While the car leasing options are many, they all have one thing in common, a robust online channel enabling direct transactions, better cataloging, more digital marketing opportunities, and a seamless leasing experience. In the digitally competitive age, it is essential to have an online platform for any business. Car leasing companies are not exempt. As per Statista, 75% of total revenue will be generated through online channels in the car rental industry by 2029, making it more essential to have an online platform

However, launching a car subscription platform is not easy. You either need to develop the platform from scratch or invest in a reliable automobile leasing software. In this blog, we have considered all the critical aspects of developing a car subscribe & lease platform, including market trends, business model, key features, technology and more.

Market Trends and Opportunities

The following trends and dynamics are characterizing the car leasing sector. By analyzing them, you can figure out the type of car leasing platform you want to launch and for which audience.

• The global car leasing industry is worth $123.16 billion and is growing at a CAGR of 6.8% in the projection period 2025-2037. 
• Both used cars and newly manufactured cars are in high demand in the car leasing market
• Corporate businesses are opting for subscription-based leasing models to empower their short-term employee car ownership programs
• The hospitality sector uses leased cars to offer superior services to their guests and customers
• Consumers with relocating jobs are more likely to invest in a leased car 
• The demand for EVs is increasing on car lease platforms. As per the statistics, rental remains the primary ownership method for EVs.
• Car leasing companies are relying on IoT-enabled devices to track the performance and usage of leased vehicles and the fleet
• Car manufacturers in many countries have launched their own car subscription platforms. To compete with such players, many broker platforms have also emerged
• The North American region is expected to dominate the market by controlling almost 30% of the market share by 2037.
• The leasing model has also proven feasible for other types of automobiles, including buses, trailers, and recreational vehicles.
• The car leasing model is promoting the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) model worldwide.
• With car leasing, ownership of expensive and advanced technology vehicles becomes affordable for general consumers.

Benefits of Car Leasing

Car leasing offers numerous benefits to both individual consumers and large businesses. Due to these benefits, the car leasing model is highly relevant for the near future.

• No Loan Required: To subscribe to a rental vehicle, consumers aren’t required to take a car loan, which incurs additional interest and surges the actual cost of the car.
• Low Upfront Cost: As no loan is required, no down payment is involved. This decreases the overall upfront cost for consumers.
• Flexible Ownership: Car leasing is highly flexible for the working class with relocating offices and worksites. Thus, they can use the vehicle and return or exchange it at any time. 
• The Buyback Option: In case customers want to purchase the vehicle during or at the end of their lease, they also get a buyback option. Car manufacturers only ask for the remaining price of the car and customers get to own the vehicle. No interest rate is involved.
• Does Not Count As a Debt: While car loans count as a debt and impact the credit score, owning them with the leasing model does not count as a debt nor affect the credit score.
• No Burden of Maintenance and Servicing: The car leasing company takes care of service and maintenance. Consumers can sit back and relax. In case of any issues with the car, getting the car exchanged is also easy.
• Useful for City Driving: With the leasing company handling the servicing and maintenance, subscribed cars are highly suited for city usage and driving in high-traffic areas.
• Higher Value for Money: Even without the buyback option, car subscriptions provide high value for money. As customers only lease the car, they don’t bear any depreciation costs. They get high value for the amount they invest.
• Hassle-Free Paperwork: Buying a new car and getting a car loan, both involve heavy paperwork. Consumers also need to submit various documents for verification. In car leasing, only minimum paperwork is involved. 
• Helpful for Maintaining a Corporate Fleet: Corporate fleets are expensive to maintain and manage. The car leasing models provide corporate companies with an effective and affordable option to manage a large corporate fleet without heavy upfront investment and maintenance costs.

Top Car Leasing Platforms Around the Globe

To take inspiration and reference to build your car leasing platform, you can check out the already existing platforms available in the market. Some of these are launched by car manufacturers while others are launched and managed by non-manufacturers or intermediaries.

Launched by Manufacturers:

• Mercedes Benz
• Volkswagen 
• Renault Mobility
• Toyota
• Hyundai
• Maruti Suzuki Subscribe

Launched by Non-Manufacturers:

• FINN
• Sixt
• Bipi
• Invygo
• Revv

Business Model of a Subscription-Based Car Leasing Platform

A car leasing website is different from regular car rental platforms where customers select a used car for their one-time requirements and input rental dates through a booking calendar. Instead, the selection process on a car leasing website is more difficult. Customers need to make a selection for their long-term requirements and certain features, such as the booking calendar and rental security submission, aren’t entirely present.

Due to these differences, it is important to understand the business model workflow of a car leasing platform so that you effectively adapt that on your platform. As per your business preferences, you can also plan any necessary changes in the workflow. 

Step 1: Customers visit your car subscription platform and select a car

Step 2: They review all lease plans and select a plan for 12,24,32 and 48 months.

Step 3: To finalize the lease, customers submit minimal documentation

Step 4: Customers select an insurance plan for their leased cars

Step 5: The car leasing company drops off the car to the customer’s drop-off location

Step 6: Customers do a Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) to ensure there are no issues or flaws in the car

Step 7: Customers use the car for the specified leasing period and visit timely for servicing

Step 8: They return or buy back the car at the end of the lease

Revenue Generation Model

Online car lease platforms can have multiple revenue generation channels. These channels add stability to the business and ensure you reach a breakeven point faster. Some revenue generation channels that you can add to your car subscription platform are:

• Multiple Subscription Charges

Keep tiered subscription packages on the platform. These packages can include quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly leases. Each subscription can also have varying benefits, such as car accessories, premium on-road assistance, child seats, dashcams, and more.

• Sell Car Accessories

On your car subscription and lease platform, you can sell various types of car accessories, including the ones mentioned above and many more such as GPS trackers, tires, alloys, snow chains, neck pillows, car covers, rubbing compound, polish, car shampoo, decorative items and more. In this case, you will need to invest in a car subscription software that comes with both rental and sales functionalities. 

• Sell Insurance

It is not permitted to drive an uninsured car on roads in many countries, but this rule only requires drivers to maintain third-party insurance. You can still sell own-damage insurance with higher coverage and other benefits on the marketplace. 

• Garage Partnerships

Car leasing companies can partner with local garages and charge them for being an authorized dealer. This way, you can ensure garages with a higher flow of vehicles while earning revenue through service commission. 

Key Features Required on Your Car Subscription Platform

To ensure smooth operations on the marketplace, be it cataloging, fleet management, sales, invoicing, upselling and more, you need a certain set of features on your platform. You can either get these features custom-developed or look for them in a readymade auto leasing software.

• Custom Subscription Packages: Get the option to create custom subscription packages and display them all across all car listings.
• Rental security collection: Option to collect a rental security deposit in case your business model requires you to collect one.
• Rental Agreement Management: For levying the terms and conditions of the lease, a rental agreement management option along with eSign is important.
• Fleet management: Comprehensive fleet management system that includes vehicle details, rentee details, rentee address, and tracks overdue returns and payments.
• Maintenance buffer period: After the return of every vehicle, you need to inspect it for any damages or maintenance needs. During this period, the vehicle cannot be added back to the online fleet. Maintenance buffer period will help you sync the under maintenance fleet with the online fleet.
• Recurring payment system: The recurring payment option is required to collect monthly subscription charges.
• Document verification:  For verifying essential documents, such as driving license and customer address, you can use an in-built document verification module.
• Internal messaging system: To simplify communications, you can integrate an internal messaging system within the platform that will help you ensure privacy and security as well.
• Request for Quote: The request for quote option is required to attract big budget corporate clients who often look for a custom quotation for their requirements.
• Rental Add-ons: For upselling products, such as car insurance and child seats, you can use a rental add-ons option.
• Rent plus Sell: The rent plus sell option will help you lease vehicles and sell accessories on the same platform.

Ways to Develop a Car Rental Subscription Marketplace

As said above, there are two approaches to develop a car subscription marketplace, which are custom development and using a readymade software. Let’s discuss these approaches one by one.

1. Custom Development 

The custom development approach requires you to develop the car lease platform from scratch. You will first need to hire a business analyst who will prepare the workflows and feature list, and then a development team to prepare the source code. Additionally, you will need to choose the technology on which you want the platform to be developed. Because of all these efforts, the development timeframe under this approach is very long. Hourly development rates also mean that the project is very likely to result in overhead costs.

Pros of Custom Development

• You get the choice of tech stack
• Endless customization capabilities
• Full source code ownership

Cons of Custom Development

• Very costly because of hourly development rates
• Highly time-consuming
• The end product is not tired and tested
• Not suitable for entrepreneurs with a limited budget

2. Using a Readymade Software

There are two types of readymade car rental and leasing software, which are SaaS software and self-hosted software.

1. SaaS Software

The term SaaS refers to Software as a Service and implies that the software is provided to the business as a monthly recurring service. It is originally installed on the software provider’s servers and the car subscription marketplace can only access it over the cloud as long as it pays continuous subscription charges. This makes using SaaS software very expensive for long-term operations. Additionally, as the number of listings and transactions is limited in a SaaS software, you may need to upgrade your subscription package in order to scale and grow

Pros of Using a SaaS Car Leasing Software

• Quick to deploy
• Tried and tested software
• Requires very little upfront investment

Cons of Using a SaaS Car Leasing Software

• Very costly in the long run because of never-ending costs
• May lack advanced features
• Some SaaS software charge an additional transaction cost
• A limited number of listings, transactions, and user profiles

2. Self-Hosted Software

A self-hosted auto leasing software is hosted on the car leasing company’s own choice of servers and provides them with more control. Due to this, there are also no restrictions on the number of listings, transactions, and user profiles in self-hosted software. Furthermore, self-hosted software is available at a one-time cost and comes with a lifetime usage license. As there are no monthly subscriptions involved, you get all the essential and advanced features right from the beginning and can easily offer a best-in-class rental experience.

