Decision guide
Ecommerce store or marketplace: which one are you actually building?
The short answer: if you own the stock, you need a store. If other people sell through you and you earn from their sales, you need a marketplace. Everything else is detail, but the detail is where budgets go wrong, because a marketplace costs more than a store and takes longer to build.
We have built both — WooCommerce, Shopify and custom stores (one of them shipping from multiple designers) and two full multi-vendor marketplaces — so this is written from the build side, with the case studies linked.
Updated · Figures from our published rate card
The difference in one table
The platform is not the difference. The difference is who controls the catalogue, who ships, and who gets paid.
| Online store | Multi-vendor marketplace | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the stock | You | Each seller |
| Who lists products | Your team | Sellers, through their own login |
| Who ships | You, from one place | Each seller, often separately |
| How you earn | Margin on your products | Commission, listing or subscription fees |
| Extra you have to build | Nothing structural | Seller onboarding, verification, seller dashboards |
| Build cost (our rate card) | ₹4,000–₹4,600 (WooCommerce) · ₹50,000–₹1,15,000 (custom) | Platform band, ₹50,000–₹1,82,400 |
| Typical timeline | 2–5 weeks | 4–14 weeks |
| Our examples | DeeToo, Samaraha, Krushi Doctor | TatVivah Trends, MariBiz.ai |
The middle option most people miss
There is a step between the two that is much cheaper than a marketplace: a store with several suppliers, where you control the listings but products ship from wherever they are made. Vashtara Heaven works like this. Kidswear comes from independent designer studios and each studio dispatches its own orders, but the designers do not have logins or a seller dashboard.
The hard part there is not software. It is telling the buyer, before checkout, that one order may arrive in more than one package, so it reads as the model working and not as a broken order. We put that explanation in the FAQ and policy pages rather than burying it in the terms.
If you are not sure sellers will want to manage their own listings, start here. You can build seller self-service later once you know the demand is there.
You need a marketplace if…
Sellers need to add and edit their own products without asking you. On TatVivah Trends, individual sellers list and manage their products independently, with admin oversight and verified-seller badges. That self-service is exactly what separates a marketplace from a store with suppliers.
Buyers need to compare sellers, not just products. On MariBiz.ai, shipowners send a request for quote and compare responses from verified vendors at a given port. A store has no concept of that.
Trust between strangers is the product. Both marketplaces we built put vendor verification in from day one, because a marketplace where buyers cannot tell good sellers from bad ones does not survive its first bad order.
You need a store if…
You make or buy the products yourself and ship them. That covers most D2C brands we work with: textiles, fashion, agri inputs, solar products, gifting. A store is faster to launch, cheaper to run, and you control every product page.
You want to test demand before you build more. A store gets you selling in weeks. A marketplace only works once you have both sellers and buyers, and building for both at once is the most common way these projects stall.
Questions to settle before you ask for a quote
How do sellers get paid? Either the platform collects payment and pays sellers out, or sellers are paid directly. That choice changes the payment integration and what you are responsible for, so decide it with your accountant before the build is scoped, not after.
Who handles returns when two sellers are in one order? Who is the buyer's point of contact? What does a seller agree to when they sign up? These are policy questions, but each one becomes screens and logic, and each unanswered one adds weeks to a marketplace build.
Both, built and live
TatVivah Trends
A multi-vendor wedding-wear marketplace with 3,000+ products, verified seller badges, Razorpay payments and occasion-based filtering: haldi, mehendi, sangeet.
Read the TatVivah Trends case studyMariBiz.ai
A B2B marine procurement marketplace built around a request-for-quote engine, listing 3,226+ vendors across 121 service categories with port-based discovery.
Read the MariBiz.ai case studyDeeToo
A single-brand-owner store: 12 brands of mobile accessories across 8 categories on WooCommerce, with pan-India cash on delivery.
Read the DeeToo case studyFrequently asked questions
- What is the difference between an ecommerce store and a marketplace?
- In a store you own the stock and sell it. In a marketplace other sellers list and ship their own products, and you earn a commission or fee. A marketplace needs seller onboarding, verification and seller dashboards that a store does not.
- How much more does a marketplace cost than a store?
- On our rate card a custom-coded store is ₹50,000–₹1,15,000 and a marketplace sits in the Platform band, ₹50,000–₹1,82,400. A WooCommerce store starts at ₹4,000–₹4,600.
- Can I start as a store and become a marketplace later?
- Yes, and it is often the right order. Start as a store with several suppliers, like Vashtara Heaven, and add seller self-service once you know sellers want it.
- Can WooCommerce or Shopify run a marketplace?
- Both can handle multiple suppliers, and Vashtara Heaven runs multi-vendor dispatch on Shopify. Full seller self-service, verification and seller dashboards need more than a plugin: TatVivah Trends pairs a custom Next.js front end with a WooCommerce back end, and MariBiz.ai is fully custom.
- How long does a marketplace take to build?
- Typically 4–14 weeks from content sign-off, against 2–5 weeks for a custom store. The written quote names one delivery window after scoping.
Time to Stop Scrolling, Let's Book a meeting and discuss it!
We're here to listen. Book a meeting with our team to discuss your vision,
explore possibilities, and start creating something.