Carve: Rent unbelievable cars from local dealerships in SF

Rally.video

Maker

Hi PH! Thanks for taking a look! Carve is a car sharing marketplace where you can rent awesome cars from local dealerships. So if you're jonesing for a beach weekend in Santa Cruz or a climbing day in Yosemite, you can get a car that perfectly fits your needs at a reasonable price. Here's how it works: - Browse our site for a car and make a reservation - We'll send you a $10 Uber voucher so you can get to lot where the car is located - Show the parking attendant (all lots have 24/7 valets) your reservation email and they'll retrieve the car - When your reservation ends, drive back to lot and give the valet the keys - Uber back home with another $10 credit At the moment, we're only operating in San Francisco, but we'll be expanding soon to Oakland and LA. If you're in SF, use the promo code PHroom to get 10% off of any rental! 🙏 We’d love get some feedback and I’m happy to answer questions! Amos

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5yr ago

Kunal Bhatia

SlidesUp API

@amosgewirtz this is an interesting model, Amos! I'll have to try this since I've had 1 terrible experience renting from another peer-peer marketplace (guess which one!) and one annoying experience from another here in SF. What I like about your model is that you remove friction on a lot of points — I know exactly where the pickup location is and that it's a business (dealership). You also cover Ubering back-and-forth, which I ended up spending $150+ during that terrible experience trying to get an instant book car. 4 cars and 8 hours later, that company only gave me $50 back and still charged me for the rental. That's when they lost me as a customer. The other annoying experience was with a pickup — the app listed the wrong pickup address, and the customer service agent repeatedly told me that the correct address is listed everywhere. It was a 0.5 mile difference. When I got to the pickup location, it was underground. The app didn't even work for me to show the attendant that I had a reservation because I didn't have signal. They gave me a discount on my next ride + the pickup location got inserted in the text description by the owner later. Now feeling the same pain @rrhoover felt while he was renting in SF. Hoping Carve can solve all of this for me next week!

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5yr ago

Amos Gewirtz

Rally.video

Maker

@kunalslab those experiences are surprisingly (and unfortunately) common! It's extremely difficult for P2P marketplaces to provide a consistently good user experience when every car comes from a different person. Can't wait to rent to you! Be sure to use the code "PHroom" for 10% off at checkout.

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5yr ago

Dan Dan

None of the cars are "unbelievable", but I get it, it's just the start. Anyway, I had major problems with site navigation: 1. This car details page was not working (blank page) https://www.drivecarve.com/cars/15? Once I reached that page, I could not get back to /search (also blank page) Had to restart it from page 1. Browser error -> Unexpected token '<' 2. Very weird to pick date and time without even a glimpse of the inventory. I see it's not mandatory, but if you are offering unbelievable cars, the first thing I want to see is the inventory. EDIT: I see the inventory on the landing page now, but your full height 100% of the screen splash gives me no clues that I can scroll down to see more. Best of luck!

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5yr ago

Amos Gewirtz

Rally.video

Maker

@tostartafire We're adding more cars that fit into the "unbelievable" category as fast as we can! 1) Thanks for catching that--should be working now. 2) That makes sense. We're working on a new landing page that showcases inventory to a greater degree. Also, something I just thought of while reading your comment: maybe it would make sense to change the "search" button to read "browse" instead, so as to indicate that you don't need to enter dates to view inventory?

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5yr ago

Alex Conway

Very cool and great idea! The "Browse cars" title above the carousel with just 6 cars and no way to browse more cars suggests that's the entirety of your inventory - it might be worth showing more cars at once (rather than needing to click) to show you have a broader variety and link to a page where you can actually browse. I'd also like to see more detail on the deductibles because that's what always makes me nervous about car rental but there's nowhere to click to get more info... Good luck with the launch :)

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5yr ago

Amos Gewirtz

Rally.video

Maker

@alxcnwy Right now, we only have 6 models on the platform (we're young!), but we're increasing the number on there every day. That's a great point regarding deductibles. The deductible is $500, and we'll definitely amend the site to specify that on the car details page and/or the homepage.

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5yr ago

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Rent unbelievable cars from local dealerships in SF

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