In this tutorial, we’ll set up a reverse service marketplace. Reverse means that the customers post listings and providers contact the customers through those listings. This is a reverse flow to the more common marketplace flow, where providers add listings and customer search and contact them.
All settings in the tutorial are configured without coding, using Sharetribe's no-code marketplace builder. The example service marketplace in this tutorial is a bike-repair platform called Biketribe. You can follow along and add content and branding specific to your marketplace idea.
Transactions in your marketplace are configured message conversations without online payments. It’s not yet possible to build a reverse marketplace with online payments without coding in Sharetribe. However, while a no-code reverse marketplace will have free transactions, you can monetize it through alternative monetization methods. We’ll take a look at lead fees at the end of this tutorial. You’ll also find links to guides on monetizing with subscriptions and listing fees.
If you’d like to add online payments to your reverse transactions, it’s possible to customize your marketplace with code. If you’re not a developer yourself, you can hire a vetted Sharetribe expert to customize your transaction process and other parts of your platform. Learn more about customizing your marketplace with code.
Let’s get started with the no-code tutorial!
1. Add or adjust user types
If you chose B2B or B2C as your marketplace type during onboarding, your test marketplace will have two user types.
If you’re building a peer-to-peer marketplace instead, you can skip user types and move directly to step two of this tutorial. You can also create user types, if your P2P marketplace should have them.
Modify the customer user type
Go to Console → User types.
Open the user type Customer.
Modify the name if you wish. In our example marketplace, we’ll leave it as “Customer”.
Change or leave the ID as is. If you change the ID, any change you make to the user type will not be reflected in accounts with the old ID. You can update the user type of a test user in the Manage users tab.
Check the default user fields:
Do you want to ask customers for a display name or a phone number?
Do you want either field to be mandatory to fill?
Save changes.
Modify the provider user type
Open the user type Provider.
Modify the name to something specific to your marketplace. In our example marketplace, this will be “Bike shop.”
Change or leave the ID as is. If you change the ID, any change you make to the user type will not be reflected in accounts with the old ID. You can update the user’s user type in the Manage users tab. In our example marketplace, the ID will be bike-shop.
Check the default user fields:
Do you want to ask providers for a display name (business name) and a phone number?
Do you want either field to be mandatory to fill if someone wants to sign up as a provider?
Save changes.
Tip! You update the text “Display name” to “Business name” with the marketplace text editor. Marketplace texts are short pieces of text used across your marketplace website. This includes button labels, error messages, help texts, and more. In Sharetribe, you can modify all of these texts to match your marketplace’s language and vocabulary. Learn more about marketplace texts.
2. Add custom user fields
Custom user fields let you collect specific information about users during signup. They also help your users create richer user profiles. You can create user fields for all users or limit them to certain user types only.
We’ll create just one custom user field in this tutorial to exemplify the process. If you don’t want to add user fields, you can move on to step three. We’ll add a user field for our providers, the bike shops.
Go to Users → User fields.
Give the user field a descriptive name. Our example field will be “Repair services offered”
Add a listing field ID. The ID is a unique identifier of the field. Our example field ID will be “services”.
Choose the field type. Your options are Free text, Number, Select one, and Select multiple. We’ll choose Select multiple for the example field.
Decide if the field will be mandatory to fill during signup.
Choose if you want unselected options to be visible or hidden on the user page. (This setting is specific to the Select multiple field type.)
Add options. For the select multiple field, we’ll add options (name and ID):
Basic maintenance and tune-ups (basic)
Brake and gear adjustments (brake-gear)
Wheel services (wheel)
Suspension and fork services (suspension-fork)
E-bike services (e-bike)
Accessory installation (accessory)
Specialty services (specialty)
Choose “Limit the listing field to a specific user type”, if you want only a specific user type to see this field during signup. The example field is only relevant to bikeshops, so we’ll add the user type ID bike-shop.
Save changes.
3. Adjust listing types
Your listing type is configured as free messaging. This configuration is based on your answers to setup wizard. You can modify the listing type or add another listing type. Please note that at this time, Sharetribe’s online payment system does not support reverse transactions where the customer posts the listing.
Go to Listings → Listing types.
Open the listing type card.
Modify the name to something specific to your marketplace. In our example marketplace, we’ll change it to “Bike repair job”. The listing type name will only be visible to users if you have more than one listing type on your marketplace.
Change or leave the ID as is. If you change the ID, please note that any existing test listings with the old ID will stop working.
