Godno: development of a marketplace for small businesses and handmade sellers

Story of the marketplace website and mobile app development aimed at organizing convenient sale of designer items from local brands, artisans and small manufacturers.

What was the client’s request?

• Easy and fast registration for sellers, taking into account the necessary checks and verifications;
• Transparent services with no hidden commissions;
• Original catalog design;
• Secure transactions between buyers and sellers;
• Competent distribution of payments between all participants.

As e-commerce marketplaces developers we organize convenient and transparent mechanics of interaction between sellers and buyers, as well as other features of the platform – from filling the catalog with goods to reviews and receiving payments.

The first release of the website and app took place in October 2024. The Godno catalog now includes:

• 3216

  Number of goods in the catalog

• 297

  Number of sellers

Dmitry, co-founder of the Godno project, came to us after reading our article about the peculiarities of creating and developing an ideal marketplace website. The request sounded like this: “I want a beautiful and aesthetic marketplace, but I don't understand how it should work”.

To turn a cool idea into a real project, you need an experienced team that not only works to specifications, but also understands the business goals, can suggest the right solution, and conversely, can talk you out of complex product architectures and unnecessary integrations. That is why we have accompanied and consulted with the client at all stages of development.

Godno marketplace software development started as a small project, but after the first sprints it was decided to expand the functionality and add more features that competitors didn't have. Together with the client we thought through the logic of the platform, created the first prototypes and wrote the specification.

Such collaborations are part of our core business: dev.family supports startups and companies as a technical partner and offers flexible cooperation formats. We approached the work on Godno with heart and a desire to do everything perfectly. As if we were building a marketplace for ourselves – both as users and as entrepreneurs.

There are a lot of big marketplaces these days and it is quite difficult for newcomers to compete with them. Most of them are focused on resale. This business model assumes that sellers order goods from the same manufacturers and compete on the sites only at the expense of price. Artisans and small manufacturers cannot do this, as they include the full cost of production in the price of their products.

Selling on large sites also involves a lot of bureaucracy and difficulties in organizing sales, delivery configuration and traceability of income. Small businesses don't always have the resources to support all of these processes. As a result, businesses often face fines and marketplace bans.

The Godno project became a custom marketplace development for entrepreneurs and artisans, where they were able to complete the tasks of sales, promotion and communication with customers.

The buyer is authorized via SMS and then interacts with a classic online store – he/she enters the catalog, studies different product categories, finds the necessary items using filters or search.

He can quickly switch between the seller's pages, add goods to the shopping cart or add them to "favorites", clarify necessary details using the built-in online chat and track the status of the order. There is also a blog with news about Godno platform and reviews of must-have products.

Based on the goals of the platform, we created two user roles while building a marketplace app and website:

• A website and an application with a product catalog – for buyers;
• A storefront and full-cycle order processing application – for sellers.

When choosing a business model, we were inspired by Etsy.com, but adapted it to the local market needs.

For sellers, we have added more complex and interesting functionality while creating a marketplace app and website with a focus on maximizing convenience.

Two categories of sellers can register on Godno:

• Individuals and self-employed – small manufactories and artisans, who only need to provide their full name, email and phone number, provide copies of their passport, and link a bank card to receive payments for orders to pass the KYC (Know Your Client) verification system;
• Legal entities – individual entrepreneurs and businesses, which need to provide a wider list of information: copies of the director's passport, registration certificate, articles of association and other documents, as well as specify the bank account number for receiving payments.

When developing the catalog grid, we were inspired by the Pinterest experience, where each item/pin can be almost any size and aspect ratio, and then the grid is dynamically built with evenly filled columns. After analyzing the convenience of uploading product photos to the catalog, we decided to settle on 2 basic aspect ratios for images – 1:1 and 3:4.

Not only photos, but also videos can be uploaded to the grid, which are automatically compressed to optimal size before being published in the catalog. In the mobile app for iOS and Android, video playback is automatic, creating an animation effect.

