How to Create a P2P Boat Rental Marketplace like Click&Boat or Boatsetter?

Last Updated: 12 November, 2024

Click&Boat and Boatsetter are two popular Peer-to-Peer (P2P) boat rental platforms that deliver users exceptional sailing and water sports experiences on an on-demand basis. Launched in the year 2013, today Click&Boat’s estimated annual revenue is $35 million. It also has a fleet of over 35000 boats in 50+ countries. On the other hand, Boatsetter was launched in 2012 and marked a revenue of $14.9 million in 2024. The fleet size of Boatsetter is 50,000 boats scattered across 700 locations. These statistics are impressive enough considering the short time span of just 10 years since the launch of Click&Boat and Boatsetter.

However, the boat rental industry is vast. Its market size is expected to reach $29.67 billion by 2029. This indicates an opportunity for new P2P boat rental businesses to step in and establish a recognizable business in untapped regional markets.

Let’s take a look at insights and the prerequisites required to launch a P2P boat rental business like Click&Boat and Boatsetter .

Table of Contents

• How to Get Started with a Boat Rental Business
  – Do Market Research
  – Launch your P2P Boat Rental Website
  – Set Up Primary Pages
  – Enter the Market with a GTM Strategy
• Conclusion

How to Get Started with a Boat Rental Business

To get ready for the launch, business owners are required to do a thorough market research and feasibility analysis for estimating profitability. As the majority of P2P boat rental operations are conducted online, the owner will also need some software technology to power a website and handle backend operations. Lastly, branding and marketing will assist the business owner in attracting early customers. 

Do Market Research

Market research is essential for strategic planning in every industry and business. The key components that business owners need to consider in their boat rental market research are the targeted audience, their demographic profiles, renting behaviors and patterns including purpose of rent, rental durations, most potential market regions and competitor analysis. These areas of research will provide you with the primary information to plan and launch your business.

For feasibility and profitability analysis, you can conduct SWOT and PESTLE analysis on the internet or if budget allows, hire a research organization. For reference, you can take a look at our exemplary SWOT and PESTLE analysis. 

SWOT Analysis of the P2P Boat Rental Industry
Strength Asset-light business with no need to own your fleet Increasing popularity of the experience and rental economy Increasing disposable income of general consumers Increased profitability during peak seasons Tourist attraction	Weaknesses Operations are generally popular near water bodies Shorter peak seasons for certain geographies Licensing and regulations vary from region to region
Opportunities Multiple revenue generation channels Huge scope of upselling in terms of rental add-ons Being asset-light, business expansion is easy Partnership opportunities with tourism and travel companies	Threats Scope of boat damage and injury, business requires liability insurance Bad weather conditions and natural disasters Server and tech-related problems

Note: The aforementioned SWOT analysis is only for representative purposes. The actual factors affecting the industry may vary depending on your business location and targeted markets.

PESTLE Analysis of the P2P Boat Rental Industry
Political Varying licensing and regulations depending on target markets Availability of government incentives for promoting tourism and boating Environmental regulations restricting access to certain waterways and protected regions	Economical Changes in disposable income affect the industry Scope of competitive pricing Competition with other recreational activities such as camping and skydiving
Social Not a commodity industry Increasing social interest for boating and water sports Increasing focus on tourism Luxury yachts and certain water sports are considered a status symbol	Technological Access to high-quality modern boats Entry of eco-friendly boats Access to readymade boat rental software solutions Presence of safety technology such as GPS and beacon systems
Legal Luxury tax might be applicable on luxury yachts and other boats in certain regions Liability insurance requirement for risk management Require IP protection laws to protect branding Need data privacy settings on website	Environmental Increasing preference to eco-friendly boating Susceptible to weather conditions, climate changes and natural disasters Increased profitability in peak seasons Increasing awareness for marine conservations

Note: The aforementioned PESTLE analysis is only for representative purposes. The actual factors affecting the industry may vary depending on your business location and targeted markets.

Launch your P2P Boat Rental Website

To conduct Peer-to-Peer boat rental operations, business owners also need a website where boat owners can upload listings and customers can place orders. To launch a P2P website similar to Click&Boat and Boatsetter, you need a boat rental software tech that fulfills two key requirements:

Requirement 1: It supports rental operations workflow. This means that along with simple ‘add to cart’ and payment options, the software also needs advanced rent centric features to take rental date inputs, accept rental security, manage verification documents and handle late returns.

Requirement 2: For managing Peer-to-Peer operations, the software should have multi-vendor capabilities It should allow you to set your own commission rate, accept vendor listings, and have an ewallet or some other administrative system to manage vendor earnings.

YoRent for Boat Rental Operations

YoRent boat rental software meets both these requirements. It is a next-gen software that comes with most helpful rent-centric features that cover almost every rental business use case. Apart from this, Yo!Rent supports unlimited listings, user profiles and transactions so that you don’t have scalability issues when you grow. For any technical issue or problem in the software, Yo!Rent team also provides one year of free technical support.

Key Features of Yo!Rent

1. Advanced Booking Calendar: It helps in taking rental date inputs, displaying boat availability, invoicing and preventing double booking.

