The total randomness of novelties for the real-time app development makes it difficult to decide on proper technology choice for the product creation nowadays. In our case web and mobile marketplace creation. It’s cool to consider lots of opportunities but you can’t let yourself waste time just thinking what technology you should opt. The deadlines are getting closer and urge you to make up your mind and get to the creation part faster.
In case you've got lost in the abundance of marketplace development innovations offered in the market, we’ve prepared this article to help you decide on a highly performant mobile/web technology stack for your business app development or how to build mobile or web B2B, B2C top marketplace platforms.
What marketplace technologies power up world-known companies?
Great B2B or B2C marketplace development ideas require great ‘under-the-hood’ contents/composition. Let’s consider what technologies fuel up top marketplace platforms of different types.
Facebook Marketplace
During 2016 (the year it was launched) ~18m items were posted for sale in the US via Marketplace (as of May, 2016). The app uses React Native technology. The very 'why' lies in the advantages React Native can provide:
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A universal code development which suits both, Android and iOS. It allows you to spend fewer resources on separate development
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Effortless implementation of the native code (Objective-C, Swift for iOS or Java for Android) and its combination with React Native to provide better performance rates
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is the world-known online education marketplace platform. Khan Academy is used by nearly 40 m students and has delivered 1 b lessons worldwide.
Why Khan Academy + React? According to Joel Burget (former Khan Academy developer), React efficiently manages the way how elements change and are displayed on the page without unnecessary re-renders.
Uber
This on-demand taxi-ordering app is probably the world’s most discussed platform. Apart from utilizing React Native, Uber also uses Express JS . Express JS is Node.js web application framework and helps to build server-side mobile apps. Express JS comes like a tools kit with the ready-made solutions for Node.js-based real-time app development.
The main advantages of using Express JS are: middleware and routing. Developer is able to create their own routes (consider it as the functionality part, what your app should do) and middleware (the ways your app should execute this functionality) for it.
Note: Any Express js developers here? You might be interested in the effective ways of managing Express js API and REST API Organization.
Coursera
Another great education-providing marketplace platform with 24 million users and ~ 2000 courses (as of February 2017). GraphQL is a query language for APIs. The reasons why GraphQL is included in Coursera’s technology stack:
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GraphQLallows you to load only the data you need which improves the app’s performance rates. We don't deny that the current language serves greatly when in the process of on-demand mobile or web app development.
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GraphQL fetches you the results collected from multiple data sources in a single request. That kind of model is more comfortable if compared to REST which fetches the required data from several data sources one after another by performing multiple requests.
eBay
Thousands of items are bought and sold via eBay on a daily basis. Approximately 171 m buyers use eBay these days. The number of products enlisted in eBay equals to 1 b. Such a big ‘machine’ surely needs lots of resources and maintenance. That’s why eBay uses Nodejs. The beauties of the current platform are the following:
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Non-blocking I/O (meaning, you don’t have to wait till a non-JavaScript operation completes to execute the additional JavaScript in the Node.js process). This paradigm has allowed to use more of a JavaScript potential for the real time app development or an on-demand marketplace platform.
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With Node js came what is called npm (an online repository which allows devs publish various open-source Node.js projects). Then with npm-s came the most popular Nodejs modules: Express, MongoDB, Socket.io, etc.
Note: Read Why The Hell Would I Use Node.js? article by Tomislav Capan and you won’t regret it. We promise. (Bravo, Tomislav! ?).
Reaction Commerce
Reaction Commerce is the first open-source e-commerce platform powered by Meteor.js. Clearly a catchy Meteor. js use case for the e-commerce project.
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OptimisticUI out of the box. As a result, on the pageyou can see what changes have been made in the database and how.
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With the help of various packages, you can create almost a whatever functionality you want
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It’s great for on-demand MVPs development of real-time web and mobile marketplace apps.
Note: Reaction Commerce: what is the scale of Meteor.js pros and cons for e-commerce solution?
A lot of web and mobile marketplace platform development companies specialize in the creation of marketplace products based on the mobile and web app technology stack mentioned above, but that’s not it. Many marketplaces close after running for some time. Why does this happen, what are the reasons? 'Why B2B Food Startups Fail and How You Can Avoid It' might bring you some light on the topic.
Why to ride a rusty bike if you can drive a new sportscar?
As it's seen, the world-known brands are eager users of the technologies already described in this article. You can simply imagine what colossal amount of resources for business real-time web or mobile apps development they could have spent if they hadn’t used the chosen solutions stack.
All of the frameworks and languages we've referred to earlier, perfectly fit in the creation of real-time web and mobile marketplace apps which are hype nowadays, or, for example, instant messaging platforms.
Already existing and newly emerging b2b and b2c marketplace apps trends give birth to the new technologies and vice versa. This helps people solve their daily and not-daily concerns and get educated, buy and sell, order any kind of service and so on online and in the real-time mode which is faster and easier.
That’s all cool of course, but what one mobile/web marketplace app technology should I choose?
First and foremost, decide what kind of product you have in mind. Is it supposed to be a web application or a mobile one? Or both? Is this app or on-demand marketplace platform supposed to be clearly native or a hybrid one?
