Artist marketplace for an online art gallery, delivered for an agency

The challenge

An Indian web agency was building an online art gallery for its client, where artists register, manage their own portfolios and sell original artworks. The gallery ran on OpenCart with a customised theme, and the agency bought our multi-seller extension to provide the marketplace foundation.

A general-purpose seller marketplace does not quite fit an art gallery. The gallery wanted the language and structure of an artists' community: artist CVs instead of trading details, browsable artist profiles, controlled upload volumes and admin tools that let gallery staff manage artists on their behalf.

What we did

• Installation. We installed the extension on the agency's server, resolved the initial installation errors and adapted it to the custom theme.
• Artist-centred terminology. Every reference to sellers was renamed to artists across the storefront and admin.
• Artist registration. We added a CV field, removed the payment-details page from sign-up and fixed a session problem that broke the registration page.
• Artist dashboard and profiles. Artists got a dashboard with their own address book, and each has a public profile page showing their work.
• A–Z artist directory. A new artist menu lets visitors browse artists alphabetically.
• Upload limits. Configurable limits control how many artworks each artist can list.
• Admin tools. Gallery staff can add and edit artists directly from the admin panel, with related information combined into fewer tabs, and admin menu items can be hidden per user group.
• Ongoing refinements. Further rounds covered contact-form changes such as a mandatory mobile number, plus fixes to artist pages and approval warnings.

Tech stack

PHP, MySQL, OpenCart, vQmod