Pros of Using a Self-Hosted Car Leasing Software

• Available at a one-time cost 
• Highly cost-effective in the long run
• Tried and tested for market operations
• Fully customizable to meet additional requirements
• Unlimited listings and transactions
• Full source code ownership

Cons of Using a Self-Hosted Car Leasing Software

• The choice of tech stack is not available
• Includes an upfront cost 

How Yo!Rent Helps?

Yo!Rent is a self-hosted car rental and car subscription software that helps founders launch feature-loaded rental marketplaces that streamline bookings, subscriptions, and day-to-day rental operations. To simplify subscriptions, Yo!Rent comes with separate vendor and renter dashboards, which help in providing an unmatched rental experience. With its user-intuitive design and industry-specific layout, Yo!Rent helps in developing highly professional rental websites. Because of its extensive feature set and elegant front-end design and dashboard, Yo!Rent is suitable for both car manufacturers and third-party car leasing companies.

Key Reasons to Develop Your Car Subscription Platform with Yo!Rent

• Fully customizable rental software that can be used as a base for car subscription business
• An extensive feature set to enable smooth and streamlined rental operations
• Multiple payment options along with rental subscription
• Multi-lingual and multi-currency support to help you target a diverse audience and expand to new regions
• Unlimited listings, transactions, and user profiles

Conclusion

With the various benefits of car leasing and increasing preference for digital services, car leasing platforms are further expected to grow. Even renowned car manufacturers all across the globe are developing their own case leasing platforms and providing new cars on impressive lease terms. To enter the competition, you will need to launch your own car subscription platform and invest in a fleet of cars. To keep the business asset-light, you can launch a multi-vendor rental marketplace where different vendors will list their car for subscription while you generate revenue via monthly commissions. For any type of car subscription platform, you can use Yo!Rent as your base software.

The post How to Build Your Online Car Subscription Platform? appeared first on FATbit Blog.

However, to support the growing needs of the industry, contractors require more reliable sources for procuring heavy equipment. Their demands can be easily matched by launching a new online equipment rental website that can be accessed throughout the country, or by taking the digital leap for your existing offline equipment rental business. You can establish a network of contractors by launching your online equipment store and helping them complete diverse projects to boost the country’s growth.  

In this article, we have thoroughly covered how you can launch an equipment rental store in Canada. Let’s take a closer look at the growth factors and business model before moving towards the development approach. 

Key Growth Factors of Heavy Equipment Rental Industry in Canada

The heavy equipment rental industry in Canada has stayed relatively stable and resilient because of certain factors. Some of those that validate the industry’s potential and growth prospects are:

1. High Rate of Interest on Financing Options

The exorbitant costs of purchasing heavy equipment have always been the primary deterrent behind heavy equipment sales. Even if a contractor or construction company considers financing the heavy equipment, the interest rate of the finance is way too high. These interest rates have only amplified in recent years. Thus, renting out heavy equipment seems to be a more capital-friendly option than both direct purchasing and sourcing.

2. Adaptation of Sustainable Practices

To control carbon emissions, the entire heavy equipment industry is drifting towards sustainable practices. One of which is rental as it relies on the sharing economy that does not produce any additional carbon emissions. Moreover, the rental model aligns with Canada’s carbon-neutral goal which the government aims to achieve by 2050. The entrance of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles in the heavy equipment rental industry further aids this goal. 

3. Government Lead Infrastructure Development Plans

The Canadian government is working to improve the public infrastructure including roads, bridges, railways, airways, and more to provide the public with superior facilities. It has also launched several plans such as the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) which pledges $33 billion for infrastructure development and the Ontario 30-year Transit Plan which pledges $65.7 billion toward transport network development. All such plans are positively impacting Canada’s heavy equipment rental industry. As the government is also allocating around 5% of its GDP every year towards infrastructure development, the equipment rental industry will benefit from a continuous demand. 

4. Commercial Development Projects

Along with public infrastructure development plans, there are several commercial project undertakings in the country that are facilitating growth in the heavy equipment rental industry. These include the development of large establishments such as shopping malls, corporate buildings, stadiums, innovation work, and more. A few projects to name are The Bow, The Edge office building, 11333 Yonge Street offices, Absolute Towers, Royal Ontario Museum, New Etobicoke Civic Centre, and the SmartMill Head Office. 

5. Growth in the Mining Sector

The mining sector of Canada contributes about 6% to its entire economy. Canada is also the leading provider of potash and supplies other minerals such as gold, diamonds, aluminum, titanium, platinum, palladium, and uranium. The extraction of these minerals on a large scale requires diverse types of equipment including drills, excavators, graders, loaders, and trucks. Due to the huge demand in the mining sector, the equipment rental industry is also witnessing growth. 

Business Model of Online Heavy Equipment Rental Businesses

As said earlier, to capitalize on the opportunity, you can launch an online equipment rental store. Here’s an exemplary workflow for your online store:

Workflow of Equipment Rental Website

Step 1: The business owner adds equipment listings on the website

Step 2: The customer browses the website and selects equipment

Step 3: To place an order online, the customer selects the rental dates and makes payment along with the security deposit

Step 4: The business owner fulfills the order via the selected fulfillment method (delivery or self-pickup)

Step 5: On return, the business owner inspects the equipment for any damages and reimburses the same from the customer’s rental security. The remaining security amount is returned.

Key Features Required on an Online Heavy Equipment Rental Store

For smooth business operations, a heavy equipment rental store requires several rent-centric features. These features assist the admin in automating day-to-day operations and bringing efficiency to the entire business. When selecting a heavy equipment rental solution to build your online store, you can look out for these features.

• Tiered Rental Pricing: The tiered pricing module will allow you to define varying rental charges for daily, weekly, and monthly rentals and meet varying consumer demand. 
• Advanced Booking Calendar: The rental booking calendar is essential to take rental date inputs from customers and prevent double booking. Additionally, it also shows accurate product availability to customers.
• Rental Invoicing and Checkout: Via the traditional business method or on websites with no direct checkout option, new businesses often face the problem of payment delays. This is because new businesses often fulfill orders based on business trust and credit. This problem can be easily avoided by placing a rental invoicing and direct checkout option on the online rental store website. 
• Request for Quote Module: Like direct checkout, the Request for Quote (RFQ) module is important as it helps businesses in processing large and complex rental orders. For large orders, contractors often prefer getting a custom price quote and to target such an audience, both RFQ module and direct checkout options are important.
• Agreement Management & eSign: Every equipment business owner has their own rental terms and conditions to ensure safe and secure rentals. These can be stored and sanctioned with the help of an agreement management & eSign option. 
• Rental Security Management: Another option to encourage the safe usage of rental equipment is to collect a rental security amount at the checkout. This rental security will be later used to reimburse any damages or charge penalties in case of violation of any rental terms.
• Unavailability Management: Many times, business owners rent out equipment via offline means. This results in inaccuracies in online inventory and can lead to overbooking. To avoid this problem, you can rely on an unavailability management module that helps you mark a certain amount of inventory as unavailable for a specified period. 
• Maintenance Buffer Period: After the equipment is returned, it is put under an inspection period to run any maintenance and servicing tasks. During this period, the equipment cannot be synced with the online inventory. Thus, the maintenance buffer period allows you to set the maintenance duration in the system and sync all under-maintenance inventory with the online inventory. 
• Rental Add-ons: When renting out equipment, you can offer complimentary add-ons and services along with the equipment. These can include operator services, machine attachments, on-site cleaning, and more.
• Late Returns Management: The rental website should have a feature to let you track and send reminders for any pending returns. Likewise, it should allow you to create varying late return periods and charge a late return fee accordingly. 

The Best Approach to Develop Your Heavy Equipment Rental Store

Developing a business solution used to be a highly cost-inclusive task because of hourly development rates and long project delivery timeframe. However, readymade software solutions have solved this problem. Readymade solutions are tried and tested software that come with all necessary features out of the box. In most cases, you are only required to deploy them and configure your store. As these solutions are readily available and exclude long delivery time frames and hourly payments, they are highly cost-effective for all entrepreneurs. To support any additional requirements, some readymade solutions are also fully customizable.

Benefits of Using Readymade Equipment Rental Software:

• Already tried-and-tested for heavy equipment rental business models
• Come with all essential features to manage rental operations
• Reduce the overall development time
• Are more cost-effective than bespoke development
• Help and support are also readily available
• Can be used by businesses of all sizes.

The Most Advanced Features Packed Heavy Equipment Rental Software

Although there are several rental solutions available in the market, Yo!Rent emerges to be unrivaled with state-of-the-art and user-friendliness. It comes with all essential and advanced features to keep your business running 24/7 and streamline even the most complex operations including managing inventory, returns, taxes, rental agreements and more. Unlike other solutions, Yo!Rent is also a self-hosted solution that provides you the flexibility to select your own hosting server, making your rental website more secure and easily scalable. Going a step further, Yo!Rent provides you with complete pricing control, helps in damage recovery, automates paperwork, streamlines inventory and also assists in marketing and preparing business reports. 

