Building an online marketplace starts with a solid business plan, people who can help make it happen and constant promotion. Create original, high quality content and curate relevant content.

Features:
It is always good to stay with the basics, when you are planning to establish a marketplace, and attract customers. The Responsive Website Design store grabs more customers you are likely to have. Right from navigation to usage, make sure your marketplace is easy and identifiable. To establish these points, you need to understand the user’s behavior, and then work upon it when developing your marketplace.

• Personal Profile: A profile is critical to a marketplace, which is why your MVP should include a simple yet necessary version of the user’s profile. This will give all the details of the customer, including the preferences, which is important to develop your marketplace further
• Vendor Profile: The vendor is your true support, and you should have a complete idea of the product ranges they sell. A complete showcase of all the products is necessary at this point
• Active History: Your MVP should allow the user’s a peek into their active history, as well as the products they viewed in the past. This might help in gaining conversions. For the vendor this will help track the activity of the user on the web page, and understand their interests and needs
• Live Chat: Inclusion of live chat or other messaging systems can help the users interact with the store and get information on products that they are planning to buy but have doubts about. For the vendor, it is all about establishing trust and resolving all issues that can possibly occur
• Search Functionality: With the search feature, your user can easily navigate through the website, while the vendor can search for products that were browsed by many for a longer period
• Payment Systems: A secure payment system gives the customer a freehand to actually shop at your MVP, while the vendor can save time in managing the transactions and acquiring the receipts
• Reports & Other Features: With the reports and other features related to back-office, you can understand what is actually happening at the front end, and improve your store to cater to your end consumer’s needs

Some other ways to start online marketplace:

• Find a hosting service
• Develop a business plan
• Limit yourself
• Let your vendors sell themselves
• Content is key
• Communication is a two-way street
• Define the target market and customer
• Be subjective
• Build the site
• Believe in your vision