Selling your products online has never been easier thanks to WordPress and numerous eCommerce themes. But what if you don’t have products to sell and want to make some additional income?
That’s where creating an online marketplace similar to Etsy or Ebay comes in. The beauty of a marketplace is that your role is to create the website, whilst other vendors sell their products and you take a cut of the sales.
There is no limit to the type of marketplace you can create; whether you want to sell digital or physical products, there is a theme to suit your needs.
Add to that the fact that popular marketplaces such as Amazon, Etsy, and eBay process millions of transactions on a daily basis, and you can easily see that creating an online marketplace is a viable business model.
You can find great WordPress marketplace themes and trending ecommerce WP themes on ThemeForest:
Read on to discover the best eCommerce themes for making a successful online marketplace. You need a WP theme with just the right set of quality features to build your marketplace with—quickly, securely, and with just the right design that fits your goals.
What Makes a Great Marketplace Theme?
An online marketplace is more complex than a regular online store. It requires additional functionality and features which include:
- The ability for vendors to register and create their online store
- Front-end submission forms so vendors can easily submit new items
- Support for mega-menus to keep your navigation menu organized
- Search and filter functions so buyers can browse through the items without any problems
- Compatibility with popular e-Commerce plugins such as WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads
It goes without saying that your chosen theme should be responsive and include a blog which will help you get noticed by search engines and drive traffic to your marketplace.
15 Best WordPress Marketplace Themes for All Your Marketplace Needs
Here we’ve curated the best marketplace WordPress themes with all the features mentioned above, as well as highly customizable designs that will help you create the exact look and feel that you want for your marketplace.
1. Marketify – Digital Marketplace WordPress Theme
Built by Astoundify, the clever team behind epic themes such as Listify, Jobify, and Campaignify, this theme has everything you need to setup a WordPress marketplace website. Marketify is structured around EDD plugins like Frontend Submissions, Recommended Products, and Commissions, which all come together to make a perfectly functional digital marketplace where vendors can sell their products to your growing audience.
2. Martfury – WooCommerce Marketplace WordPress Theme
Martfury is suited equally to individual online stores and multi-vendor marketplaces. It works with the Dokan, WC Vendors, WC Marketplace, and WooCommerce Multi-vendor Marketplace (WCFM Marketplace) to give you multi -vendor functionality. This combination allows vendors to build their own stores, manage their inventories, create coupons, shipping terms, and all the while you can earn commission on their sales.
3. Makery – Marketplace WordPress Theme
Makery is another premium WordPress theme which will allow your vendors to sell their own products much like they would on Esty, eBay, or other marketplace platforms. Any user can easily add a shop, products, complete received orders, track earnings, and withdraw them using front-end forms.
Add to the mix Makery’s options and fully responsive design, and you have yourself a very powerful tool for building a marketplace website.
4. Marketo – eCommerce & Multivendor Marketplace Woocommerce WordPress Theme
Marketo is another powerful WordPress marketplace theme built on the back of Dokan; the popular WooCommerce Multi-vendor Marketplace Solution. Marketo is compatible with WordPress 5.0, and uses the Elementor page builder to provide its array of page layouts. Build your marketplace website then sit back and watch others do the selling!
5. Dike – Minimal and Modern WooCommerce AJAX Theme
Dike is an excellent marketplace theme because it comes with a heavily optimized design (and code) for mobile user experience, a powerful customization options, and many Ajax integrations for a smoother shopping experience for your visitors.
This WordPress eCommerce theme is suitable for selling both digital and physical products and is perfect for anyone looking for a clean, modern look for their online store. You can easily add new products and customize the product display pages.
Many satisfied customers highly regard Dike and have left this theme a current start rating of 4.88/5 in Themeforest.
6. Handy – Stylish Handmade eCommerce Shop Theme
If you want to sell handmade goods, look no further than the Handy theme. This WordPress marketplace theme comes with Revolution Slider to create stunning slideshows of featured products. A number of page templates are available as well as a page builder which gives you complete control over the layout of your pages.
Use shortcodes to insert additional elements such as buttons and columns. Vendors have a thorough overview of their sales. The navigation menu supports the mega-menu feature and customers will have no problems finding the right product thanks to the sortable product grid.
7. Oswad – Responsive and Versatile WP Marketplace Theme
Oswad is a beautiful and responsive ecommerce marketplace theme with multiple homepage demos. You can customize every aspect of the theme and make use of multiple widgets to build the layout of your homepage.
FontAwesome icons will help you highlight different sections of your store and the homepage has plenty of space to display products across several categories.
A notable feature is the integration of a Live Chat module which allows you to answer any questions potential customers might have about the products.
8. Electro – Vibrant and Customizable Marketplace Theme
Electro is a great choice for anyone considering an electronics store. The theme features a prominent search bar as well as a product slider where you can showcase the most popular products. On top of the standard wishlist feature, customers can also compare products and track their orders once the purchase has been placed. Several menu variations are included in this WordPress eCommerce theme to make navigation as easy as possible. The theme is also responsive and fully customizable.
