Tool rental programs

We’re thinking about setting up a tool rental program. What should we be aware of?

- Frank Benzing, SummerWinds, Boise, Idaho

SANDI MCDONALD: Tool rental … been there, done that.

Now, I don’t want to put a damper on someone’s idea of a business venture, but I tried it for several years and we are now out of the rental business.

Yes, this can be a very touchy topic for some folks, me being one of them. We do sell and service several brands of lawn and garden power equipment; including mowers, trimmers, blowers and chainsaws, to mention a few.

We thought that it was only natural to rent equipment as well. So we began renting the above pieces of equipment -- but we didn’t stop there. We also rented items that we used in our landscape division. This included renovators, aerators, lawn rollers and much more.

Issues we faced

Pricing. Any piece of rental equipment with a motor on it had an hourly rate, and no motorized items were rented by the half day or full day. This in itself caused issues with people wanting “travel time” to not be included in the rental time period. We worked this issue out both ways, and found it best to charge the customer from the time it was picked up until it was returned.

To reserve or not? The biggest issue on rental was on our seasonal items such as renovators and aerators during fall and spring lawn renovation time. People would call to reserve a unit. Then we would have another customer drive 40 minutes to our store only to hear, “Sorry, sir. This unit is spoken for and the gentleman should be here in an hour.”

At today’s gas prices you cannot afford to lose customers that way.

When we didn’t hold the equipment and tried a first-come-first-served approach, we would run into the same type of problems. The customer living 40 minutes away would call to check that we had one available, only to find that it went out to someone else 15 minutes before his arrival.

Wear and tear. We also requested the equipment come back to us as it was picked up, clean and ready to turn around to another customer. That never happened.

Our own rental equipment seemed to keep my repair shop in plenty of work repairing and cleaning our rental items.

Why we abandoned the program

As far as I am concerned, you cannot get enough money from rental fees to cover all the hidden costs. We have since stopped the program and have slept better because of it.

This service needs to stay with a reputable rental company, and we in turn need to continue to help the customer by offering our services and do the job for them.

{sidebar id=3}

- Sandi McDonald, Hillermann Nursery & Florist, Washington, Mo.

August 2008