New Data Tools For Turo Hosts
If You Don't Know Your Market, You Don't Know Your Business.
Whether you’re an aspiring host thinking about getting into this business, a newer host still trying to figure things out, or a host on your way to veteran status looking to scale and dominate your market, everything rises and falls on knowing your market and understanding how it differs from other markets.
Facebook is not a great place to gather business intelligence about your city. You’ll ask great questions, but most of the people who respond will be from other cities, with very different demographics, demand patterns, and visitor trends than yours. Facebook is a great place to gather information that will either hold you back, or set you back.
The CarShare Academy has spent almost two years studying markets and gathering data.
We’ve been providing a lot of valuable data since the summer of 2021. This is the year that we improve it all and make it even more accessible and useful for you wherever you are on the Turo journey.
I want to introduce you to three tools that you should take advantage of when looking to launch, and/or scale, your Turo business.
The New CarShare Market Guides
Since June of 2021 The CarShare Academy has studied nearly 200 markets to provide hosts with the business intelligence they need to build a fleet consisting of the right vehicles to match the demand pattern for their city as well as other guidance and best practices unique to their market. I wanted to make this a better, more helpful resource, so we did!
A team of data specialists extracts multiple sets of data from the Turo database, assembles them, and sends the workbook to Lead Coach William Huffhine for review, analysis, and interpretation to complete the Market Guide. This process can take anywhere from 4 to 8 hours depending upon city.
No scrapers or crawlers are used to extract this data as such technology can provide erroneous results.
The Market Guide for each city is about 20 pages in length. In those 20 pages you'll find the following:
Market dynamics unique to your city
The inventory vehicle mix in your city
The daily rate mix in your city
Top vehicle brands in your city by inventory count
Top vehicle models in your city by inventory count
Ten recommended vehicles with earnings projections
Projected seasonal trend for your market
Conclusions and business recommendations
The Market Guide is different from the Market Analysis we used to publish in a couple of ways.
First, we've added more business insights such as more in-depth market dynamics, earnings potential for recommended vehicles, and projected seasonal trends for your specific city.
We've also made purchasing, viewing, and downloading much easier by migrating the publications to Issuu. Once purchased you'll have instant access to either read the document in the reader, and/or download it to your device. No more searching your email box spam folder for the mailed document after purchased!
The Emerging Market Pulse
For about a year we published a report every Wednesday morning showing the percentage of inventory in over 50 cities around the country that had a booking in the upcoming seven days. It was a very popular tool to help hosts understand the performance of their fleet in the context of what was happening across their market and around the country, and to build a 52-week trend line for their city to better plan for their business. It differs from the Carsync Demand Index in that it is not a real-time measure, of activity at this moment, but a predictive tool, and historic trend line.
Last fall Turo made significant changes to their database and the way data is extracted, making it impossible to continue building the Market Pulse for cities with over 200 vehicles.
We've now pivoted to focus our work on what we call Emerging Markets, cities with fewer than 200 vehicles.
We've started with 20 Emerging Markets around the country and will publish this as a free tool for hosts in those cities every Wednesday morning, adding more emerging markets regularly and upon request.
The Recommended Vehicle Grid
One of the things we’ve found so interesting is how differently specific models perform from city to city. For example, in one market the Camry may be king, but in another market a few hours away the Accord is the winning choice. This is another question often asked in Facebook groups, “Which vehicle should I get?” And again, it’s the right question, but people from all over the country will suggest models that work well in their market, but may be a disaster in yours.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just log into a database, open a dashboard for your state, and see a grid of recommended vehicles for cities across your state? Well now you can with the Recommended Vehicle Grid.
We’re using the data we’ve been collecting for the past year and a half and building these grids for every state. Here’s what it looks like.
Know the numbers, know your business.
If you understand the market dynamics of your city, know which vehicles are most likely to be successful where you are, and are able to check in and see how your overall market is performing week to week, and season to season, you’ll be well on your way to winning in this Turo business!