Considering the new opportunities and business potential, the Uber for X framework is particularly beneficial for the gig economy, where over 1 billion freelancers and service providers are available on an on-demand basis for small gigs and contractual jobs. As per statistics, the total number of freelancers in the world is approximately 1.57 billion with 76.4 million freelancers available in the US alone. Some other countries with a high freelancer population include the UK, Canada, UAE, France, Philippines, Germany, Spain, and India. 

The global freelance platform market is valued at $6.56 billion. By applying the Uber for X framework in the freelance market, founders can help a large community of service providers thrive. Let us take a deeper look at the niches where you can launch the Uber for X platform along with the development approach. 

What is Uber for X?

An Uber for X platform is a marketplace where individual service providers can sign up to offer their services. Customers can upload service requests and jobs or browse service provider profiles to hire a professional in real-time. The on-demand hiring on Uber for X marketplaces provides the utmost convenience to consumers and makes professionals easily accessible. An Uber for X marketplace can be developed for numerous niches and services, such as handyman services, home cleaning, mechanics, plumbing, electrical, beauty, babysitting, pest control, and more.

Business Model and Workflow of Uber for X Marketplaces

Being an aggregator marketplace that registers multiple service providers on a single platform, Uber for X businesses follow the asset-light business model. In an asset-light business, entrepreneurs are only required to make the bare minimum investment. Usually, there are none to minimal inventory costs involved, and the business utilizes third-party assets or resources to progress. While the major advantage of asset-light businesses is their low startup costs, they are also dependent on external sources, such as vendors and service providers. 

With a strategically drafted onboarding strategy and timely capitalization, founders can efficiently onboard service providers on their Uber for X marketplace.

Step-by-Step Workflow of Uber for X Marketplace

For your reference, here’s an exemplary workflow for Uber for X Marketplace in the on-demand services industry. Based on your business requirements, you can review alternative workflows and make amendments to this workflow. 

• Job Posting

Step 1: Service providers register on the marketplace and create detailed profiles

Step 2: Customers visit the marketplace and upload detailed jobs with images and job descriptions

Step 3: Service providers apply for the jobs

Step 4: Customers review service provider profiles and select the service provider based on their requirements

Step 5: Service providers coordinate with customers for job delivery and complete the job

Alternative Workflows

• Bidding

Under this workflow, instead of directly applying for the jobs, service providers place bids and send detailed work proposals. Customers review the bids and hire a professional.

• Direct Hiring

Customers aren’t required to upload any jobs. They can view the availability of service providers through a booking calendar and hire them directly.

• Service Packages

Service providers can create tiered service packages on the marketplace with each package having different costs and offerings. Instead of booking through a calendar, customers purchase packages and coordinate with service providers for job completion. 

• Hybrid

The hybrid workflow is the most extensive workflow as it is a combination of all the above-mentioned models. Developing an Uber for X marketplace with hybrid workflows can also be expensive and time-consuming unless you find a readymade software with support for all the above business models. 

Managing Payments

Payments on an Uber for X marketplace can either be managed via an eWallet system or a split payment method. 

• In the eWallet system, service providers’ earnings are saved in their respective eWallets. On reaching the minimum withdrawal amount and interval period set by the admin, they can withdraw their earnings to their bank accounts. The primary benefit of eWallets is that they can act as an escrow account and help maintain cash flow, and effectively manage commissions and refunds.

• In the split payment method, the payment is directly split between the service provider and the marketplace admin (commission charges). Split payments ensure quick payments and may help with onboarding service providers.

Revenue Model of Uber for X Marketplaces

Digital businesses earn through diversified revenue streams. The same is the case with Uber for X marketplaces. With diversification in revenue generation streams, founders are able to ensure quick returns, stable income, and reach the breakeven point faster. Here are some revenue generation streams that are feasible for an Uber for X business:

• Service Commission: Founders or marketplace owners levy a service commission across the platform.
• Featured Listings: Marketplace owners charge service professionals for displaying their profiles in the most highlighted sections.
• Featured Job Postings: Charge clients for displaying their high-priority jobs in the most highlighted sections.
• Display Ads: Charge third-party companies for displaying their ads on the marketplace. 
• Service Packages: The marketplace owner can create and sell different packages to both service professionals and customers.
• Company Listings: Offer exclusive benefits and pricing for company profiles.

Top Niches and Industries for Launching an Uber for X Business

As said above, the Uber for X architecture can be applied to a number of niches in the service industry. Below are the most lucrative ones:

1. Uber for Handyman Services

The handyman services industry is growing at a CAGR of 16.5% in the projected period 2024-2033. Characterized by independent service professionals, who are willing to do all sorts of jobs for homeowners, the handyman industry is always in high demand. Furthermore, the convenience that handyman professionals add to people’s daily lives ensures long-lasting business prospects for the future. By launching an Uber for handyman services marketplace, you can enter the same market as platforms like AirTasker and Angi and benefit from organizing the unorganized sector.

2. Uber for Beauty Services

Due to the increase in women’s employment rates and daily occupied schedules, consumers are finding it difficult to make time to visit beauty services. Instead, they now prefer getting on-demand home salons and beauty treatments. As per statistics, the beauty service market was valued at $228.59 billion in 2024 and is expected to witness immense growth. Additional factors that are responsible for the beauty service industry’s growth are an increase in disposable income, celebrity endorsements, and social media influencers. 

3. Uber for House Cleaning

The cleaning services industry is huge. Its estimated market size in 2024 was $415.93 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.9% in 2025-2030. The house cleaning market is one of the thriving sectors of the cleaning services industry. On-demand cleaning professionals are able to provide reliable, cost-effective, and efficient cleaning services for all occasions, be it the festive season, house gatherings, birthdays, weddings, or simple house renovations. The on-demand nature of these services also makes house cleaning highly convenient, especially for senior citizens and busy homeowners.

4. Uber for Laundry

With the adoption of digital practices, traditional laundromats have evolved. Today, many laundromats provide online services, allowing customers to book on-demand laundry services. Once booked, laundry companies visit the customer’s house to collect laundry and deliver the cleaned laundry. Some other services that you can offer on your Uber for laundry marketplace with the help of laundry companies are dry cleaning, commercial cleaning, carpet cleaning, repair services, dyeing services, and more. Regarding market projections, the overall laundry market size in 2025 is $110 billion and is expected to add another $14 billion in the next three years.

5. Uber for Mechanics

The Uber for Mechanics platform follows a different business model from the traditional mechanics business. The online platform will allow car owners to find reliable car mechanics nearby in case of vehicle breakdowns. Additionally, they can look for mechanics for at-home inspection, repair, and other services. Car owners can upload quotation requests for services like denting, painting, and part replacement. Statistically, the CAGR of the automobile and mechanics industry is also impressive, standing at 10.2% in the projection period 2024-2032. 

6. Uber for Electricians

The electrical services market is valued at $138.5 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $295 billion by the end of 2037. Fueled by construction projects, infrastructure development projects, renovation projects, and urbanization, the electrical services market is an evergreen sector for investment. Launching an asset-light marketplace for connecting electricians can help you effectively capitalize in the industry. For quick onboarding, you can find local electricians easily.   

7. Uber for Plumbers

Plumbers are in frequent demand for home repair services, including drainage pipe installation, sewer line installation,  bathroom fixtures, and blockage removal services. The plumbing industry benefits from the same factors as electricians. Moreover, to diversify your services and boost revenue, you can launch a combined marketplace for electricians and plumbers. This will help you expand your marketplace operations without reinvesting in technological infrastructure. The overall market size for the plumbing industry in 2025 is $134.96 billion.

8. Uber for Maids

Uber for Maids marketplace helps house cleaners find more jobs for daily door-to-door cleaning. These jobs usually come with monthly or weekly payouts and have demands all around the globe. On your Uber for maids platform, you may require a manual onboarding option to help service providers create their profiles. Some popular references that you can refer to for your Uber for maids business are Homejoy, The Maids, Maid Brigade, and Broomees.

9. Uber for Landscaping

The global landscaping market is huge, approximately $330.58 billion, and is growing at a CAGR of 6.7% in the forecast period 2025-2030. The industry focuses on both residential and commercial sectors. For example, it is equally required for homes and commercial buildings such as malls, hotels, resorts, colleges, universities, and even public infrastructure. As the preference for green spaces grows, so will the landscaping industry, opening up the scope of business in launching an Uber for landscapers marketplace.

10. Uber for Pest Control

Increasing awareness of the health risks related to pest infestation is contributing to the growth of the pest control industry, primarily in warm and humid climate regions. However, colder regions also face the issue of infestations in houses and commercial establishments but not as severe. Regardless of the severity of infestations, the diseases carried by these infestations can be a major health hazard for all people in the nearby region. Thus, by building an Uber for pest control platform, you can provide quick access to local pest control service providers and prevent the spread of diseases.

11. Uber for Doctors

An Uber for Doctors platform can be of various types, including home visitation, online consultation, chat consultation, and QA forums. Building an Uber for Doctors serves the greater purpose of making medical assistance easily accessible to all people even in remote areas. The working population and elderly can book online consultations at the convenience of their four walls and get treated by their preferred doctors. Furthermore, a review and ratings system can help people make informed decisions. Additionally, you can provide the option to schedule visitations for in-person appointments on the marketplace.

12. Uber for Babysitters and Nannies

Due to their busy work schedules, parents need to hire babysitters and nannies to look after their children. This is especially true in the case of nuclear families and metro cities. However, finding a reliable babysitter who can properly look after children is difficult. To help parents, you can develop an Uber for Babysitters. On this platform, parents can find verified babysitters and sort them based on various skills, experience, ratings, reviews, and languages spoken.

13. Uber for Car Wash

Mobile car wash services have started to gain popularity in multiple regions. Their estimated market size was $6.96 billion in 2024 and has an estimated CAGR of 11.2% in the forecast period 2025-2030. On-demand mobile car wash services provide customers with the opportunity to get their cars cleaned on the go. For example, car owners can book mobile cleaning services while eating at a diner and continue the rest of their trip in a squeaky-clean car. Additionally, denting, painting, quick repairs, inspection, and quotation services can be provided on an Uber for car wash platform.

14. Uber for Pet Care

As per statistics, there are more than a billion pets in the entire world. In the US alone 66% of homes have pets. This number is again high in developed countries with developing countries catching up soon. To provide proper care to their pets, owners often have to resort to professional pet care services which include but are not limited to pet grooming, pet walking, veterinary, training, dentistry, and more. All these services can be offered on an Uber for Pet Care platform. 

Advantages of Launching an Uber for X Platform

We learned above that entrepreneurs can build an Uber for X platform for multiple niches. While the growth projections for niches are different, they all will benefit from certain common benefits. Some of them are mentioned below.

1. Provide Real-time Solutions

Uber for X platforms are high in demand as they offer real-time solutions to a variety of problems. Be it an electrician, plumber, babysitter, cleaner, or laundry professionals, Uber for X platforms helps users find reliable service providers and book their services in real-time. After booking, users can directly coordinate with service providers to get the work done.

2. Asset-Light and Cost Effective

All Uber for X platforms follow an asset-light business model. To launch such a platform, entrepreneurs are not required to invest in any inventory or warehouse. This results in lower utility bills and salary expenditures. Instead, an Uber for X business can be launched from a small space with technological interface and marketing campaigns. This makes the business highly cost-effective.

3. Highly-Scalable

There are no boundaries on an Uber for X platform. Service providers from any region can sign up and list their services. To expand your service marketplace to new regions, entrepreneurs only need to cover more regions in their marketing campaigns. With the right technological architecture, they can scale their business as much as they want.

4. Supports Gig Economy

There are an estimated 435 million gig workers in the world and the number of private company-owned solopreneurs is also increasing. Due to more work autonomy and freedom in the gig economy, many more people are expected to enter the industry. To help them all find reliable jobs, platforms like Uber for X are needed. 

6. Highly-Resilient Business

Product-based businesses often witness a slump during unprecedented times. However, the gig economy is not that volatile. Even if some sectors of the industry suffer, the gig economy will recover faster and continue to provide services. Certain service profiles that are highly required in construction, repair, and maintenance jobs will remain evergreen. Moreover, on an Uber for X platform, you can switch niches or allow professionals from different backgrounds to offer services at any time. This further increases the resilience of an Uber for X platform. 

Key Features Required to Build Uber for X

To enable smooth service marketplace operations and ensure a satisfying user experience, certain features are required. These features will help manage marketplace operations, overcome challenges, and deal with daily business use cases. Below is the list of some essential features for an Uber for X marketplace.

1. Detailed Profile Creation: For transparent operations and helping users find the most reliable freelancers for their jobs, let freelancers create detailed profiles. These can include numerous details such as skills, experience, portfolio, and more.

2. Job Posting: Likewise, let customers upload detailed jobs, including job descriptions, required skills, due date, location, images and more. These jobs can be set as public and private jobs.

3. Direct Invitation: For private jobs, let customers browse service provider profiles and send direct invitations to their preferred service providers.

4. Job Bidding: Let service providers upload their bids and proposals on jobs. Customers can review these proposals and select a winning bid depending on their requirements.

5. Booking Calendar: In an alternate business model, you can allow service providers to upload their work schedules on the Uber for X platform. Customers can view these schedules through a booking calendar and book accordingly. 

6. Service Packages: To provide services at a discounted rate, you can let service providers create and sell different service packages.

7. Dual Search: Users should have the option to search both jobs and service provider profiles right on the homepage of the marketplace. A similar option can also be offered at a global level on the top navigation bar.

8. Custom Task Categories: Being the marketplace admin, you should have the option to create multiple task categories for job posting. This will help you attract the required service providers on the marketplace. 

9. Custom Search Filters: Related to the custom task categories features, you should have the option to create and define multiple search filters for the marketplace. These can include profession, skills, experience, ratings, and more.

10. Job Cancellation Management: To prevent users from signing off-marketplace deals or help service providers recover from lost opportunities, you need a late cancellations management system. Through this system, you can set a custom job cancellation window and charges. 

11. User Management: As the marketplace admin, you need complete features to manage all registered users on the platform. These can include viewing their orders and payment information, setting up maximum registration attempts, and verifying user documents.

12. Soft Skills Support: Let users, especially freelancers, list their soft skills on the platform. This feature is particularly required for Uber for X marketplaces for babysitters and elderly care. 

13. Manually Add Service Providers: To provide onboarding assistance, you should have the option to manually add service providers and help them create profiles. This will reduce their onboarding time, ensure a more satisfying customer experience, and is highly required when targeting underdeveloped geographical regions.

14. Commission Settings: Get the option to set and define a percentage commission on every transaction that takes place on the marketplace.

15. eWallet: An eWallet system on the marketplace will be used to store the earnings of all service providers. You can set minimum withdrawal settings, such as the minimum withdrawal threshold amount and interval period to maintain cashflow on the marketplace

16. Split Payment: As an alternative to the eWallet system, you can offer a split payment method. Under this payment method, a payment processor is used to split payment as service charges and commission rate and is directly credited to the accounts of service providers and admin. Usually, the payment processor requires a few days to process payments, thus any refunds need to be requested within this period.

