Rentoid blog

We’ve recently been talking about Australian current affair TV show called the Hungry Beast. W think it is clearly the best show on television. The good news for those who haven’t seen it is that every episode is available via the ABC iView channel on the web.

Last week they ran an entire episode about “waste”. Which was very interesting and at times even disgusting. It’s a topic close to our hearts here at rentoid as we very much encourage a better utlisation of resources via renting (the worlds oldest commercial form of effective asset management)

Here’s a little clip they did on bottled water…. an old enemy of ours, especially in a country like Australia where what comes out of the tap ‘for free’ is as good as it gets.

We had a rentoid customer asking for advice on how to get more rentals. We sent him the information below and thought it was worth sharing here on our blog. Our little bag of tricks!

We get many thousands of rentals every week. There are however some keys to getting your items rented out and they are as follows. I guarantee if you follow these rules you will get rental income:

1. Make sure your pricing is right. We recommend the following pricing structure (that is rental fee on your items).

• Charge 1% of the items value for 1 day rental.
• Charge 2% of items value for a weekend.
• Charge 5% for a weekly rate. and
• Charge 10% of items value for a months rental.

Check your pricing.

2. Write a long and detailed description of your rental items. People want detail so they don’t waste their time. Give your item the full description.

3. Have many photos. You can upload many photos for each item. Make sure you have pictures which show what they are renting so there are ‘no surprises.

4. Share your rental listings. Once you have listed an item on rentoid.com - make sure you share it on your facebook account and twitter (if you have one). You can also like your own items on rentoid… so your friends will see your stuff for rent. You’ll notice every item on rentoid has the ability to “like” it on facebook and also twitter. Just click it - it is very easy. This also adds your Google ranking of your item.

5. Share rentoid - the more people that use / know about rentoid the more they share it - which equals renters for you. So share the goodness. Post it on your facebook page…. tell / email to friends. Favourite the rentoid facebook page - share it:

6. List items people want. Like all businesses it is about 20% of the itms that get 80% of all the rental transactions. So make sure you are renting stuff people need / want. The most popular items are those things that people only use temporarily. eg A Lawn mower, A caravan, a tent, A nintendo Wii, a jetski. Stuff we love to use on a weekend or for an event / party or for a project. These are the things that people need and want, and would rather rent than buy. If you want to know what people want. Then a good trick is to check the catalogs from retail stores. People generally rent the same things that people buy…. items in demand.

7. Trial - A lot of people rent things as a try before you buy. I personally rented out my iPad and had it ‘paid off’ in 5 weeks because so many people wanted to rent it before they bought one…

8. Send us a list of the items you want to list. We’ll give you some advice on their demand (how often they are searched) and some pricing / promo advice.

9. Have a ‘reasonable’ bond & terms on conditions which are ‘fair’. If your bond price is crazy people will say ‘too hard’ and rent the next thing…. Just make it like 20-40% of the items retail value.

Let us know if you would like any further advice - also send me some links to your items and I’ll put them on the blog to promote them for you which will help for sure.

Cheers, the rentoid team.

There is an interesting article featured in Rental Management Magazine that would appeal to all local rental companies (any business really) here in Australia.

The article looks at how the economic downturn in the US made made it necessary for many rental store owners and managers to change their mindset and approach their rental businesses with  a “startup mentality.”

There are some good lessons in the article offered from rental business owners.  Some of the comment demonstrate just how some business owners think during the good times:

“We were in growth mode for 20 years, always buying equipment and adding people, but preparing for growth is expensive”

That’s not the start up way, and it is easy to see why that type of thinking doesn’t lead to sustained success.

Preparing for growth isn’t “expensive” it is “investing”, and isn’t necessarily expensive.  It is expensive if you stuff it up!

Prepare for growth by getting on the counter yourself, getting out into your yard or store, answering the phone, connecting with your customers, loading the trailers, the utes and the vans, doing the deliveries and pick ups yourself.  You will be amazed at how much you learn,  the opportunities that you uncover, and the relationships you will build.  Do these simple things and you will grow and you will be prepared; because you are in touch with your customers (the edge of the demand curve).   And it costs very little.  In fact it is probably the best investment for growth you will make in ROI terms.

And this approach  shouldn’t just be the start up way- it should be the way of your business.  Full stop.

“This is what we did in the early days. We wanted to get our name out there. After more than 30 years, we still need to get our name out there and show people why we are the best and what the difference is. All of our competitors are cutting prices, so we need to show why we’re better and what differentiates us,”

Don’t have a startup mentality just “in the early days” have it “every day”.  The team at rentoid do-  and we have run successful rental companies for over 12 years.

So Start today by checking out some of the tips at startup blog (by rentoid founder Steve Sammartino)

In a recent Smart Company article rentoid.com was featured alongside Zappos, Virgin Blue and Atlassian. Which is quite a nice compliment.

The article was all about having a culture with essentially human values. Which our rentoid members know we are all about being real. The article is worth a read and features our Chief Rental Guru Shannon Cooper and has some good tips for any company or small business.

Click here to read it all.

We’ve recently discovered at our humble rentoid office about the uber intelligent Rachel Botsman. She’s co-author of new book “What’s mine is yours” - the rise of collaborative consumption. Which is well, really the movement we’ve been promoting since rentoid’s inception. We’ll talk more about it in the coming weeks. But here’s a great little video to whet the appetite.

Collaborative Consumption Groundswell Video from rachel botsman on Vimeo.