Custom Marketplace for Beauty Services Industry (MVP version)

Based on his deep expertise in the beauty industry, our Client realized that business owners faced some typical issues:

1. Difficulty in attracting clients online due to poor services visibility;
2. Spending much employees' time for appointments scheduling and manual notifications.

To resolve these issues, he decided to create a beauty service marketplace for customers and salon owners throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Our client wanted to build a custom app to deliver better experience to customers. For that, he needed a professional team with the necessary skill set in app development that would implement his ideas fast and at a reasonable price. Belitsoft software development company matched all these criteria.

Both web and mobile versions of the application have been developed as a solution to the business challenges. It's based on a SaaS business model with functionality both for salon owners and their customers.

How does the Beauty Service Marketplace Resolve Key Business Challenges?

1. Attracting more clients by improving online visibility of services and customer experience

A salon adds its services with all the details (service duration, cost, technicians, etc.). When a new service is added or an existing one is updated, its details become visible to customers and available for booking through the app.

A customer sees available services by simply viewing a salon's profile or applying a Filter (the nearest or the most highly rated salons, for example). The app can detect a customer's location and show the nearby salons on Google Maps and in the list mode.

Besides, a salon can promote its services by putting the ad in the paid Feature block, which will make the offer highly visible to customers.

2. Saving employees' time spent on appointments scheduling and sending notifications

A salon administrator enters working hours for every weekday and the duration of each service once only. The application automatically divides everyday working hours into time slots available for booking.

When a customer books a new appointment, the software automatically passes all the contact data to a salon.

All the data about booking are stored in the Appointments tab. A salon admin doesn't need to send reminders, as the app notifies customers about booked appointments automatically.

Extra Features

• In-app payments. The integration with the payment service Stripe was implemented for convenient checkout directly through the app dashboard.
• Communication tools. The application has the forum and the internal chat. The forum is mostly used for communication and asking questions about services. The chat is necessary for arranging any things related to services, such as confirming, changing or canceling an appointment.
• Single Sign-on. SSO is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in to the app using data from their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Google accounts.
• Notifications. Users receive notifications about successful registration, account blocking/unblocking, payment/subscription updates, new messages from users, reviews, appointment updates and reminders. Notifications come by email or in the form of an in-app notification.
• Support for Multiple Languages. The application supports 2 languages upon a client's request. There is a possibility to add more when needed.

Monetization

The app is absolutely free for customers who are looking for beauty services. However, salons need to pay for benefiting from the opportunities that the app offers.

The application adopts the 2 most popular monetization methods.

• Subscription. Newly registered salons and specialists get a free 14-day trial with full functionality. After a trial, they should pay a monthly fee to continue using the full functionality. Otherwise, they will have no possibility to process appointments, accept payments, promote their services. Three subscription plans are suggested depending on the number of employees in a salon.
• Advertisement. Subscribed salons can promote their services for an extra payment. A paid message will be highlighted and pinned in the Featured block at the top of the services list. Any promoted message has a 30-day period of exposure. After expiration, the message can be either automatically deleted if a new promotion fee is not paid or kept in the Featured block if a user has paid for the promotion for the next month.

Applying Kanban and a Three-Point cost estimation

We began by evaluating a project scope to propose the best cooperation model for the Client's individual case.

We chose a three-point estimation technique for the project cost evaluation. This approach is based on the calculation of optimistic and pessimistic cost estimates, which makes it very flexible and convenient for the Client.

So we determined a price range instead of setting a specific fixed price. And we managed to develop a fully functional MVP while staying within the agreed price range.

During the entire development process, we followed the Kanban methodology focused on delivering results continuously. Deliveries and communication with a Client were performed as frequently as it was necessary at every development stage. It proved to be efficient as it helped the Client stay in the loop and track the current progress.

Details of the development process

We built a team of 11 specialists that worked on the MVP development.

The team selected the most modern and cost-effective technologies for app development.

Tech stack:

• Backend: PHP, Laravel.
• Frontend: ReactJS (web), React Native (mobile)

Along the development process, Belitsoft's team applied manual software testing. Manual testing was chosen as the best option for a short-term project. It allowed saving the budget, getting a very high percentage of bugs fixed before launching, and improving UX and usability.

The Belitsoft team successfully launched the app MVP. The functionality of the application complies with GDPR rules on data protection and privacy.

The explicit result of our cooperation is a smoothly working, highly functional, and scalable SaaS application. The developed MVP is available both in web and mobile versions, has a clean and intuitive design, and offers a smooth experience.

Belitsoft managed to launch an MVP fast and fit it into the Client's budget thanks to a correctly chosen cooperation model and project management methodology.