Bergzeit

Marketplace built on Sharetribe Flex

Bergzeit Erlebnis marketplace built on Sharetribe Flex

Bergzeit has been more than just an online shop for more than 20 years. Right from the start, Bergzeit weren’t just about selling equipment for mountaineers. They want to equip, inspire, advise and make the mountains tangible.

With over 40,000 products in the Bergzeit Shop, information and inspiration in the Bergzeit Magazine and a large selection of courses and guided tours at Bergzeit Erlebnis.

Whether mountain bike, freeride, ski touring or high-altitude mountaineering courses, avalanche safety training or paragliding, SUP and canoeing courses: At Bergzeit Erlebnis, you will find numerous courses, tours and trips from a wide variety of mountain sports areas. Whether you are a beginner, advanced, professional or just an outdoor enthusiast, there is something for every taste in mountaineering!

“Bergzeit GmbH, an online retailer based in the south of Munich, offers its customers a wide range of mountain and outdoor-related sports goods. As one of the German market leaders, we offer activities, tours and travel offers by using an open marketplace technology where tour operators can sell their products.

Since the start of this project called “Bergzeit Erlebnis” we are working together with IT House, who supported us to individualize and developing our marketplace for more than one year now.

In my role as business owner I am in regular exchange with Evija in order to improve the quality of our marketplace step by step. As of Day 1 we made continuous improvement steps together with the professional developer team of IT House. With Evija’s experience related to other customer projects, we receive helpful advice and ideas on how to overcome operational challenges and how to prioritize customer as well as tour operator needs.

Looking back at the last month, I am more than happy with the services, knowledge and development quality of IT House and its team.”

Jürgen Roth,
Head of Travel Business, BERGZEIT GmbH

Custom features for marketplace

IT House was honoured to build a marketplace for Bergzeit on top of Sharetribe Flex templates. The project is ambitious, and since day one, in the production mode, received first bookings.

IT House implemented many customizations.

Off session payments

Stripe allows escrow payments for 90 days; however, usually, guests are willing to book a boat more in advance, so we used a possibility called off-session payments to increase the possible booking period, extending it to one year.

Unique design

The design for the marketplace should match the store. IT House implemented the design provided by a client.

Complicated listing wizard

To publish listings, tour operators should provide detailed information about their products by completing several steps in the listing wizard.

File storage on Azure

It was required to store PDF files within the listing, so we integrated Microsoft Azure file storage so tour operators can upload and store PDF files.

Start & end date overlapping

Besides detailed information about the tours, we have built specific availability management. As the service is provided by tour operators, start & end dates for the same tour may overlap, we extended the availability calculation module.

SEO optimization & route change

As the Bergzeit project has been ranked in Google, moving it to new routes might cost visibility in search engines. Therefore, we have done customizations to change routes for category pages. Besides that, the Flex template requires other SEO improvements, like updating meta information, adding a sitemap, optimizing images, changing cache policy, etc.

"We've been working with IT House for several years. They are a loyal technology partner with years of experience working specifically with online marketplaces. They have always been very responsive and accommodating to our needs. We're happy to recommend their services."

- Juho Makkonen, Co-founder & CEO Sharetribe

"Our backs were up against the wall with tight timelines and a huge summer event to deliver. IT House stepped in and made the whole thing possible. They worked within our budget and are now helping us rebuild our marketplace with great attention to detail. It’s been a rewarding experience to work with Evija and her team. We would recommend their services to anyone looking to build a marketplace."

- Matt and Graham Graff, Founders Farmzy Inc.

"I’ve had a great experience working with IT House. Martins Rudzitis was my main contact and we quickly established a great professional connection. There is never an issue that cannot be solved, he is always happy to discuss things and to try to find the best way to solve problems. I am grateful to have found Ithouse and to be working with them on an ongoing basis. They made my dream come true!"

- Ana Rachel, Founder of TheOctopusClub

"Its been a delight to work with IT House. The company has always been super responsive, transparent, and even help my business idea and suggest better solutions. They also do a great job tracking time spent on tasks at a detailed level. Communication has also been excellent and helps with productivity and planning. The overall process and tools are easy for non-technical folks to follow and adopt. I always recommend ITHouse to my clients for their web development needs."

- Ian Sawh, CEO OwnOutDoors

"IT House professionals not only do their job well but also they truly delved deeper into the essence and vision of the product from birth to launch."

- Maris Cirulis, Co-founder ProjektuBanka

"IT House can be characterized by a words “getting the right outcome, achieving value for money”. Feel that here are working professionals, they always would suggest what would be effective and a good solution. Appreciate that I am able to work with them on long term projects."

- Anda Valtere, CEO Doctus medicine journal

"Team of IT House very quickly responded to our needs and implemented them in the portal. Process of development run very smoothly."

- Max Valentin, CEO CrowdCulture

"Responsive, flexible and creative. IT House fully understood our wishes and needs even better than we did. It was pleasure to work and communicate with them."

- Inese Vetra, Head of Marketing Department Pizza Lulu

Ready to start a project with IT House right now

Other great projects built on Sharetribe

We have great expertise in marketplaces development. We use both Sharetribe versions: Sharetribe GO and Sharetribe FLEX. Sharetribe GO or its OpenSource version allows you to create a marketplace that has almost all basic marketplace features: let your users create profiles, list their offering, interact with each other, and make online payments. Sharetribe FLEX as it is more scalable and has modern design and usability. We love the idea behind this new app that marketplace owners can even create standalone applications.