17. Conflict Resolution: On a service marketplace, users may enter into a conflict because of reasons like poor quality of work, payment issues, and unprofessional behavior. To resolve any such conflicts, users should have an option to raise an issue request and the admin can act as an intermediary to resolve the issue.

18. Offline Mode: On certain Uber for X marketplaces, where the marketplace owner decides to earn primarily through registration and listing costs, offering an offline payment mode is more feasible. When the offline mode is turned on, all payment gateways on the marketplace are disabled and service providers and customers directly interact with each other to manage payments.

19. Multilingual and Multi-currency Support: For expanding your Uber for X marketplace to multiple regions, having multilingual and multi-currency support on the marketplace is a must. In the case of multi-currency support, you should also look for payment gateways that can process payments in respective currencies.

20. Analytics and Reports: In-depth reports on the marketplace, related to service provider performance, user performance, job category performance, bookings, traffic, and completed orders will help you make important data-driven decisions. 

Approaches to Build an Uber for X Marketplace Platform

There are three primary approaches to develop your Uber for X marketplace. We have compared them all on the basis of their feasibility, scalability, and long-term cost-effectiveness.

Custom Development

The custom development approach requires you to develop the entire Uber for X marketplace from scratch. The process includes selecting the development tech stack, business analysts, and a team of developers. Business analysts will help you find out the key problems, concerns, and use cases that you will be dealing with in your marketplace operations and may also suggest tech stack and prepare a features list called Software Requirement Specification (SRS) sheet.  

Based on their recommendations, the team of developers will put your project on the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) process to develop the source. Afterward, you can test the marketplace in real-time situations and follow iterative development for improvements.

Pros of Custom Development

• Fully customizable and scalable to support any business requirements and growing number of users
• Provides you with the option to select your own tech stack
• Provides the freedom to select a faster or more secure server

Cons of Custom Development

• Too costly. Includes hourly development rates and the overall development may; range between $50,000-%200,000
• Too much time consuming. It may take up to years to develop your Uber for X platform with custom development
• Your business analysts and developers may fail to cover some important features and use cases
• The final build may not be tried and tested tor the market

Using SaaS Software

The term SaaS stands for Software as a Service. Under this development approach, you are using a readymade software that is already developed and hosted by a software development company on their own servers. The software developer then offers the software as a monthly recurring service charged monthly or annually. You can use the SaaS solution’s in-built capabilities to develop a homepage and start your Uber for X marketplace operations.

However, there’s a catch in SaaS solutions. As they are divided into small monthly payments, they usually lack essential functionalities. While the number of SaaS software for selling goods and products is high, there are very few options left when it comes to developing a service-based marketplace. In the end, you may feel the need to migrate to a different solution because of a lack of features and scalability problems.

Pros of Using SaaS Software

• Readymade solution with all basic features
• Pre-hosted on the software provider’s own servers

Cons of Using SaaS Software

• May lack important features
• Very costly in the long run with never-ending subscription charges
• Limited in terms of transactions, users and job postings
• Limited access to features in the base packages
• Require upgrading your package timely in order to scale

Using a Self-Hosted Software

Self-hosted solutions are readymade solutions that are available at a one-time cost. As they are genuinely priced for their offerings, they include all essential features and functionalities for your desired business proposition. Additionally, there are no subscription charges involved. To launch your Uber for X platform with self-hosted software, you need to invest in reliable software and select a hosting server. The software will already have a highly professional interface required for the business and you will need to do minor configurations, such as setting up your business trademarks, social media handles, terms and conditions, etc.

Pros of Using a Self-Hosted Software

• Reduces the overall Time to Market
• Highly cost-effective with a one-time cost
• Fully scalable with no restrictions on the number of listings, transactions, and features
• You get the option to select a fast or secure server
• Tried and tested for real-time service marketplace operations

Cons of Using a Self-Hosted Software

• No over-the-counter (OTC) updates are available
• Some entrepreneurs may not prefer the one-time upfront cost

Best Readymade Service Solution to Build an Uber For X 

Out of all the aforementioned development approaches, using a self-hosted solution seems to be the most practical approach. It reduces the overall time-to-market, is cost-effective in the long run, and is also fully customizable. Additionally, we required a software solution with multi-nationalization functionalities and dedicated features to bring ease of operations. Yo!Gigs service marketplace solution best matches our criteria. 

Yo!Gigs

To build an Uber for X platform, Yo!Gigs provides readymade support for both handyman and freelance service marketplaces. It comes with all essential and advanced features right out of the box. Made after thousands of hours into research and development, Yo!Gigs helps entrepreneurs deal with daily marketplace use cases, including preventing users from signing off-marketplace deals, managing service categories and registrations, and providing timely assistance for conflict resolution.

In terms of design, Yo!Gigs has a thoughtfully designed user interface that emphasizes minimalistic elements and provides equal emphasis to all listed service categories. With shorter workflows and intuitive navigation tools, Yo!Gigs ensure quick interactions that help users get the job done efficiently. Its color palette, homepage banner, content blocks, and other design elements are fully customizable. As the marketplace owner, you can also save and update themes.

For reference, you can check out Yo!Gigs’ highly professional interface below:

• Freelancer Marketplace Homepage
• Handyman Marketplace Homepage
• Service Provider Profile
• Customer Dashboard
• Admin Dashboard
• Service Provider Dashboard

Why Choose Yo!Gigs?

Here’s why Yo!Gigs offers the most value for developing an Uber for X platform:

1. Self-Hosted Solution Available at a One-Time Cost

Yo!Gigs is a self-hosted solution, meaning you get to host it on your choice of server, which can be an in-house server set up within your office premises or a reliable third-party hosting service such as Amazon AWS. A key difference that hosting makes is that you get complete control over your marketplace platform in a self-hosted solution in comparison to a SaaS solution.

For example, in a SaaS solution, the software provider gets the control over the server. They can easily limit your access to features and the number of job postings and transactions. In order to grow, you will need to upgrade to premium subscriptions. Not to mention, any price revisions will also be applied to you. 

Yo!Gigs avoids all these problems. As you select your own server, Yo!Gigs does not retain any control over the hosting. You can use the solution as much as you want without monthly software subscriptions.

2. Fully Customizable and Scalable

Yo!Gigs is fully customizable to meet any additional business requirements. We have our in-house team of developers that work on customizations. This is the same team that originally developed the solution and understands the code better. Thus, we can carry out any required customizations in Yo!Gigs for your Uber for X platform in comparatively less time and assure bug-free operations. 

We also understand that with time, consumer behavior and industry expectations change. To keep up with the changing world, you can reach out to us again and carry out the necessary customizations. 

3. Grow your Business Endlessly with Multinationalization 

For business growth and expansion purposes, Yo!Gigs is studded with tonnes of features. These range from promotional and discount features to multinationalization and analytics. With Yo!Gigs multi-lingual and multi-currency support, you can easily expand your business to new regions. You can offer service marketplace operations in the native language of your target audience. Additionally, you can display pricing in different currencies and accept payment as well. 

To attract more users, you can use Yo!Gigs in-built marketing and promotions features such as homepage banner, discount coupons, meta tags optimization and service packages.

4. Packed with Unmatch Feature-Set

There are a few other service marketplace solutions in the market but none of them match the attention to detail and use cases that Yo!Gigs provide. Be it manually onboarding blue-collar professionals, managing bidding, resolving customer conflicts, enabling smooth interactions, or preventing off-marketplace deals, Yo!Gigs covers them all with its advanced set of features. 

Some features that you can find in Yo!Gigs are:

5. 12-Months Free Technical Support

Yo!Gigs has been perfected with rigorous rounds of QA testing. However, we understand that as an entrepreneur, it is essential for you to ensure the overall quality and integrity of your software. Thus, to provide you with complete peace of mind and interruption-free marketplace operations, we provide 12 months of free technical support. In case you encounter any technical issues with source code during this period, we would be more than happy to fix the issue free of charge. Lastly, for onboarding assistance, you will get complete documentation and free training hours as well.

Summing Up

Starting any business takes time, patience, and effort. It is also important to capitalize on the arising opportunities in time to gain a competitive edge. As said above, there are multiple Uber for X niches that you can invest in. With thorough research, you can find the best niche in your target region and expand later when MVP is proven. Yo!Gigs will help establish the MVP platform and provide all necessary features. Post-launch, you will require an in-depth Go-to-Market strategy to effectively market your solution and onboard service providers and customers without the chicken and egg problem. To find out more about the service provider onboarding strategy, check out this blog.

The post What is Uber for X Marketplace? How to Launch One – The Most Detailed Guide appeared first on FATbit Blog.

This is particularly true in the case of large-scale projects that require highly skilled professionals. Due to the high charges of these professionals, smaller companies can’t hire them on a permanent basis and thus, prefer to hire them on a per-job basis. Fulfilling this demand for skilled creative professionals, Behance and Dribbble emerged as dedicated marketplaces to help graphic designers and digital artists showcase their portfolios and get hired. 

Both Behance and Dribbble work similarly and have common offerings for customers, which are highly talented designers backed by their creative portfolios already published on the platform. This creates a sense of reliability and trust amongst the customers who can verify the previous works of designers. However, despite the huge demand for freelance creative professionals, the number of dedicated platforms for them is quite limited. This opens an opportunity to gain a competitive edge by launching a marketplace like Behance and Dribbble. 

To help interested entrepreneurs launch their own creative professional marketplaces, we have created this guide that includes everything from Behance and Dribbble’s USPs to the most practical development approach. 

About Behance and Dribbble

Let’s learn a little about the background of these two marketplaces. 

• Behance

Behance is one of the first marketplaces for sharing digital artwork. It was launched in the year 2005 as a social media platform where multiple talents could sign up and share their designs. In 2012, Behance raised $6.5 million in funding from notable investors including Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos. Seeing the platform’s success rate, it was later acquired by Adobe in December 2012. Today, Behance has more than 24 million members and an estimated annual revenue of $632 million. 

Launched Year: 2005

Founded by: Matias Corea and Scott Belsky

Annual Revenue Estimate: $632 million

Total Number of Users: 24 million

• Dribbble

Dribbble is another marketplace for sharing and distributing digital art. On Dribbble, corporates can easily find skilled professionals for their design work and directly hire them. The platform was launched as an MVP in 2008 by Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett. Initially, Dribbble only worked on an invite-only model but became public in 2010. Today, Dribbble is available in 195 countries and has an average of 4 million users every month. In terms of revenue, Dribbble makes an estimated $97.5 million every year. 

Launched Year: 2008

Founded by: Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett

Annual Revenue Estimate: $97.5 million

Total Number of Users: 16 million

Unique Selling Points of Platforms like Behance and Dribbble

Although both Behance and Dribbble were one of a kind when they were first launched, they still had to innovate and improvise their unique selling points (USPs) in order to compete with existing recruitment platforms and freelance marketplaces like ODesk (now UpWork), Guru and Freelance.com. Thus, to give a reference overview of their USPs, both Behance, and Dribbble primarily focused on the following USPs.

1. Dedicatedly Developed for Designers

In the past, several freelancing marketplaces and recruiting platforms also existed where designers could sign up and showcase their work. However, none of those platforms were as dedicatedly developed for designers as Behance and Dribbble. Due to this, the entire interface of these platforms looked highly focused and concentrated towards digital artists. These two platforms became more relatable for designers as they got a clear idea of what the platforms were and how they could help them advance their careers. 

2. Trust Factor

On Behance and Dribbble, digital artists and clients benefitted from a trust factor. Both these platforms allowed designers and digital artists to upload broad portfolios of their work. Due to this, the designers were able to showcase their skills and expand their online presence. The leads attracted through Behance and Dribbble were also high-quality and more likely to convert. Additionally, the widespread presence of Dribbble and Behance professionals on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram further created credibility for these platforms and their users.

3. Buy and Sell Artwork

Through Behance and Dribbble, not only could designers showcase their portfolios but also sell their creative artwork in different digital formats, such as images, illustrations, videos, animations, PDFs, and more. Being a global platform, Behance and Dribbble could help designers attract big-ticket clients from all across the world and do off-shore operations. To promote safe and secure transactions, Behance also partnered with Stripe which provides online payment processing in over 135 currencies. 

4. Connect and Hire

Behance and Dribbble acted as a proper social media network for designers. Meaning, users could follow their favorite artists and view updates on their new work. Likewise, corporations got a search portal where they could search for designers and explore thousands of profiles for hiring purposes. In fact, after a while, both Behance and Dribbble included a dedicated hiring module on their marketplaces.

5. Inspiration

As Behance and Dribbble gained global recognition, they started to become an inspiration for existing and aspiring artists. The diverse artwork available on these platforms received social acknowledgement and talented artists started getting the praise they deserved. This encouraged fellow artists, including students, young professionals, and working mothers to share their artwork as well. This is also one of the primary reasons behind the huge popularity of these platforms.

6. Live Workshops, Design Courses and Competitions

Along with acting as a platform to share artwork and hire digital artists, Behance and Dribbble started providing their design courses and live workshops. Because of these platforms’ global recognition, their design courses gained immense success. These courses can also be directly accessed through the official websites of Behance and Dribbble. Additionally, the competitions organized on these platforms further increased the engagement rate for digital artists and winners also received a career boost.

Revenue Model of Behance and Dribbble

For revenue generation purposes, digital art marketplaces like Behance and Dribbble can rely on the following channels:

1. Advertisements: Professionals can advertise their artwork on these platforms.

2. Pro Memberships: Digital artists can sign up for special membership plans that provide them with extra benefits.

3. Job Board: Platforms like Dribbble and Behance have a job-board where different companies can pay for uploading a job. This helps them find good talent in a minimum time frame.

4. Courses and Live Workshops: Dribbble is also selling design courses and conducting live workshops on the platform. These are some potential means of revenue generation.

5. Sales Commission: Just like Behance, you can charge a small commission fee on every digital art sale that takes place on the platform.

6. Contests and Competitions: Like Dribbble, you can organize different design competitions on your digital artists marketplaces where you can charge money from both designers (registration fee) and sponsors.

7. Featured Profiles: You can charge designers to feature their profiles in the most viewed sections of the platform.

Building a Platform like Behance and Dribbble

To capitalize on the growing graphic designing and digital art industry, entrepreneurs can launch their own Behance and Dribbble like platform. This way, they can help the digital art communities of their target regions grow and establish a name in the market. However, developing such a platform may require rigorous efforts, including identifying the required features, creating user workflows, preparing the source code, configuring the platform and running marketing campaigns. 

In the following sections, we have included the technical aspects of the launch that include the key features and development approaches. For proper consultation on the launch strategy, technology and marketing, we recommend reaching out to our business experts.

