An online or ecommerce marketplace is a website that provides products and inventory from third party businesses and individuals. Transactions are displayed and processed by the marketplace, while the retailers and wholesalers provide the products or services. Online marketplaces can be cost-effective for wholesalers and retailers because they provide all the needed infrastructure to displaying and selling there products such as hosting, payment gateway and fees. A well known example of a Marketplace is Etsy which allows small business to sell handmade items, another is Amazon, a Marketplace that allows business to sell their products by using Amazon’s infrastructure.
There are several types of eCommerce marketplaces:
- Auction sites – These sites include Ebay and Qbids.
- Classified sites – These sites include Ebay Classifieds and Craigslist.
- Third Party Web Stores – These sites include Amazon and Overstock.
Cminds provides a Magento® Extension that converts a regular Magento® store into a full process multi-store marketplace.
