How to Launch a P2P Car Rental Business Like HiyaCar?

Introduction

The growing change in consumer behavior in terms of shared means of vehicles like Curb, Uber, Lyft, and self-drive services like HiyaCar has given rise to the peer-to-peer car rental market. And in the next eight years, it is predicted to grow by 700%. It benefits the greener environment and encourages people to live a minimalist lifestyle.

Car sharing platforms like HiyaCar and Turbo are the major players helping car owners earn additional income by renting it to people who want to drive.

The concept of P2P is quite different from Uber or Lyft. It allows car owners to earn extra income when not using their cars. The owners decide the rent, the time interval when the car is available for rent, and much more. P2P mobile apps have completely removed agency requirements and allowed customers to connect directly to car owners.

About HiyaCar

HiyaCar is famous in the UK, letting car owners list their cars on their platform with rent details. Car renters can look at various cars through a mobile app and choose as per their needs. The major benefit of HiyaCar is that it offers car insurance to keep car owners and car renters safe.

Type: Peer-to-peer Car sharing

Founders: Rob Larmour, Graeme Risby

Headquarters: Kent, Kent

Founded: August 3, 2014

Funding Received: £12.75m

Estimated Revenue: $10.6M per year

How well are Car Rental Apps like HiyaCar Doing?

The car rental industry has seen tremendous growth and continues to do so due to user demand. As travel is a daily need, the usage of such apps is at its peak, and statistics are also saying why one must develop a Peer to Peer mobile application to drive their business.

As per stats

• The customer penetration is expected to reach 0.8% by 2024

• The Revenue is predicted to increase at a CAGR of 21.7% by 2030.

• As per statistics, the number of vehicles in P2P car-sharing programs is predicted to be one million vehicles by 2025.

• The peer-to-peer car-sharing market is predicted to boost at a CAGR of 21.7% from 2020–to 2030.

Business Model and Revenue Model

Owners list their vehicles on HiyaCar, describing everything from the vehicle’s color, model, and transmission. Potential consumers search for these vehicles and rent a vehicle that meets all the requirements for a few days to several weeks. Thus, it is a great way for car owners to make money by renting their idle vehicles.

Revenue Model

Peer-to-peer car rental platforms make money by charging a commission fee from rental bookings or transactions. HiyaCar charges both car owners and customers. They charge 30% of the fee from owners and a £3 booking fee and insurance charges from the car renters. Other charges include additional usage, cancellation fee, late return charges, etc.

How to Develop a Peer-To-Peer Car Rental Business?

Are you thinking of starting a P2P business? Well, it is a great time to enter the car rental market. But as an entrepreneur, you need to keep intact in terms of your business idea, business model, key features, and how your business idea will captivate your target audiences.

Once you have a complete idea of your business plan, the next step is to hire an app development company with professional developers experienced in developing P2P apps. The development team will help in the complete designing and development process as per your requirements.

You can either go for developing a mobile app from scratch or look for ready-made solutions that can be modified as per your needs. But these solutions fail to add new features or timely software updates.

How to reach your customers?

Around 59.5% of the population globally uses the internet, and 92.6% of users use the internet through mobile devices. Thus, there is no best option other than developing a mobile app by hiring skilled P2P app developers.

Could it be?

But mobile apps will not be enough, and you also need to market the business rewards you offer, and the best platform is social media. You can include these activities:

• Mobile App development with a Web panel

• Social Media Marketing

• Regulation Compliance

• Early adopter benefit

• Universal Customer support

Why is a Peer to Peer car rental market considered a low-risk business?

P2P marketplace business models are believed to be a business that will be less risky by entrepreneurs worldwide because they are established on the asset-light principles. An asset-light business demands the business owner to invest only the bare necessities in the capital. The Peer to Peer car rental business owner must also make minimal investments in the mobile app development, administration, and marketing, whereas the inventory uploaded on the platform is owned by the individual car owners.

Major features in included in your P2P app

Features For Car owners

– Option for unlimited car listings

An infinite car listing option allows owners having multiple car models to earn additional money

– Discounted Price

On special occasions, car owners can get access to set a special price offer for renters.

– Management of Availability

This feature allows car owners to select their availability for weekdays, weekends, and holidays.

– Car Owner Verification

It lets car owners update their details, such as phone number, license expiry date, email, name, insurance number, and other details.

– Custom Details

These fields are needed to gather and show the most necessary details about cars. These fields can be changed or removed like the car is pet-friendly, has snow tires, non-smoking people are best suited, etc.

– Agreement Management

It entails sanctioning and managing the terms of service of car owners.

– Rental Add-ons

To sell additional products and services like body covers, child seats, extra miles, etc.

– Booking History

This feature enables car owners to see their previous and recent reservations and other relevant information.

– Dashboard

Dashboard features lets car owners monitor their transaction history, registered cars, notifications from renters, and so on.

– Car Booking Management

This feature lets owners check their reservation status and other details such as payment status.

– Booking Cancellation

This feature allows owners to dismiss a rent request by following the cancellation policies.

