Global truck rental industry is estimated to reach $204.2 billion by the end of 2030 with a CAGR of ~10% throughout the forecast period 2020-2030. Its recent growth can be largely attributed to the disruption in the global economy that led to the incrementation of the transport sector, which relies heavily on trucking operations for road transportation. Moreover, truck rental practices are also estimated to surge in the near future as they assist in the diminution of risks originating from seasonal transportation demands and are more cost-effective than purchasing trucks.
With such promising growth in the truck rental industry, launching a truck rental website is a lucrative business idea in 2020-21. To help you enter the industry, we have curated the business model of an online truck rental business and discussed the various ways to develop a truck rental website below.
Other Growing Niches in the Transportation Industry we’ve recently covered:
RV Rental – Complete Guide To Start An Online Rv Rental Website
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Mapping a business model for your online truck rental business will assist you in streamlining your operations, identifying key consumer interactions and providing better value proposition. However, an online truck rental business can be of two types. In this article, we have covered them both. These types are:
1. Truck Rental Marketplace: A website where several truck owners or rental services can sign up and rent out their trucks. This type of website is based on an asset-light business model where the owner is not required to own any capital equipment.
2. Standalone Truck Rental Website: On this type of website, the website owner rents out their own trucks instead of letting other rental companies sign up and enlist their trucks. The owner also maintains the fleet and solely manages the rental requests.
To begin with, let’s start with the business model of a truck rental marketplace.
This business model includes three user-types in total:
The business model of a standalone truck rental website involves only two user-types. These are the admin and the rentee. The admin solely uploads the truck listings on the website and manages all other business operations such as processing requests, managing tax and fixing bugs and errors.
Following Is The Business Flow Of A Standalone Truck Rental Website:
Both the above-mentioned business models are flexible. Meaning, the website owner can also introduce new user-types such as insurance agents and third-party administrators, set the commission percentage and decide at what stage in the transaction process the commission needs to be deducted.
| Political | Environmental | Social |
|---|---|---|
| GSA Advantage program and other contracts between the government and private truck rental companies support the industry growth in the US. | Vehicle renting reduces carbon footprint, promoting truck rental practices. | The modern generation, including millennials and Gen Z, relocates faster than the previous ones on an average, highlighting the increased demand for mover truck renting. |
| Technology | Legal | Economical |
| Electric vehicles, big data, platooning tech and tracking software, fleet management software and truck rental software are the leading innovations advancing truck renting. |
The landmark rule announced by FMCSA updated the hours-of-service, offering more flexibility to the industry. |
Truck, utility trailer, and recreational vehicle rental revenue is projected to reach $22.1 billion in the US by 2024. |
There are various ways to develop a truck rental website. The traditional approach is to hire a team of developers who can develop the website for a truck rental startup from scratch. However, this approach is very rigid and cost-intensive, and is less preferred by modern day entrepreneurs. In its alternative, the two following approaches have come to the light that have successfully proven to be useful for aspiring business owners:
SaaS is an acronym for Software as a Service. As the name suggests, these solutions are charged like a recurrent service. The business owner is required to pay the solution provider on a monthly, quarterly, half-annually or annual basis.
Notable Pros:
Notable Cons:
Suitable for:
Readymade truck rental software is specifically developed to simplify operations in the truck rental industry. It can be used for other cases as well, such as booking trucking activities or streamlining internal business processes. Readymade truck rental solutions have one time costs and some of them are fully customizable.
Notable Pros:
Notable Cons:
Suitable for:
Readymade truck rental software solutions are far more reliable with a set of features that has been carefully handpicked with in-depth analysis of the industrial requirements. It provides the option of selecting the hosting provider to the business owner and can also be hosted on-site. SaaS solutions are useful for small size businesses, but eventually, as these businesses grow, they will also require to move on to a full-fledged solution because of the complex recurrent pricing of the SaaS model.
In this blog, we will be moving ahead with the features of readymade truck rental software.
The operable features of the truck rental software will simplify the online operations on your truck rental website. These features make it easier for end-users to browse the website and help them complete decisions. With a good choice of features, you can deliver a satisfying truck renting experience to all your customers.
After analyzing several websites in the truck rental industry, we have come up with a list of a few essential features that you should look for in your truck or fleet rental software:
Although the online truck rental industry is still in its early growth phases, it is increasing by leaps and bounds with a few leading brands gaining prominence in their specific geographical regions. Below is a list of those brands that are doing a remarkable job in providing rental trucks through an online medium:
| Ryder | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trucks, Refrigerated Trucks, Tractor, Trailer, Vans and Dry Vans | Single-Vendor | USA, Canada, UK |
$8.9 Billion | Robert E. Sanchez |
Ryder was inaugurated in 1933 by James Ryder as a concrete hauling company. Five years later, it turned into a truck rental business with a fleet of 20 trucks. With time, the business shifted online and now it’s one of the largest online truck rental service providers in the world. Its fleet includes more than 270,000 vehicles in total that are rented by the Fortune 500 brands. Currently, Ryder is available in three countries: the USA, Canada and the UK. Its market cap is $1.6 billion and the company has also expanded its operations into the peer-to-peer (P2P) business vertical with its new venture, COOP, which enables local residents to safely rent trucks from each other.
