Read in-depth review of Magento Marketplace Multi Vendor Module and learn how to build your own Amazon or Etsy like marketplace in minutes.

Magento Marketplace Multi Vendor Module is the premium extension from Webkul that comes with lot of good features to build your mutli vendor marketplace using Magento as a base e-commerce software.This module provides extended functionality to the core Magento to build multi seller/merchant marketplace which does not comes with Magento shopping cart by default.So by choosing the plugin one can have the goodness of Magento and the power of marketplace functionality.

The module provides following core functionalities

• Buyer functionalities
• Seller/merchant Functionalities
• Affiliate promotions(For affiliates) and control(managing affiliate program and affiliates)
• Administrator(site owner) functionalities

Buyers  Functions
The buyer dashboard contains the following functionalities such as

• Address book-To hold the important contacts that the buyer would like to remember
• Order tracking-Tracking the status of the orders that has been placed by the buyer themself
• Shipping profile-Shipping profile information that contains the billing and shipping addresses.
• Product and merchant reviews-Buyer can post review(feedback) on the product that they have purchased and they also provide the rating of the vendor who sells the product.This review will be posted after the approval of the administrator.
• File downloads-This section contains the download link of the digital goods(software,MP3,documents,PDF or any other) if they have purchased already.

Seller Functions

• Seller Dashboard-The seller dashboard is the default landing page what they see,after they login to their control panel.The dashboard contains
• Recent orders-Recent 5 orders that shows the order details of orderID,date,total order amount,order status.
• Profile branding-The best part of this extension is ,it offers best of branding customisation for seller profiles or store.Using this ,the seller can brand their store to suit their preferences so it will looks like ,the products are hosted on their own site and not with the thrid party website.Using the branding options,the vendor can upload their logo,promotional or notification banner,change the background colour(Use colour ticker or input HTML colour code),change the meta title and description of the store.
• Adding new products-The seller can add new products one by one manually or upload the multiple items once using the CSV bulk upload option.When adding the new product,one can find the following fieldsname(name of the product),full description(detailed description of the product,will be shown in the product page),short description(summary of the product,will be used to displayed on category or widget pages),SKU number,Price(original price of the product),special price(special offer price,after discount,the total discount will be calculated by comparing this price with the original price and the software will show the savings automatically in the price section,helps to boost up the sales),special price duration(number of days the special price will be available,after some time the product price will be revert back to the original price),image(image for the product,thumbnail for the product will be created automatically from the uploaded image),stock number(number of quantities that the product available)
• Transaction details-Transaction details shows the transaction ID(unique identification number to identify the particular transaction),date of transaction,amount(total amount of transaction,product price*number of products ordered),product name(name of the product)

Affiliate promotional Functions
The affiliate promotion panel is the common panel which is available for both buyers and sellers (Both of them can promote the marketplace products using the affiliate tools present in the affiliate promotion panel).

The affiliate promotional panel offers the following functionalities such as

• Banner and Text ads-Affiliates can select and use both banner and text which available in the particular section.The creative preview option ,lets the affiliates to preview the creative before using with their channel promotion.
• E-mail campaign-The affiliates can send e-mail campaigns right from their control panel,they can just input the e-mail addresses(e-mail addresses of the recipients or potential buyers),title of the email(e-mail subject),message(body of the e-mail) and press the “Send” button,and the system will sends the email campaign automatically.The “Add Products” option present in the e-mail campaign option,lets you to browse the products and embed with the email message.
• Traffic sources-Affiliates can also monitor the traffic sources from where the traffic is generated.By using the option,the affiliates can optimize their promotion strategy by reviewing the which traffic source converts/works best.
• Sales monitoring-Sales monitoring provide clues about sales generated through their affiliate links in the particular time period.They can view the sales by comparing in the particular time period(Day,week,month,all time).
• Payment processing-Payment method update-Any time,you can update your preferred payment method to receive your affiliate commissions ,you have earned.You can select been the available options(Paypal,Cheque,wire transfer or any other) and receive the incentives.

