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21 Comments

Marketplace building platform alternatives to ShareTribe?

Hi 👋

Looking to build a marketplace so looking for a great platform to use!

ShareTribe is an excellent one and would’ve been my first choice but they’re not very affordable for me currently- starts at $99/month or $79/month on annual subscription. Shopify is $29/month in comparison but I know ShareTribe is scratching a much bigger itch.

Looking for an affordable, simple platform, preferably No-Code and also powerful!

Thank you 😊

  1. 1

    You could use Webflow as a manual marketplace to start and then once you need users to login to their own accounts you could add on a multivendor marketplace solution like Tangram .co that manages user authentication and payments.

  2. 2

    I believe there are a few Shopify plugins for this: https://apps.shopify.com/multi-vendor-marketplace

    1. 1

      Thanks for sharing I’ll have to check this out. Last I knew people weren’t really raving about Shopify’s marketplace capabilities because it’s only through these apps and their not even by Shopify. It would be great if they had a powerful marketplace option like their usual, worth a look though.

  3. 2

    Hey I'm glad you asked this because I'm on the same boat! There are just too many options out there to choose from–Webflow, WordPress, Bubble.io, and ShareTribe to name a few 😅

    1. 1

      Hey Alvin, that's cool!
      Before posting this I really didn't know there was anything else out there except ShareTribe and Wordpress (Woocommerce) :/ Thanks for adding Webflow to the list didn't know they had Marketplace capabilities.

      If you find any more please let me know, I'm testing out the best platform right now for the criteria posted ;)

      1. 2

        Someone at Webflow's No Code Conference shared how he built a marketplace using Webflow. Here's the link to the presentation https://webflow.com/nocodeconf/session/how-to-build-a-marketplace-without-code

        After doing some research on Webflow, it seems like you'd need third party extensions such as Memberstack.io, Foxy.io, Airtable, etc to make a fully functioning marketplace. I haven't done much research on Sharetribe but it looks like it's a one-stop place for marketplace.

        How's your experience been?

        1. 1

          This is awesome!! Thank you so much ✨

          With sharetribe it’s been the same for me, it’s got great capabilities and is basically the Shopify if Marketplaces so would definitely be my first choice if the funds were there. I mean no extensions required, just design and launch with 24/7 support if anything goes wrong. It’s great but again, it’s the price for me.

          I don’t mind putting some manual labour in to build something great and functional on a platform that’s more affordable. And I already like Webflow and have familiarity with It so it’s not much of an issue for me to shop around and learn to build on other platforms. Just wanna know what’s out there and what options we have in this market because of course there are a lot of options for D2C but when you want to build a platform B2B2C there’s a lot less resources, although it’s picking up the pace. We’ll see how it goes anyway, thanks again for this info on webflow I’ll check it out and check back in! 😊

  4. 2

    I would certainly stay away from Wordpress. After the last couple of updates they have really messed up a lot of sites with some significant changes to the core program. One of the problems of open source software. Its other major problems are going to be its dependency on plugins which in turn add to security vulnerabilities. Your website will also see significant speed degredation once it has multiple users and lots of products. Google Wordpress speed and security issues.
    I would opt for bubble.io. Its a no code platform that is easy to get to grips with and there are full template sites for varying applications including a marketplace already available. Security and speed are not an issue as it runs on Amazons web servers.

    1. 1

      This is good to know -thank you. I'll try out bubble.io and I understand what you mean about the open source software being a headache sometimes when changes occur. It can be hit or miss.

      Don't want any security vulnerabilities and especially no crashes so something that's easy to build, affordable, powerful and with a good capacity would be it!

  5. 1

    Thanks for sharing the same. I believe you can look for Yo!Rent platform which is quite powerful. This is having a lot of capabilities such as multilingual, multicurrency, RFQ management, Agreement management & e-sign. For more you can have a look at the website as a reference: https://www.yo-rent.com/

    1. 1

      Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation on this, looks great :)

  6. 1

    Pory.io is affordable and simple compare to others. For robust and flexible solution webflow and Bubble are better choice.

  7. 1

    ShareTribe is pretty expensive, Shopify though a bit limited is good and stable. It's a single merchant by default by I think they have plugins for multi-vendor.

    For multi-vendor marketplace you have several options in WordPress, some of the plugins I have researched are https://wclovers.com and https://wedevs.com/dokan.

  8. 1

    Hey Mia,
    It's been roughly 2 months now and I wondered if you had eventually picked a no-code tool. Are you going with Bubble, Webflow, Tabbli, else, if I may ask? And what made you pick one over the others?
    Cheers

    1. 1

      Hi Moxion, It's been a year since this message but I've gone with Bubble for most things but I also use Webflow too. WF has more interactivity and template options to me and isn't something you have to entirely build from scratch, whilst Bubble is more geared towards building yourself and actually being able to build on technical skills. That's how I see it anyway. They're both great though. Hope that helps :)

  9. 1

    I built one out of Wordpress (free to self host) and woocommerce (also free). Other than monthly hosting, you can pretty much run it at very little cost other than time to maintain (regular backups, updates, etc) it.

    1. 1

      Hi! Do you mind sharing the website? I am also interested in building a marketplace. Which plugin did you use? I heard of Webkul as the to go plugin.

    2. 1

      Thanks for the info :)
      Did you have to have any specific skills to build it? And how long did it take you to do that roughly?

      1. 1

        You should have some knowledge of Wordpress, and wordpress security. It probably took me about a week to get the skeleton up and running, and another week to get it to a useable state. Like everything, it's a work in progress, but it works solid.

        1. 1

          Awesome 👌 Thanks for this info, it’s good to see a time-line too, really appreciate it!

  10. 0

    marketcube.io looks pretty good as data and logic layer but if I remember correctly you need to build your own frontend, unlike with systems such as sharetribe

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