1. Key Features Required

To build a Behance and Dribbble alternative platform and conduct smooth business operations, you will require the following features:

• Admin Dashboard: A centralized interface for the platform owner from where they can act as an admin and manage the entire platform. The admin can use multiple features to see all transactions, users, and posts on the platform and also manage multiple webpages. Basically, all admin features and options are provided on the admin dashboard. 
• User Dashboard: Similar to the admin dashboard, the user dashboard is made for designers and other digital artists. Through this dashboard, they can upload their artwork, check likes and comments, access the chat messenger, apply on jobs and keep a track of all completed jobs. 
• Homepage Personalization: Both Behance and Dribbble enhance their homepage from time to time. This helps them accommodate the diverse digital artwork on their website and also provide a user friendly interface to visitors. 
• Homepage Slider: The homepage slider is the most highlighted section of a website. It serves just like the front page of a newspaper. You can use the homepage slider for multiple purposes like promoting any events & campaigns, showcasing top artworks, featured profiles and also any news and updates. 
• Collections Management: The wide majority of artwork needs to be categorized and distributed into multiple collections. These collections are displayed on the homepage and other places. Your platform should allow you to create and manage these collections.
• Category Management: While collections can be displayed directly on the homepage, for simplified navigation, you can show the multiple categories on the navigation menus. 
• User Management: Being a digital artists and freelance designers’ platform, thousands of users will register on your website as you grow. To manage their profiles, you require user management options that will allow you to view user details, send important notifications and alerts, and also approve or reject user registration requests.
• Direct Hiring: To help designers get hired, both Behance and Dribbble allow companies to view registered designers. Companies can browse those profiles and send a direct inquiry to artists in order to hire them.
• Post a Job: Along with direct hiring, Behance and Dribbble have a job board as well. This is where companies can directly upload detailed jobs along with the required skill sets. Designers can browse these jobs and send a job proposal.
• Bidding Module: Going one step further, you can provide a bidding module on your platform. This will allow designers to place their bids on the job and you can give more price flexibility to the companies.
• Search Module: The search module can be used to search all types of artworks and even designer profiles and uploaded jobs as well.
• Payment Gateways: To enable transactions on your platform, you will need to integrate a few payment gateways. The selection of these payment gateways can vary on their regional recognition, transaction charges, supported payment methods and security features. 
• Buy Feature: Along with the option to hire artists, you can provide a direct buy button on the platform so that interested people can purchase digital art. As the platform owner, you can charge a small commission fee on every sales transaction that takes place on the platform. 
• Content Management: For on-page marketing purposes, you need a content management system (CMS). This will allow you to manage different published blogs on the website and also the different landing pages.
• Reports and Analytics: These options will provide you with an in-depth overview of what’s going on the platform. This can include the total number of users, sales, artwork, companies, sales, most liked artwork, and more.

2. Development Approaches

Software development approaches have been improvised throughout the years. What used to be a time and cost-intensive approach has now been replaced by ready-made no code and low code software. As per a study conducted by Gartner, nearly 70% of all software applications will be developed with no code or low code software by 2025. Additionally, these readymade software also reduce the entire development time by up to 90%. 

Below are the major differences between using the bespoke development approach vs no code and low code software:

Selecting the Right Software to Develop Behance and Dribbble Alternative

To provide you with a factual and more transparent opinion, low code solutions seems to be your only reliable option. This is because at the moment, there are no no-code software available in the market that come with 100% support for developing a Behance and Dribbble alternative marketplace. 

However, there are a few low-code software available that can be used as a base for this business proposition. These low-code software meet 80%-90% requirements of a digital artist marketplace and will immensely decrease your development cost and timeframe. Out of the several low-code software available in the market, Yo!Gigs service marketplace software best matches your requirements. 

About Yo!Gigs

Developed for all service marketplace models, Yo!Gigs is a readymade solution that helps you connect thousands of freelance service providers with seekers. It has in-built support for digital artists including graphic designers, UI/UX designers, animators, voiceover artists and more. Furthermore, it has already been tried and tested to conduct freelancer service marketplace operations and can help you deal with numerous business use cases.

Some key features of Yo!Gigs that will be helpful in developing your Behance and Dribbble like platform are:

• Homepage Personalization
• Discussion Forums
• User Management
• Custom Task Categories
• Collection Management
• Theme Management
• Job Board
• Direct Hiring
• Bidding Module
• Job Cancellation Window
• Pre-integrated Payment Gateway
• Content Management System
• Chat Messenger

Other Reasons to Select Yo!Gigs

• Unlike SaaS software, Yo!Gigs is available at a one-time cost. This makes it highly cost-effective in the long run.
• With unlimited listings and transactions, Yo!Gigs is fully scalable. It will accommodate your business growth at all stages, right from startup level to enterprise level.
• To meet all your additional requirements, Yo!Gigs is also fully customizable.
• Yo!Gigs is a self-hosted software. Meaning, you can install it on any server of your choice. This also means that as the solution provider, we cannot impose any usage restriction or features or limit any transactions.
• It is very easy to migrate from other solutions to Yo!Gigs with its in-built import/export options.
• Lastly, to ensure uninterrupted business operations, Yo!Gigs comes with one-year of free technical support.

Conclusion

The graphic designing industry has an invulnerable nature that makes it resilient against all types of economic downfalls and turbulence. Due to this, this is an evergreen industry. However, it is the corporate designers who face job uncertainties during any economic crises and thus have to resort to freelancing. By launching a marketplace like Behance and Dribbble, you can not only help such individuals but also assist the entire digital artists community grow. You can help budding designers to showcase their talents and existing professionals create captivating portfolios and find high paying jobs.

The post How to Launch a Website like Behance and Dribbble? appeared first on FATbit Blog.

A micro job marketplace is a platform where service seekers can find thousands of freelancers for doing small gigs or micro-jobs such as graphic designing, programming, marketing, or even home services like plumbing, electrician, cleaning, roofing, and HVAC. Once the micro job ends, the freelancer can select another micro-job and adjust it in their work schedule. The micro-job industry is also expected to flourish in the upcoming years. 

If we consider the freelance market, its estimated market size is expected to grow from $4.9 billion to $11.7 billion in the projected period 2022-2028. On the other hand, the handyman services market is also doing well with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.5% in the forecast period 2023-2028. Considering the ease of finding jobs that micro-job marketplaces bring, it is safe to say that the industry holds lucrative opportunities for entrepreneurship.

This article will guide you through how you build your micro-job marketplace and enter the industry most efficiently.

Market Overview

The growth statistics of the micro-job industry are quite astonishing and highlight the profitability of launching a micro-job marketplace very affirmingly. There are also a few incumbents in the industry to take inspiration from. These incumbents are mentioned in the following table.

Moreover, as per the Freelancing in America Report, 70% of freelancers claim to find jobs through online marketplace. We have also provided a detailed breakdown of the most demanded freelance services on micro-job marketplaces like Fiverr and UpWork.

For exploring the freelance market of different geographic regions or planning a cross-border operations marketplace, you should have a look at the following growth rates:

Business Models of Micro-Job Marketplaces

To build a micro-job marketplace, it is essential to select a feasible business model that you can easily promote and follow for years. Additionally, the model should be easy to incorporate into your website. At the same time, you need to ensure that the business model is market-fit, which can also be a hybrid model – one of the three feasible models mentioned below.

1. Direct Hiring Model

In the direct hiring model, service seekers visit your micro-job website and browse freelancer profiles. When selecting a freelancer, seekers can directly invite them for a job.

Workflow Reference for the Direct Hiring Model

• Step 1: Multiple freelancers sign up on the marketplace and create detailed freelancer profiles. 
• Step 2: Customers browse freelancer profiles and select a freelancer.
• Step 3: To book a freelancer, they pay their hourly charges on the marketplace.
• Step 4: The freelancer delivers the job.

2. Job Posting and Bidding Model

In the second model, service seekers upload jobs, gigs, or tasks on the platform and freelancers place their bids after reviewing those jobs. If a bid gets selected, that freelancer gets hired for the job. 

Workflow Reference for the Job Posting and Bidding Model

• Step 1: Customers upload detailed job listings on the marketplace.
• Step 2: Service seekers browse those listings and send a proposal inclusive of the bid.
• Step 3: After reviewing different proposals, customers select a freelancer and pay the fees on the platform.
• Step 4: The freelancer delivers the job.

3. The Hybrid Model

Due to consumer preferences and market trends, it has become essential to provide both direct hiring and job posting models on a single platform. Not only doing so will help you meet user expectations, but will also provide you with a competitive edge.

Workflow Reference for the Hybrid Model

• Step 1: Customers upload detailed job listings on the marketplace.
• Step 2: They wait to receive proposals on those jobs and in the meanwhile, can also browse freelancer profiles for direct hiring.
• Step 3: In case of direct hiring, they invite the freelancer to the uploaded job, who then sends their own proposal.
• Step 4: The service seeker can compare this proposal with other proposals or directly hire the freelancer

Revenue Model of Micro-Job Marketplace

As the entire micro-job marketplace model works online, it is easily accessible by a lot of consumers, service providers, and other entrepreneurs. This accessibility offers more revenue-generation models than traditional businesses where the physical boundaries remain a primary limitation. Some of the viable revenue generation strategies that you can implement on your micro job marketplace are:

• Booking Commission: You can charge a booking commission for every booking that takes place on your marketplace

• Featured Listings: Featured listings are paid listings that appear at the very top of the search results or at highlighted spaces on your website. You can charge top-rated service providers for displaying their featured listings

• Display Ads: These refer to the common ad spaces on your marketplace website, including the homepage banner and other inner collections. You can charge both third-party local businesses and service providers to display their ads

• Subscription Packages: You can create monthly recurring service packages for both service providers and seekers, offering them extra benefits on your marketplace

Core Features Required on Your Marketplace

To develop a micro-job marketplace, it is essential to understand the features and functionalities that you require in your solution. Not only will these help you develop a market-fit solution but also provide a general cost estimate of the software. A readymade solution with all these features will further simplify and shorten the entire development process.

• Detailed Profile Creation: Your micro-job marketplace software should allow users to create detailed freelancer profiles inclusive of their skills, spoken languages, experience, portfolio, and more. 

• Multiple Job Types: Customers on a micro-job marketplace tend to upload jobs in various types and categories, some of them are:

• Public Jobs: These are visible to everyone
• Private Jobs: Only visible to a few selected or shortlisted freelancers
• Fixed Price Jobs: The service charges are fixed in this type of job (mostly used for getting the market price-match)
• Biddable Jobs: Where multiple freelancers place their bids on a single job

Thus, to cater to all such requirements, your micro-job software should support all these job types.

• Direct Hiring: In the direct hiring module, customers are able to hire freelancers directly after viewing their profiles. This saves the trouble of waiting for bids and reviewing them.

• Service Packages: To simplify direct hiring operations without exploiting freelancers’ privacy by integrating a time tracker, the marketplace software should allow freelancers to create different service packages. These packages will include several options such as the service delivered, tasks covered, number of revisions, pricing, and more. Based on their requirements, clients can select the package most suitable for them. 

• Bidding Module: In contrast to direct hiring, the bidding module is immensely helpful in starting a screening process for a job. The freelancer that best matches the customer’s requirements and provides the best value for money gets selected for the job.

• Custom Task Categories: The micro-job marketplace software should allow you to create multiple task categories that freelancers can use to register. Although the software will have many pre-built categories, this option gives the marketplace owner the flexibility to accommodate the marketplace with any future trends and in-demand skills.

• Dynamic Registration Forms: For successful registration, the registration form should collect different information from varying professions. E.g., portfolios from graphic designers, writing samples for writers, traffic generation reports from digital marketers, and equipment details from photographers. This can be easily implemented with the help of dynamic registration forms that allow the marketplace owner to personalize the form for different trade professions. 

• Job Cancellation Window: If a customer cancels a job after the freelancer has started working on the project, this may lead to several losses for the freelancer. To prevent any such instances, the marketplace software requires a job cancellation window. This window will be defined by the admin and once the window is over, the customer cannot cancel the job. Another benefit of having the cancellation window option is that it will prevent all external communications and dealings between the client and the freelancer.

• Order Management: The order management option will help the marketplace owner receive real-time updates on all orders. The owner can also see the total invoice, selected freelancer, customer, and job details. Additionally, the owner will have access to all completed, in-progress and pending orders.

• Company Listing: To diversify your freelance marketplace operations, you can also let private companies and businesses register themselves on the marketplace. Those companies can further create freelancer profiles and bid on project-level jobs.

• Commission Settings: Commission charges are the primary source of earning for micro-job marketplace owners. The marketplace software that you select should allow you to set your own commission rate.

• Payment Withdrawal Settings: To maintain a healthy cash flow on the marketplace and balance to initiate refunds, you need the necessary earnings withdrawal features like minimum withdrawal threshold and minimum withdrawal interval. 

• Multi-Lingual Support: Multilingual support will allow your freelancers to select multiple spoken languages on your platform. Doing so will help you provide a better service experience to customers and target a diverse audience.

Developing a Microjob Marketplace

After selecting your preferred business model and identifying the key features, we can move forward with the development process.

Step 1: Select a Micro-job Marketplace Software

There are multiple approaches to developing your micro job marketplace. While traditional development includes bespoke development from scratch, the modern approach involves using readymade software. Let’s discuss them both for proper evaluation:

Bespoke Development

The bespoke development approach includes searching for a software development firm, selecting your tech stack, and paying for the waterfall or agile development process on an hourly basis. As everything is required to be developed from scratch, the overall cost of the project is very high. Moreover, the development time frame is also quite long. Even after the completion of the project, there remains the risk of developing a solution that may fail to meet the purpose. 

Using Readymade Solutions

The modern approach to software development, i.e., using a readymade software has made the entire development process considerably easier and cost-efficient for all entrepreneurs. In the freelancing industry, there are a few no-code and low-code solutions available that you can use to create and deploy your marketplace. These include both SaaS solutions and Self-hosted solutions. While the former are hosted on the software provider’s very own servers, the latter provide the hosting server choice to the entrepreneur. Due to this, we often see limitations in the number of listings and transactions in SaaS solutions, whereas self-hosted solutions are fully customizable.

Bespoke Development vs Readymade Solution: Time and Cost Analysis

A micro-job marketplace is a complex software that includes various interfaces and numerous web pages. On top of it, the marketplace requires vast functions to operate. Thus, the overall timeframe to custom develop the software can take up to 1000 hours or even more. On the other hand, readymade solutions come with all essential features and webpages pre-built into the software. As the marketplace owner, you only need to configure readymade software. Because of this, readymade solutions can help you get started with your business operations within 2-4 business days.

For an accurate cost evaluation, check out the following table.

Step 2: Deploy and Configure Marketplace Software

While SaaS software is already deployed on the software provider’s server, the other two approaches require you to deploy it on your own server. This can either be an on-premise server installed in your work premises or a reliable third-party server like Amazon Web Services or Bluehost. Our best recommendation is to select a fast server with high security to ensure quick load times, 100% uptime, and invulnerability to cyber attacks.

Once deployed, you need to configure the following settings and web pages on your marketplace.

1. Configure Payment Gateways

Some payment gateways may be pre-integrated in your software solution, you can simply activate those payment gateways and add your banking details. On the other hand, some readymade software may allow you to add more payment gateways. If you feel the need for the same, then you can select a payment gateway based on the following criteria:

• Localization: Local payment gateways that are very well known in your target region hold an unmatched trust factor. It is safe to assume that your target audience will always prefer them over foreign or international payment gateways.
• Uptime: Reliable payment gateways ensure a 24/7 uptime. This immensely reduces transaction failures on any type of eCommerce platform while also ensuring a positive customer experience.

• Payment Processing Time: Payment gateways have varying payment processing times. While some can process payments within 2-4 days, others take up to a week. Some payment gateways also provide bulk payment processing at an additional cost, which processes all transactions within 12 hours. To maintain a healthy cash flow, integrating a gateway with minimum processing time is recommended.