Key Reasons to Select Yo!Rent are:

• It is a self-hosted solution available at a one-time cost. This makes Yo!Rent highly cost-effective in the long run.
• It has in-built capabilities to streamline B2B operations, such as bulk duration discount, rental duration discount, RFQ module, rental agreement management and more. 
• To help you meet the rental requirements of different customer cohorts, Yo!Rent supports hourly, daily, weekly and monthly rental bookings.
• Yo!Rent is a multi-currency and multilingual software. It can help you target different regions with a single rental website.
• Yo!Rent supports unlimited listings, transactions and user profiles. This makes it a highly scalable solution. Right from startup level to enterprise level, Yo!Rent accommodates all stages of business growth.
• To support your brand vision and help you align your rental store website with the market standards, Yo!Rent has a fully personalizable homepage. All of its content blocks, homepage sliders, and more can be personalized from the admin dashboard.
• To support any additional functionalities and requirements, Yo!Rent is also fully customizable. 
• Yo!Rent supports both single-vendor and multi-vendor business operations, making it easier to expand your business and diversify revenue generation streams.
• For streamlining payments, Yo!Rent comes pre-integrated with 20+ payment gateways. You can select the ones as per your target regions and transaction charges.
• Yo!Rent also comes with 12 months of free technical support so that your business operations run smoothly.  

Conclusion

Setting up a heavy equipment rental store allows you to establish a network of reliable equipment dealers and capitalize on their rental inventories. In Canada, as the growth projections for the industry are high and also backed by numerous government and private development programs, launching an equipment rental business can reap impressive returns. However, for a successful launch, you will need to keep in mind a few important things that include the business model, development approach, launch time and your Go-to-Market strategy. To keep a clarity in all these, you can devise a business plan which will assist you in execution and cost savings.

The post Guide to Build a Rental Website for Canada-Based Equipment Rental Business appeared first on FATbit Blog.

One sector of the EV industry that is capable of bringing a paradigm shift in how the entire EV infrastructure operates is the battery-swapping model. The model holds immense business potential for entrepreneurs and is backed by impressive growth statistics, a CAGR of 46.9% in the projection period 2022-2027, with the industry capturing almost $11.8 billion in the next three years. Thus, for entrepreneurs strategizing to enter the EV industry, launching a battery-swapping business holds immense potential. 

Through this article, you will understand the scope of the battery-swapping business and its entire business model in great detail. Additionally, we have also created a roadmap to help you build your own online EV battery-swapping business.

Key Growth Factors Behind the EV Battery Swapping Sector

In the EV industry, the battery-swapping model brings insurmountable benefits to both B2B and B2C customers. In the B2C sector, battery swapping applies to eBikes and cars, and in the B2B sector, commercial fleet and public transport vehicles, such as delivery vehicles, buses, tuk-tuks, and more benefit from the battery swapping model. 

The diverse applications of EV battery swapping provide the industry with multiple growth factors:

1. Highly Cost-Effective in Comparison to Purchasing New Battery

In comparison to ICE (Internal Combustion Engines) vehicles, EVs are very costly. The added cost of the battery is one of the primary reasons behind the price surge as the battery unit in itself amounts to 50% of the overall vehicle cost. Thus, repurchasing the battery puts a financial strain on the EV owner. In contrast, the battery swapping option where the owner can easily swap drained batteries with fully recharged batteries is more cost-effective. The owner can also access a never-ending supply of charged batteries. 

2. Reduce Downtime for Both Consumers and Commercial Fleet

The EV charging infrastructure is quite slow. Even with fast DC chargers, it can take up to 60 to 80 minutes to achieve a full charge. This downtime leads to several disadvantages for EV owners. On the other hand, battery swapping is quick and efficient, providing owners with immediate charge to go the extra mile. For commercial fleets, this reduced downtime also helps in providing a satisfying customer experience and prevents loss. 

3. Reduce Delivery Costs for Commercial Fleet

Another way battery swapping is cost-effective for commercial fleets is because swapping batteries at external stations is more affordable than investing in electric infrastructure and charging vehicles. Nevertheless, commercial fleets can also sign exclusive contracts with battery swapping companies to provide them with replaceable batteries at special pricing or monthly contracts. 

4. Eliminate Range Anxiety

In the EV industry, range anxiety refers to the conscious anxiety of EV owners about their EV batteries depleting without reaching the designated destination. Due to this range anxiety, EV owners feel less confident while taking their EVs on long routes. The challenges in setting up new charging stations further exacerbate this problem. However, battery-swapping stations do not require any reinvestments in the electrical infrastructure and thus can be set up easily. These stations help expand the EV network across wide geographical areas and reduce range anxiety.

5. Direct Relation with EV Sales

The demand for battery swapping business and EV sales are correlated with each other. By expanding the EV network, battery-swapping stations have a profound impact on the demand for electric vehicles, primarily in the B2C sector. As the EV demand increases, more people realize the benefits of EV battery-swapping stations and prefer them over the existing time-consuming EV charging stations.

6. Recyclable Batteries

Investing in EV batteries is profitable for entrepreneurs in many ways. First, they can invest in EV batteries in bulk to maximize the utilization of their capital. This way, they can keep higher profit margins and reach a breakeven point faster. However, EV batteries are also recyclable. Meaning, that once their charging lifespan is over, they can resold to manufacturers for recycling purposes, providing an additional benefit to battery-swapping business owners.

7. No Additional Load on Power Grids

One of the key challenges in expanding the EV network by installing charging stations was the added load on the electric or power grids. Due to limited power supplies and distribution policies, it was a huge challenge for companies to set up their EV charging stations both inside and outside cities. In most cases, companies were required to invest in microgrids as well. In contrast, the battery swapping stations do not put additional load on power grids. The batteries can be charged at a primary warehouse, connected to a single or dedicated power grid and fully charged batteries can be transported to scattered swapping outlets. 

How Does the Battery Swapping Business Model Work – Complete Operational Workflow 

The battery-swapping business model primarily involves 3 to 4 entities or user types depending on your target audience. Additionally, to streamline operations, you need a battery swap operations management software. This software will be used to maintain the inventory log, manage swapping stations, generate invoices, and oversee all operations. 

For a complete overview, we have explained the operational workflow inclusive of both B2B and B2C customers.

User Types in The Battery Swapping Business Model

1. The Battery Swapping Service Provider or the Admin: This is the primary user type and refers to the business owner and administrative representatives. The admin is completely responsible for overseeing the entire operations through a centralized platform.

2. The Swapping Station: These can be independent companies and contractors providing battery swapping services under your business name, just like the different franchises of a business. Or, you can also hire your own staff to maintain the swapping stations. The key responsibilities of these stations are to exchange batteries and keep a log of inventory and customers. Maintaining this log is important to keep proper track of swapped batteries and generate consolidated invoices.

3. Corporate Businesses with Commercial Fleets (B2B Customers): These are the corporates that purchase eBikes and batteries from you in bulk. For example, restaurants, MNCs, hotels, courier companies, laundry companies, logistic companies, and other companies that have their own commercial fleet for delivery operations.  

4. B2C Customers: These are individual customers who purchase electric vehicles with batteries compatible with your swapping service operations. 

Workflow of a Battery-Swapping Business

The following is the exemplary workflow of a battery-swapping business. You can also make changes to it depending on your business requirements or technical limitations.

• Step 1: The battery swapping business owner or the admin transports fully charged batteries from the warehouse to different swapping stations.
• Step 2: The delivery agents of corporate brands (B2B customers) and B2C customers visit the swapping station.
• Step 3: The swapping station swaps the batteries and scans the QR code on both the batteries and the electric vehicle to maintain a log in the battery swapping software system. 
• Step 4: The system generates an invoice depending on the percentage charge of the returned batteries, eg. 100% charge – percentage charge returned. 
• Step 5: In the case of B2B customers, the invoice amount is saved in the account receivables log in the system. The entire due amount is paid by the corporate by the end of the month.
• Step 6: In the case of B2C customers, the EV owner pays the invoice amount right after battery swapping.
• Step 7: The admin collects the drained batteries on a routine basis and takes them to the warehouse for charging.

Revenue Generation Model 

The battery swapping business model includes some recurring revenue streams, which makes it easier to make money. Basically, after selling an electric vehicle or partnering with an EV manufacturer, you can create your monopoly for battery swapping in the market. Meaning, the customer will need to revisit your swapping stations, resulting in recurring revenue. 

However, the diversification of revenue generation streams is also important. It will help your business bring in stable and sustainable returns. To maximize revenue generation, the following revenue generation operations are feasible in a battery swapping business. 

• Battery Swapping Charges (Recurring Revenue): These are calculated based on the battery percentage purchased by the customer and invoiced to B2B clients every month. 
• Monthly Subscription (Recurring Revenue): Additionally, a monthly subscription with a limited number of swappable batteries can be offered to B2C customers.
• Renting Electric Vehicles (Recurring Revenue): As shared in our previous insights, 78% of consumers prefer rental as their primary mode of EV adoption. Thus, battery swapping businesses can also benefit from renting electric vehicles. 
• Sale of Recyclable Batteries: Batteries that reach their end of life can be resold to manufacturers for recycling purposes. 
• Add-on Services and Products: In battery swapping stations, you can provide other value-added services, such as cleaning services, repair services, software upgrades,  nitrogen for tires, and even put vending machines for soft drinks and eatables.

