Services · Mobile app development · Online marketplace apps
Codeeo offers marketplace app development Birmingham businesses can use to put many sellers in front of buyers through one app: jewellers and makers from the Jewellery Quarter, component suppliers from across the West Midlands, and family-run fashion and food traders from Soho Road to Ladypool Road. We build the buyer app, the seller app and the operator console, with vendor onboarding, commission, split payouts, dispute handling and the seller records HMRC now requires from platforms.
Birmingham sits at the centre of the national motorway network and of a manufacturing region that still trades heavily business to business. A marketplace built here often has to serve a trade buyer ordering pallets and a shopper ordering a single ring in the same codebase.
200+ companies servedFrom a first store to an ADX listed developer
What we build
Birmingham's sellers are unusually varied. A goldsmith needs to show a hallmark and a ring size guide. A machining firm in the Black Country needs to quote against a drawing. A clothing shop on Soho Road needs to list occasion wear in many sizes and colours, and talk to customers in Punjabi or Urdu as easily as in English. One marketplace may need to host all three.
So the feature set below starts with trade and maker needs rather than generic retail. Seller onboarding, commission and payouts sit underneath, because a vendor who cannot see when and how much they will be paid leaves quickly. B2B marketplace app development Birmingham manufacturers ask for adds quoting, account pricing and invoices to that base. We scope which pieces your first release needs and which can wait for a second phase.
Trade buyers upload a drawing or specification, choose materials and quantities, and invite several suppliers to quote. Suppliers respond inside the app with prices, lead times and notes, and the buyer accepts one quote to turn it into an order. The platform takes its commission on the accepted value without anyone retyping figures.
Custom manufacturing work can be bought through the marketplace, not just stock items.
Prices stay hidden until a buyer's business account is approved. Each supplier can then assign its own price list, minimum order quantities and payment terms per buyer. Purchase order numbers travel with the order, and invoices show VAT details in the form a trade customer's accounts team expects.
Trade buyers see their own terms the moment they sign in.
Jewellers and craft makers get a storefront that tells their story: workshop photos, materials, made-to-order lead times and, for precious metal items, hallmark details. The Birmingham Assay Office in the Jewellery Quarter tests and marks precious metals, and sellers can record hallmark information against each listing where the law requires it.
Buyers can see exactly who made an item and from what.
Many Birmingham traders are partnerships or family firms with one person handling paperwork. Onboarding is broken into short steps that can be finished on a phone, saved and resumed, with help text in the community languages you select. Identity, tax reference and bank details are gathered to the standard platform reporting requires.
Traders finish registration without an accountant beside them.
Margins differ widely between gold jewellery, clothing and industrial fixings, so a single rate rarely works. The console lets you set commission by category, by seller tier or by order size, with optional listing fees for featured placement. Each deduction is itemised on the seller's statement.
Commission fits each category's real margins.
Consumer orders are split at checkout by an authorised marketplace payments provider, sending each seller's share directly to them. Trade orders on credit terms are invoiced and tracked to payment, then settled to the seller once the buyer pays. Sellers can see which invoices are outstanding and which have cleared.
Card orders and invoiced trade orders run through one ledger.
Heavy goods ship by pallet network, small goods by parcel carrier and local orders by van or collection. Delivery rules are set per seller and per product weight. For city centre addresses inside the A4540 Middleway, sellers can factor Clean Air Zone charges for older vans into local delivery fees.
Every product gets a delivery method that fits its size and route.
Consumers can request returns within their statutory rights, while trade buyers raise disputes under the supplier's terms of sale. Each case carries the order, messages and photos, and if the parties cannot agree the operator rules on it. Refunds and credit notes adjust commission and payouts automatically.
Consumer and trade complaints follow the right rules without manual sorting.
Digital platforms in the UK must verify their sellers and report seller earnings to HMRC each calendar year, sending sellers a copy. Seller records and order totals are structured so the yearly report comes straight from the platform, and sellers can view their own reported figures before the deadline.
