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Service

Marketplace Development

For founders and organisations building a platform where one side lists and another side buys, books or hires, and who need the onboarding, trust, money flow and disputes designed in from the start rather than bolted on after the first argument about a payout.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

The people who come to us with a marketplace idea have usually proved the demand by hand.

  • A spreadsheet of providers, a form for buyers, introductions made by email and a commission invoiced afterwards, if it is collected at all.
  • The founder spends their week matching, chasing and smoothing over problems, and the two sides have started contacting each other directly because the manual process is slower than a phone call.
  • Others have launched on a marketplace plugin or a no-code builder and hit its limits: vendors cannot be verified properly, the search cannot filter on the attributes that matter in their niche, commissions are a single percentage when the business model needs tiers, and a dispute means refunding from the founder's own account because the money has already gone out.

Where it gets harder

Payouts are the usual breaking point.

  • Money arrives from buyers, the platform's share must be kept, the rest must reach the right vendor at the right time, and refunds, cancellations and chargebacks must unwind it correctly, with a statement each side can reconcile.
  • Trust is the other: reviews that can be gamed, listings that go stale, messages that leak contact details, and no clear process when a job goes wrong.
  • A marketplace lives or dies on these mechanics, and they need to be designed, not improvised.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A marketplace build normally covers both sides' journeys, the listing and search core, the money flow and the trust and safety mechanics. The vendor side covers application and onboarding with verification steps you define, profile and listing management, availability or stock where relevant, order or booking handling, messaging, statements and payouts. The buyer side covers search with the attribute filters of your niche, map and radius where location matters, saved searches and alerts, enquiry, booking or purchase, reviews and dispute raising. The money flow runs through our provider-independent payment layer: funds held and split according to commission rules that can vary by category, vendor tier or order value, payouts on the schedule you set, with refunds, cancellations and chargebacks unwinding each split and a statement for every vendor and for you.

Trust and safety covers verification checklists, listing moderation, message masking so contact details are not exchanged before a transaction, review rules, a dispute process with evidence, deadlines and an outcome that moves money, and an admin panel for your team to run all of it.

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A regional platform connecting event organisers with vetted caterers, photographers and venues wants each category to have its own listing attributes and commission rate, deposits held until the event date, and a dispute window after it. The per-category attributes, the deposit timing and the dispute-driven release make this a build, and the scope document sets out each rule.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Acquiring the vendors and buyers, legal terms and the regulatory analysis of holding funds (we implement what your advisers and your payment provider require), and native mobile applications, which can follow once the web platform is proven

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes covering both sides' journeys, the commission model, the payout timing and how disputes should end
  • A written scope document naming the listing attributes per category, verification steps, money flow rules and what is left out
  • Designs of vendor onboarding, listing management, buyer search and the transaction and dispute screens on mobile and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours, with the payment provider connected and split payments tested end to end
  • Migration of your existing vendors, listings and customer records from spreadsheets or a previous platform
  • An admin panel for your team covering verification, moderation, disputes, statements and payouts
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to your current vendor and customer records, the payment provider account and any existing platform; a review of how introductions and commissions work today.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Both journeys are mapped with the money flow and the dispute process; attributes, commission rules and verification steps are written into the scope document.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Buyer search and listing pages designed phone-first; vendor onboarding, listing and statement screens designed for the vendors you expect.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Accounts and listings first, then search, then transactions and the payment split, then messaging, reviews, disputes and the admin panel.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    You and a few friendly vendors and buyers run listings, transactions, refunds and a staged dispute with the payment provider in test mode.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Changes from the review are made and re-checked, including the payout and refund test cases.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Vendors and listings migrated, live payment account verified under your control, moderation and payout schedules configured.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    Both sides transact on the platform; hosting, maintenance and a feature roadmap continue under their own agreement if taken.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Payment providers with split payments and payouts through the provider-independent payment layer
  • Identity and business verification services for vendor onboarding
  • Email and SMS providers for notifications and masked messaging
  • Map and geocoding services for location search
  • Calendar systems for provider availability
  • Accounting software for commission invoices and vendor statements
  • Review and fraud-screening services where your niche needs them

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A regional events marketplace with per-category commissions and deposits held to the event date

The situation

A platform connects event organisers with vetted caterers, photographers and venues. Each category needs its own listing attributes and commission rate, organisers pay a deposit that is held until the event has happened, and a dispute can be raised within a window after the event before the balance is released.

Why it is a custom build

The custom route is needed because the deposit timing, the dispute-driven release and the per-category commission rules are the business model, and marketplace plugins assume a single commission paid out on purchase.

The scope we would propose

  • Category attribute schemas driving listing forms and search filters
  • A verification checklist per category with document upload and admin approval
  • Deposit capture and scheduled release through the payment layer with per-category commission splits
  • Masked messaging until a booking is confirmed
  • A dispute process with evidence, a deadline and outcomes that adjust the release
  • Statements for vendors and the platform

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of listing categories and how different their attribute schemas are
  • Commission model: flat, tiered, per category or per vendor, and payout timing
  • Verification steps required of vendors and which services perform them
  • Transaction type: purchase, booking with availability, quote request or job posting
  • Dispute process complexity and how outcomes move money
  • Messaging, reviews and moderation rules
  • Volume of vendors, listings and customers to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

  • Software package

    Multi vendor marketplace package

    Vendor onboarding and store pages, moderated vendor listings, split orders with per-vendor shipping, commission rules, payout statements, disputes and vendor messaging for marketplace operators.

    Custom build

  • Software package

    Tradesperson marketplace package

    Trade onboarding with a per-category checklist, homeowner job posts with photos and urgency, interest and shortlist, in-platform quotes and masked messaging, lead credits, completion confirmation, reviews and a dispute queue.

    Custom build

  • Software package

    Job board package

    Employer posting packages, structured listings with expiry, candidate accounts with alerts, routed applications, featured jobs and per-job statistics for niche job boards.

    Custom build

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Do you have a marketplace package we could start from?

Yes, several, depending on the transaction. The multi-vendor marketplace package covers products sold by many vendors with split payments; the tradesperson marketplace package covers quote requests and provider matching; the job board package covers listings paid for by the listing side. This service is the route when your money flow, categories or trust mechanics go beyond what those model, and the proposal states which applies.

How do payments, commissions and payouts work?

Through a provider-independent payment layer with a provider that supports holding and splitting funds. Commission rules are configuration, payouts run on the schedule you set, and refunds, cancellations and chargebacks unwind the split so statements stay correct. Nothing is marked paid from a browser redirect, and webhooks are verified and de-duplicated.

How do you stop the two sides going around the platform?

With design rather than policing: masked messaging until a transaction is confirmed, value on the platform such as protection, reviews and statements, and a dispute process that only applies to transactions made through it. We scope the rules with you; no mechanism prevents every off-platform deal.

Can we launch with one side first?

Often yes. Vendor onboarding and listings can go live before buyer transactions so the platform has supply at launch, and the transaction and payout stages follow. The scope document can phase the build this way if it suits your plan.

Who owns the platform and the data?

You do. Source code, vendor, listing and transaction data are handed over at delivery. Running the platform, with updates, monitoring and backups, is optional and agreed separately under the maintenance and hosting service.

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