Value Proposition of Ryder
| Hertz Truck | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cars, Vans and Trucks | Single-Vendor | 150 countries throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia |
$9.8 billion | Paul Stone |
Hertz Truck is a subsidiary of Hertz Global Holdings. It’s one of the leading truck rental service providers in Australia that also provides its services in over 140 nations. Hertz has an impressive fleet of 525,000 vehicles, which is inclusive of buses and other utility vehicles like UTe and delivery vans. Although the company does rent out trucks for commercial operations, it is more popular for renting out trucks for moving and other residential operations.Top Australian cities where Hertz has established a strong business presence are Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.
Value Proposition of Hertz
| Penske Truck Leasing | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trucks and Trailers | Multi-Vendor | USA, Canada, Mexico and Australia |
$8.4 billion | Brian Hard |
Penske Truck Leasing is a subsidiary of the transportation services provider, Penske corporation. With over 85,000 units in its fleet, Penske provides reliable truck, semi-truck and trailer rental services in over 2500 locations across the US and Canada. Along with renting trucks for commercial and non-commercial purposes, the company also deals in the sale of used trucks. To cater to specific audience needs, Penske rents out trucks as long as 26-feet for bespoke and DIY transport operations.
Value Proposition of Penske Truck Leasing
| COOP | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trucks, Trailers and Tractors | Multi-Vendor | USA |
$5 million | Robert E. Sanchez |
COOP is the P2P truck rental marketplace launched by Ryder in the year 2018. With a new business model based on the marketplace model that we discussed earlier, COOP was able to earn a name in the truck rental industry. On this platform, peers can lend their trucks for both commercial and non-commercial operations to each other. The team behind COOP also encourages truck rental companies to list their spare trucks on the platform. In January 2020, COOP had more than 1000 trucks listed on the marketplace.
Value Proposition of COOP
| Fetch | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trucks and Vans | Multi-Vendor | USA |
N/A | Adam Steinberg |
Fetch is a truck rental website that was launched in the year 2016 in Greater Atlanta. Its founders, Chris Glace and Adam Steinberg started their business to provide consumers the convenience of renting trucks without standing in long queues and dealing with the hidden mileage and insurance charges. Moreover, Fetch also delivered the truck to the rentee’s selected location. As a result, their business gained quick success and is now providing truck rental services all over America. Fetch has also received a total seed funding of 2.1 million dollars.
Value Proposition of Fetch
| Budget Trucks Australia | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trucks and Vans | Single-Vendor | Australia |
$599.43 Million | Joe Ferraro |
Budget Trucks is another online leading truck rental service that originated in America from the ‘Budget Rent a Car’ car rental company. It has an extensive fleet of trucks, buses, vans, trailers, trays and 4WDs that it offers on rent to both families and businesses. For commercial purposes, Budget Trucks Australia also provides truck rental solutions to small and medium sized businesses having low budgets.
Value Proposition of Budget Trucks Australia
| Europcar | ||||
| Vehicles | Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor | Geolocation | Revenue 2019 | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Car, Van and Truck | Single-Vendor | Worldwide |
€3,022 Million | Philippe Germond |
Europcar originated as a car rental company in France, 1949. Gradually, it gained global momentum and expanded its services in over 140 countries. Today, Europcar is popular for providing quality car, van and truck rental services. Its major markets are situated in Europe with the UK, Spain, France, Germany and Portugal being the most profitable ones. In 2016, Europcar was also voted as the ‘World’s Leading Green Transport Solution Company’ due to its efforts on facilitating sustainable rental services. For these efforts, Europcar has also got several worldwide certifications.
Value Proposition of Europcar
These top players of the online truck rental industry were able to outpace their competition by acting on time, resolving customer pain points and selling value with their services. Despite their presence, the geographically limited range of the competition and the increasing consumer demand for more benefits highlight the scope for new businesses to enter and experience their share of success. To gain momentum in business, startups and SMBs can learn a lot by analyzing these top players and create an impressive value proposition.
Hasty startups are more prone to failure than the ones that are well-planned. According to Entrepreneur, some common reasons for business failure are inability to connect with the target audience, failure in delivering real value and the deployment of an inefficient sales funnel. All such issues can be resolved by preparing a thoughtful go-to-market strategy (GTM).
For preparing your go-to-market strategy, you can take into account the following key considerations.
For starting an online truck rental business in a complex protected market, releasing a minimal viable product (MVP) is a better option.
With the expansion of the truck rental industry currently in action, you can expect the new entrants to establish quick connections with their consumers as a convenient alternative to the traditional methods of truck renting. The value and USPs offered by the business will mold consumer preferences in its favour, clearing the path to catch up with the competition or even be the face of the industry in specific region(s). However, doing so will also require appropriate branding efforts and laudable customer support.
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Abhishek Kataria is a business consultant at FATbit Technologies. He assists entrepreneurs and business owners in developing viable digital touchpoints and marketplaces. Abhishek is curious about exploring and analyzing new business trends and has a keen eye for the latest developments in the eCommerce sector. Apart from consulting, you can find him practicing French and exploring his creativity in Photoshop.
Comments (2)
Prafton Finance
Prafton Finance
Amazing blog on topic online truck rental business, Thanks for sharing this with us. It has a lot of information about ASTONISHING BENEFITS OF TRUCK LEASING.
Thanks for the information, Really useful to know about online truck rental business opportunities.