Marketplace
Script

Nowadays fast online shopping malls can bring a considerable profit markup and help your business to grow up into a selling giant selling affair like AirBnB, Booking.com, or Amazon. But building your own eCommerce business may seem а rather complicated task. With some help from professionals you can surely manage it.

There are two ways you can opt for when launching a marketplace. You can either write up your own website marketplace script, or choose a professional ready-to-use script such as CS-Cart Multi-Vendor.
Check the best marketplace script

Software overview

CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is a self-hosted open-source solution for online marketplaces.
It comes with a vast variety of features such as user-friendly separate panels for marketplace administrators and vendors; multiple design templates; configurable one-page checkout system; over 70 integrated payment methods; manual and real-time shipping rate calculations; SEO, cross-selling and up-selling tools; export and import of data; mobile application, and many more.

Grow your marketplace

Powerful CS-Cart Multi-Vendor script not only allows you to manage products, orders and vendors of your markeplace, offer your customers discounts and promotions of different types, manage shippings for your sellers, distribute the income between the vendors automatically, and control your sales, but also to grow further—to a huge Enterprise-level marketplace.
There are three editions of CS-Cart Marketplace script:
  • CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Standard
    For small businesses and startups.
    Allows you to launch your marketplace fast and test your ideas.
  • CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Plus
    For medium-sized businesses.
    This edition includes mobile
    application and
    advanced vendor administration tools.
  • CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Ultimate
    For large businesses.
    Offers the functionality for multiple storefronts to build separate branches of your marketplaces for specific regions.
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Simplicity on every step

Though coming with an impressive set of features CS-Cart Multi-Vendor does not require any specific skills or programming knowledge. Admin and vendor panels are quite intuitive and simple to learn, and the script itself is PHP-based, which makes it easier to find a developer if needed.

Benefits of PHP Marketplace

Learn why it is a good idea to use PHP script for marketplaces:
Popular
PHP is a very popular programming language. According to W3Techs, PHP is used by around 79% of all websites. Many huge companies such as Facebook, Etsy, Wikipedia or Slack still use PHP in their architecture.
Lots of developers are familiar with PHP, and love it.
1
Time and money saving
Developing PHP website from scratch may take a lot of money and effort. Using a ready-developed script may reduce the expenses and save your precious time. And your nerves.
2
Strong community-supported
Since 1995, PHP has a huge and loyal community base to support it. There are thousands of tutorials and FAQs for PHP-newbies to help them quickly learn the ropes of programming masterhood.
3
Well-tested and experienced
As PHP has a pretty long developmental history, the main issues has been found and fixed. Now the language is stable and secure, which makes PHP scripts one of the most reliable and easy to maintain.
4

