How to Convert Your Shipturtle Marketplace Into Native Mobile Apps

Convert Shipturtle Marketplace to Mobile App and give your buyers and vendors a home on their phones—not just in their bookmarks.

Why Your Multivendor Marketplace Needs Mobile Apps

When it comes to seamless transformations of Shopify stores to Multivendor marketplaces, {Insert Company} takes the cake. With over 1,000 marketplaces, 50K+ vendors, and 5 million+ orders processed, {Insert Company} has become a powerhouse marketplace that completes the circle with artisan collectives, sneaker resale platforms, B2B wholesale , and more! {Insert Company&} has processed orders from over 50 countries, making it a global marketplace.

The platform does the heavy-lifting backend work. Everything from vendor onboarding, catalog importation, order split, commission calculations, shipment integrations, and automated payout takes place. It covers B2B, B2C, and C2C models which include products, rentals, bookings, and services.

The shipment integrations does work; however, it does lack in mobile access. Your vendors have access to cloud-based dashboards, and yes, to mobile access. But your buyers? They’re shopping on phones – mobile browsers. They’re checking orders on mobile web interfaces that are poorly optimized.

Apps are a game-changer:

Marketplace buyers gain access to notifications on price drops, restocks, and order updates. They can make purchases easily and frequently.

Marketplace vendors the receive notifications on orders so they can complete them and keep customers happy.

Marketplace owners gain trust and 2-3x higher engagement as they acquire an app.

If you’ve built a marketplace with Shipturtle, your next step to maximize that investment is to build a mobile app.

What Is Shipturtle (And Why Marketplaces Choose It)

Shipturtle has been rated 4.9 out of 5 stars with 125+ reviews and is the 1 leading multivendor marketplace app on shopify. It turns standalone Shopify stores into fully functioning marketplaces where they can have multiple sellers list products, process orders, and get paid.

Some of the things Shipturtle can do to make it great:

• Vendor Dashboards: Each seller gets their own cloud dashboard where they can see everything about their products, orders, and profits.
• Vendor Website Sync: Vendors can have their products synced to websites they already own on Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, or Magento.
• 400+ Automated Workflows: From onboarding, catalog import, order routing, shipment tracking, and payouts, everything can be automated.
• Order Splitting: Orders from multiple vendors can be split into separate orders and have the proper tax and shipping price assigned to them.
• Commission Management: Rules can be set to automatically apply commissions based on vendor, product, category, and global settings.
• 5,000+ Integrations: Shipturtle integrates with shipping carriers, payment processors, and CRMs.
• Multiple Marketplace Types: Including products, rentals, bookings, services, auctions, and peer to peer selling.

Some Marketplace Models Shipturtle Supports:

• Product Marketplaces: Similar to Amazon, Etsy, and other multi vendor stores.
• Rental Marketplaces: Rentals of things like equipment, fashion, and vehicles which have calendars to show their availability.
• Service Marketplaces: Bookings of services similar to Fiverr or TaskRabbit.
• C2C Marketplaces: Peer to peer selling platforms like Poshmark or Vinted.
• Hyperlocal Marketplaces: Delivery and services based on the user’s current location.
• Auction Marketplaces: Marketplaces that have functionalities for bidding and reverse auctions.
• B2B Wholesale: Wholesale selling and other business-to-business functionalities.

Who Uses Shipturtle:

• Fashion and apparel marketplaces like Cult Mia, Balardi, and CrepDogCrew.
• Artisan and handmade goods platforms like Dusaan, Abel & Tosh, and ArtisanBox.
• Food and nutrition brands such as Veeba Foods, Muscle Pump Nutrition, and Al Wholesale.
• C2C resale platforms including Bears Club, eNDE Project, and P.S. Bridal Rental.
• Home decoration and lifestyle stores include The Purple Pony, Zwende, and Mybageecha.
• Sneaker and streetwear fashion can be found at CrepDogCrew.
• Zurno offers beauty and nail services.
• For Books and media, visit Nextbook.

The mobile gap? Shipturtle excels at backend marketplace operations. But the customer-facing shopping experience and vendor management interface remain predominantly web browsers. Your marketplace is up against the likes of Amazon and Etsy, and it needs mobile apps.

Why Your Shipturtle Marketplace Needs Mobile Apps?

Multivendor marketplaces have two audiences, the buyers and the vendors. Both audiences are able to leverage and benefit from the implementations of mobile native applications.

For Your Buyers:

1. Push Notifications Drive Repeat Purchases

According to the Digital Commerce 360 report, the average open rate for emails is 20% while mobile push notifications are opened at 90% and higher. It is easy to see the advantage for a marketplace:

• “Your order shipped!” – Instantly delivered updates help reduce “where’s my order” inquiries.
• “Back in stock: [Product]” – Capture demand the instant inventory refreshes.
• “Flash sale from [Vendor]” – Drive impulse purchases with time-sensitive promotions.
• “New arrivals in [Category]”– Keep buyers engaged with notifications around fresh inventory.
• “Your saved item dropped in price” – Convert wishlist browsers to buyers.

2. Home Screen Presence Creates Shopping Habits

A marketplace that is a browser bookmark means the customer is likely to visit when they actively need to make a purchase. If they have downloaded the marketplace app and it’s on their home screen, they will browse the same way they would on Instagram which is likely to lead to discovery purchases and higher average order values.

3. Faster, Smoother Shopping Experience

Native apps always perform better than mobile websites in terms of speed and responsiveness, which is super important for marketplaces with thousands of products and multiple vendor storefronts.

4. App Store Credibility

Having a marketplace in the App Store and Google Play shows its legitimacy. This is especially important for new marketplaces that are trying to compete with more established marketplaces.

For Your Vendors

5. Instant Order Notifications

Vendors who only check their email once every few hours tend to miss time-sensitive orders. Notifications are typically more visible than emails.

“New order: [Product] from [Customer]” — This is the start of faster order fulfillment.

“Order requires action” — Flags potential issues so we can resolve them quickly.

“Payout processed: $X” — Visibility of earnings keeps vendors motivated.

6. On-the-go Order Management

Many Shipturtle vendors are small business owners, artisans, or individual sellers who are not at a desk all day. Mobile apps let them:

• Accept or reject orders while away from their computer.
• Update product availability.
• Respond to customer inquiries.
• Track packages and create shipment labels.

For C2C marketplaces especially, where sellers might be individuals casually listing items, mobile-first vendor management is essential.

For Marketplace Owners

7. Higher Engagement, Lower Acquisition Costs

Mobile app users engage 2-3x more than web users, which translates to a higher GMV (gross merchandise value) for the same customer base, resulting in lower customer acquisition costs.

Shipturtle + Twinr Stack for Marketplace Commerce

Here is how progressive marketplace owners view mobile:

Shipturtle takes care of the core marketplace operations: vendor management, product syncing, order splitting, commissions, shipping, and payment disbursements.

Twinr takes it further in mobile: it turns your marketplace store into a native iOS and Android app, and adds push notifications, engagement features, and mobile-integrated UI.

Anywhere your buyers and vendors operate, your marketplace powered by Shipturtle is available.

Why Twinr for Multi-Vendor Marketplaces?

Twinr is not just another website wrapper. It is a mobile platform for commerce focused on user retention, and multivendor marketplaces offer distinct opportunities.

What Does Twinr Add to Your Marketplace

Commerce Events Push Notifications Marketplace

For Customers

• Order confirmations, shipping information, and delivery notifications;
• back-in-stock notifications;
• price drop alerts for items on their wishlists;
• brand new products in the categories they follow;
• products from vendors they star;
• flash sales and other time sensitive sales
• reminders to recover their abandoned carts;

 

For Vendors

• New order notifications (they get notified in real time when they get an order);
• notifications for order statuses that require their action;
• notifications for order payments and commissions;
• low stock notifications for their products;
• new customer messages and inquiries.

Native Screens for Key Experiences

Your Shipturtle marketplace functions perfectly in Twinr.

