B2B buyer–supplier marketplace built on a multi-vendor foundation

The challenge

An Indian wholesale trading business wanted to run a B2B marketplace connecting buyers with verified suppliers. A standard multi-vendor store is built for retail: sellers list products, shoppers add them to a cart and check out. Wholesale trade works differently. Buyers need to know a supplier's type, minimum order quantity and delivery time, and start a conversation before any order is placed. Suppliers need a proper profile and a structured way to receive enquiries.

The client started with our multi-vendor extension for its existing OpenCart store and a short list of field changes. Within days the brief became a full buyer–supplier portal.

What we did

• Installed our multi-vendor extension on the client's existing store and configured it as the base for the marketplace.
• Trade-specific product listing. We redesigned the seller add-product page with a tabbed layout and new fields for seller type, delivery time and minimum order quantity, later adding location, brand and packing details.
• Supplier registration and profiles. We simplified buyer registration, added trade payment options to supplier registration (telegraphic transfer, letter of credit, office collection) and built supplier profile pages.
• Enquiry flow. We added contact-supplier and product enquiry forms so buyers could reach suppliers directly, with buyer inbox and enquiry handling.
• Admin-controlled categories and seller groups. Categories became admin-managed, with suppliers organised into groups and a group module on the seller home page.
• Unified search. We built a new header search covering products, suppliers and buying requests.
• Ongoing fixes. Over five months we worked through bug lists across buyer, seller and admin pages as the client tested each area.

Tech stack

OpenCart, PHP, vQmod, MySQL