Segment: For this particular assignment, I chose a segment of international students at University of Florida who had encountered a need to use rental cars in the past.
Being international students, none of them had their own vehicles with them.
Interview Summary: Surprisingly, all three of them had different reasons for their need. The first person was a freshman student. He uses a rental car every weekend for grocery shopping. The problem he faces is that there is just one car rental company that offers rental car at age of 18 and the location for that company which is nearest to him has just one vehicle at the location. So, most of the times, the car is being used by someone else and so he has to wait for a long time. The second person got aware of this need while his stay at Gainesville over the winter break. He was staying back at UF over the winter break. He saw this as an opportunity to explore around and so decided to have a visit to Orlando. The two options he had were rental cars and cab. The cab costs him approximately $135 just for one-way trip. So he decided to search for rental car options. But as mentioned earlier, there is just one option for people below age of 21 around UF. But that company requires the person to return the car back to its original place and this wasn’t viable for him. That’s because under this scheme, he would have to pay the rent for his entire duration of trip, which in this case was around 7-8 days, even if he was actually going to be driving the car for just a total of around 4-5 hours for travelling from Gainesville to Orlando and back. The third person had a similar issue. He had to go to Orlando airport to take a flight back to his home. He would have preferred a rental car because of a cheaper price than cab, but the company required him to return the car back to its original place which wasn’t possible in this case. Although all three of them had different issues for the need, all three of them resorted to internet search for information search but couldn’t find any fitting solution.
One important thing I found out from the interviews is that internet would be vital to spread this business concept since people mostly look for this solution through internet search.
Hi Tarang,
ReplyDeleteWow! The fact that one would have to pay 135 dollars for a one way trip to go where they need to go is absurd. I feel like just about any price lower than that would be the new market leader. I am curious as to how international students currently get around. Do you all have to pay those ridiculous prices? If so, you could have a very valuable service on your hands. Thank you for sharing!