How Will An App Like eBay Function In The Market?

Challenges Of Building An App Like eBay

There can be a lot of challenges one has to face while building an app like eBay. A few of them are discussed below:

Chicken & Egg Problem

You must have heard about the world-famous question – what came first, the chicken or the egg? Similar to this, the question is raised – which comes first, the buyers or the sellers? The problem is bringing two kinds of consumers to the competition at the same time. The price system is one solution. You may, for example, charge sellers but provide free services to buyers. This approach would inspire shoppers to participate. You’ll have more vendors on board if you have more customers.

Fierce Competition

eBay, Amazon, Alibaba, etc. are one of the huge marketplaces in the world. To be ahead of them in the game is a difficult task but one can always try to be on the competitive edge. Smart marketers advise choosing a niche, or selecting an untapped consumer segment and pouring resources into conquering it, to achieve a competitive edge.

In a competitive world, a niche marketplace focused on a narrow category of goods or services is a viable direction. For example, Etsy. It is a marketplace for handmade and antique goods and supplies. Its artists are mostly independent female that delivers products that are not mass-produced. 

Complicated Navigation

The primary goal of an eCommerce design is to improve navigation, shorten the road to purchase and make it as simple as possible for consumers to purchase products. A well-considered UI/UX architecture will effectively turn visitors into shoppers and boost sales.

Consider UI/UX logic and transformations to do this, and make sure the micro-interactions are quick and straightforward. Concentrate on traffic conversion, a simple payment process, and other sales funnel elements.

Features To Include In An App Like eBay

Features and functionalities are a major part of a mobile app as they determine how the app will function in the marketplace. The basic features that must be included in your app like eBay are described below:

• Authorization Process: The authorization process is responsible for categorizing the users into sellers and buyers by analysing the information provided by them (name, email, contact, etc.). Vendors set up online shops, list their products, and offer descriptions and information. To buy merchandise, consumers browse for products, read product pages, visit online retailers, and contact suppliers.
• Inventory Management: Inventory management helps in increasing the user experience of sellers and hence, vendors can manage the listings (delete, modify, publish or view). It also helps manufacturers to watch the status of their orders.
• Admin Panel: Administrators are essentially important for handling major operations and solving issues. In an online marketplace app like eBay, an admin panel offers its users the ability to manage the communication between sellers and buyers. 
• Product Search & Page: This functionality provides consumers with a variety of product and service categories. Consumers can conveniently browse and scan for specific objects using advanced filters with this feature. It helps customers to see item descriptions, payment, shipment, and distribution information, as well as contact information for the vendor.
• Live Auctions: Live auctions are one of the key features that will distinguish your app like eBay from its rivals. It allows sellers to set a starting price for their listed item and then encourage potential buyers to position bids. When the auction is over, the inventory is sold to the highest bidder.
• Shopping Cart: Without a shopping cart, an auction app like eBay would be difficult to envision. It allows customers to choose several item choices from various retailers and order them all at once.

• Chat: The chat functionality is integrated into the app that allows users to communicate with the agents to discuss and resolve any issue.
• Payment Method: A standard payment gateway should be integrated with the app so that users can make payments via any method according to their convenience like online payments, plastic cards, net banking, etc. 
• Reviews & Ratings: Buyers will now improve their trustworthiness with the marketplace and its sellers by using the new alternative. As a result, marketplace vendors are motivated to provide outstanding service and maintain a good store rank.
• Analytics: The tool allows suppliers to keep track of their market operation, such as the most popular items, session length, number of views by day, overall sales volume, and so on. A full schema of the key features needed can be found below.

Revenue Model

There can be a lot of ways in which you can earn money from your app like eBay. Some of the best ways are discussed below:

Seller Fees

Sellers are paying fees ranging from 3.5% to 10% of the final selling price. According to Expanded Ramblings, in 2017, eBay managed $88.4 billion in revenues, with seller fees accounting for two-thirds or three-fourths of the company’s revenue.

Insertion Fees

Your app like eBay should charge sellers some amount of fees per category or listing. The number of categories the sellers adds will be proportionally equivalent to the fees he has to pay.

Adding Listings

In eBay, the seller would pay $0.35 per listing if they add more than 50 listings a month. You can consider implementing this technique in your auction app as well.

PayPal Fees

When people use PayPal to send money, eBay earns money from transaction fees. Sellers, for example, incur a 2.9% purchase fee plus a $0.30 transaction fee on the net selling price. In addition, transferring money from a debit or credit card incurs a conversion charge of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. Similar methods can be adopted for your app like eBay.

Advertisement

Your app like eBay would offer the functionality of advertising the products to the sellers. The main method of advertising on eBay is promoted listings. Sellers will use promoted listings to boost an item’s popularity by positioning it at the top of eBay search results. Cost per sale (CPS) advertisement is seen on eBay. This ensures that buyers are not charged with views or clicks that do not lead to a transaction.

How Much Does It Cost To Develop An App Like eBay?

Before starting the development process of your app like eBay, you must understand the budget requirements for this process. The aspects that influence your budget are the features and functionalities included, the technology stack used, the platforms integrated, the developers’ cost and many other things.

But, if you’re wondering how much it costs to construct an app like eBay, the starting point is $30,000. This is just the estimate that can be given before the beginning of the development process, the cost may increase or decrease as per the requirements of your business model

Conclusion

Many developers are drawn to auction app like eBay and want to create their own. It is completely fair because building a good website pays off with a large number of visitors and a high retention rate, resulting in a large profit. It gets much better if you can work with an established custom product development team.

The AppDukaan team has created a number of marketplaces and auction platforms, and we will happily assist you in creating an app like eBay. Let’s talk about how we can transform your concept into a viable product.