Battery Swapping Businesses to Take Inspiration From

The battery swapping business model has already been adopted by several entrepreneurs. Their businesses have been successful in bringing an EV revolution in their respective markets and invoking a positive response from customers. A few such major players are:

• Gogoro
• NIO
• Aulton
• Sun Mobility
• Oyika

Things to Consider while Starting Your Battery Swapping Business

Preparing your battery swapping business will require your interest in four directions, which are partnering with an EV manufacturer, finding a warehouse for charging batteries, setting up swapping stations and investing in a battery swapping software solution for managing business operations. Let’s discuss these four in more details:

1. Partner with an EV Manufacturer

Before building a battery swapping station, you need to invest in the EVs whose batteries you would be replacing. There are two ways to do that:

• Manufacture your own EVs
• Partner with existing EV manufacturers 

While the first option is highly capital intensive and is a separate business on its own, the second option is more feasible. Your selected EVs can be eBikes, cars, trucks, tuktuks (public transport vehicles), etc. After finding a manufacturer for these EVs, you can send them a proposal to be their battery swapping partner and help them in expanding their entire EV network. If your proposal is accepted, you can procure batteries and even EVs from the manufacturers in bulk.

2. Set Up a Warehouse or Charging Station

To increase returns and become profitable, the battery swapping business includes transporting batteries from a warehouse to swapping stations. This also eliminates the need to set up micro power grids and reduces the financial burden on infrastructure and legal work. Thus, you can rent or purchase a warehouse in a well-connected region with abundant power supply, or simply set up a single micro grid for your warehouse. In the warehouse, you can charge all batteries and transport them to the different swapping stations. 

3. Set Up Swapping Stations

Swapping stations will be the customer-facing touchpoints for your business. Either you can rent out space and designate your own employees to run these swapping stations or rely on a franchise type structure as well where different contractors will partner with you to enable battery swapping stations. Along with swapping batteries, you can provide additional services on these stations as well. For example, EV repair and maintenance services or just keep a food vending machine. These will help you in maximizing your revenue generation. At the end of the day, you can collect all the drained batteries from these swapping stations and take them back to your warehouse for charging. 

4. Set Up an Online Battery Swapping Management System

To manage all operations, you need to invest in a battery swapping software solution. The solution can have the following interfaces:

• Admin Interface: The admin interface will be the primary interface to manage operations. From the admin dashboard, you can view all orders, users, track inventory, access revenue generation reports, manage the front-end interface, set up payment gateways, generate monthly invoices for corporates, and do more.

• Front-end Interface: The front-end interface will act as the official website for your business and help you establish a brand. Users or even corporates can visit the front-end interface to collect more information about your business and reach out to you. Additionally, you can upload entire eBike catalogs so that customers can find out about products and purchase them directly from your online store. For the latter part, you may need to provide a checkout functionality on the front-end and set up payment gateways. 

• Swapping Station Interface: This interface will only be for the swapping personnels so that they can mark real-time updates on the exchanged batteries. The swapping station interface will include a QR code scanner so that the personnels can scan both drained and fully charged batteries and save records, such as battery number, exchange date and amount due on the online system. 

• Corporate Interface: The access to the corporate interface is given to the different brands who become your customers. Via this interface, they can link different delivery agents with electric vehicles and view their swapping history. At any time, they can also check consolidated invoices and the amount due by every month. Either they can make payment directly through the corporate interface or do bank transfers as well.

• Sub User Interface: The sub user interface is used by the delivery agents. The sub user account is created by corporates and shared with the EV riders. Through this interface, the delivery agents can view their swapping history and cross check details such as battery percentage returned and any amount paid to the charging station. 

How to Develop your Online Battery Swapping Management System?

There are two approaches to develop a battery swapping management system:

1. Custom Development

The first approach includes custom development from scratch. For this approach, you will need to hire a software development firm, discuss your business model with them, prepare a Software Requirement Specification (SRS) document, select the technology stack and begin the development. However, there are a few downsides to this approach:

• The entire development process is too costly, involving hourly development costs and business analysis costs
• The development process can take up to 2 years. In this time, any other entrepreneur or competitor can capitalize on your business and take the first-mover advantage
• The end-product will still not be tried and tested for the market

2. Using a Low Code Software as Base

The low-code software refers to the readymade solutions that come with all essential features to help you launch your platform. Many low code solutions are customizable and will require some customizations to support the battery swapping model. This approach is better than the custom development approach because of the following reasons:

• Low code software are highly cost effective in comparison to the custom development approach
• The overall time-to-market is faster, so that you don’t lose any competitive edge
• You get an MVP solution that comes with all essential features and interfaces

Note: As of now, the availability of 100% readymade software for managing battery swapping operations is sparse. Due to the low availability, selecting a low-code solution as a base remains the only option to develop a reliable battery swapping management system.

How Yo!Rent (FATbit) Helped a Major Player in the South African Market Transform its Battery Swapping Business

In the past few months, Yo!Rent, a rental software solution by FATbit, collaborated with a major battery swapping player of the South African market and provided them with a robust battery swapping management system. Yo!Rent already had several essential features that aligned with the battery swapping business model. To perfect the final build, our team of business experts analyzed the model in detail and added more features to Yo!Rent. As a result, the provided solution effectively encompassed the client’s battery swapping business model and delivered high performance.

Key Features Deployed by Yo!Rent to Launch a Battery Swapping Management System

Before using Yo!Rent, the client was manually managing battery swapping operations, which was not only a time consuming and cost-intensive process, but also risked the efficiency and productivity of the business. Yo!Rent streamlined the client’s business with a wide range of features. While some of the features were already present in Yo!Rent, we added some additional features to provide the client with complete support for his desired business model. 

Some of the Existing Features of YoRent (Base Product) that Helped The Client

• Rent plus Sell: Along with battery swapping operations, the client also sold and rented electric bikes. Yo!Rent had the rent plus sell functionality in the base product and did not require any additional customization. 
• Booking Calendar: To ensure accurate rental bookings, Yo!Rent has an advanced booking calendar. This calendar accepts rental date inputs from corporates or individual customers and prevents double booking.
• Request for Quote (RFQ) Module: B2B operations can be very complex. To help the client manage such orders, Yo!Rent comes with an RFQ module. This module helps the client receive price quotation requests and negotiate the same along with business terms. All the negotiation details are saved on the system itself.
• Rental Security Management: For ensuring electric bikes’ safety, Yo!Rent has a rental security management option. During checkout, the business owner can collect a rental security amount and use it to reimburse any unexpected damages. 
• Agreement Management: To further encourage the safe use of electric bikes and batteries, Yo!Rent comes with an agreement management module. Through this module, the client is able to upload their terms and conditions and sanction them with an eSign option. 
• Bulk Duration Discount: For corporate clients who are renting out electric bikes in bulk, the client can create bulk duration discounts. These will be automatically applied at checkout.
• Rental Duration Discount: Similar to bulk duration discounts, the client can create several discount options for corporates renting out bikes for long-term operations.

New Features that We Added to Support Battery Swapping Operations

• Battery IDs: While exchanging batteries, the vendor can search and save important exchange information, such as exchange date, time, battery percentage, vehicle number, user and more in dedicated Battery IDs.
• QR Code Scanner: To increase speed and efficiency of swapping, vendors can simply scan the QR Code and automatically load the Battery ID. This saves time on manual inputs and eliminates the scope for human error. 
• Charge Based Invoicing: To provide accurate invoicing, we deployed a charge based invoicing algorithm. Under this type of invoicing, customers only need to pay for the additional charge they get in the swapped batteries. Thus, they are charged on the basis of 100% battery – battery percentage returned.
• Custom Product Catalogue Fields: To help the client prepare accurate listings for the electric bikes and batteries, we also created custom product catalogue fields.
• Corporate Registration Forms: To onboard corporate customers with large fleets, we integrated a custom registration form with all required fields. These fields help the client procure essential information to conduct safe and legally compliant business operations.
• Corporate Profiles: For providing corporates with complete control over their battery swapping operations, we integrated corporate account profiles into the system. After creating a corporate profile, companies can access the corporate interface and view delivery agents, swapping history, invoices, messages, notifications and more. 
• Corporate Sub User Accounts: For managing delivery agents and other employees, we integrated the corporate sub user profiles into the system. The corporate can create unlimited sub user accounts and also link every delivery agent with an eBike. Both delivery agents and the employer (corporate) can access and view the agent’s complete swapping history. 
• Inventory Tracking: With the help of Battery IDs, the client can keep complete track of the inventory. He can find which battery has been fitted in which eBike and also the user linked to the bike. Additionally, the client can check a battery’s usage history, swapping history, its swapping station location and more. 
• Centralized User Data: To ensure seamless battery swapping operations across  locations, we provide centralized data access in Yo!Rent. Meaning, a delivery agent can swap a battery at any swapping station managed by the client. 
• Monthly Consolidated Invoicing: For large corporates, we integrated a special consolidated invoicing module that consolidates all invoices and calculates the total amount due every month for the batteries swapped by delivery agents.
• M-Pesa Integration: For quick and hassle-free payments, we integrated the target region’s one of the most reliable payment gateways M-Pesa into the client’s Battery Swapping Management System. 
• Pay Later: The system supports multiple payment methods for a better user experience. One of them is the pay later option.

Steps to Build a Battery Swapping Platform with Yo!Rent

Yo!Rent has shown proven capabilities to develop a viable battery swapping management platform. Not only the solution can support battery swapping operations but comes with rent-centric and sales features right out of the box. This makes Yo!Rent a highly reliable base to develop your battery swapping platform. To get started, you are required to follow these steps.

