For a marketplace, how would you decide whether to have two different apps for buyers & sellers or only a single app?

Clarifying Questions:  

a) Are you looking at any specific geography? - Assumption: US geography

b) Can I assume that we are referring to a mobile app here? Assumption: Yes it's a mobile app

c) Any preference for android/ios? Assumption: It's both for android and IOS

d) Is it a B2B or a B2C marketplace? - Assumption: It's a B2C marketplace

e) What are the kind of products that are sold on the Marketplace: Assumption: It's a grocery/vegetable marketplace

Rephrased Question: In US we need decide whether we need to build 2 different mobile apps or 1 single mobile app that will serve the needs of both buyers buying groceries/vegetables and sellers selling groceries. 

 

Customer: The end customer in this case is the user who's using the app to order groceries. Their need is to order either monthly groceries of large value or daily groceries of small value. In either cases they will expect: 1)  large selection: all kinds of products from food, personal and hygiene care 2) low pricing (competitive pricing and deals with respect to offline shops/other marketplaces) 3) convenience: delivery as fast as possible, potentially on the same day and 4) fresh products: high quality of vegetables/fruits/perishable products.

On the other hand we will have the collaborators who are basically our sellers who will sell these products. Their needs will be to conveniently onboard with the company through their registration process, being able to list (add product details/images etc) and price their products as easily as possible, ability to conveniently update their product availability, understand the status of their payments and shipment and look at how their overall business is performing. Additionally they will also expect tools which will help them market their products and understand customer feedback.

Company: The company is an online marketplace in US whose mission is to provide ultra fast grocery/vegetable delivery to users as fast as possible.

Climate: The overall grocery category is hyper competitive and consumers' expectations are increasing where they expect the ordered products being delivered to their doorstep in least amount of time and the most competitive prices.

 

Recommendation: Basis the above assessement I think it's better to have 2 different applications because of the following reasons:

a) The use cases of buyers and sellers are completely different and having all the features built in 1 app will make the app bulky in app size potentially impacting it's performance.

b) The 2 interfaces that we will need to build will be completely different where buyers will expect that the products are easily discoverable, they are able to see all the lowest prices and deals, they are able to browse all different categories. They will also expect that they should be able to track status of their order and contact support in case of issues. While sellers will expect the interface to be convenient for handling their business operations.

c) The support needed for buyers and sellers will be different as their issues will be completely different. Hence 1 single support option will make it difficult for internal teams to handle queries of both buyers and sellers.

d) If there is 1 single app and if it crashes because of a technical issue then it will impact both buyer and seller side of operations. This will unnecessarily increase the business risks.

 

Because of the reasons listed above I think it's better for the marketplace to have 2 different mobile applications for buyers and sellers.