Last Updated: 4th March, 2021
With increasing consumer demands for rental products, the online rental industry is penetrating into various niches. P2P car rental marketplace is one of those niches that has gained immense success in recent years with incumbents like Turo and Get Around. Not only is a P2P marketplace lucrative in 2021 but also asset-light, requiring the business owner to have least possible resources to conduct successful car rental operations.
According to Statista, the number of consumers in the worldwide car rental market is expected to reach 291.5 million by 2023. The possible reasons behind the growth are increase in the purchasing power of consumers, increase in the number of car owners (who become vendors and earn money by renting their cars on a marketplace) and the growth in the travel and tourism industry.
To capitalize on the aforementioned growth, if you are planning to launch an online car rental marketplace then the following considerations will help you out:
Let’s start with the business model, and learn how people earn money from it.
The business model includes three user-types which are business owner, car owner, and the rentee. Below is a mapped outline of the business model that P2P car rental marketplaces follow to conduct successful business operations.
(Entrepreneurs might need to make minor changes in the business model to align it with their P2P car rental business.)
The following video by Car and Away demonstrates the functionality of a Peer to Peer car rental marketplace.
eCommerce marketplaces can support multiple revenue streams. Below are the ones that are compatible with P2P car rental marketplaces.
Many peer-to-peer car rental companies have come up in the last decade. Below are the ones that earned maximum reputation amongst consumers.
The aforementioned companies are the top contributors of the market share in the car rental industry.
Scratch development is inconvenient in the 2020’s and also very expensive. Along with scratch development, other marketplace development options aren’t much helpful if they lack the features to help you manage car rental operations. This is the reason why entrepreneurs today prefer using readymade solutions, which are inclusive of the said features and may require only a few customizations.
Similarly, it is wise to identify the features of a P2P car rental marketplace so that you can select a solution to launch your website and conduct business operations smoothly.
We have split the features based on user-types, which are:
Date and time selection elements on page builders are impressive but not compatible with P2P car rental 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). Without these options, the marketplace owner or car owner can miscalculate the availability of the car and fail to provide it to the rentee on the asked date.
Rentees require a P2P car rental platform where they can find a car with maximum ease. Search filters are the website elements that bring that ease. Some of the filters that are appropriate for a P2P 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 car comparison option is an advanced feature that not many car rental websites and marketplaces provide. It assists the rentee in making a confident decision by providing a quick comparison of consumer-selected vehicles in a tabular form. Your car rental marketplace can display a comparison of up to 4 vehicles to provide convenience to the users. Not only will this help you make your users informed choices but also enhance the customer experience.
Rentees should know from where they can increase the rental duration. For this, they might need to communicate with the car owner but a dedicated feature for this purpose will eliminate the need for that. The feature will function along with the booking calendar, via which the rentee would be able to see if the car is available for a few more dates post the rental period. In case, if the car hasn’t been booked already for the upcoming days, then the rentee can extend the rental duration as per the dates available in the booking calendar.
Chat support is imperative in today’s time especially when consumers are aware of chatbots. Not only are rentees expecting marketplaces to provide them 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.
Every car owner would like to know how much he/she can earn on your car rental marketplace. The income calculator will provide car owners with an estimate of their rental income. Once a car owner visits your income calculator webpage, he/she should be able to input his/her car details, like year of make, model, fuel type, etc. Using these details, the algorithm behind the income calculator will generate an estimated income and display it to the car owner.
The car owner should have the option to select the minimum rental duration while uploading a listing on the marketplace. The option will assist the rentee in selecting the rental duration and the car owner in maintaining a fixed rental income per booking. Buffer duration, on the other hand is the maintenance and inspection period. Within the buffer period, a car owner might not be able to rent out the car and thus must specify the buffer period while listing.
Every car owner on a P2P marketplace wants its car to rank as high as possible in search results. By providing the owners a clear understanding of how the ranking system works on the marketplace, you can assist them earn better. The same is the case with internet presence. With features such as slug optimization and alt tags for product images, car owners can themselves ensure that their listings rank high on search engines.
Car owners should have the features to upload and remove media files for their listings. This can include various media types such as short length videos and high-quality images in formats like PNG and TIFF. Online rental software, Yo!Rent, also supports multi-purpose file attachments for uploading additional files such as PDF car specifications, terms and conditions of rent or care instructions.
Various miscellaneous features for the car owners include:
The owner requires a number of features to exercise complete control over the P2P car rental website. In this article, we have grouped them together under the following categories:
The first and foremost are the management features, which are required to conduct and administer business operations on the website. The admin of a P2P car rental marketplace should have the following management features:
Note: Yo!Rent V3 has been recently launched that offers an impressive range of features including document management, rental security management, eSign and agreement management, vehicle inspection, paid cancellation and more. Click here to read its full list of features.
Startup businesses in the car rental industry appreciate knowing the common troubles of similar businesses in the industry. Below are some challenges that a broad number of car rental businesses face.
Car rental businesses deal with the problem of complex pricing mechanisms and quotation systems. The pricing 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. On a P2P car rental website, managing pricing is troublesome because of varying rental fees set by car owners and so do their delivery charges and other terms.
With increasing competition in the car rental industry, it is difficult for P2P car rental startups to secure their first customers without appropriate brand awareness. One of the most formidable trust-building elements, increasing brand awareness is a challenge every business deals with. A brand identity not only introduces a business to its target audience but also adds meaning to its services for them. Companies with adequate branding are able to connect easily with consumers and thus, drive sales. According to statistics, more than 65% consumers form an emotional connection with a brand.
Consumers today perceive customer support as an absolute imperative. More than appropriate pricing, they lay focus on customer support. In such a scenario, the market competition does include the customer support features and services provided by businesses and their rivals. P2P car rental websites also require quick and adapt customer support to resolve various queries of the customers. Large scale car rental businesses such as Get Around and Budget Car Rental also provide on-road assistance, which is customer support at a next level.
Being an asset-light business, P2P car rental marketplaces do not require heavy investment. However, they do need investment at the right place. For example, once you select or finalize a business model for your P2P car rental business, ensure that your selected software technology goes along with the model.
The features we mentioned in this blog are optional but are much-needed for P2P car rental websites. Including them in your website will streamline the eCommerce operations for your business. To cope up with the aforementioned challenges, we recommend you to use Yo!Rent to develop your online P2P car rental business.
Yo!Rent is a white-label rental marketplace solution with extensive features for marketing, such as SEO, SMM and affiliate management. It also supports discounts and other promotions. With precise algorithms, Yo!Rent is developed to handle multi-vendor price calculations, making it suitable for P2P businesses. Lastly, you can also integrate various third-party APIs in Yo!Rent to provide additional functionalities.
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Comments (11)
Amit Thumar
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Tom James
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Tarun
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Val & Kar
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Export Japan Car
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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
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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!
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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,
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Team FATbit
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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.