In this tutorial, we’ll set up a marketplace for custom, bespoke events. This could be for events like company retreats, multi-day packages, or luxury experiences that are always customized to the customer’s needs. A marketplace like this is close to a service marketplace: the event organizer provides the service of event, trip, or experience planning. The providers offer the customers fully tailored packages with custom pricing.
The marketplace we’re building in this tutorial is one where:
Providers create listings describing what they offer: what kind of events they plan or provide.
Customers browse and reach out to providers, requesting a custom quote for their specific event.
The provider and customer negotiate the details and the price, and the customer makes an order.
Alternatively, you can also build a marketplace with a reverse flow, where customers create listings to describe what they need, and providers send them offers.
All settings in this tutorial are configured without coding, using Sharetribe's no-code tools. You can follow along and use your own marketplace idea and content.
When it comes to any marketplace, the most important things are your user flows:
User creation
Listing creation
Search and matching
Transactions
We’ll focus on these main user flows and configure them for a custom event marketplace with quote requests. At the end of the article, you’ll find a list of the features to configure next, relevant to all marketplaces.
There are many other kinds of events and experience marketplaces. Check out our other no-code event marketplace tutorials:
Bookable, on-demand experiences (examples: private classes, experiences, and tours for groups or individuals)
One-time events (examples: concerts, gigs, seasonal events)
Recurring events (examples: weekly classes, workshops, theme nights)
1. Tailor experiences for providers and customers
On a bespoke event marketplace, the providers and customers often need very different user experiences. Providers are usually businesses, such as wedding planners or other event organizers. Customers are individuals or companies looking for custom experiences.
In this section, we’ll go through user type settings, which determine the basic user account experience. Learn more about user types.
Tip! If you chose B2B or B2C as your marketplace type during onboarding, your test marketplace will already have two user types. You can easily modify these user types to fit your needs.
If you’re building a peer-to-peer marketplace instead, you can skip user types and move directly to step two of this tutorial.
Modify the provider user type
Go to Console → User types.
Open the Provider user type.
Modify the name to something specific to your marketplace. Descriptive names in your marketplace's vocabulary are a good idea, such as “Event organizer”, “Event planner”, etc.
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 a user’s user type on the user management page.
Choose the user role Provider. This determines the basic user account experience. This user type will see the provider inbox, and their public profile will include reviews from customers.
Enable or disable user account links. For the provider user type, we'll enable:
Post and manage listings: The user type will have access to links to post listings and manage their own listings.
Payout details: The user type needs to add payout details to be able to receive payments from customers.
Check the default user fields. You can turn two of them on or off:
Display name: Enabling the display name can be a good idea for a B2C or B2B marketplace. You can use the display name field for business names.
Phone number: The phone number is protected data, meaning that it can’t be seen by anyone else except the user themself and the marketplace operator. This is a good field to have if you expect to reach out to users in person or want to set up SMS notifications, for example.
Decide if the display name and phone number fields will be:
Included in the signup form. If not, they can still be added in the user’s profile or account, but won’t be mandatory.
Mandatory: When a field is mandatory, the user can’t sign up without filling the,
Save changes.
Tip: You can update the text “Display name” to “Business name” in 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 texts to match your marketplace’s language and vocabulary. Learn more about marketplace texts.
To update the display name label, these are the marketplace texts to update:
"ConfirmSignupForm.displayNameLabel": "Display name",
"SignupForm.displayNameLabel": "Display name",
"ProfileSettingsForm.displayNameHeading": "Your display name",
"ProfileSettingsForm.displayNameInfo": "The display name defaults to first name plus initial of last name.",
"ProfileSettingsForm.displayNameLabel": "Display name",
"SignupForm.displayNameLabel": "Display name",
"SignupForm.displayNameRequired": "You need to add a display name.",
Modify the customer user type
Go to Console → User types.
Open the user type Customer.
Modify the name if you wish.
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 user management page.
Choose the user role Customer. This determines the basic user account experience. This user type will see the customer inbox, and their public profile will include reviews from providers.
Enable or disable user account links. For the customer user type, we'll enable:
Payment method: Customers will be able to save a payment method to their account.
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.
Tip! You can collect more information during signup with custom user fields. 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. Remember that too many user fields can lead to people abandoning the signup form. Signup should always be as effortless as possible, so it’s best to only ask for the information that’s necessary for you to have. Learn more about user fields.
2. Define your listing creation and transaction process
Your listing type(s) determines two key things:
What kind of listings can be added to your marketplace.
What kind of transactions take place on your marketplace.
In this tutorial, we’re setting up a listing type where:
Providers create listings where they offer their event planning services.
Customers send providers quote requests.
You have a listing type on your marketplace by default. The settings are based on the answers you gave during signup. You can modify the listing type or delete and start from scratch. But please note that if you already have listings in a listing type that gets deleted, those listings will stop working.
You may also have several listing types, meaning that your marketplace can support many different types of transactions at the same time—for example, both a reverse and regular price negotiation flow. Learn how to build a marketplace with reverse and regular transactions.
Now, let’s get started configuring our listing type.
Go to Listings → Listing types.
Open the listing type card.
There are three sub-settings to listing types, which we’ll go through next.
Listing type name and ID
(Optional) Modify the name to something specific to your marketplace.
If you have more than one listing type, the listing type name will be shown during listing creation, and as a label for the listing type filter on the search page.
If you only have one listing type, the name will not be displayed anywhere.
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.
The listing type ID will be used in listing type search URLs in the format
[your marketplace URL]/s/listing-type-id. For example, if you have a marketplace with two listing types, you can link to a listing search with each of these types with the URLshttps://www.example.com/s/requestandhttps://www.example.com/s/offer.