Why Choose CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Script

CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is aimed to help you quickly lanch your marketplace and grow it with no limits
Easy installation
The installation is almost as easy as installing an app on your computer. And we can do it for you.
No-code storefront tools
You can arrange content on your marketplace storefront with drag and drop and edit text on-site.
2,000 add-ons
You don't need a programmer to code a custom feature. Visit our marketplace of add-ons — what you need is most likely there.
Customer care
After you create an online marketplace, you will probably have questions about its configuration. We are here to give you the answers. Learn more about our customer care.
Create a free demo
Features of CS-Cart PHP
Marketplace Script
CS-Cart has all the essential features for starting and even more advanced features for growing your business.
Vendor management
Build marketplace that will be convenient for your sellers: offer an easy-to-use vendor panel, payout options, communication and marketing tools.
Marketing kit
Boost your sales and let sellers sell more with promotions, cross-sell and upsell tools, loyalty programs, and more.
Global eCommerce
Scale your business globally: use over 26 built-in translations, multiple currencies and multiple storefronts to build marketplace website for the customers from worldwide.
Convenient money distribution
Choose the payout method that suits you best: take all the money and pay out to sellers, let sellers receive all the money and pay out to you, or split money for every order automatically in real time.
How to Build a Marketplace with CS-Cart
There are eight essential steps you want to go through when launching your marketplace
1
Plan your business model
Choose a business segment (B2C, B2B or C2C), monetization model (subscription plans, tranzaction fees or freemium), and shipping model (fulfillment or delivery by sellers)
2
Start the marketplace MVP
MVP is a minimum viable product. It allows you to test waters and not waste money and time excessively. Another key to start an MVP is speed. You have to start really fast to be ahead of your competition and understand if it's worth growing further.
3
Fill your catalog with products
There are two ways you can fill the catalog to your marketplace. Either create them one-by-one, or—if you have a massive amount of products—upload them in bulk using the import tool.
4
Decide on the basic marketplace flow
Set up the necessary functionality—decide which features you need and set up the right settings. Add missing features using the CS-Cart Marketplace of add-ons and themes.
At this stage, avoid playing around with the design—you'll get to it later.
5
Set up the marketplace design
When setting up the marketplace design, pay attention to two major components: looks and layouts. The former is all about the appearance of the storefront. The latter is more about the user experience.
It is also important to find a software that allows you to set the design with no coding at all. CS-Cart Multi-Vendor's flexible design tool and the ability to edit design on-site allow you to do that.
6
Set up payment and shipping methods
Choose the money flow model for your marketplace: all the money goes to the marketplace owner, and then are distribured between them manually; all the money goes directly to the sellers, and then they pay the admin their share; all the money are split automatically using the payment systems.
The shipping methods will depend on the shipping model you chose earlier.
7
Prepare legal documents
There are some legal stuff you want to be done befory your marketplace is officially working. These are, for instance: marketplace terms and conditions; marketplace private policy; website terms of use; return and shipping policy, etc.
8
Start attracting sellers and customers
The most tricky part of launching a marketplace. Where to find sellers? Try industry exhibitions and conferences, offline industry forums, business directories, hobby clubs, trade associations, offline stores, workshops, and LinkedIn.
Where to find buyers? Take a look at the social media, communities, blogs, offline meetings.
Build your marketplace now
Marketplace Pricing
Check out the prices for CS-Cart Marketplace script
Standard
$699/yr
or $1,450/one-time
  • 500+ essential features
  • No-code UI
  • 45 days of free support
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Plus
$3,500
one-time
Everything in Standard, and:

  • Mobile app
  • 6 extra features for vendor administration
  • Over 70 payment methods for vendors
  • 90 days of free support
Buy now
Ultimate
$7,500
one-time
Everything in Plus, and:

  • Multiple storefronts
  • Warehouses
  • Mobile app source code
  • Conversion-centered design theme Unitheme
  • 180 days of support
Buy now
Enterprise
Contact us
Best for SMEs and Enterprises
Read more
Everything in Ultimate, and:

  • SLA, NDA
  • VIP customer care
  • Prod/Dev environment
  • Highload infrastructure
  • Access to the development repository
Contact us

CS-Cart Marketplace Platform Rating

Our eCommerce marketplace platform is highly-rated software to build digital marketplace websites. It has an average rating of 4.75 out of 5 stars on the most popular business software review platforms in the software industry: SourceForge, Capterra, G2, TrustPilot, and others.
Create your marketplace with CS-Cart Multi-Vendor

FAQ

Need help? Here are the top questions asked by our Subscribers
Can I change the code to suit my customisation needs?
Of course, you can. CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is a flexible open source solution that allows you to customize it yourself, or hire a developer for the customization. You can easily find the developer in the list of our authorized partners on the CS-Cart Marketplace of add-ons and themes website.
If there is any bug in the functionality of the script, then whom should I approach?
If you find a bug in the default CS-Cart Multi-Vendor script, you can always contact our Customer Care team via Help Desk. No matter if your subcription is active, we fix bugs on the lifetime basis.
Will you support my project after it goes live?
There is a free support period included in every CS-Cart Multi-Vendor edition. During that period you can always contact out Customer Care engineers to seek for help with the product. And even if your subscription is already expired, feel free to contact us via the CS-Cart forum or the bug tracker.
Can I hire your team for customizing my app or for building a full custom application?
We can only help you with a minor CS-Cart customization. For a full customization you'll have to approach one of our authorized partners.
Do you accept payments in installments?
No, we don't.
Do I have to put your name on my website?
If you want to build a white-label marketplace, you definitely should consider Multi-Vendor Plus, Ultimate or Enterprise. In this case you do not have to put our name on your website.
Which version of PHP is needed to run the script?
Mostly, it is PHP version 7.1. If you want to use newer versions of PHP, take a look at the CS-Cart system requirements first.