Administrator Functions

• Administrator Dashboard-The administrator dashboard contains the following
• Last 5 orders,last 5 search terms(search terms that produced the traffic to the marketplace from search engines),life time sales(total sales amount so far from the start of the marketplace),average orders(Average sales order amount),best sellers(best selling products for the particular time period day/week/month),most viewed products(products that viewed higher number of times,new customers(new customers or potential buyers who have subscribed to the marketplace),orders chart(Graphical chart representation of total orders processed in the particular time),amounts chart(Graph chart of total amount of sales income  has been generated in the particular time period)
• Managing products-Any time,the administrator can view the information and approve the product before listed in to the marketplace.This moderation panel lets the administrator have the control of the products has been listed in the marketplace(administrator can disapprove the product,if its found to be ir-relevant for some reasons(copyright violated,adult,pharmaceutical,gambling or any other).The administrator,the product viewing option provides the product details such as ,seller name(name of the seller who list the product),product name(name of the product which is going to be listed),price stock(number of quantity that they product available in stock,status(current status of the product),preview(preview the product image)
• Managing sellers-Administrator can view the seller information and take actions (approve,ban,add to trust) on sellers.The seller information panel provides the following information of the seller like seller name,email(contact email of the seller,mode of payment(seller’s preferred mode of payment),telephone(Telephonic contact information),address(address of the seller),date(when the seller profile has been activated)
• Seller Commissions– Seller commission admin panel lets you to view and change the commissions of the seller,the beauty of the function is ,the module lets the administrator can set different pricing for vendor(less percentage for higher performing vendors).Viewing the control panel provides the following information like ID(Identification number of the particular commission is paid/scheduled),name(name of the seller who receive the commissions),percentage(percentage of commission that was assigned to the particular seller),Total sales(Total number of orders has been generated through the particular vendor),total amount(Total amount of sales has been generated through the particular vendor),a,amount received(Total amount paid so far to the seller),Amount remain(total amount has been pending which has to be paid to the seller),last payment(Date of the last payment has been made to the seller),Pay link(Payment link to initiate/start the pending payment option to the seller).
• Feedback/review management-The feedback management lets the administrator to approve or delete the product review or seller feedbacks comes from the buyers.Administrator can approve ,edit or discard thecomments(if found to be in appropriate or rude).But the tool is not only used for just managing the comment but it also helps to make decisions like removing the seller who have very poor rating or higher negative feedback,otherwise the brand image of the marketplace will be ruined.
• Managing Affiliates-Affiliate management option lets the admin(site owner) to view the affiliate details and their performance.The information can viewed are id(unique affiliate id to identify the particular affiliate,name(Name of the affiliate,clicks(Total clicks generated by the affiliate),unique click(Unique clicks generated by the affiliate),Approved sales(Total number of sales approved for the affiliate links),Pending sales(Total number of sales pending for the affiliate links),balance(Total amount in balance and has to be paid for the affiliate),status(Status of the affiliate ,pending/approved)
• Affiliate creative management-Using this option,administrator can add new creative(banner or text creative),the creative are uploaded and listed with relevant title,description,targeted link,size,so that it can be easily viewed and used by the affiliates.The creative uploaded for the affiliate in the administrator will be available to the affiliate control panel for their usage.
• Commission rates-The addon provide the option for the administrator to configure the commission rate for different promotions such as PPC(pay per click),Unique PPC(Unique Pay Per Click traffic),fixed(Fixed amount for making the sale of the product) or percentage commission(Percentage of commission from the total sales).The administrator also can update the affiliate terms using WHYSIWIG editor and term will be displayed in the affiliate signup form.
• Administrator also can enable or disable the affiliate registration,auto approve affiliates(Enable auto approve or manually approve every affiliates),setting the initial bonus for the affiliate,minimum payout(minimum amount of balance required to process payout),processing date( Default date for every-month to process affiliate incentive)

Exra/Addtional Modules

We have explained all the core module functions offered by this plugin,but we have not finished yet.The core module functionality can be further extended using the following below modules(To obtain the below functions you have to buy this below modules separately)

• Paypal Adaptive Payment-Automatically calculates the seller commision and sends to the multiple sellers at once.
• Custom attribute-Add custom attributes to the products and also to the other required objects
• MarketPlace Seller Order Confirmation / shipping management
• Mass upload-Bulk upload the products to the catalogue using the CSV upload option
• Seller Groups-Group the sellers and assign different privileges,commission percentage
• seller product search-Search the products from the particular seller
• Blog-Create blog and publish blog posts
• Marketplace Seller Auction-Create product auction
• Membership-Offer premium membership for listing the products with the marketplace
• buyer seller chat-Offer live chat between buyer and seller to increase sales
• Advanced Report-Advanced reports to retrive the results using various parameters
• Bundle Product-Bundle the products and offer special pricing(Sales will be boosted by choosing the bundle buying and saving option)
• Daily Deals-Create the products to the daily deals list and promote it,the products are listed everyday with special pricing for increased sales
• Seller List-Seller listing widget for cross promotion in the marketplace
• Seller Locator
• Seller Vacation-Provides notification message while the seller is on vacation(Avoids misunderstanding of buyers ,when they wait for response from the seller while they are in vacation)
• Seller Price Comparison-Comparison of product price with other sellers
• Amazon S3 Downloadable Product-Uploading the downloadable products with Amazon S3 and providing the download link(Saves your website bandwidth)
• Ebay Connector-Import your ebay products to the marketplace(Save time and effort)

Final Review Results

Pros

• Supports both physical and digital goods
• Advanced branding options for vendor profile and stores
• Option to configure different commission percentage for each seller
• Feature rich affiliate promotional channel
• Extend the features to next level using other supported addons.
• Open Source code,customization is breeze

Cons
Seems the pricing($349) is little bit higher for a module(But it won’t be issue if you are serious buyer looking for premium features).

Conclusion
If you are looking to build multi vendor solution on Magento ,then Magento Marketplace is the best in class module available and it’s highly recommended.

Website: Magento Marketplace Website