How much commission should I take?

10-30%, depending on the market. Digital services tend to run 15-20%. Physical goods 20-30%. Some take from sellers, some from buyers, some split it. Undercut established markets slightly to gain sellers.

Do I need a legal agreement with sellers?

Yes. A seller T&Cs that covers liability, intellectual property, dispute resolution, and when they get paid. Standard for any marketplace.

How do I handle payment holds?

Most platforms hold 10-30% of revenue for 7-30 days. Stripe Connect doesn't do this natively, so you need custom logic: Stripe pays you the full amount, you calculate what goes to the seller (minus hold), and pay them on a schedule.

Partially. Review listings before they go live. Flag suspicious activity (too many sales too fast, multiple accounts from one email). Stripe helps with payment fraud. User reviews help spot bad sellers. You can't eliminate it, but you can make it expensive for fraudsters.

What if a customer disputes a charge?

Stripe handles the chargeback. You contact the seller, ask them to resolve it with the customer (refund, replacement). If they don't, you pay the chargeback and ban the seller.

How do I get sellers to join?

Early: recruit them directly (email outreach, partnerships with associations or communities). Mid: make it easy to list (three fields, done). Late: offer incentives (free listings first month, lower commission for top performers).

Software

Multi-Vendor Marketplace Development

A multi-vendor marketplace is a platform where many sellers list products or services, and customers buy from them all in one place. You take a commission, the seller owns their storefront, and the platform connects them.

Think eBay (multiple sellers, one checkout), Airbnb (multiple hosts, one guest experience), Etsy (multiple makers, one marketplace). The platform doesn't own inventory. Sellers do. You take a cut and run the pipes.

When a marketplace makes sense

Most service businesses start with a single-vendor model: you build the thing, you sell it, you own the relationship.

A marketplace is a growth move. You start with a marketplace when:

Other people have the supply you need. You have hundreds of potential sellers (freelancers, agencies, consultants, makers) who would list on you if there was a platform. You can't hire all of them, but you can connect them to demand.
Your customers want choice and comparison. A customer searches, sees ten options, compares price and reviews, picks one. That's more valuable than forcing them to take what one seller offers.
You can take a commission. Sellers get customers they wouldn't have found alone. You take a cut (typically 10-30%). Both sides win.
The marketplace gets more valuable as it grows. More sellers mean more options for customers. More customers mean more attractive listing for sellers. Network effects start.

If none of that is true, a marketplace is overhead you don't need.

The core mechanics

A marketplace needs a few things working together:

Seller onboarding and stores. Each seller has a profile, a storefront, and the ability to list and edit their offering. In some markets (Airbnb), the seller uploads photos and a description. In others (Etsy), they manage inventory and variants.

Customer search and discovery. How do customers find what they need? A search bar and filters, a category browse, or a curation layer (a team picks the best sellers)?

Reviews and ratings. Trust is critical. Customers need to see what others thought. Sellers need to see their rating so they stay honest.

Payments and commission. A customer pays, the platform takes a cut (10-30%), and the rest goes to the seller. Stripe makes this possible. The hard part is deciding when the seller gets paid (immediately, weekly, after a hold period?).

Seller communication. How do sellers contact customers? Direct messaging, automated emails after a purchase, or something else?

Dispute resolution. What happens if a customer doesn't like what they got? A refund process, appeals, and a way for the platform (you) to mediate.

All of that is wired into one product.

The technical architecture

A marketplace is a custom SaaS product. You're building:

Multi-tenant architecture. Each seller's storefront is isolated. Their data doesn't leak to competitors. Their customers see only their listing, not other sellers' stores.
Payment processing. Stripe Connect lets you take a commission. A customer pays Stripe, Stripe sends the seller's cut to them, you keep the commission. Fully managed.
Search and filtering. Usually a database (Supabase PostgreSQL) with full-text search and faceted filters. Fast enough to feel instant.
Reviews and ratings. A database table linking customer reviews to sellers. Sellers can't delete reviews (they can only respond). The platform ensures honesty.
Notifications and messaging. After a purchase, both sides need emails. After a dispute, the platform needs to step in. Make.com or n8n workflows handle most of it; custom code handles the complex bits.

