By Kokumo Goodie, Lagos, Nigeria
An online rental car solution, NG-ride, combining the features of Uber and car rental solution, AVIS, has launched in Nigeria.
NG-ride provides a marketplace for car owners to list their cars so that interested users can rent the cars and pay per hour at a predetermined price.
“We are marrying the features to create a solution for Nigerians. We are bringing something purely Nigerian and close to them as well, that they can also easily afford. So what we have done is bring the AVIS and Uber models to create a solution for Nigerians,” said Founder/CEO, NG-ride, Osamede Evbakhavbokun.
Launched in April, NG-ride already boasts more than 300 cars in its fleet, over 900 rentals and over 70 per cent full day hire so far.
According to him, NG-ride features from simple to affordable luxury cars. These include luxury cars like limousine, Bentleys, Rolls Royce and others; cars purely owned by individuals who list them on the NG-ride marketplace for the sole purpose of monetising them.
“What happens is that we consider the fact that, firms like AVIS invest in car infrastructure, which has to depreciate. They also run drivers’ cost. All these contribute to make the cars more expensive. For us, we are listing cars that are owned by individuals using their cars for regular businesses. This makes the cars cheaper and the customers get value for money because the cars are cheaper and easily accessible.
He said: “Our billing is per hour. For instance, you want to go somewhere that will probably take you more than an hour, you can rent a car on NG-ride. But if you are just moving to a short distance, it is cheaper to use an Uber. But if you have couple of places you want to go and you do not want to be rushed, our solution is cheaper. So, what you can do is to do a six hour booking for example and you can then have your meetings, catch-ups and do what you need to do.”
NG-ride which is currently only available in Lagos also comes with a reverse logistics feature for trucks and haulage. The reverse logistics feature allows haulage operators to move goods from any part of Nigeria and back to Lagos.
“Our reverse logistics aims at cutting logistics cost by half. At the moment, what happens is that a truck that has moved things from Lagos to Kaduna most likely comes back empty. So what our reverse logistics solves for the owner of the business is that instead of the truck coming back empty, it has to come back with something and that is the business we provide the truck with. And this is at half the cost instead of coming back empty,” he added.
