The challenge
Bangladesh's recycled-plastic trade runs on phone calls and personal networks. A buyer looking for PP granules or PET flakes has no easy way to compare prices, and no way to know whether an unfamiliar seller will deliver.
A normal online shop doesn't fit either. Prices are negotiated per kilogram, minimum order quantities matter, and many deals start with the buyer describing what they need rather than picking a product off a shelf.
What I built
A marketplace shaped around bulk trade
Products are listed by material category (PET flakes, recycled flakes, recycled granules, virgin granules and finished products) with price per kg, available stock and minimum order quantity. Wholesale and retail buyers use the same catalogue.
Negotiation and buyer requests
Buyers can negotiate a price with the seller in private chat, or post a purchase request describing what they need and let sellers come to them. A daily price board, built from listed prices, gives everyone a shared reference for each material.
Trust built into the platform
New sellers sign up with mobile OTP and submit a national ID, with a trade licence optional. Chat automatically filters contact details to keep deals on the platform, and repeated attempts earn strikes.
Reputation that rewards good sellers
After each order, buyers rate the seller on six points. Seller levels, from new seller to top rated, are recalculated daily and feed a 0–100 quality score that decides product ranking in the shop and search.
Payouts, invoices and sponsored listings
Earnings are held and settled automatically after the hold period, with every payout recorded and auditable. Sellers get invoices and order tracking, and qualifying sellers can promote products with a per-click bid and a daily budget.
How it’s built
Where it is now
E Plastic is live in Bangla, with multi-vendor selling, negotiation, buyer requests, the daily price board, seller verification, ratings and managed payouts all running in production.
The marketplace logic lives in one custom plugin on top of WooCommerce, so the store keeps WooCommerce's reliable ordering and checkout while the trade-specific rules stay in code that can grow with the business.