Step 1: Obtain a Yo!Rent License

Get Yo!Rent’s lifetime license by getting in touch with our team. The license is available at a one-time cost and will state all necessary customizations that you want in the platform.

Step 2: Development and Installation

Our team will carry out all the customizations to meet your business requirements. Once developed, the solution will be tested and installed on your server.

Step 3: Configure the Platform

Configure the primary settings of your battery swapping platform, such as the payment gateways, bank details, admin accounts, swapping station accounts, and more. Also start adding battery IDs to track inventory and add other inventory such as ebikes and accessories.

Step 4: Promote and Manage your Business

Market your battery swapping business to attract clients. Once onboarded, you can use Yo!Rent’s in-built options to manage your battery swapping business. 

Conclusion

With the battery swapping industry aimed at redefining the entire EV infrastructure, investing in a battery swapping business is a profitable business proposition. It primarily targets the B2B clients, such as corporates with personnel delivery fleets and helps them reduce operational costs and decrease the overall downtime. Because of these advantages, several corporates throughout the globe have already invested in an EV fleet. By capitalizing in the industry, you can tie up with EV manufacturers and provide corporates with your own EV fleets. With the electric vehicles powered by swappable batteries, you can create monopolies in several cities that still remain untouched by EV businesses.

The post Start your EV Battery Swapping Business: Complete Business Model appeared first on FATbit Blog.

One such P2P rental niche is car rentals. In our recent research, we found out that the overall market size of the car rental industry is an estimated $102 billion in 2024. The car rental industry is also expected to grow at an impressive CAGR of 3.1% in the next five years. Thus, for entrepreneurs aspiring to set foot in the sharing economy, launching a Peer-to-Peer marketplace like Airbnb for car rentals is a lucrative business proposition. Below are some insights you should look into for launching an AirBnb for cars.

Benefits of Renting Cars from Peers

The car rental industry is fragmented into both small-size and large-size car rental businesses. However, the experience of renting from a car rental company and a peer differs a lot. Renting from peers can provide customers with a more personalized rental experience. Some key benefits of renting cars from peers are:

• Cost Effectiveness: Individual car owners rent out their spare vehicles as a means of generating a side income and preventing their cars from deteriorating over time. Due to this, they are able to rent out their cars at much more affordable prices than private car rental companies.
• More Sustainable: While renting in itself is considered sustainable, renting out from peers is an even more eco-friendly practice. This is because car rental companies invest in a proper fleet of commercial vehicles whereas peers utilize their spare cars.
• Scope of Negotiation in Terms: In P2P car rentals, the rental terms and conditions can be negotiated with the car owners. On the other hand, there is no scope for negotiation in the rental agreements of car rental firms. 
• Feedback Acceptance: P2P rental car owners often rely on repeat customers. Due to this, they are more willing to accept and work on customer feedback.
• Unique Cars: Car rental companies often have a very similar fleet of cars selected on the basis of market demand. On the other hand, peers can provide you with unique and rare cars as well that you may not find in any rental company’s fleet.

Why Launch an Airbnb for Cars?

Car rental industry insights indicate the increasing demand for car rentals and highlight the rising business opportunities. Along with insights, there are still a few other reasons to invest in a Peer-to-Peer Airbnb-like business model for car rentals.

1. Asset-Light Business Model

Launching an Airbnb for cars is highly asset-light. The term “asset-light business model” refers to those businesses where the business owner is only required to invest in the bare minimum capital. On a P2P car rental marketplace, the marketplace owner is only required to invest in platform costs and business registrations, whereas independent car owners list their own cars. 

Workflow of Airbnb like Car Rental Marketplace 

For a better understanding, look at the following workflow of P2P car rental marketplaces.

1. Multiple car owners register and list their cars on the marketplace
2. Customers browse those cars and select the car they prefer
3. To book a car, customers enter the rental date inputs in the booking calendar and proceed to checkout
4. During checkout, customers pay the rental fee and submit a security deposit
5. The car owner handovers the car to the customer via the selected method (pickup or delivery)
6. On the return of the car, the car owner inspects the car for any damages
7. In case of any damages, reimbursements are deducted from the customer’s security deposit, and the remaining amount is returned to the customer
8. On reaching a minimum withdrawal amount, car owners can withdraw their earnings to their bank accounts.

Revenue Generation on P2P Car Rental Business

A P2P car rental marketplace owner can generate revenue via the following ways:

1. Rental Commission
2. Featured Listings
3. Display Ads
4. Subscription Packages

2. Low Competition

While a majority of websites and marketplaces exist for car rentals, such as Enterprise, Budget, Avis, Alamo and Hertz, they operate predominantly in the B2C sector. For example, nine of the top 10 car rental companies only do B2C car rental operations where independent car owners cannot list their cars. The market scenario is quite similar in almost all parts of the world. This leaves an opportunity to launch a P2P car rental marketplace like Turo and scale up to the level of top players. 

Some P2P car rental players you can take inspiration from are:

• Turo (the only P2P player in the top 10 car rental companies)
• Getaround
• Snappcar
• GoMore

3. Increase in Car Ownership Rates

Car ownership rates have also increased globally with New Zealand and the US having the maximum number of car registrations. These countries are followed by Poland, Italy, Australia, Canada, and France. In the 90s, consumers used to have one car per house but now this number has increased to multiple cars. In many developed cities, each family member has a personal car and it is also not rare to see an individual own 3-4 cars. 

In such scenarios where a family or person owns multiple cars, the chances of a car being left idle in the garage are very high. Thus, to help car owners monetize such vehicles, entrepreneurs can launch a P2P car rental marketplace. 

4. Inflation

According to the International Monetary Fund, the global inflation rate in 2024 is 5.8%. Due to high inflation rates, many consumers have resorted to doing additional jobs in order to make ends meet. This gave rise to the side hustle mentality. In the US, around 93% of the working population seems to have indulged in a side hustle. 

However, when speaking of car rental, it is not only a side hustle for many people but also a passive income stream where car owners aren’t required to actively participate in business. To cater to the requirements of such car owners, launching an Airbnb for car rentals is a highly profitable business proposition. 

5. All Seasons Business

Another reason to launch a P2P car rental marketplace is that it is a year-round business. Regardless of the season – spring, summer, fall or winters, the demand for car rentals remains consistent. Even during the holidays when other businesses witness a drop, car rental businesses witness an incline. Thus, by investing in a P2P car rental marketplace, you can ensure stable returns throughout the year and create a highly resilient business. 

How to Create Airbnb for Cars

After understanding the market statistics, user behavior and opportunities, we can proceed to the technical aspects of creating an Airbnb for car rentals. Here, it is essential to understand the technology you can use to build your marketplace and the features that are required to help you manage P2P car rental operations. 

Step 1: Shortlist the Key Features

To create a P2P rental marketplace for cars, you need to look for certain rent-centric features. These features will also encompass the various use cases of the car rental industry and help you manage an Airbnb for cars. In case of non-availability of these features, look for alternate software or opt for the ones that are fully customizable. 

• Rental Booking Calendar: An in-built calendar to display car availability to customers and accept rental date inputs. This calendar also prevents double booking and helps in invoicing. 
• Map View Filter: With the help of a map view search filter, customers can easily search for nearby vehicles. This may help you in increasing your conversion rates and providing a better service to customers.
• Agreement Management & eSign: For renting out a car, every car owner has different terms and conditions. For example, some may prefer pets in their cars while others don’t. Thus, to sanction any such terms and conditions, you require an agreement management module along with the eSign option. 
• Rental Security Management: To reimburse any damages to car owners, you can collect rental security deposits from customers. The security deposit amount can also be used to deduct any other charges and the remaining amount remains refundable.
• Tiered Pricing: To target diverse customer cohorts, it is important to have a tiered pricing module that will help car owners set and levy daily, weekly and monthly rental pricing. Furthermore, an hourly rental system on your marketplace can also be very useful.
• Request for Quote (RFQ module): Car owners who don’t want to define any fixed pricing for their vehicles can use the RFQ module. This module will help give and negotiate custom price quotes on the P2P car rental platform.
• Vehicle Comparison: Finding a rental car for trips or daily commuting is difficult. You can simplify the decision-making process for your customers by providing them with a vehicle comparison feature. This feature creates automated comparison tables for selected cars and helps customers find the right cars as per their preferences.
• Late Cancellations Management: Late cancellations often cause car owners losses in terms of order processing costs, which can include cleaning, servicing, or refueling of the vehicles. To prevent any such losses, you can define tiered cancellation periods and charges. 
• Late Returns Management: By reserving a car for longer than the booked period, late returns lead to loss in terms of lost opportunity costs for the car owners. Thus, you can also define custom late return periods and applicable charges.
• Rental Add-ons:  By providing complementary services products and services, such as child seats, WiFi, car fresheners, window shades, etc., car owners can increase their overall ticket size and conversion rates. Thus, a rental add-ons feature is also important for your AirBnb for cars.
• Maintenance Buffer Period: The selected rental software should allow you to define a maintenance buffer period. This period will start automatically after a customer returns the car and can be used to perform any necessary checks and inspections. Once the maintenance period is over, the car will be automatically synced with the online inventory.
• Inventory Management: The inventory management system on your car rental software should allow you to track all inventory in real-time. It should alert you on a low fleet count, help manage vehicle unavailability, and provide complete inventory reports.
• User Management: For managing multiple users, the software should have essential user management features that allow you to check their order history, listed cars, ratings & reviews, and other account-related details. 
• Commissions Management: For managing your earnings, the software needs a commission management module. This will allow you to set and levy your commission rates on all transactions.
• Withdrawal Settings: The software should allow you to define the withdrawal threshold amount and minimum withdrawal interval period. It is only after meeting these requirements that car owners should be able to withdraw their earnings to their bank accounts. 
• Multilingual and Multi-Currency Support: As discussed earlier, multilingual and multi-currency support help you target a diverse audience and simplify business expansion.

