When relocating to a new city, setting up your new workspace, or renovating your home, the furniture comes at prime consideration to make the house complete. While Students and working professionals find it hectic to ship their furniture at the time of relocation, renting out furniture online has proved to be a better approach to reducing the physical hustle.
Rental businesses in multiple industries have experienced unprecedented growth in the past few years. Consequently, the furniture rental industry is yet to achieve its real potential in the coming times.
A study conducted by Fortune Business Insights on the furniture rental business concludes “The global furniture rental service market is projected to grow from $73.19 billion in 2022 to $139.05 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 9.6% in the forecast period”.
CORT is one of the earliest entrants into the furniture rental industry and provides excellent services in furniture rentals through its online website and offline stores. In this blog, we will discuss the operations, business model, and revenue streams of CORT to help you launch your own furniture rental marketplace.
CORT is an omnichannel furniture rental business with operations in 85 countries across the globe. The company provides its services in multiple subdomains including event rentals, destination services, party rentals, Apartment search, etc.
CORT serves as a one-stop solution for individuals looking to relocate by helping them find a place to live and providing them with furniture to rent. Additionally, CORT also provides solutions to startups by helping them set up their new offices by providing quality office furnishings and arranging their corporate events.
CORT has made it super easy for customers to rent furniture in a matter of a few clicks. Customers check the availability of furniture at their delivery location, select the furniture, place the order and schedule the delivery. Alternatively, they can also visit the nearest CORT showroom to place the order. Once the rental period gets over, customers can schedule the reverse pick-up of the furniture at their convenience.
There are specific requirements to rent furniture on CORT, which include the minimum order value which is displayed at the time of placing the order. The minimum lease period to rent furniture on CORT is 30-days.
To streamline the process of moving to new places easier, CORT has dedicated Move-in packages for students, homes, and the military. Additionally, extra discounts are also provided to students and military personnel upon validating their identity.
The business model of CORT furniture rental completely revolves around exceptional customer service that creates trust among the customer and helps the business expand the loyal customer base.
CORT has multiple revenue streams that generate around $902M per year. The main revenue channel for the company is lease charges through its furniture rental website and showrooms. CORT also provides services in multiple domains including apartment search, room service, Cort events, destination services, furniture sales, office space optimizations, etc.
Apart from providing services, CORT also sells insurance that covers customers from accidental furniture losses.
CORT also provides a subscription package “Furniture On Your Terms(FOYT” that includes everything that the customer needs while relocating except personal belongings.
Since CORT has multiple offline stores where customers can select the furniture of their choice, it might get difficult to directly compete with the business. You can start by defining a distinct business model that works for your target location and audience. Further, you can segregate the target audience depending upon use cases including target audiences like students, military personnel, IT professionals, etc.
Renting high-quality furniture made of fine wood lasts longer and can be used for longer cycles, and this also adds up to customer satisfaction.
A multivendor furniture rental marketplace will have more revenue streams and multiple options for customers. Experts at Forbes say that any single revenue stream of your business should not account for more than 15% of your total revenue. So, it is important for your business to have diversified ways to generate revenue. This ensures stability for the business in the longer term.
Multiple revenue streams that you can consider for your Furniture rental marketplace include Platform commissions, Advertisements, Paid listing, Subscription Packages, etc.
An efficient technology partner for seamless user experience is quite important in online furniture rental businesses. You need intelligent rental software with a smaller check-out process and intuitive website design to provide a secure, robust, and scalable furniture rental platform.
The basic required functionalities for an online furniture rental business include agreement management, document verification, booking calendar, order management, subscription module, furniture inspection, etc.
CORT is a furniture rental business where customers can lease out their furniture for a minimum of 30 days. Starting a similar business can be a hectic task as CORT is an established player, backed by Berkshire Hathaway, and has authority in the offline market with its multiple showrooms.
The online furniture rental business is still expecting new entrants in the domain and efficient planning can surely pave the way for success for a new furniture rental business. Multiple vendors on the website can cater to the customer requirements in an efficient manner with a lot of options available.
Yo!Rent is a dedicated furniture rental software that helps business owners to build their own furniture rental website.