Last Updated: 23rd November, 2023
The global car rental market is projected to reach an approximate $125.6 billion by 2027. By that time, the total number of rental car users will increase by an estimated 70 million users and cross the mark of 600 million. While these are global figures, the scope of business in launching a car rental marketplace in individual regions is also tremendous. Furthermore, the presence of readymade car rental software reduces the barriers to entry.
A car rental software is the best tool for businesses to deal with the challenges faced in car rental operations, including, managing reservations, inventory and payments. Thus, car rental software have all the essential features that you need in your car rental marketplace. In comparison to the traditional custom development approach, using readymade car rental software immensely reduces the Time-to-Market (TTM) and is extremely cost-effective.
In this article, we have shared more information about the working of car rental booking software along with the must-have modules/features required to build a car rental website/marketplace.
To conduct smooth rental operations, car rental software are usually divided into multiple interfaces. Each interface is developed for a different user type and comes with a different set of features. These user types in a car rental marketplace are:
All these user-types of car rental marketplace interact with each other in the following manner:
The following video by Car and Away demonstrates the functionality of a Peer to Peer car rental marketplace.
Being an online business, launching a car rental marketplace gives you the flexibility to generate revenue via multiple revenue-generation channels. In general, you can start generating revenue from your car rental business by implementing the following revenue streams:
Many peer-to-peer car rental companies have come up in the last decade. Below are the ones that earned the maximum reputation amongst consumers.
The aforementioned companies are the top contributors to the market share in the car rental industry.
Although there are numerous car rental software available in the market, no two of them are exactly the same. In fact, the majority of them vary in hosting type, pricing structure, and most importantly, the feature set. While it is true that the requirement for certain features varies from business to business, however, for maximum efficiency and comprehensive management, try to ensure that your selected car rental business software has the following features.
For your assistance, we have divided the features into three categories:
Date and time selection elements on page builders are impressive but not compatible with rental marketplace operations. A rental booking calendar requires some default and dynamic settings such as minimum rental duration, reserved delivery duration, and buffer period for vehicle maintenance with the option to select two dates (rental period start and end date).
Search filters are webpage elements that bring ease in finding rental cars. Some of the filters that are appropriate for a car rental marketplace are distance, availability, pricing, car type, fuel type, engine, servicing, year of make, and extra features like GPS tracking and 4X4 wheel drive mode. From a marketplace owner’s perspective, appropriate search filters will assist him/her in reducing the bounce rate of the marketplace.
The map view filter enhances the user-friendliness of your car rental marketplace even further. Along with using regular search filters, users can switch to map view to see which cars are available within close proximity to their vicinity. This feature is highly helpful during the times when customers require an urgent car rental and can directly visit the car owner to pick up the vehicle.
The car comparison option is an advanced feature that not many car rental websites and marketplaces provide. It assists the users in finding the best option for their requirements by providing an automated comparison of multiple selected vehicles. Additionally, the feature enhances the overall customer experience of your marketplace and helps car owners with genuine rental pricing and specifications generate revenue.
In case a customer needs the rented vehicle for more than the stated period, then he should get the option to extend the rental period. By extending the rental period before its end, the customer can avoid facing any late return penalty. Moreover, by providing the rental duration extension option, the marketplace owner can also increase per-order revenue.
Chat support is imperative in today’s time especially when consumers are aware of chatbots. Not only do customers expect marketplaces to provide them with immediate support, but they also want the marketplace to resolve their problems in real-time. In such a scenario, it is essential that you create an all-inclusive help center with detailed FAQs and chat support. If you can afford to have customer support executives provide real-time chat, then that’s even better.
For quick processing of orders and timely pickup/delivery, car owners should get a dedicated tab to keep track of all their bookings and orders. They should also be able to view all bookings, including order ID and date, and maintain an order status log that will be visible to the marketplace owner. Additionally, car owners should get the option to add comments at every stage of the order so that the marketplace owner can provide better support to customers.