Transaction settings
Choose a transaction process type Price negotiation.
Below, there’s a selection to determine the type of negotiation flow. Choose Regular.
This means that providers create listings where they describe the events they organize or the planning services they offer.
Customers reach out to them describing what they need and request a quote.
The provider sends them an offer that includes a quote and details.
Default listing fields
Choose the default listing fields. The fields you can turn on or off are:
Location: Enable or disable location depending if the location of the provider is relevant to your marketplace.
Images: Enable or disable images depending if images are relevant to listings.
Save changes.
3. Build a streamlined search and matching experience
In this section, we’ll build a search and matching experiences with listing fields.
Add listing fields and filters
Custom listing fields are specific information you want providers to add about their event or event planning services. They help customers learn more and make the right choice before requesting a quote.
Listing fields can also be used as search filters, meaning that they’re important to the search and matching experience. Customers can use them to narrow down their search to the most relevant providers.
Here’s how you create them:
Go to Listings → Listing fields.
Click to add a listing field and give the listing field a descriptive name and add a listing field ID. The name will be used as the listing field label in listing creation, listing pages, and search filters.
Choose the field type. Your options are the same as in user fields:
Free text: a text field for free-form information.
Number: a field that only accepts numbers in the range you define.
Select one: a dropdown field where the provider has to choose one option
Select multiple: a checkbox field where the provider can choose multiple options.
Video: a field where a YouTube URL is automatically rendered as a video embed.
Decide if the field is mandatory for the provider to fill.
Determine further settings. These are different based on the field type.
Number: add a number range.
Select one: add minimum two options.
Select multiple: Decide if you want to show unselected options on the listing page and add minimum two options.
(Optional) Limit the field to a specific listing type or types.
(Optional) Limit the field to a specific listing category
Determine search settings. These are different based on the field type.
Free text field: Include the field in keyword search. When enabled, your keyword search will return listings based on the contents of the field.
Number, select one, and select multiple fields: Add a filter to the search page. When enabled, customers can use the field data to filter search results.
Save changes.
4. Test your marketplace to learn how it works for your users
To test your marketplace, go to your test marketplace. You’ll find it when you click “View marketplace” at the top right corner of Console.
Here’s a quick how-to for testing the most important user flows of your marketplace. For more context, check out this more detailed step-by-step testing guide for requesting quotes.
Create a listing
Log out and sign up as a provider.
Create a listing describing your event planning.
Add your payout details in account settings. You’ll find the account settings by clicking on the user icon in the top bar.
Request a quote
Log out and sign up again, this time as a customer.
Search for providers and choose the listing you just created.
Reach out to the provider with a quote request.
Submit an offer
Navigate to user management in Console. Click open the provider user and click on the three dots on the left side. Click to “Log in as user”.
Navigate to the inbox and click open the quote request.
Send the customer an offer.
Accept the offer and complete the transaction
Sign up as the customer again and navigate to the inbox. Open the offer.
Accept the offer.
Log in as the provider and go to the transaction page.
Mark the order as delivered.
Log in as the customer and go to the transaction page.
Accept the order.
And done! You’ve now successfully tested all major user flows: user creation, listing creation, and transactions. Once the order is delivered, the provider and customer will be asked to review each other.
If you want to test the reviews right away:
Go to user management and log in as either user.
Navigate to the inbox and click open the transaction page.
Click to leave a review.
Leave a review.
Repeat steps 1-5 with your other user. The reviews will be published automatically. You can find them on the listing page, user profiles, and Console.
As the operator of a Sharetribe marketplace, you can log in on behalf of your marketplace's users. This feature is useful for understanding the user experience, solving reported problems, and helping users edit their listings or user profiles. In the test environment, you can take any action when logged in as a user, so it’s a great tool for testing user flows. In a live environment, you’ll have limited actions to take on behalf of your users.
5. Complete your marketplace setup and go live
This tutorial went through Sharetribe functionality that’s most relevant for custom event marketplaces. However, that’s only a part of Sharetribe’s no-code features.
Minimum settings to configure
Below are the features any marketplace founder should configure before going live:
Branding: Add your brand assets, such as logo, color, favicon, and a social media image in your branding settings.
Footer: Edit and add relevant links and social media profiles and add a copyright disclaimer in your footer settings.
Content pages:
Modify your landing page content. For example, it’s a good idea to add a link to the search page for event planners, so that they can find a path to customer requests.
Add terms of service and a privacy policy
Edit or delete your About page in Pages.
And add any further content page you need.
Monetization: Update your commission rates in commission settings or set up an alternative monetization model like subscriptions or one-time fees with the help of our tutorials.
More settings to check out
Depending on the exact user experience you want, you should also check out these features:
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 a quote request happens. Learn more about email texts.
User fields: If you want to find out more about your users at signup, you can add custom user fields to the signup form. You can limit user fields to specific user types: for example, ask for extra information from event planners only. Learn more about user fields.
Listing search: Configure your search experience in the listing search settings. Choose the main search type (keyword or location) and enable further filters depending on your needs (keyword, listing type, category). Learn more about listing search.
Layout: Your marketplace has layout settings based on your answers during setup, but you can change them at any time. Choose your search page and listing layouts and listing thumbnail ratio in the layout settings. Learn more about layout options.
Zapier: Zapier is a tool to automate workflows without coding with a built-in integration with Sharetribe. You can use Zapier to add new functionality for users and automate admin tasks. Learn more about Zapier.
Conclusion
This tutorial went through the minimum required changes to your Sharetribe marketplace to go live. You now have a custom event marketplace with quote requests, ready to launch.
Even if you are eventually planning to customize your marketplace with code, it’s still a good idea to set up your platform 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!