“Productization” Journey of The Virtual Tour Technology
The concept of “time” became even more crucial because we are all aware of its scarcity. Also, we are more “mobile” and “global” than ever. With the help of technology, we can do almost anything online. For instance, imagine that you are planning a trip to somewhere that you have never been before — you can easily use resources like online maps, social media hashtags, and so on and almost get the whole feeling of “physically” being there.
Marketplaces (both horizontals & verticals) are always considered as the place where there are listings of houses & cars and people interact with each other either to buy, rent, or sell.
With the rise of technology & competition, the concept of listing changed drastically. For instance, in the U.S. when you ask someone when is the last time you remember Zillow as only a listing platform, I doubt they can answer :)
So as the Product & Business Development teams of sahibinden.com, we would like to mention our new product S — Virtual Tour and point out some of the approaches that we used during the creation of the new product.
What is a Virtual Tour, and why is it different from other media content?
The virtual tour is an experience in which the visitor can easily navigate through the panoramas of the relevant space. It gives the visitor freedom of discovery, which consists of looking around, zooming in & out, and enables users to discover a space before being physically present in that space. It is compatible with tablets, smartphones, and computers.
sahibinden.com led the way with new technologies and incorporated its own virtual tour approach, which utilizes image processing and AI technology. This enabled sahibinden.com to provide:
· A fully native experience of virtual tour creation for the realtors: A solution that is nurtured and created to meet the needs of realtors. (We will dig deeper and mention how we did it in the final part)
· Capturing with smartphones: Realtors only need their smartphones to create a virtual tour, no extra accessory is needed for capturing. (360 camera, tripod, fisheye lens, etc.)
· Time-saving for both sides of the transaction: Prospecting is a challenge for realtors, and understanding a house is another one for the customers. Seeing a place beforehand increases the lead quality and enables users to search the space and investigate every detail freely. Therefore, a customer who has already seen a virtual tour is different from one who does not.
· Distance is no longer a problem: Let me demonstrate the aspect of “distance” with an example — compare your habits of “shopping” for now with 15 years ago. How often do you buy something actually touching it physically, or when was the last time you used cash instead of a credit card? Almost everything continues to become virtual, and so does the house-visiting experience. With the aid of virtual tours, users can easily visit any house from anywhere, and at any time.
With the rise of the pandemic, virtual tours were remembered, and their importance was proven once again. By observing the half-full side of the glass, the pandemic era contributed significantly to the digitization of real estate professionals and buyers.
Within the real estate area, the concept of virtual tours is not new to anyone. It is already there almost, at least for a decade. Thus the real challenge is not about the awareness, but it is undoubtedly about the experience.
Key Actions While Modeling The Business & The Experience
Research & Benchmarking: According to some market reports*, the virtual tour market possesses a value of 450 M $ in 2020, and it is expected to reach around 6.5 billion $ by 2030. Also, a report on onlinemarketplaces.com states that one in 10 real estate portal listings have virtual tours.
Defining the Business Model: First, we defined the context and our current position in that context. The next step is to create the business model canvas and some of the critical touchpoints are as follows:
· Who will be your customer, and how will they benefit from your technology/product?
· What problem/problems are you solving? What are the secret ingredients that you have and the others don’t? Are there others who are solving the same problem? How do you differentiate from them?
· Which channels will you use to sell your product?
· What are your potential costs? How will be your revenue stream? What are the key elements?
Creating the Value Proposition Canvas & Prototyping: When you define your business model & and its main values, it is essential to match it with your target customers. For the sake of verification, you need to understand our potential audience, and to do so; you should put yourself out there and contact a rational number of potential customers.
In our case, we arranged face-to-face meetings with realtors and got their insights about our prototypes. In these sessions, we learned much and made some significant alterations to our user experience. Also, this iterative approach helped us a great deal to construct an iterative approach that made our lives easier while conducting projects in agile.
Mobile First Approach: It is well-known that we spend a substantial amount of time with our smartphones. (Online shopping, following our e-mails, etc.) In our situation, almost 96% of Turkish internet users access the internet via their smartphones. So we pay extra attention to building our wireframes and user journey with a “mobile first” mindset. The most positive impact is that we easily detect the “must haves” & “nice to haves” because mobile narrows down your canvas and makes you choose features wisely.
Creating the Timeplan: Although the agile mindset is not a great fan of time plans, it is essential to make everyone see the overall progress and be on the same page with other contributors. Time plans will make it easier to determine the deliverables (for instance, when you will first make a showcase, when UAT will start, what are the causes/risks for the delay, etc.) Also, a time plan enables the creation of a GTM strategy which will be a perfect point of alignment with the marketing team.
To sum up, it is essential to find an answer to “what”, “who” and “why” questions. It might sound simple, but definitely not; it will take a lot of time to figure out some answers. Choosing wisely is the key and to do so, let your potential customers shine a light on you…
Thank you for your time,
*Resources:
https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/the-rise-of-virtual-tours-in-real-estate/
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-turkey
Special thanks to Dilek Topaloglu and Batuhan Saylan for their contributions.
