Rentle helped Äkäslompolo Sportshop in doubling their revenue

Since 1996, the full-service sports shop has served customers by selling and renting top-quality sports and outdoor equipment. You can find everything from mountain bikes to alpine and cross-country skis for rent and clothing and equipment from top brands to support active outdoor life in all seasons.

Sportshop has used Rentle since the summer of 2019, making the company one of Rentle's first customers. We interviewed Sportshop's founder Jari Ahola and store manager, Jarno Helassalo to learn about their experiences with Rentle.

Growing customer volumes revealed bottlenecks

Before Rentle, most of Sportshop's customers arrived at the store without a booking. The company also took reservations through its website via phone and email, but the numbers were marginal compared to the total sales volume. The operation was run without a specific rental management system, leading to slow rental processes and a clumsy customer experience.

To serve a growing number of customers faster and better, something needed to be done to speed up store management processes. Also, online bookings offered the company an interesting growth opportunity they wanted to explore. Thus, finding an all-around rental software was a logical next step.

Without prior experience in using a rental management system, it was a bit of a question mark how much adjusting the existing processes and daily routines were needed.

Rentle helps Sportshop with ecommerce and store management

The optimal solution that Äkäslompolo Sportshop was looking for needed to be fast and easy to use while being flexible enough to suit the company's needs. Rentle proved to be just that.

With Rentle, Äkäslompolo Sportshop turned its website into a complete online rental store and started accepting online bookings. The impact has been immediate—today 33% of the company's rental sales come through its website, which has led Sportshop to double its rental revenue (2019 vs. 2018) and continue its growth despite the pandemic.

Jari Ahola points out that even though mountain biking is growing fast in the area, Rentle's role has been essential in helping the company achieve such numbers.

According to Ahola and Helassalo, their clients have been delighted and have found online bookings fast and easy. The benefits of online bookings have also been noticed in the improvement of internal processes.