Sellers are not surprised by what the platform reports about them.
Your team sees new seller applications, listings waiting for review, open disputes and payouts on hold in one place. Moderators can pull a listing, request more information from a seller or suspend an account, and every action is logged with a reason. Finance staff get exports by seller, category and month for the accountant.
A small operator team can run a large seller base.
Who we work with
Off the shelf marketplace software tends to assume a consumer shop with parcel delivery. That fits some Birmingham businesses, but many of the projects in the city involve trade buyers, made-to-order goods or community traders who need more support than a standard seller dashboard offers. Online marketplace app developers Birmingham clients choose should understand those differences before proposing a platform. These four briefs are the ones we are most often asked to scope. Each one changes what the seller app must do on the first day, which is why we ask about your sellers before we talk about screens.
A group of West Midlands manufacturers, fabricators or distributors wants a shared ordering channel for their trade customers. Each member keeps its own pricing and capacity, while buyers search across all of them. We build supplier accounts, quoting, trade pricing and invoicing, plus reporting for the association on activity across members, without exposing one member's prices to another. Members near Birmingham, the Black Country and Coventry can share pallet collections where their routes overlap.
Members cooperate on reach without sharing commercial terms.
Independent jewellers and makers want to sell together online under a shared brand rather than each running a small shop site. The marketplace carries made-to-order options, ring sizing, engraving requests and hallmark details, and splits each payment between the maker and the collective. Buyers can book a viewing at a member's workshop from the app if the maker offers it.
Made-to-order items carry their lead time on every listing.
Fashion, textiles, groceries and gifts from Birmingham's South Asian, Caribbean and other community traders reach a national audience that already searches for them. The app supports multilingual listings and seller help, occasion-wear sizing and delivery across the UK, with onboarding designed for traders who sell well in person but have never run a webshop.
Seller support in the languages traders actually use.
With the University of Birmingham, Aston and Birmingham City University in the city, resale of furniture, books and kitchen equipment peaks at the start and end of each academic year. We build campus-based collection, verified student sign-up, safe meeting points and low-friction listing from a phone photo, with platform reporting handled for sellers who cross the thresholds.
Listings peak around term dates, so the app is built for bursts.
Engagement
Codeeo has no Birmingham office. Our team of 80+ is based in Dubai, Riyadh and Karachi and works with Birmingham clients remotely, with discovery, design reviews and sprint demonstrations run by video call. Most projects begin with a fixed scope first release, continue on a monthly retainer once sellers are trading, and occasionally expand to a dedicated team. We have delivered 200+ projects across the UAE and the US and are rated 4.7 from 23 Google reviews.
A defined build with a deadline
We agree what the product has to do, write it down with a price and a date, and build exactly that. Changes are priced before they are made, not discovered on the invoice.
A product that keeps evolving
Named engineers who work your hours, join your standups and stay on the codebase. You direct the backlog; we own the quality of what ships.
Something live that needs looking after
A monthly block of hours for improvements, fixes and the small requests that otherwise wait months. Unused hours carry for a quarter.
Technology
We choose frameworks and services to match your payments provider, carriers and accounting tools, and to suit the developers who might maintain the platform after us, including teams in the West Midlands. Buyer and seller data is hosted in a region agreed with you and handled under UK GDPR.
01Mobile
02Data and cloud
03Marketing and tracking
Quoting, account pricing, credit terms and proper invoices, on top of the consumer basics.
Trade buyers rarely pay by card at checkout. They want approved accounts, their own price lists, purchase order references and invoices with payment terms. Suppliers want to quote on custom work and decide which buyers get credit. We design these alongside onboarding, commission and payouts so trade and consumer orders share one platform and one set of seller records. Consumer features such as reviews and wish lists can then be added for the retail side of the platform without disturbing trade buyers.
Schedule a free consultation and get a written recommendation, with costs, before you commit to anything.
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