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Have you ever heard of the term multi-vendor shopping cart? If not, how about a multi-vendor marketplace? Do these both mean the same thing? Of course not. But there is a relation between these two terms. So, if you want to know more about a multi vendor shopping cart, you should also understand what a multi-vendor marketplace means.

Shopping Cart
Let’s divide this term, Multi-Vendor Shopping Cart, into two to deconstruct and understand its meaning. We all are familiar with the word shopping cart. It is the usual cart that we see in departmental stores, and a virtual version of it is found across all e-commerce websites. It is basically a space where you can add all the products or services that you would like to avail of and check out all of them together by making a single payment. The second term to know is multi-vendor.

Now, what is a multi-vendor marketplace?
It is a platform which enables different service providers to offer their goods and services. So, multiple customers can use this marketplace to buy products using money, gifting or barter. This multi-vendor marketplace is different from an online store solely because it is a store with multiple sellers, while an online store has only one seller.

Multi-Vendor Shopping Cart – meaning
So when you combine the meanings of both the terms that we discussed earlier, a multi-vendor shopping cart is basically the shopping cart option that is available on the e-commerce website of a multi-vendor marketing place. So, this shopping cart is different from the usual ones because you can add multiple items from different sellers to this cart and pay for everything together.

Do you need to build a multi vendor shopping cart software?
There will be a lot of trends happening in the business landscape but it is on us to decide which will suit our business. Likewise, not all platforms need a multi-vendor shopping cart. So, it is important to understand if you need it. You will have to first decide if your marketplace needs a shopping cart. For instance, if your marketplace is about taxi services where the customer needs to be in person, it doesn’t make sense to have the cart option as there can be only one ride at a time. Sometimes, you can just have a buy now option if you have a marketplace selling expensive pieces and you don’t want people to purchase more than one product in one go.

Likewise, when you own a store and you create a marketplace for your store, it is a single-seller marketplace, which eventually means you can have a shopping cart but there is no need for it to be multi-vendor special. Or if you are running a pick-up and delivery business, like Swiggy, DoorDash or other food delivery platforms, you can use a single-vendor shopping cart, as letting the customers order from multiple vendors makes it difficult for delivery persons to travel to different places for purchase and deliver it, all within a short span. The customer might indeed like the option of ordering from multiple restaurants at once. But it wouldn’t benefit them either, as the delivery time will increase largely.

So when do you need a multi vendor shopping cart?
Suppose the marketplace has several sellers and wants to offer a comfortable user experience for the customers, provided that it’s possible to categorize the purchases based on the sellers and deliver them accordingly. In that case, you shall have a multi-vendor shopping cart. The best example of a multi-vendor shopping cart is Amazon, the world’s largest marketplace. It lets you order from multiple sellers and check out all at once, except for a few rare exceptions.

here post are a few situations which make your marketplace ideal for using a multi-vendor shopping cart.
You expect/know that several buyers will want to purchase goods or services from different sellers at a single time.

Likewise, if you offer a guest checkout and have products from multiple sellers, it is ideal to have a multi-vendor shopping cart for the customers to have a smooth shopping experience. Because when you don’t have that facility, customers availing benefits through guest checkout have to type their details and credit card information every time they purchase a product. This is followed by platforms like eBay.

If you are offering discounts or coupons for purchasing for a specific amount or while buying multiple items, a multi-vendor shopping cart is profitable.

Like Amazon, if your marketplace also manages logistics, it is a big advantage to use a multi-vendor shopping cart.

Challenges in purchasing a multi-vendor shopping cart
There is no new progress without a few challenges or disadvantages. There are a few things you must be concerned about while building a multi vendor shopping cart software. The main thing is that it is a very complex process. If you provide products from different places, you need to consider shipping options, order changes, return products, commissions and a lot more.

Shipping Rates – If it is from two different countries, the shipping rates may vary and you will have to connect with different shipping providers to get it right.

Discount – Most platforms have different discount codes based on the product, price, brand, seller, place or many other categories. So, when two different discounts are offered for two different sellers, it will become complicated for the customer to avail of a discount.

Wrapping Up
There are a lot more other concerns like when a customer wants to change a product, return a product, seller commission on each purchase, the different currency that people would want to pay based on their place, but the sellers use two different currency types and a lot more. However, it is still a beneficial and attractive option to have it in your marketplace if you need it. Therefore, a marketplace should decide how to handle these challenges and have a software algorithm that takes care of all these, to reap the maximum benefit.

Starting a marketplace from scratch is time consuming. By integrating multi-vendor shopping cart software , you can build marketplace similar to amazon, flipcart and other similar ecommerce platforms.

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