In case the app targets to fit a single platform only (iOS OR Android, not cross-platform app development) you can go with the native development and use Objective-C, Swift for iOS or Java for Android accordingly. With the native development you can reach great performance results. The app developed completely natively runs on the specific OS smoothly and interacts easily with the camera, voice recorder, touch screen (swipe actions) etc.
You should know though, that it will take you significantly more time and resources.
To make your mobile marketplace app cross-platform, you will need to separately develop another version of your product which would work well for the desired mobile OS.
Frameworks, on the contrary, allow you to create multi-platform applications. With the global use of these, a phrase “learn once, use everywhere” has probably become a cliche already.
For instance, if you’re up to utilize Node js for on-demand mobile app development, apply to this stack Express js also.
Nodejs is great for creating real-time web/mobile apps, like browser chats, live video-audio streaming services or monitoring, real-time analytics apps. Thus, it could help you to build an on-demand B2B or B2C marketplace.
If you’re up to use React for web apps, try React Native for mobile marketplace development, also add some useful modules, like firebase module for the efficient real-time app development. Given the fact, that React, React Native are built to deal with the Views layer and display any changes instantly, these 2 platforms are great for the apps which frequently update and suit for on-demand mobile and web apps development as well.
Read also: Building a React Native Marketplace App. Ways to do it well.
To make the work with APIs smoother, implement the use of GraphQL.
If you’re planning to create a MVP of a high quality to consider all the growth opportunities first, and need to do it really fast, try Meteor.js.
Apart from the JS frameworks, your devs team or a marketplace platform development company you trust might utilize mobile development platforms, like Ionic, Xamarin and Cordova. If compared to JS frameworks, these platforms also use HTML and CSS apart from JavaScript for the development.
To make the most of productiveness of your C2C, B2B or B2C marketplace app and get the desired outcome, you can combine the frameworks and languages mentioned above.
Beware of dangers though when deciding on marketplace technologies
Working with Node.js? Then you’re probably familiar with its documentation, especially, the part that describes how mixing blocking and non-blocking code might produce rather a negative outcome. To avoid this issue, make sure your code executes in the correct order. Given the fact that Node.js doesn’t support relational databases, it would be rather a bad decision to use this technology for the products with such kind of a database. Since Node.js is single-threaded, it won’t suit the creation of heavy-processing projects too.
If React + React Native are your tech preference for C2C, B2C or B2B marketplace app, apart from the advantages of these platforms, you might be interested in reading about the limitations you might face and figure out the ways to deal with them.
Meteor js can help you to quickly build and run a MVP version of your project, and get a rough estimation of what benefits you can squeeze from your work. If you’re considering a full-fledged enterprise product, our advice is to consider another framework or technology for the on-demand marketplace app development.
When using frameworks, like Cordova, it’s possibly but difficult to gain a native UX look and feel. If you need additional functionality you can use plugins, but for the most cases, developers either create their own addons or spend more time modifying the existing ones.
As for Ionic, to create a cross-platform app, you should play around adjusting the code for each platform.
When developing in Xamarin, you’ll have to create a separate UI layer for each platform and deal with the app’s size.
If you’re up to create a sort of video-games, the projects which include 3D modelling or require a lot of graphic resources, use such technologies, as Unity instead.
What features should I include for my on-demand marketplace app development?
Earlier we’ve discussed what are the must-have features for marketplaces these days. Among them are:
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Real time monitoring, analytics, communication and browsing;
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Proper security measures;
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Comfortable and safe ordering and payment system;
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Location-based functionality;
These are the features we consider crucial for all the kinds of marketplaces. Your marketplace ideas and the functionality are related to each other and depending on what kind of product you’re creating, there could be a different scale of functionality considered.
What technology stack do we typically use for the marketplace app development?
We can see that the marketplace technologies are different and the choice is really up to your project’s requirements.
Apiko team has dealt with a variety of technologies meant for business apps development. Below you can find the examples of mobile and web marketplaces and apps we helped to create
1. HotSpots - event management platform
The aim of this project is to provide its users with the unforgettable experiences while traveling. The app offers you a list of events, places and things to do in the place you’re going to or have already arrived to.
Solutions stack: MongoDB, React, Meteor, Cordova, Mantra
2. B2B marketplace platform for food wholesalers, producers, and retailers
The idea behind this marketplace is to let food manufacturers provide all the necessary product information and get the opportunity to collaborate with their customers (retailers, wholesalers, end users) in the most comprehensive and lighter way.
Solutions stack: MeteorJS, Meteor Blaze, React, MongoDB
3. Online gallery exhibition application for Science Museum of Minnesota
The application which allows you to visit the science/history dedicated exhibition in a virtual mode just right via your phone or web.
Solutions stack: GraphQL, Node.js, Express.js, React.js
Final words
To sum up we can’t say that this or that platform is bad, and we believe that such statements are pointless. It’s simply up to your marketplace app development needs and your devs’ team skills. For instance, a certain platform might be a good match for one type of product but it’s not recommended to use it for another project.
Having something to say? Contact our marketplace platform development company and get all your questions answered regarding marketplace ideas.