Whether or not you like e-scooter rental business, it is likely here to stay and grow. In 2018, The Portland Bureau of Transportation carried out a pilot project to know the potential of the e-scooter in the biggest city of Oregon state and then released the result of user survey in a report. According to that very well documented report,

• During that 120 days of the pilot project, people completed 700,369 trips, covering 801,887 miles.
• Over 62% of the Portlanders views e-scooter positively.
• The main goal of users for using e-scooter is short distance travel within the city.
• 71% of the Portlanders said that they love to use e-scooter daily.
• 34% of the local riders and 48% of tourists took e-scooters rather than Uber and Lyft.
• Most of the users followed the safety instructions and they drove it on low-speed streets and in bike lanes only.

 
However, these numbers only show how easy it becomes to gain customers. It does not show how easy it becomes to turn your idea of starting the e-scooter rental business in reality. Thus, you still need to overcome a few challenges you may find while e-scooter app development.

In this blog, we will discuss one challenge, which is building the payment infrastructure for your e-scooter rental business. We will study how innovation has transferred the payment system of the e-scooter app and what are the next-gen features you need to add in the payment module of the e-scooter app. We will also take the Juicers’ app into the account and discuss how you can save a lot of bucks by enabling dynamic pricing in their app.
 

WHICH innovation did they bring?

 
The early players of the e-scooter rental economy have built the payment system of the e-scooter rental business by keeping only one thing in mind – how to make more money?! And to do so, they didn’t follow the legacy of taxi industry where the fare is calculated based on the kilometers or distance. Instead, they asked e-scooter app development companies to develop payment module in such a way that it calculates the fare based on the time a rider rides the e-scooter.
 

but WHY did they bring innovation?

 
Unlike taxi services like Uber and Lyft, people utilize e-scooters for the very short route. In fact, e-scooters are designed and assembled to work as a transportation mode for a shorter distance. So, if an e-scooter rental company calculates the fare based on the kilometers or distance, they can rarely make good money as most of the e-scooters of their fleet are used to travel in suburbs, or even city center but within 3 to 5 kilometers of range.

In contrast, if they calculate the fare based on the time, they can make more money per ride. How? Let’s find out.

Suppose a rider unlocks the e-scooter on street A to reach street B which is 2 KM away from the street A. Now, in the KM-based payment model, rider has to pay a fixed price, regardless of how much time he waits at the signal or how much time he spends in the bar or in the supermarket. While in the minute based payment model, the rider has to pay for total time (Including the time he spends at the bar and even at traffic signal), he keeps himself as the active rider of a particular e-scooter. Which means you as an e-scooter rental business owner get more money in your pocket.

and HOW they executed innovation?

Here is the tricky part!

Though the concept of calculating fare based on per minute sounds profitable and easy, an e-scooter app development company has to overcome many challenges related payment infrastructure to make it happen. The only way they can achieve it is with the fusion of advanced e-scooter app development techniques and next-gen IoT technologies.

Here’s how it works. As soon as a user installs the e-scooter app, the app asks a user to select a payment method and bank or card details. The user is only allowed to process further if he owns a certain amount in the bank. Since the user is approved, he can now unlock the e-scooter by paying $1. From the moment the user unlocks the e-scooter, an algorithm keeps the eagle-eye on riding time, and when he ends the ride, an algorithm calculates the fare based on the total time of the ride.
 

Which are the features you have to ask e-scooter app development company to integrate into the payment module of the e-scooter app?

 
A scalable and feature-packed payment module of your e-scooter app is the fundamental requirement to offer the ultimate user experience. The payment module of your e-scooter app should prevent lack of payment, duplicate payment, and incorrect payment, because you as the business owner doesn’t like if user’s payment can’t reach to you and for the user, being charged twice is nothing to be excited about! So, consider these 5 top features to add into payment module of the e-scooter app.

• Your app should support multiple payment methods.
• Ask users whether they prefer to select a payment method and other details every time before unlocking an e-scooter or they want to save it for quick checkout.
• With the fare details, show all relevant payment details to win their trust.
• While they are riding on e-scooter, give them the alert which presents from how many minutes they have been riding and how much they need to pay if they would end the ride by the next minute.
• And show them all previous transactions.

Here it is worth to mention that, as an e-scooter rental company, you also need to take care of the payment for gig workers who work as independent contractors to charge up the e-scooters. In the last section of this blog, we will study how a very popular concept of taxi industry can help you to save a lot of bucks.

How accommodating a tiny feature in the Juicers’ app can make your e-scooter rental business efficient and profitable?

It is known to everyone that the online taxi booking industry is making money, thanks to dynamic pricing feature. Basically, dynamic pricing module of the app works on the algorithm which sets the fare by analyzing several factors. These factors determine the degree of supply and demand.

Juicers are those who are paid for charging the e-scooters. Early players of the e-scooter rental business followed the gig economy model to reduce the internal cost. But to reduce it more, they asked e-scooter app development company to make an e-scooter app for Juicers which is armed with a very groundbreaking feature, dynamic pricing.

Dynamic pricing module analyses the difficulty to retrieve e-scooters and available Juicers. Both Juicers and app owners can derive financial benefits from it. Juicers can earn more if they pick up e-scooters from the remote location and app owners can earn more by paying less to Juicers if the number of active Juicers is high.
 

How much does it cost to develop an e-scooter app with scalable and error-free payment module?

 
Coruscate is the top e-scooter app development company which has entertained numerous e-scooter app development related queries. In our previously developed apps, we have successfully integrated effective and efficient payment gateways and payment processors. We always believe in developing startup ready apps without any error, so that you can dominate the market as quickly as possible. Our team of skilled developers and designers know the craftsmanship to develop one of the best e-scooter rental mobile apps.

As if this is not enough, we allow you to host the whole IT infrastructure of your e-scooter rental business on our servers. Click below to know more about the cost of development and ask for a free demo along with a free consultation.