We here at HSR publish a Rate Card which reflects our rental inventory. Depending on which card, it may contain equipment exclusive to a particular rental genre, say NIKON LENSES or LIGHTING & GRIP.
We publish those rate cards on our website, email them to those that wish a copy, and print them in-store and distribute them with the rental orders. Pretty simple – huh?
In the process of creating our rate card(s) I make it a point to cruse over everyone else’s websites, and when available, closely inspect their rate cards. I look through dozens of rental sites, from coast-to-coast to see what’s happening there, Filmstar in Boston, Gasser in Frisco, TAI in Florida, to try to get an idea what kind of the numbers they are doing, the equipment their market area uses, and regional pricing standards. It provides a wonderful insight into their rental operation and, if you can read between the lines, their actual resources.
TRUTH IN LISTING
Let me perfectly clear – if it appears on our rate card, we actually have it, own it, and it is here to be rented. I may have one, or I may have many. I had to say that as this is not always the case. I will not betray any confidences by pointing out who has what (or doesn’t have) in their actual inventory.
Let’s say a rental firm, we’ll call them CRAZY RENTALS gets a customer call looking for a particular piece of equipment; it could be very expensive, very rare, legacy, what ever, suffice to say it just ‘ain’t that common. Now Crazy doesn’t want to say they don’t have the item so as to not alienate the prospective caller and potential customer, so they say they’re not sure and can we call you right back as they “check stock”. The caller usually agrees and then starts calling other rental firms.
The next thirty minutes or so is really strange. Here’s how it goes:
Crazy calls Goofy Rentals down the block. “Do you have a Super FartMaster 900?”. “No” says Goofy, “We have the FM850 but I think I might be able to get you the FM900”. “Let me call you right back”. Goofy Rentals calls Silly Equipment Rentals and, well, you get the idea.
Sometimes a rental firm will say that it is out. Yea – really out, to the point of not even really owning it.
There may be only one FM900 in the whole city, but since it appears on ten different rate cards, nobody is quire sure where it is. It is so funny to get a call from five other rental firms all looking for the same, very rare item. I know the chain of inquiry has started and will bounce around for the next hour or so, everyone trying to sub- sub- sub-rent that one item.
WHY WOULD A RENTAL COMPANY DO THIS ?
While it is true that this is clearly a deceptive form of operating, listing something you don’t actually have, rental companies regularly sub-rent at a discount from other rental companies. That’s cool, but I’m a bit uneasy with listing un-owned in print.
Sure, I could list a Boeing 767, an Abraham’s tank and a 300ft. Luxury Cabin Cruiser, all of which are available to me as a “sub-rental”, but how honest would that be ?
Everyone wants to look as large and substantial as they can, especially in this age of internet-based research and the growth in the sheer number of rental companies. I am always fascinated by the rate card that lists the top 10 most expensive camcorder’s made. Sony SR, CineAlta, VariCam, Viper, Arri, RED, etc. but in surveying the remainder of their published inventory see great weakness, out-of-step with realistic departmental stock and inventory balancing levels.
Typically, a rental dealer-to-rental dealer discount is 30%, with an Insurance Policy on file, and depending on how much business they do with each other, may have net billing terms. But the mathematics betrays the reality with each side of the sub-rental equation being stung a bit. Here’s the math:
Customer wants rents an item for $100.00.
Crazy sub-rents it from Goofy at a discount of 30%, sub-rental cost is $70.00 plus transportation to pick it up and bring it back once returned. That’s gotta’ be $15.00 each way. With personnel costs, vehicle costs, risk window to accidents, fuel, even more.
So that’s $30.00 discount plus the $70.00 in real other costs. Oh yes, the paperwork to create and track a Purchase Order, faxing it over, and paper isn’t free, nor are ink cartridges. More personnel and tangential costs.
POOF. There goes the profit, and indeed, you may have lost money.
The rental firm has 30 days to pay from the date the rental item goes out, not its return date (is everyone reading this – you know who you are !!!).
The real rental firm must accept a PO, track that PO, offer the discount and understand that they just gave a 30-day loan to the other rental house of $70.00. The cost to buy money in the open market is about 25% (APR). So the master rental house just took a loss equal to taking a loan a/k/a buying money plus the internal accounting personnel costs.
Sure, I’ve screwed up too, and said “YES” to a piece I damn-well knew I didn’t own. Next is the panic call to ABC Rentals, all the while praying they have the item in stock, as the customer is on his way in. “Start the van – we’re on the road”. Keeps the heart rate up I’ll tell you what. But is that necessary?
While sub-rentals can work very well, and a padded rate card can make you appear larger than you are (like the feathers on a Flamingo) you run the risk of terrible failure. Sub-rented items are generally unfamiliar to the rental technicians hence they can only offer limited technical assistance. To have a customer call the originating rental company is a lifting of the veil and to be avoided at all costs. One general rule of thumb is never send your customer to the competition.
What is the sub-rented unit fails? You don’t know the item is sub-rented, the property stickers of the originating dealer have been peeled off or covered up. If they didn’t have one, how can they have two ?
If the truth be disclosed, the customer may ask themselves why they didn’t go to the originating rental firm first ? That’s best addressed by customer loyalty.
What if every rental company simply said: “No we don’t, but Crazy Rentals does”. “Perhaps you could try them. Here’s their phone number”.
A nice idea, but not realistic. There is money in deception, even slight deception.
We know what we own, and we know some of it is fairly exclusive to us. In other words, if you don’t get it from us, you may not be able to get it at all. At HSR, that tactical advantage would never be used against a renter or sub-renter. No $25 bottles of water after an earthquake pricing policy here. Just keepin’ it real.
We will try to steer you to the appropriate source knowing that when you need a stocked rental item we do carry you’ll come back here.
CALL FOR PRICE
One thing that drives me nuts is a long laundry list of rental items that do not show either a description or a price. Just the manufacturer’s name and model number. What good is that and thank you for wasting my time.
I guess I went the other way, perhaps just as bad. My System-Wide Inventory List (SWIL) also known as our FULL LINE RATE CARD is shown and available to print as a .pdf right from our website. It’s 12 pages long in two-column format. It took three days to put together and I wore out a new keyboard. It is, however accurate to the effective date and accurate to our inventory, though a bit overly detailed. But if you want to see the inventory, there it is.
I don’t expect you to print the whole thing. You can, and that’s great, but I have sub-divided the SWIL into sub-categories within a particular genre. Same info, less to print and more category specific.
Let it not be said we aren’t trying to be more Green.
As far as I can tell, our rate card is the most complete available anywhere. It has descriptions of each item (as room allows) and a rental price, typically quoted as a daily price. If you memorize my rate cards and the descriptions it counts as your first year of film school. (kidding, you’d be way ahead of that).
If your rental firm doesn’t provide the real-deal information and pricing that doesn’t make them a bad guy. They have their reasons, though twisted and misguided. Over our fifteen year history of equipment rentals in the Los Angeles are, we have always felt that the easier it is to access information (this includes pricing) the better, and certainly quicker for the poor Line Producer trying to bang out a budget. We have no fear that our posted prices will scare away customers. That’s what our LOW PRICE GUARANTEE is all about. That policy too, is posted.
As with all things, it comes down to credibility and truth-in-advertising. It is often as important in what is said, as what goes un-said. So there you have it. Additional insight into the world of equipment rentals. It isn’t pretty, but then again we’re below the line and behind the scenes. And perhaps that is best.
Good Hunting.
Tags: rate card, sub-rental