4 Principal Reasons Why the Local Market Needs a New Uber-Like App for Trucks
Looking for a perfect niche to start your business in 2020, pay particular attention to the logistics industry. As never before, it provides enormous opportunities and attracts investments:
“Truck freight start-up funding has grown over the past years. While start-ups have raised about US$180m in VC funding between 2011 and 2016, the last few years saw investment increase to US $470m.”
Sounds profitable. Now, any ambitious entrepreneur can give a shot and get a piece of the impressive investments’ pie.
The only question that remains is how exactly to do this? Which solution has the highest potential and the highest chances to be profitable?
Today, we are ready to answer these challenging questions. 2020 impacts people’s lives and industries; it destroys numerous businesses, reveals gaps, and brings fantastic, unpredictable opportunities to life. And a high-quality freight solution, an Uber-like app for trucks is one of them.
Uber Freight app and what’s happening to it…
Uber, the company that revolutionized the entire transportation industry, contributes to on-demand delivery with Uber Eats and upgrades the freight industry with the Uber Freight. Even now, when Uber has relatively tough times, these apps help the company to survive.
Read also: How to Build a Location-Based App?
Recently, we have discussed the Uber Eats’ impact and the potential of a similar app. Today, an Uber-like app for trucks will be our hero.
In general, the app works quite the same as the Uber app. It excludes intermediaries and allows shippers and carriers to interact directly.
It consists of two parts:
- App for shippers allows to search and filter available trucks, as well as book them for a defined route on defined dates;
- App for carriers allows receiving, accepting, or declining the order.
The app is powered with useful location-based features, payment API, and so much more. And recently, Uber’s European freight business was acquired by the local digital logistics business, Sennder company, based in Berlin.
Now, it is all about hyper-local services. Even the world-known robust business may be acquired by another company with a more significant influence on the local market.
The examples of Uber-like freight businesses in different regions are impressive:
- Droppa, the company based in South Africa, reported sky-high growth during the COVID19-caused situation. The straightforward process and user-oriented design made it a perfect choice for users from Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and other towns.
- Blackbuck, the cargo app based in India, is a successful example as well. The company raised more than $150 million of investments in 5 years. And it has all the chances to become another unicorn with Indian roots!
These cases, enhanced with hyperlocal trends, push us to a fair conclusion: application like Uber Freight may be the next unicorn in your region, too. And you may be the one to launch it.
Read also: How to Build an On-Demand Delivery App?
4 reasons to launch an app like Uber for trucks in your region
There are four critical reasons that the local market needs a reliable Uber-like app for trucks:
- Automating routine tasks
A typical day of logistics manager consists of tons of routine, manual tasks like route maps development, safety assurance, bills accounting, etc. At first sight, a human operator can perform them with no serious efforts. However, any tiny mistake may lead to severe troubles and delays. Each mistake may cost a business owner a company.
Now, there’s a high demand in order processing automation. A high-quality truck app that helps minimize manual tasks and eliminate possible mistakes is something every entrepreneur may look for. Build a solution for that and save people’s recruitment and hiring time, reduce expenses, and win their preferences.
2. Cutting fuel cost
There is an eternal problem humanity struggles with. How to minimize the usage of limited resources? How to use fuel in the most optimized, the most ecological way?
Trucks that drive thousands of miles daily require the immense volume of costly fuel.
As we’ve mentioned above, a truck app with task automation features may minimize routine work. At the same time, the software may collect data about traffic jams and other conditions that impact delivery time and the volume of used fuel. The app may analyze each particular truck’s specifics and suggest the best routes for cost optimization.
3. Forgetting about empty miles
According to Convoy, more than 1/3 of all miles driven by a truck are empty. The truck doesn’t ship any goods or orders and, thus, makes no money.
Essentially, empty miles if something every entrepreneur involved in a logistics industry wants to minimize. Each empty mile means wasted money.
Again, an Uber-like app for trucks is a hero here. Upgrade your app with functionality to analyze orders, suggest the most efficient ways to load the fleet and solve the empty miles trouble.
There’s another emerging problem you can solve with a reliable Uber-like app. CO2 emission caused by empty miles is tremendous. But once software you launch helps to cut empty miles and save money, the amount of emission decreases as well.
4. Excluding intermediaries from the process
Seems like companies already have the opportunity to solve the problems mentioned above. They cooperate with brokers to minimize empty miles and save their money, but they need to pay this money to an intermediary. Quite a questionable way to reduce expenses, isn’t it?
A high-quality truck app like Uber will play the role of an intermediary. For example, available for a small percentage fee from each transaction, it turns to a far more attractive business partner.
How to build a truck app like Uber freight?
Focus on launching a robust MVP. Show potential investors the value of your idea, prove that it can save people’s money, and get an opportunity to launch the next-level Uber-like app for freight.
The process starts with several steps:
- In-depth research of the local market, its needs, and demands;
- Product’s design;
- Truck app building for both sides of cooperation: shippers and carriers;
- Testing and quality assurance;
- Successful launch.
Would you like to find out more about each stage of the project? Want to discover extra tips and calculate the approximate cost of the app? Take a look at our article dedicated to Uber-like app for truck development.
Read also:
