How to Build a Truck Rental Website- Business Model & Key Features Analysis

How to Build a Truck Rental Website- Business Model & Key Features Analysis

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Last Updated: 11th Dec, 2024

The global truck rental industry is growing at a CAGR of 10.3% in the forecast period 2024-2032. From $131.3 billion in 2024, the industry is expected to reach $288 billion by the end of the projected period, marking more than 200% growth. The primary growth factors benefitting the industry include disruption in the global economy, increasing digital adoption rate, eCommerce industry boom, and several political factors. Furthermore, trucks are the primary vehicles for road logistics and transportation of goods, ensuring evergreen viability in truck rental operations. 

Truck rental operations and trucking services complement existing demand in both B2B and B2C sectors. While trucks serve as an essential component in the supply chains of large corporate organizations and medium to large-sized businesses, they are equally important for last-mile home deliveries, moving, and packaging services. However, finding the right price for truck rental services remains a challenge in both B2B and B2C sectors. 

This challenge can be tackled by launching a truck rental marketplace where different trucking companies can sign up and provide their services. Let us take a closer look at truck rental marketplace operations and the best way to develop your own marketplace.

Reasons Behind the Growth in the Truck Rental Industry

Before investing in the industry, it is essential to understand its various growth factors. These micro factors can vary from region to region and will require the founder to conduct proper research. However, the macro factors are unanimous throughout the globe.

1. eCommerce Boom

Due to the increasing rate of digitalization and digital adoption practices, more businesses are selling their products online. Further backed by the increasing penetration of the Internet even in remote villages and distant areas, eCommerce reaches new peaks every year. To complete mass-level shipments, trucks are widely used.

2. Urbanization 

Rapid urbanization and infrastructure development plans in commercial and residential sectors require large-scale logistics and transportation services. Additionally, they require rental trucks at the worksite for moving raw materials, debris, and waste disposal. Thus, both rental trucks and trucking services are equally needed at construction sites and other infrastructure development projects.

3. Scalability

Owning and managing a fleet of trucks comes with high operational costs that multiple businesses irrespective of their size cannot afford. Rental trucks on the other hand are easily available, also count as tax deductibles, and can help businesses scale their shipping operations cost-effectively.

4. Electric Trucks

With advancements in technology, an electronic segment within the truck rental industry is also emerging. Electric trucks are highly eco-friendly green transportation solutions in comparison to traditional trucks and air logistics. They are paving the way for growth in the truck rental sector, especially in European countries with an amplified focus on environmental protection.

Online Truck Rental Marketplace Business Model

On an online truck rental marketplace, you can help numerous trucking service providers connect with customers. The marketplace is also cost-effective with a major focus on the technological infrastructure. Any additional investment in fleet management and driver salaries is not required. Instead, the trucking service company handles such costs itself.

Below is a detailed workflow of the truck rental marketplaces:

  • The trucking service company registers on the marketplace and lists its trucks
  • Customers browse the listings and select a truck based on their requirements
  • Customers enter the pickup and drop off location along with cargo weight and type
  • To place an order, customers make the payment online
  • The trucking service provider picks up the cargo and completes the delivery
  • After reaching the minimum threshold amount, the trucking service provider can withdraw his earnings to his bank account

How to Generate Revenue On a Truck Rental Marketplace?

The availability of multiple revenue generation channels on a truck rental marketplace adds stability to the business and also helps you reach a break-even point faster. The most reliable revenue generation channels include:

  • Commission Charges: You can charge varying commission rates from the trucking service providers for every successful transaction on the platform.
  • Display Ads: Display third-party advertisements on the platform and earn on a PPC basis.
  • Featured Listings: Charge trucking service providers to display their listings in highlighted spaces on the marketplace.
  • Service Packages: Create and sell different service packages to trucking service providers with varying commission rates and additional benefits.
  • Rental Add-ons: Along with rental trucks, you can provide several add-on services such as faster delivery, packaging, gift wrapping, door-to-door delivery, and cold storage.
    • Own Trucks: Lastly, you can also invest in a truck and offer your own trucking services.