However, for high volume moments, you can design bespoke screens that are native only to Twinr:

• Mobile optimized product detail pages;
• deep cart and swift checkout options;
• followable vendor storefronts;
• order tracking screens;
• category screens with filter options.

Suggestions for Engagement

The AI from Twinr looks at customer purchasing data and can recommend:

• which of your customers are likely to stop purchasing?
• When the best time to push out a promotion is?
• Which products should be highlighted for certain customers?

Unlimited Push Notifications

There are no fees per message, and there are no costs to setting up OneSignal. Promotional messages, order updates, and announcements to vendors can all be sent at no additional cost.

Retention Analytics for Marketplaces

Monitor app installations, how frequently users open the app, how often users open notifications, and what users buy. Learn which vendors drive repeat visits and which categories see the greatest engagement.

Real-Time Sync with Shipturtle

When you edit your Shopify store — adding new products, changing vendors, updating prices — those changes appear in the mobile app. No remaking the app, no resubmitting the app.

White-Glove Launch Support

Twinr’s team manages submissions to the App Store and Google Play, provides playbooks to guide you through your launch, and offers you the support of a customer success manager.

How to Change Your Shipturtle Marketplace to Mobile Applications

Ready to give your customers and vendors mobile applications? Here is the procedure:

First Step: Make Sure Your Marketplace is Prepared

Step 1: First note that your Shipturtle-powered marketplace is:

• Having live stores with products available and active vendors
• Having mobile-responsive theme (is it possible to use your website to shop on phone browsers?)
• Having essential features working (is it possible to browse the site? search? add items to your basket? and checkout?)
• Having vendor mobile storefronts (if it applies) that display properly

Step 2: Set Up Your Twinr Account

Go to builder.twinr.dev

• Set up a free 14-day trial account (no credit card is needed)
• Press Create App and choose Blank
• Type your app name and use your Shopify marketplace URL
• Choose your category (Marketplace, Shopping, etc.)

Step 3: Optimize Your Mobile Experience

Use Twinr’s visual builders to create the following:

Branding: the app’s icon, the splash screen, and the color for all elements to match your marketplace’s theme

Navigation: Home, Categories, Search, Cart, and Account all available on bottom tab navigation

Native Screens: all major shopping tasks should be mobile-optimized

Deep Links: allow push-notifications to directly link to products or vendors

Step 4: Set Up Commerce-Focused Push Notifications

This is the point at which the mobile marketplace activity becomes truly transformative:

Transactional Notifications

“Your order #1234 is confirmed”

“Great news! Your order has shipped – track it here.

Delivery Notification

“Your package has been delivered.”

“Message from [Vendor] regarding your order.”

Engagement Alerts

“The [Product] you liked is now in stock!”

“New deal: [Product] is 20% off.”

“New products from [Vendor] you follow.”

“Flash sale: 30% off all [Category] items for the next 4 hours!”

Recovery Alerts

“Looks like you left something in your cart!”

“Have you been thinking about [Product]? It’s a bestseller.”

“You haven’t been here in a bit, so I wanted to show you what’s new!”

Vendor Notifications

“New order! [Product] from [City]!”

“You’ve been paid $X!”

“Low stock: [Product] has 2 left!”

Step 5: Preview and Test

Install Twinr’s preview app to check on live devices:

Browse product and vendor stores

Test search and apply filters

Do a mock checkout

Check that you receive all expected push notifications

Ensure some notifications don’t link to a product

Step 6: Submit to App Stores

Do one of the following:

Do it yourself: Twinr has guides for App Store Connect and Google Play Console

Let Twinr handle it: Submissions, metadata, screenshots, and review responses are all done by the team

Currently, it takes around 2 weeks for most marketplace apps to go live.

Step 7: Drive Adoption

Once we go live:

• Add app install banners to your web marketplace using Twinr’s smart banners.
• Email your customer list and tell them about app-exclusive offers and offers to unlock app features.
• Include promotions in your order confirmations: “Download our app to get track your order!.
• App users unlock first purchase app-exclusive discounts.
• Encourage your vendors to endorse and preach the usage of the application.
• Analyze your adoption value and track the differential of engagement and conversion of the app versus the web.

