A reference architecture for customizable marketplaces

Abstract

A broader term used for a platform in the sharing economy is ‘marketplace’. This is a type of e-commerce site or app where transactions for services of-fered by multiple providers are processed by the marketplace operator (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, eBay). Lately the number and popularity of marketplaces has exploded, with more variety and focus on niche markets. Software products like Sharetribe make it possible to create a customized marketplace quick and with few resources. It is, however, not known whether such products cater for the needs of all possible varieties of marketplace, nor how such products can be selected and/or customized to provide the best fit with a particular marketplace. The goal of this PhD project is to design a Software Reference Architecture (SRA) for marketplaces which can be used to select or create the most suitable software product. Our first step in the project is to design a conceptual data model for this SRA based on a marketplace do-main ontology.