Check the transaction settings and whether the options chosen are the right ones for you. For posting jobs on our example marketplace, this setting is:
Transaction process: Free messaging
Choose the default listing fields.
Enable or disable location: Is the location of the service relevant to your marketplace? In our example marketplace, we’ll turn location on.
Disable price: Turning off the price field means that the customer will not add a price to their listing in listing creation. Since we’re building a reverse marketplace where providers suggest a price for the requested job, listings should not have a specific price.
Save changes.
4. Add custom listing fields and filters
Add custom fields to collect specific information about listings. Your marketplace has one example listing field. You can either remove it or edit it to match your needs. In a reverse marketplace, the listing fields should ask for information about the job that you believe providers will need to know in order to give accurate bids or offers.
Go to Listings → Listing fields.
Open the example field or click to add a new listing field.
Give the listing field a descriptive name and add a listing field ID.
Choose the field type. Your options are Free text, Number, Select one, and Select multiple.
Decide if the field type is mandatory for the seller to fill.
Determine listing field specific settings. These vary depending on the field type.
Enable the filter as a search filter to include it on the search page.
Add as many listing fields as you’ll need. You can add more and remove old ones as you learn more about what your customers want to share about their projects and how providers interact with listings and customers on your marketplace.
Save changes.
5. Change the logo and branding
In the branding settings, you determine your marketplace colors and visual assets.
Go to Design → Branding.
Update your main brand color. This color is used in most recurring elements on your website.
Upload a logo.
Choose a logo display height.
Upload a favicon.
You can check how the settings and images look on your test marketplace, which you can access through the View marketplace link in the top right corner.
5. Optional: change the primary button color.
6. Optional: upload an app icon, background image, and social media image.
7. Save changes.
If you don’t have your brand assets ready yet, you can keep the default assets for now and update them later.
6. Edit the landing page
Sharetribe’s content management system is called Pages. With Pages, you create and edit all the content pages your marketplace needs to attract new users and to educate them about business and company.
This section of the tutorial is about editing one of the most important pages of your marketplace, the landing page. You’ll likely be iterating on your landing page content and layout throughout your building process. And even more so after you launch.
The instructions below are for creating a presentable, simple landing page. It will have the minimum information your users will need to know.
And the fastest way to do that is to modify the existing sections of the sample landing page.
Go to Content → Pages.
Click open the card landing-page.
There, you’ll find four sample sections: Marketplace introduction, How it works, Featured locations, and Explainer video.
Open the section Marketplace introduction.
This section uses the template Hero. This is especially designed to be the first section of landing pages. Keep the template setting as they are.
Scroll down to Section title and description and edit the content to match your marketplace idea. For example, the section title can include your slogan. The description can be a quick one-sentence description that goes into a bit more detail.
The section has a button link to browse listings. You can leave this as is!
Open the section How it works.
This section uses the Columns template with three columns. The section has a grid of three columns side by side. Keep the template setting as they are.
Scroll down to content blocks. Open each block and edit their content. Basically, this section describes the user’s journey through your marketplace. For example, the steps could be: Create an account → Post a request → Get an offer.
Delete the sections Featured locations
Creating sections for featured locations, categories, or listings is a great idea once your live marketplace starts having a bigger number of listings. Until then, it’s better not to link to empty search results.
Delete the Explainer video section.
Unless you have a video already! Then, you can replace the sample video with your own YouTube link.
Save changes.
SEO and Social
Go to the SEO & Social tab for your landing page.
Update the following info:
Page title: You can use your slogan or hero section title here.
Page description: Describe your marketplace in less than 160 characters.
Page title for social media: You can use the same text as the page title here.
Page description for social media: You can use the same text as the page description here.
Page image for social media: upload an image here if you want the page to have a unique image when it’s shared on social media. Otherwise, the image will be the default social media image you can upload in the branding settings.
Save changes.
7. Edit content pages
You edit other content pages the same way as the landing page.
Go to Content → Pages.
Update or delete your About page. This is the only default page you can delete.
Update your terms of service and privacy policy to match your marketplace using Sharetribe’s free policy templates. The video below is a great overview of the process.
The fastest way to update your terms of service and privacy policy is with the help of templates provided by Termsfeed. Check out the video or article below to learn how.
8. Edit the footer
The footer is an important element of your website. Your users will find it at the bottom of each page, with the exception of the search results page. It includes your logo and links to social media and pages on your website.
After completing this final step of the tutorial, this is what our footer will look like:
The logo and social media symbol color are automatically filled based on brand assets, which you added in step six.