All of that lives on Next.js, React and Supabase, same as any custom SaaS product.

Common challenges

Trust. Why would a customer trust a new marketplace over Amazon or eBay? Usually because the marketplace curates or specializes (only sustainable makers, only freelancers with 10+ years experience, only wine shops).

Seller reliability. A bad seller tanks your reputation. Most marketplaces hold a portion of payment (10-30%) for a week or a month to let customers dispute. That delays the seller's payout but protects customers.

Commission rate. Too high and sellers leave. Too low and you don't make money. Most settle at 15-20% for digital services, 20-30% for physical goods. Some charge both the seller and the customer a fee.

Cold start. Who joins a marketplace with no users? You need both supply and demand from day one. Usually that means seeding it with a few hand-picked sellers or offering a discount to early sellers (free listings, lower commission).

Payments. Stripe Connect is good but has limits. Transaction disputes are common. You'll need a clear policy and a way to handle them fast.

Fraud. Sellers sometimes cheat (fake reviews, stolen images). You need moderation: someone (or an automated system) reviews listings before they go live, and reviews can be flagged as suspicious.

Scale. A marketplace with ten sellers and a hundred customers is manual and fragile. A marketplace with a thousand sellers needs automation, clear rules, and someone (or an AI) moderating disputes. Hiring a head of trust (or contracting it out) becomes critical at scale.

How to build it

Phase 1: Build the core product. Seller onboarding, product listing, customer search, Stripe payment. Basic reviews. Ship it with 5-10 hand-picked sellers.

Phase 2: Talk to sellers and customers. What works? What doesn't? Fix it before you add features. Most early changes are about trust (better reviews, faster payment) or discovery (better search, categories).

Phase 3: Add features that scale. Automated moderation, seller analytics, customer recommendations, marketplace promotions. By this point you should have 50-100 sellers and know what moves the needle.

Phase 4: Growth. Seller recruitment, customer acquisition, expand to new categories or regions. You're running a platform now, not just a product.

Most teams spend 2-3 months on Phase 1, a few months on Phase 2, and then it depends on traction whether Phase 3 happens.

Cost and complexity

A basic marketplace (seller signup, product listing, search, payment, reviews) takes 3-4 months to build. A full-featured one takes longer.

Running it costs: Stripe commission (1-2% on every transaction), Vercel hosting (free to various tiers), Supabase database (free to various tiers depending on scale), and staff (someone to moderate, answer seller questions, resolve disputes).

The hard part isn't the technology. It's the operations: moderation, seller support, dispute resolution, marketing to both sides.

Marketplace vs SaaS product vs business

SaaS product (what you sell, what customers use): Slack, HubSpot, Notion. You own the product, you sell subscriptions.

Marketplace (what sellers sell through): eBay, Airbnb, Etsy. You own the platform, sellers own the supply, customers buy from both.

Marketplace + SaaS hybrid: Upwork sells freelance labour (marketplace) but also sells Upwork Team (a SaaS product that helps teams manage contractors). Both under one brand.

Most platforms start as a SaaS product (one seller, many customers) and grow into a marketplace when they add the ability for others to sell through them.

Next steps

If you're thinking about building a marketplace, start by validating it first. Do you have sellers willing to list? Do you have customers who'd search there? If not, you're building for a problem that doesn't exist yet.

Once you're sure, I can build the technical foundation: multi-tenant seller stores, payment processing, reviews and search. That takes 2-3 months. Then you start the harder work: recruiting sellers and customers, running moderation, and building the network effects.

Ready to explore a marketplace? Book a free call, or message me on WhatsApp, and I'll tell you straight whether it's the right move for your business.

I also build custom SaaS, integrations, and can wire Make.com or n8n workflows to handle seller support and payments automation.