
by Sajitha Banu
31 May 2021
Are you an entrepreneur? Looking for ideas to build the next big online rental marketplace platforms like Airbnb. If yes, then you are not alone and every entrepreneur is struggling to get complete knowledge of building an online rental marketplace. As per reports, the value of rental marketplace is expected to foresee 3.4% annual growth rate from 2020 to 2027. Setting up a rental marketplace from scratch can be challenging, but you can achieve it easily with the right business strategy.
What is a rental marketplace?
A rental marketplace is a platform that engages rental owners and customers who want to rent property, vehicles or appliances, etc. The ultimate goal is to help people who want to make some extra income from assets they hold. In the USA “36 percent of millennials are living in rental accommodations onlyâ€.
Also, customers appreciated rentals as they don’t have to spend a huge amount to buy resources. For example, Airbnb is the most convenient and cheap online rental marketplace platform for travelers.
How to start your own online rental marketplace?
According to Statista, In the Vacation Rentals sector, the number of users is expected to reach 874.4 million users by 2025. Building an online rental marketplace is a long process, you need a team of expert developers handy. However, you can hire professionals to build your platform from scratch. But, readymade rental platforms like Laravel E-commerce can be efficient to set your renting marketplace quickly. As it’s a pre-built rental marketplace platform suitable for different niches and customizable for any size business.
The online rental marketplace#34sigs workflow
The online rental platform works around three groups of people namely, the end-user, service provider, and the platform owner. The end-user is someone who is searching for renting objects or properties from Service Providers. These providers earn money by renting out their assets. As per Airbnb, millennials will account for almost 75% of all consumers and travelers by 2025. The platform owners are like a bridge that connects both the users and providers in a website. Here is the basic workflow of a rental marketplace.
The user has to search for rentals by entering the location and booking dates.
The platform will list down all the applicable options with reference to the user search.
Then you can find the details like service fee, per day charges, etc.
The user can make a booking request to the service provider and confirm payments.
The service provider will get request notifications and can either confirm/reject.
Once the booking gets confirmed, users can rent out successfully.
After the rental period expires, Users and providers need to review their experience.
Essential rental marketplace features
Online marketplaces need a unique set of features to succeed over competitors. As most of the platforms have common features, it#34sigs essential to integrate a few important features. Here is a list of some must-have features in the rental marketplace.
User profiles
The user profile is essential for any type of online marketplace which consists of the user#34sigs name, image, and other information. Both the service providers and customers will have to create their user profiles.
Listings
Every online rental website must have a listing functionality. Which helps users to find images and other information about your rentals. However, if you find a listing is a time-consuming task then you are more likely to lose profits. Many users decide to rent on a particular website based on their listings only.
Map & Location
For big giant brands like Amazon and Flipkart, shopping locations don’t matter as they have wide delivery networks. But for the rental marketplace, location plays a vital role and most companies rely on location-based services. However, people rent items in case of necessities that don’t consume much time to get delivered.
Online payments
Payment page is where more than half of the cart abandonment takes place. Whereas the average checkout abandonment rate is between 25% to 35%. To avoid a large number of abandonment, ensure to provide multiple payment gateways to customers. Making payments must be easy for users who rent your property or objects. Most rental marketplaces accept online payments on their website directly. For this, you need to support credit/debit cards, Apple Pay, or Paypal payment gateways. By doing so, service providers can transfer their money to a bank account after the owner#34sigs confirmation directly. Read our blog, to know more insights on how to reduce online shopping cart abandonment.
Reviews
The online rental marketplace can look like a stranger for users. In order to build trust in your brand, you can make use of reviews. Most online booking platforms allow users to add their honest reviews after the experience. Also, service providers can review user’s feedback too.
Availability & booking management
Availability and booking management is one of the topmost features that helps rental businesses to manage efficiently. By managing availability information, both users and service providers get real-time insights on rental bookings. All you need is to have perfect rental management software that matches your business needs.
Holding funds & delaying payouts
As mentioned earlier, building trust can be crucial in rental businesses. Ensure that your service providers offer good quality products to users for credibility. You can also hold payments of providers until the product reaches the user#34sigs place. Which can build trust between user and provider on your brand.
Admin tools
Admin must be aware of every detail in the rental marketplace business. Likewise, the admin should be able to view all the booking information of users and providers on the website. For this, you need extraordinary tools to manage payments, moderate content, edit/remove users and a lot more. All these important features are available on our laravel eCommerce platform.
How much does it cost to build a rental marketplace?
The cost for developing a rental marketplace can differ based on various elements. For instance, additional features and functionalities can increase your development budget. However, your rental marketplace must have all the features mentioned in this blog. As it’s essential for businesses to offer a better user experience and manage rental bookings efficiently.
Final Takeaway
Building an online rental platform from scratch can be a time-consuming process, so it’s a good idea to benefit from readymade solutions. The good news for entrepreneurs is that they can manage this marketplace without any coding skills. Also, you will get all the important features for your marketplace within the scheduled time.