Client

Based in Germany, the client is a technology startup aiming to provide customers with a safe and convenient way to book apartments around the country via the internet.

Background

With the emergence of Airbnb and Booking.com, the world was witnessing an unprecedented growth of online lodging marketplaces enabling users to easily book rooms, houses, beds, and spaces globally.
At some moment, the client recognized the opportunity to create a digital marketplace platform that would connect hosts in Germany with customers across the country and internationally. Striving to build a performant web system, the startup turned to Arateg, a reward-winning software engineering company with extensive experience in online marketplace development.

Project goal

The main objective was to create an online lodging marketplace—acting as an intermediary between hosts and consumers—for booking accommodations in Germany for a long or short lease. Since the startup had to showcase a software solution to investors, there were tight deadlines for delivery.

Project duration

4 months

Team

2 backend developers, 2 frontend developers, a UI/UX designer, quality assurance engineer, project manager, business analyst.

Technologies

TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Redux, Redux-Saga, Storybook, SVG, styled-components, Python, Django, AWS, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon S3, Elasticsearch, Docker, Firebase, RabbitMQ, Redis, Memcached, Google Maps API, Braintree API, PostgreSQL.

Solution

Our software experts started out with collecting and analyzing project requirements. With a clear understanding of the client’s needs, our software experts elaborated a technical specification, chose a technology stack, and outlined a roadmap for implementation.
By following Agile best practices (iterative software development, pair programming, backlog creation, daily team meetings, etc.), we managed to deliver new functionality every 2-3 weeks. As a result, the client could validate the outcome of each stage and provide feedback while our engineers were able to introduce the necessary changes on the go.
Employing Amazon Web Services and Docker, our team enabled a continuous integration/deployment pipeline (CI/CD) to speed up online marketplace creation while improving the end-solution quality.
With CI, we accelerated the process of product assembly and code error detection. By setting up CD, our software developers handled automated tests for each code commit that was then put into the production environment through multiple deploys. Thanks to this, we reduced the feature release cycle.
Finally, our quality assurance engineers conducted accepted testing to verify that a marketplace platform was ready for launch. Through security testing, our team identified the existing vulnerabilities to prevent any issues in the future.

During the project, our team solved the following challenges:

  1. Since an online community marketplace had to maintain a continuously increasing number of users, high availability, scalability, and performance were top priorities.
    Our team worked out a microservices architecture by creating a set of loosely coupled services around critical features such as chat, reporting, and accommodation search. Thanks to this, a web marketplace platform can elastically scale and handle heavy loads.
    Using Memcached and Redis, our software developers managed to improve page load speed. By tweaking Elastic Load Balancing, we ensured autoscaling of computing resources.
  2. To facilitate the process of online booking, it was important to provide hosts and customers with the possibility to communicate in chats.
    Using Firebase, our marketplace developers implemented private chats for messaging and file sharing. Thanks to Firebase, we implemented many features—for instance, data synchronization in milliseconds, media asset storage—out of the box.
  3. According to the client requirements, it was crucial to enable a multitude of secure payment methods.
    Our software experts conducted comprehensive research of popular payment gateways to find the solution that would meet needs in the best way. As a result, we chose Braintree as it provides all the required features, including AVS (Address Verification System), CVV, and 3D Secure. Furthermore, the service is available in more than 45 countries and regions.
    By integrating a marketplace platform with Braintree, we enabled digital payments via PayPal, Venmo, credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, American Express, etc.), electronic wallets (Samsung Pay, Secure Remote Commerce, etc.), and bank directs (i.e., SOFORT, GiroPay, iDeal).
    In order to deliver this functionality, our software developers implemented various customizations when building an online marketplace platform. For example, when customers see the message “Not enough funds”, they should be asked to choose another payment option. Our team had to cover all scenarios of this kind—“a card is blocked”, “a card is expired”, etc.—and test the system to prevent any issues.

Features of an online lodging marketplace

Our software development team created a web marketplace platform that consists of two parts for property owners and consumers.

A module for hosts has the following functionality:

  1. Authorization and registration
  2. Listing management
  3. Payment acceptance and tracking
  4. Chats
  5. Data analytics and visualization
  6. Admin panel
  7. Verification of banking details
  8. Two-factor authentication
  9. Role-based data access control

A module for customers includes features such as:

  1. Authorization and registration
  2. Accommodation search using numerous filters (home type, price, date, rating, the number of guest rooms, etc.)
  3. Accommodation description page
  4. Geolocation
  5. Chats
  6. Online payments
  7. Online booking
  8. User reviews and ratings
  9. Two-factor authentication

Result

Collaborating with Arateg, the client developed an online lodging marketplace for listing and booking accommodations online. Delivering the system under tight deadlines, the startup was able to demonstrate it to investors and raise funds. Thanks to the microservices architecture, the company achieved scalability, high availability, and resilience.
The startup plans to continue cooperating with our team to build a cross-platform mobile app and extend the functionality of a web marketplace platform.

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