If Shakespeare had lived through the era of ecommerce, his famous quote would go: “All the world’s a marketplace, and all the businesses merely vendors.”
Today, major global ecommerce companies are actively moving to the multi-vendor marketplace model from a classical single-vendor. Why? It drives revenue without a need to proportionally scale internal operations.
The Virto Commerce team has decades of experience building complex multi-vendor marketplaces and delivering tangible results to globally renowned enterprises like HEINEKEN, Cadillac, Bosch, and OMNIA Partners.
In this article, Virto Commerce experts provide the definition of a multi-vendor marketplace, its must-have features with examples, and top platforms to create your own multi-vendor ecommerce website.
Leading research and consulting firms like Gartner, Forrester, PwC, or McFadyen define multi-vendor marketplace differently, focusing on either technological, business, or community aspects.
As evident from the name, a single-vendor marketplace is usually operated by a company that sells products and services, contrary to a multi-vendor ecommerce website that can be operated by a platform owner hosting multiple third-party sellers, each managing their own products catalogs, pricing, and fulfillment.
A multi-vendor marketplace can be vertical (e.g., selling niche products and services) or horizontal (e.g., selling products and services across diverse industries) and can offer different levels of management.
Multi-vendor marketplace flowchart
A typical multi-vendor marketplace is often called a three-sided marketplace with three types of stakeholders involved: marketplace vendors, buyers, and marketplace owners or operators (including IT and dev teams working on the solution).
A multi-vendor marketplace owner or operator manages the marketplace platform and oversees the multi-vendor website’s operations. They can generate revenue either by charging various vendor fees (e.g., commissions on sales, subscription fees, listing fees, or transaction fees) or by offering premium marketplace features and services to vendors, like advertising, analytics, or fulfillment support.
Besides the freedom to choose which revenue model and platform they use, marketplace owners benefit from extending their marketplace offering and having direct access to valuable data and customer insights.
Vendors, on the other hand, benefit from choosing the platform they wish to partner with. Customers primarily benefit from an abundance of choices that the marketplace platform offers.
As for the challenges, multi-vendor marketplaces can be more complex to set up and manage than single-vendor stores. Since multiple sellers are involved, ensuring quality control across the board can be demanding for marketplace owners.
The main pain points that marketplace owners usually face when launching and scaling a multi-vendor marketplace are as follows:
➖ Slow marketplace solution implementation by rigid platforms that fail to adapt to evolving business needs;
➖ Time-consuming process of vendor onboarding;
➖ Complicated management of multiple vendors;
➖ Lack of pricing flexibility for different customer segments and vendors;
➖ Inability to apply different commission rules across sellers;
➖ Limited control over product catalog visibility;
➖ Inefficient management of checkout and delivery when a single customer order involves products from multiple vendors;
➖ Difficulties in scaling across regions with localized needs;
➖ Inability to handle both B2B and B2C logic on one platform;
➖ Unstructured approval or procurement workflows; and
➖ Lack of centralized view of vendor performance or transactions.
A future-proof, modular, and scalable multi-vendor marketplace platform, however, can solve the aforementioned challenges.
In the past few years, companies such as Temu, Carousell, and Jungle Scout have become popular multi-vendor marketplace examples. Classic single-vendor marketplaces like Apple, Netflix, and Adidas remain popular, but they may lack the flexibility and speed needed to scale or evolve their marketplace offerings.
Most likely, such classic ecommerce websites will follow the example of Alibaba, Airbnb, or Walmart, which similarly started as single-vendor marketplaces and extended their marketplace model.
Let’s look at the list of the top-known global multi-vendor website examples.
Company
|
Business Model
|
Marketplace Model
|
Offer
|
---|---|---|---|
Alibaba
|
B2B
|
Horizontal
|
Product-based
|
Amazon
|
B2C
|
Horizontal
|
Product-based
|
eBay
|
B2C/P2P
|
Horizontal
|
Product-based
|
Etsy
|
P2P
|
Vertical
|
Product-based
|
Airbnb
|
B2C
|
Vertical
|
Service-based
|
Uber
|
B2B2C
|
Vertical
|
Service-based
|
Before we dive into comparing the best multi-vendor marketplace platforms, let’s examine the market of marketplace platforms and compare their main capabilities.
The market of multi-vendor marketplace software and other supporting services is expected to reach $77 billion by 2030. As the general ecommerce market grows and more disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) appear, most businesses will inevitably adopt modern marketplace capabilities.
This scenario applies to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises equally. The B2B ecommerce segment is expected to lead the trend in developing robust multi-vendor marketplaces with particular attention to personalization, convenience, and vendor representation.
When choosing a multi-vendor marketplace platform best suited to assist your business goals, it’s crucial to consider the following aspects:
Which marketplace will your ecommerce business choose—vertical or horizontal? The horizontal model offers products or services across different industries (e.g., Amazon), while vertical marketplaces focus on a particular niche (e.g., Airbnb).