2. Rental Security Management: To collect and secure rental security deposits for reimbursing damages and levying other types of fines.

3. Late Cancellation/Returns Management: Yo!Rent allows business owners to set tiered late cancellation and returns period and levy charges accordingly. These help the business owner in recovering order processing costs and keeping up the order fulfillment rate.

4. Document Verification: Yo!Rent provides the provision to collect statutory identity proofs and address proofs directly on the online platform.

5. Rental Agreement Management: Yo!Rent also allows boat owners to upload their different rental conditions and get them esigned by the customer before lending.

6. Tiered Pricing: Yo!Rent supports tiered rental pricing that allows owners to set different rental pricing for daily, weekly and monthly rental durations.

7. Rental Add-Ons: Along with boats, customers also require additional rental products and services. Some examples of add-on products and services in the boat rental industry are boat operators, go-pro cameras, fishing rods, ice  boxes, etc. Yo!Rent allows boat owners to list these add-ons along with their rental boats.

8. Map View Filter: For a better customer experience, Yo!Rent also has a map view search filter to help customers find nearest rental boats at waterfront locations.

9. Order Management: Yo!Rent provides admin with complete access to view and edit all orders placed on the P2P boat rental marketplace. The admin can view order status, payments, rental durations, overdue returns, etc.

10. Commission Management: Commission is the primary mode of revenue generation on a P2P boat rental store. Yo!Rent allows the admin to set and collect percentage and flat rate commission on each and every order.

11. Vendor Management: For managing boat owners on the platform, Yo!Rent has various vendor management features such as digital wallet, minimum withdrawal threshold, minimum withdrawal period, custom registration form, mandatory listing fields, email verification and featured shops.

Also checkout: How Yo!Rent kayak rental software helps you increase business efficiency.

Set Up Primary Pages

After launching the P2P boat rental website, owners are required to do the initial set up. Your boat rental software will allow you to set up primary pages such as homepage, about us page, contact us page, terms and conditions and the most important, listings. These pages will contribute towards the overall brand building of your business and increasing business reliability. 

1. Setting up the homepage: You can also take the reference for your boat rental website’s homepage from Click&Boat and its competitors like GetMyBoat and Sailo. Some important sections that should be present on your homepage are boat search, featured boats, featured shops, how it works, customer ratings and reviews. 

2. Setting up the about us page: About us pages are simpler and more interesting to create. They are more content inclusive in comparison to design elements and can include the services you provide, your startup story, vision statement, mission statement and values. For more trust building, you can also dedicate a section to your team.

3. Setting up contact us page: This page requires no special information other than your contact details and address. Some companies add a map to their contact us page for further reference.

4. Setting up the terms and conditions (T&C) page: This page appears in the footer section of the website. It is highly recommended to involve your legal team in setting up the T&C page.

5. Adding product listings: Product listings on a P2P boat rental marketplace are added by third-party boat owners. However, as the admin of the marketplace, you can mandate some filters and options that boat owners are required to fulfill in order to publish their listings. These can include boat size, seating capacity, boat type, fuel type, prohibitions, etc.

Different Types of Rental Boats

Like Click&Boat and Boatsetter, it would be wise to diversify the types of rental boats on your P2P boat rental platform. You can allow boat owners to upload listings for the following boats:

Enter the Market with a GTM Strategy

Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy helps startups prepare a fully analyzed framework for taking the first steps in the target market. Basically, it helps in making a strong entrance and attracting your first customers. In our case, we need to attract boat owners as well who will upload their boats on the marketplace. 

To begin with operations, a general GTM marketing strategy for a P2P boat rental business can look something like:

1. Branding: Set a welcoming and encouraging brand voice and tone that focuses on soft selling and instead of hard selling. As your business proposition may be new to some audience, you can create separate “How it works” pages for both customers and boat owners. Also clearly mention why boat owners should lend their boats on your platform and what benefits they get.

2. Digital Marketing: P2P boat rental business owners can also focus on content marketing and keyword optimization to get good SEO rankings and increase discoverability. If promoting boat rental operations for leisure activity, considering social media marketing on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can help. Lastly, you can directly write to boat owners for getting them on-board your platform and in the beginning, charge lower commission rates.

3. Word of Mouth Marketing: For new businesses, word of mouth is the best form of marketing. It increases business awareness and delivers you immediate feedback. Moreover, if you have a good onboarding strategy for boat owners, you can promote it via word of mouth marketing as well. You can try attending business events and influencer marketing for increasing your business’ word of mouth.

4. Procure Rental Boats: You may have listed some boats on your platform but to attract more boat owners, your team may have to directly reach out to individual boat owners and invite them. As an alternative, you can lease some boats and list them on the platform yourself. Once the business is up and running, the business owner won’t require to put heavy efforts in attracting boat owners.

Also Read: Expand your Fishing Rental Business with YoRent Rental Software

Conclusion

The boat rental industry is vast and is saturated with many players. However, the majority of those players are yet to make the digital transition, which leaves scope for targeting and competing against online players like Boatsetter, Click&Boat, Sailo and GetMyBoat. Once your business proposition, boat rental software and front-end store are ready, you can focus on building your social proof which will help your business grow and expand. For further information, feel free to consult our digital transformation experts.