The Basics
Arcadier Marketplaces Have Three Web Portals
On every marketplace created on the Arcadier’s platform, there are three associated user roles, all with different permissions, interfaces (web portals), and user accessibility within the marketplace namely: Administrator, Merchant, and Buyer.
The Roles:
- Administrator - The owner of the marketplace who has created the marketplace on the Arcadier Platform and manages its overall operations. The Administrator access the marketplace through the Administrator (Admin) Portal.
- Merchant (Seller) - The seller on the marketplace who is invited to sell their products or services on the marketplace by the administrator and manages their inventory via the Merchant Portal.
- Buyer (Consumer) - The people making purchases from the merchants on the marketplace, who make their purchases via the marketplace website.
Each marketplace has at least one Marketplace Administrator (Admin), and a limitless number of Merchants and Buyers. The owner of the marketplace is an Admin and has the power to promote other users to become Admins.
The Admin Portal can only be accessed by the Marketplace Administrators, and it controls the entire marketplace - it allows Marketplace Administrators to set up payment gateways, categories, google analytics, email notifications and more. Additionally, the Admin Portal allows the Administrator to access all user accounts that are registered on the Marketplace - both Merchants and Consumers. The Administrators can also choose which plug-ins (Public or Private) to install onto the marketplace and is responsible for paying for paid plug-ins.
Image: The Admin Portal
The two other user portals available on Arcadier’s platform, the Merchant Portal and the Buyer Portal
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The Merchant Portal allows sellers on the marketplace to upload and edit product or service listings, manage the status of orders placed by buyers, keep track of sold items, add delivery or pick-up options for order fulfillment, and more.
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The Buyer Portal allows consumers in the marketplace to browse the product or service listings, and make purchases. Every user can be a buyer, but buyer accounts do not have any of the Merchant or Admin permissions. A plug-in may be designed to work only if a buyer is registered on a marketplace and not if the buyer searches and shops on the marketplace anonymously as a guest. That is the level of flexibility of the Arcadier APIs.
Image: The Merchant Portal
Image: The Buyer (Consumer) Portal
Difference between Live and Sandbox Marketplaces
Sandbox Marketplaces can be created by anyone for free, regardless if you are already part of Arcadier’s developer community or just want to try out Arcadier’s APIs on your own. It is recommended that all developers create a sandbox marketplace account for testing. On Arcadier’s platform, there are both Sandbox and Live marketplaces.
Live and sandbox marketplaces have the same feature; except that sandboxes are specifically for developer testing and are free to use. Live transactions on a Sandbox Marketplace are disabled and Arcadier wipes all data and deletes Sandbox Marketplaces created 60 days from registration.
A Sandbox Marketplace is perfect for testing because it allows for all the necessary functionalities of our Live Marketplaces except for live transactions and payments. Because of this and with the fact that its free, you can afford to break the marketplace while testing customisations. Once you have created a Sandbox Marketplace, you will receive your Client ID & Secret for that marketplace, and that will allow you to authenticate and test Arcadier’s APIs. One way to do customisations with your sandbox is to write your code in the Custom Code tab found in the “Advanced” tab in the sidebar.
If you want to develop higher level and more complex features for Arcadier’s marketplaces, you will receive a Sandbox Developer’s Dashboard on which you will be able to upload your source codes (including PHP files) and manage them. To register for a Sandbox Developer’s Dashboard, find out more here.
Image: Arcadier Developer Dashboard
The difference between having a developer dashboard to upload your customisations, and doing customisations straight from the “Custom Code” tab, is that the Admin has no access to the source code uploaded via the dashboard.
In both cases, it is essential to have a Sandbox Marketplace as a dummy marketplace to test your customizations before deciding to build for live marketplaces. You can also choose to incorporate the Marketplace Populator Plug-In onto your Marketplace to avoid the strenuous creation test data (users, categories, test transactions and items) to do various testings. This plug-in can also be used as an example of what plug-ins can do with our current APIs. The sample code for this plug-in can be found here.
Create your Sandbox Marketplace
It is free to create a Sandbox Marketplace and we strongly recommend all developers to have their own sandbox marketplace created before upgrading to Growth, Scale or Enterprise Packages for APIs on their live marketplace. All sandbox marketplaces have API access and are free to use, they are only disabled for Live payments and have 60 days access, after which the sandbox marketplace and all data will be wiped clean.
You should be able to use your sandbox marketplace to test your custom features as well as explore Arcadier’s platform without any fee!
- Go to the Arcadier Sandbox sign up page
- Sign up with your preferred ID (Note: This will be the admin login for your sandbox as well!) and fill in the required fields
- Select the marketplace type you would like
- Retail Goods for BESPOKE
- Rental Goods by Location for SPACE
- Space Rental for SPACE
- Rental Goods by Type for TIME
- Service Bookings for TIME
- Take note of your Marketplace Name as it will affect the URL of your sandbox marketplace (https://{{mymarketplacename}}.sandbox.arcadier.io)
- Also take note of the Currency selected as your sandbox marketplace will transact in this currency
- Complete the sign-up flow by filling in the rest of the required fields
- You will receive an email indicating that your marketplace has been successfully set up and you may now log in to the Admin Portal
Language Skills Requirement
In order to properly implement Arcadier’s APIs, you will need to understand and be fluent with our compatible languages:
- Javascript
- CSS
- PHP
- HTML
Besides the basic knowledge of code, it will also help you if you understand the way Arcadier’s Marketplaces work: the differences between the 3 roles on a marketplace (Admin/Merchant/Buyer), the flow between functions, front-end to back-end connections and proper implementations of variables.
Additionally, you have to be innovative. The various implementations of plug-ins are limited to the imagination of the developer as well as our APIs. Be sure to check if the feature you are trying to build can be compatible with Arcadier’s platform before starting your project. A good way to gauge this is to have a look at our GitHub.
Something to note:
For Expert Partners have secured an actual marketplace customisation project on Arcadier, its highly recommended that you or your client subscribe immediately for a Live Marketplace environment to ensure your development which had worked on a Sandbox Marketplace also works on a Live Marketplace environment. Please contact Arcadier engineers if you require more information.