Building a Taxi Booking App seems financially attractive, but with big players like Uber dominating the western markets, there are still plenty of opportunities for the young, aspiring entrepreneurs to make their own Taxi-booking app that can stand up to the likes of Uber, as the Asian markets are untapped.
There are plenty of companies that offer ready-made Taxi-booking apps that accelerate the process of putting your taxi business online; some claim to do so in 1-2 weeks. These ready-made apps also help to modernize old-school taxi businesses.
These companies offer customized app solutions based on popular apps, and they go so far as to have more features than the world-renowned apps that they’re based on. The next question will be if you want to build the app from scratch with unique features or buy a pre-built app from one of the aforementioned companies – this will depend on how much money and time you’re willing to commit.
In this blog, we will provide a definitive blueprint that will allow you to kick-start your own Taxi-booking company.
Preliminary Phase of Taxi App
Market Research & Analysis:
1. Identifying your target market –
This is essential as you don’t want to enter an overcrowded market like the U.S and other western markets, South-East Asian countries are largely untapped as they culturally differ from the West. These countries should be your primary target market. You should identify how the local competitors operate and identify the pain points in those markets.
2. Decide on your niche –
Thoroughly plan out what specific customer segment or service you want to focus on, or even if you plan to charge lower than the local competitors for the same experience or with more features. To stand out amongst the crowd, you must be able to offer a feature that others in the market don’t.
3. Define your business and revenue model –
This is also important as it will dictate how your company will fare financially and when it comes to its reputation. The Revenue model of the Taxi-app usually consists of Commission, Subscription Plans, Surge Charges, and Cancellation Charges.
You can leverage data analysis to find patterns in the behavior of the target audience, the frequency of their trips, the places they often visit, and the busiest hours. In-app ads are also one way to generate revenue.
As your business grows, your revenue model might change and will need timely modifications to sustain, as market trends will also change.
Core Features of The Taxi Booking App
User App –
The users of your Taxi-app will be using this version. This will contain the usual sign-up/sign-in details that require the user’s phone number, email ID, or social media accounts. After they’ve created an account, they will choose what type of vehicle they want to use, the pickup location, and finalize the payment method. Other features of the user app include real-time tracking, an S.O.S system, a feedback system, a history of their trips, a payment system, etc. Depending on your vision, you can have more features.
Driver App –
It is what your affiliated drivers will be using. It has similar features to the user app, like registration/login details, except they get rest time. Choose which vehicle they will be driving. Their app allows them to see potential customers near their location. Options to make contact with the user, get notified of their money collection. Some Taxi apps even allow the drivers to do back-to-back trips.
Admin Panel –
This is the administrator’s dashboard, where they can oversee the company’s functioning. They can see how many users and drivers are active, and also get to an overview of the revenue, payroll, and promotions management. They can also track users in real time and have a greater heat map, which allows them to find even more customers. They also possess advanced analytics that help them in generating accurate financial reports and finding future customers.
Taxi Booking App – To Build or to Buy
As discussed earlier in this blog, this write-up differs from the usual conventional guide to make your Ride-Hailing App, as building one from scratch would consume a lot of time, effort, and money. You have to choose the right technology stack, followed by intense testing in the form of Q/A why go through all this trouble when you can hire a company that can customize a pre-built taxi app for you? With more features than your built-from-scratch app would have had. There are many app development companies, some of which have received many accolades.
Ready-Made Solutions are the way to go if you aim for fast market deployment, which is more affordable and less time-consuming than building one from scratch. These pre-built apps have already been pre-tested.
This process that app development companies use is called white-labelling. This alternative to conventional independent app development is a lifesaver for small startups. The users can save time and money that would otherwise be tied up for a long time. Profit margins will be unsatisfactory when compared with white labeling.
Conclusion
This blog discusses the rise of taxi-booking apps like Uber and what an aspiring entrepreneur can learn from them. App development companies have emerged as an alluring option, especially for small companies that can’t afford to build something like Uber from scratch. They offer a cost-effective, customized solution in the form of pre-built apps with enhanced features. This is a quick way for entrepreneurs to make a lot of money.