Go to sea with the help of a peer-to-peer boat rental service

Problem

Boats stand idle for a majority of the time. According to statistics, Finnish boaters spend only 17 days a year boating, meaning that the boats sit in docks for over 90 per cent of the boating season. In addition, the time spent boating has fallen. Buying, owning and maintaining a boat is expensive and time-consuming and the threshold for starting boating is high. Sitting continuously at the dock is also not good for the boats. Renting boats in Finland has relied largely on rental firms.

Solution: peer-to-peer boat-hire service reduces the need for private ownership

Skipperi gives boat owners the opportunity to rent out their boats to others when they are not using them themselves. The service allows boaters and those interested in boating to start more cost efficiently without having to own a boat. A boat can be rented by logging in to the online service, completing a boating CV and submitting a booking request to the owner of the boat.

Revenue logic and benefits to Skipperi

Skipperi’s revenue logic is based on commissions charged from the rental transactions. Placing a boat for hire and registering as a rental user is free of charge. This revenue logic ensures that sufficiently large numbers of both individuals listing their boats and rental users are obtained for the service. In addition, percentage-based commissions for longer rental periods make the operations more transparent and profitable than by assessing service charges, for example. Skipperi is a profitable operational model, as it does not need to own the boats it rents out.

Benefits to customers and end users

Boat owners are able to cover the costs incurred from the boat by renting it out to others. The rental customer, in turn, is able to go boating at a lower cost and is able to easily try different types of boats. Skipperi is responsible for handling payment traffic, confirmations, marketing of the service and the boats, and secure identify verification practices, which makes the service easy to use for both the boat owners and the rental customers. One per cent of Skipperi’s revenue is directed to conservation efforts in the Baltic Sea, in an effort to increase the recreational use of the Baltic Sea.