Gourmet Market set out to build a multi-vendor grocery marketplace where independent sellers could reach more customers and shoppers could get everything in one basket. The concept was strong; the execution needed a platform that could juggle many sellers, subscriptions, and a checkout that simply works.
They partnered with Ecomsy to design and build the marketplace end to end - seller onboarding, subscriptions, payments, and an experience polished enough to compete with the big players.
The challenge they faced
Marketplaces are deceptively hard: you're really building two products at once - a smooth shopping experience for customers and a capable toolset for sellers - and tying them together with payments that split correctly across many vendors. Gourmet Market needed seller onboarding to be effortless, subscriptions to drive repeat orders, and a checkout that stayed simple even when a basket spanned several sellers.
Left unaddressed, problems like these quietly cap growth and pile hidden costs onto the team - which is exactly why Gourmet Market decided to act and look for a partner who could fix it properly.
Gourmet Market chose Ecomsy because we understood both sides of the marketplace and could build them as one coherent system. They wanted a partner who would sweat the details that make or break a marketplace - vendor payouts, subscription logic, and a frictionless multi-vendor checkout - and deliver an experience customers would come back to.
From the first conversation, the priority was a partner who could own the outcome end to end and communicate clearly the whole way - not just write code and disappear.
We worked in clear milestones so progress was visible at every stage:
Discovery
We mapped Gourmet Market's goals, users, and constraints to shape a focused, realistic plan - and agreed up front on what success would look like.
Design & prototyping
We designed the flows and interface, then validated the direction early with clickable prototypes before a line of production code was written.
Development
We built Gourmet Market's product in milestones with clean, scalable, well-tested code, so progress was visible the whole way through.
Launch & support
We launched, monitored performance closely, and stayed on to refine, fix, and add features after go-live.
Working closely with the Gourmet Market team, we designed and delivered:
- Self-service seller onboarding with storefronts, catalogues, and payouts
- A unified cart and checkout that handles multiple sellers seamlessly
- Subscriptions for recurring grocery orders that lift retention
- Automated, correct payment splitting and payouts to each vendor
- Ratings and reviews that build trust across the marketplace
- Seller dashboards for orders, inventory, and performance
- A fast, mobile-first shopping experience built for repeat buying
The work translated into outcomes that mattered to the business:
“The multi-vendor checkout just works. Onboarding sellers is easy and subscriptions have boosted retention.” - Marco Bianchi, Founder, Gourmet Market
The impact
The marketplace launched with a checkout that just works, even across multiple sellers, and onboarding that lets new vendors start selling quickly. Subscriptions have meaningfully boosted retention, the vendor base has grown past a hundred sellers, and payouts run automatically and correctly. Gourmet Market now has a scalable two-sided platform - and the operational calm that comes from systems that handle the complexity for them.
What the client says
MB“The multi-vendor checkout just works. Onboarding sellers is easy and subscriptions have boosted retention.”