9. Fashion – Vintage Style WordPress Marketplace Theme
Fashion lovers will find everything they need to create a fashion marketplace in this theme.
You can use the header slider to display recent or popular products and show all the benefits your marketplace offers such as free shipping, member discounts, and more. Add a blog feed on the homepage to share the latest fashion trends with potential customers.
The theme also includes a Live Theme Editor so you can customize it to create a unique design. Customers can use the quick view feature to instantly see product features.
10. Oasis – Modern WooCommerce Theme
What makes Oasis a fantastic marketplace theme is its flexible online shopping theme with full WooCommerce compatibility. Take advantage of the 7+ header layouts, 8+ blog layout combinations, 10+ portfolio layout combinations, 4 product page layouts, and many more to create the perfect eCommerce website. Whether you want to sell clothes, electronics, furniture, books or something else, Oasis will support your exact needs.
11. Handmade – Sophisticated eCommerce Marketplace Theme
Handmade has a well-structured layout, and customers can filter through products thanks to product filter widgets. Eight different homepages make it possible to create a unique layout and Visual Composer integration makes it easy to tweak all the layouts to your liking.
Along with FontAwesome icons, extensive customization options, video backgrounds, and responsive design, the Handmade WordPress ecommerce theme packs quite a punch in terms of useful features.
12. Marketica – Advanced eCommerce WordPress Theme
Marketica is an advanced ecommerce theme that integrates with four different vendor plugins to turn your existing store into a vendor marketplace. It comes with Revolution Slider and Visual Composer Builder, as well as the ability to white label the theme for your clients.
Vendors have access to detailed profile pages, a sales tracker, and they can display their products in a clean grid layout. Finally, the WordPress ecommerce theme includes extensive documentation to guide you through the process of setting it up.
13. Shopkeeper – eCommerce WP Theme for WooCommerce
Shopkeeper is an excellent eCommerce marketplace theme, but you don’t have to take my word for it. It’s sold more than 26,500 copies on Themeforest over the course of five years and received over 1000 glowing reviews resulting in a 4.63-star rating. That’s because Shopkeeper is a premium WooCommerce theme with great, fully responsive design and extensive functionality. It comes with amazing features such as YouTube video support in product galleries, product image zoom, multiple blog layouts and many, many more fantastic and practical features to take your online store to the next level.
14. Flatastic – Modern and Powerful WordPress Theme
Flatastic is a modern ecommerce marketplace theme with a clean design that brings your products into focus along with a well-structured grid layout. The WordPress theme allows you to not only feature products but different brands and vendors. You can create any type of layout with Visual Composer.
Aside from making use of the blog pages, you can additionally boost your SEO with optimized code and support for Rich Snippets. On top of that, the theme comes bundled with the ChatX plugin so you can provide immediate customer support via Live Chat.
15. Catalog – Minimal WordPress Marketplace Theme
Catalog is a minimal WordPress ecommerce theme that features several page templates so you can easily create all the necessary pages for your marketplace.
Front-end submissions and custom commissions are available for vendors while customers can take advantage of the search bar and sortable products to find items that interest them the most.
All membership pages are included, and you can easily feature a popular vendor right on the homepage. On top of that, the theme is fully responsive and customizable.
5 Tips To Boost Your eCommerce Conversion Rate
As a marketplace owner, boosting your conversion rates and improving sales should be at the forefront of your mind. Here are five easy ways to instantly improve your conversion rate:
1. Start Blogging
While many themes on our list feature SEO optimized code, all of them come with the ability to add a blog to your marketplace. Blogging is one of the best ways to keep your website fresh, and you can use it to share more information about vendors and products.
2. Build an Email List
An email list is the most valuable asset for any business owner. After all, what better way to get personal than sending a customized email to your customers with featured products they are most likely to buy? Consider using a theme like Gecko to build your email list with ease—right from the beginning.
3. Use Social Media to Your Benefit
Sharing your products on social media is a must if you want to reach your target audience. Luckily, themes like Oxygen and Dike come with social media options built in so buyers can follow you and share your content easily across a variety of social media platforms.
4. Facilitate the Checkout Process
Whenever possible, make the checkout process as easy as possible. This means you shouldn’t ask for more information than is absolutely necessary. If you sell digital products, there is no need to ask for your customers physical address, since no actual shipping is involved. Otherwise, consider using a banner which displays all the steps required to finish the purchase.
5. Use Demo Videos
Videos are a powerful marketing tool which you can use to demonstrate all the benefits of a particular product. They work even better than images, and you can use a theme like Shopkeeper to take full advantage of your videos’ capabilities.
Build Your Own Marketplace Site
Building your own marketplace is no easy task, but with the right combination of a quality WordPress eCommerce theme and plugins, the process is much easier. And when you pair that with the tips mentioned above, you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful marketplace.
Editorial Note: Our staff updates this post regularly—adding new WordPress themes with the best, trending designs.