Great question. It can be hard to run a marketplace for expensive items as I feel like people have a threshold for the amount of money they’re comfortable risking online through payments. Most people started with buying books online then built up their tolerance to risk through more successful transactions. Credit card refunds and Paypal buyer protection helped but people still have a number of internal checkboxes that they need to check before parting with large sums of money online.
These include:
- Cues and social proof from your marketplace website
- Whether they read about the marketplace from a reputable news source or were referred from a trusted friend
- Whether there are online reviews
These are some of the basic issues around trust and this ties into what people look for when they’re confronted with buying something expensive online.
To help alleviate these natural fears in people when buying expensive services, you could look to build a marketplace that uses Escrow as a means of payment. This could either be through a dedicated escrow provider like Escrow or could be a built-in feature of your marketplace. You could also look to link up provider’s social profiles as additional social proof but, depending on your % commission or fee, you may find some people looking to bypass your marketplace and deal directly with the provider.
These two features will go a long way to providing more surety when someone is buying through your marketplace.