How to Launch an On-demand Home Services Marketplace
Tags: marketplace
Published: 2021-02-08 10:40:06

The on-demand economy has come a long way since its early days in 2007. Not only is it swiftly proliferating, but also expanding into various domains like video-streaming, food delivery, and cab booking at an explosive rate. As per Harvard Business Reports, the current on-demand economy attracts 22.4 million consumers per year on an average, with their total expenditure being $57.6 billion.

Considering the current scenario where unemployment rates have increased alarmingly due to the pandemic and working professionals are eagerly looking for a job, there’s one particular business vertical in the on-demand economy where you can expect immense growth. That vertical is on-demand home services. The majority of the services in this vertical include carpentering, plumbing, electrician, salon services, and health care services.

Due to the busy occupied schedules of the working class and preference for a simple lifestyle, consumers are psychologically attracted to the instant gratification that on-demand home services offer. Consumers can order any service of their choice from a home services marketplace and get the work done within a relatively short period of time.

How to Get Started With an On-Demand Home Services Marketplace
Online home services marketplaces are based on a light-asset model. They require the least possible investment and are less-labor intensive than regular eCommerce businesses. However, there are some things that you should know to start your home services marketplace like the business model and important features.

1. On-Demand Home Services Marketplace Business Model
To conduct smooth business operations and manage the workflow of your business, understanding the business model is of utmost importance. An on-demand home service marketplace’s business model involves three user-types, which are — admin, service-seekers, and service providers

Admin: The marketplace owner is the administrator of the platform who enjoys control all over the website. He can accept or reject any listings or change the functionality and features anytime. The admin takes care of task management, role management, CMS management, and payments. The admin himself may or may not provide any service through the platform.

Service Seeker: Service Seekers on an on-demand home service marketplace upload tasks that the service providers can browse and place bids on. While uploading a task, service seekers also specify details such as the description of the job, date, time, and place.

Service Provider: Service providers are the professionals belonging to various fields who place bids on a task. They review the tasks and place bids on them based on their expertise. To become popular in an on-demand home services marketplace, it is important for service providers to maintain a portfolio and gather impressive reviews.

The workflow of an on-demand home services marketplace is as follows:

1. Service seekers upload a task on the marketplace with an expected price range
2. Service providers browse those tasks and place their bids
3. Service seekers review the profile of applied service providers and select the best one according to their needs
4. The service seeker pays the admin for the completed task
5. The selected service provider visits the seeker and completes the task
6.The admin deducts his/her commission and transfers the remaining amount as fees to the service provider
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2. The Most Important Features on an On-Demand Home Services Platform
Although your marketplace can have multiple features, it’s important to be aware of the most essential ones to make your online marketplace feasible. In this article, describe several such important features.

1. Search Filters and Job Categories
According to Medium, 88% of visitors do not return to a website after experiencing a bad user interface. To resolve this problem, search filters and job categories are a must. They make it easier for service-seekers to find the professionals they’re looking for. Search filters will not only be an impressive addition to your user interface but also enhance the overall customer experience.
2. Job Upload
A job upload feature where the service-seeker can simply upload a detailed job to which service providers respond.
3. Bidding Management
Your platform should allow service-providers to place bids and cover letter/portfolio/resume in accordance with the details of a seeker-uploaded job. The admin should also be able to set a minimum bidding amount and have the authority to remove bids.
4. Ratings and Reviews
Ratings and reviews assist service-seekers in identifying the most eligible service provider for a job.
5. GPS Navigation
Service-providers can have difficulty finding the location of an uploaded job. To resolve this problem, a GPS Navigation feature is required on your platform.
6. Push Notifications
Push notifications are a useful marketing feature but they can be also used to remind you of selective updates and service-providers about their job schedules.
7. User Management
The admin should have the accessibility to view user details and reset the password of all accounts. He/She should also be active to block defaulter accounts. For website management, the admin should have the authority to create sub-admin accounts as well.
8. Task Management
Task management includes an entire set of features dedicated to assisting service-providers in managing their accepted tasks. It can include features like tasks list, categorization, task status, details, and action.
9. Payment Gateway
There are numerous payment gateways available today for eCommerce websites to help customers make payments via their preferred payment method. An online marketplace should have several payment gateway integrations to attract more users.

Solutions to Launch an On-Demand Home Services Marketplace
Today, open-source, SaaS, and readymade solutions are equally popular with unique benefits and drawbacks. Open-source solutions require more time and resources for proper development and SaaS solutions often come with recurrent plan fees plus an additional transaction fee. Thus, to start an on-demand home service marketplace, we recommend you to use a readymade solution like <a href="https://www.fatbit.com/online-task-marketplace-solution.html">Yo!Gigs</a>.

It is a service marketplace solution inclusive of all the above essential features and extra functionality for management and marketing. It comes with a distinct admin, service-provider, and service seeker dashboard to assist these user-types in completing their specific roles. Along with features like order management, multi-user CMS, and multiple payment gateways, It is fully customizable to support many additional features that you want on your marketplace.

It also supports various revenue streams like:
1. Service Commission: The regular commission that will be deducted from the service-providers’ and service seekers’ fees.
2. Paid advertisements: The marketplace owner can charge money for sponsored advertisements or set up Google Ads.
3. Memberships and Subscriptions: The owner can create membership packages and multi-tier subscriptions that are charged on a recurrent basis.

4. Bidding Costs: The owner has the discretion of providing free and paid bids to service providers. Once the service providers use all their free bids, they’ll need to purchase more from the owner.

Summing Up

On-demand home services marketplace is a promising business idea that can reap a generous amount of profit. Based on the increasing dependency on the on-demand economy and preference for a simplistic lifestyle, it is safe to assume that people will be looking for more craftsmen and engineers in the near future instead of completing trivial home repair tasks themselves. Not to mention, the time-saving home visits of beauticians and physical trainers will add to the comfort levels of Gen Z and millennials.
All these factors pave the perfect path for entrepreneurs to step into the on-demand economy and offer much-needed on-demand home services. The last question is about the evolving technology that you want to use to power your marketplace. Along with the one that we mentioned earlier, there are several other solutions that you can compare and finalize based on your discretion.