Use Cases: Shipturtle Marketplaces That Benefit From Mobile Apps

Fashion & Apparel Marketplaces

• Web Reality: Shoppers browse when they actually remember to. Hence, they miss the new arrivals and flash sales.
• Mobile Advantage: Notifications of new collections, reminders of collected items, and items to browse helps in discipline of frequent returning.
• *Example:* A fashion marketplace like Cult Mia could notify users to help them remember new sustainable brands when we “drop”.
• Artisan & Handmade Goods Platforms
• Web Reality: Sellers have one-off unique uploads to the platform. Buyers often miss them.
• Mobile Advantage: New arrival notifications help buyers snag unique pieces before they’re gone and vendor follow functionality lets buyers track their favorite artisans.

Example: Purchasers can receive notifications when their favorite artists announce new pictures to motivate purchases due to the fact that they sell out quickly.

C2C Resale Marketplaces

Web Reality: Sellers list products and wait. Buyers check the site for new products. Buyers see instant notifications and check the site more. Sellers get ship notifications and can ship products should they choose. Communication between the buyer and seller feels instant messaging and is mobile friendly.

Example: Cortez Club has tools to instant notify people when products are listed that match their saved searches.

Sneaker & Streetwear Drops

Web Reality: New products sell out in seconds and are rarely restocked. Buyers are unaware when new products are dropping. Mobile Advantage: Buyers get notified when new products drop.

Example: CrepDogCrew can notify users 15 Seconds before new products drop to ensure their users get products.

B2B Wholesale Marketplace

Web Reality: Buying is a memory game. Sellers are vendors for their products. Mobile Advantage: Reminders to reorder are sent to buyers and notifications are sent to vendors when they have a new order so they can fulfill their order quickly.

Al Wholesale can alert restaurant buyers when it’s time to reorder based on their repeat purchase cycle, turning one-time buyers into recurring accounts.

Rental & Booking Marketplaces

Web Reality: Availability changes only get communicated at the next website visit Mobile Advantage: Availability alerts get sent when items become rentable. There are booking confirmations and reminder notifications. Return reminders are sent to minimize late fees. This also improves inventory turnover.

Example: a rental marketplace such as P.S. Bridal Rental could notify brides when their dream dress is available to rent for their wedding date.

FAQs:

1. Can I turn my Shipturtle marketplace into mobile apps even if I have lots of vendors?

Yes. Twinr transforms vendor marketplace storefronts into native apps. All buyers see is the same mobile marketplace storefront shopping experience whether you have 10 vendors or 500. Vendor storefronts, product listings, search results, checkout, all functions mobile as it does web.

2. Can vendors manage orders from the mobile app?

If set up that way, vendors can access their Shipturtle dashboards via the mobile app. That said, Shipturtle has their own Android app for vendors. The primary purpose of Twinr is for your buyers marketplace app experience, but is still possible to make a vendor-focused app variant.

3. How does notification work on my Shopify orders?

When you integrate Twinr with your Shopify store, it can set off notifications based on an order’s status. You can set it so that notification is sent whenever an order is placed, shipped, or delivered. You can also set notifications to be sent for promotional purposes, back in stock alerts, and abandoned cart notifications.

4. Can I create different applications for different segments of the marketplace?

Absolutely. If your Shipturtle marketplace has a B2B wholesale audience and a B2C retail audience, with Twinr you can create a different app for each audience with customized navigation, features, and notification strategies.

5. What happens when the vendors create new products?

Because Twinr syncs with your active Shopify store, new, updated, and removed products will always synchronize in the mobile app. Vendors will still manage products using their Shipturtle dashboards; there will be no change in their workflow.

6. What is the difference between Twinr and Median.co in relation to marketplace applications?

Median provides a wrapping service for websites so they can be incorporated with simple, custom-named, native features and has to use OneSignal for push notifications, which adds additional costs. For commerce, Twinr includes unlimited push notifications and is a marketplace-focused app, with AI-driven features for engagement, native UI for screens to optimize conversion, and retention-focused metrics to meet the standards of marketplace analytics such as GMV and repeat purchase rate.