A couple of weeks ago, we hosted a webinar for our owners in France about Smart Pricing. This webinar is available for you to watch with subtitles in English.
At the end of the webinar, owners were able to ask questions related to Smart Pricing, which were answered by our Product Manager who specialises in pricing topics. Since you may have similar questions yourself, we’ve translated the Q&A below the video.
How often are prices updated?
For dates in the near future (the next two weeks), we currently do a number of updates per week. Between now and October, we aim to do several updates every day. For example, if on Friday morning, your car is still available for the weekend, we might progressively decrease the price until it’s booked. The price won’t go any lower than the minimum price you set.
For dates that are further in the future, we’ll do one update every day. As we continue to make improvements to our algorithm, we’ll be able to increase the frequency that your prices are updated. This will ensure that they’re always matching demand on the platform.
Why do cars with Smart Pricing have lower prices than those for cars currently available in Marseille?
“The goal of Smart Pricing is to ensure that your cars are rented out, not to propose the most expensive price for a last-minute booking. ”
There’s a lot of demand in Marseille this summer. In fact, it’s one of the cities where we’re adjusting prices the most. We’re actually increasing prices most of the time.
The goal of Smart Pricing is to ensure that your cars are rented out, not to propose the most expensive price for a last-minute booking. Our aim is for you to earn as much as possible throughout the course of the year, not just during the summer months. This explains the difference in prices in Marseille right now: owners automatically setting high prices, the algorithm trying to maximise your number of rentals.
The more we refresh prices, the better we’ll prevent these differences in price that can happen.
I turned off Smart Pricing because prices were too high for my car compared to others. When will it be possible to set a minimum and maximum price?
Setting a minimum price is planned for mid-September. For now, we haven’t planned to make it possible to set a maximum price. However, it is something that we’re thinking about as a next step.
Concerning vans, lots of them aren’t categorised properly because the volume was entered incorrectly. How will this be handled by the algorithm?
If the volume of your van needs updating, you can edit it from your account (Your cars > Select the relevant van > Description > ‘Load capacity’ dropdown).
Currently, the algorithm doesn’t take into account the load capacity of vans, just the model. There won’t be the same price recommendations for a Renault Kangoo and a Renault Trafic.
Taking into account the load capacity would improve the algorithm. It’s actually planned towards the end of 2020.
Why isn’t Smart Pricing eligible for all cars on the platform?
We’re still fine-tuning the algorithm right now, but we aim to make Smart Pricing available for all cars in September.
How exactly does the algorithm take into account reviews and previous rentals?
We look at the average rating for your car. Every time the algorithm is refreshed, all new reviews you may have received are taken into account.
Here’s an example: a car that doesn’t have any reviews because it’s just been listed on the platform. The car receives its first 5-star rating. During the next update, the algorithm will take this into account and apply a bonus to the price. It’s impossible to give the exact amount because it depends on a number of factors, such as the location and type of car. However, the difference in price between a car without any reviews and a car with at least one 5-star rating would be around £5.
Other important factors are:
whether the car is equipped with Getaround Connect or not
the occupancy rate of cars in your area
dates with a comparable number of searches
the price that your car was rented for in the past (that gives us a gauge)
Another consideration is whether your car hasn’t been rented at all for several weeks or weekends in a row. The algorithm would set a slightly lower price to try to ensure that your car gets booked. The same behaviour could happen if you turn off Smart Pricing for a number of weeks and set relatively high prices. The algorithm may end up recommending lower prices to attract more bookings.
Did the Smart Pricing tests prove that owners earn more? If yes, by how much and for which types of cars?
Over the last few weeks and as an average for all cars, owners who turned on Smart Pricing earned about 10% more per day on weekdays, and up to 20% more on weekends.
My car is off the road for repairs, will the algorithm take this time into account? (Lower occupancy, lower price?)
The algorithm only considers when your car is available. If it’s unavailable or inactive for any period of time, the algorithm won’t take that into consideration.