This project involved designing and building a multi-vendor dropshipping marketplace as a solo entrepreneur and lead engineer, supported by a small team of freelancers. The goal was to create a scalable e-commerce platform that allows multiple vendors to sell products through a single storefront while handling payments, product synchronization, and shipping cost calculation automatically.

What the Platform Does

The marketplace supports multiple vendors, each able to add products either manually or by importing structured product lists. Vendors can connect their existing product catalogs from popular e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Etsy, and other third-party systems, or provide custom product feed formats tailored to their internal tools. This allows rapid onboarding of vendors without forcing changes to their existing workflows.

The platform handles secure online payments, ensuring that customer transactions are processed safely while supporting global sales. Vendor product data, pricing, and availability are synchronized into the marketplace and presented consistently to end customers.

Shipping and Pricing Logic

A key feature of the system is the dynamic shipping cost calculation, designed to work similarly to large online marketplaces. Shipping prices are calculated based on three main criteria:

• Geographic distance between customer and vendor location

• Package characteristics, including size, dimensions, and weight

• Selected courier service

The system integrates multiple shipping providers operating across the Baltic region, allowing customers to choose between different delivery options. Shipping costs are calculated in real time during checkout, providing transparent pricing before purchase.

Architecture and Execution

As the lead engineer, I designed the overall system architecture, coordinated development tasks, and implemented core platform functionality. Freelancers supported specific areas such as frontend components and auxiliary integrations, while system design, data flows, payment logic, and shipping calculation rules were centrally managed to ensure consistency and reliability.