Rental Software to Create an Aerial Lifts Rental Marketplace

The global aerial lift rental market was worth $5.5 billion in 2023 and is expected to almost double itself by 2033 with a CAGR of 5.8%. With the B2B sector dominating the industry, its average ticket size is also high. Furthermore, various other factors such as the vertical expansion of cities due to lower ground area, residential and commercial construction projects, renovation projects, and deployment of high-rise wind turbines and electrical infrastructure, all contribute towards the growth of the aerial lift industry.

However, managing an aerial lift rental business is quite demanding. It involves tracking the movement of inventory, ensuring timely delivery and returns, dealing with safety compliance, complex payment terms, and most importantly, finding reliable clients. To fulfill these requirements, aerial work equipment owners often list their equipment on a marketplace. These marketplaces help them manage operations and connect them with big-ticket clients. In return, the marketplace owners earn a small commission from all the deals that take place through the marketplace platform.

Let’s learn a bit more about these marketplaces and the required rental software to create them below.

Types of Aerial Lifts You Can Rental on an Aerial Equipment Rental Marketplace

Online marketplaces often allow vendors to upload diverse types of equipment. The same is the case on aerial lift rental marketplaces. Equipment rental companies can cater to the requirements of a wide audience by listing a variety of aerial equipment including:

1. Boom Lifts

These are the traditional heavy-weight aerial lifts with a small lifting bucket. Boom lifts are used to lift both people and small equipment. They can also have a multi-jointed arm that can rotate, extend, and even bend. Boom lifts can r++each multiple storeys high and are highly useful at both construction sites and for conducting rescue operations.

2. Telehandlers

Telehandlers are similar to boom lifts but have a straight arm that only extends in one direction. Their frame is more robust and can be used in rough terrains. Due to their high weight-bearing capacity, telehandlers are mostly used to lift and carry heavy equipment. In terms of their aerial capabilities, telehandlers can reach up to 50 feet. Different attachments are available for telehandlers to add versatility.

3. Scissor Lifts

Scissor lifts are vertical lift platforms that only raise up and down. They are more similar to scaffoldings than telehandlers and boom lifts. As scissor lifts can be quite strong, they are highly useful on rough terrains. They can reach as high as 60 feet, roughly equivalent to a 5-storey building.

4. Fork Lifts

These are the better-known aerial lifting equipment primarily used in warehouses for lifting and transporting goods. Due to their small size and easy maneuvering, forklifts have multiple applications including lifting, moving, stacking, loading, and unloading trucks. At maximum, forklifts can reach a height of up to 15 feet. Lastly, forklifts require minimum storage space out of all other aerial equipment.

5. Cherry Pickers

Cherry pickers are truck-loaded lifts with limited height. They are best used for pruning trees, repairing electrical infrastructure, and at other repair sites where precision is required. Cherry pickers mainly lift servicemen instead of goods or equipment.

How do Aerial Equipment Rental Marketplaces Work?

Equipment rental marketplaces are listing platforms for aerial equipment companies where they can list their aerial equipment to find clients and manage operations. Below is the reference workflow for such marketplaces:

User Types Involved:

• Clients: Independent contractors, construction companies, electricity companies, state governments, private companies, and  house owners
• Vendors: Aerial equipment rental companies or private companies with forklifts and other self-owned aerial equipment
• Admin: The marketplace owner who manages the online platform

Workflow of an Aerial Equipment Rental Marketplace

• Different aerial equipment rental companies sign up on the marketplace and list their equipment
• Clients browse and select the equipment
• To place an order, clients select the rental dates on a booking calendar and submit a rental security amount along with the rental fee
• The vendor dispatches the equipment
• On return, the vendor inspects the equipment for any damages and notifies the marketplace owner of the same
• In case of any damages, the admin reimburses the vendor from the client’s security deposit and returns the remaining amount
• On reaching the minimum withdrawal amount set by the admin, the vendors can withdraw their earnings to their bank accounts

Key Features Required on the Marketplace

To develop an aerial lifts rental marketplace, look out for the following features in your white-label rental software:

