Multi-Vendor eCommerce Marketplace
Flipkart-Style Marketplace with AI Recommendations
From zero to $2M+ GMV in 6 months — a full multi-vendor marketplace with AI-powered recommendations.
Who We Built This For
CartKing is an Australian startup that set out to build a Flipkart-style multi-vendor marketplace from scratch — enabling independent sellers to list and sell products through a single unified platform, with AI-powered recommendations and a seamless mobile buying experience for end customers.
What We Set Out to Build
CartKing needed an entire marketplace built from the ground up — not just a storefront, but the full infrastructure that lets independent sellers operate their own mini-store within a larger platform. This meant building a seller-facing dashboard for inventory, order, and payout management, alongside a customer-facing Flutter app for browsing, searching, and purchasing across every seller's catalogue in one experience.
AI-powered recommendations sit at the core of the buyer experience, surfacing relevant products based on browsing behaviour, purchase history, and trending items across the marketplace — driving the kind of discovery-led purchasing that defines successful marketplaces. A unified payment gateway handles transactions across all sellers while automatically splitting payouts according to each seller's sales, commission structure, and settlement schedule.
Delivery API integration connects the marketplace to logistics partners, giving both sellers and buyers real-time shipment tracking without CartKing needing to operate its own delivery fleet. Within 6 months of launch, the marketplace had onboarded 500+ sellers, listed 50,000+ products, and generated over $2M in gross merchandise value — validating the marketplace model from a standing start.
Project Facts
Tech Stack
What Needed to Be Solved
CartKing wanted to launch a Flipkart-style marketplace from zero — with no existing seller base, no buyer traffic, and no technical infrastructure. The challenge was building a complete two-sided platform (sellers and buyers) simultaneously, while ensuring the seller experience was simple enough to drive fast onboarding and the buyer experience was compelling enough to drive real purchase volume from day one.
No existing infrastructure existed to onboard independent sellers, manage their inventory, or handle their payouts at scale
Building buyer trust in a new, unproven marketplace required strong product discovery and recommendation experiences from launch
Payment processing needed to handle complex multi-party splits — collecting from buyers and distributing to hundreds of independent sellers automatically
Delivery logistics needed real-time tracking integration without the marketplace operating its own fleet, requiring tight third-party API integration
Sellers needed a dashboard simple enough to onboard quickly without extensive technical support, given the goal of rapid seller acquisition
The platform needed to scale technically from zero to thousands of concurrent buyers and sellers without performance degradation as adoption grew
Inside the Platform
Every module is purpose-built to replace a standalone tool — unified in one workspace.
- Inventory & product listing management
- Order fulfillment workflow
- Automated payout & commission tracking
- Sales performance analytics per seller
- Self-serve onboarding flow
- Unified browsing across all sellers
- AI-powered product recommendations
- Cross-seller cart and checkout
- Wishlist and order history
- Push notifications for deals & restocks
- Behaviour-based product suggestions
- Trending product surfacing
- Personalised homepage per buyer
- Cross-sell & upsell at checkout
- Search relevance ranking
- Multi-party payment gateway integration
- Automated seller payout splitting
- Real-time delivery API tracking
- Return & refund processing
- Settlement reporting per seller
Everything in One Workspace
Seller Onboarding & Dashboard
A self-serve seller dashboard for inventory, orders, and payouts — designed for fast onboarding without heavy technical support.
AI-Powered Recommendations
Personalised product recommendations based on browsing behaviour and purchase history, driving discovery-led marketplace purchasing.
Unified Buyer App
A Flutter app letting buyers browse, search, and purchase across every seller's catalogue in a single seamless experience.
Multi-Party Payments
Payment gateway handling transactions across hundreds of sellers, automatically splitting payouts by commission and settlement schedule.
Delivery API Integration
Real-time shipment tracking through third-party logistics partners, without the marketplace operating its own delivery fleet.
Seller Analytics
Sales performance dashboards giving each seller visibility into their own product performance and customer trends.
Returns & Refunds
Streamlined return and refund processing across multiple sellers, with automated settlement adjustments.
Marketplace Scalability
Built on Next.js, Laravel, and Redis for performance that scales with concurrent buyer and seller growth without degradation.
How We Built It
Marketplace Architecture
Designed the two-sided marketplace architecture from scratch, defining the data model for sellers, products, orders, and multi-party payments.
Seller Dashboard & Onboarding
Built the seller-facing dashboard for inventory, order, and payout management, with a self-serve onboarding flow to drive fast seller acquisition.
Buyer App & Recommendation Engine
Developed the Flutter buyer app and the AI-powered recommendation engine surfacing personalised and trending products across the marketplace.
Payment & Delivery Integration
Integrated a multi-party payment gateway for automated seller payouts and connected delivery APIs for real-time shipment tracking.
Launch & Scale to $2M+ GMV
Launched the marketplace, onboarded the first sellers, and scaled to 500+ sellers and $2M+ in GMV within 6 months through continuous iteration.
Full Scope of Work
Built a complete two-sided marketplace architecture supporting independent sellers and unified buyer browsing
Developed a self-serve seller dashboard for inventory, order, and payout management
Built a Flutter buyer app enabling browsing and checkout across every seller's catalogue
Developed an AI-powered recommendation engine for personalised and trending product discovery
Integrated a multi-party payment gateway with automated seller payout splitting
Integrated delivery APIs for real-time shipment tracking across logistics partners
Built seller analytics dashboards for sales performance and customer trend visibility
Architected the platform on Next.js, Laravel, and Redis for scalable concurrent buyer/seller growth
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