eCommerce software

Wordpress is a nightmare for any decent business and if you add on woo commerce, Shopify or big commerce you will have a constant issue with syncing both platforms and unless you are ok with this going in, I would avoid at all costs and try and get as much of what you need under one roof.

This is simply untrue. Some extremely large businesses use WordPress and WooCommerce, and it's the most common site and eCommerce platform out there. WooCommerce gives you the flexibility that Shopify doesn't, at the expense of having to own the complete solution. Shopify is great for hands-off, 'someone else's problem' ownership but you'll loose out on the features WordPress gives you out of the box e.g. Theme, Blog etc.

The issue is people don't invest in their eCommerce platforms and spend the least amount of money to keep them operational. Instead of doing it right for €5k at the start, they give someone €500 on Fivver and then wonder why they have problems from the get go.

Shopify and WooCommerce are equally great platforms, but they serve different needs and have different strengths. It's categorically untrue, and foolish, to try do everything under one roof as you simply won't be able to do.

Wix and Squarespace can be ruled out almost immediately as they are not at a serious business level.

I think the choice comes down to whether you want to mange your own hosting and infrastructure or have that done for you.

Wordpress/WooCommerce will require a lot of management.

Protelos01 wrote: »

As said, managing Wordpress/woo is a nightmare and you can double the headache with adding a marketplace.

It literally isn't, stop making baseless claims or at the very least support them with facts. Hundreds of thousands of stores run Woo, we run it at $1m+. In the same manner, others run Shopify.

Neither is a nightmare. It's what you make of it.

Hard to answer this with certainty without more information. Some good replies already. Sounds like you're trying to build what one might term a B2B2C solution.

Wix, Squarespace - brochureware sights and one man and his dog operations. I doubt this will meet the needs.

Shopify - an eComm B2C SAAS product, a more serious one man and his dog operation to be run by a DIY'er, and smaller organisations that are growing their eCommerce. It would in theory scale very well, but as they take a % it becomes cost prohibitive after a while. There is an enterprise version, but is expensive. Maybe there's add on's for multi vendor, but I can't imagine they are too dominant in the market. Shopify is a great product for a specific set of needs. However, it is limited in what you can do so if you're requiring something off script, it's very difficult and expensive to do. Overall a great product, but you need to stay on script.

Wordpress/Woo - an extremely impressive platform in terms of capabilities. There is unlikely to be anything in Wordpress that you can't do. However, it is not for a DIY'er - You will need either in house web development capabilities or access to 3rd party support. Yes, a hobbyist can mess around with it, but the results will only ever be average.

Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud etc. you need €€€€€

The suggestion from Protelos01 of the affiliate site could be a very good one.

My own view, if the skills aren't available in house and you don't have the investment to build something, I'd be inclined to think the idea won't be successful. Marketplaces are complex. There's a steep learning curve to sell effectively on the web with a new brand - building the solution is only the start, the real costs come in maintenance, promotions, graphic design, marketing and operations. Realistically, are you going to enter a market you don't understand to compete against hundreds of thousands who do? You'll need a very strong USP and a decent budget. Lots of people are getting into online now with grants etc. where realisically most of them won't be a success unfortunately. I've even seen big brands trying to maintain their existing supply chain with fudged B2B2C solutions which in the main are never superior to a B2C product.

Customers are selfish and greedy now, they want the cheapest product with the least hassle, as quickly as possible. They won't tolerate mediocre sites that look bad, work bad, and don't offer them low priced products where they can easily go elsewhere with the click of a button. That's not to say your idea can't be a success, but I would be concerned that you're going into a space where you don't appear to have much insight or support. Thread carefully.