Renting

[metro99]

Hi all,

First time poster here. Just wanted to know if anyone here has any experience with renting. I am looking to maximize my revenue streams with as little distraction as possible from my main business of building custom PCs and repairs.

The town I am in has a huge tourism base year-round and as such, it is hard to capture that market in any meaningful way. Best I could come up with was selling cell-phone/laptop chargers and renting out electronics. I am thinking of hooking up with the hotels to offer laptop rentals on a daily basis at a cost of about ~$25-30 per day. I know almost exactly what I'd be getting into as well. Broken screens, negligent use, virus'/malware galore, etc. But being the repair guy, I could easily fix those and I would have to assume that risk.

My idea is to buy up used/refurbished units I could gloss up and use as my renters. Maybe pay $150-200 per unit and hope that I can turn a profit before the thing breaks down completely. I'd also like to consider taking deposits via either myself or the hotel. Problem is, I don't know if stopgap solutions such as squareup/kudos even offer pre-auth. Any ideas on that front?

I'm sure my laptops would be rented out constantly and see this as a good opportunity to capture this market. My real question behind the initial one would be if anyone else has managed to profit reasonably from such a fleeting market? If so, how?

Basically I'm probing to get some alternate point of views from those much more experience in this biz than I. Any advice would be great.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Personally I think this idea would be a non starter. Depending on what type of hotel(s) your looking at, depends on what type of clients they would have. I.e. Cheap motel, clients may not want a laptop. Proper hotel, business clients would already bring their own laptops with them.

Instead, I would contact the hotels your thinking of, and offering your services to them, and their clients. Leave some leaflets (ask if your allowed to). You could even use the hotel as a collection / drop off point. Offer up some kind of revenue stream to the hotels, so they are getting something out of it also, and you would both be in a win / win situation.

Just my thoughts, others may have differing ideas to me.

 

[metro99]

Personally I think this idea would be a non starter. Depending on what type of hotel(s) your looking at, depends on what type of clients they would have. I.e. Cheap motel, clients may not want a laptop. Proper hotel, business clients would already bring their own laptops with them.

Instead, I would contact the hotels your thinking of, and offering your services to them, and their clients. Leave some leaflets (ask if your allowed to). You could even use the hotel as a collection / drop off point. Offer up some kind of revenue stream to the hotels, so they are getting something out of it also, and you would both be in a win / win situation.

Just my thoughts, others may have differing ideas to me.

Thanks for the reply. The town is tourism heavy, and the hotels are more resorts than anything. It is most definitely not a business client town. Many clients are from other countries and from all over Canada. Many are only here for ~1 week. Think vacationing.

I don't know how it could be a non starter if done properly. I can't think of any other way to get this market. Even if I can't partner up with the hotels, nothing a little guerilla marketing can't solve . My main advantage of partnering up with them, though, is like you said their ability to track inventory and act as a legitimate deterrent against abuse and theft. The big question of the day is To Deposit or Not To Deposit.

I was even exploring the idea of renting out Xboxes and partnering up with the local video store for the games. I know many video stores have moved away from renting out consoles but I'm feeling crazy enough to try it. They're $299 ATM so a 75% deposit isn't hard to swallow for the clients I'll be dealing with.

 

[Kitten Kong]

I am pretty sure this has been talked about previously on TN. Have a search through the forums, and have a look.

Obviously I do not know your location, hence why I mentioned about business clients etc. For those who are on vacation, it could be a starter.

I would think about seeing the hotels, offering them the laptops, which they could rent to their clients. Yes you would lose out on the rental income per se, but could gain from the revenue from the hotels. Let the hotels take the hit(s), you could still offer to break / fix them.

Which would not require you to have a deposit etc. As it would be the hotels who deal with that issue direct with their clients.

As long as you have a system in place for reimaging, or windows steady state etc, reloads if required should not prove to be a issue.

Same with the xbox rentals, offer that service to the hotels direct.

 

[Harold]

I've seen this done before and you want to target the higher end hotels, not the cheap motels. Create a flyer that offers emergency rental services and co-brand the flyer with the hotels logo. You also must provide pickup and delivery to the hotel.

It's not a service that you provide to the hotel and then the hotel resells for you. They don't want to be involved with the transaction. They just want to have a "Go-To" place for the concierge to refer someone to when a guest's laptop breaks and they need a loaner for a day or two.

You can charge a premium for a couple of days use because the only time you get business is:

1) It's an emergency, they must have a laptop and theirs broke.
2) It's a business expense. They are either charging it to their corporation or expensing it off.

Harold

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I think it could work. You'd have to have a contract that if the laptop is damaged they bought it and already have their visa approval. Since your using used laptops and the values are probably less than $400-600, Maybe ring up as a sale charging Visa the full purchase price used when they pick it up and then credit the difference between rental and purchase when they return it undamaged.

So you give me $200 rental plus $400 deposit today and next month you get $400 credited back to your visa when I get the laptop back. And if you decide to keep the laptop then just take it home with you.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

I think it could work. You'd have to have a contract that if the laptop is damaged they bought it and already have their visa approval. Since your using used laptops and the values are probably less than $400-600, Maybe ring up as a sale charging Visa the full purchase price used when they pick it up and then credit the difference between rental and purchase when they return it undamaged.

So you give me $200 rental plus $400 deposit today and next month you get $400 credited back to your visa when I get the laptop back. And if you decide to keep the laptop then just take it home with you.

I like that idea, but seems kinda steep. Not that it's not worth it I just think it would be hard to get people to agree to it.

 

[metro99]

Thanks for the ideas guys, everyone has been helpful.

The emergency rental idea would work for charging higher rates but could conflict if I start offering Xboxes/PS3's. I do like the idea of co-branding with the hotel. It could be the start of a very lucrative partnership.

I would love to get pre-authorization support, but I have literally no idea how to implement it as I'll be using a program called Kudos (Squareup isn't available in Canada). I will likely be accepting many more CC's than what's considered normal if I work through the hotel for most of my business due to the requirement to own one to get a room and the level of income guests to this hotel/town have.

I am not sure I'm going to even think about using current gen for rentals. I'm thinking purchasing the rentals for ~$150-250

Unless of course I fully provide all hardware and service for a business/internet center within the hotel. Now I'm dreamin'!

Has anyone had any experience with Kudos? What do Canadians on this site use instead of SquareUp?