Hire in London - Failure?

[Rambo76]

ebay and amazon fees are about 10%, holiday rental platforms charge between 10% to 20%.
Paypal charge between 2% to 3% on top.
Only dedicated web based platforms can deliver lower marketing cost for small operators.
Rambo, if you want to create a platform, keep in mind that if yours is successful, there will be a dozen copycats coming into the market within a year.

Agreed, OTA's would kill the idea of the business, it would have to be member based and built on long term agreements with providers.

It's not just copycats who will threaten the business, a bike shop might see the volume and decide to do it alone gaining the few £ - all a matter of getting early on board and binding the shop owners to long term agreements.

 

[trex]

...
all a matter of getting early on board and binding the shop owners to long term agreements.

Think of uber.com or airbnb.com. They deliver results at consistently lower costs for their members, so members keep flogging to their sites.
hence the need to think big.

 

[Rambo76]

Think of uber.com or airbnb.com. They deliver results at consistently lower costs for fee ir members, so members keep flogging to their sites.
hence the need to think big.

Yes and no... Uber & BNB are introducing private car / home owners into the big world, so BNB charges a fee + payment processing fee, we can't do that as we are targeting B2B and our members are less "limited" in alternative options.

Still, volume has major advantages, think of insurance (and even payment processing) done large scale whilst system costs are fully covered by members ++++.

Might be time to move this conversation out of the forum into private?

 

[EddieH]

Having lived and worked (as a lorry driver) in London most of my life the last thing I would want to see is a load of sight seeing tourists on electric bikes. They are bad enough on foot when they wander round looking at buildings rather than where they are going, and I take it by KK you mean Kings Cross, an area you definitely do not want to be trying out a new bike whether electric or not.

 

[Rambo76]

Having lived and worked (as a lorry driver) in London most of my life the last thing I would want to see is a load of sight seeing tourists on electric bikes. They are bad enough on foot when they wander round looking at buildings rather than where they are going, and I take it by KK you mean Kings Cross, an area you definitely do not want to be trying out a new bike whether electric or not.

Eddie, they are here as matter of fact, and the London economy gets a real boost (think of Hotels they occupy, taxi they use, shopping etc) by them, and they would be less dangerous on the road than crossing it...

KK was a typo, I meant Kings Cross indeed - the place will become much worse in the next few years but my idea was only to get them to the bikes - not they should hover around there as KC is no attraction as far as I remember...

 

[EddieH]

Eddie, they are here as matter of fact, and the London economy gets a real boost (think of Hotels they occupy, taxi they use, shopping etc) by them, .

Yes I know they are already here, hence my comment bout them wandering around looking at buildings

and they would be less dangerous on the road than crossing it...

.

If you really think that you need your head examining, you really think a family, who have never cycled in a big city, are safer wobbling about in traffic than they are using a pedestrian crossing?

 

[Rambo76]

Yes I know they are already here, hence my comment bout them wandering around looking at buildings

If you really think that you need your head examining, you really think a family, who have never cycled in a big city, are safer wobbling about in traffic than they are using a pedestrian crossing?

Eddie, my head is not that bad have seen it all, the way they cross at times (not at crossing!!!) has made my head spin indeed, seen it on Camden High Road just 10 days ago - family and all, let me tell you - would rather have them as driver next to me than in front of me, and keep in mind 14 is the minimum age for Electric bikes - unlike street crossing.

 

[trex]

my favourite model at the moment is SOBI:

http://socialbicycles.com/