• Security: To ensure safe and secure transactions, global organizations have released several standards, protocols, regulations, and compliances. A few such security standards that should be present in your payment gateways are PCI DSS compliance for card payments, SSL encryption, TLS encryption, 3D Secure, tokenization, and Secure Electronic Transaction (SET).

• Transaction Fee: Lastly, to process payments, each gateway charges a transaction fee. This fee can vary from gateway to gateway. This transaction fee along with the aforementioned criteria can help you find a cost-effective payment gateway for your micro-job marketplace business. 

2. Add Branding Elements

To provide your micro-job marketplace with an identity, set up all branding elements, which include logos, icons, slogans, social media handles, and other trademarks. All these elements will assist you in developing a recognizable marketplace. Additionally, you will also need to select a color scheme and a writing style that will remain consistent across all official channels including the marketplace, emails, social media platforms, and other marketing channels.

3. Set Up Website Content

Your micro-job marketplace content will help users receive a thorough understanding of your services. Additionally, it will help secure high SEO rankings on search engines. As per our evaluation, there are a few primary web pages whose content you need to set up:

• Home Page
• Micro-Jobs Listing Page
• Freelancers Profiles Page 
• Sign-up/Login Page
• Freelancer Registration Page
• Post a Job
• About Us
• Contact Us
• How It Works
• Services Offered
• Help/FAQ
• Cart/Checkout Page
• Blog
• Resources
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• Testimonials
• Newsletter Signup

Step 3: Test the Marketplace

Test the marketplace to verify whether all features are functioning as intended. Your micro-job marketplace will have 4 interfaces, which are:

• User Front-End
• Admin Dashboard
• Freelancer Dashboard
• Client Dashboard

To effectively check out the various features and functionalities in these interfaces along with the user experience, create a testing account and register yourself as the admin, customer, and client. Place an order on the user front-end while analyzing various sections of the interface, such as content blocks, buttons, scrolling, payment gateways, payment methods, transactions, cart, notifications, and more. 

After placing an order from the user front end, log in to the freelancer dashboard and mark status updates. These updates should be visible in the admin dashboard. Also test other features such as chat messenger, payment withdrawal settings, and more. You can also log in to the admin dashboard to see the placement of a new order. The same should be reflected in your earnings.  

Lastly, test the interlinking on the platform including navigation, social media handles, and external links. See whether all the forms are working as intended and as the customer or freelancer, you are easily able to fill in and submit the forms. 

Note: Selecting a tried and tested solution that has already been evaluated on the diverse use cases by the software provider can vastly reduce your testing efforts. Thus, it is wiser to carefully select your micro-job marketplace solution.   

Step 6: Promote and Grow

To start business operations, you need to onboard some freelancers. This can be done by providing various incentives to the first freelancers, such as zero commission rates and featured listing spaces on the marketplace. At the same time, you need to promote the micro job marketplace to attract customers. SEO will be beneficial in fulfilling this purpose. With accurate search terms (for example: hire graphic designer online), you can compete with other players in this space. 

Additionally, launch various markdown strategies to draw customers. These can either be discounts on the first three jobs or a referral bonus strategy. After customers find out the convenience of finding freelancers on your micro-job marketplace, you can expect them to become repeat customers and increase their customer lifetime value. 

As your marketplace will be comparatively new, you will need to focus your marketing efforts on paid campaigning as well. When your organic SEO presence grows strong, you can reduce your expenditure on paid campaigns. Doing so will help you stabilize your overall customer acquisition costs and reach the breakeven point faster.

Our Recommended Solution to Build a Micro-Job Marketplace

Yo!Gigs is a future-ready solution that is made to launch robust marketplaces like Fiverr, UpWork, Toptal, and Thumbtack. Its new version was launched in the year 2024, making it the most advanced micro-job marketplace software with industry-leading features including all the ones mentioned above. As Yo!Gigs is meticulously developed to help you with numerous marketplace use cases, it can be easily used to deliver, manage, and enhance freelancer and handyman services. 

Some other reasons to select Yo!Gigs are:

• Dedicated features with industry-specific designs for freelancing and handyman marketplaces
• For long-term business operations, Yo!Gigs comes with a lifetime usage license at a one-time cost. 
• Yo!Gigs supports unlimited listings, transactions, and profile creations. 
• To ensure uninterrupted business operations, Yo!Gigs comes with 12 months of free technical support 

Conclusion

During times of adversity when unemployment increases, micro-job marketplaces emerge as the only solution to help talented professionals survive. The great economic recession of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic are evidence to that. However, once professionals get used to working on these marketplaces, they don’t want to switch back to traditional 9-5 jobs because of several benefits such as higher profit margins and work autonomy. Additionally, the change in the modern workforce mindset remains to be a strong growth factor for the marketplace industry. 

FAQs

Q 1: How Much Does It Cost to Start a Micro Job Website?

The cost of developing a micro job website depends on the selected software technology and development approach. Via the traditional development approach that is charged on a per-hour basis, the overall cost can range between $60,000-$150,000. Via the no-code or low-code development method, you can easily drop this cost to $3,000 – $40,000. 

Q 2: What are Some Common Challenges Faced by Micro Job Website Owners?

Onboarding freelancers is the primary challenge that micro job website owners face. Secondly, they also have to ensure a smooth browsing experience and secure payments. Along with these, ensuring job satisfaction via timely delivery and quality of the work is a must. All such problems can be easily dealt with by investing in a tried and tested readymade software. To discuss the challenges that FATbit’s Yo!Gigs helps micro job website owners deal with, get in touch with our industry experts.

Q 3: Can You Develop a Micro-job Marketplace for My Requirements?

Yes, at FATbit, we have a readymade micro job marketplace solution – Yo!Gigs. Revamped in the year 2024, Yo!Gigs is the most advanced job marketplace software that helps you deal with numerous use cases. It comes with next-gen features, supports 24/7 payments, and can help you seamlessly connect freelancers with customers. For more information or to get a price quote, contact our experts.

ketplace software that helps you deal with numerous use cases. It comes with next-gen features, supports 24/7 payments and can help you seamlessly connect freelancers with customers. For more information or to get a price quote, contact our experts.

The post Best Guide to Create a Microjob Marketplace like Fiverr and Thumbtack appeared first on FATbit Blog.

People are leaving their full-time jobs to provide freelancing services to clients across the globe and increase their scope of earning, all from the comfort of their homes. Startups and big corporations benefit the most from this trend as they get to access freelancers with skills that are generally not available in their local job markets.

Due to this changing mindset of companies and the traditional workforce, freelance marketplaces are witnessing significant growth. One of the leading websites in this industry is Toptal, which currently holds around 80.56% market share of the freelance engineering industry.

Let us now discuss what Toptal is, its operational model and revenue model, what features it provides and how you can build a freelance marketplace like Toptal.

About Toptal

Toptal is a freelance marketplace website that connects highly skilled freelancing talent including software designers, developers, product managers, and financial experts with clients from all over the world. It was founded by Taso Du Val and Breanden Beneschott in November 2010. The platform was officially launched in the year 2011.

Within four years of its launch, Toptal became one of the fastest-growing freelancing companies with a 2,861% annual growth and was featured in Deloitte’s 2015 Technology Fast 500 list. In 2022, Toptal expanded its geographic footprint to 140+ countries, serving over 25,000+ clients. Currently, it is one of the top freelancer marketplaces with an estimated annual revenue of $1.3 Billion.

How Toptal Freelance Marketplace Works

Finding the right freelancer among the plethora of options is quite a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Toptal makes it easier by connecting customers with only highly skilled professionals who meet all their job requirements. Let us discuss the business model of Toptal in detail:

• The clients can post a job with all the necessary details like the type of freelancer required, specific skill etc.
• Toptal searches for the best-suited candidates that match the job requirements, and provides a list of available freelancers to the client.
• The clients can interact with these freelancers to find the most appropriate freelancer to do the job.
  
• After choosing the right freelancer, the client can pay the initial booking amount. Then the freelancer connects with the client and starts working on the job.
• The client is billed for the time the freelancer has spent on the job.

Toptal also offers a free trial period of two weeks, in which the client can assess the freelancer’s work and decide to continue with the same freelancer or find another one.

Offering the Best Freelancers – The screening process of Toptal

Toptal has a rigorous screening process that filters out most of the applications and allows only highly skilled freelancers to register on the platform. This process consists of the following steps:-

• Toptal conducts a timed evaluation that assesses the core skills of the freelancer. It is a rigorous test that only highly skilled freelancers can clear.
• The freelancers who pass the skill test are shortlisted for a personal interview where their communication and soft skills are evaluated.
• After the personal interview round, the freelancer is given a real-world project to complete within 40 working hours. Toptal requires the freelancers to share their screens during this round.
  
• The freelancers who clear the above rounds are onboarded on the platform.

Must-Have Features in a Website like Toptal

Every freelance marketplace has some distinct features depending on the niche, target audience, and budget of the marketplace. However, some crucial features are common in almost all marketplaces.

• Multiple Job Types – You can enable clients to post different types of jobs as per their requirements. These job types can include public jobs, private jobs, fixed-price jobs, and biddable jobs.
• Admin Approval – The admin approval feature enables the admin to either accept or reject a freelancer registration. This decision is generally based on the qualifications and skillset mentioned by the freelancer. Toptal uses this feature to ensure that only highly skilled professionals can join its platform.
• Social Sign-up – To simplify the sign-up process, you can provide users with the option to sign up using their existing social media accounts.
  
• Freelancer Recommendations – You can incorporate a freelancer recommendation process on your platform to provide freelancer suggestions to customers.
  
• Direct Invitation – You can allow the customers to visit freelancer profiles and send them a direct invitation for the job posting.
  
• Multiple Payment Gateways – To facilitate financial transactions through your marketplace, you need to integrate various payment gateways according to the requirements of target regions.
• Advanced Job Posting – The advanced job posting module can enable customers to provide details about the job, including images, required skill sets, and any other attachments.
• Multi-Currency Support – Providing multi-currency support is essential for expanding your business and targeting a diverse audience. Toptal has also incorporated this feature on its platform to simplify financial transactions.
  
• Featured Listings – Including a featured listing section in your platform to highlight the top-performing freelancers will help you to build customers’ trust while boosting the morale of the freelancers.
• Private Messaging – An in-built messaging facility will help the customers easily interact with freelancers and share attachments related to the job posting without leaving your platform. Toptal also enables clients to message freelancers before, during, and after the job completion.
  

• Reviews and Ratings – You can increase the credibility of your freelancers and your marketplace by adding the ratings and reviews feature. It can help clients assess the work ethics, quality of work, and the overall behavior of freelancers.
  
• Issue Resolution – An issue resolution feature is useful in cases where there is a dispute between the freelancer and the client after job completion. 

Revenue Generation Model Of A Freelance Website like Toptal

You must incorporate some revenue streams into your freelance website to diversify your income. Some of the common revenue streams of freelance marketplaces include.:- 

• Commission Charges – You can set your commission on each financial transaction that takes place through your platform. This is the exact model that Toptal uses to generate revenue.
• Membership Charges – A membership plan can be a great source of recurring income. You can offer different membership packages to customers and freelancers which can provide them with some special privileges and benefits.
• Featured Listing Spaces – Featured listings are likely to get more customer attention. Therefore, you can charge freelancers to display their profiles in the featured listing space. 
• Display Ads – The graphics advertisements in the form of banners, images, gifs, videos, etc. are known as display ads. You can generate revenue by displaying third-party ads on your freelance website and charging the advertisers for displaying these ads.  

How To Create A Freelance Marketplace Like Toptal

Building a successful freelancing marketplace like Toptal requires a lot of planning, research, and marketing. Let us have a detailed look at the process of creating a freelance website:-

1. Market Research – Before developing your freelance website, you must assess your target audience and their pain points. You should be familiar with the current trends in the industry. You should also study your competitors’ business models, revenue models, sales, and the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. These insights will help you in the next stages of the development process.

2. Developing your Freelance Platform – There are two different methods/approaches that you can use for creating your freelance marketplace- the traditional approach and the modern approach. Let us understand what these approaches are:-

a. The Traditional Approach – The traditional approach involves hiring a team of software developers to create your freelance platform. You can also outsource this task to a bespoke software development company. The benefits of using the traditional approach are:

• Complete Control Over The Source Code
• High Scalability 

Although the traditional approach is beneficial for creating scalable solutions. it comes with its own set of disadvantages, including:-

• Huge Development Cost
• More Time-Consuming 
• Not Tried And Tested

b. Using a low-code/no-code solution – A low-code/no-code software allows you to build a scalable marketplace using its intuitive user interface, eliminating the requirement of having vast coding knowledge. This software is already created as per the industry standards and can be customized according to your requirements. Some of the major advantages of a low-code/no-code software are:

• Low Development Cost
• Time-Efficient
• Tried And Tested
• Feature-Loaded Solution

While the no-code solutions are gaining huge popularity because of the benefits that they provide, there are a few downsides to using these solutions. These include:-

• Limited Control of The Source Code
• Low Scalability

3. Deploying The Software – After building your freelance platform, you can deploy it on a server based on your choice. Then you can set up and personalize the landing pages per your needs.

4. Freelancer Onboarding – In order to get customers on your freelancing website, you need to onboard some talented freelancers. To attract talented freelancers to your platform, you can offer various benefits to the first few freelancers such as lower commission rates, free featured listings, etc.

5. Marketing – The final step after launching your marketplace software is marketing and promotion. Initially, you may have to rely on paid marketing techniques to increase awareness about your marketplace. In the later stages, you can use the built-in features of your marketplace software such as discounts, offers, and SEO optimization features to promote and market your platform.

How Yogigs Can Help In Creating A Freelance Website Like Toptal?

Yo!Gigs is a fully customizable freelance marketplace software that can help you create a freelance marketplace like Toptal. It is highly scalable and can manage unlimited listings and financial transactions. It is a feature-rich solution that can be used as a base to provide essential features similar to Toptal, including:-

• Skill Assessment
• Advanced Job Posting
• Freelancer Matching
• Risk-Free Trial Period
• Multi-Currency Support
• Reviews and Ratings
• Personal Messaging
• Issue Resolution

Unlike SaaS-based software solutions asking for monthly subscription charges, Yo!Gigs can be purchased with a lifetime usage license. It comes with free technical support for up to 1 year. 

How to get started with Yo!Gigs?

Launching a freelance platform with the help of Yo!Gigs is very easy. In just four simple steps, your website will be ready to launch in the market. Let us have a look at these steps:-

1. Get A Usage License – The first step to building your freelance marketplace is to purchase a lifetime usage license of Yo!Gigs.

2. Set Up And Install – After purchasing the license, you can share details of your selected hosting server with us. We will install Yo!Gigs on your server.

3. Configure The Marketplace – After installation, you can configure your freelance website and set up the primary landing pages. You can also choose your country/region of operation, payment gateways to include, email and SMS templates, and the terms and conditions of your platform.

4. Manage Your Marketplace – Now your freelance marketplace is ready to launch. You can manage and market it using the in-built tools provided by Yo!Gigs, including task management tab, advanced analytics and reports, SEO Optimization, etc.

