"There is no question that Uber tried to hurt our business and steal our drivers, but we are not afraid of them," GetTaxi US CEO Jing Herman told "Globes". She added that Uber's apology, sent via Twitter, that this was a sales promotion that got out of hand, was inadequate.
"This was not merely a case of junior employees at the company, but a campaign led by the Uber's New York manager, who personally participated in it. They used fake names and an invalid credit card to order taxes and defraud us," says Herman. "We are still considering legal action, but it is important to make clear that information about drivers is not for sale."
Herman says that the main positive thing to emerge from the ugly affair was the support and awareness of GetTaxi's services in New York.
GetTaxi, which operates as Gett in New York, entered the city with a completely different strategy from the one it uses in Israel, the UK, and Russia, operating limousines instead of taxi cabs. The reason for offering the more expensive and prestigious service was the inability and unwillingness to deal with the crowded taxi market. "New York has a lot of yellow cabs working two shifts, and it's impossible to hail a cab on the streets at changeover time. That is why we decided to do something slightly different," says Herman.
In contrast to Israel and other locations, Gett offers a fixed price sheet, which means that a short ride can cost $10-20, regardless of traffic. "Although prices are higher than for cabs, in rush hour, prices are comparable because we do not have variable prices. The only extras we have are for extreme weather and major holidays, for which we add a $10 surcharge," says Herman.
The problem of a variable price chart in a congested city like New York was shown during the latest winter storm that hit the city. Uber, which uses a variable price sheet, the price of a trip jumped from the regular price of $8 to as much as $240 because of the huge demand at the time. Gett charged a constant $40.
"We saw that New Yorkers prefer the fixed price sheet, because they know in advance how much they will pay for the ride," says Herman, pointing to the 100,000 Gett app users and 200 available limousines as part of the company's collaboration with local limo firms.
Uber is not Gett's only rival in New York that offers an app for ordering a cab by smartphone. There is also Hailo and several small apps. "This is a paradise for cab apps, but we try to stand out with our fixed price sheet, round-the-clock customer service, and, most of all, we are the only company that allows the ordering of a cab in advance and not just in real time," says Herman. "There is no question that there are a lot of apps, but we're seeing consolidation in the market. We've seen several players close down their business in the past year because no one was able to offer real competition to Uber. We, of course, have no intention of doing that."
Although Gett only works with private customers in New York, in contrast to GetTaxi in Israel, Herman promises that the service will be expanded to business customers, discounted services, and even Yellow Cab services, where Hailo is strong. Uber and Hailo are battling for market share in other markets where GetTaxi operates in London and Moscow.
"In London, we mostly compete against Hailo, but in Moscow there is Yandex. Uber isn't really a competitor in Russia. It only recently tried to enter the market, but we're much bigger," says Herman, adding, "There is no question that GetTaxi lacks the home advantage that Uber enjoys in New York and Hailo enjoys in London."
Herman joined Gett thanks to a lot of chutzpah. She had planned to carry out research on taxis in New York and obtained a Yellow Cab license for this purpose, hitting the streets with several fascinating trips. When she heard that GetTaxi was coming to town, she wrote to CEO Shahar Waiser saying that she was interested in the job. "I had a similar idea in 2009, and I wrote him that I thought that they had amazing technology for both users and for the business. That's what you need to succeed in New York.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 5, 2014
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