Maud Vorstenbosch

From idea to online marketplace

Platformization

Marketplaces

Basics

Mar 10, 2026

Are you looking for the answer to the question of how to turn your idea into a successful online marketplace? Then you're out of luck. There is not just one answer to this question. Don't worry; we have identified the key principles that increase your chances of success and reduce your entrepreneurial risk. This is how you can make your online marketplace take off with ease, transparency, trust and quality.

This article is based on the first chapter of 'Build a successful Online Marketplace' by Wout Withagen and Joost Gielen.

Is my idea an online marketplace?

What actually makes a service or website an (online) marketplace? To answer that question, we must go back in time. Markets and marketplaces have existed since people started trading with each other. Here, nothing more or less happened than bringing together supply and demand (matching). Imagine the Roman Forum in the time of Caesar. Merchants bring their own specialties in goods and make them available to a large group of buyers. That's the added value of a marketplace: bringing supply and demand together in one place provides convenience for both merchants and buyers. And to keep your place as a merchant in a marketplace, it is necessary to deliver a certain quality and ask a fair price. If you don't, your buyers will purchase from someone else next time. It will not surprise you that this also works for an online marketplace. Online marketplaces ensure that supply and demand can find each other, regardless of distance, language, currency, and other barriers that exist offline.

Do you facilitate the match between supply and demand with your idea and want to do it online? Then we can probably speak of an online marketplace. Just like the offline variant, you naturally want suppliers and buyers to see the added value of you as a marketplace.

Different types of online marketplaces

Do you immediately think of Marktplaats.nl when you think of an online marketplace? That's only logical, but there are many more different forms of online marketplaces. Supply and demand don't always have to be goods, of course. Also think of:

Streaming services like Netflix
Job boards like Indeed
Vintage product buying and selling like Vinted

Principle 1: Convenience

Convenience quickly makes you think of 'ordered today, delivered today'. But convenience can distinguish your idea in other areas too. As long as it takes less effort for users and yields more, it is easier to continue working via your marketplace than to bypass it. What about filter options, choice helpers, an AI chat assistant that also lets you checkout immediately? The less friction, the better.

Funda: an example of convenience

At Funda you can search and filter according to your own preferences. Funda has a feature that allows you to save these search settings. So you don't have to search again every time. This increases user convenience and makes it more likely that you'll keep coming back.

Principle 2: Transparency

Transparency is one of the most important reasons why users would want to use your (marketplace) idea. You can provide transparency in many ways. You can be transparent about how you price, inform your users about market opportunities, or make it very clear how the process via your marketplace works. This way, you suddenly make obscure, closed markets much more open and provide more certainty.

Bol: an example of transparency

Bol has almost 14 million active customers in the Netherlands and Belgium and an assortment of more than 48 million articles. That assortment is also due to the connection of partner sellers. As a consumer, you can see on Bol's website who the supplier is of the product you are viewing and you can even compare different suppliers and prices. Quite transparent!

Principle 3: Trust

To be successful as an online marketplace, it is important that there is trust between all parties. Between supply and demand, but also towards the marketplace. Without trust, your marketplace cannot build a sustainable relationship with end users, just as you cannot build real friendships without trusting each other. You need to build that trust. Of course, by keeping your own agreements, but also by ensuring that end users adhere to the rules.

Ticketswap: an example of trust

Buying and selling concert tickets often has something exciting about it, precisely because a lot of fraud has taken place in the past (and still does). Ticketswap offers a solution as a marketplace. When they work with an organizer, tickets for sale have a green check mark; this guarantees that it is a real ticket for the buyer. This way, Ticketswap brings supply and demand together (match) and supports the transaction by offering extra service and thus trust.

Principle 4: Quality

The quality of your marketplace is partly a sum of the previous principles. If your marketplace offers transparency, is trustworthy, and easy to use, then you can say that the quality is pretty good. However, quality is also often determined by factors outside the marketplace. For example, the users and their behavior, the quality of the products or services whose transaction is facilitated by the marketplace. Fortunately, you can influence this, for example by consistently enforcing your marketplace's 'rules of the game', requesting reviews of products/services, and of course feedback from and about users.

Catawiki: an example of quality control

Catawiki offers a service to maintain the quality of products at a good level alongside matching supply and demand. They have a team of experts who assess the products offered, among others, for authenticity. This way, they provide potential buyers with more certainty. For Catawiki, it is important that this is done well because their name is synonymous with a certain quality.

How do you move forward?

Interesting, right? All those examples of large companies that have applied marketplace principles. But where do you start if you're not yet such a big player? That's where Freshheads can help you. As a platform specialist with a lot of knowledge and experience with online marketplaces, we can help you translate your idea into concrete goals and actions. Do you want to delve much deeper into the world of online marketplaces first? Then you can read ‘Build a successful Online Marketplace’ by Wout Withagen and Joost Gielen or listen to it. In this, Wout and Joost delve much deeper into different types of online marketplaces, success factors, and revenue models.