Establishing a rental car business is a lucrative approach. The fleet of vehicles running on your brand name is itself an ample source of branding & marketing to achieve higher customer targets. The rental business can easily be seen as a profitable venture both in the short & long term periods. However, did you do any homework for surviving the fierce market competition out there? There are already a lot of renal companies providing exemplary services. The question you should ask yourself here; are you offering something that is not being provided earlier?
There are plenty of factors that need good prior work before setting your foot in the rental business. These include your current and expected competitors, your targeted customers, and your edge on the market and long-term targets.
We are providing all the essential steps to start a car hire London business here:
A Good Market Research & Assessments
Any business model without good market research is futile. Market research is essential to fabricate the business structure. You would need to know all about the understanding of market competition in the locality and how the like business models are flourishing in the market. After good research & homework, you will be able to find out the clear targeted solution to market requirements. You will be capable to decide on which principles your business would operate and what services you will offer that predecessors have failed to deliver so far.
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Finding & Describing your Objectives:
Renting is generally a short-term commitment for lending vehicles to clients on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. Rented vehicles are usually acquired for short business tours, holiday trips, or family functions.
However, you shall determine your objectives here:
- Who are your targeted clients?
- What is the purpose of providing a vehicle?
- What type of vehicle fleet would be required for your business?
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Ideas Bucket for Selecting the Rental Services
Transportation Services
Renting vehicles for transportation services is business on mega scales. Providing luxury buses for local transport within the city or moving industries equipment or construction materials from one city to another. You may also be providing airport cab services.
Entertainment services
Providing luxury vehicles for wedding ceremonies, corporate tours, and holiday trips. Your ideal location in this case would be at tourist destinations where the tourists can easily find your vehicles. You can also think of providing the premium vehicles only to the corporate sector like models or brands.
Functions & Events services
You can choose to cover event occasions only which can be for weddings, political occasions, or corporate gatherings.
Corporate Sector Services
You can specify your rental business to corporate only. Providing your vehicles for business work tours or corporate holiday trips within city or out of cities. You
General Services
Providing cars for general people who want to use rental cars for attending family events outside of the city instead of buying their own vehicle.
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Which Business Model Should I Choose?
Sole Proprietorship Model
Widely recognized as one of the easiest and most cost-efficient options when it comes to setting up a car leasing or car rental entity, this option allows you to create a business without the need for legal representation.
At the very start of your business, you may not have the complete paperwork. This business model runs without any requirement of legal formalities. It’s the most easiest and economical business structure.
Although, a sole proprietorship is well acknowledged but has only a single drawback. The investors would be reluctant to invest in this model as you are the only responsible person for profit & loss.
Partnership Model
The model is quite similar to that of a sole proprietorship with a dimension of more flexibility in terms of funding. This business model allows partners to contribute to the funding of your rental business.
Limited Company Model
A limited company is a separate and distinct legal entity, which will allow you to trade, open a bank account and obtain a tax identification number – all under your business name.
It is the most mature business model. A limited company is a complete legal body that allows a full range of trading, opening a bank account on the company’s name and the company’s own tax identification number.
You are liable for all of the companies’ debts and profits registered under your ownership.
Naming Your Rental Business
Your business name is your first impression. It is an important marketing symbol & a voice of your services. Since the vehicle industry is turning quite luxurious and highly competitive, you would have to make your every impression count here
Choose a brand name that interests the whole of your targeted customers for both current & future perspectives. An important factor would be to check the domain availability for your brand first. The next step would be to check if there are no registered companies at Companies House. The brand name shall be the same as that of on domain and unique to get registered at Companies House.
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Registering your Rental Business
After you are done with all the brainstorming on finalizing domain and brand names for your rental company, the final step is to legally register the name in Companies House.
- Search your brand name in Companies House to check if someone has not already used it.
- Provide complete company address. If you don’t have an office location yet, you can use your home address here.
- Nominate your company director(s) at the portal.
- Provide your company share structure in case of partnership.
- Finally hit register and get your company registered at Companies House.
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Taking Care of Legal regulations
Renting businesses are required to comply with safe drive requirements regulated by relevant authorities. Although, providing safe driving is more related to manufacturing but you may also be held responsible for not providing the appropriate safe rental cars. You can ensure the safety of your vehicles by taking the precautionary steps below:
- Ensure that every vehicle of your fleet is completely safe for customers and without any serious damage. It should be exactly as described in the vehicle’s description. The exception is only the case in which the customers are aware of the issue and agree to use it anyway.
- You should be well aware of customer rights. They can demand a refund, a partial refund, or replacement if they found the vehicle unsatisfactory or unfit and is not as per the description of the vehicle.
- Your rental agreement shall be completely fair with no hidden charges. You must not draft such a rental agreement which puts you in ample power over your customers. You should not be writing any charges in small print to avoid the clear observation of the customer.
Getting Rental Insurance
You will need to look for reliable car hire insurances specifically designed for your rental business. You shall be well aware of the kind of insurances and their favorability in the long run. For example. A self-drive insurance plan is suited for rental businesses whose customers drive their cars themselves. This would not be applicable to a car along with a driver from the company.
Moreover, you also need to get your customer insured for driving the rental car before handing over the keys. It would save you a lot of expense in case of car damage. In the case of insurance, the third party & driver shall pay for insurance & excess costs and you don’t have to put up your payment on repairing the vehicle.
What’s left? Create & Boost Your Online Presence
Without an active online presence, a business would hardly make its voice count at all the forums. So, make your brand presence online through these techniques:
- Create an eye-catching website of your rental company
- Launch marketing campaigns on social media forums
- Write a good informative blog related to your services.
- Don’t forget SEO. Implement the best SEO practice to ensure people can find you on search engines.
- To boost up a maximum online presence, deploy targeted advertisements to reach out to customers.
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