Conclusion

The freelance marketplace industry is booming, and Toptal’s recent success proves the tremendous growth potential for online freelance marketplaces. However, building a freelance platform from scratch requires a lot of time, effort, and resources, and is quite expensive. This is where Yo!Gigs comes into the picture. It can help you easily launch your freelance marketplace at a significantly lower cost. Yo!Gigs is a fully customizable service marketplace solution and can be used as a base to build a successful freelance website like Toptal. Get in touch with our experts for a free software consultation.

The post How To Build A Freelance Marketplace Like Toptal? appeared first on FATbit Blog.

The statistics show the proliferation of the handyman services industry across the world. To begin with, the global handyman industry is expected to grow almost 5 times in the upcoming 9 years. Its compound annual growth rate is an astonishing 17.2%¹  in the projection period 2022-2032. The North American region is the biggest market accounting 36.5% of all market share, followed by Europe with 24.80% share.

Fortunately, there is immense scope in the handyman industry for new entrants at both global and regional levels. Interested entrepreneurs can have a look at our following insights to know more about the industry including growth factors, top players and prerequisites to build your own handyman services marketplace.

Table of contents

The post Handyman Business – Everything to Know appeared first on FATbit Blog.

In today’s digitally-enabled world, a wide majority of service industry professionals operate offline. They are fragmented at a level where it is arduous for them to reach new customers, eventually clipping off many growth opportunities. As a result, their services stay limited to hyperlocal despite having an impressive work portfolio and the potential to grow. Online service marketplace platforms solve this problem for service providers by providing a platform dedicated to helping them find more work and recognition.

Table of Contents:

• What is an Online Services Marketplace?
• Key Growth Drivers in the Online Services Industry
• Incumbents in the Online Services Industry
• Approaches to Build an Online Services Marketplace
  ― Operational Model of an Online Services Marketplace
  ― Important Features and Functionalities Required on the Service Marketplace
  ― Revenue Generation Model of an Online Services Marketplace
  ― Important Web Pages to Set Up
• Approach 1: Building An Online Services Marketplace or Bespoke Development
  ― Waterfall Development Methodology
  ― Agile Development Methodology
• Approach 2: Buying a Readymade Services Marketplace Software
  ― Self-Hosted Software
  ― SaaS Software
  ― Our Recommendation
  ― How to Start an Online Services Marketplace: Build or Buy?
• Conclusion
• FAQs

What is an Online Services Marketplace?

Also referred to by various terms – such as a handyman marketplace, gigs marketplace, and freelancer marketplace on the internet, an online services marketplace is a platform that allows multiple service providers to register themselves and sell their services online. These services can range from blue-collar jobs, such as plumbing, carpentry, electrician, and gardening to white-collar or common freelancing jobs such as digital marketing, graphic designing, branding and content writing.

Key perks of joining an online services marketplace platform for service providers include access to a wider audience, increased online presence, payment security, and flexibility in terms of deciding their own rates and schedules. Some services marketplaces also have a reverse search option where customers upload a task and service providers place their bids for getting the job. These marketplaces add the benefit of autonomy for service providers who get more freedom in job selection.

In this article, we have shared more insights to help you start an online service marketplace. After reading this article, you will understand the operational model of online service marketplaces and the best method to develop one.

Key Growth Drivers in the Online Services Industry

As per statistics, the handyman services market alone is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.2% in the period 2022-2032. In terms of digits, this amounts to a growth of $1.31 billion over the previously recorded $339 million, totalling $1.65 billion. The growth rate for the freelance service platforms market is equally impressive. At an estimated figure of a whopping $18.3 billion by 2031, the freelancers platform market is growing at a CAGR of 15.1% in the forecast period 2023-2031.

While the growth rate for both the handyman and freelancing industries is vividly astonishing, a wider aspect is required to understand the business potential in the overall online services industry. For instance, let’s take an overview of the primary growth factors that back the aforementioned growth statistics:

• Convenience: Hiring a service provider on a service marketplace platform is highly convenient for customers. They can browse different platforms, see service provider profiles, compare rates, ratings, and portfolios to make a more informed decision. Some online service marketplaces also provide discounts to make services more affordable.
• Commercial and Residential Renovation Projects: Metropolitan cities, urban cities, suburban areas and even rural areas have many structures aged 20 to 100 years. These structures require timely renovation and repair work to fix any plumbing, sewage, HVAC and electricity problems.
• Regular Servicing and Maintenance of Appliances: Electric appliances, automobiles, heavy equipment and power tools require regular servicing and maintenance to ensure efficiency. With online service marketplaces, consumers can hire engineers and mechanics directly through the internet.
• Technological Advancements: Installation of new technologies, such as electrical systems, security systems, house automation appliances, solar panels, etc. also requires handymen and certified service professionals.
• Digital Transformation: The surging demand for digital services such as digital marketing, branding, programming, content writing and graphic designing is the key driver behind the growth of freelancing platforms and marketplaces.

Incumbents in the Online Services Industry

The online services industry is still in its nascent stages and is yet to see exponential growth. However, there already exist well-established businesses that have captured enormous market size. Entrepreneurs interested in launching a service marketplace platform can take reference from these businesses:

Approaches to Build an Online Services Marketplace

Launching a digital venture encompasses more than having a digital touchpoint or platform to conduct operations. It further extends to having access to the right set of digital tools at your disposal to help you manage and streamline operations in time. Likewise, having a well-designed platform also cannot be overlooked. A user-intuitive and aesthetic platform incentivizes visitors to engage more and is more likely to convert. Based on this information, entrepreneurs are required to understand the operational model of an online services marketplace along with the key elements needed to launch one.

Operational Model of an Online Services Marketplace

The following operational model is only for exemplary purposes. The actual model can vary from business to business and you may also need to customize the operational model as per your business preferences.

1. Service providers sign up on the online services marketplace and create profiles
2. Customers browse service provider profiles and review their ratings, reviews and portfolio
3. With the help of a scheduling calendar, customers view provider availability and book an appointment
4. Additionally, customers can also state the job in a comment box for the service provider’s reference
5. Customers select the address at checkout and complete the payment
6. Service providers coordinate with customers to complete the job
7. Post completion, customers rate the service providers

Alternatively, some online service marketplaces also allow customers to create jobs that service providers can search and place bids. The rest of the model remains the same.

Important Features and Functionalities Required on the Service Marketplace

Having three user-types, which are the admin (marketplace owner), service provider and customer, an online services marketplace requires a separate set of features for all these user-types.

Revenue Generation Model of an Online Services Marketplace

Being an online platform, an online services marketplace owner can diversify income from various revenue streams:

• Job commission
• Featured listings
• Display ads
• Subscription packages

Important Web Pages to Set Up

To start your online services marketplace and conduct full-fledged operations, entrepreneurs are required to set up the following webpages:

• Home page
• Sign up page
• Service provider registration 
• Find a handyman 
• Post a job
• Job listings
• Admin dashboard
• User dashboard
• Service provider dashboard
• About us
• Contact us
• How it works
• FAQ
• Blog
• Testimonials
• Terms of service
• Privacy policy
• Reviews and portfolio
• Customer support

You can bookmark this article to save the features and webpages list. After having a complete idea of primary requirements, entrepreneurs can decide to build their online services marketplace or buy readymade software for the same.

Approach 1: Building An Online Services Marketplace or Bespoke Development

The first approach to building an online service marketplace platform is to rely on the traditional Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) framework. This framework defines the various processes and stages of software development including design, development, testing, implementation, and maintenance. SDLC helps software developers identify key requirements, organize source code, eliminate low-quality code, and maintain the development budget.

Even in SDLC, there are two popular methodologies:

1. Waterfall Development Methodology

The waterfall development methodology follows a linear approach to development where each and every phase of the methodology depends on the outcome of the precious phase. Meaning, at one time, developers can only work with a predefined set of requirements. To fulfill any additional requirement or introduce changes in the initial requirements, the software development team will have to restart the entire development process. As returning to a previously closed phase is not possible in the waterfall methodology, entrepreneurs and business analysts are required to carefully prepare BRD, SRS and FRS documents.

Pros of Using the Waterfall Methodology

• It is very easy to follow 
• Has a specific development timeframe and deliverables
• There are no to minimum project overhead costs
• Testing is easy considering project requirements always remain the same
• Highly cost effective in compared to other bespoke software development approaches
• Timelines are easy to meet
• Outcomes are clear right from the start

Cons of Using the Waterfall Methodology

• Requirements once defined cannot be changed
• Not possible to return to previously complete development phase
• The end-product can lack essential features, resulting in the development of an outdated software
• Longer delivery timeline 
• The client can only review the software post completion of project

2. Agile Development Methodology

The agile development methodology reduces the delivery timeline of the software by breaking the software into multiple development sprints. In contrast to waterfall development, agile also does not require a complete set of requirements to begin. Instead, the project starts with bare minimum requirements or with the development of an MVP software and then more features are added based on early adopter feedback. This process of improving the software based on early-adopter feedback in multiple repetitions is also known as iterative development.

As new features can be introduced between two different sprints of the project, there’s no need to have a predefined set of features and entrepreneurs with just a vision can opt for agile development.

Pros of Using the Agile Development Methodology

• Introducing changes in the development project is easy because of multiple short sprints
• A sprint only lasts 2-4 weeks, after which the client can review the software and see the direction towards which the development is headed
• Makes it easy to test or validate a business idea
• Improves the software based on early-adopter feedback and iterative development
• Does not require a predefined set of requirements. Due to this, agile methodology is highly suitable for entrepreneurs who are not sure about the features of the software
• Helps businesses stay up-to-date with their software technology

Cons of Using the Agile Development Methodology

• As software development primarily relies on early adopter feedback, the final outcome can vary from the client’s expectations
• While delivery timelines are short, developing a full-fledged software can take more time with agile development
• Very costly in the long run
• Requires arduous project planning and time commitment

Waterfall Development vs Agile Development

Both waterfall and agile development approaches are useful software development methods. However, in today’s time, using readymade solutions is more reliable because of multiple reasons that we have discussed below.

Approach 2: Buying a Readymade Services Marketplace Software

The second approach emphasizes saving both time and capital by investing in an off-the-shelf, readymade online services marketplace software. Such type of software comes with all necessary features right out of the box. Additionally, these features are already tried and tested in various markets to ensure business feasibility and performance. In comparison to building a service marketplace from scratch, using a ready-made software is more cost effective and time-saving. Even in the readymade software category, there are two popular types of software:

1. Self-Hosted Software

These software are hosted on the business owner’s own choice of server. Meaning, the server can be both on-premise or a third-party hosting service. The key benefit of using self-hosted software is that entrepreneurs can select a more secure or faster server for themselves. Their selected server can be a shared or private server as well, giving them complete control over the software.

Pros of Using Self-Hosted Software

• Business owners get the choice of hosting
• Due to choice of hosting, business owners get complete control over the software
• Self-hosted software also come with one time costs
• There are rarely any limitations on features and number of users
• Highly scalable and cost-effective in the long run

Cons of Using Self-Hosted Software

• The one-time cost can be too much for small startups and solopreneurs
• Due to no cap on features, the software can look too overwhelming

2. SaaS Software

You can also start an online services marketplace with the help of SaaS software. The term SaaS refers to Software-as-a-Service. In this type of readymade software, the online platform is hosted on the software provider’s server and provided to the business owner as a monthly service. As the server is not owned by the business owner, he does not get complete control over the software and has to adhere to the software provider’s terms and conditions.

Pros of Using SaaS Software

• Monthly recurring payments make SaaS software highly suitable for small startups and solopreneurs
• Often gets timely updates and changes
• Comes with multiple subscription package to choose from

Cons of Using Self-Hosted Software

• Business owners do not get complete control over the software
• The number of listings, users and transactions is often limited
• Not scalable. Monthly costs increase with time
• Access to all features is only provided in the most expensive package

Our Recommendation:

For launching a service marketplace platform, our recommended readymade software is Yo!Gigs. It is a full-fledged self-hosted service marketplace solution that comes with three different dashboards for streamlining operations:

• Admin Dashboard – Advanced order management, user management and platform management features to help the business owner manage service marketplace operations
• Service Provider Dashboard – A single place from where service providers can view their earnings and pending jobs
• Customer Dashboard – For customers to view their booked orders and coordinate with service providers.

Through Yo!Gigs, business owners can connect hundreds of service providers at one place and launch a one-stop destination for finding handyman professionals. Some other reasons to invest in Yo!Gigs service marketplace software are:

• Trust of FATbit Technologies
• Available at one-time cost 
• Comes with 1 year of free technical support
• Fully scalable and customizable

How to Start an Online Services Marketplace: Build or Buy?

Based on the aforementioned information, we can come to the conclusion that both building and buying a services marketplace have their own benefits. Still, considering the huge cost difference between the two approaches and the easy availability of advanced technological solutions, buying a tried and tested ready-made on-demand services marketplace solution makes more sense. On the contrary, bespoke development is practical in situations where entrepreneurs have very unique requirements or want their service marketplace platform to be built on a very specific technology.

Conclusion

Any business idea only reaps results when adequate efforts are put in the right direction. While an online service marketplace is an asset-light business idea, it will still require efforts on two important fronts, which are technology and management. While powerful technology will help you simplify operations for both customers and service providers, appropriate management will drive you toward your overarching goals. In the initial stages, you may also need to invest money and time in marketing but once you onboard service providers, it’d be easier to grow your services marketplace business.

FAQs

Q1. What is the key difference between building and buying a service marketplace software?
Ans: Although both building and buying options are available to founders, for the most time and cost-effectiveness, buying is a better option. This is because of three primary reasons:

1. In ready-made software, every feature and functionality is already present. With custom development, you need to develop everything from scratch, which can take up to months.
2. Readymade software is either available at SaaS pricing or at a one-time cost. Custom development includes hourly development rates, which makes this approach highly cost-inclusive.
3. As all the features in readymade software are already tried and tested, they make it a better option to build your online service marketplace platform.

Q2. Can I develop a service marketplace platform like Angi, Bark, and Taskrabbit with readymade software?
Ans: The answer is yes. Service marketplace software comes with in-built support for business models like Angi, Bark, and TaskRabbit. You can easily onboard service providers and customers and let them connect. Furthermore, readymade software also allows you to manage service providers and set your commission rate. With a plethora of similar features that streamline marketplace management, building a platform like Angi and TaskRabbit is possible with readymade service marketplace software.

The post How to Start an Online Service Marketplace Platform: Build vs Buy appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Digital peer-to-peer marketplaces have been foundational to the growth of the sharing economy, enabling individuals to transact directly with one another at an exceptionally large scale. Conceptually, a peer-to-peer marketplace can be thought of as a particular type of two-sided market, in which an intermediary facilitates transactions between two interdependent customer groups such as supply-side and demand-side participants or producers and consumers.

This robust idea of the peer-to-peer marketplace has been readily adopted by several businesses in the global market. The revenue of the P2P marketplace was $1078 Million in 2021 which is expected to reach $5.1 Billion in 2032, growing at a CAGR of 15.5% from 2022 to 2032.

