It is a common fuss not getting a cab when needed, especially for intercity travel. Hurdles such as two-way charges, last-minute cancellations and the monopoly of big vendors make outstation cab booking a nightmare. The country has undergone a massive digital transformation and yet still relied on local cab vendors for their intercity travel needs.
Once perceived as an imagination – one-way cab a perfectly affordable solution came to reality when CabBazar entered the outstation taxi segment. Now, customers no longer switch to multiple apps or ask several drivers for their intercity travel trips. The online cab aggregator platform for outstation travel provides comfortable, ease of booking and hassle-free rides at a competitive pricing model.
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In this digitally driven world, CabBazar harnesses the potential of technology and automation to connect riders and drivers and make one-way fare outstation cabs feasible. “Instead of keeping the car with them all time during outstation travel, customers prefer to take one-way cab for a round trip. They need not to think about the boarding and lodging of the driver. At the same time, drivers' earnings increase by 1.5 times due to better capacity utilisation, as they can serve multiple trips instead of one round trip,” says Rishabh Gupta of CabBazar.
How it started?
CabBazar is the brainchild of a three engineers Rishabh Gupta, Deepanshu Rustagi and Amit Dhall working in the same software firm. Deepanshu faced the problem of finding an outstation taxi in the peak holiday season even after offering higher prices. Serendipity got him with other co-founders – Amit Dhall who was having good experience in developing software product and Rishabh Gupta who was fascinated with the scope of the outstation taxi business which he observed while searching for new clients for his IT company. The co-founders brainstormed together and started CabBazar.
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Incepted in 2017 with minimal resources, the platform offered operations in Delhi – NCR and focused on technology, automation, ease of use and profitability. This led to the PAN India expansion of its services without any external fundraise.
“During the onset of COVID, the platform changed its strategy and switched focus to one-way trips instead of round trips. It worked and CabBazar recorded phenomenal growth when the rest of the tour and travel industry was struggling badly. At the same time, it was able to help thousands of people with a relatively much safer way to reach home. Since last one year, CabBazar is focusing on scalability and branding,” he added.
Key differentiators and milestones
To make it a convenient option for travellers, CabBazar has on-boarded individual drivers on its platform rather than agencies. This enables customers to book an outstation taxi at a fare 20% lower than other apps in the market. The platform shares the details of the cab and driver within a few minutes of booking and customers no longer have to wait to get it 2-3 hours before departure.
For a one-way trip, customers need to pay for one way only and not for both sides while for drivers, there is no credit and settlement as they receive their payment directly from the customer on completion of the trip. As a result, CabBazar ensures transparency and ease of use for both drivers and riders.
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The bootstrapped platform recorded significant growth during the pandemic period. It has achieved the 100 trips per day milestone in November 2020 and signed an ad for equity deal with a leading publication. In addition, the platform recorded an average of 200 trips per day in May 2022 and 300 trips per day in December 2022.
What’s next?
Based on a commission-based business model, CabBazar is serving 10K trips per month with 40K+ drivers on its platform. It has recorded a revenue growth of 60% on a YoY basis from FY21 to FY22 which jumped to a whopping 110% from FY22 to FY23. The platform projects to achieve 120% revenue growth in FY24. In addition, it is also targeting 2x growth in 2023 with plans to increase brand awareness and expand aggressively in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
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The company will also be adding value-added services for its drivers as well as riders like on-road legal help, insurance, loan, entertainment during trips, etc. It is already in talks with potential players in respective fields to partner for support.
