Anyone run an multivendor ecommerce site?

I'm pretty new here, isn't the project in my profile?

@antarctican I just read the details of your product https://www.indiehackers.com/product/trailmarkers
WordPress and WooCommerce :)

As Dr Phil used to say, "you don't know what you don't know."

A few things that I feel are shortcomings are:

1. I know my audience quite well. Mostly blue collar workers, mechanically inclined, but not technically inclined. Would prefer to sell their wares in person at live events. Yet at the same time complain frequently that they have trouble keeping inventory records, forgetting orders, etc. which is something my site would solve for them. I need to better appeal to them using guided tours of my site, perhaps short how-to videos, etc.
2. My customers are not marketers. The typical best they do is put a fb post up that they have some tee shirts for sale. No website, no webstore, no business cards, nothing. Not only will buyers be attracted to my store because of the content, but I actively market for my site and all the stores in it, so that they can make more sales. I do not yet have a simple way of expressing that in plain language.
3. My frontpage is ghastly. I haven't decided yet where I want to move the design, product placement, etc, but for that I need more products to sell, and am working on that for my own store. But in the meantime am looking for inspiration on other sites.

I'm sure there are other shortcomings and areas of improvement. I thought this would be a great place to start that kind of dialog. Thanks for sharing your site!

Kind regards

Wow very nice site! Your /vendi-su-kareeba/ (How does it work?) page is fantastic. I have nothing even close to that. It answers the questions, What's in it for me? What does it cost for me to open a store? How do I get paid?

Like me, you don't have a lot of product on your site. I am working to add more products by having meetings with local product producers. I've been finding them in facebook local buy and sell groups. I am currently in negotiations with a few of them. If you can, try to chat with these type of people and help them walk through the benefits of selling on your store.

I noticed you are asking 15% commission, with free membership. I'm asking $10 a year + 2% commission for my lowest paid plan. The reason behind my pricing plan is that I have a free plan (no fee no commission, max 10 products) that they can try the site with. Even if they keep the free plan forever and only sell 6 items, that's okay as it brings in more eyes on all the products in all the other stores too. I wanted a minimal $10 / year because I wanted sellers to think of it as an annual commitment, enough so that they spend some time maintaining their store, but not enough to be a barrier to opening a store. I also wanted to keep the commission low as possible so they would choose my store instead of going to etsy or shopify which cost more.

I agree it is not easy when working alone. I have a day job and other projects, so one has to work wisely with time. Good luck, and keep in touch!!

I monetize it by (1) having my own store on it selling my own products, and (2) a $10/yr + 2% commission on other stores' sales (better than etsy wink)

see below, thanks for responding!