There are numerous pricing models for multi-vendor platforms out there: subscription model, GMV-based pricing, order- or volume-based model, and more. Which one can be a better fit for your business?
Decide which products or services your business prioritizes to choose the best multi-vendor marketplace platform tailored for your offering.
Ensure that your platform of choice is scalable and ready to extend as your business grows. If rapid growth is on your to-do list, the platform should efficiently manage a high volume of transactions without compromising performance.
When considering these aspects, it’s vital to look closer at the platform’s technical capabilities. Here, we present some fundamental features you want to see in your multi-vendor ecommerce platform.
Key features of a multi-vendor marketplace platform
Identifying each marketplace stakeholder and their unique needs is crucial to developing a future-proof multi-vendor marketplace. Thus, we break the list of must-have capabilities by role: multi-vendor marketplace operator or owner, vendors, and a dev team. It’s worth noting that these capabilities universally work for B2B, B2C, B2B2C, and other marketplace models.
Multi-vendor marketplace operators must have automated onboarding, streamlined approvals, contracts, pricing, and product catalogs per vendor—all available from a centralized system.
Coordination of multi-vendor checkouts is more efficient with smart order splitting, routing, and tracking while also giving each vendor control over their own fulfillment processes.
Multi-vendor marketplace owners must be able to define flexible, no-code commission rules based on vendor type, product category, customer group, or transaction type, with no dev work required.
Operators must look for multi-vendor marketplace platforms that support multi-currency, region-specific, and tiered pricing. They should also be able to deliver personalized pricing and discounts based on buyer profile or order volume.
Marketplace operators must be able to govern complex product hierarchies with advanced visibility rules, approval workflows, and catalog segmentation across sellers and buyer roles.
Running multiple storefronts, brands, or regional vendor portals with consistent experience across channels should be an easy task with a multi-vendor marketplace platform and not a burden. Vendor portals allow marketplace owners to set the required level of connectivity for their suppliers, offering them as much independence or oversight as your business requires.
The ability to track marketplace health with real-time dashboards and vendor-level performance metrics (or connect to external BI tools for custom reporting) is a must-have capability.
Through a multi-vendor marketplace platform, vendors must be able to manage their own product listings, assign region- and account-specific prices, and define tiered pricing based on order volume through self-service tools.
Each seller must be able to control how they ship, fulfill, and manage returns, aligned with their operations and SLAs.
It’s essential for vendors to get access to dashboards showing their own sales, order status, returns, and commission breakdowns in real-time.
Multi-vendor marketplace platforms must support vendor-defined discounts, offers, and region-specific promotions.
Easy registration, document uploads, and profile setup have to be guided by platform-defined approval flows.
Dev teams must be able to easily connect their backend and middleware to B2B or B2C channels, as well as ERP, CRM, PIM, or logistics systems via open APIs, webhooks, and microservices to an ecommerce platform.
An enterprise-grade cloud environment empowers multi-vendor marketplace dev teams to launch and scale securely and faster.
A multi-vendor marketplace platform has to offer complex support for solution deployment and platform-sponsored feature development.
A composable and de-composable modular architecture allows dev teams to activate and extend only what they need.
These capabilities help multi-vendor marketplace stakeholders streamline their operations, simplify vendor collaboration, and scale with confidence.
The Virto Commerce team presents a list of leading solutions for the development of robust multi-vendor marketplaces.
As part of this comparison, we mention the multi-vendor marketplace platforms’ delivery model: Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). You can learn more about the advantages and limitations of these cloud models in our blog.
Virto’s Commerce Innovation Platform (CIP) is an API-first, headless, modular ecommerce PaaS platform designed to power and grow B2B businesses and multi-vendor marketplaces.
Virto Multi-Vendor Marketplace, based on Virto’s CIP, empowers businesses to launch and scale flexible, B2B-focused marketplaces tailored to their unique business model and industry-specific needs.
Delivery model: PaaS.
Suitability: Perfect fit for large enterprises with complex B2B demands. It offers an open-source multi-vendor marketplace solution with unmatched scalability and flexibility thanks to its proprietary Virto Atomic Architecture™.
Solution highlights:
CommerceHub is a dropshipping platform for global retailers. It offers a wide range of features, from inventory to delivery management.
Delivery model: SaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for dropshipping, online retail, and enterprise retailers.
Solution highlights: Catalog harmonization, seller onboarding options, AI-based categories and products, and delivery solutions, but with limited marketplace functionality.
Mirakl is a marketplace solution for third-party marketplaces and dropship business management.
Delivery model: SaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for mid-market businesses with basic selling needs and marketing purposes that seek their first comprehensive B2B ecommerce platform without immediate expansion plans.
Solution highlights: Great personalization features, catalog harmonization, and content generating, though lacking native customer-facing catalog, search, cart, or checkout capabilities.
