Renting Sports Equipment: How to Expand Your Target Market
Growth is crucial to any sporting facility. Expanding your target market can help you increase revenues and fund more investments.
To grow your sporting facility, think about serving more people in your target market. Offering a single service or serving a single audience can limit your profits.
One of the ways to expand your audience or target market is by renting sports equipment. Most of it goes unused for a great part of the year. If you rent it, you make customers’ lives easier which helps expand your target market.
Use this guide to learn how renting sports equipment works, how to do it, and its benefits.
How Renting Sports Equipment Works
Renting sports equipment is as simple as allowing members to borrow your equipment for a given period. Your members can use this equipment where they deem fit.
Members renting your sports equipment can use them within your facilities, at home, or outdoors. This convenient business model allows for flexibility in their sporting lifestyle.
Sports equipment rental is a good business model to help you grow your target market. It’s a chance to align your business with the changing sporting and fitness market.
More people want to stay fit and also have a work-life balance. Physical fitness is always the top new year resolution. And most people will quit their jobs due to burnout or lack of a work-life balance.
Sports equipment rental helps members maintain their lifestyle without straining. It’s convenient, time-saving, and accommodating for people who may not feel comfortable in your facility.
How to Start Sports Equipment Rental
The demand for sports equipment rental services is increasing fast. More businesses are adapting to ensure they capture this new target market.
Renting sports equipment allows your members to work out from anywhere at any time. Learn how to start renting your sports equipment to appeal to your entire membership.
Analyze Your Target Market to Know Their Equipment Needs
It would be best if you researched next to know the needs of your target market. Also, decide whether you’ll concentrate on a specific sporting niche or several.
The beauty of sports equipment rental is opportunities are endless. There are so many types of sports equipment you can rent out in your target market.
First, analyze your target market to establish the right sports equipment rental opportunities. Ask your customers what types of sporting equipment they would want to rent.
Visit other sports facilities to know about market demand and current gaps. Go for in-demand but unrepresented sports and equipment. You don’t want to compete with the big shots or target a barren market.
Study Your Target Market Environment
Your market environment can tell you a lot about your business’ growth potential. It determines the type of sporting activities that can become popular in the area.
If you live near a beach, you should focus on renting out beach sporting equipment. Top beach sports may include surf kayaking, surfboat water rowing, or beach golf.
If you live near parks or recs, outdoor activities might provide lucrative business opportunities. You may consider renting equipment for mountain climbing, kayaking, or horse riding.
Prevent extra equipment from staying idle by listing them for rental. A significant audience may not find time to be active members. But they can appreciate renting your equipment.
Spend Less on More Equipment
You may find yourself at a crossroads when expanding into sporting equipment rentals. You don’t want to overspend on equipment. You also want the best and enough equipment for your clients.
The best sporting equipment is likely expensive for a sports rental. Look for low-cost alternatives such as second hand or you can also rent to save money. Renting used sports equipment can help you save a lot of money.
There’s a risk of over-projecting equipment needs when getting started. And there’s also a risk of member disservice if you fail to project your customers’ needs. Streamline equipment tracking to prevent losses with inventory management software like Daysmart.
Automate Equipment Tracking and Setup Payment Plans
Managing bookings and prices can be a huge pain point for rental stores. Manual tracking of availability and usage hours or periods can be hard work. Not to forget you have to ensure proper maintenance of all equipment.
Daysmart Recreation is the secret to streamlined inventory management when renting sports equipment. Forget the headache of tedious and error-prone manual tracking registers and excel sheets.
Get Equipment Insured
You can make money right away from renting out sports equipment in a fairy tale world. But in the real world, potential risk will slow you down unless you do the necessary.
Rental sporting facilities come with a dual-fold risk. One, your equipment is at risk of damage. And the worst part is, if your members have an accident, your sporting facility may be liable for damages.
You can incur huge costs if you’re found liable for your client’s injuries and damages. About 600,000 people are injured every year when skiing and snowboarding. Insurance for sporting equipment rentals is the key to protecting your business.
Build Relationships With Strategic Partners
The next hard part about running a rental business model is reaching
your target market. One effective way is to look at your members’ favorite fun spots.
Reach out to hotels, resorts, cafes, pubs, and restaurants to seek strategic partnerships. The thinking is these businesses can help you connect with your target partners.
Collaborate on marketing campaigns and ask them for customer referrals. By working together, you can help each other grow and reach your target markets.
Advertise Your Sports Equipment Rental Service
Another essential part of expanding your target market is marketing and advertising. Creating a solid marketing strategy to reach and convert your target market is necessary.
The first thing to do is to understand your target audience’s behaviors. To launch successful marketing campaigns, you need to know their favorite dwelling points and platforms.
Marketing comprises various strategies. And only a few of them will work for a sporting facility. Combine both traditional and digital marketing for better results.
Take advantage of your existing facility membership to develop a referral program. Your current clients can spread your gospel and help grow your customer base.
Choose digital marketing platforms best suited for the sports equipment rental business.
Benefits of Sports Equipment Rental: How it Helps Expand Your Target Market
Here’s a look at some ways renting sports equipment can help expand your target market.
Cost-Effective Option for Your Target Market
Typically you need to grow your sports facility membership to generate more revenue. The problem is the standard way of operations can be counter-intuitive.
A good deal of prospects may want an occasional sporting experience. Buying sporting equipment can be unreasonable for them. If you abide by a members-only policy, you’re likely to leave a lot of money on the table.
Sports equipment rentals open up your facility doors to the seasonal and cost-conscious market segment. The beauty of it is you’ll attract more people. You’ll also increase revenues by helping customers save on new sporting equipment.
Improve Member Experience
Renting sporting equipment may help improve the quality of your member’s life. It’s an extra option to allow more people to enjoy sports and fitness activities in your community.
Most sporting facilities and gyms usually have a dormant audience. Most dormant audiences are likely inactive because of their schedule or your cost.
Offering sporting equipment rentals may help you attract back your inactive audience. It can also help grow your audience by offering a new yet exciting package.
Reach an Underserved Target Market
Expanding from sporting facilities to offering sporting equipment rental increases your revenue streams. It’s realigning your business to market changes that help grow your target market.
Sports equipment rental is a huge market. Top sporting equipment and apparel brands have joined the band to offer the service. In Germany, an outdoor company Schöffel rents skiwear via selected retailers and portals in Austria and Switzerland.
Swedish ski brand Houdini has offered rental services since 2012. “Demand has risen sharply in recent years,” says Nanny Bergstedt of Houdini. She went on to state that people tend to plan half a year in advance and reserve their clothes for the holidays.
Sporting equipment rental services are a big trend in sports and fitness. Proactive sporting ventures capable of realigning to offer the service can make a killing.
Makes Your Sporting Facility More Competitive
Offering sports equipment rental services is a chance to stand out in your niche and attract more customers. This is an in-demand service that will make your business the go-to option in your community.
The advantage of allowing customers to rent your equipment is that you’re filling a market gap. You’re allowing members to access a unique service within your target market. Customers may prefer your brand when you pay attention to their needs.
Daysmart Recreation Makes Renting Sports Equipment Simple
Renting sports equipment is economically worthwhile if you do it correctly. Research your audience and audit your environment to ensure you offer needed rental services.
Also, find an effective way to manage logistics and stay organized. You don’t want customer demands to outpace you or lose trust because of poor services and prices. To start using Daysmart Recreation to simplify processes in your sports equipment rental business, request a demo today.
