Different studies have discovered that many consumers currently opt to rent a product instead of purchasing it for good. The proportion of such consumers is more than 77% in the US itself. The rise in the popularity of online Build a Rental Marketplace services has led to the flourishing of the specific business niche at an extraordinary rate. Besides the new businesses and models coming up, an extensive range of new products is also being included in the catalog daily.
Build A Rental Marketplace
Beginning from house rentals, the catalog has progressed to include anything you can think of. Whatever you desire – kitchen appliances, furniture, refrigerator, a gaming PC, or a dress for the future wedding reception, rental marketplaces can cater to your every need.
What Are Rental Marketplaces?
An online rental marketplace resembles a peer-to-peer marketplace such as eBay. Nevertheless, rather than selling a product, such marketplaces permit people to place products on rent. Likewise, instead of buying the item permanently, they enable the customers to buy the rental plans. The admin role is nevertheless similar where he/she can gather the commission, moderate the site, and administer the users on the site.
- Briefly, there are 3 types of users on a usual rental marketplace site:
- Renters – People who place their rentable products on the site
- Admin – Owner of the site
- Customers – People who are searching for products on rent
The entire process of developing rental marketplaces can become complex and costly as it contains high-end tech. There are no shortcuts for inaugurating a rental marketplace and operating it effectively. Here we delve into some of the ways to build a rental marketplace that creates a great user experience for consumers.
Some of the key things to consider while opening a rental marketplace includes:
1. Designing A Homepage
You can select two options for homepage design – either follow the traditional pattern or experiment with a modern layout using big banners and sliders. But the best part is to keep everything minimal and paying more attention to the functionality aspect of the website.
The moment a user enters the homepage, what should immediately grab their attention and highlight the details of the website should be an intuitive banner. Besides this, the upper fold can also contain essential links such as categories, login/signup, and how it works. You must also include a search bar that should be positioned on top of the banner image.
2. Displaying Recently Rented Items And Featured Products
The next crucial aspect of a homepage is to display a dedicated segment of currently rented items. You can find several eCommerce sites that have inducted this specific strategy within their homepage.
Besides, your homepage should also contain a dedicated segment that indicates every featured product on the site. The detail should include:
- Category of the item
- Product name
- Product Images
- Price per day
3. Keep Footer To A Minimal
Similar to other eCommerce websites, the footer must be maintained to the minimum. It must only contain the content pages together with verified payments gateways.
You can also retain the following features:
- Feedback
- How it works
- Login/Register
- Invitation/Referrals
- Search results
- Review
- Item page with Post new items, Request an item, Manage items
4. Include A List Of Critical Features
All rental marketplaces need to include some of the decisive features that can boost your rental business. Some of these include:
- User profiles carry the user’s name and image and are necessary for both the providers and the customers.
- Listings where users can post images and details about the item being rented.
- Map and Location for renting items like car, bike, or residence as you require a specific location. For websites that rent cameras or gear for babies, specifying location is important.
- Online payments for customers to make payments via their Paypal accounts or credit cards. Moreover, the provider of the rental item also needs to receive payments in their bank accounts, so also the entrepreneur needs their cut money.
- Reviews where both the provider as well as the customer can review one another after a transaction.
- Availability and booking management to help providers manage listings for accepting bookings. Moreover, it also helps customers to browse listings based on the given information. Booking management avoids canceled purchases because of double bookings.
- Appropriate administration tools for knowing the active users, ongoing transactions, types of reviews your providers receive, block users, moderate content, edit payments and monitor messages.
5. Create A Community
When you are developing a rental marketplace, setting up a community helps to build trust among users. If you regard Airbnb’s marketing plan, it is greater than a peer-to-peer accommodation provider. Airbnb has effectively built their individual community where they promote detailed profiles, frequent interaction between users, and a powerful review system. The interaction in the Airbnb platform is exceptional.
It is not only improved communication or strong reviews; the genuineness of the experience also contributes to making Airbnb an effective community. Acquire motivation from advertising strategy by presenting the best quality services and joining people to advance beyond a peer-peer rental marketplace.