Although investing in a peer-to-peer marketplace has become a trend today, some people still find it challenging to create a peer-to-peer marketplace website similar to eBay. This blog post will describe the main types of peer-to-peer marketplace websites, the reason for their growth, challenges, famous players in the industry, must-have features, and building a website via both custom development and peer-to-peer marketplace software.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Table of Contents:

• Types of P2P Marketplaces
• Why are P2P Marketplaces Growing in Popularity
• Benefits of Building P2P Marketplaces
• Challenges of a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace
• Key Players in the Peer-to-Peer Business
• Essential Features of a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace
• How to Build a Peer to Peer Marketplace
• Summing Up
• FAQs

Types of P2P Marketplaces

Based on the services they provide, all peer-to-peer marketplaces can be classified into three major kinds.

Rental Marketplaces

A rental marketplace is a type of peer-to-peer platform that provides users access to diverse equipment for rent. Previously, people only rented out properties but with changes in time and the rise of the rental economy, now consumers can rent a wide range of equipment such as party supplies, audio-video products, designer wear, adventure gear and even automobiles. 

Marketplace owners do not need to own any of the equipment that is listed. They only need to manage the online portal and oversee timely returns & delivery.

Product Marketplaces

A product marketplace allows merchants to list any goods online in exchange for a charge. Individuals that want to sell their products online can create listings. They don’t need to own brick-and-mortar stores, pay for rent, or pay salaries to employees to be able to offer things for sale.

However, when an item is sold, merchants are charged a percentage by the platform’s owners.

Services Marketplaces

An online services marketplace that helps service seekers connect with service providers. These service providers help consumers with home repair tasks such as carpentering, plumbing, cleaning, gardening, roofing, and electrician services. On a services marketplace, buyers can hire service providers directly after viewing their profiles or upload their budgets and gigs. Service providers will view their gigs and place bids accordingly. The winning bid gets the job.

Why are P2P Marketplaces Growing in Popularity

Unquestionably, launching a peer-to-peer platform benefits both sellers and buyers. Let’s see why its popularity is growing among its users.

Sellers

• Joining a peer-to-peer marketplace for selling products/services is an affordable solution, instead of building a platform of your own.
• Sellers get access to a large audience in a marketplace and do not need to spend time looking for buyers. Instead, the buyers are already looking for the products/services that the seller has to offer.
• Sellers do not need to track inventory by themselves as the marketplaces automate the tracking processes for hassle-free operations.

Buyers

• Buyers have the advantage of buying from a great number of sellers helping them find the best options in terms of quality and price.
• The simple buying and checkout process on a marketplace encourages the buyers to make the purchase right away. To make the process even faster, buyers also have the convenience of paying on the platform itself.
• Buyers do not need to worry about fraud in the marketplace as the owner ensures security by holding the sellers’ payment in the escrow account until the product or service is successfully delivered to the buyer.

Benefits of Building P2P Marketplaces

Peer-to-peer marketplaces bring benefits not only to sellers and buyers but also to entrepreneurs. Here are some of the distinguishing benefits of peer-to-peer marketplaces for business owners.

Financial Edge

One of the biggest benefits of a peer-to-peer marketplace is that there is no investment required in terms of production, supply, shipping, and marketing. Its business model becomes the most viable option to start a successful business as it only requires a website or an app to function.

The business owner does not need to own the products and services that are being offered. In addition to this, the maintenance costs are also relatively lower than any other business. Once the marketplace is set up, you can focus on improving its functionalities while the revenue continues to grow.

Network Effect

The network effect on the online marketplace eliminates the efforts required to attract users (sellers & buyers) to the platform. Each new user on either side attracts new users; trusted and reliable sellers on the platform selling high-quality products make customers’ heads turn towards your website, and sellers are attracted by seeing a growing number of buyers on the platform.

Users themselves market the platform and make it recognizable which is required for that first push of popularizing your platform.

Hassle-Free Development

Due to the growing demand for P2P marketplaces, building and launching a marketplace is not difficult. There are several readymade peer-to-peer marketplace software available in the market that can be easily deployed to launch a multi-vendor platform. The readymade software from an experienced software provider can turn your idea into a customized peer-to-peer marketplace for a scalable business.

Geographical Freedom

As the marketplace will be running online, users will not be limited to any particular location. Global users can register on the platform increasing the potential number of users dozens of times.

Challenges of a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace

Building and running a peer-to-peer marketplace has some learning curve; that requires business owners to go through some challenges:

Solving the Wrong Problem

Prior to investing huge time and money into the marketplace, it is important to find a problem and build a solution for it. Business owners need to validate their idea at the initial stage by launching an MVP of their marketplace as soon as possible. The feedback received during the MVP stage from the early adopters can significantly help in determining the further enhancement required in the marketplace.

Deciding on the Right Business Model

There are different options for business models to choose from for a peer-to-peer marketplace. Deciding on a sustainable business model that works for sellers, customers, and you is important for the success of the marketplace. Make sure the business model is capable enough to scale with the business in the near future.

Building Buyer’s Trust

As a new name in the market, your brand won’t have the significant level of trust that people implicitly have in established brands. However, there are some strategies that can be used to build buyers’ trust. Also, it is something that takes time to build. Business owners can strive to provide extra safety which can become a competitive advantage for their business.

Key Players in the Peer-to-Peer Business

If you still don’t have enough motivation to join the bandwagon and launch a groundbreaking peer-to-peer business, let’s read about the key players in this industry and their growth.

Uber

Founded in 2009, Uber is a service provider allowing users to book a cab and driver to transport them. Without owning a single vehicle, the company operates in almost 72 countries and 10,500 cities. The fares of the ride, which are based on a dynamic pricing model depending upon the supply and demand are quoted to the buyer in advance.

Uber generated $31 billion in revenue in 2022, an 83.2% increase year-on-year. Uber drivers completed 7.6 billion trips in 2021 with over 131 million people. The company has received a total funding of $20.9 billion from 2011 to 2019.

Etsy

Founded in 2005, Etsy is a network where one can buy and sell handmade, unique, and vintage craft items like jewelry, bags, clothing, home decor, furniture, and toys. The platform has helped thousands of craftsmen to make revenue by selling their products online. The platform generates revenue from sellers in the form of listing fees and commissions from each sale.

Etsy’s annual revenue in 2022 was $2.56 billion. The platform has 7.5 million sellers and 96 million active buyers.

Airbnb

Based in the USA, AirBnB helps travelers find affordable accommodations all over the world. The business was established in 2008 where the platform works as an intermediator connecting homeowners with travelers who are looking for affordable accommodation while Airbnb makes a profit from the commission from each booking.

The platform was valued at $133 billion in 2021 and saw its revenue increase by 73% which is $5.9 billion in the same year. The platform has over 7 million listings run by over 4 million hosts.

TaskRabbit

Launched in 2008, the company has been growing steadily and has competitors like Hassle, Zaarly, and Thumbtack. TaskRabbit matches freelance labor with local demand, allowing consumers to find help with everyday tasks, including furniture assembly, moving, delivery, and handyman work.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the platform serves several cities across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Monaco. The platform’s estimated annual revenue is $244.9 million and has raised total funding of $37.7 million.

Fiverr

Fiverr is the world’s largest online marketplace for freelance services connecting freelancers to people or businesses looking to hire. Launched in 2010, Fiverr is unparalleled in helping people find skilled professionals at remote locations for short one-time tasks. The platform consists of quite useful website features for service providers and service seekers.

Fiverr was valued at $1.18 Billion in 2022 and has raised a total funding of $111 million in 8 rounds.

Essential Features of a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace

Now that you have seen marketplaces growing immensely in the peer-to-peer industry and are planning to launch your own marketplace, it is important to know the features required in your platform. Although the peer-to-peer business model has proven viable, it is still imperative to have the right set of features in your platform.

Here are the features that peer-to-peer marketplaces should have:

Social Logins & Verification

Marketplace owners need to provide users with multiple ways (phone, email, social account) to register and sign in to the platform in order to boost audience satisfaction. Providing social login options is faster for the users and the linking of a social account increases the credibility of the sellers.

In addition, users should not be forced to create an account on the platform until they are not purchasing any product/service on the platform.

User Profiles

A user profile is among the main features of a peer-to-peer marketplace. User profiles should contain personal information such as name, photo, contact details, location, user type, buying/selling preferences, ratings, etc. Creating profiles is an essential part of building trust between buyers and sellers. You can also add an option to verify phone numbers and identities, which can or can’t be shared with others.

Reviews/Ratings

Reviews are an essential part of any eCommerce business to build transparency and trust among users on the platform. As buyers these days are fully aware, probably the first thing they would do after finding a product is to check its reviews. Missing product or seller reviews may encourage them to give up on the product and look for the product in a different source.

Notifications

This feature is essential to speed up the interactions and make communications between parties seamless. Integrating this feature allows sellers to send emails and notifications about order status, price reductions, special offers, product availability, and much more. Notifications make sure that the buyers and sellers can communicate with each other quickly without the messages being lost in history facilitating the closing of the deals more quickly.

Product Listings

It is equally important to implement product listings when building a peer-to-peer marketplace. You need to implement this feature correctly as it works differently for vendors and consumers. As far as vendors go, they should be able to add, remove, revise, publish, and unpublish listings. Customers should be able to filter, search, and view those listings with detailed descriptions.

Website Search & Navigation

In order to enhance the user experience on the platform, the website should have a smooth search & navigation. Well-structured and thought-out website navigation helps boost user retention and interest in the website. The option to search for products using keywords, filters and categories makes sure the buyers can find the products and services they are looking for.

Online Payments

Customers need to be able to pay for their purchases or bookings right on the marketplace. To offer this, integration with different payment gateways is essential. Make sure to allow different types of payments, including credit/debit cards, PayPal, digital wallets, net banking, cryptocurrency, and country-specific payment options.

Communication

For efficient communication between sellers, buyers, administrators, and support, the marketplace needs to have a messaging system integrated. Users should be able to write a message and send it to any other user to avoid disputes and communicate quickly for a seamless experience on the platform.

Cross-Selling & Upselling

This is a common feature of online marketplaces to have. Implementing sections like “Recommended” or “Users also bought this” on the product page may entice users to purchase more increasing your revenue and profit as a platform owner.

Bookings

A peer-to-peer marketplace that offers services instead of products needs to have a booking system in place. To mark the availability/unavailability and to book the slots to eliminate any chances of errors, a calendar needs to be integrated into the marketplace.

Commission Settings

In order to generate revenue, the business owner should get the option to set their own commission rates. The commission rates can vary for different product categories. Additionally, the option to set a flat rate commission or percentage commission gives more flexibility to the business owner. 

Earnings Withdrawal Settings

As the marketplace owner, you should get the option to set an earnings withdrawal policy. This feature is important to ensure the smooth functioning of certain processes, such as refund and returns processes. 

For example, you should have the option to set a minimum withdrawal limit so that sellers are only withdrawing their earnings once they hit a certain threshold amount. Till then, the amount accumulated in a seller’s account can be used for processing refunds for that particular seller’s products. Similarly, you can set a minimum withdrawal interval period so that a fair withdrawal policy can be upheld for all small and large vendors.

How to Build a Peer to Peer Marketplace

We have reached the most crucial part of the article (How to Build a Peer to Peer Marketplace). A peer-to-peer marketplace can be built by multiple approaches. Two of them are:

• Custom Development
• Readymade Software

Custom development from scratch is a sound idea if you need extended functionality or a high level of customization. However, this needs to be kept in mind that this approach consumes most of the time and money. You need to hire a development team that can help you with the technical aspects and guide you on the way to product launch and even after that.

Using readymade software cuts the time and costs of marketplace development greatly. The software has all the essential features required to build and launch a peer-to-peer marketplace. The software is developed by a group of experienced professionals, hence, it addresses the problems that may get overlooked in the custom-developed platforms.

One such readymade P2P marketplace software is Yo!Gigs. This is a fully customizable and all-in-one home services marketplace software purpose-built with all the essential features to streamline the operations of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Yo!Gigs comprises a unique and powerful suite of features to build a robust peer-to-peer marketplace.

If interested, you can book a free personalized demo with experts.

Summing Up

Building a peer-to-peer business has never been easier than it is today. With unlimited potential for creativity and growth in this business model, the odds of becoming successful are definitely high. All you need to do is identify the strong and weak sides of the business and discover how to address the pain points to gain a competitive advantage.

FAQs

Q1. Is there any readymade Peer-to-Peer marketplace software available?

Ans: Yes, there are several readymade peer-to-peer marketplace software available in the market. They are available in both SaaS and self-hosted options. For self-hosted solutions, you can check out our range of products:

• Yo!Gigs: For launching P2P service-based marketplaces
• Yo!Rent: For launching P2P sales and rental marketplaces

All these solutions are available at a one-time cost and are highly cost-effective in the long term. Moreover, you also get one year of free technical support with these solutions.

Q2. What is the cost of building a Peer-to-Peer website?

Ans: The cost of building a Peer-to-Peer marketplace depends on various factors such as the method of development, development country, and the reputation of the developer. As stated above, it is wiser to select a readymade software to reduce the overall development cost and time. In addition, you also get tested and tried software to run your P2P business. Generally, the cost of P2P marketplace software varies from $1,500 – $5,000.

Q3. Do I need to be tech-savvy to operate an online marketplace?

Ans: With readymade software, you just need basic computer knowledge to run and operate everything. This is because readymade marketplace software comes with a Graphic User Interface (GUI) with in-built options and settings that help you manage the marketplace. Thus, you only need to click on readily available options in order to manage your marketplace. No technical knowledge is required.

Q4. What are the top Peer-to-Peer marketplace ideas to invest in?

Ans: Without going into much detail, all industry stats show the immense scope of business in launching the following types of P2P marketplaces:

• Handyman Services Marketplace
• Home Services Marketplace
• Freelancers Marketplace
• Gigs Marketplace
• Babysitters Marketplace
• Car Rental Marketplace
• Dress Rental Marketplace

The post How to Build a Peer to Peer Marketplace appeared first on FATbit Blog.

The gig economy is expanding and providing lucrative work opportunities to diverse service industries, including the cleaning services industry. Marked with a CAGR of 6.83% in the forecast period 20230-2030, the cleaning service industry is expected to reach $633.18 billion by 2030. Delivering its services to residential and commercial establishments such as homes, office buildings, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals, the industry’s future looks bright. 

Furthermore, the industry received a boost during the lockdown period of 2020-2022 because of strict cleaning and disinfection regulations that skyrocketed the cleaning services demand globally. Because of its nature, the industry remains invulnerable to even the most drastic market fluctuations. This is where the idea of launching a centralized cleaning service marketplace arises where multiple cleaning service providers can sign up and deliver their services to highlight themselves amongst competition and increase online presence.

Several examples of cleaning service marketplaces are available in the industry, such as Helpling, MyClean, Housekeep, Handy, and TaskRabbit. In return for connecting service providers with customers, these marketplaces primarily charge a small commission rate for revenue generation. Let’s take a closer look at how you can build your cleaning service marketplace along with the industry outlook and business model.

Why Launch a Cleaning Services Marketplace?

The following factors can help you analyze the scope of business in launching a cleaning service marketplace.

Organize an Unorganized Sector

The cleaning service sector is primarily unorganized in numerous regions. Organizing the unorganized not only holds business potential but can also help you open new business opportunities for independent service providers and cleaning services. This inadvertently benefits the entire cleaning services community and gives your marketplace a word-of-mouth boost.

