve vendors, review listings, resolve disputes
- Ratings and reviews scoped to each vendor to build buyer trust
Split payments and payouts
The part that trips up most marketplace builds is money. When a shopper pays for items from three vendors in one cart, the platform has to take its cut and route the rest to each seller — cleanly, legally, and on a schedule. Doing that by hand doesn't scale and creates compliance headaches.
We integrate a marketplace payments provider that handles the split at the source, so each vendor's share and your commission are separated automatically.
- Automated payment splitting between vendors and platform (e.g. Stripe Connect / marketplace payouts)
- Vendor onboarding for payouts, including identity/tax verification the provider requires
- Scheduled or on-demand payouts with a running balance per vendor
- Refund and chargeback handling that debits the right party
- Reporting for your commission revenue and each vendor's earnings
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Frequently asked questions
Should I use a marketplace platform or build custom?
For many marketplaces, a proven solution (a WooCommerce/Shopify marketplace extension, or a purpose-built marketplace platform) gets you to launch faster and cheaper because vendor management and split payments already exist. Fully custom is worth it when your model is unusual — complex commissions, services, rentals, or bookings. We'll steer you to the cheapest path that fits your model.
How do vendors get paid, and who handles the tax side?
Payments run through a marketplace payments provider that splits each order and pays vendors directly, which also keeps you out of the position of holding everyone's money. Those providers collect the vendors' tax/identity info (like W-9 / 1099 handling in the US) as part of onboarding. We wire that in; you should still confirm your own tax obligations with an accountant.
How do I solve the 'empty marketplace' problem at launch?
That's a business challenge more than a technical one — a marketplace needs both sellers and buyers, and neither wants to be first. We can't manufacture demand, but we build the platform so you can seed it: launch with a curated set of vendors, make onboarding painless, and keep the buyer experience strong from day one. We'll be honest that the hard part is the two-sided growth, not the software.