By Ed Pierce, Fleet Management Weekly’s Brand Acceleration
March 27, 2024
As every fleet manager knows, handling the ins and outs of vehicle maintenance can sometimes be more trouble than it’s worth. For a small business, the overhead costs that come with maintaining a commercial fleet may outweigh the benefits. In these cases, it may be more cost-efficient to rent commercial vehicles when needed.
Historically, fleets have had to choose between the high expense of vehicle ownership and the limitations of commercial vehicle rental. In recent years, the rise of rideshare has raised expectations for immediate, on-demand car rental. While these companies provide easy access to sedans and SUVs, they lack commercial truck options for the average consumer. This gap in the market is precisely what Fluid Truck has set out to fill.
Truck Rental at a Moment’s Notice
Fluid Truck is an on-demand commercial vehicle rental platform where both individuals and businesses can access a variety of trucks and vans for short- and long-term use. Through their mobile app, users can book vehicles online and pick them up from a nearby location any time of day or night. The company allows for both hourly and long-term rental, giving businesses greater flexibility in scheduling and scaling their fleets.
“Fluid Truck gives individuals and businesses access to a commercial vehicle when they need it, whether it be a cargo van, pickup truck, or box truck,” says Stephen Joos, Vice President of Corporate Development at Fluid Truck. “Just like the scooters you might see in your town; you can go to where our vehicles are located and check one out when you need it.”
Choice of Vehicles
Fluid Truck lists three types of commercial vehicles: cargo vans (300-500 cubic feet), box trucks (400-1600 cubic feet), and pickup trucks (30-70 cubic feet). Through the app’s search function, users can enter their location and the hours they’ll need the vehicle. The app will then show a list of vehicles in their area, with pricing for hourly, per-day, and per-week rental.
Users can see information about the lender, the vehicle, and the exact pick-up and drop-off location. The search function even allows users to filter their search to include only electric vehicles or listings that allow for instant booking for qualified accounts, according to Joos.
He adds that these vehicles serve a wide range of commercial rental fleet solutions, including package delivery and logistics services, construction and service contractors, moving and furniture delivery companies, retail and grocery couriers, real estate and staging services, florists, caterers and event planners, and more.
Fluid Truck currently operates in 400 top cities around the US and offers access to 24/7 customer support, flexible cancellations, and extensions with 100% fee transparency. Its app eliminates the need to fill out forms or keep track of fees, and when the rental is approved, the driver can use the app to unlock and operate the vehicle.
How Fluid Truck Serves Fleets
While Fluid Truck is available for personal use, the company offers exclusive benefits to businesses. While many businesses rely on commercial vehicles, the needs vary based on the type of company. A mom-and-pop shop might need one or two trucks for just a couple of hours a week to deliver inventory, while a bigger company will need an entire fleet available for long-term rental. Fluid Truck’s platform offers the flexibility to serve both needs.
“A lot of businesses don’t want to deal with the hassle of owning a vehicle, so they just leave that to us,” says Joos. “They do what they know best, and we bring the vehicle expertise that they need to efficiently support their business.”
While some small businesses may rely entirely on Fluid Truck for vehicle rental, the company also serves businesses that already have existing fleets.
“We see a lot of businesses come to Fluid when they need flexible access to a commercial vehicle,” says Joos. “When a vehicle goes down, you might be waiting a while to get that vehicle upfit. Or if you see an increase in demand, especially with the market the way it is right now, it can take a while to get access to vehicles. We’re that intermediate solution for a number of businesses.”
Outflanking the Competition
Commercial vehicle rental is hardly a new idea. With established competitors who have been in the game for a long time, Fluid Truck has to provide businesses with benefits they won’t see elsewhere. Currently, most rental companies restrict vehicle rental to limited business hours, which can prove a hassle for fleet managers who need access to a vehicle at a moment’s notice.
“We work differently in the space,” says Joos. “First, our vehicles are accessible 24/7, so you don’t need to align your business hours to somebody else’s schedule. You can just go to where our vehicles are located and check that vehicle out–no waiting in line, no brick and mortar, 24/7/365.”
Like many other commercial vehicle rental companies, Fluid Truck services its vehicles so that fleet managers don’t have to worry about maintenance. Unlike other companies, however, Fluid Truck provides access to vehicle telematics that shed an important light on driver behavior. Fleet managers can leverage vehicle data across their entire rental fleet to view reports on route history and safe driver scoring. The app also includes admin tools that allow managers to assign drivers to individual vehicles and coordinate schedules.
“Let’s say you book more than one vehicle,” says Joos. “You need multiple drivers for that, so our app lets you assign a driver to a specific vehicle. We provision a key for them and they can go unlock that vehicle at any time based on the schedule. Then afterward, you can see historical routing and driver safety scorecards.”
Fluid Truck even offers fleet managers the option of listing their fleets on the app, maximizing the utilization and profitability of their fleet. Whether a fleet manager is interested in renting their vehicles out full-time or during business lulls, the Fluid Truck platform allows them to optimize each vehicle’s earning potential.
For fleet managers interested in listing their vehicles on the platform, Fluid Truck facilitates insurance coverage for the vehicles on rent. It also verifies each driver by checking over a dozen points of reference including DMV and public safety records. The app includes reviews for both lenders and borrowers, allowing fleet managers to check out reviews from other lenders before proceeding with a reservation.
From Fluid Market to Fluid Truck
While Fluid Truck has scaled significantly since its inception in 2016, the company did not start as a commercial vehicle rental platform.
“Fluid Truck actually started in 2016 as Fluid Market,” says Joos. “So, if you have your lawn mower just sitting in your shed for most of the week, and you wanted to make some extra money rather than sell or donate those items, you would be able to put them on the Fluid platform to rent it out. It was a very community, neighbor-focused concept.
“What we found was a natural product market fit with trucks and vans on our platform. These were small businesses that just needed a vehicle for a few days at a time, or they had tried the traditional route but weren’t interested in a longer-term lease or owning these vehicles. So, they turned to Fluid.”
This led to a pivot in 2018 as Fluid Market transitioned to Fluid Truck, fully offering commercial vehicles for businesses and individuals. Since then, the company has scaled its business from a small handful of markets to 60 markets in 400 cities. They’ve taken on partnerships with fleets big and small, including big-name businesses like IKEA.
“IKEA came to us to run their zero-emission delivery fleet so they can use our electric vehicles for home delivery,” says Joos. “We fully support their initiative to go 100% zero-emission delivery by 2025. For them, it’s not just about the user experience when a customer checks out at the register, but also about how that product arrives at their home. If you have an old, beat-up truck puking diesel that’s delivering this beautiful new appliance to your house, that impacts the brand for retailers.”
