There are platforms that earn revenue only through advertising, while other offer premium services that allow sellers to feature their advertisement in search results. However, for most of the sellers these services come free of cost. The intent is quite simple – the percentage of users who would actually be opting in for the “Featured ads” would be very small, and so the idea is to keep your overall user-base so high that even that small percentage translates into a significant number thereby bringing in a decent revenue.<\/p>\n
Now that we have covered the business and revenue model of such platforms, let\u2019s focus on the key website features necessary to create an advanced online classified marketplace\u00a0clone website.<\/p>\n
Website Overview:<\/h2>\n
The first and foremost criteria of creating a website is to have a clean interface and the same should be visible on the homepage. FATbit analysts have few suggestions that would result in an immersive homepage design:<\/p>\n
- \n
- A dedicated search bar for location selection as well as products.<\/li>\n
- The top navigation that contains an option to change the language pertaining to local userbase.<\/li>\n
- you can also have a banner image on the homepage which can display the core characteristics of the website and what is it all about.<\/li>\n
- Just below the search bar, you can have links to all the categories in a grid.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
City Selection<\/h3>\n
![\"YoTree](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/YoTree-Classified-Portal-Builder-City-Search.png\")
<\/p>\nA classified website allows users to find used items in their corresponding cities. This is why you must have a city selection bar on the homepage, with option to either search or select the location from the available options. Users can search for products throughout India or can streamline the search to a particular city.<\/p>\n
Product Search<\/h3>\n
As you expand across several categories, product discovery becomes the most vital part of the core architecture. Analysts at FATbit believe that the search functionality of of your website needs to be simple yet productive. It should also have an autocomplete feature that makes it easy for user to find relevant products.<\/p>\n
Such features will play an important part in the success of your website. So, make sure the clone script you choose has all these advanced features.<\/p>\n
Homepage Categories<\/h3>\n
![\"Classified](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Classified-Portal-Service-Categories.png\")
<\/p>\nBeing a large marketplace offering products in various categories, the biggest challenge in front of you website can be to highlight these categories without cluttering the homepage. As the overall theme across the website needs to be kept minimal, the only options in front of you would be to either put a menu bar housing all the categories or showcase all the categories in a grid. If you choose the former, then all you need is a menu bar, but if you choose later, you need to have a dedicated section highlighting all the categories.<\/p>\n
Why Choose Us Section<\/h3>\n
![\"Classified](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Classified-portal-homepage.png\")
<\/p>\nThe platform works on a peer-to-peer business model that allows sellers to sell their items. This is why you should also put a dedicated section on the homepage stating the ease of submitting an ad on. Moreover users also do not have to register to post an ad.<\/p>\n
Footer<\/h3>\n
The focus of footer section should also be a minimal design with maximum functionality. You should try to keep the footer as neat as possible. It only houses important links to Mobile Apps, How it Works, Terms of Use, and Social Networking pages.<\/p>\n
Submit a free classified<\/h3>\n
![\"Classified](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Classified-ad-posting.png\")
<\/p>\nAt FATbit, we understand that users consider form submission an irritation. This is the reason why we always recommend keeping it simple and minimalistic. After analyzing the ad submission form of various platforms, we came to the several options that need to be included in the form. Moreover it should not take more than a couple of minutes to submit an advertisement. The information that it required is:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Title of the ad (minimum 15 characters)<\/li>\n
- Category Ad Description (minimum 20 characters)<\/li>\n
- Photographs (maximum 8 photos)<\/li>\n
- Location<\/li>\n
- Contact details like name, phone number and email<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The \u2018Submit an ad\u2019 form need to be pretty well designed and easy to use. Make sure your Clone Script offers an intuitive \u2018Submit an Ad\u2019 feature.<\/p>\n
Verification<\/h3>\n
You can also put an efficient process in place to get rid of spam, and provide users with only relevant ads. Every ad that is posted on the website can go through a thorough check before it is made active. However, users can preview their ad beforehand and edit them if necessary. In order to manage the ad as well as replies, users need to create an account on the website.<\/p>\n
Create Account<\/h3>\n
![\"Classified](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Classified-portal-registration.png\")
<\/p>\nSimilar to “submit an ad” form, the account creation form also needs to be simple and precise. Some of the features of this form includes<\/p>\n
- \n
- A simple account creation form requiring email and password.<\/li>\n
- Either a dedicated page or popup for sign-up form.<\/li>\n
- Clearly emphasises on the benefits of account creation.<\/li>\n
- A user is sent an email confirmation link to activate the account. This helps in handling spam.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Our team of UX designers thinks that a minimal log-in and sign-up form plays an important part in increasing registered user base of any e-commerce website.<\/p>\n
Advertisement Preview<\/h3>\n
As discussed earlier, before the ad is made active on the platform, it should go through a screening process to eliminate spam ads. But you can provide users an option to preview the ad beforehand. The advertisement preview should show:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Title of the ad<\/li>\n
- Location of the product<\/li>\n
- Time of submission<\/li>\n
- Unique Advertisement ID<\/li>\n
- Product images<\/li>\n
- Description<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Moving ahead, let\u2019s discuss the necessary features that should be provided to registered users.<\/p>\n
Account Section<\/h3>\n
Although the platform should not bind users to create an account in order to use the services, you can motivate users to create a profile by offering additional features. These features can be accessed under my account section. Let\u2019s check out these features and their uniqueness one by one:
\nManage Ads:<\/strong> You can make it easy for users to create and publish ads on its platform, but these ads can only be managed if the user creates an account. Under the ads section, users can view all the ads created by them. They can preview these ads and even delete the expired ones.
\nMessages:<\/strong> You can also put an easy peer-to-peer communication tool for users to interact with each other. Using this, buyers can easily contact the seller and vice versa. All these messages are easily available under the messages section.
\nSettings:<\/strong> This section can include option to change contact details, password, and even delete account if necessary.
\nRather than incorporating several features, you should focus on basic features that are essential in creating a peer to peer connection between seller and buyer. This probably is one of the biggest reasons that would result in the success of your online marketplace. We recommend a similar approach while building an online classified marketplace clone.<\/p>\nProduct Listing<\/h3>\n
![\"Classified](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Classified-ad-fliters.png\")
<\/p>\nJust like various eCommerce sites, you should also have a well-defined products listing page. you can also offer filters to buyers for streamlining the search.<\/p>\n
![\"Classified](\"https:\/\/www.fatbit.com\/fab\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Classified-ad-listing-page.png\")
<\/p>\n