Top 10 Multi-Vendor Marketplace Software: Which Platform to Choose and Why?

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:

Marketplace model

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).

Pricing model

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? 

Product type

Decide which products or services your business prioritizes to choose the best multi-vendor marketplace platform tailored for your offering.

Multi-vendor transactions scale

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.

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 & Multi-Seller Management 

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.

Self-Managed Catalogs & Pricing  

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.

Enterprise Integration & API Extensibility  

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:

• Over 80 pre-built ecommerce modules (Packaged Business Capabilities), including catalog, cart, real-time inventory, and more.
• Seamless integration with any ERP, PIM, CRM systems, external catalogs, and other third-party platforms. 
• Open, easily customizable code for adding new features with ease and platform-supported feature development at no additional cost.  
• Advanced catalog management with flexible personalization options. 

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.