Go to Content → Footer.
Add a slogan. A slogan is a memorable short phrase that communicates your very basic value proposition in a quick and attention-grabbing way.
Add a copyright disclaimer. A copyright disclaimer is a short piece of text that lets the public know that your work is protected by copyright law and is not to be copied. A standard format for the disclaimer is "© [Current year] [Your marketplace name.]". Sometimes, copyright disclaimers also include the phrase “All rights reserved.” In our example marketplace, this would be “© 2024 Biketribe. All rights reserved.”
Edit or add social media links. Linking to social media channels encourages users to connect with your brand on other platforms, increasing your visibility and online presence. To add a new social media link, click on "+ Add a new social media link". Choose a platform from the dropdown. Then, add the link to your page on that platform. Add as many of the social media platforms on the list as you want.
Edit internal links. You add links to content blocks within the footer. Each block has a name ID, a block text area, and an optional Anchor link ID.
Open the block named general. Delete the text -
[About us](/p/about), if you deleted the About page earlier.Otherwise, we’ll leave the internal links in this block and the one named terms-and-privacy as is for now. We don’t yet have more pages to add there.
If you want to learn more, check out this more detailed article about the footer.
9. Monetize through lead fees with access control
Though Sharetribe’s online payment system does not support reverse transactions (where the customers post the listings) without coding, that does not prevent you from monetizing your marketplace platform!
You can use Sharetribe’s access control functionality to implement a lead fee system. Lead fee is a marketplace monetization model, where providers pay for getting to contact a customer. Lead fees are best on marketplaces where one lead's value is high: for example, through repeat business or very valuable single projects. With access control, you can also monetize through membership subscriptions or listing fees, but in this tutorial, we’re highlighting lead fees, as it is common in reverse service marketplaces.
Create a payment page in Stripe (or another payment system) and make sure you get notified for each new payment. You have two options for monetization:
Create a subscription page, if you want transaction rights to be on a recurring membership basis.
Create a one-time payment page, if you want to charge the user for a single lead.
Turn on Restrict transaction rights in General → Access control. Provider’s now need explicit permission from you as the marketplace operator to start transactions.
Add an external link call to action. When a provider tries to start a transaction, they will see a page with a CTA, prompting them to pay a lead fee.
Add a link text, such as “Pay a lead fee”
Add a link to your Stripe payment page.
Now, when someone pays the fee, you can navigate to your Manage users tab and give the provider transaction rights.
If you have a one-time payment model, you’ll need to revoke the rights after the provider has made their offer. The provider will be able to continue the initiated transaction, but won’t be able to start other ones.
That’s it! You’ve now gone through the minimum steps to take your marketplace live with Sharetribe.
Other features to check out
Categories: Categories are a useful tool to organize requests on your marketplace. Providers can use them to find what they’re looking for. For example, if you broaden your marketplace niche to different kinds of services, categories can be a good idea. Learn more about categories.
Top bar: By default, the top bar includes the logo, search bar, and links to sign up, log in, and a button to post a new listing. In the top bar settings, you can add links to other pages. Learn more about the top bar.
Marketplace texts: Marketplace texts are short pieces of text used across your marketplace website. This includes button labels, error messages, help texts, and more. With the marketplace text editor, you can edit all of these texts. Learn more about marketplace texts.
Email texts: Similarly to the marketplace text editor, the email text editor lets you modify the text content of the automatic emails sent to users from your marketplace at key events, like when someone reaches out to a customer about their request. Learn more about email texts.
Analytics: You can add an analytics provider to monitor traffic on your marketplace. The built-in options are Google Analytics and Plausible. Learn more about analytics in Sharetribe.
Zapier: Sharetribe has a built-in integration with Zapier, a tool that let’s you automate task between thousands of apps. With Zapier, you can add functionality like SMS notifications or newsletter audience sync. You can even build alternative monetization flows, like memberships and listing fee systems. Zapier is a Pro and Extend plan feature. Learn more about Zapier.
Conclusion
This tutorial went through the minimum required changes to your Sharetribe marketplace to go live. You now have a reverse service marketplace, ready to launch.
Even if you are eventually planning to customize with code, it’s still a good idea to set up your marketplace as close to your plans with Sharetribe’s no-code tools. You can launch it as an MVP or use it as a basis to discuss your unique requirements with potential developers.
Remember to test your marketplace to learn how it will work for your eventual users. And once you’re ready, it’s time to take the plunge and go live—just click “Go live” in Console, start a live subscription, and get ready to launch!