Things to Consider Before Developing a Car Rental Reservation SoftwarePosted by Maulik Shah on December 23rd, 2020 The buzz around online booking apps is growing all hail to on-demand delivery services. Whether it's about munching a favorite snack at 3 am or reaching the airport at 5 pm, on demand services have made lives more better.
The extent is such that people prefer renting a car rather than buying it. They feel renting gives them the freedom to travel without any overhead. No doubt, the demand for car rental apps like Uber, Ola, Lyft, and DoorDash is high. Besides, the car rental industry will attain a growth rate of 18.5% by 2024.
So, if you're thinking of having car rental reservation software, it's the right time. You can run a car rental business online wholly. However, you need to consider these factors before developing an online booking app for your car rental business.
The type of car rental reservation software you want to build would depend on the service you provide.
There are three types of business types to choose from. Either you can have your fleet and provide booking services for those, or you can partner with car dealerships, drivers/operators, suppliers, etc. and take a commission for every successful booking. The third option is to go for a hybrid service type. In this, you can offer your fleet booking along with third-party fleet bookings.
Choose one and head forward.
For every service type you select, you need to have a defined business model. While planning one, make sure to consider drivers, customers, and admin. Here's what it should look like.
After the business model, you need to decide your target audience. Your audience can be interstate travelers, intrastate travelers, commercial purpose transport, or area-specific, etc. The best way to know about your target audience is by creating a buyer's persona. It will help you understand demographic, behavioral, psychological aspects of your audience and the required features of your online booking app. For a clear understanding, first, understand your business model and service type. And then create different buyers' persona.
Starting a business requires legal actions. You need to register your business to receive other documents, licenses, and insurance to protect your business from damage. When it comes to car rental, you need to worry about fleets and their insurance too. Though for a partnership service type, you won't have to worry about insurance. However, you need to verify legal documents of the vehicle before approving it. It's not less than going through a traditional procession.
Make sure you have planned it in advance.
How are you going to earn money? Commission based is just one way of making profits. Here, you charge drivers and customers with a defined percentage of commission for every travel. Or you can charge only drivers.
There are other ways of earning too. You can run specialized ads in between bookings. Or you can offer paid apps, or so.
If you don't know what you're going to do with your car rental reservation software or how you're going to reach your customers, there's no use of investing time and money in development.
Even before the development starts, you should have a marketing plan in hand. Taking help from a marketing team would be advisable. Though make sure you know at least the basics that include SEO, social media marketing.
The reason why we are stressing on marketing is that it would help you make and execute your post-launch plans.
Everything is strategized but still unsure. It happens if you do not know what your technical requirements for your online booking app are. It can be features or technologies. Every development company is different and their way of developing software differs. Technologies may vary too.
So before you partner with a mobile app development company, ask them about languages and technical aspects like APIs, application frameworks, features, cloud hosting, global payment, GPS, communication services, and more.
Finally, it's time to ask your development team about the cost of car rental reservation software. The development cost of car rental would depend on various factors like the location of the development team, the time required, features, technologies, third-party services, etc. And the price mentioned won't be a final one. But an approx amount would give you an idea to handle your budget and overall business process.
What to do ahead of this?
Collaborate with an app development company to build your online booking app.
Summary: This article provides a mini guide on developing a car rental reservation software. It explains all the factors you need to consider before jumping in the development process. Read more… Like it? Share it! More by this author |