On a car rental marketplace, it is the vendors who rent out their cars, the marketplace owner majorly earns through commission. Thus, it is car owners who require fleet management features that allow them to add fleet size, available rental dates, minimum rental duration, maintenance buffer period, car details, rental charges and even change publishing status.
Car owners should have the option to add their own rental agreement that will be eSigned by the customer at the time of checkout. In the agreement, car owners can add their rental terms and conditions, such as car usage policy, cleaning policy, late return policy, late cancellation policy, etc. In case of violation of the terms, the agreement will help the car owners in getting appropriate reimbursement.
To place large and complex orders, customers may want more details and custom price quotes. With an RFQ management module, they can send their requirements and quotation requests to the car owners. After evaluating order requests and checking the feasibility of the order, car owners can directly send price quotations and required details on the marketplace platform. This way, you can keep all negotiations on your marketplace.
Car owners should get complete features to manage their independent storefronts. This includes managing storefront banners, logos, listed cars, languages, contact info and social media handles. Additionally, you can also provide owners with the option to set a general agreement that will be applicable to all cars listed on their store.
Various miscellaneous features for the car owners include:
The marketplace owner requires several features to properly manage car rental marketplace operations. In this article, we have grouped them together under the following sub-categories:
Your car rental software should have the following administrative features for complete management of the marketplace.
There are multiple types of car rental software available today with each type having its own benefits. For general understanding, we can categorize car rental software into licensing types, which are lifetime license and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Also known as Lifetime Licensed software, self-hosted software provide complete ownership to the entrepreneur. They are hosted on the marketplace owner’s own choice and are highly flexible. Meaning, you can either select a faster or more secure server for marketplace operations and even host the software on your very own in-house servers if they meet the minimum hardware requirements. As you get complete control over the marketplace, there can be no restrictions on the number of features, listings and transactions.
Benefits of Using Lifetime Licensed Software
Cons
Instead of providing business owners with the choice of server, SaaS car rental software are hosted on the software provider’s very own servers and delivered as a monthly recurring service. As the software provider retains complete control over the server, we often see restrictions on the number of users, listings and transactions in SaaS software. However, as the initial setup costs of SaaS software are low, they are preferred by numerous entrepreneurs. It should also be noted that SaaS software are usually more suitable for small businesses that just want to test their ideas.
Benefits of Using SaaS Software
Cons
The car rental industry is saturated with too many rental software. While some provide support for large-scale operations, some are only useful for medium to small businesses. To find out which car rental booking software truly matches your requirements, you may need to do some initial research. In our observation, we found Yo!Rent car rental software to be the best match for the majority of entrepreneurs.
Yo!Rent is a self-hosted solution with the most impressive range of features available in the market. As it is fully customizable and scalable, it can match the business requirements of all small to large size car rental companies. In terms of cost-effectiveness, Yo!Rent again takes the lead as it offers 4 different packages to meet the requirements of all sizes of rental businesses. Lastly, Yo!Rent provides access to all its features in all its packages right from the beginning. Thus, you can rest assured that you are getting highly advanced features even in Yo!Rent’s base package.
Reasons to select Yo!Rent car rental software:
In the rental industry, there exist some challenges that hinder the performance and growth of your car rental business. However, with the help of Yo!Rent rental software, you can easily overcome and resolve these challenges.
Car rental businesses deal with the problem of complex invoicing and quotations. The invoicing of a rental car is inclusive of various factors such as the number of rental days, buffer period, security deposits (if any), taxes, delivery costs, etc. Yo!Rent simplifies pricing with a dedicated rental invoicing system. The system takes rental date inputs from a booking calendar and automatically registers all the taxes and rental security. Additionally, you also get an RFQ management module to send and negotiate custom price quotes.
All the paperwork, such as signing rental agreements, verifying customer documents, and storing booking information is very troublesome in manual operations. Yo!Rent Car rental management system help businesses overcome the documentation work with features like online document verification, rental contracts and eSign. You can also store all booking information on your online servers and access it remotely.