Cater to Diverse Service Areas

As stated above, the cleaning service industry delivers services to diverse areas that include both residential and commercial cleaning. Furthermore, many new specialty cleaning service areas are also emerging. These include but are not limited to:

• Green cleaning
• Bathroom cleaning
• Carpet cleaning
• Car cleaning
• Window cleaning
• Medical cleaning
• Kitchen cleaning
• Corporate cleaning
• Pool cleaning
• Gym Equipment cleaning
• Pressure washing

Increase Online Presence

Back in the day, cleaning service professionals grew their business via word-of-mouth marketing, which is still as effective today but less prevalent because of reasons such as the busy occupied schedules of working professionals and the emergence of individualistic societies where citizens have less time for face-to-face connections. Instead, as the internet grew, the reliance on building an online presence also grew. A cleaning service marketplace can assist all service providers in increasing their online presence.

Provide More Convenience to Customers

In a world where the internet has taken over pretty much everything, it has become the primary platform to search for solutions. For finding cleaning service providers, customers also prefer searching on the internet and placing a direct booking instead of connecting and checking the availability of multiple professionals. On a cleaning service marketplace, they can easily find diverse professionals and book them directly, ensuring a hassle-free booking experience. In case of any post-service issues, they can directly raise their concerns on the marketplace. 

Cost-Effective Business Venture

Building a cleaning services marketplace does not require you to own any inventory or hire any cleaning professionals. You only need to monitor operations over the marketplace. This makes the entire business venture highly cost-effective. There are no inventory costs and warehousing costs involved, the hired workforce is small and utility bills are low. The only primary expenditure that you will need to bear as the cleaning services marketplace owner is the technology infrastructure costs.

How a Cleaning Services Marketplace Works?

The actual workflow of the cleaning service marketplace varies on business preferences, market preferences, and the available technology. For a brief overview, we have given an exemplary workflow below:

Operations Workflow of a Cleaning Services Marketplace

• Independent service providers and cleaning companies create their profiles on the marketplace
• Customers upload their job requirements on the marketplace and service providers place their bids
• Customers browse the profiles of all service providers who placed their bids. They thoroughly go through their work proposals, experience, portfolio, and bid amount to select a winning bid.
• To finally select a cleaning services provider, customers submit the service cost on the marketplace itself
• The marketplace deducts its commission and transfers the rest of the amount to the service providers’ eWallet
• The service provider connects with the customer and completes the job
• Once the service provider reaches the minimum withdrawal threshold amount, he can withdraw all his earnings to his bank account. 

Alternatively, some marketplaces also have a direct hiring option that bypasses the entire bidding process. The direct hiring model works in two ways:

• Hourly Costs: Service providers and companies mention their hourly rates on their profiles. Customers explore their profiles and directly hire the required service provider on an hourly basis.
• Service Packages: Service providers upload packages with fixed prices on the marketplace. Instead of hiring them on an hourly basis, customers buy their service packages and the providers deliver the services. 

Revenue Model of a Cleaning Services Marketplace

Diversification in income streams is required to ensure steady returns and become profitable. On a cleaning services marketplace, the marketplace owner can use the following revenue generation channels:

• Service Commission: Marketplace can charge a commission rate on all services

• Sales Commission: You can also charge a commission on the sales of service packages

• Featured Listings: To showcase some service providers in the most highlighted areas of the marketplace, you can charge for featured listings.

• Pay-Per-Click Ads: The PPC model can also be used on a marketplace where different service providers and third-party advertisers can create an ad account. On every click or sale that takes place through an ad on the marketplace, the ad fee will be automatically deducted from the advertiser’s account.

• Paid Registrations: To earn upfront revenue and make the marketplace less reliant on sales, the admin can keep the registration paid. He can also use a freemium model: Free for independent service providers and paid registrations for cleaning companies.

• Own Services: Lastly, the marketplace owner can list their own cleaning services on the marketplace.

Leading Cleaning Service Marketplaces in the industry

The following cleaning service marketplaces have been delivering online services in the industry for years and have successfully distinguished themselves from the rest of the competition. To launch your own cleaning service marketplace, you can take a reference from these marketplaces:

Roadmap to Build Your Cleaning Services Marketplace

After thoroughly understanding the business model and market dynamics, you can move forward toward developing your cleaning services marketplace. There are multiple development approaches to select from with each having varying benefits. From a business perspective, let’s analyze which approach will provide more value to entrepreneurs. 

Step 1: Select the Development Approach

Primarily, you get two approaches, which are either using custom development or readymade software. These approaches can be further divided into the waterfall development method, agile development method, and SaaS software and self-hosted software. However, we would highly recommend opting for readymade self-hosted software because of the following reasons:

• With custom development, you would be paying hourly rates to each developer assigned to your project. This makes the custom development approach very costly. Moreover, the long delivery timeline also deprives you of any first-mover advantage.

• With SaaS solutions, you do get readymade support for your cleaning services marketplace but they aren’t sustainable. SaaS solutions have monthly recurring costs with limitations on transactions, listings, user profiles, and features. To grow your business, you will need to upgrade to premium SaaS subscriptions costing hundreds of dollars every month.

• Self-hosted software are hosted on your own choice of server and come with a lifetime usage license. This makes them highly cost-effective in the long run. Additionally, there are no such restrictions as present in SaaS software. You can onboard as many users, create unlimited product listings, and do limitless transactions, making your marketplace highly scalable and ready for all stages of growth. 

Thus, out of all the options, self-hosted readymade software provide the benefits we are looking for, including readymade support with a feature-rich architecture, long-term cost-effectiveness because of their one-time cost, and reduced time to market.

Step 2: Features to Look For in your Cleaning Service Marketplace 

To ensure the proper functioning of your cleaning service marketplace, you need a thoughtful set of features that can help you deal with numerous business use cases and streamline daily operations.

• Social Sign-up: Multiple sign-up methods including social sign-up through users’ existing Gmail accounts and Facebook accounts will simplify the onboarding experience and improve the registration rate.

• Custom Registration Form: Once users sign up, you need the functionality to display a custom registration form. The form will include all custom fields that you feel are required to do cleaning business operations on your marketplace. These can include identity details, profile user name, previous work experience, services provided, languages spoken, and more.

• Company Profile: Along with individual service provider profile creation, you can also allow users to create company profiles. This will make your marketplace more attractive to existing cleaning companies from whom you can charge higher commission rates or offer paid features.

• Multiple Job Types: For diversification in jobs, allow customers to upload different types of cleaning jobs including biddable jobs, fixed-price jobs, public jobs, and private jobs.

• Bidding Module: Through the bidding module, service providers and cleaning companies can send their job proposals and bids on various jobs. The job poster can view each proposal and select the winning bid. 

• Service Packages: Along with posting jobs, users can buy the various service packages uploaded by service providers. Each package enlists whatever is included in the package.

• Direct Job Invitation: At the time of job posting, allow users to send direct invitations to various service providers. In the case of private jobs, direct invitation is also the only method to reach out to service providers.

• Job Cancellation Window: To avoid paying marketplace commissions, users may attempt to strike off-platform deals with service providers. To prevent such deals, you should have the option to select a custom job cancellation window. Once the cancellation window is over, the cancellation option will no longer be available to users.

• eWallet: The eWallet system will help you maintain a cash flow on the marketplace. All earnings can be displayed in each service provider’s eWallet, and you can set the minimum withdrawal amount and interval period to ensure smooth earning withdrawals.

• Internal Messaging: The internal messaging system is required on the marketplace to allow efficient communications between service providers and customers.

• Multilingual Filter: Add a multilingual filter on the marketplace to make it more welcoming for users from diverse backgrounds.

• Commission Management: The option to set your commission rate and apply it on a global level or per service provider basis. 

You should look for the aforementioned features in your readymade software. You can either find these on the software’s official website or might need to book a personalized demo. Once, you find the readymade software, you can purchase its lifetime usage license and start building your cleaning services marketplace.

Step 3: Configure The Marketplace

After purchasing the lifetime license, your software provider will deploy it on your selected server, which can either be an in-house server or a third-party hosting service like AWS. Once deployed, you can start configuring the marketplace. 

Consider the following checklist to configure the marketplace:

• Brand logos and other trademarks
• Color schemes
• Navigation menus
• Homepage content
• About us page
• Contact us page
• Terms and conditions
• Bank details
• Commission settings
• Social media handles
• Discounts and promotions
• FAQs
• How to Get Started blogs and guides

The entire marketplace configuration can take anywhere between 2-10 days. You can also speed up the process by preparing webpage content in advance. Once configured, create test profiles on the marketplace to review workflows and other processes.

Step 4: Onboard Cleaning Service Providers 

On any online marketplace, the number of customers is directly proportional to the number of cleaning service providers and vice versa. This requires you to have a well-thought service provider onboarding strategy, including various incentives for new registrations. 

To encourage more registrations, the following are some incentives and marketing campaigns that you can implement on your cleaning service marketplace.

• Provide zero or lower commission rates for the first few service provider registrations.
• Provide free featured listings and header section advertisements.
• Conduct outbound marketing to personally reach out to cleaning companies and register them.
• Run search engine ad campaigns to improve your marketplace’s visibility to customers.
• Use print advertising such as newspaper ads and magazine ads to attract local cleaning service providers.
• Launch social media marketing campaigns to boost your online presence.
• Publish press releases on dedicated PR websites that distribute your news to a large news network.
• Build social proofing by collecting reviews and ratings.
• Grow your word of mouth by taking help from business connections, family, and friends.

For more information on how to attract cleaning service providers, you can take reference from this blog. 

How Yo!Gigs Can Help

Yo!Gigs is a dedicatedly developed end-to-end service marketplace solution. Unlike other software solutions that are more or less page builders, requiring you to manually do a lot of customizations, Yo!Gigs provides comprehensive support right out of the box. Along with all the essential features mentioned above, Yo!Gigs come with a highly professional and intuitive design that helps you establish a strong brand image and provide the best in the industry customer experience.

Additionally, Yo!Gigs caters to all use cases that you may encounter during your cleaning service marketplace operations. It helps you overcome various challenges and provide more flexibility and freedom to customers. Let’s take a look at all the top reasons to select Yo!Gigs.

• Self-hosted software available at a one-time cost, making it highly cost-effective in the long run.
• Supports direct hiring, job posting, bidding operations, and even service packages.
• Fully customizable to meet any additional business requirements.
• Comes with unlimited listings, transactions, and user profiles so that you grow and scale your business effortlessly.
• Comes with an advanced set of features that help you deal with daily business use cases.
• Comes with 12 months of free technical support to ensure uninterrupted business operations.

Conclusion

Cleaning service marketplaces primarily gain popularity because of two reasons: the sheer number of cleaning service providers looking for new jobs and the convenience they provide to customers. To meet both of these criteria, a proper execution of your business model is required. This includes paying focus on technology, services, branding, customer support, vendor onboarding, and more. While growing any marketplace business takes time and effort, the right software, you need to direct your time and efforts in the right direction. You can get a better understanding of the market in less time and start providing quality services, which further helps in reaching the breakeven point faster.

The post How to Build a Cleaning Services Website – A Complete Guide appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Technology companies have been busy lately developing software to hire professionals online. Cab booking services and food ordering portals are some of the popular examples. Most recent are online marketplaces to hire local professionals for jobs like house painting, home cleaning, plumbing, and more. These marketplaces are referred to as on-demand services marketplaces.

In no time, these on-demand service marketplaces with unique features have made their mark by gaining huge popularity and building a reasonably good customer base. Seeing its rising popularity, FATbit’s team of analysts conducted thorough research of the growing industry and gathered critical business insights for entrepreneurs planning to launch a similar portal.

Comprehensive On-Demand Service Marketplace Business Model

An on-demand service platform connects service seekers and providers. The flow of such a marketplace is illustrated below:

Possible Revenue Streams of an On-demand Services Business

There are several revenue streams of an on-demand services business. However, zeroing in on a couple of them which are sustainable and help businesses scale is essential. Some of the possible revenue streams are explained below:

Potential Niches in the On-demand Services Industry

The on-demand services industry is further divided into various niches. On a marketplace platform, you can aggregate services from each of these niches. Alternatively, depending on the market demand in your targeted geographic region, you can launch a dedicated on-demand service platform for a particular niche as well.

Electrical

Electricians can increase their sales by listing their services on an on-demand electrical services platform and delivering their services to customer homes and business locations.

Plumbing Services

To save clients running around a plumber in their neighborhood, an on-demand plumbing services platform helps them find and book a plumber in minutes.

HVAC

As with other on-demand services, an HVAC services platform connects HVAC services providers to customers looking for them. Customers can find as well as book a visit from HVAC services providers. 

Pest Control Services

Every homeowner takes regular pesticide control as pests pose real threats to health and damage property. An on-demand pest control services platform acts as a one-stop destination for homeowners to find all sorts of pest control services.

Cleaning Services

On-demand cleaning services for the ones who struggle hard to keep their house clean and hire maids or housekeepers for the same. 

Appliance Repair Services

Customers prefer booking and delivery of services at their doorstep which has brought a lot of popularity to on-demand appliance repair services. 

Landscaping Services

Keeping the yard, lawn, and landscaping maintained has never been so easy with the fleet of local and professional on-demand landscaping services. 

Locksmith Services

On-demand professional locksmith services are in great demand due to residential locks, commercial locks, key duplication, automotive key programming, and lock for security surveillance.

Roofing Services

On-demand roofing services are getting popular for a variety of uses like emergency services, snow removal, small scope construction projects, warranty program, etc.

Top On-demand Services Marketplaces

Things to Consider While Starting an On-demand Services Business

While the glaring success of the on-demand market worked for many businesses, the businesses that failed are also extremely huge in number. Below given are a few factors to consider when building your on-demand business and making it a success.

Market Expansion

On-demand businesses today refrain from expanding their market reach and end up being limited to a pool of loyal customers. The problem arises as soon as a new competitor with huge capital enters the market and starts expanding. The chances of them getting out of the business increase with the increasing number of competitors.

Alternate Financing Options in Place

It is extremely unwise to be dependent on funding to launch and sustain your on-demand business. No matter how well-propositioned your business model is, there is no guarantee of your on-demand business getting funded. It is better if the entrepreneurs look into alternative financing options like partner financing, invoice advances, crowdfunding, marketplace lending, revenue-based financing, etc., and not remain limited to venture capital.

Focus on Customers’ Needs

As many successful on-demand businesses have set the benchmark high, the modern customers’ expectations have also risen. Some key traits are:

• 24*7 availability
• Personalized experience
• Quick turnaround time
• Cater to the exact customer needs

Take a look at these points and identify which of these relate to your business. These points can highlight where your business can improve the customer experience by focusing on the needs of your customers.

Trends Transforming the On-demand Services Industry

Here is a look at trends that are being formed and lay the foundation for the future of the on-demand services industry.

Adoption in a Wide Range of Industries

As people are getting used to on-demand service platform, they are also looking to take advantage of more on-demand services in other industries. Moreover, becoming more ubiquitous signifies branching out to serve new industries and sectors. As a result, the on-demand economy is going to see an increase in its workforce in the coming years.

