How to Create a Construction Equipment Rental Website Like United Rentals?

Those who are unaware, United Rentals is the world’s largest equipment rental company. It may be the largest company today, but at some time, it also had a beginning. It was in October 1997 that Bradley Jacobs launched United Rentals and scattered its rental operations in 6 regions throughout North America. 

Today, United Rental has 660,000 fleet size and operates across 1,301 sites. Its reported revenue for the year 2021 was $9.716 billion. But how was United Rentals able to grow so much? There can be various reasons but staying relevant to consumer needs tops them all. 

To easily provide more value to customers, United Rentals adapted the digital model and rented out construction equipment through a website. This made United Rentals business model highly relevant in the modern internet era. However, there is still a huge scope in the online equipment rental industry as many offline players are yet to take the digital route.

Table of Contents

• Business Model of an Online Equipment Rental Business
  – Workflow of a Single Vendor Construction Equipment Rental Business
  – Workflow of a Multi Vendor Construction Equipment Rental Marketplace
  – Features Required to Launch a Website like United Rentals
• How to Launch an Online Construction Equipment Rental Website
• Start your Construction Equipment Rental Business with Yo!Rent

Business Model of an Online Equipment Rental Business

While there is scope for new entrants to launch their equipment rental website and deliver the same value as United Rentals, it is first important to understand how an online construction equipment rental business works. 

Basically, there are two types of online construction equipment rental stores, which are single vendor and multi-vendor. While the former requires the business owners to purchase the inventory, the latter is an asset light business model.

Workflow of a Single Vendor Construction Equipment Rental Business

• The business owner uploads product listings on the online platform
• Customers browse the listings and submit rental fee plus rental security to place an order
• The business owner delivers the equipment via the started delivery/pickup method
• After usage, the customer returns the equipment back to the admin who inspects the equipment for any damages
• In case of damages, the admin deducts the reimbursement from the customer’s rental security and returns the rest to the customer

Workflow of a Multi Vendor Construction Equipment Rental Marketplace

• Equipment owners (vendors) sign up on the platform and upload listings
• The business owner gives his/her approval or rejection on the listings
• If approved, the listing is displayed on the marketplace
• Customers browse equipment listings and submit rental fee plus rental security to place an order
• The business owner delivers the equipment via the selected delivery/pickup method
• Meanwhile, the rental fee and rental security is added to the equipment owner’s digital wallet
• After usage, the customer returns the equipment back to the equipment owner who inspects the equipment for any damages
• In case of any damages, the equipment owner informs the business owner who then deducts the reimbursement from the rental security. The remaining security amount is returned to the customer
• Any digital wallet on a marketplace platform has a withdrawal threshold limit. For example, let’s say $100. Once the equipment owner’s total earnings reach $100, he can withdraw the amount from the wallet and transfer it to his own bank account

Features Required to Launch a Website Like United Rentals

An online store is not a business storefront for your customer but also an end-to-end solution with several backend options for automation, marketing, store management and business management. To run an online construction equipment rental store like United Rentals and provide quality rental services to customers, your online store will require the following features:

• Catalog management
• Order management
• Tax management
• Cart management
• Rental security management
• Late return and cancellations
• Product comparison
• Booking calendar
• Request for quote
• Custom filters
• Rental add-ons
• Sub admin accounts
• Agreement esign

Note: You can bookmark this list for later

How to Launch an Online Construction Equipment Rental Website

To launch your online construction equipment rental store, you can rely on traditional custom development. However, with the availability of so many tested and tried online rental software and business solutions available today, it is wiser to go forward with them. Below is how you can use an online rental software to launch your construction equipment rental store:

1. Select your Online Rental Software

Explore the internet for an online rental software that best suits your requirements. Then you can narrow down the list and contact software providers for demos and price quotes. Do note that viewing software demos is important to verify the functioning of the software.

2. Select your Brand Name and Domain Name

In the modern era, where the majority of businesses are dependent on the internet, it is required for your brand name and domain name to match. Not only that helps customers in finding your website sooner but also assists in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For this reason, it is advised to select your brand name and domain name together. 

3. Buy a Hosting Service Provider

There are several pre-hosted rental software available in the market. However, these software do not give the server choice to business owners. On the other hand, if you select a self-hosted server, then you can buy a faster or more reliable server of your preference. It is best advised to consult the software team to confirm minimum server requirements for an appropriate selection.

4. Deploy the Online Rental Software on the Server

After purchasing the server, you can ask the rental software team for deployment. They will install the rental software on your server and also do configurations such as setting payment methods, bank accounts, business name, address, social media accounts, etc. 

5. Add Products and Manage

Once the software is deployed, you can upload construction equipment listings, set up various pages, add more details to start your business. Use the software’s in-built feature for promotion and business management.

Start your Construction Equipment Rental Business with YoRent

YoRent is a white label construction equipment rental software with advanced rent-centric functionalities and features. It can be used to launch both single vendor online stores and multi-vendor marketplaces. Along with B2C operations, Yo!Rent also supports B2B operations with advanced features like bulk volume discounts, RFQ and agreement management. Being a fully customizable and fully scalable software, Yo!Rent accommodates all stages of business growth. It supports unlimited listings, transactions, user profiles and sub admin accounts for facilitating startup to enterprise level operations.

Construction Equipment Rental Stores Built with Yo!Rent:

FAINDaMAQ: Mexico’s first ever heavy equipment rental marketplace

GearFlow: Advanced heavy equipment rental store with both rental and sales capabilities.
View case study