rapido started this topic @ 23:22 on 24/07/2007
Hi Folks,
I am looking to set up a car rental business and need the appropriate e-commerce package to get me started. Most of the off the shelf packages are geared towards stock selling, wheras I need something geared towards daily, weekly, monthly rentals. And since my pool of cars is limited it needs to be able to track the rentals from a central database and show availability.
Does any one know of such a solution?
Many thanks in advance,
Karl
RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
adman | 25/07/2007 10:02 AM
Not come across any.. think this may be a custom job though. Hang in there as a couple of the guys on here do stuff. Or try the ukbusiness forums - www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk. Post in e-commerce there.
Adam
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Adam
onestopdigital
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www.onestopdigital.com
www.onestopprinting.co.uk
RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
awebapart | 25/07/2007 10:36 AM
Hi Karl
The availability of specialist off-the-shelf packages is usually dependent upon the demand. For instance there are plenty of off-the-shelf systems for estate agents because there are plenty of estate agents. I'm not so sure about your particular business, this stikes me as much more specialist with less chance of having a good choice, if any, of solutions.
Even though there are off the shelf estate agent systems, you will still find some estate agents using standard websites to just present information only. This shows that cheaper generic solutions can still be made applicable to specialist areas if compromises and work arounds are made. The nearest popular business to car rentals is holiday villa rentals, and this is much more widespread with people having second homes abroad which they wish to let. A lot of these people just make use of standard websites which they can update themselves on a regular basis to show availability. Who knows, there might be specialist holiday let software which you could make use of for car rentals.
You might be able to find specialist software for your needs, e.g. I did a quick google and found www.imscart.com/car_rental_software.html but I couldn't find any availability information in the demo. Sometimes suppliers will have generic software that they say can be used for specialist areas, but it may still lack some specialist features, even though they charge you a specialist premium. We have a generic sitebuilder solution which can be used for many different applications, information websites, online shops, directories, galleries, car websites, letting websites, etc but we do not have a time-based product availability feature for rentals, so it would be up to the site owner to work around this, but then again we do not say that we have specialist software nor do we charge a specialist premium for our service.
You may also find systems that might be overkill and over-expensive for small business, with features like pickup and dropoff ponits aimed at rental chains.
If you cannot find an appropriate specialist system you can work around, and you cannot work around a generic system, then you will have to go for a bespoke custom made solution, and there are plenty of suppliers, some on this forum, who could help you with that.
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Paul - www.awebapart.com - 'a web apart'
create, update your website today - the online professional site builder
RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
rapido | 25/07/2007 01:55 PM
Thanks alot for your help.. this is truly a great forum, entrepreneurs helping one another instead of competing against each other ;-)
I have looked at quite a few companies who deal in this but they seem to only offer rental type software aimed at fleet and customer data management, rather than database driven e-commerce. Anyway I guess at this stage in my business planning, perhaps I can make do with a generic e-commerce website which I can manually update if and when particular vehicles are hired out. So in that regard I only need to ask customers the "type of car", "start date of hire" and "length of hire". I guess what I'm looking for would be similar to a holiday or villa type site.
Cheers
RE: RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
tmrp6 | 05/08/2007 10:02 AM
Hi - I am in the same boat and am currently looking at two options:
Have a look at the following, my web designer say these will both be fine as back-end systems.
http://www.imscart.com/car_rental_software.html
&
http://www.tripoint.co.uk/
Now I have a question for you ...... where is the best place for inurance cover for a new business. I am looking at AON at present but they seem slow to respond.
Good luck !
RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
exoticarhire | 28/05/2008 09:36 PM
hi guys how is the car rental business going,i need some help in fleet management,can you help.
RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
Webformatique | 14/06/2008 05:34 PM
Hi guys,
I know a good back-end and front end fleet manager system, PM if you need the details.
Dont want to be accussed of spamming on my first post
RE: e-commerce solution for car rental business
Hot Ice Inc | 19/06/2008 05:34 PM
hi
I would happy to help if you are looking for a bespoke system developed to exactly what you want and need for your business.
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Hot Ice Inc. - Web | Design | Print | Branding - http://www.hoticeinc.co.uk/