Unexpected damage in rental cars is very common. When any such damage occurs, the business owner often has to pay for the damage from their own profits. Not to mention, regular wear and tear reduces the longevity of the vehicle, Yo!Rent assists in promoting the fair use of vehicles by collecting a rental security amount and verifying driving license. The security amount can be later used to reimburse any damages or compensate for late returns or cancellations.
Consumers today perceive customer support as an absolute imperative. With the help of Yo!Rent car rental software, businesses can provide adequate support by setting up a chat messenger. They can also use the sub-admin accounts to provide back-end support to customers and car owners in emergencies.
Along with the aforementioned benefits, Yo!Rent helps you in many other ways as well. Some of them are:
By building a car rental marketplace, business owners can automate 90% of daily repetitive processes and reduce overall operational costs. Some key processes that car rental software automates are bookings and reservations, rental invoicing, payment collection, inventory management, notifications and alerts, commission deduction, and rental security management.
Car rental software not only streamline business operations for rental businesses but also provides them with access to wider markets. By using the built-in features of car rental software, such as the various marketing tools, multi-currency support, multilingual support and regional payment gateways, car rental companies can easily target wider markets and expand their business operations into new regions.
Car rental software assists in brand building by providing business owners with a robust marketplace with industry-specific designs and functionality to manage business operations more professionally. They can get real-time updates and collect data for swift decision-making. Moreover, business owners can provide car owners with dedicated storefronts and dashboards to manage orders, earnings, rental fleets, and even personalize their branding. Lastly, with a live chat option, business owners can provide quick customer service and win customer trust. The systematic way of doing things along with a user-friendly interface and complete back-end support builds a strong brand for your business.
Being an asset-light business, car rental marketplaces do not require heavy investment. The business owner only needs to provide a user-friendly and feature-rich marketplace where car owners enlist their fleet and customers rent out cars on a duration basis as per their requirements.
The features we mentioned in this blog are essential for running a car rental website. Including them in your website will streamline day-to-day operations for your business. To cope with the aforementioned challenges, we recommend building your marketplace with Yo!Rent car rental booking software.
With extensive rent-centric features, such as eSign and agreement management, car inspection and return, cancellation period & late return charges, add-on services, rental security management and multi-lingual & multi-currency, Yo!Rent is an ideal solution for car rental businesses. With precise algorithms, Yo!Rent is developed to handle complex rental price calculations, and online reservations and manage fulfillment and return, making it suitable for car rental businesses. Lastly, you can also integrate various third-party APIs in Yo!Rent to get additional functionalities.
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Comments (11)
Amit Thumar
FATbit Chef
Tom James
FATbit Chef
Tarun
FATbit Chef
Val & Kar
FATbit Chef
Export Japan Car
FATbit Chef
Car Rental Service in New York
Very thorough detail of all the things needed to launch a successful P2P car rental business. Most of my queries regarding the business and revenue model have been answered in this blog.
Thanks
Thanks for sharing your feedback. We’re glad to hear you found this blog informative.
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FATbit Team
I really like the infographic of P2P car rental business model. The blog is well researched and very nicely written.
Kudos!
Thanks for your feedback. Nice to hear you like the writing style of the blog.
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FATbit Team
Really I appreciate, what a blog you have written. You have explained several things word to word.
Hello Tarun,
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Team FATbit
Post is nicely written and it contains many good things for me. I am glad to find your impressive way of writing the post.
Hello Val & Kar,
Thank you so much for your appreciation. Keep visiting us for more insights.
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Team FATbit
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Hello,
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Team FATbit
Get Around is really popular and the demand for car renting platforms is justified. But, such a P2P car rental business can only be popular if it succeeds in creating brand awareness and trust. Otherwise, people would be doubtful about the security of their cars if rented through an unreliable platform.