Features For Customers

– Login/Signup

Easy login and signup option does not confuse and irritate customers. Thus, it is best to include signup options through social media accounts like Facebook, Google, and Email.

– Dashboard

Customers must get access to monitor and handle their transaction history, booking, profile, and account.

– Booking Options

Provide your users with the capability to reserve their dream car via prior or instant booking preferences

– Booking Calendar

A user interface-based feature that assists customers in choosing rental dates and times. A booking calendar tends to help with billing and vehicle availability.

– Chat Messenger

A communication module enables consumers and car owners to interact and resolve pre-booking troubles.

– Location-based Search

This is necessary to allow consumers to search for vehicles in their immediate vicinity. This shortens the decision-making process and streamlines the rental process.

– Document Verification

Collecting and verifying vital documents such as the driving license and so on.

– Cancellation

To recoup any financial losses incurred due to cancellations of booking by customers.

– Product Comparison

This feature allows consumers to evaluate multiple rental cars based on the model, fuel type, seating capacity, etc.

Features For Admin

– User Management

On a P2P car rental marketplace, access control features such as examining all user profiles, reservation history, and successful and failed payments are crucial.

– Rental Security Management

This module includes features for collecting rental security and deducting fees in case of car damages.

Booking Management:

• View new and existing orders.

• Track reservation status.

• View rental period, client information, and car owner information.

– DashBoard

Admin gets access to see the total number of car owners, registered cars, and renters.

– Revenue Management

The administrator has complete control over the system. They can manage all revenue-related issues such as commission, cancellation charges, etc.

Important Things To Remember While Building P2P Sharing Mobile Apps

While developing a car rental service app, you must keep an eye on business challenges that might interrupt the app’s success. Thus, the following are the key factors you must keep in mind.

Insurance of Vehicle

All the vehicles included in the list for renting must be insured.

User Authentication

The app must verify the user by taking required documents, like their driving license to book a car. The background verification must include stringent measures.

User/Owner Safety is Essential:

In your marketplace sharing app, you must include all the government rules and regulations for drivers and safety measurements to let them drive a car safely. Additionally, offer a road-resistance feature in case of any emergency circumstance.

Damage Policy

The app must also include a crisp and clear damage policy for the customers before booking a car by getting a confirmation from them as they book the service.

Speed Limit

As an app owner of a car sharding business, you must implement all the speed guidelines and make it mandatory for car renters depending on the region they travel.

Strict Fuel Guideline

There are several kinds of car rental services. One type will have the gas tank full and prefer the user fill it up at the end of the journey. Others will expect the user to fill the fuel while enjoying the flight. If the user requests that it be filled, it may incur additional charges.

Consider these things before developing a P2P Car Rental Marketplace.

Provide security

Nobody will use your mobile app until they are comfortable sharing a car with an unidentified individual. Include driver checking in your app. The system must examine the driving permit and records to identify a person. Include feedback and social network login. This will work towards developing a community of safe drivers and car owners who trust one another!

Provide an advantage

One of the advantages of P2P car-sharing is that car owners can recover a portion of their monthly vehicle expenses. For example, HiyaCar takes 30% of rental Revenue but covers insurance, and the cost of listing cars on the app, and the rest is given to the car owner.

Insurance

Your top preference should be to provide insurance to your users. Peer-to-peer companies typically collaborate with car insurance providers because the standard car insurance policy will not allow renting a car on a peer-to-peer marketplace.

What Does It Cost To Develop A Car Sharing App Like HiyaCar?

Developing a peer-to-peer mobile app solution can cost anywhere between $10000 to $50000. If you want to add more features to an app implementing new technologies, you need to pay more.

The car-sharing app development costs also vary according to diverse stages like:

• Market research and analysis

• Tech stack

• iOS and Android app development

• UI/UX designing

• Backend/ Frontend development

• Quality Analysis and maintenance

The most important cost factor is the development company’s location, as the hourly rate differs as per the location. Ergo, outsourcing P2P car-sharing app development to Indian developers will be pocket-friendly.

Ways to monetize your car rental mobile app

Owners need to share their income with the platform when sharing their vehicles with travelers. But HiyaCar, a car-sharing platform, takes 30% of the commission from owners by allowing them to rent out their cars. This 30% is divided into several factors like a security fee, young driver fee, trip fee, and a delivery fee or airport fee if required.

Although 30% is a huge charge, the fact is that customers do not mind paying this as they are getting a lot of e benefits from paying it. You can also incorporate revenue streams that appear to be beneficial to consumers.

Furthermore, you can do the following activities to earn profit from the monetization models

• Affiliate marketing

• Cancellation fees

• Subscription plans

• Insurance plans

• Advertisement

Wrapping up

Choosing a car rental business model and revenue model for a P2P car rental business are just a few steps on the journey.

Following this, the online P2P car rental platform is designed, and while the platform is being developed with your required tech stack and features in the custom app by mobile app developers, you can work on licensing and brand development pre-launch marketing and announcements.