Step 2: Select a Software Technology

Based on the selected features, you can move forward to select the right software technology to build your Airbnb for cars. There are multiple software development methods available today. Let’s go through them one by one to understand which method is the most suitable and has all the features required.

1. Bespoke Development

The traditional approach to building any software is bespoke development. It was highly in practice in the 90’s and 2000’s but has lost its prominence today because of newer methods of development. For developing a P2P car rental marketplace, bespoke development may not be the right approach because of the following reasons:

• It involves finding a development team and paying them hourly development rates. This inflates the overall  cost of development by thousands of dollars
• As all workflows, features, modules and interfaces are developed from scratch, the overall development timeframe ranges between 2 to 5 years
• You will also need personnel to coordinate and manage the team of developers and track the progress of the entire project

2. SaaS Software

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), as the name suggests refers to readymade software that are hosted on the software providers’ own servers and provided as a monthly recurring service. 

SaaS software are also not recommended to create a full-fledged marketplace because of their limited scalability. 

• Due to their never-ending recurring costs, SaaS solutions are very costly in the long run. To get access to their complete features, you will also need to upgrade to their premium package
• SaaS software come with limited scalability options. In order to increase the number of listings, transactions and users, you are again required to pay more
• The majority of SaaS software available in the market either support rental operations or multi-vendor operations but not both

3. Self-Hosted Software

Self-hosted software are also readymade solutions with dedicated features to support rental operations. They are tried and tested for multiple business use cases and because of their vast support and long-term affordability, can be used to develop your Airbnb for car rental.

Some reasons to select self-hosted solutions are:

• Self-hosted solutions are available at one-time costs and unlike SaaS solutions, have no recurrent pricing
• There are no restrictions on the number of listings, transactions and user profiles
• You get access to all features of the software right from the beginning
• Highly cost-effective in the long term
• Provide you complete flexibility to select your own hosting server

Step 3: Deploy and Market

Self-hosted and other readymade software can be quickly deployed on your hosting server. Once deployed, do some primary configurations such as setting the marketplace logo, social media handles, contact us page, about us page, homepage banners, footer section, and more. You can also change the theme color and font and make sure that the entire marketplace is ready to onboard car owners. 

After full system-wide configuration, promote your Airbnb for cars for both car owners and customers. To onboard car owners, you can provide them with various incentives. Take a look at this blog to get some idea about the marketing strategies you can implement to attract and onboard car owners. 

For lead generation purposes, initially, you will need to simultaneously invest in paid campaigning and organic marketing. After developing a strong SEO base, you can decrease the expenditure on paid campaigns and rely on word of mouth, social proofing, and SEO rankings. Likewise, you will also need to come up with a markdown strategy to gain traction in the market.

Recommended Car Rental Software- YoRent

Yo!Rent car rental software is meticulously developed after taking into account the minute requirements of car rental businesses. Being a multi-vendor software, it is the industry’s finest marketplace solution for P2P car rental operations. In-built with all essential tools and features that can help you facilitate, manage, and grow your car rental business, Yo!Rent simplifies P2P operations like no other software. Furthermore, due to its unlimited listings, transactions, and user profiles, you can scale and grow your business as much as you want. 

Some reasons to select YoRent are:

• Comes with all the essential features for car rental operations
• Rental industry’s leading marketplace solution
• Pre-integrated with 25+ payment gateways
• Comes with a lifetime license at a one-time cost
• Fully scalable and customizable
• One year of free technical support
• Highly cost-effective in the long term

Conclusion

The primary areas of attention in launching a P2P car rental startup are selecting the right software technology and timely onboarding of users in lucrative business regions. As more people find out about the benefits of renting out cars from peers, you can expect the entire P2P car rental marketplace model to grow. Due to this and limited competition in numerous regions, it is the right time to capitalize on a P2P car rental marketplace business. Furthermore, because of their asset-light nature, running an Airbnb for car rentals is also highly cost-effective.

The post The Startup Guide to Build an Airbnb for Car Rental appeared first on FATbit Blog.

In contrast to European countries, saunas are considered a luxury amenity in North American countries. Due to this, the rental prices for saunas are very high, ranging between $100-$500 per day. Adding to the prosperity of the business idea, currently, there are no market giants present in the sauna rental market. This opens a wide opportunity for new entrants to enter the market and establish their name. 

For capitalizing on the industry, let’s take a look at types of saunas, top markets, business models, revenue models, and the software technology required to build your platform.

Table Of Contents

Types of Rental Saunas

Rental saunas can be classified on both mobility and the mechanism used for heating. Based on the market viability, you can select to invest in any of these saunas.

• Tent Saunas

Tent saunas are highly portable saunas that can be set up in both indoor and outdoor settings. They provide all the benefits of traditional saunas and mostly burn wood for heating purposes. Additionally, they are also highly cost-effective. The only downside to them is their small size and low durability. 

• Trailer Saunas

These are high-quality saunas built to last long. As the name suggests, they can be towed away to any outdoor location and are mostly used in public and private events. Due to their strong build, they can be heated up via both wood burning and electrical mechanisms. However, trailer saunas also require heavy maintenance for which the business owner may need to hire additional personnel.

• Electric Saunas

In comparison to traditional saunas that burn wood, electric saunas use electric stoves for heating purposes. They also provide precise temperature control and can be heated up very quickly without increasing the overall humidity. Just like trailer saunas, electric saunas are also strong and made to last long with high power efficiency. 

• Infrared Saunas 

These are mild heat saunas that instead of steam, use infrared lamps to provide heat to the body. Because of no hot temperatures, infrared saunas are very safe to use. They are highly preferred by audiences who cannot tolerate high temperatures but look forward to receiving the other benefits of saunas.

• Hot Tubs

Similar to saunas, the hot tub rental niche is also on the rise. Hot tubs provide a familiar experience to saunas and are used for recreational purposes. They are usually cheaper than saunas but require frequent cleaning and maintenance.

Top Countries Where Sauna Rental is a Normal

The spa and sauna industry is proliferating rapidly with a CAGR of 7.43% in the projection period 2024-2029 and is expected to reach a market share of $194.5 billion. With increasing preference for rentals, we can expect the sauna rental market to become one of the primary contributors to the industry. 

As per our reports, the following regions and their neighboring countries are the top markets to start your sauna rental business. 

• Finland
• Norway
• Sweden
• Denmark
• Iceland 
• USA
• Japan
• Canada
• Russia 
• Turkey

How the Sauna Rental Business Model Works?

There are two possible business models in the sauna rental industry. Both of them vary based on vendors and required investment.

• The P2P Sauna Rental Business Model

Under this business model, various sauna owners sign up on the P2P marketplace and list their saunas. When customers rent those saunas, the marketplace owner gets to keep a commission as their earnings. A key benefit of this business model is that it is highly asset-light, you only need to provide and manage the rental marketplace. A private fleet is not required.

Workflow of the P2P sauna rental business model:

• Sauna owners sign up on the marketplace and list their saunas
• Customers browse those saunas and enter their preferred rental dates 
• To place an order, customers submit a rental security amount along with the rental fee
• The stored rental fee and security amount are stored in the sauna owner’s eWallet
• The sauna owner fulfills the order as per the selected fulfillment method
• On return, the sauna owner inspects the sauna for any unexpected damages and reports them to the marketplace owner
• The marketplace owner reimburses the damages and returns the rental security amount to the customers.

• Single Vendor Sauna Rental Store

In contrast to the P2P model, in the single-vendor sauna rental model, there’s only one vendor, which is also the store owner. This business model is highly suitable for those entrepreneurs who want to start their own sauna services, or are already in the industry and want to make the digital leap. A key benefit is that the store owner gets to keep the entire rental fee.

Workflow of a single vendor sauna rental store:

• The store owner uploads detailed sauna listings on the platform
• Customers browse those listings and enter their preferred rental dates 
• To place an order, customers submit a rental security amount along with the rental fee
• The store owner fulfills the order via the selected order fulfillment method
• On return, the store owner inspects the sauna for any damages and reimburses the same from the rental security
• The remaining rental security is returned to the customer

How to Generate Revenue on an Online Sauna Rental Marketplace

Being online comes with the advantages of utilizing multiple revenue generation streams for your business. These streams vary as per the business model, market trends, and business preferences. On an online sauna rental marketplace, you can consider using the following revenue generation streams:

• Rental fees: When renting out your own saunas (or in a single vendor sauna rental model), you can keep the entire rental fee as your earnings.
• Rental commission: On a sauna rental marketplace model, where different vendors rent out their saunas, you can keep a portion of their earnings as your marketplace commission.
• Featured Listings: In the marketplace business model, you can also charge small fees from top-performing vendors to display their listings in the featured collections of your website.
• Subscription packages: You can provide subscription-based sauna services on your rental marketplace. These work similarly to gym subscriptions. Customers can buy a sauna subscription for a month and use saunas as per the inclusions of their subscription. Likewise, the subscription model can be used for renting out saunas to event managers and concierge managers for months.
• Rental add-ons: In countries where saunas are a cultural tradition, consumers also like to rent out add-ons such as chairs, tents, barbecues, cold tubs, etc.
• Display ads: You can charge other businesses to display their ads on your website.
• Gift cards: Saunas are very popular in various regions. In those regions, you can sell gift cards to help customers provide quality relaxation time to their loved ones.

