The increase in population and urbanization has magnificently boosted housing and infrastructure development. This recent surge in construction has given rise to an ocean of opportunities for those looking to build a lucrative eCommerce equipment rental business.

According to Gminsights, the global equipment rental market was valued at around $110 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $150 billion by 2027.

The construction industry requires heavy machines and tools for multiple tasks. It becomes hectic for contractors/firms to own and manage all the equipment on their own. Tenderd has been bridging this gap through its online equipment rental platform since 2018.

This article gives deep insight into the business model of Tenderd and aims to aid readers in building such an equipment rental website.

What Is Tenderd? 

Tenderd is the biggest equipment rental marketplace in the middle east that deals with construction equipment such as excavators, bulldozers, Trucks, etc. The company is headquartered in Dubai and facilitates rental services for contractors and allows owners to rent their construction equipment to top-tier clients in the region. 

Renting out highly expensive equipment on the platform requires a deal of trust among all the stakeholders. Tenderd as a marketplace facilitates the equipment owners with multiple features such as GPS tracking, fleet management, and maintenance alerts to keep track of the operations of their machinery. 

Workflow of an Equipment Rental website like Tenderd

The working of Tenderd starts with the equipment owner listing their equipment on the marketplace after getting approved by the admin. Once the equipment listing goes live on the marketplace, the customers rent out the equipment after going through financial and legal formalities. 

The customer gets the equipment delivered by the selected shipping method and then can use it for the desired jobs. Once the rental duration gets over, the equipment is returned to the product owner. Further inspections of the vehicle are done after the return and the full security amount is refunded to the rentee.

Revenue Channels of  Equipment Rental Website like Tenderd

Rental Commissions

Being an equipment rental marketplace, Renting equipment drives heavy revenue for the company. This revenue stream works in a simple manner where the product owner lists the equipment and the customer rents it for a fixed duration. Tenderd here acts as a middleman to facilitate the transactions and charges a small amount of commission from both parties. 

Earning Commissions By Selling Equipment

Tenderd allows the product owners to sell their new and used heavy equipment on the platform. Like other eCommerce platforms, Tenderd also charges a commission from sellers on each sale made. 

Logistics Services And Commission From The Vehicle Owners

Tenderd provides logistics services for shipping any heavy equipment across UAE. Be it shifting the office, moving to a new house, or shipping heavy machinery to and from the construction site, Tenderd has more than 9 types of carrier vehicles to get the job done. 

The platform also allows vehicle owners to become Tenderd logistics partners by listing their vehicles for logistics services. 

Tenderd as a service provider and platform owner generates revenue from vehicle owners and customers.

Key Features Of An Equipment Rental Store

Operating an equipment rental marketplace can get more tedious than the entire process of building the marketplace. Your equipment rental marketplace should have features that facilitate the ease of business for end-users and renters. 

Tenderd and a few other websites provide multiple user-friendly features that help them deliver a satisfying service to their customers.

Document Verification:

Since heavy pieces of equipment are quite expensive and require experienced operators to run the machine, an equipment rental store should have a document verification feature for the equipment owner to verify all legally valid documents such as the operator license, and license of the contractor for legal use of the equipment. 

Time Management Slot:

Customers renting heavy equipment require them on time as projects usually have deadlines. The equipment rental marketplace should have a time management slot where customers can quote the time and costs for the equipment. The equipment owners should then check and confirm the availability of equipment within the time for a specific duration. 

Rental Agreement Management:

An eCommerce rental marketplace should have a feature to generate and eSign a common rental agreement for the equipment owner and customer. The rental agreement should cover all the terms and conditions of the business including security deposit, insurance cover, late returns, cancellation policy, etc. Additionally, the equipment owners should also be able to create custom policies as per the utilization of the machine.

Equipment Tracking:

An eCommerce equipment rental marketplace should have technological integrations such as GPS tracking and the overall health monitoring of the equipment. This keeps the seller assured of justified use of the equipment and creates a deal of trust with the marketplace.

Tax Management Assistance:

Heavy equipment legally comes under commercial machinery that is bound to pay taxes at multiple stages. To help the product owners and buyers with mundane tax calculations, the equipment rental marketplace should have a dedicated tax management system that helps in calculating tax. This would also help in determining the party liable to pay the taxes, thus avoiding further conflicts. 

Approach to Build an Equipment Rental Website

  • Custom Built Solution: Custom-built solutions grant more freedom in designing the front-end and backend modules of the website. You can add your own custom features as per your business requirements. 

Apart from the features provided, the custom-built solutions take a long time to develop and cost higher as compared to the ready-made solution.

 Estimated Development Time Frame: Building a custom equipment rental website from scratch takes around 8 to 12 months on average.

Payment Method: Development costs are calculated on basis of the project or hourly rates of the developers.   

Reasons To Select Custom Built Solution

  • Developed to meet specific needs of your business
  • Ensures Scalability
  • More secure to cyber attacks
  • Readymade Solution

Availing a readymade solution for building an eCommerce rental marketplace saves you a lot of time and technical effort.  Even a person with zero coding knowledge can avail of an equipment rental software by paying a one-time fee and getting it customized as per requirements.

To start your own equipment rental marketplace using the Readymade solution, you should select an agile and fully customizable rental software that caters to the requirements of your business.

 After finalizing the software, you can contact their sales team and ask for the demos of the product. Discuss the customization requirements of the business and estimated pricing for setting up the solution.

Estimated development time frame- Building an equipment rental website using a readymade solution takes very less time and the whole process can be finished within a week. However, it can be time-consuming if you need several customizations.

Payment method- If you are availing of a self-hosted solution, then you need to pay the one-time payment for a lifetime. In the case of the Saas solution, you need fixed recurring payments as subscription fees.
Reasons to select readymade solution- 

  • Budget-Friendly option
  • Proper resources are available for help
  • Consumes less development time and allows quick customizations
  • Most readymade rental solutions provide free technical support for 6 months to 1 year. 

Introducing Yo!Rent

Yo!Rent is one such platform that offers ready-made solutions for a single vendor and multivendor equipment rental software where you can start your own online rental marketplace with a variety of modules such as document verification, Tiered pricing, and product inspection and many more.

Final Words

With the boom in the construction industry, the demand for heavy equipment has increased rapidly. The equipment rental industry in this domain is still booming and is expected to reach new heights in the coming years. We can expect some new entries in the equipment rental marketplaces as there are very limited options as of now.