7 ms·
Show HN: Rentify – Create an online rental store
- chris140957 6y agoHi, I just launched Rentify Rentify is aimed at owners of small rental stores who currently take bookings via phone/email only but want to have a proper online store with online payments, etc. It provides card payments through Stripe and full inventory and schedule management. Thanks for looking, Chris
- nickreese 6y agoYour pricing seems cheap. How does it compare to the market?
- chris140957 6y agoThere are more expensive options out there, who are VC-backed. Their pricing is much higher (like £5k per year in some cases). This is a downstream opportunity - I'm targeting small rental businesses who currently take orders via email/phone only, who wouldn't necessarily have the budget for the more expensive players
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dubcanada 6y agoThe pricing also seems weird, the free plan has a 10% fee on all bookings while the paid one doesn't. So after $300 worth of bookings, you are making more money off the "free" plan then the paid plan?
- chris140957 6y agoPricing is still WIP, but essentially yes, if a user is putting even a small amount of revenue through this thing then it makes more sense to sign up for a standard account. I’m trying to encourage users to do this in order to get consistent revenue
- ad31mar 6y agoHow can I get in touch with you? Tried emailing the domain.
- chris140957 6y agochris@rentify.store. I’ll put this in the landing page too
- silexia 6y agoI am interested in signing up to rent out my heavy equipment. I will message you directly.
- delgaudm 6y agoI like the idea, and could even be interested. A demo site or even a few screenshots would help. I don't want to sign up just to see if it does what I hope it does. Edited to add: If you actually click through to the terms of use, then go back to the sign up form, your details are deleted, but it seems like you can't open the ToU or privacy policy in a new window.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chris140957 6y agoI've been meaning to put up a demo store, here's a link to it: https://store.rentify.store/#/P9EuoPUMJ https://store.rentify.store/#/P9EuoPUMJ I'll put this link on the landing page too, once I've added a few more products to it. I'll update the legal docs to open in a new page
- bottled_poe 6y agoI had a look at this. So, I’m renting a bike.. where am I renting it from?
- chris140957 6y agoWhen you place a booking, it shows you the collection address. But you're probably right, this should be a lot more visible before you get to that stage. The idea is that you refer customers to this site from your main website, but its still valid feedback
- mufufu 6y agoThat page is not rendering for me on mobile Safari, it’s just giving me a blank page
- chris140957 6y agoAre you including the full path? The last part of the URL is the unique store id - It will render a blank page if that's omitted. On my mobile safari, HN doesn't show me the full URL, but when I click on it, it renders fine
- buf 6y agoThis might be confusing for folks looking to find you and they end up on rentify.com, also based in the UK
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chris140957 6y agoYeah I noticed this straight after launch too.... really bad research on my part
- mromanuk 6y agoYou should change your name. Don’t worry, this launch is also part of the research.
- chris140957 6y agoYep, I suspect I'm going to have to.
- klausjensen 6y agoThis is great. Congrats on launching. :)
- chris140957 6y agoThanks!
- kakkan 6y agoI'm new to the community but the overall wisdom suggests that you should, if possible, save releasing on HN till you have the MVP. It's a good gauge for measuring the interest but if you launch after you have the MVP, you could legit get more traction, sign-ups, paying leads and actionable feedback. Because I'm not quite sure if you launch the same thing after you have the MVP, it would have the same reception since it was already launched once. Obviously, let me know if I'm wrong, because it's what I'm under the impression because even I'm waiting to release a personal project once it's done.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chris140957 6y agoHi, thanks for the feedback, but actually this is fully functional right now
- StavrosK 6y agoI agree, just make sure to keep the M really minimal. Lots of people fall into the feature trap and end up releasing way too late.
- morcutt 6y agoLooks like an MVP to me.
- chelovek89 6y agoCool concept. A couple months back I wished something like this existed so I could rent my home gym equipment while all the gyms were closed.
- chris140957 6y agoThanks, that's not a use case I had thought about but an interesting one
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rhuanbarreto 6y agoCan it be used for lending products for free?
- chris140957 6y agoYes - its possible to create a pricing plan for a product with a price of zero. In this configuration, Rentify can be used completely free of charge
- the-dude 6y agoWasn't there a similar concept in the YCS20 batch? Targetted at storage?
- chris140957 6y agoI'm not familiar with that one, but quite possibly. This isn't a unique product - there are others out there which do a similar thing. However, those are all VC-backed and quite expensive in comparison to this. This is more of a downmarket opportunity - I'm targeting smaller rental store owners who cannot accept online bookings/payments currently. This is completely bootstrapped so it's easy enough for me to position myself that way
- the-dude 6y agoIt was W20 : OpenUnit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24433031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24433031 No affiliation whatsoever.
- egonschiele 6y agoI love this idea. You should also explain how you differ from Shopify.
- chris140957 6y agoShopify isn't specifically targeted at rentals. Rentify lets you specify what's in your inventory and will show the customer exactly when items in your store are available - so it doesn't handle things like clashing booking times
- monkeydust 6y agoThanks was wondering that also. Can it be replicated vi a shopify or wix with a 'rental' module if such a a thing exists? Just curious.
