Success Story

Daffodil helps OLX CashMyCar to re-engineer their mobile application, resulting in 47% increase in conversion rate

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Frontier Car Group (FCG) is a Berlin-based startup that develops, launches, and operates marketplaces for pre-owned automotive by the name of OLX CashMyCar. They have operations in Nigeria, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Their objective is to increase the efficiency of automobile markets through technology and infrastructure creation. They offer a safe, fair and fast solution to the underserved industry of selling used cars in frontier economies. It is one of the most successfully growing pre-owned automotive start-ups with a total funding of $569M so far.

Services Used:

Software Re-engineering App Development UI/UX Design

The Situation

In order to set up a marketplace for used cars in India, Frontier Car Group partnered with OLX, India. OLX is India’s largest classified business that deals in buying and selling of properties, used furniture, electronics, and varied other services. The joint venture, called OLX CashMyCar, aims at simplifying the way pre-owned cars are sold and purchased in India.

OLX CashMyCar is an online platform for the sellers of pre-owned cars to get a quote for their cars, schedule an inspection, and sell it. The mobile app that was developed for these tasks had usability gaps due to which the OLX CashMyCar team found it difficult to capture the leads/first information about the sellers. For example, the forms used in the app were less intuitive due to which the users were not able to provide complete information about the car and were aborting the purchasing process before completing their journey (providing car details, scheduling an inspection, and selling the car). This resulted in a low lead conversion rate for the OLX CashMyCar app. As a workaround, the client decided to modernize the app with a new frontend and user experience. Daffodil’s task as an software engineering partner was to:

Help OLX CashMyCar to re-envision the product that was nearing the end of its technological and economic life in the least possible time.
Develop a dynamic application architecture that could allow expansion into new markets, a seamless affair, and the need to change the frontend of the application could be avoided.
Develop native Android and iOS applications from scratch and manage the complete product development lifecycle from ideation to UI/UX, development, QA testing and maintenance of the application.

The Solution

Keeping the timeline constraints into consideration, team Daffodil recommended frontend development using React Native technology. Since React Native allows building an app’s UI using reusable components, it was estimated that this low code development approach will enable developers to deliver the app 40%-50% faster.

We built the architecture and user experience of the marketplace according to the needs of both sellers and buyers. Daffodil Software developed a mobile app for Android and iOS platforms that allows the sellers to conveniently provide information about their pre-owned cars and get a quote for them. The app enables the sellers to schedule/reschedule an inspection, get a free evaluation from professionals, and then finally sell it to interested buyers.

Considering the business expansion plans, a dynamic app architecture was designed. Each time the app is launched into a new market, minor changes in the configuration file could make the frontend ready for the new market. No changes in the codebase to change the fields, images, colors, or other frontend elements when the app is pitched in a different country.

Some of the key hightlights of the solution were:

Most of the front-end components were developed using reusable components. Reusable components are custom built code libraries that are decoupled, reusable, stable and thoroughly tested. They can be plugged in easily into any project requirement, and customized as required, thus reducing the development time.
Both the applications went through a rigorous automated QA process thus reducing the repetitive testing efforts by 20% and ensuring that no issues arise during product installation and use. For UAT testing of the app, test cases were defined in Jest by team Daffodil. These test cases ensured that the app passes all acceptance criteria required to have seamless usability.
For app analytics, a few third-party integrations were done within the app. Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Facebook Analytics, and Exponea were integrated for user tracking. Depending upon the stage of a seller’s journey in the app, different events trigger which push the seller’s data for analysis.
For SMS services, Twilio services were integrated within the app. Once the user gets the quote for the car, an automated message is sent to them regarding the inspection and free evaluation of the car.

The Impact

With various UX advances made in the app, OLX CashMyCar was able to improve the lead conversion rate by 47%. To reduce the time-to-market of the app, the reusable components approach was used. Different UI components were developed and reused on various screens, thereby reducing 40%-50% of the development time. OLX CashMyCar is expanding in various cities in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Pune.