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Revolutionary web and mobile plastics recyclables marketplace

What is it?

What is it?

Raising ecological awareness, saving the planet and making a successful business have never been combined so well before.

Scrapo is the world's largest plastic recycling marketplace. Based in Silicon Valley, it connects and trades directly with suppliers & buyers of recycled plastics and plastic scraps from 140 countries.

How did it all start?

With over a decade in the recycling industry, the client was still frustrated with how difficult it was to find good deals, though both the material he wanted to sell, and the people willing to buy it, were just out there.

The two main issues were:

  • Finding potential buyers and sellers: the research required too much time and effort. Security: it’s always a risk when it comes to the material quality or the payment process.
  • Having worked with Zfort before, Scrapo’s founder decided to solve these two problems by creating a safe space for both parties, and making the process as easy as ordering pizza.
How did it all start?
Solution

Solution

The marketplace is available as web (built on Yii2) and as a mobile app (iOS and Android).

Sellers can post a listing in less than a minute, negotiate with buyers and get the best price by selling their goods directly to customers.

Buyers can choose from thousands of offers posted, make deals just from the phone and buy quality material from any place in the world.

The process is easy thanks to the marketplace’s integration with Robinson Collection & Delivery services. We also made sure it’s handy and secure by integrating the product with Stripe and Escrow, one of the most popular payment systems these days.

Challenges

Since Scrapo’s idea was pretty unique, and there was hardly a similar product available to refer to, the client had to change the user flow a couple of times to work out the best scenario.

The core features-set and the architecture were altered in the midst of the development phase, so Zfort’s team had to brainstorm to come up with a perfectly-balanced technological solution to fulfill the new requirements, while staying within the budget and timeline.

Challenges

Key Features:

  • Browse through the listings available
  • Real-time communication
  • Seller verification
  • Material inspection
  • Shipment assistance and loading process supervision (the purchase flow involves uploading a pic of the material shipped and the documents confirming it)
  • Secure payment
  • Follow sellers and get notified about new offers posted.

Technologies & Team Size

  • Yii 2
  • node.js
  • Vue.js
  • AWS:
  • – EC2
  • – Load Balancer
  • – CloudFront
  • – SES
  • – RDS
  • GitHub
  • Circle CI
  • Stripe
  • Escrow
  • CHRobbinson
  • iOS Native
  • Android Native
  • Mobile push messages
  • 3 Back-End Developers
  • 1 Front-End Developer
  • 1 iOS Developer
  • 1 Android Developer
  • 1 Business Analyst
  • 1 Project Manager

What’s next?

Today Scrapo counts thousands of users and has proven to be a game-changer in the industry.

Given the product’s successful start and the world’s urgent demand on plastics recycle, Zfort team is already working on the plan for the project’s new phase that would take Scrapo to the next level.