Philosophically speaking, the pandemic has gotten us to rethink life and its value. However, on the surface, it cannot be denied that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of ways in which we look at life as we know it and every activity associated with it…including a few that we have always taken for granted.
One of the many things that made our lives convenient during the pandemic is the smartphone. Thanks to the convergence of the GPS and a personal profile, and the convenience of digital payments, people were now able to avail a lot of services without stepping out of their homes. The range of services included food delivery, medicine delivery, grocery, and even beauty and household services.
In all of this, the harbinger of on-demand, the taxi booking app, was facing quite a bad time because of the disappearance of the need for everyday transportation. The year 2021 is expected to be promising and profitable for the taxi business. The reopening of offices and the resurgence of tourism will surely result in the taxi business, especially the app-based taxi business bouncing back to be more appealing than it was before!
The Future Market
The preference of people to opt for a mode of more private transport against public transport is expected to contribute to the growth of the taxi app business in 2021. It would, consequently, also increase the demand for taxi app development. Mordor Intelligence has predicted that the taxi market is expected to register a staggering CAGR of about 11% between 2020 and 2025. The revenue, according to Statista, plummeted down from $66 billion in $2019 to $30 billion in 2020, and it is expected to rise back to $52 billion by 2021. In another three years, the taxi on-demand revenue will breach the $70 billion mark in the United States.
It is to be noted that all the statistics mentioned above do not take into consideration rapidly growing markets in the Asia Pacific region and the steady European market.
The market is quite wide and open to accommodate new players. However, you cannot just survive in this cutthroat competition by providing nothing more than the vanilla version of an online taxi app.
How to go about building a taxi app in 2021?
Thoroughly research the market:
There are a lot of microeconomic and macroeconomic factors that contribute to the market. One small example would be that post the pandemic, there is increased adoption of mobile devices not just by the millennials but also by boomers. They might have different expectations and the demographics vary with the geography. Therefore, it is important to understand your market, your competition, their misgivings, and the way in which you can use them to your advantage before you embark on the process of building a taxi app business in the United States.
Identify a niche:
An inevitable outcome of saturation is diversification and segmenting. Instead of competing with well-established giants on a larger battlefield, you can consider choosing a specific niche like a taxi app for corporate carpooling, or taxi app for ladies driven by lady drivers, or even a taxi that specializes in school pickups and drops. This will ensure that you find success by being a big fish in a small pond.
Work on the commercials:
Let us admit it! For any business, the end goal lies in revenue and profit. As an entrepreneur, you will need to work on the cost of the taxi app development, zero down on the right taxi booking app builder, calculate the cost involved in operations, maintenance, promotion, and marketing. Parallel to this, you will also need to work on the rate per unit distance, the payment that you will make for the drivers, the possible sponsorships and affiliations, and other available low-cost methods of promotion… like partnerships.
Proceed to develop the app:
Developing your taxi app would be quite a cumbersome process irrespective of you hiring a team of taxi app developers or outsourcing it to a taxi app development company. Alternatively, you can consider using white label solutions. They will not only save you a lot in terms of cost but also will ensure that you can launch your taxi app in the shortest possible time… At a juncture when the time to market can determine your magnitude of success against your competition both in the present and the future.
After everything is put in place, all you need to do is soft launch your taxi app, perform a dry run, address the challenges, and go on to launch your taxi booking app with fanfare and of course, good profit coming your way.
The features
Even if you go for a white label solution, you will need to be aware of the features that you need to make your taxi booking app work perfectly and also, the features that will add a perfect garnish to the core offering.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the GPS is the epicenter of the on-demand revolution. The combination of GPS, mapping, and navigation has helped businesses identify the exact location of customers to provide their services. Your taxi app should effectively make use of geolocation to help drivers identify the location of the customers, for customers to get real-time updates about the driver, and for guiding the driver to the destination requested by the customer through navigation assistance.
When it comes to taxi apps, the number of users and the number of drivers play a very important role in determining your profit. To ensure that your users and drivers do not have any hassle in getting associated with your app/brand, the onboarding process should be made as simple as possible. The user should be able to sign up using either their email address or phone number or existing credentials like Google and Facebook. The driver should also be provided with a similar sign-up mechanism but should be coupled with a proper identity verification/authentication process.
Your app would not be complete without a digital payment processor. Today, the number of payment methods has expanded and has gone on to include digital wallets in addition to credit cards, debit cards, Internet banking, and even the native wallet of the app. To accommodate all these payment methods, your app should be integrated with a versatile payment services provider. The more the options, the greater the possibility of users getting comfortable with your app.
The booking process should be made simple and intuitive. The customer should not take anymore than three steps to get a cab to their location. This can also be achieved by asking customers to create a profile that will store their usual pick-up and drop points. Even if there are inaccuracies or difficulties in finding the exact GPS location of the user, the saved addresses will go a considerable distance in making it convenient for both the user and the driver.
An important feature that distinguishes taxi mobile apps from the usual and traditional cabs is the certainty in pricing. Your app should be able to calculate the price of a ride based on the distance, the type of vehicle chosen, the demand and supply, and the traffic that the driver will need to encounter. Unless the user chooses to take a different route or add multiple pick-up/drop points, the cost paid by the customer at the end of the trip should be the same as the one that was shown to them at the beginning of the trip.
Push notifications help you communicate with users at will. You can push promotions and offers to users, and also keep them updated on the progress of their trip booking like a driver accepting their trip request, the driver reaching the pickup point, and successful payment.
There should be a mutually applicable review and rating system. The driver should be able to rate the passenger and the passenger should be able to rate the driver based on professionalism and courteous behavior. This will ensure that the entire system is kept democratic at the same time, but also passively encourage both parties to behave amicably.
Conclusion
Now that you are aware of the features and the market, you would understand that the time is right for you to create your own taxi booking app like Uber. The availability of white label solutions ensures that technology will not be a stumbling block when it comes to launching your own taxi app. All you need to do is get in touch with the company that specializes in the development of customization of white-label Uber-like solutions, and they will take care to understand your requirement and craft your taxi booking app in line with your business needs.