Skilled and Qualified Service Providers

So far, most of the on-demand services like cleaning, ride-hailing, food delivery, etc. did not require a special skill set or expertise, However, the growing number of service providers and niches will also require skilled and qualified service providers with relevant experience to join the workforce. Some of the examples are medicine and health care services that are becoming popular and require service providers to be skilled and experienced.

Quality Services at Consumer’s Convenience

As the number of businesses and service providers is increasing in numbers and competition is rising every day, service providers need to offer quality services at reasonable prices. The hike in the number of service providers has forced them to offer the premium services at customers’ convenience or lose a potential customer.

Necessary Background Checks

As the penetration of on-demand services increases and more people face legal issues, there will be an increased demand for background checks. Customers are hesitant to use the services if there are no background checks for the service providers. On-demand business owners should consider this to build and maintain the trust of the customers.

Business Intelligence and Analytics

As the competition in the on-demand services industry is roaring high, businesses will not be able to thrive without Data Mining and Business Analytics. These can give valuable insights into the services which are in demand. Business intelligence and analytics will help to find out the demographics of the users, whether the marketing strategies are performing well or not, and what can be done in order to streamline the business.

Building an On-demand Services Marketplace

Launching an On-demand marketplace platform is an opportunity to tap into this growing industry, however, rushing to launch a platform as fast as possible with a vague idea about the target market and business model can sink your business before it even establishes. A well-thought business strategy is a solid foundation, not only for the business but for the technical aspect as well.

Here is what you need to do when building an on-demand services marketplace.

Choose a Niche

The untapped potential of your business can go far beyond the expectations with the niches we mentioned above. Keep multiple options open for your business and refrain from the niches where other players are already doing good. Find a unique niche that actually helps the users make their lives better.

Define Customers’ Needs

While exploring the market, find out answers to a couple of questions:

• What is the audience’s age and social status?
• What are their daily challenges?
• How can your business help them solve their problems?
• What are the expectations of service providers?

Build a user persona that can greatly help you define your potential customer’s needs and enable you to fulfill them.

Analyze Market Competitors

Prepare a list of your competitors, irrespective of the fact whether they work in a similar niche or have a slightly different market. Take a closer look at their business, and try to find out insights into their business, like:

• Specialization
• USPs
• Weaknesses

Analyzing all these factors, you will be able to detect the elements their business is missing. You can then use this missing element to strengthen your business and make your business one of a kind.

Pick a Monetization Strategy

Finding the right pricing strategy is the top priority for any business. Your pricing strategy should not seem suspicious or disadvantageous for users. The most hazardous strategy is pricing the customers too high which can make you incapable of meeting the competition and undermine all the efforts taken to build the business. They should clearly realize what they are getting against their money. 

Decide on the Features

An on-demand app service delivery website will need to have different features for all the different users – admin, service provider, and customer. Have a thorough research of your market and audience and then decide on the features you will be needing in your website.

Attracting Customers for Your On-demand Services Marketplace

Studies and reports clearly portray that the on-demand services market is expanding and there is an unconfined inclination towards this economy. However, not many businesses make it big in the market and their efforts go in vain. The primary reason is the lack of proper marketing.

Rather than going rounds across the problem, let’s discuss how on-demand businesses can attract more customers and increase their revenue.

Strategize Marketing Plan

Building an on-demand platform is not all; businesses need to have a proper strategized marketing funnel to create demand and entice customers. A lot of research is required keeping in mind the target audience and the services being offered before actually launching an on-demand services marketplace.

Gain Trust of Customers

Building a better bond with the audience is always recommended in a business. Organizing webinars, interacting with the audience through different mediums, and sharing sales videos can help businesses gain the trust of and build the authority of their on-demand business.

Conduct Research/Surveys

Proper knowledge of the market is vital in any business, and on-demand businesses need it more than any other. It is essential to know the difficulties faced by the potential customers, their requirements, and how can your services help them in solving their problems. On-demand businesses need to carry out these surveys to be on the right track, or else the competitors can grab their potential customers.

Showcase Client Testimonials

Every new customer has this psyche of being doubtful towards a new company. However, if they see another customer sharing positive feedback, they are easily convinced of the services/products. On-demand businesses need to make sure they allow their customers to share their experience (video, picture, written) which will serve as a testimony of their quality and attract new customers.

Offer Lucrative Discounts

Another effective strategy to gain more customers is to provide enticing offers and discounts which can attract existing as well as new customers. The only thing to consider while offering discounts is that these offers should be realistic and do not cost much, or else they can backfire.

Build an On-demand Services Marketplace with Yo!Gigs

For a remarkable amount of time, Yo!Gigs has been helping entrepreneurs to build an on-demand services marketplace. The software comes with a multitude of features to aid in the development of a rich services marketplace. The software is readymade and reasonably priced for building a services marketplace.

An on-demand services marketplace armed with the features Yo!Gigs offers is undoubtedly going to rule the market.

FAQs

Q1. What is the best solution to start an on-demand service marketplace platform?

Ans: For on-demand marketplace operations, Yo!Gigs is a highly recommended solution. It comes with a wide range of essential features to simplify all types of on-demand service operations. Furthermore, it also supports direct hiring, job posting, and bidding to provide customers with diverse hiring options. 

To ensure quality services and establish trust in consumers, the marketplace owner gets the background checklist and verification badge features. For managing service providers, Yo!Gigs has modules such as user management, commission management, withdrawal settings, eWallet, advance deposit, etc.

To view Yo!Gigs in action, schedule a free personalized one-on-one demo session here.

Q2. What is the cost of developing an on-demand service marketplace platform?

Ans: The cost of developing an on-demand service marketplace varies on the development method. Via the custom development method, you would be paying between $25-100 per hour to develop your marketplace platform. If it takes 1000 hours to develop the marketplace, then your overall custom development cost will be somewhere between $25,000 – $100,000. On the other hand, by using a readymade solution, you can reduce the overall cost to $1000-$5000. This is possible as the solution has been already developed by the software provider and you are only purchasing a license for the software.

The post The On-Demand Service Marketplace Business Model and Revenue Streams appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Why should hiring a service professional always be an ordeal for service seeker? The reach of the internet and local marketplace for professional services is the ideal answer to all your queries related to finding professionals.

The job that used to be delivered through recruitment consultancies and agents earlier is aligned online now. Websites like Zaask, Thumbtack, Angie’s list are the top names helping connect service seekers with service professionals. The sheer popularity of such websites has generated such great enthusiasm among entrepreneurs that FATbit had to take up this business model and acquaint the readers about pros, cons, risk, and other factors associated with it.

Our team did an analysis for such websites to get an in-depth view of their business model, how they make money and key website features that would help any entrepreneur in launching a successful and popular on-demand service marketplace. Before going through the website features, let us look at the business model for a better idea of market dynamics.

How an On-demand Service Marketplace Works? – Business Model

The main aim of these marketplaces is connecting service seekers with providers.

1. The service seeker, register and lists their job on the platform.
2. The service professionals, on the other hand, register in a particular service category and access all the listed jobs. They then apply for a particular job by sending the seeker a proposal.
3. The service seeker analyses all the responses and chooses the person having relevant experience as per their requirement on marketplace for professional services.

How do such online service marketplace websites make money?

An on-demand service marketplace can generate money via different revenue models:

• A nominal membership fee can be charged by the platform.
• The service professional has to pay a fixed charge to apply for a particular job. This fee can vary depending upon the job.
• The platform can also charge the service seeker a commission on completion of every task.
• Implementing ad-based monetization can provide an advantage to the platform in generating additional revenues.

Leading Market Players

• Zaask
• Angie’s List
• Get Ninjas
• Thumbtack

How to Build Professional Service Marketplace

1. Code Yourself
2. Hiring developers
3. Readymade B2B eCommerce platforms

Going with readymade B2B ecommerce solutions like Yo!Gigs is a wise decision to save time and cost.

How it work for Service Seekers?

The business model of an on-demand marketplace for services aims to connect two entities: service seeker and service provider. When it comes to service seeker, the overall process goes through the following timeline:

• Service seeker creates account
• Job is listed on the platform and service is sought
• After receiving proposals from service professionals, service seeker analyses all of them
• Subsequently comparing the proposals, service seeker chooses a proposal, makes payment and hires a service provider.

Process flow diagram for hiring a service provider for a service

CLICK TO ENLARGE (Open in new tab)

How it works for service provider

The overall on-demand service marketplace website for professionals works in the following timeline for a service provider:

• Service providers create an account and logs in it.
• They view the jobs listed by the service seekers.
• The desired job is then chosen and a proposal is sent
• After their proposal is accepted, they start working on the job

Website Overview

What makes websites like Zaask, Thumbtack and Angie’s list stand out is their focus on user engagement. While analyzing several websites like them we came to the conclusion that a service marketplace website must be easy to use and navigate. Let us go through all of such necessary features in detail.

Homepage

When you open a homepage of a website for the first time, it takes around eight seconds to either close the window or browse further. This is why it is always advised to focus immensely on your homepage design. While some tend to go all out, by putting every bit of information right on the homepage, others keep their design language to a bare minimum. FATbit analysts are of the view that the latter approach is more beneficial than the former. Some other suggestions to make homepage more intuitive include:

1. A large banner image displaying different service professionals
2. Name of the website along with a tagline that optimally highlights what the website is all about.

How It Works Section

As more and more complex and unique business models come into existence, it becomes difficult for consumers to get accustomed to them. This is why a online services marketplace must have a dedicated “how it works” section in place, making it easy for the consumers as well as service professionals to understand how the platform works.

NOTE: Such a section would also eliminate most if not all the doubts of users.

Featured Professionals

One of the innovative ways with which online services marketplace can enhance the reach of their professionals as well as add another revenue model is featuring premium professionals right on the homepage. FATbit analysts recommend using tabbed design elements, which would allow you to feature professionals based on popular categories, making it more relevant.

Enticing CTAs

Enticing visitors to convert into customers is a nifty trick that only a few marketplaces manage to accomplish. There are several best practices, which not only enhance conversion rate but also help in increasing sales. CTAs (Call to action) are a prominent way used to boost conversion. FATbit analysts highly recommend you to follow this approach if you want to build a service professional marketplace anytime soon.

Well-defined Categories

A service professional marketplace caters to a wide array of categories ranging from carpenter to technician. To make it easy for the service seekers to browse service professionals based on respective categories, the platform must have well-segregated categories. Another essential benefit of having such categories is that service seekers can easily post their jobs into a particular category, allowing for easy discovery. FATbit analysts recommend incorporating small thumbnails along with the categories so that the users can easily identify them.

Reviews/testimonials

Reviews/testimonials are integral part of any ecommerce marketplace. It is not only useful in helping consumers make a decision, but also, garners trust of users for the platform. Proper placement of reviews is necessary for optimal impact.

Footer

Most of the ecommerce platforms do not pay any heed to the footer, terming it as unfruitful. However, the fact remains that with proper designing of footer, a platform can optimize its navigation. We recommend you to incorporate city selector within the footer, making it easy for the service seekers to find professionals only in their vicinity. Other recommendations include content-based pages as well as social networking profile links.

Assurance & Guarantee

The biggest hindrance in front of ecommerce platforms these days is the trust deficit, which they have to diminish. Most of the first time users do not hop over to a particular platform without putting in considerable thought. One way to jump over that hurdle is to offer review and testimonials, but that too helps to a certain extent. The other way of garnering the trust of the users is to offer assurances and guarantees. As far as users are concerned, you should also perform a background check of each tasker for security reasons. Highlighting the same on your website will give you ample credence.

User Types

There are two types of users on such marketplaces:

• People offering services aka service professionals
• People looking to hire people for tasks aka service seekers

The process of signing up is different for both types of users. Let us go through the same in detail.

Login/Registration Process

Service marketplace is a broad industry catering to service seekers as well as service professionals. When it comes to local service marketplaces, they are based on a peer-to-peer platform catering to both service providers as well as service seekers. This is why it needs to have multiple signup options in place. This means that a separate account is required for professionals and seekers.

Post a Requirement

After going through many service professional marketplaces, we came up with several ideas which would help in building an advanced website. You ought to put a lot of focus on UX, which would show your user centric approach. The requirement section asks users to post their requirements. Users need to input their name, email, contact number, category and location to get requests for their requirement. In this step, users have to share some information about their prerequisites, after which service professionals send their proposals. The proposal includes:

• Type of task
• How big is the task?
• Description about the task
• Task Location
• Timeframe when the user wants the professional
• Days and timings of availability
• Additional details if any

NOTE: In order to address the privacy aspect of the users, the website ought to take the consent of the users to share their contact details with the professionals. Other than that there can also be a communication mechanism built right into the platform for better interaction. More on this has been discussed later in the post.

My Requirements

After a service seeker logs into their account, they are forwarded to the dashboard, which houses all the information about their account. One of the most vital aspects of this section is “My Requirements”. This section contains all the requirements entered by the user. In this section, they can view, edit and even close a particular requirement. Other information that can be included in this section is:

• Number of responses to a particular requirement
• Posted time
• Status of the request

Billing History

In order to make it easy for the service seeker to maintain a clear log of all the payments made, the platform must also incorporate a billing history section. It will show information like the date of payment, type of transaction and bill amount. This would help the users manage and maintain all their bills at one place. FATbit analysts recommend confirming this feature while looking for a local service professional marketplace.

Verification of service professionals

No platform wants to become a hive of spam accounts. This is why it is always advised to have a verification process in place. This is beneficial to maintain a healthy and engaged community. Before making any request or creating a service professional account, users have to verify their credentials.

It’s good for a website it has a verification process for customers’ profile. A verified service-seeker profile makes the requirement look genuine and helps professionals work better.

Service Professional Listing Page

The listing page of professionals is basically their resume, based on which a user selects them. This is why it should house all the information without clogging the page. Advanced filters help in that aspect, making it easy for the users to streamline the results as per their requirement. Some of the essential filters include:

• Service Area
• Keywords
• Gender
• Hourly rate
• Type of profile: Verified/Not-verified

Users can also have the option to sort the results based on relevance, experience, reviews and latest login. Each listing needs to be displayed with all the details like contact number, location, forte, the number of years of experience as well as number of reviews.

Service Professional Profile Page

This is one of the most vital aspects for any task marketplace. Taking cognizance of this fact, the website ought to put all the information related to professionals on this page in such a way that it does not hinder the user experience. Information displayed on the profile page must include:

• Profile image, name, location, contact address and vital stats of account
• Gallery, reviews, and detailed description of the services provided by the professional

A related profile section can make it easy for the user to view additional profiles similar to the current professional.

Messaging

As discussed earlier, there must be a communication channel built right into the platform making it easy for users and professionals to communicate. FATbit analysts recommend either using contact details or a messaging engine. A real time chat would definitely enhance the user experience of both the parties.

Final Thoughts

The fact of the matter is that service professional marketplace is growing at a very fast pace. Players like Zaask, Angie’s list and Thumbtack has already made a name for themselves. Still there is a huge untapped market for startups with advanced features so the suggestions made throughout the post can come handy. In order to ensure that your marketplace is able to capture the market, incorporate all the features suggested by our website analysts. You can also hire our professional UX developers for any assistance with website design and development. Our team will be happy to help you.

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