Many Rental Companies are Ready for America to Reopen. Is Yours?
While countless millions of Americans are still enduring state-wide stay home orders and quarantines, there’s a strong air of hope that America will open for business again over the course of the next few months. Some states have already lifted their quarantines, while most others are focused on rolling back restrictions in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.
By midsummer, most Americans will have hopefully resumed life as normal. And as we begin to lower our face masks and worry a little less about social distancing, America’s rental companies will find themselves strategically situated for potentially explosive revenue.
Local businesses in your area are eager to get back to work. But in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, many small businesses will find themselves adjusting to new consumer behaviors, enhanced public safety regulations, and any number of local and state health guidelines.
America will be open for business once again, but it won’t entirely be business as usual, at least not in the foreseeable future. And it won’t just be a matter of washing hands with soap and water or monitoring for a fever or a cough, either.
If your rental company has been working throughout this crisis, chances are you’ve been setting up health care outposts, medical tents, or drive thru testing tents. Some of you may have been helping local restaurant owners set up curbside pickup tents. But as your state reopens for business, you can find (and even create) fantastic, mutually beneficial opportunities and book upcoming reservations that are as profitable for you as they are helpful to your community.
Twelve Small Businesses that Could Use Your Rental Equipment
When the number of COVID-19 cases in your area lower to nominal levels and your state finally reopens for business, small businesses in your area will be faced with a new style of business. Consumer needs will have changed. New regulations might be in place. It’s going to be a whole new business environment, and local business owners will need canopy tents and other equipment from rental companies they may not have done business with otherwise.
Rental companies like yours should consider fresh outreach efforts, communicating with local businesses that might put your equipment and services to good use in this new business environment. With a little clever marketing and plotting out some mutually beneficial B2B (business to business) sales and packages, your rental business might land some fresh clientele. And better still, you’d be helping out other small businesses in your community, too.
Let’s take a look now at twelve different small businesses and other organizations you may have not considered doing business with prior to the coronavirus pandemic. Small local businesses and groups that could definitely benefit from working with your rental company and your equipment … even if they don’t know it yet.
Restaurants
While countless small businesses closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, many restaurants remained open for business, diligently serving their customers and their communities. Using apps like Grubhub and Doordash, restaurants that never seriously contemplated delivery services are now shipping off meals to their customers.
Curbside pickup is another service many businesses have been offering amid the pandemic, and it’s one your event and party rental company can help facilitate. Some restaurants in your area might be interested in long term rentals of frame tents and pop up tents, folding tables, and folding chairs. Party tents with tent sidewalls are especially valuable for these services.
Food Pantries
With countless millions of Americans having lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ordering takeout is a luxury many in your community likely can’t afford right now. Food pantries have seen major upticks lately, and given social distancing guidelines, that means many of these pantries are turning to outdoor distribution.
You may not want to charge a food pantry full price, given their charitable status, but working with food pantries is a great way to give back to your community. And from a PR perspective, it doesn’t hurt your business to be seen working with local outreach and support efforts.
Like restaurants offering curbside pickup, food pantries will need tents, tables, and chairs. And as we mentioned earlier, you may want to consider offering these setups at a reasonable discount, if doing it pro bono isn’t feasible.
Outdoor Break Areas and Workspaces
As America’s workforce heads back into their daily grind, many offices, warehouses, and factories in and around your area might consider setting up outdoor break areas and workspaces for their employees. Getting out of stuffy cubicles and taking in some fresh air is a great way for workers to return to work in a healthy and productive way. And those businesses considering such a move are going to need—you guessed it—party tents, folding tables, and folding chairs.
Pharmacies
Here in New York State, our governor recently signed an executive order allowing pharmacies to conduct diagnostic COVID-19 testing. Similar laws in your state might offer your local pharmacies the ability to perform this testing too. And that means those pharmacies are going to need tents and tables to serve as medical testing tents and drive thru testing tents.
Schools and Colleges
Many schools will remain closed for the duration of the school year, while others will return for the last handful of weeks left. In either case, party tents might be a popular item with schools in the coming weeks and months.
Schools remaining closed will still be distributing school lunches in much of the country, and that process benefits from tents and tables. Meanwhile, those schools returning before the end of the school year, and schools offering summer programs, may want tents, tables, and chairs for outdoor classes.
Like offices, classrooms can maintain social distancing guidelines by taking their studies outdoors. And it doesn’t necessarily need to mean the use of frame tents or party tents, either. Some schools, especially colleges, have lots of green space and can potentially have pole tents set up with tent stakes in the grass.
Retail Businesses
Some retail outlets might consider setting up bazaar-style outdoor shopping spaces to help prevent spreading the virus. Whereas the suggestions for outreach we’ve made so far have all involved tents, tables, and chairs, most retail businesses will likely want to use larger premium tents and more tables, and perhaps fewer party chairs.
Car Rental Companies
With fewer travel restrictions and lifted congregation bans on public spaces, many families will look to rent a car and travel again. Car rental companies might want to rent pop up tents for registration and outdoor processing, star tents to showcase their potential car rentals with pizazz, and inflatable tube men to draw attention to their establishments.
Gyms and Fitness Centers
Maintaining social distancing guidelines can be difficult for some businesses, but gyms and fitness centers have been hosting outdoor activities for years. They might be interested in tents and chairs, but those of you carrying inflatable obstacle courses can pitch the plyometric fitness benefits of these products to fitness centers eager to reenlist their customer base.
Live Music Venues
Here’s another opportunity for your tent and chair rentals: music venues. With social distancing becoming a new (and hopefully temporary) norm, live music venues might put together performances in outdoor spaces. These might include parking lots, parks, or green spaces near their venues. And your party tents, mobile stages, and dance floors might help those facilities put these events on.
Family Entertainment Centers
Some family entertainment centers have indoor and outdoor activities, but many are indoor only. Reopening an FEC safely and keeping activities outdoors might require those establishments to buy their own commercial inflatables. But it might be more profitable for them to rent your bounce house, inflatable water slide, bounce slide combo, or inflatable obstacle course and then transition back to inside fun in the near future. They may also be interested in carnival games, sealed air frame games, and Ultralite frame games, too.
Churches
For many of you in the event and party rental business, churches and church groups have always been reliable rental customers. But in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, church groups will likely be more active outdoors than ever before. They’ll need pole tents, frame tents, and high peak tents for outdoor services and gatherings, fundraisers, and more.
Don’t Forget Families!
Last but certainly not least, we have the tried and true regular customer of most event and party rental companies: families. And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, those families will be eager to get out of the house and enjoy some togetherness. Birthday parties, weddings, barbecues, even neighborhood block parties … they’ll all be raging on in short order, and those customers will need your party tents, commercial inflatables, and other rental equipment to make those events timeless.
A Reinvigorated America, Open for Business
America is rapidly closing in on the end of the Coronavirus pandemic. As more states open up again, America’s small businesses are preparing to flip on their proverbial and literal light switches and turn around their “open for business” signs.
As we’ve just gone over, your event and party rental business can be poised to not only help your community’s local businesses, but turn a healthy profit in the process. But it’s up to you to reach out to these small businesses and let them know about your equipment and services.
Call Tent and Table today at 1-716-832-8368. Our event and party rental experts are here to guide you through our products and help you prepare for what could prove to be an exciting and prosperous rental season. America will soon be open for business again. And we’d love to help your event and party rental business get ready to heed the call.