Must-Have Service Marketplace Features You Should Consider

Have you ever wondered what makes an online marketplace successful?

Stats show that online marketplaces are a huge market to get involved in. And as their number continues to grow, so does the importance of their success rate and performance.

Here’s the thing, service marketplace success is built on three pillars: providing quality services, ensuring trust, and delivering an exceptional user experience.

To achieve all three, you need to pick the right tools and features and implement them into your niche marketplace.

In this article, we’ll have a look at some of the major marketplace features you should consider in order to build a successful online service marketplace.

What are the most important service marketplace features?

Let’s assume you’ve already decided on which service marketplace business model you are going to adopt, and you are about to start building your platform.

You are probably finding yourself in a tough situation wondering which are the key features that will help you create a robust service marketplace.

There are so many options to choose from, after all.

Our professional advice: Implement only the features your users actually need. Providing too many features is a double-edged sword. It may seem like a good idea but all these features require maintenance and support, and often negatively impact your budget.

So without further ado, these are some of the most important service marketplace features you should look at.

Quick marketplace onboarding for service providers

As a service marketplace owner, you need to make sure that providers can sign up and get started as quickly as possible.

Bearing that in mind, the first thing you need to consider is how to make it easy for someone who isn’t familiar with your platform to join and start selling their services.

It’s really important to ensure they can do this without wading through a lot of complicated sign-up procedures. That way service providers will be more likely to complete the onboarding process and list their services.

Contabi uses 3veta to equip service providers with a fully branded gradual onboarding process.

If a service provider has to spend too much time compiling their profile, they may lose interest and jump to another P2P marketplace.

The takeaway: Make the signup process straightforward and use step-by-step instructions to help service providers quickly go through it.

Scheduling feature to make it easy for customers to book meetings

In today’s digital world, the ability to easily schedule and book online meetings is becoming increasingly important.

And as service marketplaces get more and more popular, scheduling and booking capabilities for online meetings and professional consultations are becoming a must-have feature.

Twiz.io uses 3veta’s white-label scheduling feature to ensure easy meeting scheduling for service providers and customers.

By providing a reliable and easy-to-use scheduling option, you enable your users to quickly and seamlessly connect with each other without the hassle of finding a suitable time to meet.

Furthermore, implementing a scheduling feature in your service marketplace means your users won’t need to use third-party scheduling software to arrange their meetings. They’ll get it within your platform and that will positively affect user experience.

The takeaway: Provide an easy-to-use scheduling and booking solution to increase efficiency and improve customer satisfaction.

Video conferencing feature to enable live consultations

Live consultations will be an important part of your professional service marketplace.

They give customers the opportunity to contact service providers in real-time, based on their availability.

Furthermore, the video conferencing feature provides customers with an engaging and interactive experience that can help build trust and loyalty between both parties.

Contabi uses 3veta’s white-label video conferencing feature to ensure easy, interactive, and secure communication between service providers and customers.

In order to achieve that, however, you need to use the right technology and tools. Only then you can be sure you are providing users with a secure and reliable way to communicate within your service marketplace.

What’s more, your users won’t need to leave your marketplace and meet somewhere else (e.g. on Zoom). And that means you are not only providing a better user experience but you are also one step ahead of your competitors that don’t offer such a feature.

The takeaway: Implementing a video conferencing solution within your service marketplace is a must for providing a better customer experience.

Secure payment feature

Having secure payment options is one of the most important features that any service marketplace needs to offer.

Customers are always concerned about their privacy and security when using online platforms.

Your job is to ensure they have a secure way to pay for the services without having to worry about their information being compromised or shared with third parties.

Twiz.io uses 3veta’s secure payment integration with Stripe to arrange payments between service providers and customers.

There are plenty of payment processing options you can choose from. Our advice would be to pick a flexible payment service that will allow your users to pay and receive fast and secure payments for services.

The takeaway: Enabling secure payments is an essential attribute for any service marketplace in order to build trust and credibility.

Make it easy for service providers to moderate their listings

Provide your users with a dedicated moderation panel that gives them the freedom to easily moderate their listings every time they need to.

For example, they should always have access to editing their basic information, adding or changing tags and categories, and deciding whether or not to be listed on the marketplace.

Contabi uses 3veta’s marketplace builder to provide users with a dedicated admin panel.

The takeaway: Providing your users with an easy-to-use moderation panel will allow them to quickly make changes to their listings regardless of whether they have minimal tech knowledge.

Easy to create service listings

There is a simple truth when it comes to service marketplace success: finding and retaining users is the key to growing your business.

And to ensure that people will stay and use your platform, you need to provide them with a natural and seamless user experience.

Besides simple onboarding and easy search and navigation, ensuring listings creation is easy and intuitive is the right way to go.

Contabi uses 3veta’s marketplace builder to ensure a seamless user experience for their service providers.

The easiest way to do so is to provide service providers with a ready-to-use template. They’ll only need to fill out service details such as description, pricing, or any other relevant information they may want to include.

And voilà! With just a few clicks they’ll be able to publish their service and start earning.

The takeaway: Make sure that your platform allows service providers to easily create and edit listings.

Fast and convenient search feature

When a person visits a service marketplace, they have a specific need. They do not want to spend hours browsing through dozens of options, trying to find the perfect match for their needs.

So, if you want your marketplace to be successful, you need to provide your customers with a fast and convenient search feature that helps them find what they need in a second.

Contabi uses 3veta’s built-in smart search to ensure their users can find the service they need

The best way to do this is by using filters that allow customers to narrow down their searches based on different criteria like location, experience, or specific services offered.

This will allow them to find exactly what they need without having to waste time browsing through pages of results that aren’t relevant to their needs at all.

The takeaway: Make sure your marketplace has a fast and convenient search function.

At-a-glance analytics dashboard

One of the most important features you should consider when creating your own service marketplace is a user analytics dashboard.

This will allow you to easily access any data on how users interact with your marketplace.

Twiz.io uses 3veta’s in-depth user analytics feature to get regular insights into important user data.

The dashboard, for example, should include insights into the full user journey, service provider registrations, revenue, and customer churn.

The takeaway: Implement a user analytics dashboard in your service marketplace to have a full overview of how it performs.

The most important service marketplace features summarized

There are many benefits of starting a service marketplace platform, but in order to guarantee your success, you need to provide your customers with the best user experience you can.

The competition in service marketplaces is fierce and that makes it increasingly difficult for businesses to stand out.

Integrating some (or all) of the features above will help you not only attract and retain more customers but also outmaneuver the competition.

See how 3veta can help you build a marketplace under your own brand.