eBay is a huge auction site that connects B2B and B2C sectors, which means that both businesses and individuals might sell their products and services to other businesses and individuals. As a result, people and companies might find required goods and services online, choosing the most affordable variant to purchase. Truly, it is easier to find the best price when the website works like an auction, and the easiness of the process of finding the best price plays a huge role in the popularity of eBay and eBay-like websites. Let's see how to build a website like eBay.
Why Build A Website Like Ebay?
Auction-like commerce has always been popular but today, it is being replaced with auction-like websites. The online auction has got much more benefits when compared with physical one, including but limited to the no need to be present physically in the area and the ability to sell virtually anything, from a bookshelf to an exquisite decoration. Thus the aim of the auctions is to help a seller to find a buyer.
With the auction or the auction-like website, you don’t own any product with the auction site, so the sales are really random, going from one sale to another, and never bothering about setting up a business. So, most of the time, auctions like eBay and other eBay-like websites are developed due to a hobby and are easily scaled up, using modern means of platforming and digital connections.
Two Business Models Of Online Auction Software Like Ebay
When the auction website is created, there are always several principles to build on. The two most often used are fixed bids and allowed bidding. The fixed-bid approach means that the price is set by a seller and buyers cannot really set the price, nor they can increase the price. Another approach is to allow bidding aka increasing the price according to the bids of the buyers. This means that the prices of the items are going to be raised by buyers, and the item is going to be sold to the buyer with the highest bid.
During the auction, the personalities of bidders are often hidden, so software needs to set up a confidential connection and store personal information safely, to avoid a data breach. The choice of the model is always up to you, but the bidding attitude is going to provide a higher revenue, while it also requires more of the technical part and elaborate coding.
How To Create An Online Marketplace Like Ebay
When you are thinking about creating a marketplace similar to or close to eBay, there is a need to consider a lot. Practically, the quickest way to set up an auction site like eBay is to use Magento or another eCommerce platform. Choosing the correct platform will help a lot with scaling and developing the website in the future. Also, make sure you know your competitors, have our competitive advantage, and have a reliable domain to excel in.
Find your specific niche to overcome huge competition
Think about your competitive advantages in the market. Today, eCommerce websites face enormous competition, so you will need solid advantages to be seen and noticed. The idea to target multiple markets sounds good as well, but in this case, the investment in website development should be huge. Instead, it is easier to start with a specific narrow niche that allows you to promote your products quickly and ensures the development of your brand.
Choose a monetization strategy
When thinking about advantages and revenues, you will need to choose a monetization strategy. There are several most popular strategies that show where you and your partners are going to make money:
- A commission-based model that is based on taking a commission from every transaction that takes place on the platform. Usually, it is a strategy that vendors like because they do not have to pay anything until they have real revenue. Also, when you take a commission from transactions, you develop trust in yourself as a credible website owner because you are interested in more transactions made, and both sellers and customers see that.
- A membership fee model is based on the idea to take a monthly fee for a partnership. At this point, you need to decide whether your customers, sellers or both pay a fee. In this case, you are going to have a stable income on a monthly basis but customers and\or sellers are going to be discouraged to become members. Therefore, a fee-based membership is a good option for auction websites that have their own strong reputation or for those platforms that trade expensive items.
- A listing monetization model is based on the idea to provide the sellers access to a large audience. At this point, those sellers that want to publish their items on the list are going to pay for listings. So, the model is a good fit for those companies that need access to a lot of people or for smaller businesses that are only starting their development. Anyway, a stable income is very hard to achieve with the listings payment model.
- A freemium model is developed to attract customers and sellers to the auction and get paid only for advanced tools and features.
- An ad-business model is based on the idea to earn from showing ads. However, to make it work, you will need a huge base of customers so that the ads are watched by many people. It is often that the ad-business model is combined with others.
Come up with an idea of solving the chicken and egg problem
The basic idea here is to think about what comes first: the sellers or the consumers. The party that is more important for the business should be granted better conditions and invited first. Practically, there are several ways out when it comes to solving the chicken and egg problem:
- Engage specific target audience first
- Consider the audience that is most difficult to acquire and invite it first
- Acquire the most important audience first
- Promote the website through live performances
- Make a deal with a celebrity or several celebrities
Just think a bit about the audiences you want to engage and the best ways to do that.
Select a reliable domain
When it comes to creating the auction website, there is a need to choose a reliable domain that allows to promote and develop the website, engaging more sellers and buyers. AT this point, there is a need to choose the most appropriate name. Naming is important because you are going to need the name for your business to showcase the most important aspects of your business. A name for a business should be catchy and representational, short, and including keywords important for the target audience.
Define the key features
When starting a business, it is important to define the key features so that your audience is well-engaged. For example, for eBay-like websites, it is important to have the next features:
- Safe and secure authorization process
- Rich product catalog
- Detailed product descriptions
- Well-managed admin dashboard
- Convenient product search
- Nice shopping cart
- Multiple payment gateways
- Special features and promotional campaigns
Choose An Ecommerce Platform
All those important features are easier to implement when they are supported by the eCommerce platform. When thinking about building an auction-like website, there is a need to carefully consider the choice of the platform because you are going to need a variety of tools to make an eBay-like website work well.
When building an eBay-like website, there is a need to consider a platform that works with multiple vendors. Today, a Magento multi-vendor platform is the best choice for setting up a multi-vendor eCommerce website. The biggest advantage of the Magento platform is building scalable marketplaces with a set of powerful tools that are very handy when it comes to developing the website even more.
How Much Does It Cost To Build Website Development Services Like Ebay?
As usual, the cost of the project depends on the number of necessary features. The more features you want to develop, the costlier is going to be the website. Moreover, the more complex the features, the more effort and more financial investment the website development is going to make. A rough estimate for developing features for the eBay-like website looks like the following:
- More than 300 hours of project management
- More than 400 hours of business analysis
- More than 500 hours of the UX design
- More than 700 hours of the UI design
- More than 500 hours of quality assurance
- Almost 800 hours of CSS and HTML development
- Almost 2000 hours o backend development
- More than 1500 hours of frontend development
Therefore, the cost of the project depends on the hourly rate of developers. At this point, when it comes to minimizing the costs of website development, there is a need to consider the hourly rates of developers in different countries.
For example, a developer expects to be paid on average:
- $45 per hour when he or she lives in Central or Western Europe
- $43 per hour when he or she lives in any Scandinavian country
- $27 per hour when he or she lives in any Eastern European country
- $26 per hour when he or she lives in Ukraine.
Conclusion
Obviously, developing an eBay website is a long and costly venture. However, the project might bring a lot in return. When it comes to minimizing the price of developing the eBay-like website, the best idea is to address Ukrainian developers. For example, the SOFTLOFT company is happy to offer the services of development and support, so if you are still thinking about the ways to develop your project but never considered it real, just contact us. We will help to implement your plans and get the best possible auction website.