Adding new items is the main feature that helps to fill the catalog and keep the marketplace alive. We were looking for a balance between the convenience of managing the product catalog and its filling, detailed description of products. Therefore, in addition to the standard product description – name, materials, number of items in stock, price and discount – we also provided the possibility to add custom options. For example, the choice of the color of a T-shirt, the material of a brooch, or the other item’s features. In this case, the seller can decide whether these options affect the price of the product or not. The preview function is available in the catalog before submitting the item for publication. All items are subject to mandatory moderation by Godno administrators.

The section where the seller can see full sales analytics. It stores details about each order – date, composition, amount, price details with calculation of service commission and delivery costs. It is also possible to export the document with the entire history of orders for the desired period. All payments and the calculation of the commission retained by Godno are automated.

Here we have enabled integration to calculate the cost of delivery with local services. There are also courier delivery by the store or by the buyer himself, the possibility of picking up the order himself, the option of self-delivery and other formats. The seller and the buyer agree on the terms and conditions individually via online chat before paying for the order.

Features and solutions for transparent buyer-seller interactions.

All orders are placed in the personal inbox of the seller, who is notified by the system of the site, as well as duplicated by e-mail and SMS. We have also provided a solution to a typical problem of all marketplaces – a customer has placed an order, but the desired item is out of stock. That's why we give the seller 24 hours to confirm the order. If the seller does not confirm the order - it is cancelled and the buyer gets his money back.

There is also a shipping rule – if the item is in stock, the seller is obliged to ship it within three days. If the product is not in stock or it is made to order, we inform the buyer about it on the product page and when placing the order, and to the three days for sending the order we add the period for manufacture of goods, so that the buyer understands when the order will come to him.

And of course we don't forget about the delivery time by the chosen courier service – it is calculated depending on the dimensions of the goods in the order and the addresses of the sender and the recipient, which we pass in API-requests and get the exact delivery time. To control the delivery, there is a field for specifying a track number, by which both the seller and the buyer can track its status.

Other opportunities for convenient sales and shopping.

Which ideas we have already implemented, which we have left for the future, and which we have decided to abandon.

The price of each order includes the marketplace commission, as well as the cost of delivery if the buyer chooses postal or courier services instead of self-delivery. Then the Godno system automatically deducts its commission from the cost of goods in the order. And the seller gets paid for the items and shipping that he has to arrange himself.

According to the rules of the marketplace, the buyer has 48 hours to check his order after receiving it. Until then, the transaction amount is frozen on the transit account provided by the payment service we use for payment processing. If there are no complaints, the transaction is automatically closed after this period. The seller receives payment and notes in the admin panel that the order has been completed.

In the future, if a buyer is dissatisfied with their order, they will be able to start an arbitration process. There are two ways to do this: the seller and buyer can discuss the problem independently in the online chat and come to a joint decision. For example, to provide a promo code for the next purchase, resend the goods, and so on.

But if the agreement does not work out, Godno Arbitration is involved in the process. The manager can look at what happened at all stages – from discussing the terms in the chat to delivery - and make a decision in favor of one side or the other. If the rules of the marketplace are ignored, the administrators will first issue a warning, and in case of repeated violations, they will block the seller's or buyer's account.

Initially we planned to include full integration with post and courier services, but in the process of development we gave up this idea. Let us explain why: if you create orders for couriers via API, the whole process will be organized under the account of the marketplace itself. This means not only additional costs, but also management of the entire delivery process for each shipment. That is, control over each seller, who must fulfill all obligations and not violate the law. In this case, all responsibility falls on the marketplace itself.

For Godno to use third party delivery services on its own behalf, but with the admission of third parties is a labor-intensive and risky story. Therefore, the integration is limited to the automatic calculation of shipping costs and the tracking of the status of a package by its tracking number.

The arbitration workspace is implemented using Admiral, our own frontend framework for back office development on React, which makes developing the admin panel interface and solving individual tasks (e.g. badge creation) easier and faster. For example, we used Admiral to implement a panel to display information about arbitrage progress and a chat room for buyers and sellers to communicate.

Frontend: React, Next.js, React Native

Backend: Laravel

Databases: PostgreSQL, Redis

Libraries and services: Docker

In May 2024 we fully launched the website and started development of the mobile app. In July 2024 we released the iOS and Android apps. We are in constant contact with the customer and are always ready to add new features and competitive advantages to the Godno marketplace.

• 12+

  months