Executive Summary: Bear Spray Shack chose EZRentOut after struggling to find a customizable solution that could integrate with their self-serve vending machines, facing challenges such as limited API access and the need for expensive custom development. EZRentOut proved to be the best choice, offering a comprehensive solution that not only integrated smoothly with their vending machines but also allowed them to monitor and manage rental orders through highly tailored workflows.
Result: EZRentOut helped Bear Spray Shack with a customized API integration that automated and tailored workflows to Bear Spray Shack’s needs, boosting their efficiency to 80%.
How the collaboration began
Our team at EZRentOut had the privilege to connect with Holly, co-founder of Bear Spray Shack—an innovative bear spray rental company operating across the Western United States. With prominent locations near Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Teton National Park, Bear Spray Shack has made outdoor safety more accessible for adventurers.
The idea for the company took shape in early 2021, when the founders set out to explore the Alaskan wilderness. Frustrated by the lack of access to bear spray along the way, they saw a clear need, and Bear Spray Shack was born. But launching a fully automated, self-serve rental kiosk system required the right technology behind the scenes. That’s where EZRentOut came in.
Bear Spray Shack’s constant trust in EZRentOut made the journey to adopt our customizable solution much smoother and simpler for them. Let’s see how!
From nothing to consistent revenue tracking with EZRentOut
At its core, Bear Spray Shack’s mission is to make bear spray accessible, affordable, and hassle-free for outdoor adventurers. The company was seeking a rental system that could link their vending machines to track ID-verified rentals without requiring human intervention.
“EZRentOut was the only solution that got close to what we needed [a customizable rental system that integrated with their vending machines for rental order tracking],” comments Holly.
The EZRentOut team spent six months in close collaboration with Bear Spray Shack to get their vending machines fully operational, offering them the flexibility that no other solution provided.
“Everyone else we talked to [three or four different platforms] said they don’t offer API access. No one was willing to help our startup stand on its feet, unlike EZRentOut,” explains Holly.
Through the API integration, the vending machines were connected directly to their EZRentOut account. This allowed the team to track ID checks, automatically track rentals, update records, and eliminate manual work, streamlining complex workflows into a fully automated rental experience.
Without a flexible, API-first platform, Bear Spray Shack would have been forced to manually update orders from each vending machine, taking hours each day and leaving room for errors in tracking monthly rentals. Inventory visibility gaps would have led to stock shortages, while the inability to process ID-verified rentals automatically could have caused compliance issues and slowed customers at the vending machines.
“Our first-ever order was recorded with EZRentOut,” shares Holly, reflecting on how Bear Spray Shack began its rental journey with the platform.
Customization for smooth rental operations: Custom fields for custom data
For Bear Spray Shack’s customers, the vending machines serve the same purpose as a website, but on the ground! Customers browse through the options on the vending machines to conveniently rent bear spray while Holly’s team gets complete visibility into every order. However, a lot is going on at the backend.
EZRentOut enables customers to rent out bear sprays after passing an age verification check conducted by the system through ID checks. With EZRentOut, Holly created custom fields that fill automatically when a customer acknowledges the 18+ age requirement. At the same time, a rental agreement connected to EZRentOut must be signed by the customer, which includes a legal liability waiver. All this information is reflected in our rental platform, which uses these requirements as a check to allow eligible customers to rent sprays.
Scanning the customer ID automatically fills in the customer profile, eliminating the need for manual data entry and the creation of profiles from scratch.
Now, Bear Spray Shack processes more than fifteen hundred rental orders every month automatically, saving them thousands of dollars in labor and software development costs—thanks to their trust in EZRentOut.
Data that speaks for itself—quick revenue tracking
Holly says, “We track everything in EZRentOut—from daily revenue, sales, and orders due today to overdue rentals”. For example, they can easily know how many bear sprays are connected to active orders, which helps monitor revenue by location. This gives the team a clear picture of what’s rented, what’s due back, and how each location is performing.
“The custom dashboard is money!” shares Holly.
“We look at that probably like 10 times a day at least,” as she saves time and effort required to calculate revenue manually.
Additionally, since Bear Spray Shack actively uses custom fields, they leverage Custom Reports to conduct in-depth data analysis of those entries. For instance, calculating location-wise taxes through EZRentOut and recording the totals for final submission. Sounds cool, no?
“Having other people, like my partner, be able to generate a report and look at stuff definitely saves us tons of time and takes a lot of pressure off of me as well to do some of that,” says Holly about generating reports using EZRentOut. Creating graphs, displaying charts, and tracking key performance metrics, such as daily sales and revenue, has been a breeze!
This way, Holly can create a report in hardly five minutes and get a holistic view of the company’s rental operations, which is critical for a small team like Holly’s.
Experience on the go that changes everything!
While most aspects of EZRentOut meet Holly’s needs, the mobile app stands out as a significant highlight. The team at Bear Spray Shack can connect with their clients in minutes by retrieving their information from the app—anywhere, anytime. So, there’s no need to be physically present at the vending machines or a desktop to manage operations.
“The app has been super awesome,” comments Holly in excitement as she explains how she has managed several client queries and concerns in seconds using the EZRentOut mobile app.
A promise of growth, collaboration, and quality
Bear Spray Shack’s constant trust and confidence in EZRentOut and the platform’s flexibility have yielded remarkable results.
However, nothing would have been possible without the EZRentOut customer success team. Holly found the customer success team to be incredibly proactive, responding within minutes and going the extra mile to provide clear, practical solutions.
The collaboration between Bear Spray Shack and EZRentOut is a story of flexibility, understanding, and dedicated efforts to uphold the values of innovation, safety, and customer-first service.
Bear Spray Shack remains committed to scaling while using EZRentOut for the coming years. Meanwhile, the EZRentOut team continues its journey to provide them with simplified solutions, the EZ way! Holly encapsulates her satisfaction with EZRentOut in the following words: “EZRentOut taking the time to invest in our needs means a lot, truly.”