6. Deliver A Memorable User Experience
The user experience concerns your customers’ feelings when they tour your application or platform or utilize your services. To impart a superb user experience to your customers, you must keep the proper balance between your activities and your customer’s aspirations. When building an impressive customer experience, begin from the initial screen a user views your platform to trustworthy customer service. To forge a wonderful online rental business, your platform must also possess an attractive, unique, and intriguing content structure.
7. Selecting The Correct Technology
You reside in an era of hyper-connectivity where a leading role is played by technology in driving all online businesses. To redo the success of a pre-existing marketplace, you can employ the same technology employed by the pioneers to offer the matching level of dependability and safety to your customers. For instance, if your business model resembles that of Airbnb but in a separate niche, you can employ an Airbnb clone to develop your marketplace with similar technologies to enforce the same features and functionalities customized as per your needs.
8. A Vibrant Security
Security is amongst the vital attributes that assist rental marketplaces in advancing to the next stage. Your online rental platforms must have potent and robust security architecture to safeguard financial transactions and sensitive user data. For instance, SSL protection is essential for any online platform to assure the online transactions stay secure and safe.
It does not simply involve the security of your online platform; the security of the user’s properties is identically important. Assure that your users’ interactions and booking requests are reviewed, screened, and devoid of fraudulent activities. If even the slightest sign of any abnormal activity in any account is present, you must possess a system that turns on to solve the issue.
For example, Airbnb contains “Airlock” to counteract fraudulent activities. In any uncommon activity on the platform, the interaction will be blocked, activating their multi-factor authentication security system. Perform substantial background checks and provide escrow services and additionally assure that the service providers in your platform get remunerated for the services or products they offer without slip.
9. Cultivate Relationships With Concerned Influencers
Influencer marketing is among the finest ways to promote word-of-mouth publicity. At any event hosted by your business, ensure you invite the maximum social influences possible; the results will surprise you.
If you are operating an apartmental rental marketplace, you can use the effect of celebrity stays by associating with celebrities and providing your services instead of some page hits, social media love, and new users. By partnering with concerned influencers, you are joining with their audience also. It also aids in turning your one-time customers into permanent-loyal customers. Influencer marketing immediately raises brand awareness and fuels faster customer retention.
Also Read: Proven Tips to Secure Your WordPress Website
10. Business Model
The option of a business model is among the primary factors for the success of each rental marketplace. Rental businesses are long period initiatives that need the finest revenue strategies to fund their operations. One of the main reasons for the failure of a new business is their choice of a revenue model that doesn’t adjust.
The primary elements of a rental marketplace business model include the competitive advantage, target market, unique value proposition, price structure, revenue channels, key metrics, and profit margins. The popular business models of the rental marketplace include membership model, commission model, a freemium model with featured ads and listings, etc.
11. Excellent Customer Service
Presenting superb customer service to your consumers will drastically raise the value and growth of your rental marketplace. Finest customer service raises customer retention by 10% and instantly boosts the profit by nearly 30%. Investing in customer service will also reduce the money and churn rate you need to gain new customers. In case something bad occurs, 24/7 customer service is crucial to elevating customer satisfaction.
Design A Rental Marketplace Website With Dokan
To create a rental marketplace, using plugins like Dokan can be a useful option. Before installing Dokan, you need to install WooCommerce on your WordPress site.
How Dokan Aids To Create Revenue For Rental Multi-vendors
Dokan comprises a Multivendor Marketplace solution that supports WordPress, which is currently among the most common and extensively used website platforms. Dokan enables anyone, including those without technical knowledge in building online stores, to convert a WooCommerce store into a wholly operational Marketplace, resembling Alibaba, Etsy, Amazon, and eBay.
Dokan multi-vendor marketplace allows you to receive a commission for every sale that helps you balance the site’s expenses. That’s a fresh revenue stream if you employ Dokan to operate eCommerce.
Conclusion of Build A Rental Marketplace:
The online rental business segment is on a rising trend, with people choosing rentals over ownerships. On account of technology and the Internet, starting a rental marketplace has become simple and evolved amongst the most thriving business ideas. Whether you are a promising entrepreneur or an established rental business striving to outperform rivals, these best tips will aid in carrying your business to pristine heights. Focus on presenting a memorable experience for your customers instead of offering only the rental services to build a lifelong customer for your business.
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