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Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at codica.com

How to create an auction marketplace website like eBay

We know eBay as a global e-commerce leader offering its customers millions of items in practically all product categories.

What does it take to build a similar platform?

At Codica, we have published a step-by-step guide on how to create a website like eBay.

In this post, we will take a closer look at the core functionality for a similar website and discuss the technology stack required for its implementation.

What is eBay about?

eBay is an online multi-vendor marketplace connecting buyers and sellers within the B2C and C2C sectors. In other words, it is a medium where vendors place their goods and shoppers purchase them online.

Below you can see the research by Statista showing how the annual net revenue of eBay has been changing over the past six years.

The history of eBay

In 1995 a computer scientist Pierre Omidyar wrote code for a page AutionWeb on his personal website. It allowed users to list various items for auction.

That is how the pilot version of eBay looked like:

By the end of 1998, eBay had 2.1 million users and generated $750 million in revenue.

The key functionality for a website like eBay

It would be a big mistake to implement all functionality at once. Instead, you need to focus on the very basic features that help you gain first users. These primary options include sign-in/up, product listing and page, search feature, checkout process, and admin panel.

As your online marketplace grows, you can improve the user experience for both parties by adding such features as:

  • Authorization process
  • Inventory management
  • Admin panel
  • Product search
  • Product page
  • Shopping cart
  • Chat
  • Multiple payment gateways
  • Reviews and ratings
  • Analytics.

What technologies required to build a website like eBay?

eBay is a website with diverse functionality. You will need lots of different tools and technologies to implement it.

Let’s define what programming languages, frameworks, and integrations can come in especially handy.

  • Back-end

When it comes to server-side, choose the most advanced and modern tools since they allow building a scalable, maintainable, and sustainable product. For example, we prefer using Ruby, Ruby on Rails, ElasticSearch, Redis, i18n gem, MySQL, Sidekiq.

  • Front-end

As for the client-side, your main task is to offer customers a brilliant web application by providing both high performance and stability. We are sure that such technologies for front-end development as HTML5, CSS3, JS, React, Vue.js, Angular will be a good help.

  • Tools and integrations

You should create an efficient development process and pick a suitable hosting service. To succeed, take a look at the next tools: AWS S3, GitLab, GitHub, Slack, Digital Ocean.

Conclusion

Online marketplace development can be a tall order, especially if you are building a platform with diverse functionality similar to eBay. However, we are sure that our guide will help you grasp the basics of creating a similar auction website.

For further reading on the subject, please check our full article: How to create an auction marketplace website like eBay.

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