The manufacturers, retailers and patrons of electric scooters probably always knew that they’d come in for some ridicule, but given the practicality of electric scooters, it’s some taunting they would have been only too happy to endure. Now electric scooters of different makes, models and designs are taking up mainstream positions in the lives of the everyday city slicker, but how can you earn money from the need for these handy gadgets to be charged up?

Running a charging station

If you have the capital then the first two sub-headings and ideas to make money charging electric scooters are worth checking out, but otherwise we’d readily recommend that you check out the ideas under the peripheral monetisation channels. That’s because with the justified surge in the popularity of electric scooters like the Ninebot MAX, not many owners of these gizmos would be incentivised to pay to charge. This particular one has a long range, so owners can get around a bit before giving in to the natural preference to head back home to recharge.

Otherwise running a charging station where you charge customers to charge (that’s a lot of charging) is perhaps the most straight-forward idea you can pursue around making money charging electric scooters.

Running a pick-up and charge service

Competition will naturally be quite fierce when it comes to running a pay-to-charge station, not to mention the fact that it would have to be strategically placed in what would likely make for some prime real estate location. To set yourself apart, you could perhaps operate a supplementary pick-up service, where you charge a little extra to pick up the consumer’s scooter to be charged at your premises. Having said that, if you do not have an EV charging station in your house, you can hire an expert to assist you with the electric vehicle charger installation in Atlanta, GA (or wherever you’re based).

This sort of thing doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll land more customers who actually want their scooters to be picked up, but works as more of a marketing tactic to spread awareness about your particular charging station and service. It’s more of a marketing ploy, which leads us to how the big boys and girls do it in terms of monetising any new and disruptive technology. It’s all about marketing using methods which are consistent with online business models.

Peripheral monetisation channels

Among other such channels, using the data generated around the concentration of the location of communal electric scooters, the people who make a serious killing offer the actual charging service for free, but monetise everything around the service. Coffee shops and co-working spaces generate the free electricity they can offer their customers through something like solar panels, while the other services are paid services.

There’s a lot that one can do with this type of thinking, such as offering up marketing space to be purchased by sponsors and ads displayed to consumers who are waiting around at the charging stations, while their scooters charge. Some affiliate marketing channels can also be deployed if you don’t want to be directly involved in the selling of goods and services to people who are charging up. It is after all a highly targeted market which you’d be dealing with, for instance someone who owns an electric scooter might be interested in purchasing a replacement or spare battery unit…

[ssba]