How to Build a P2P Rental Website Like Fat Llama?

Fat Llama, the renowned Peer-to-Peer (P2P) rental marketplace for renting out diverse equipment was launched in 2016 by Chaz Englander, Rosie Dallas, and Owen Turner-Major. The idea behind the marketplace came to the founders when they faced difficulty finding rental tools for renovating a co-working space. As a result, they embarked on a new business venture to provide a more economical and efficient mode of owning short-term usage items. In fact, the actual value proposition of Fat Llama emphasizes providing more cost-effective solutions even when compared to offline rental shops. 

Within a few years of its launch, Fat Llama secured funding from renowned investors, including Y Combinator and Blossom Capital, and raised a total of $15.7 million in 6 funding rounds. In the year 2022, Fat Llama was acquired by Swedish rental marketplace giant Hygglo. However, till date, Fat Llama is renting out thousands of products every year and helping the sharing economy grow. In terms of figures, Fat Llama has over 1.2 million users and has facilitated over a million rentals across 7 countries. 

After the entrance of Fat Llama in the rental economy, we witnessed the emergence of several P2P rental marketplaces. Entrepreneurs are still interested in launching rental marketplaces similar to Fat Llama. If you are also interested, this guide includes everything you need to know to launch your P2P rental marketplace.

Key Value Proposition of Fat Llama

Fat Llama developed the following value proposition to gain traction in the market:

1. Peer-to-Peer Rentals

Fat Llama recognized that individuals often have rarely used items at their homes that they would prefer renting out. Thus, the entire product catalog available on Fat Llama belongs to individual owners, who can safely rent out their products to verified users. In return, Fat Llama charges a small commission on every rental that takes place on its marketplace.

2. Safety and Insurance

Fat Llama is also the world’s first fully insured P2P rental marketplace. Meaning, that to ensure product safety to owners, Fat Llama provides insurance for every rental product that is available on its marketplace. In case of any damages, theft, or loss, rental owners are adequately reimbursed for their products.

3. Diverse Product Catalog

Peers can rent out a wide range of products on Fat Llama. It is not limited to any specific products. Some examples of product categories available on Fat Llama are electronics, handheld tools, cameras, speakers, computers, furniture, garden supplies, camping gear, car accessories, and more. The diverse product catalog of Fat Llama makes it more convenient for different users.

4. Cost Effectiveness

Affordability and cost-effectiveness have remained one of the primary value propositions of Fat Llama from its beginning. People can rent out products at a fraction of the product’s actual costs and Fat Llama rental charges beat those of local rental shops as well.

Key Features Required on a P2P Rental Marketplace

• Rental Booking Calendar: The calendar will display product availability to customers and accept input for rental dates. It will also prevent double bookings.
• Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Pricing: Different rental products are rented out for different time periods. Thus, product owners should have the option to set daily, weekly, and monthly pricing.
• Rental Insurance: To ensure product safety, you can provide rental insurance on your P2P rental marketplace. This can be either mandated for all customers or provided as a rental add-on.
• Rental Security Management: Alternatively, you can collect a rental security amount to reimburse damages. For this, the rental software should support rental security collection and management.
• Product Inspection: Let customers inspect rental products on delivery and raise return or refund requests based on the condition of the products. They should also get the option to inform any pre-existing flaws or damages in the rental product.
• Late Returns: Late returns will impact the overall order fulfillment rate of your marketplace, which in the long term may harm your brand name. To prevent such issues, look for the late returns management features that allow you to define multiple late return periods and charge a small fee accordingly. 
• RFQ Module: The Request for Quote tool is required for placing bulk or complex orders. Let customers ask for a custom price quote for such orders and boost your overall conversion rate.
• Rental Agreement: Rental product owners have their own rental terms and conditions. Let them upload their rental terms on the marketplace and get them eSigned during checkout.
• User Management: On a P2P rental marketplace, you need comprehensive user management features, including custom user registration forms, user order history, vendor profile access, email notifications, internal messaging, and more.
• Commission Management: The primary source of revenue generation in a rental marketplace is often commissions. You should have the option to set your custom commission charges on the user level and global level (all across the marketplace). 
• eWallet: eWallets are highly useful for maintaining cash flow. As the marketplace owner, you need the option to view users’ e-wallet balances and approve withdrawal requests. You can also set up a custom withdrawal threshold amount and the minimum interval period.
• Document Verification: Provide product owners with complete peace of mind by verifying users. This can be done with the help of a document verification module that helps you collect and verify important documents such as identity proof, address proof, work permit, workplace address, driving license, and more.
• Rental Buffer Period: After the rental period ends, the rental product cannot be directly added back to the inventory for re-ordering. The owner might need to do the necessary inspection and maintenance work before adding it to the inventory. The rental buffer period will allow you to set a custom period that will sync all under-maintenance inventory with online inventory.
  

Build a Rental Marketplace like Fat Llama with Readymade Software

Readymade rental software is the most efficient way to build and launch your Fat Llama-like rental marketplace. However, there are multiple options available in the market, making it difficult to find the right one for your requirements. To make a proper selection, look out for the aforementioned features, explore software demos, book a one-on-one consultation with sales teams, and check out the company’s reputation in the rental industry. It is better if you can find a fully scalable solution that can accommodate the growing number of users and rental products on your marketplace without putting extra strain on your budget. 

YoRent Readymade Rental Software – The Perfect Solution to Build a P2P Rental Marketplace

For peer-to-peer and multi-category rental marketplaces, Yo!Rent is the most relevant and versatile rental solution available in the industry. It is a self-hosted solution that comes at a one-time cost. With its vast range of features, you only need to deploy the solution on your preferred servers and can use it for a lifetime. Being a fully scalable solution, Yo!Rent easily accommodates the growing number of users without requiring any package updates.

To streamline operations, Yo!Rent also has vendor dashboards, where users get all the options that they need to process and manage rental orders. They can browse products, track orders, view order history, contact product owners, access wallets, and do much more. 

To provide more support for P2P marketplaces, the multi-category design of Yo!Rent comes with neutral color accents and embraces minimalism so that despite offering a diverse product catalog, your P2P rental marketplace looks highly professional and helps you in brand building. To attract users, Yo!Rent has numerous marketing features and advanced reports & analytics so that you can make fully informed marketing and business management-related decisions. 

Key Reasons to Select YoRent

• Self-hosted solution available at a one-time cost
• Fully customizable to support any design or feature requirements 
• Fully scalable with unlimited user profiles, product listings, and transactions
• Next-gen rent-centric features for managing daily marketplace operations
• Readily available clutter-free and user-friendly multi-category design
• Multi-currency and multi-lingual support
• Advanced reports and analytics module
• 25+ payment gateways

Conclusion

Every business venture requires dedication and timely efforts. So was the case with Fat Llama. Along with business ideation, its founders were able to test and capitalize on their business idea in time. Originally, Fat Llama only facilitated P2P rental marketplace operations in the United Kingdom but later expanded to 7 more countries. Today, it has over a million users. While it will take you some time to reach this level, it is the incremental efforts that count that will help you turn your business idea into a successful venture. As the entire P2P rental marketplace business is technology-driven, your rental software selection will affect your overall business execution and growth.