Is there an 'off the shelf' platform for making a new website similar to Elance?

Question

I am interested in developing a website that is similar to 'elance' but for a particular vertical.

Is there an 'off the shelf' platform you can recommend for getting started with this, or would I need to develop this web service from scratch?

When I write 'platform' I am referring to things such as 'shopify' for e-commerce sites, or 'ning' for social websites. I want to create a multi-merchant professional services site.

The site would need to support functionality such as:

• allowing merchants to open and manage their own profile.
• merchants would accept payments from customers through the site.
• file transfers between merchants and customers.
• merchant ratings by customers.

Answer 1

In my time on the web, I have never seen a platform out of the box that does this.. allows for this sort of marketplace. Although for something that might be a good start for this, you can look into elgg and pinax. Pinax provides a "market place" feature where people can trade stuff. Perhaps adding payment integration to that would do the trick among many other things you will need to do.

Answer 2

Yes there is, http://sitemile.com/products/wordpress-project-freelancer-theme/

The only wordpress theme that allows you to build a project bidding, freelancer, chores or task website from your wordpress blog. Launch a bidding or job site in minutes. The perfect solution for the professionals but also for novice users. A real turn-key solution.