• Rental Booking Calendar: An online calendar to display equipment availability to clients and take rental date inputs. It will also help vendors prevent double booking.
• Tiered Pricing: Vendors can select daily, weekly, and monthly rental prices at their sole discretion.
• RFQ Management: Along with displaying prices on the marketplace, the admin can also enable RFQs. With this feature, clients would be able to send custom requirements to vendors and request a special price quote.
• Rental Agreement Management: Vendors should get the option to upload their rental agreements on the marketplace and get them eSigned by clients during checkout.
• Rental Security Management: To promote the safe usage of equipment and manage unprecedented damages, vendors should get the option to collect a certain security deposit from customers. This security deposit is saved on the marketplace and returned to clients after the end of the rental period.
• Late Returns Management: Late returns adversely affect the order fulfillment capacity of vendors and lead to missed opportunity costs. To prevent them, the vendor should have the option to set tiered late return periods and charge a penalty amount accordingly.
• Late Cancellations Management: Similar to late returns, late cancellations are also a problem for vendors as these lead to loss of order processing costs and result in underbooking. Separate late cancellation periods can be defined to resolve this issue.
• Rental Add-ons: Along with renting out aerial equipment, clients may require additional services and equipment, such as operator service and different types of lifting buckets. You can upsell these services by integrating a rental add-ons option.
• Rental Buffer Period: Returned aerial lifts cannot be added back to the inventory immediately after return. They need to go under a proper inspection and maintenance period to comply with the regional safety standards. The rental buffer period will help you manage this maintenance period and sync the under-maintenance inventory with the online inventory.
• Order Management: The admin should get complete access to all the orders placed on the marketplace. They should also be able to view information such as payment details, vendor name, delivery address, and more.
• Vendor Management: The admin should have the option to review and reject vendor profiles and also send them internal messages for better management. Additionally, the admin can set the commission rate and define the minimum withdrawal interval and threshold amount.

Rental Software Solution to Create your Aerial Lifts Marketplace

There are two popular types of software that you can use to launch your aerial equipment marketplace; SaaS and self-hosted. Both of these software types immensely reduce the development timeframe and are tried and tested solutions. However, there comes a huge difference in terms of scalability and feasibility of both these solutions.

While SaaS solutions are available at monthly recurring costs, self-hosted solutions require a one-time investment. After purchasing their lifetime usage license, self-hosted solutions are yours to use with no restrictions on the number of features, listings, users, and transactions that are usually seen in the SaaS software. This also makes self-hosted solutions fully scalable. They can support all stages of business growth. In contrast, to grow with SaaS solutions, you will need to upgrade to their most premium package costing anywhere between $100-$300 per month.

The Most Advanced Self-Hosted Rental Software in the Market

With tons of features available in its core offerings and user-centric designs, YoRent rental software is the most thoughtfully developed rental software available in the market. It covers day-to-day rental business use cases and comes with industry-specific designs. Along with all the aforementioned features, Yo!Rent provides you with the option to customize the software further for any specific business requirements. With 25+ payment gateways and multilingual support, Yo!Rent is available in 180+ countries.

Some reasons to build your aerial lift marketplace with Yo!Rent are:

• Lifetime solution available at a one-time cost
• No restrictions on the number of listings and transactions
• Fully self-hosted, you can host your marketplace on your in-house servers or a third-party server of your choice
• Helps you automate daily operations, such as bookings, invoicing, rental security management, rental agreement management, inventory management, track overdue returns, and more.
• Available with industry-specific design to help you build highly professional marketplaces and rental store
• Has in-built RFQ management and rental agreement management modules to cater to the requirements of large businesses and fulfill complex orders.

Conclusion

With the infrastructure development plans in developing countries and the vertical expansion of cities in developed countries, the demand for high-rise buildings is increasing. Similarly, as capitalization increases and new businesses spring up around the globe, the need for warehousing operations also surges. To fulfill both these requirements, aerial lifts are required on a large scale. Aerial lift rental remains the only practical option to fulfill the increasing demand. By launching a rental marketplace for aerial lifts, you can easily help these customer cohorts find reliable aerial equipment while also helping equipment owners find a stable means of rental income.

Author Bio:

Saurabh Thakur

Saurabh Thakur is a Digital Marketing Strategist and business consultant, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build impactful digital touchpoints, drive sales, and accelerate business growth. With a keen focus on delivering measurable results, Saurabh leads a team of experts committed to exceeding client expectations and achieving sustained success.