Top Features Required on a Sauna Rental Marketplace

Considering the massive business opportunity in launching a sauna rental marketplace along with the comprehensive workflows of the multi-vendor model, it has become important to ensure that your marketplace has all the essential features. Below, we have briefed some must-have features for your sauna rental platform. For more guidance, you can consult our business analysts who recommend you readymade solutions or help you find out the complete scope of work in your sauna rental project.

• Map View Filter

In terms of providing a superior user experience, GPS-enabled search results or a map view filter do a better job. They display nearby saunas to customers, which are in their close vicinity or can be delivered or picked up in a very short time frame. The map view filter also helps build the authenticity of your platform.

• Tiered Pricing Module

Different customer segments rent out saunas for different durations. For example, where tourists and residents may rent saunas for a few days, event managers can require them for a few weeks to months. Thus, to cater to the rental requirements of all customer segments, a tiered pricing module can help you set daily, weekly, and monthly rental fees for saunas.

• Rental Booking Calendar

Rental operations are a bit complex than sales operations. This is because their workflows and algorithms are different. In rental operations, you require a rental booking calendar that can display available dates to customers and accept rental date inputs. These rental date inputs from the booking calendar are then used to do invoicing for the rental orders, which is also inclusive of any rental add-ons and security deposits.

• Rental Add-ons

Rental add-ons are the complementary products and services that are often required along with saunas. As briefly described in the revenue generation section, these can be chairs, tables, barbeques, music systems, and even bath towels and cleaning supplies. In the case of wood-burning saunas, extra wood for heating the sauna is often required. Having add-ons on your sauna rental marketplace can immensely assist you with upselling and cross-selling.

• Document Verification

As a standard practice, it is safer to verify customer documents before renting them out saunas. These documents can either be identity proofs, address proofs, business ID cards, etc. For document verification purposes, your marketplace can simply ask customers to upload their documents at checkout. While processing the order, you can verify those documents.

• Rental Agreement Management

On a sauna rental marketplace, every vendor can have different terms and conditions for renting out their saunas. For example, some of those conditions can be no jewelry, electronics, or inflammable objects inside, or they can also mention the minimum required age for renting. Thus, to sanction these terms and conditions, your sauna rental marketplace requires rental agreement management and eSign features.

• Late Cancellations Management

Late cancellations can be detrimental to your business in many ways. They lead to losses in terms of order processing costs (be it cleaning costs, labor costs, and delivery costs) and also reserve your inventory unnecessarily to impact your order fulfillment rate, which incurs additional lost opportunity costs. Thus, to encourage timely returns and evade the aforementioned problems, it is better to have a late cancellations management module.

• Order Management

Order management is one of the most essential modules in any eCommerce business. On your rental website, the order management module should keep you updated on all orders and send real-time notifications. Additionally, it should also provide you access to various order details such as customer name, payment details, etc., and with certain options including order cancellation. 

• Vendor Management

On a multi-vendor sauna rental marketplace, vendor management features are required to perform administrative actions on vendor profiles. For adequate management, your marketplace should have features to verify vendor profiles, manually approve listings, and set minimum withdrawal thresholds and withdrawal interval periods. Lastly, the marketplace should also provide you with access to vendor performance and other related details. 

• Rental Maintenance Period

After every rental order, your sauna may require inspection and maintenance. During this period, it cannot be added back to the inventory for renting. Thus, the rental maintenance period is required to sync under-maintenance saunas with the online inventory. You can pre-define the maintenance period on your system and it will sync the inventory accordingly. 

• Discounts and Promotions

To accelerate business growth, you will need to deploy various discounts and promotion campaigns as well. The discount features can include percentage and fixed-price markdowns or duration-based discounts. Similarly, promotional features such as SEO optimization and homepage banners will help you attract new customers as well. 

• Reports and Analytics

Analytical features are essential for all eCommerce platforms. They help you make data-driven decisions to turbocharge growth and overcome challenges. On your sauna rental platform, you should have proper analytical features to provide you with accurate insights on revenue generation, most rented saunas, most purchased add-ons, top paying customers, and more.

Creating your Sauna Rental Platform with Readymade Solutions

Although a sauna rental marketplace can be developed with multiple approaches, including both custom development and readymade software, using a readymade software remains the safest. This is because of three primary reasons, which are:

1. Readymade solutions are tried and tested
2. They are highly cost-effective
3. Reduce the overall Time-to-Market

Thus, instead of paying hourly development charges for a software, it is wiser to opt for the readymade solutions on which the existing rental industry relies. There are basically two types of readymade rental solutions:

• SaaS Rental Software

SaaS rental software refer to the solutions that are hosted on the software provider’s own servers and provided as a monthly service. Thus, the name Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). SaaS solutions are primarily useful for small businesses and solopreneurs who want to validate their market ideas. Key benefits of using a SaaS rental software are:

• These are tried and tested solutions
• Are very easy to set up

However, while selecting SaaS, it must be taken into account that the software provider gets complete control over the hosting server. For this reason, there can be some restrictions on the number of listings and transactions on your platform. To overcome those restrictions, you will need to frequently upgrade your package, which may result in a monthly increase in costs.

• Self-Hosted Rental Software

A solution to the SaaS recurring costs and scalability problem is self-hosted rental software. These types of rental software provide complete freedom to business owners in selecting the hosting server, which can either be a third-party hosting service provider or an on-premise server. The top benefits of using a self-hosted rental software are:

• One-time costs for a lifetime license
• As these are hosted on your choice of servers, there are no limitations on the number of  listings and transactions
• Self-hosted solutions are highly cost-effective in the long run. Any changes in the price of the software do not affect existing customers.

Moreover, as self-hosted software come with a lifetime usage license, founders can easily migrate to any other software without worrying about any reinvestment costs.

Conclusion

With rental saunas emerging as a leisure trend in the North American market and their cultural significance in various other parts of the world, investing in a sauna rental marketplace can be a profitable business decision. However, to streamline operations, you need a readymade solution with advanced features and intuitive workflows. This is where YoRent rental software helps. Being a highly reliable and fully scalable rental software with advanced rent-centric features, YoRent supports all sauna rental use cases right out of the box. For a personalized one-or-one demo or software consultation, feel free to get in touch with YoRent experts.

The post How to Build a Sauna Rental Website With Readymade Rental Software appeared first on FATbit Blog.

In a poll conducted by Verra Mobility Corporation in 2023 on US consumers, it was found that rental is the most preferred method of early adoption of electric vehicles. Out of 2000 participants, 78% considered renting EVs over buying to experience the technology. EV rental is further backed by positive growth statistics that show a growth of USD 7.4 billion in the period 2023-2027, marking a splendid CAGR of 15%.

Furthermore, with COP28, an annual UN meet on economic crises signaling the “beginning of the end“ of the fossil fuel era, the dependency on EVs is only expected to grow. All these factors highlight a lucrative opportunity for launching an EV rental store. To assist founders in finding the best business model for their EV rental business and the most effective approach to launch their EV rental stores, we have drafted a detailed roadmap below.

Table of contents

The post The Most Detailed Guide to Launch an EV Rental Store appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Jake Burton Carpenter was a US citizen, born in Vermont, who enjoyed snowboarding in the sport’s early years; the ’60s period. Back then, we used to have different snowboard designs, called ‘snurfer’ boards, made by connecting two skis together. Jake was not only passionate about snurfing but also shaped it.  In 1977, he came up with a snurf board design that had bindings to secure feet. This design became widely popular as what we know today as snowboards, and Jake got global recognition as the inventor of modern snowboards.

In the same year, Jake launched his company, Burton Snowboards, which witnessed tremendous growth in the following years. Jake demonstrated his designs in various National Championships and expanded business operations to Europe, raising global awareness for the sport. In the 21st century, Burton Snowboards is still a leading player in the snowboard rental industry, generating an estimated $400 million in revenue per year.

One of the primary reasons behind Burton’s popularity is their unique value proposition. Snowboarding enthusiasts can simply rent or shop for snowboards and related equipment, and get them delivered to their doorsteps. Having a wide range of products for men, women, and kids, Burton’s primary target audience is entire families, tourists, and snowboard enthusiasts.

There are numerous other winter sports rental platforms like Burton operating in the market. Their primary products include rental skis, snowboards, and protective gear. Let’s understand everything you require to start your own online ski and snowboard rental business.

Table of contents

The post Boost your Ski & Snowboard Rental Business with a Rental Booking Website appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Stating some facts and figures, there are billion-dollar construction projects already in progress in regions such as the US, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India and Russia. Countless smaller residential, renovation and infrastructure development projects are also inflating the market size for equipment rentals. Specifically, in 2022, the market size was a whopping $193.10 billion and is expected to reach $275 billion in the next eight years.

The aforementioned insights are indicative of the lucrative business opportunity in building an equipment rental store like United Rentals and Sunbelt Rentals. While it may require considerable time and effort to reach the success level of these leading players, but, with technological advancements, you can get similar software technology as theirs and deliver the best value proposition. This blog will introduce you to the best solution, allowing you to thoroughly explore and test it for each aspect before making a decision.

