Property Capsule Retail Marketplace
A Real-Estate web marketplace and search engine along with analytics tools for Property Capsule.
Overview
Retail Marketplace is the demand creation solution for PropertyCapsule to leverage their association with brokers and landlords in the United States to reach regional and local retail businesses. Ajackus partnered with Property Capsule to build Retail Marketplace or RMP as a robust platform that provides potential tenants the ability to search for available spaces that meet certain criteria, share and engage with internal teams, contact leasing agents and build personalized collections from a set of available spaces. On the other hand, landlords and brokers on the platform can use the marketing and analytics capabilities to improve their offerings and better reach their potential customers.
Project Name
Property Capsule Retail Marketplace
Engagement Model
Problem
PropertyCapsule customers were able to market to potential tenants at a property level, but not at a space level. This represented an opportunity loss for customers to be unable to share and market multiple spaces across properties that might appeal to a segment of potential tenants.
The marketing of properties was also done in a distributed manner which didn’t include insights or analytics. This made it difficult to assess and improve marketing techniques.
Solution
To tap into the potential tenant market and also empower brokers and landlords at the same time, we needed to take up the PropertyCapsule Retail Marketplace project with the following objectives:
- Creation of a platform where available spaces can be showcased.
- Syncing data of properties and spaces between PropertyCapsule Enterprise and Marketplace.
- Development of a unique user experience for tenants, brokers, and landlords.
- Providing an analytics and marketing capability for landlords and brokers.
These objectives were materialized in two phases:
- Phase I: Creation of an MVP, a prototype version of the platform –
This phase ran between October 2020 to February 2021 where basic features like search capabilities, sharing and enquiring about spaces, sharing collections of spaces were created and tested. It was a limited availability release. - Phase II: Formations of squads as per the categories of tasks – Three squads were made as per the type of developments in the project, namely Mountain, Ocean & Sky, to ease the execution of different objectives.
- Mountain – Creation of an experience for potential tenants.
- Ocean – Providing features for marketing and analytics.
- Sky- Basic infrastructure development and DevOps activities.
The backend of the RMP platform was a Java microservices ecosystem built on Spring boot. The front end of the application was built in Next.js, a React-based web framework that provides features like server-side rendering, asset management, and search engine optimization. The map feature used on the front-end reuses the JS application which powers PropertyCapsule Maps, giving a familiar user experience to existing PropertyCapsule customers.
Key Functionalities
A unique feature adopted in the PropertyCapsule Marketplace was the integration of a Google Maps based search tool that allows users to filter the collection of spaces and real estate as per their needs and also locate complementary or competitive businesses around to make the right business decision.
This feature further elevates the user experience at PropertyCapsule Marketplace and enables a more sophisticated search engine for tenants across the country.
Tools and Technologies
PostgreSQL
Java Spring boot
Next.js
AWS
Github
Docker
Jira
Confluence
Results
A mobile responsive application was developed by Ajackus that gave a unique UX to both tenants as well as landlords and brokers. The below list sums up the features that RMP entailed within its system:
- A criteria-based search feature listing the available spaces visualized in two views – map view and grid view, was developed for the tenants.
- Listed spaces had their own individual page, with further details like sq. footage, frontage, address, leasing agent, etc
- Tenants could also use the share feature to direct these spaces to other stakeholders and generate inquiries.
- Spaces could also be saved without logging in and could be grouped and shared as collections.
- Different search criteria could also be saved on the system and a more advanced collection experience could be availed by users on creating an account in RMP.
- For landlords and brokers, a company listing page would list all spaces managed by the company.
Retail Marketplace is instrumental in helping VTS realize the flywheel business model for its retail customers. It will serve as the primary tool that leverages the data maintained in their current real estate management solution, PropertyCapsule Enterprise. The integrated advertising and analytics in Retail Marketplace give existing customers another valuable service that can help them manage and market their listings on a single platform. It opens up another revenue stream for VTS through Facebook advertising and a new avenue for possibilities in the real estate domain by bringing it online.
Applications
Other applications of Map-Based Data Tools
- Retail: Delivery services and in-store experience
- On-demand services ( e.g. Uber )
- Automotive: GPS tracking and fleet management
- Travel: Location of hotels, places of interest, etc.
- Fitness: Real-time geolocation tracking apps
- IoT: Cross-industry use cases
Other avenues of Online Marketplace
- Goods and products
- Services
- Information
- Investment and crowdfunding
- Social networking
Contact us
We are available in 5 cities and also on the world wide web making us reachable to anyone on the planet with an internet connection.