Want to build a P2P marketplace website like Etsy, Amazon, or eBay? Great idea: in 2018 alone, Etsy earned $603.69M. And it’s not even the most popular marketplace in the USA.
But there’s one question – how much does it cost to build an online marketplace? Web development services aren’t cheap, and your idea may cost tens of thousands.
For anyone who wants to know the cost of building a marketplace website, this guide shows the price feature-by-feature and the total cost across different regions.
Types of Marketplaces
But before we jump right into the costs, let’s see what marketplaces are there.
There are three types of e-marketplace:
- vertical — focused on one area or niche.
- horizontal — offers goods from a few categories with a secondary character in common.
- global – offer items or services from a wide range of categories.
Let’s take a more detailed look at them.
Vertical Marketplace
They offer goods from several vendors but of the same type. Vertical marketplaces are ‘exclusive clubs’ that offer a greater depth of products and have expert sellers.
For example, on Zillow, it’s free to list a home for sale or rent. The platform works with many owners and agents/brokers, but their services are all about buying, renting, or selling houses.
Horizontal Marketplace
Horizontal e-marketplaces sell goods or services in several categories but with a single common characteristic.
For example, Couchsurfing works with and for travels, Etsy sells handmade items in eight categories. DogVacay offers different services but only to people with pets.
Global Marketplace
Global marketplaces have everything under one roof – books, furniture, food, grocery, apparel, toys, software, music, gadgets, and a whole lot more.
That’s what makes global marketplaces special. They consolidate several market segments to cater to a broader audience.
This type of online marketplaces is focused on people striving for maximum speed and minimum price. There are many categories of goods, and sellers compete in price offers.
Amazon is the standard example. Yep, it became famous for selling books, but today you can buy literally anything on Amazon. eBay works in a similar way.
Tech Stack for Building a Marketplace Website
Building a marketplace MVP with must-have features? Most likely, you’d want to add in-app search (technology: Elastic Search), payments (Braintree, Stripe), and instant messaging (Firebase).
And here are some other technologies we use for marketplaces.
Frontend
- Angular
- JavaScript
- WebStorm
Backend
- Node.js
- EC2
- MySQL
- Swagger
- Express 4
- Sequelize
Integrations
- S3
- PayPal
- Stripe
- Amazon SES
- Twilio