How GetRentacar.com Reinvented Car Rentals and it is Local Car Owners time
Alexander Pershikov, the founder of GetRentacar.com, discusses how the marketplace for renting cars from local owners was launched, and why it is currently innovating the market of rental cars and leasing companies. Pershikov explains the current situation in the car rental market, talks about new trends such as tenders and where car subscription models will lead us in the near future.
How did it turn around that you started to provide rent a car services?
It was during the middle of the COVID pandemic. We decided to structure our current business as a net profit positive company and live without investments and suddenly I got time previously dedicated to fundraising. We were in Cyprus thinking about renting a car when my partner and I faced the real problem of renting a car in Cyprus. It turned out to be a very tough experience, tons of calls, whatsapp messages with different photos. So then we decided to automatise all this. We started thinking about how to launch a ‘rent a car’ marketplace in Cyprus. And we did it. Today, you don’t need to make these car calls and whatsapp messages and ask for discounts – just push button and the rest is automated and more great features are coming soon! And we cover 100 countries as of today.
What do you think about the car market in general?
Half of car usage time in major cities is not utilized, this is what i think in general – very inefficient allocation of resources. There is a huge potential to increase economies and make use of hidden resources, we just need to unlock them. Cars stay idle at parking slots and create cost and amortization to owners. Does it make sense? Not at all!
Why should people prefer to use rented cars or subscriptions rather than buy their own?
Today more and more reasons affect consumer demand. The recently started economic crisis is one of them – vehicles and their maintenance are becoming more and more expensive, sometimes unaffordable. Another important growing reason is social responsibility – people refuse more and more to use traditional cars in favor of eco-friendly ways of transportation and ownership.
Transport has become an important part of our modern world and life of every single person on earth and maybe even on other planets, when Elon Musk possibly will make us a multiplanetary species.
But we can definitely reinvent ways of using it now. We just have to do it, the time has come! People around the world use transport every day to get to their homes or work, to go grocery shopping or simply to travel. This pattern created initial demand for cars to build more and more cars without even thinking about the quantity of them. What do we have now? Do we really need a fleet of 1,000,000,000 cars deployed on earth? Shall we increase usage efficiency of it?
Yes! And GetRentacar is a service that helps people find cars for their needs anywhere in the world. It actually turns the car rental business model the other way around. Before you would search for rental cars and try to compare prices without having the opportunity to ask for a discount – all prices are listed, take it or leave it, just find better from listed prices by comparing. Now, with GetRentacar.com it is car rentals who will chase you by giving you not only a good price from a listing but giving you a personal discount at the same time. So every time you make a request with GetRentacar you will get something very, very special from owners. We’ve developed a global service that innovates the traditional renting industry and gives clients to local rental agencies.
But it is more than that now – in may 2022 we will start the first new& used cars, tender based, subscription marketplace on earth. Have you ever heard of subscribing to someone else’s car? Not yet right? You have never seen such good prices before to rent a car, I guess many people will just stop buying new cars now. It is 1B of cars deployed everywhere, the time to make use of these resources. We’ve combined our business vision and technologies we have and become the first to introduce the tender-based marketplace for subscription for new & used cars. Most of our fleet is up to 4 years old and we operate almost 40 000 vehicles. So you can find anything you like at the best prices possible.
Come and check our prices when thinking about your next car.
The unique problem our subscription platform solves – I can subscribe for a new car from a brand, how do I subscribe for a little used car at half the price?
New generations will not be bound by owning houses or cars. You can travel anywhere and rent a flat from AirBnB and get a car from Rentacar.com. No limitation by assets. Even those who like to have cars today use rental services for weekends or holidays or then they want to try something new, but with us you don’t need to have a car, you can simply create a tender for a subscription and get a best deal in your area. No need to worry about insurance and repairs; it is all locked into car subscription payments. We reinvented regular car ownership and made it much more affordable and eco-friendly. Just imagine how daily life changes: clients save money and time using our service and they don’t have any headache about buying a car, paying taxes or maintenance. Everyone is better off.
From the very beginning of the service’s launch, we thought about the ideal model for efficient ownership of cars, which could be useful for both the owner and the client. The result we came to is a tender based marketplace that reduces the overhead costs of car rentals and subscriptions. Simple way to select a car #Shorts No papers, eco-friendly and very, very good prices. We even have VIP accounts available today to manage requests in concierge form.
The system works very fluently to customers: client leaves a request and receives an individual offers that meets the requirements. It becomes clear that behind all this there are the algorithms of Machine Learning, which help the right client to meet the right car owner. Nowadays algorithms do the work very well. The client indicates all the necessary requirements for the car, the application finds proper owners in the desired region and desired inventory. Moreover, the system helps for competition between owners for clients, so you start getting hidden deals. Client is the most important for us at GetRentacar.com . If you go to a traditional rentacar counter you will feel that you are not important to them, to start with – they don’t even give you a discount, our discounts are up to 50%, by the way.
Due to our approach, our customers consider our service not just as a marketplace, but as an opportunity to get access to the cars they need or would like to try for a while in one click, we become a lifestyle partner. Our goal is to give our customers access to a personal and SME fleet that does not create problems of ownership, management and repair. Customers may wish to take different vehicles depending on their current needs. Business class cars, sports cars, family sedans or motorcycles – they can always find the best vehicle and change it. Just imagine – a personal fleet in a phone or laptop. It takes a few clicks and the car is already waiting in the parking lot. Traditional way – is you buy it and you are linked to this very car for years. For many years you are the slave of your decision.
For all the time of our work, we have tried different approaches to the organization of the service, improved the quality of work, upgraded the skills of our team, developed a mobile application and implemented a lot of features, completely changed our operational model. Today, the service is respected and popular among customers and owners all over the globe, because we clearly follow the philosophy of our business – client’s needs go first! We have made a lot of effort to make the client feel that the rented car is not just a car but the car he owns.
Moreover, we improve the industry of small car rental agencies. We go even deeper and help individual car owners start their rental business. With our support and our fleet management software tools we help small players, P2P and SMEs of the rental market to be able to compete with current international market giants at no cost for advertising and software development, we cover these costs. People prefer local owners because they are up to 50% cheaper, they pay more attention to the clients and keep inventory in better conditions, they appreciate every single customer.
To mention GetRentacar.com today became the biggest marketplace for moto, bikes and scooters. We hold an inventory of 7 000 bikes and it grows very fast! Renting and subscription to moto is also available for all moto inventory in all countries.