Get the Most Reliable Truck Rental Software for all Business Models

Prominent Players in The Truck Rental Industry

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

Ryder
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 CEO
Trucks, Refrigerated Trucks, Tractor, Trailer, Vans and Dry Vans Single-Vendor USA,Canada,UK $8.3 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 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

  • The option to both buy and rent used trucks
  • RyderGyde mobile app to log fuel receipts and find refueling locations
  • Informational blogs on logistics and innovation
  • Live chat support
  • Detailed truck listings

Penske

Penske Truck Leasing
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 CEO
Trucks, Trailer Multi-Vendor USA,Canada,Mexico & Australia $22.7 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

  • Unlimited mileage with one-way truck rentals
  • Moving, towing, and trailer usage online manuals
  • 24/7 roadside assistance
  • Side-by-side truck comparison chart

Hertz Truck

Hertz Truck
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 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.The top Australian cities where Hertz has established a strong business presence are Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth.

Value Proposition of Hertz

  • Organized overnight, midweek and weekend moving packages
  • Change a reservation’ homepage field
  • Extensive footer menu
  • Flexible commercial leasing plans
  • Fixed monthly rental costs

COOP

COOP
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 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

  • Annual revenue estimator for renters
  • Free Uber ride to the pick-up location for rentees
  • Native Android and iOS apps
  • Damage liability cover of up to $1 million for qualified renters

Fetch

Fetch
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 CEO
Trucks and Vans Multi-Vendor USA N/a Adeim 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

  • Convenient way of truck booking and delivery
  • Long-term rentals charged weekly and monthly
  • “Fetch VIP” customer membership program (Benefits: Reduced security deposit, extended return time and quick refunds)
  • Flexible payment options
  • Clutter-free website design

Budget Trucks

Budget Trucks Australia
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 CEO
Trucks and Vans Multi-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

  • Advanced booking calendar
  • Easy to use booking management options
  • ‘Flybuy’ reward points program (Collect points and exchange them for discounts).
  • Multiple commercial rental protection plans
  • Budget Fastbreak membership program (Benefit: Simplified process for renting vehicles)

Europcar

Europcar
Vehicles Single Vendor/Multi-Vendor Geolocation Revenue 2024 CEO
Car, Trucks and Vans Multi-Vendor Worldwide €3,022 Million Phillipe 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

  • Daily, weekly and monthly rentals
  • Faster pick-up and online check-in
  • Privileged membership plans and rewards
  • Vast array of vehicles ranging from affordable to luxury
  • Ubeeqo mobile booking app

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.

How to Develop a Truck Rental Website

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 light that have successfully proven to be useful for aspiring business owners:

1. SaaS Software Solutions

SaaS is an acronym for Software as a Service. As the name suggests, these solutions are hosted on the software provider’s server and provided as a monthly recurring service to all users. Moreover, SaaS packages are not scalable and are designed in a way that a truck rental business will require to upgrade the package in order to scale.

Notable Pros:

  • Easy to set up
  • Come with plugins
  • The solution provider manages the hosting

Notable Cons:

  • Not so cost-effective in the long run
  • Comes with a limited number of listings and transactions

2. Readymade Truck Rental Software

Readymade truck rental software is specifically developed to provide complete support for truck rental operations and has built-in features for booking trucking services, managing orders, returns, inventory, and more. Simplifying 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:

  • Self-hosted solution with better privacy
  • Rigorously tailored for specific truck rental business challenges
  • Cost-effective with one-time cost
  • No limitations on the number of transactions and users

Notable Cons:

  • Car rental businesses need to manage the hosting
  • Plugins and extensions require programming

Ready to Launch Your Truck Rental Marketplace

Features & Integrations to Look for in a Truck Rental Software

The advanced 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:

  • Freight Calculation: Your truck rental website or marketplace requires a freight calculation module that can help you provide accurate invoices for city-to-city transfers. The module will also accept various inputs from customers including cargo weight and truck type.
  • Request for Quote (RFQ) Module: The freight calculation module may not be able to provide appropriate or reliable price quotes for B2B orders and long-duration rentals where the clients have complex requirements and expect a personalized quote. To handle such clients, you require an RFQ module on the truck rental website.
  • Rental Agreement Management: The truck rental website needs a rental agreement management module that can help you levy your own rental terms and conditions. The rental agreement is eSigned by the customers during checkout. 
  • Maintenance Buffer Period: The maintenance buffer period will automatically be enabled on the website after a truck has successfully delivered the cargo. During this period, truck owners can inspect the truck for any repair, maintenance, and servicing work. Once the maintenance period is over, the truck will be automatically added back to the online inventory.
  • Tiered Rental Pricing: You can offer duration-based truck rentals to small businesses. To support these operations, you need daily, weekly, and monthly rental pricing on the truck rental website.
  • Unavailability Management: Many times, trucks are booked offline but aren’t reflected in the online inventory. This leads to overbooking and a dissatisfying customer experience. To tackle this challenge,  you can have an unavailability management module on your system that will help you sync offline and online rentals.
  • Add-on Products and Services: For upselling purposes, a rental add-on product can help. These add-ons can include more driving mileage, extra cargo space, cold storage, and insurance for the transported goods.
  • Overdue Returns Tracking: For single-vendor truck rental websites, an overdue returns tracking feature will help you track late returns and keep track of your entire fleet in real-time. This can be managed both via GPS or without GPS.
  • Price Surge: Based on seasonal demand and market fluctuations, you should have the option to surge rental prices on the truck rental marketplaces. With the price surge option, not only you will be able to capitalize on the increase in demand but can also ensure that clients with urgent rental requirements can find trucks.
  • Vendor Management: The vendor management features will allow you to manage different truck owner profiles on the platform. You can check the vendor performance, their listed trucks, rental agreements, and earnings, and even send them internal messages.
  • Commission Settings: The truck rental marketplace software should allow you to set and levy your commission. It can either be a flat-rate commission or a percentage commission.
  • Withdrawal Settings: The payment withdrawal settings on a truck rental marketplace can be defined via two ways, which are the minimum withdrawal amount and minimum withdrawal interval. Only after truck owners meet these two criteria, they should be able to withdraw their earnings.

How Yo!Rent Helps?

Yo!Rent is a leading rental solution that provides readymade support for building both truck rental websites and marketplaces without coding. It comes with industry-specific designs that help you provide highly professional and satisfying rental experiences and also have an advanced set of truck rental features to simplify business operations. To target a diverse audience, Yo!Rent comes with multi-lingual and multi-currency support. 

Key reasons to select Yo!Rent for truck rental and trucking service operations are:

  • Comes with advanced features and a fully customizable infrastructure
  • Fully scalable with unlimited listings, transactions, and user profiles
  • Highly secure solution with the choice of hosting server
  • Available at a one-time cost with a lifetime usage license
  • Comes with 12 months of free technical support
  • 100% source code is also available

Experience All Truck Rental Features you Need in a Single Software

Final Words

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.

Disclaimer: The Blog has been created with consideration and care. We strive to ensure that all information is as complete, correct, comprehensible, accurate and up-to-date as possible. Despite our continuing efforts, we cannot guarantee that the information made available is complete, correct, accurate or up-to-date. We advise - the readers should not take decisions completely based on the information and views shared by FATbit on its blog, readers should do their own research to further assure themselves before taking any commercial decision. The 3rd party trademarks, logos and screenshots of the websites and mobile applications are property of their respective owners, we are not directly associated with most of them.


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Comments (2)
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.

Prafton Finance

Thanks for the information, Really useful to know about online truck rental business opportunities.

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