Sanbuk - Adventure and experience booking application
development
release
Project idea
Our client is a Kuwait-based startup Sanbuk Adventures, that came to us with an idea to build a yacht booking application. The idea was to create two separate apps: a customer-facing application for booking yachts, boats and trips, and an app for yacht owners, who would describe their services and manage their bookings.
Project evolution to marketplace
As this product evolved after the launch, we significantly scaled its functionality and services. Now it’s a large marketplace for booking all kinds of adventures and experiences, from sailing and horseback riding courses to resort and tour booking. Currently users can book these kinds of activities in Sanbuk, that are also represented in the app filters: kayaking, boat trips, chalet, sailing, SUP, windsurfing, yoga, kitesurfing, motorcycle courses, tournaments, arts and crafts, resorts
These are the features we implemented for the final versions of both customer and provider apps:
App for users
- Sign up and log in
- Homepage
- Menu
- Listings
- Search and filters
- Localization (English, Arabic)
- Personal profile
- Bookings
- Calendar
- Settings
- Payments
- Contact
- Notifications
App for service providers
- Company profile
- Revenue tracking
- Working hours setup
- Manage bookings
- Manage service packages and availability
- Manage time slots for service packages
Challenges
The main challenge of this project was to scale a small application and turn it into a large marketplace platform. To do this, our development team needed to make significant changes to its architecture and create additional features to cater to a large variety of experience and adventure service providers. We also needed to fully redesign the search and filters functionality in order to provide effective search for the app users.
Goals
- Develop an MVP of a boat renting app
- Scale a boat renting app to a marketplace platform for experience services
- Create a convenient booking user flow in the customer-facing app
- Build a simple and convenient application for service providers
- Develop an admin panel for a product owner and managers
Development process and results
We provided full-cycle development and support for this project, from defining the idea to developing the app and releasing it to the app markets. We created a technical specification based on our client’s business requirements for a boat and yacht rental app. After our client decided to expand their business, we developed an extended version of a technical specification and developed a mobile marketplace.
We also created UI/UX design for both versions of the applications, and integrated a Kuwait-based payment gateway Tap, that’s popular in the Middle Eastern market.
We released Sanbuk this year and continue to add new functionality, as well as support and maintain it. Currently we’re working on a custom Vue.Js component — a calendar that allows an administrator to create time slots for services.
Our team implemented and set up a Laravel Nova admin panel that now corresponds to all business requirements of the product owner.
The team that works on Sanbuk comprised:
- a business analyst
- a project manager
- 2 quality assurance specialists
- 3 backend developers
- 3 Flutter developers
Main features for users
Personal profile
Contains all the necessary information about the user like their name, preferred payment methods, and favorite activities
Listings with search and filters
Users can quickly find an activity or booking using filters, a search bar and categories
Calendar
This feature allows to book the activity based on its availability
Payment gateway
Users can pay for activities and bookings right from their smartphones in just a few clicks
Main features for service providers
Company profile
Contains all the necessary information about the user like their name, preferred payment methods, and favorite activities
Service management
A service provider can add description and pictures to illustrate their service, change service packages and edit prices
Calendar management
This feature allows a service provider to add working hours and manage bookings by offering available time slots
Revenue tracking
A service provider can check the individual payments and get insights about their revenue over certain periods of time
Technologies we used
See the Sanbuk app on the app markets
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