Bring your clothing rental business to life

You need an e-commerce website optimized for rentals to start renting clothes online. The interface looks like any other online store, but the backend system is optimized for the two-way movement of products (handover-return). Rental software like Rentle makes running an online rental business easy for you.

First, add the products and services you want to rent and sell to Rentle and determine the quantities in Rentle's inventory management system. That way, your availabilities are always up to date, and you don't get overbooked. Next, set up your payment options so your customers can book and pay their rentals in advance. Rentle also offers an alternative to charge security deposits to cover the cost of accidental damage to your garments.

Once everything is set up, you can embed Rentle to your existing website or use Rentle as a standalone website.

Starting a clothing rental business requires a lot of planning, preparation, and setting up processes. First, you need to make a business plan. Your business plan includes a description of your business, market and competitor analysis, financial plan, and marketing plan. It is also essential to consider how you will organize your rental operations, such as customer management, order processing, inventory tracking, and garment cleaning.

For more information, read our full guide on how to start a clothing rental business →

Generally, clothing rentals can be profitable and enjoy high profit margins. Still, just like with any company, profitability comes down to your business's income and expenditure structure.

Incomes are primarily determined by whether there is a demand for your services. For a clothing rental business to succeed, it needs to know what the target audience is looking for. Stay on top of what's most popular, what kind of styles your customers rent, what kind of brands they support, and in what sizes they usually range in. And just like with any other rental product, doing proper maintenance work ensures a long shelf-life and that you're getting a return on your investment in the form of rental revenues and secondhand sales.

Rental inventory, business space, insurance, dry cleaning, and staff salaries are typically the most significant expenses. To better understand your financial estimates, we recommend looking at our guide to financial planning and budgeting →

First, we must note several types of clothing rental businesses exists. The most traditional ones are suit and dress rental services renting formal wear for special occasions. However, we are starting to see that the number of clothing rental businesses renting more casual and active clothing is rising.

Essentially, fashion rental companies rent out all sorts of clothing and accessories to their customers for different durations via the traditional rental model and increasingly via subscriptions.

Every company has its own rental process, pricing model, and way to make the service available to the customers. For example, there are fundamental operational differences between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar models. Rentle supports all the most common requirements of the clothing rental industry, both in the online and retail environments.

It is strongly recommended that you start using clothing rental software from the early days of your business. Rental software allows you to manage inventory, process orders, and run your rental business in one system instead of spreading all the information across several apps and spreadsheets. This gives you a better overview of your business and full control of the rental operation.