Running a lawn and garden equipment rental business means you are providing equipment for all seasons to people with varying levels of expertise. Whether you are renting to contractors or DIYs, or both, project requirements can range from something as simple as mowing and trimming, installing an irrigation system, to implementing a complete landscaping plan.
From landscaping a new space to sprucing up a yard, renting the right equipment instead of purchasing it saves people money as well as the hassle of storing equipment.
This is where lawn and garden equipment rental businesses step in and provide a variety of durable tools while offering ease and affordability.
Here are a few tips to run a successful lawn and garden equipment rental business:
Automate and streamline your business with a rental software
Lawn equipment rentals can help facilitate specialized projects according to the consumer’s needs while saving them money. It is to your benefit to provide a comprehensive range of products so your customers can complete their projects by renting from a one-stop-shop.
However, managing a wide mix of equipment and ensuring it is always project-ready can be a major challenge. A lawn and garden equipment rental software can help automate these tasks and ensure fully streamlined operations that will enable you to cater to multiple customer profiles and needs.
A robust rental software enables you to keep an accurate and updated record of all your inventory. You can optimize your workflows with benefits like an accurate reorder cycle and streamlined warehouse operations. It additionally enables consistency by keeping all your inventory data stored in one place.
Here are five key ways your business with benefit:
1. Schedule maintenance and track usage
All rental businesses have one thing in common: improving the bottom line. This involves a comprehensive, regular check on equipment to prevent equipment failures. A rental software enables you to have control over the complete lifecycle of your rental inventory, which means you can gain full insight from the purchase stage right till the disposal stage.
You can track each equipment item and project depreciation for the future. This allows you to schedule preventive maintenance instead of reactive maintenance which only occurs as a response to a problem that has occurred.
Let’s say you rent out a lawn mower to a customer and it breaks down while being used. Not only is this damaging to reputation; it also creates a risk for injuries and lawsuits. Fixing a broken machine results in greater maintenance costs, downtime and equipment unavailability.
By shifting to preventive maintenance with lawn and garden equipment rental software, you can avoid this problem easily. Companies can save significant costs by shifting to preventive maintenance and making sure that the equipment is always in top-notch condition.
Read more: Ways Rental Equipment Maintenance Software Prevents Revenue Loss
2. Establish an online storefront for your rental business
With a consistent surge in online shopping, many rental businesses have embraced the e-commerce platform model. Establishing an online storefront gives your customers accessibility and ease while saving user data accessible on cloud storage.
With effective equipment rental software and a well-established storefront, you can use digital marketing models to analyze your data and develop strategies. Upselling and cross-selling can greatly boost your sales and revenues. For example, you can easily identify and isolate the lawn and garden equipment that is frequently rented out.
Similarly, you can flag items that are always rented out together or in packages/bulk. This scaling and classification help you chalk out better pricing strategies, product ranges and promotion campaigns. Data from your online lawn and garden equipment rentals can be used to identify trends, seasonality (springtime peak in lawn rentals) and other external outliers which impact your sales. This will step up product visibility and brand outreach online.
Once you switch to complete automation, you can invest resources elsewhere, like performance analysis or expansion. Ultimately, you add greater value to your customer’s experience at a lower cost.
Read more: The Benefits of Having an Online Rental Webstore
3.Pricing brackets, bundles, and discounts
Setting up the right pricing strategies for your rental business is critical for success. If you charge excessively high prices, you risk losing out on customers and diverting your sales to competitors. Similarly, if you charge too low, your profit margins can hit rock-bottom and you may find it difficult to cover your costs.
Fair pricing determines the financial health of your rental business. Considering the right pricing strategy calls attention to factors like depreciation costs, purchase and maintenance costs, competitive marketplace analysis and identifying consumer habits. You can choose between pricing strategies like:
- Competitive pricing: Setting prices based on competitors.
- Cost-plus profit margin: Setting prices that cover costs and include a profit margin.
- Psychological pricing: Marketing a price to be perceived at the lowest or on scale.
- Bundle pricing: Bundle rented assets together and price them as a package deal.
A robust marketing research and customer data analysis can help you understand the right kind of promotional packages for your business too. With an effective lawn-care and garden equipment rental software, you can offer flexible pricing and discounts such as:
- Bulk order discounts
- Long term rental discounts
- Case-based discounts
- Loyalty discounts
Setting up a cloud-based equipment rental software can help you make all the pricing related decisions on the go. By generating custom reports and looking at purchase patterns, you can easily determine what kind of pricing strategy you would want for your rental business.
Read more: 4 Simple and Effective Pricing Strategies for Your Rental Business
4. Automate billings and payments
An online equipment rental software can help you automate all your billings and payments. For example, if you’re charging your customers on a regular basis for the same set of products or services you offer, you can simplify the process by converting an order into a recurring order. This would automate credit card payments for all your recurring invoices, saving time.
A survey by Invesp shows that 7% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts if there are not enough user-friendly payment options online. Offering your customers a digital, convenient and secure way of processing payments is an excellent way to enhance your sales and strengthen the credibility of your rental business.
This software can also offer integrated payment solutions (like debit transactions) that act as portals to facilitate transaction flow between your business and your customer. This secure tunnel between your business and the customers serves as virtual terminals equivalent to physical point of sale terminals. Furthermore, you can use security protocols like encryption tools on your payment gateways to ensure complete safety and transparency of your customer data. Here are some benefits for automating billings and payments:
- Flexibility
- Customer convenience
- Streamline Operations
- Boost cash flows
- Improved online security and transparency
- Better forecasting and cost allocation
5. Optimize procurement for all seasons
A lawn and garden rental business does not typically hit a low season since needs and requirements keep evolving over the year. This is why it is important to be properly stocked with the right equipment so you can fulfil orders and meet customer demands all year.
Cloud-based equipment rental software allows you to track item details every time stock is procured. By assessing usage history, you can make important decisions like whether to restock or replace an item. These practices help you invest in the right resources and maintain the highest standards of quality without encountering inventory related problems.
About EZRentOut
EZRentOut, a cloud-based equipment rental software can help. EZRentOut offers companies in numerous industries seamless rental management along with a host of other features. You can integrate your website with our EZR plug to keep track of all your rental Assets and operations.
