5 Simple steps to build an online rental marketplace for your business

Every entrepreneur’s dream is to find an amazing tech solution in the market that helps their business.

But, some struggle with not having enough knowledge in building a complete product, while others don’t have the resources to build the platform from scratch. Eventually, this delays in setting up and starting the business.

To overcome such setbacks, entrepreneurs need to have complete knowledge about building a rental marketplace.

If you are an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur with the idea of starting an online rental marketplace business, then this blog is for you!

Here, you get an overview of designing and building an online rental marketplace platform for your business.

What is an online rental marketplace platform?

An online rental marketplace is a platform that connects the owners of the property, product, or service and renters under one roof.

The admin/owner of the platform will earn through the commission from the renters and the rental owners.

5 Steps to build an online rental marketplace:

There are 5 steps to building a wholesome online rental marketplace platform for entrepreneurs!

Step 1: Figuring out the business model of the platform.

Step 2: Coming up with the revenue model.

Step 3: Mind mapping the workflow.

Step 4: Narrowing the features and functionalities.

Step 5: Making sure that developing the rental marketplace platform is within your budget.

Let’s take a look at these steps one by one in the following article!

What could be the business and revenue model of the online rental marketplace?

The online rental marketplace is popularly adopting the aggregator business model. It connects the owners of the property, products, or services and renters under one platform.

To complement the aggregator business model, entrepreneurs choose the commission-based revenue model. The admin of the platform will be earning a commission out of the bookings made on the platform.

And by the end of the transaction, the earnings of the rental owners are distributed to them.

How does the online rental marketplace work?

1. The user searches for a rental property by entering the location and booking dates.
2. The platform lists down the options, and the user chooses one.
3. The platform shows the rental price in detail like the service fee, per day charges, etc.
4. The user gives a booking request to the service provider and pays the rental price.
5. The service provider sees the booking request and either accepts or rejects it.
6. After confirmation of the booking request, the user rents the goods on the mentioned dates.
7. After the rental period gets over, the user and service provider review each other’s experience.
8. The rental fare paid by the user gets received by the online rental platform owners. The owners keep their service fees and transfer the remaining to the rental property providers.

Main features to cover in any online rental marketplace platform

For renters:

Creative Search Page with Advanced Filters

The user can search for their required listing by using filters available to refine the search result. The search filters help in quickly finding the desired listing.

Wishlist

The wishlist can help the user save a listing for later use or share it with their friends and family. It is one of a strategy to improve bookings

Stripe

Transfer payment securely by integrating Stripe that gives streamlined payment processing for customers.

For property owners:

Seasonal Pricing Calendar

The service provider can set different pricing for their goods by the seasonal pricing feature. They can increase the price rates to collect profits when the demand is higher and lower the price when the bookings are very low.

iCal Integration – Export & Import

The rental owners can export and import their booking calendars to sync all the booking information.

Instant Book & Request to Book

The rental owners can label their listings as the Instant book or Request to book.

The instant booking option allows the end-users to instantly book without requesting the service provider, whereas the request to book option sends the booking request to the provider before booking.

For admin of the platform:

User Messages Auditing

The platform owner can audit the messages that go between the providers and the end-user. This feature helps the owners to know what has happened to understand the dispute.

Content Management System(CMS)

The platform owner can add a new page or change the existing content on the website by using a content management system.

User Reviews Auditing

The platform owner can delete or edit the reviews given by the user and provider on the platform. This feature helps in minimizing the untrue reviews posted by the users.

Ban Users

The online rental platform owner can ban any user from the platform if they found fraud when using the platform.

Multi-Currency & Multi-Language

You can integrate multi-currency and multi-language to make the business reach beyond the local community.

What is the cost of developing the online rental marketplace?

Developing an online rental marketplace from scratch will cost a lot and be more time-consuming than getting a ready-made solution.

An average of $10,000 to $25,000 (with $40 per hour as the service charge) will cost to develop an online rental marketplace from scratch.

On the other hand, a ready-made solution costs just $3000 including the white labeling charges when you outsource a developing team. Improvising the platform with extra features will cost an additional $25 per hour.

Popular online rental marketplace services

Airbnb

Airbnb is the pioneer of the online rental marketplace business. They were the first entrants in the market and have been going strong since then. Their business model is the most coveted structure. Many software development companies are making a clone script of this model to help entrepreneurs.

FlipKey

FlipKey is an online vacation rental marketplace founded in 2007 as a house-swapping and vacation rental listing website. In 2008, the company became a part of TripAdvisor. By 2016, the company reported having 300,000 properties in 179 countries.

Getaround

It is a peer-to-peer car-sharing platform that allows users to rent cars from the owners for a fare. It was started in September 2009 by Sam Zaid, Jessica Scorpio, and Elliot Kroo. The Getaround is available across the United States and now Europe.

Rent the Runway

It is an online dress rental company founded by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss in 2009. The user can rent designer clothes and accessories for a 4-day or 8-day period as low as the retail price.

10 Best business ideas for starting an online rental marketplace in 2022

Here is the list of 10 amazing online rental business ideas that you can use to start an online rental business.

Go ahead and explore these niches!

✳️ Vacation rental business
✳️ Car rental business
✳️ Venue rental business
✳️ Furniture rental business
✳️ Clothes rental business
✳️ Fitness equipment rental business
✳️ Boat rental business
✳️ Crane rental business
✳️ Interior decoration materials rental business
✳️ Warehouse rental business

Want to get to know how all these business ideas can be made possible? We give you RentALL - an Airbnb clone script It is a pre-built solution that can be customized to any niche and scalable for any size of business.

The 4 core reasons why you should consider RentALL

• You get the complete source code
• Built with the latest technologies – React and GraphQL
• Integrated Stripe SCA for secure transaction
• Available in both iOS and Android platform