Table of contents

The post Best Equipment Rental Software to Build Rental Website in 2025 appeared first on FATbit Blog.

The environmental sustainability, therapeutic benefits and aesthetic look that plants add to any property are the primary reasons behind the never faltering demand in the industry. However, not many people have the resources required for full-fledged plantscaping. At many places, such as rental properties and events, plants are also required for only a short-term basis. Thus, a more relevant solution to meet the market demand more accurately is to launch a plant rental marketplace.

While many incumbents already exist in the plant rental industry, only a few of them have taken the digital route to market, leaving a clear scope of advantage in the online sector of the industry. To help you capitalize on the opportunity, we have introduced several insights on market dynamics and also the key considerations to help you launch your own plant rental marketplace.

Table of contents

The post Build an Online Plant Rental Marketplace: Business Scope, Target Market and Use Cases appeared first on FATbit Blog.

In this article, we have shed light on what is no code development and made a fair comparison between no code and traditional software development to help you find the better option.

Furthermore, we have listed the types of no code software you can select to build an online rental marketplace.

Table of Contents

• What is No Code Software Development?
• What Makes No Code Software Development Highly Relevant?
  – Time Saving
  – User-Friendly
  – Cost-Effective
  – Easily Accessible
  – Business Specific
• Selecting a No Code Software
  – Types of No Code Solutions
  – Features to Look for in a No Code Rental Marketplace
• How YoRent Helps?
• Conclusion

What is No Code Software Development?

The no code software development approach refers to the development method that requires minimum to no programming skills, for example, building the software using form field options or a drag and drop builder. It is perfect for those entrepreneurs who have a clear understanding of their requirements, business workflows and payment methods but lack the necessary programming skills to develop a full-fledged source code.

No code development approach works in a simple manner and adheres to the concepts of abstraction and encapsulation in OOPs to ensure rapid delivery. While the concept of abstraction conceals the incomprehensible and irrelevant processes from the entrepreneur, encapsulation refers to the concept of binding important data blocks together so that a single input from a GUI (Graphical User Interface) is enough to update the source code.

What Makes No Code Software Development Highly Relevant in 2025?

With advancements in technology, adapting to the latest technology makes businesses highly agile. For rental businesses, using the no code software development is more logical because of various reasons:

1. Time Saving

In a recent 2022 business building survey, McKinsey found out that 74% of customers want product availability to be shown online. Meeting this expectation requires rental businesses to have an online rental store and no code development is the fastest way to do so. It significantly reduces the Time-to-Market (TTM) by providing a tried and tested source code that requires no to minimum changes. Moreover, documentation and support is readily available for onboarding.

2. User-Friendly

A no code software is developed with a user-centered approach to ensure ease of deployment and match the expectations of modern day users. It is basically a prototype with next level UI/UX capabilities that requires basic inputs and administrative settings for quick deployment. As a no code software is developed incrementally after taking early adopter feedback, its GUI is more intuitive and user-friendly for smooth interactions.

3. Cost-Effective

The traditional route to software development is inclusive of extensive planning, consulting, and hourly development rates. All of them are heavily cost-inclusive and vary on multiple things. In contrast, no code development does not require programming expertise or resources, It is a tried and tested solution which eliminates factors like hourly development rates, in-depth business analysis and testing. This makes no code development highly cost effective.

4. Easily Accessible

No code development solves the problem of knowledge gap and accessibility. Both technical and non-technical users can develop software with no code development and give shape to their different business perspectives. Some no code solutions allow full customization, which is either managed by API integration or low code programming, all while keeping the integrity of the no code development approach.

5. Business Specific

No code software is expertly developed after conducting a thorough research of the targeted industry and resolves numerous consumer pain points. Due to this, a no code solution is very business specific. Today, entrepreneurs can find no code solutions for their rental marketplace startup, cab booking starting, food delivery startup and more. Thus, opting for no code development in the rental industry is more practical than selecting the traditional development approach where you will be first required to analyze the market and do logic designing.

To sum up the difference that no code development makes in one go, have a look at the comparison table below:

Selecting a No Code Software for Developing an Online Rental Marketplace

While there are some dominant no code development options for sales operations, such an option is currently missing in the rental industry. However, there do exist no code solutions that are very capable and feature-extensive to support and streamline end-to-end rental operations. You can take assistance from the following points to select the right solution.

1. Types of No Code Solutions

There are two types of no code rental solutions available in the market today:

Self-Hosted Solutions:

Self-hosted solutions give flexibility to the entrepreneur to select a fast or more secure hosting server. He can also host the software on an on-premise server. The key advantage of using a self-hosted solutions is that it gives the entrepreneur complete control over the software. As the rental software is installed on the entrepreneur’s own choice of server, there are no monthly recurring costs.

SaaS (Software as a Service) Solutions:

Rental SaaS solutions are installed on the software provider’s very own servers and available as a monthly subscription to entrepreneurs. This means that neither do they get full control over the solution nor the choice of selecting a more secure server. Moreover, the storage capacity available is also dependent on the selected monthly plan. However, the entrepreneur can upgrade his plan anytime and benefit from multiple broken down monthly charges.

Self-Hosted vs SaaS: Which No Code Solution is right for you? 

If you want more security against cyber crimes or want a fully-enabled solution, then self-hosted solutions are right for you. On the other hand, if you are a solopreneur or targeting small markets, opt for SaaS solutions. Do note that while SaaS solutions look more affordable at first, they are more expensive in the long run and require one to upgrade to the top package in order to access full functionalities.

2. Features to Look for in a No Code Rental Marketplace Solution

What makes rental software solutions different from sales based solutions is their features and functionality. Due to an entirely different business model, sales based no code solutions cannot support rental operations.

For example, just to accept rental orders, your marketplace needs to have an option to accept rental date inputs. Placing the ‘add to cart’ button alone in this case won’t work. Likewise, your solution needs to have options to manage rental security and verify documents. The majority of sales based no code solutions lack these features.

Along with the aforementioned features, there are various other important rental features that you should consider to select a no code rental marketplace solution. We have made a list of all necessary features below:

• Booking Calendar: A feature to accept rental date inputs. It also assists in preventing double booking, showing product availability and invoicing.
• Rental Security Management: The option to collect rental security and use it for reimbursing damaged equipment.
• Document Verification: The document verification option on a no code rental marketplace is important to collect and verify identity proofs, address proofs and any other statutory documents.
• Product Inspection: An option to inspect rented equipment and report any damages or issues to the marketplace admin.
• Maintenance Buffer: A buffer period between two rental duration for the maintenance and surveying of returned equipment.
• Late Cancellations Management: An option to manage late cancellations by defining tiered cancellation periods and penalties. Late cancellation penalties can also be deducted from the rental security. 
• Overdue Returns Management: An option to define tiered late returns period and levy respective penalty charges from the rental security.
• Rental Add-ons: Rental add-ons option in a no code rental software will allow the entrepreneur to sell complimentary add-on services and products. They also act as an additional revenue stream.
• RFQ Management: Some rental options can be very complex, including different rental duration for various products. To support such orders, an RFQ management option is required.
• Discounts Management: On an online rental marketplace, business owners can provide various types of discounts such as flat rate discounts, percentage discounts, bulk volume discounts and rental duration discounts.
• Separate Seller Registration Form: Apart from custom sign up, a rental marketplace should have a separate  vendor registration form.
• Minimum Withdrawal Interval: The option to select a minimum interval period for vendors to withdraw balance from their ewallet.
• Minimum Withdrawal Limit: There should also be a minimum threshold limit on a rental marketplace that the vendors should reach before being able to withdraw their balance.

How YoRent Helps in Creating No Code Marketplace?

YoRent is a next-gen rental marketplace software that automates the daily operations of a rental business. From taking orders to managing inventory, returns, vendors, payments and marketing, Yo!Rent is highly capable of dealing with your numerous rental business use cases. Furthermore, being a self-hosted solution, Yo!Rent is available at a flat rate pricing which makes it highly suitable for growing businesses. Some other benefits of Yo!Rent are:

• It is a fully scalable no code solution. With its unlimited listings, user profiles and transactions, Yo!Rent can support your rental marketplace operations at all stages of growth.
• Yo!Rent is built with an industry specific approach. After analyzing and encompassing all popular rental niches, Yo!Rent has been divided into four primary industry specific solutions, which are multi-niche rental software, equipment rental software, fashion rental software and automobile software. These primary solutions can be used to launch a rental business in all types of rental niches like car rental, truck rental, furniture rental, AV equipment rental and more.
• For targeting diverse audiences, YoRent comes with multi-lingual and multi-currency support. Both can be used to target non-native English speaking audiences.
• At one-flat fee, business owners also get a lifetime usage license and 1 year of free technical support including training, documentation and bug fixes.
• Along with the rental model, Yo!Rent has full functionality to support sales operations as well. Meaning, it gives business owners the flexibility to lend and sell products on a single marketplace.
• Yo!Rent comes with 20+ pre-integrated payment gateways that simplify payment solutions for both the business owner and customers.

Click below to see All Features of YoRent.

Conclusion

No code software development methods have helped thousands of businesses in materializing their online business ideas. Even in the rental industry, no code solutions are powering highly advanced rental stores. Major reasons behind the popularity of no code solutions are their increased accessibility and cost effectiveness that even allows non-technical business owners to create highly-functional online stores. If you begin with the no code software development method today, you can create and launch your online rental marketplace in less than a month.

The post Create A No Code Marketplace for Online Rental Business appeared first on FATbit Blog.