How an Online Service Marketplace Works

How an Online Service Marketplace Works

Why should hiring a service provider always be an ordeal for service buyers? The reach of the internet and online marketplace for professional services is the ideal answer to all your queries related to finding professionals. Do you know how an online service marketplace works?

The job that recruitment consultancies and agents used to handle earlier, we now find it streamlined online. Websites like OnlyZap, Upwork, Jiji, Fiverr list are the top names helping connect service seekers with professional service providers. The sheer popularity of such websites has generated such great enthusiasm among entrepreneurs that Inceptor had to take up this business model and acquaint the users about pros, cons, risk, and other factors associated with it.

Our team did an analysis for such websites to get an in-depth view of their business model, how they make money and key website features that would help any entrepreneur in launching a successful and popular on-demand service marketplace. Before going through the website features, let us look at the business model for a better idea of market dynamics.

How an Online Service Marketplace Works as a Business Model

The main aim of these marketplaces is connecting service buyers with providers.

1. The service seeker, register and lists their job on the marketplace platform.
2. The service professionals, on the other hand, register in a particular service category and access all the listed jobs. They then apply for a particular job by sending the seeker a proposal.
3. The service seeker analyses all the responses and chooses the person having relevant experience as per their requirement on marketplace for professional services.

How do such online service marketplace websites make money?

An on-demand service marketplace can generate money via different revenue models:

• A nominal membership fee can be charged by the platform.
• The service professional has to pay a fixed charge to apply for a particular job. This fee can vary depending upon the job.
• The platform can also charge the service seeker a commission on completion of every task.
• Implementing ad-based monetization can provide an advantage to the platform in generating additional revenues.

Leading Market Players

• OnlyZap
• Fiverr
• Upwork
• com

How it works for Service Buyers

The business model of an online marketplace for services aims to connect two entities: service buyers and service provider. When it comes to service seeker, the overall process goes through the following timeline:

• Service buyers creates account
• Job is listed on the platform and service is sought
• After receiving proposals from service professionals, service buyers analyses all of them
• Subsequently comparing the proposals, service buyers chooses a proposal, makes payment and hires a service provider.

Process flow diagram for hiring a service provider for a service

How it works for service provider

The overall online service marketplace website for professionals works in the following timeline for a service provider:

• Service providers create an account and logs in it.
• They view the jobs listed by the service seekers.
• The desired job is then chosen and a proposal is sent
• After their proposal is accepted, they start working on the job

Website Overview

What makes websites like OnlyZap stand out is its focus on user engagement. While analyzing several websites, we came to the conclusion that an online service marketplace website must be easy to use and navigate. Let us go through all of such necessary features in detail.