Our company is an established clothing printing and embroidery business. We are expanding into a multi‑vendor marketplace to allow other creators to sell customised garments and merchandise through our platform while continuing to fulfil orders with our own equipment. The marketplace must integrate smoothly with our existing production workflows (screen printing, direct‑to‑garment printing and embroidery) so that orders placed through the new site can be fulfilled by our in‑house team. This background should inform the development scope below.
Platform build: Develop a scalable e‑commerce platform similar to Spreadshirt (multi‑vendor shops, design customiser, order management). The platform should allow sellers to create storefronts, upload designs and products, set pricing and manage orders. Because we already operate a printing and embroidery business, the marketplace must integrate with our existing production management system so that we can fulfil orders directly. Support an option for certain product types to be routed to external fulfilment providers when they fall outside of our manufacturing capabilities.
Customisation tool: Integrate or build a product design editor with features such as image/text upload, drag‑and‑drop, resizing, rotation and multiple print area selection (front, back, sleeves). Customers should be able to preview their design on 3‑D mock‑ups. In addition to standard print customisation, include options specific to embroidery—e.g., selecting thread colours, stitch patterns and embroidery locations—so the editor aligns with our core expertise.
Multi‑vendor marketplace: Support multiple shops under one account, individual shop themes and custom domains. Implement product categorisation, search/filtering and seller dashboards for analytics and sales reporting. Provide clear indications of whether a product will be fulfilled by our in‑house printing/embroidery team or by an external supplier, so buyers and sellers understand production times and quality expectations.
Print‑on‑demand integration: Our own print shop and embroidery facility will handle most orders. Build an integration that routes marketplace orders directly into our production workflow (including job tickets and machine settings) to avoid manual duplication. For products outside our equipment range (e.g., phone cases or posters), connect to external fulfilment providers (Printful, Printify, etc.) for automatic order processing and regional shipping bootstrappingecommerce.com . Allow sellers to choose suppliers when multiple fulfilment options exist.
Payment and user management: Integrate secure payments (Stripe, PayPal). Include user authentication (JWT/OAuth), roles for buyers/sellers/admin and multi‑currency support. Consider single sign‑on or account migration from our existing printing/embroidery website so our current customers can access the marketplace without creating new accounts.
Tech stack: Recommend a headless architecture with Next.js or React for the front‑end and Node.js (Nest.js) or Python (Django/GraphQL) for the back‑end. Use PostgreSQL for data storage and Redis for caching. Include API documentation and a modular design for future features.
Deliverables:
Source code repository with clear documentation.
Deployment scripts and infrastructure setup (could be AWS or similar cloud platform).
Working customisation tool with responsive design.
Seller dashboards, admin panel and API endpoints.
Testing and QA documentation.
Timeframe: Approximately 10–14 weeks (depending on complexity and team size). Include milestones for UI prototype integration, back‑end API completion, customisation tool, and beta testing.
Ideal Freelancer Profile:
Experience developing full‑stack e‑commerce or marketplace applications.
Proficient in React/Next.js and Node.js or Python frameworks.
Familiarity with payment integrations and security best practices.
Ability to collaborate with UI/UX designers and SEO specialists.
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