Logicbroker positions itself as a supply chain experience management platform with additional marketplace functionality.
Delivery model: SaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for dropshipping, ecommerce automation, and supply chain management support.
Solution highlights: Pre-built commerce connectors are available with a varying number of integration points, though without a native ecommerce frontend.
Marketplacer is a retail-focused solution offering features tailored for companies working directly with their end clients.
Delivery model: SaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for SMBs and retail businesses focusing on global sales.
Solution highlights: Through integrations with Adobe Commerce and Shopify Plus, the platform offers multilanguage support, multiple currencies, and other features relevant to global sales.
Spryker is a solution that develops B2C and B2B marketplaces to streamline ecommerce operations.
Delivery model: PaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for mid-market, tech-related businesses that require scaling.
Solution highlights: Full stack offering with marketplace functionalities; however, many are yet to become natively class-leading.
Launched in 2020, Nautical Commerce is a relatively new multi-vendor commerce system.
Delivery Model: PaaS.
Suitability: Suitable for B2B and B2C marketplaces, supporting both products and services. Good fit for SMBs and companies that want to take over their market niche faster.
Solution highlights: Features for marketplace creation, management, and expansion, a headless frontend, and built-in fintech features, with limited templated out-of-the-box solutions.
VTEX is an ecommerce platform tailored to create marketplaces with strong order management capabilities.
Delivery model: SaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for mid-market retail companies seeking marketplace functionality and a rapid-launch storefront with out-of-the-box features.
Solution highlights: Inventory management features, headless storefront, fulfillment, and retail optimization, although with limited support for complex B2B sales.
Webkul acts as a multi-vendor marketplace plugin for solutions like Magento and Shopify rather than a separate platform.
Delivery model: Platform extension plugins.
Suitability: Good fit for SMBs at the beginning of their marketplace journey.
Solution highlights: Extensive product management, vendor management, standard CRM, and payment features.
OroCommerce is an open-source platform mostly tailored for manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors.
Delivery model: SaaS.
Suitability: Good fit for mid-market businesses and enterprises starting their multi-vendor journey in a complex niche in manufacturing or wholesale.
Solution highlights: Product catalogs, multi-vendor websites support, and deep personalization, but with limited extensibility and technical support.
Capability/
Platform |
Virto Commerce
|
CommerceHub
|
Mirakl
|
Logicbroker
|
Marketplacer
|
Spryker
|
Nautical Commerce
|
VTEX
|
Webkul
|
OroCommerce
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Delivery Model
|
PaaS
|
SaaS
|
SaaS
|
SaaS
|
SaaS
|
PaaS
|
PaaS
|
SaaS
|
SaaS
|
SaaS
|
Capabilities for Marketplace Owners
|
Leader
|
Strong
|
Strong
|
Moderate
|
Strong
|
Strong
|
Moderate
|
Strong |
Limited
|
Strong
|
Capabilities for Vendors
|
Strong |
Limited |
Strong |
Moderate |
Strong
|
Strong |
Moderate
|
Leader |
Moderate |
Moderate
|
Capabilities for Dev Teams
|
Leader |
Moderate |
Limited |
Moderate |
Moderate
|
Strong |
Strong
|
Moderate |
Limited
|
Moderate
|
Best Fit
|
Large Enterprises
|
Dropshipping |
Mid-Market |
Dropshipping
|
SMBs |
Mid-Market
|
SMBs
|
Mid-Market
|
SMBs
|
Mid-Market
|
Virto’s open-source multi-vendor marketplace solution is considered a market leader in terms of architectural excellence for developers and enterprise-readiness for marketplace managers or operators.
Virto Commerce enables retailers, distributors, B2B, or B2B2C companies to scale their product offerings by onboarding external vendors who manage their own catalogs, pricing, and fulfillment—all within a centrally governed marketplace environment.
Take OMNIA Partners, the largest group purchasing organization (GPO) in North America.
OMNIA Partners partnered with Virto Commerce to launch OPUS, a transformative digital B2B marketplace built to serve public and private sector procurement. This solution addressed a longstanding market gap by making cooperative purchasing accessible and efficient for small and mid-sized government agencies.
Since its launch, OPUS has empowered:
In the public sector alone, OMNIA’s contracts are utilized by agencies that serve 94% of the U.S. population, including high-profile entities like the City of New York and the University of California system.
In the private sector, the GPO works with over 15,000 companies spanning 35 industries, including 35% of the Fortune 1000, such as Target, McDonald’s, Carnival Cruise Lines, and Sherwin-Williams.
Choosing a multi-vendor marketplace software to build a robust marketplace that is efficient for owners, vendors, and dev teams is a step unique to every business, from smaller organizations to enterprise-level companies. However, in collaboration with a trusted and experienced partner, the process becomes easier.
Virto Commerce stands out as a reliable innovation platform for enterprises, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to launch and seamlessly scale their multi-vendor business model.