Right at home with your furniture rentals

Renting furniture is an alternative to buying. When a consumer rents her furniture, she gets access to it for a fixed-term or indefinite period. Depending on the length and model of the contract, the customer pays either a one-off or a recurring monthly fee. At the end of the contract, the customer returns the rented furniture or buys them for herself (rent-to-buy).

Essentially, furniture rental companies have all sorts of home furnishing in their inventory that they rent out to their customers for different durations. The most common models in the furniture rental industry are one-off rentals, rent-to-buy, and recurring rentals (subscriptions). Every company has its own rental process, pricing model, and way to make the service available to the customers. All these aspects affect how the operation will shape out.

Starting a furniture rental company 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, logistics, and maintenance. Learn more about starting a furniture rental business →

Generally, renting furniture can be very profitable and have 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 your market analysis reveals that there is demand for a furniture rental service in your area. The furniture itself, warehouse rent, insurance, vehicles, and staff salaries are typically the most significant expenses. To better understand your financial estimates, we recommend looking at ourguide to financial planning and budgeting →

The furniture rental market is booming, and that's not a surprise as there are several examples of situations when renting furniture instead of buying simply makes more sense. One-off rentals can be used for special events where, for example, more seating is required. Rent-to-buy is a flexible way of letting customers try out how a more expensive piece of furniture will look in their own home. Therefore, the rent-to-buy model is particularly convenient for shops selling designer furniture. Furniture subscriptions are an excellent option for people who live elsewhere but may have to spend several months on secondment in a different city or abroad. In such cases, people prefer to live in a homely environment rather than a hotel.

It is strongly recommended that you start using cloud-based furniture rental software from the early days of your business. Rental management software allows you to accept online bookings, manage inventory, process orders, streamline the billing process and accounting, and run your business in one system instead of spreading all the data across several apps and spreadsheets. This gives you a better overview and control of your business.