- pg4 6y agoHi there, which of the three Stripe Connect account types did you go with?
- chris140957 6y agoExpress, I wanted to make the onboarding process as easy as possible given that my users are not necessarily particularly technical or familiar with Stripe
- bakztfuture 6y agoLove the idea and think this could be a huge market. Just wondering if you guys help with theft, damage, or insurance too? What are the best practices for this?
- chris140957 6y agoIt’s not something I’ve considered, but would certainly add the functionality of there was the demand for it. How do you think this would look?
- binarymax 6y agoNot to be harsh, but have you actually run a rental store yourself before? Because id management, theft, and damage are the main issues that people face when doing so. If you haven't considered it, then I suggest you start researching immediately, because your customers WILL come back and say their tool was stolen and they need help or will request compensation.
- chris140957 6y agoI haven’t, it’s interesting to hear feedback from those who haven’t. Whenever I rent a car, I pay in advance online, and then pay a security deposit/they put a hold on my card in the store. Presumably a feature like that would address your concerns here?
- derwiki 6y agoTable stakes but likely won’t be enough. If it’s a stolen card, the owner will charge back and you can’t keep the deposit. If you get too many chargebacks your payment provider will drop you. If you charge someone for damage they did that they don’t want to own up to, they will issue a chargeback. You will likely win the dispute if you can point to ToS violations but it’s a huge pain and ties up money for a few weeks. In your example, the car rental company is doing something on the backend to determine your trustworthiness before they give you the car—you should consider a similar approach.
- csnweb 6y agoCool idea. Just one suggestion, if you say your customers might not know stripe, speaking of stripe fees is probably unclear as well? May be you can copy in the current stripe fees and label them as payment processing? You could also make it a link to a page that explains them. Good luck!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- RaaSontheblock 6y agoI like the idea, but don't you think the name is a little tone deaf?
- DerpyBaby123 6y agoPricing is in GBP, is it available in the USA?
- chris140957 6y agoYes - You can select the currency you want once you’ve logged in. Currently we support USD, EUR and GBP payments but can theoretically support any currency that stripe does. I just haven’t gotten around to adding the rest yet
- derwiki 6y agoCool idea! I used to run a kinda similar company in the video space. A few questions: Any plans to help with fraud? This looks like voluntary parting, so most insurance companies won’t help with theft. If you hold a deposit and it ends up being a stolen card, you have to refund the money. Or Stripe will take it back when the card owner reports the fraudulent charge. Some advice: - take more than 10%, account for some of that money going to fraud cleanup - if it’s an item you don’t want to have to replace, do as many anti-fraud checks as you can. Four years ago Stripe wasn’t enough: a combination of Stripe/Sift Science/in-house heuristics made the problem easier - make sure you have proper legal protections in place. If a rental shop gets hit big with fraud, it’s not unlikely that they’ll sue you I know these seem like problems to solve for way in the future, but I started seeing fraudulent attempts almost as soon as I started seeing rentals. Good luck!
- chris140957 6y agoAnother user has raised this point, and it seems totally valid. I think I need to add the ability to put a holding deposit on a customers card, and probably also update the terms of service...
- derwiki 6y agoAt a minimum! Like I said, the deposit is meaningless if it’s a stolen card. Anecdotally, our fraud attempts dropped drastically when we blocked pre-paid credit cards. I’m sure we lost some legitimate business, but when weighing a 10% cut of a rental fee against replacing a stolen item, the math worked out.
- chris140957 6y agoHave started reading the stripe radar docs...
- julienfr112 6y agoCongrats ! I had a same idea (and same name idea !). But idea are cheap... The base seem's solid, but you are a long way home : you can make order without mail and phone confirmation or paiement, so renters will end up with a lot of noise !
- chris140957 6y agoThis is true, but it’s a problem that goes away when you enable payments on your account - once you’ve done that, customers must pay to place an order
- psnehanshu 6y agoYour landing page is built with Vue.js as a static SPA without any pre-rendered content in it. This is bad as Google will not index your page. I suggest using Nuxt.js for the landing page.
- XCSme 6y agoDoesn't Google correctly index this sort of SPAs nowdays? I have a React SPA with no SSR and Google indexed it correctly.
- psnehanshu 6y agodidn't know, sorry
- gremlinsinc 6y agoSite isn't working.. vue.runtime.esm.js:1888 Error: Cannot find module './carousel-1.png' at a (carousel\-.*\.png$:2) at App.vue?0ab8:1 at a.Pe [as _l] (vue.runtime.esm.js:2635) at a.r (App.vue?0ab8:1) at a.t._render (vue.runtime.esm.js:3548) at a.r (vue.runtime.esm.js:4066) at nr.get (vue.runtime.esm.js:4479) at new nr (vue.runtime.esm.js:4468) at Bn (vue.runtime.esm.js:4073) at a.Or.$mount (vue.runtime.esm.js:8415) ie @ vue.runtime.esm.js:1888
- chris140957 6y agoFixed now, thanks for the heads up.