Rental marketplace is a quick buck idea, where the vendors, as well as marketplace owners both, can earn a profit. A vendor can rent out high demanding equipment and also the ones they don’t want to use anymore. On the other hand, marketplace admin can keep commission fee for providing services.

If you are looking to create rental marketplace, you are in the right place. In this article, we will discuss how to create a rental marketplace with WordPress.

What is Rental marketplace?

A marketplace platform is a form of eCommerce business that connects potential buyers and sellers all within one platform to help rent, buy, swap or negotiate.

There are different types of marketplaces like:

E-Commerce, M-Commerce, Peer to Peer, Business to Consumer, Business to Business, Consumer to Consumer, Crowdfunding.

Rental marketplaces involve the renting of goods with the high percentage of net worth such as vehicles and house. It is a one-to-many transaction type business model. Rental marketplace makes sense when the frequency of usage is less and owning involves a huge investment. It’s a game like supply and demand. The relationship between supply and demand is not one-to-one. Since the demand for one is created by many, one to many relationships makes trouble at the supplier end. 

In past few years, niche-based rental marketplaces for vehicles, dresses, home appliances, travel gears, etc.,are becoming popular among customers; and giving rise to the peer to peer renting via online marketplace mediums.

Some popular online rental marketplace solutions are:

#Yo!Rent

Yo!Rent is a popular multi vendor eCommerce rental platform that allows you to run your site off your own server, fully customization with intriguing renting and selling feature.

#Arcadier

Arcadier is SaaS technology based eCommerce platform that allows building a multi-vendor rental marketplace with an exclusive feature. Arcadier has published APIs like Shopify and built-in CSS and JavaScript input to allow tweaks to existing templates.

#Sharetribe

Sharetribe is SaaS-based platform for enlightened entrepreneurs who want to create an online rental marketplace.

#ExlCart

Exlcart is an open source software to launch online rental marketplace. It provides an option to customize its source code according to your need. This software can handle unlimited vendors on a single platform and allows the vendors to upload unlimited number of products to rent out.

How to build airbnb like rental marketplace using WordPress

WordPress is a golden opportunity for small hotel and vacation rental owners to create rental marketplace, B&B hosts, real estate agencies and people who are wearing many hats in this business. WordPress lets you do the job easily without substantial costs, professionally and relatively quickly. Analysis said that, over 705,000 hotel websites from 150+ countries, around 20% of hotel websites are powered by WordPress.

You will need the following items to build an rental marketplace using WordPress.

• Domain name
• Web hosting
• SSL Certificate
• WordPress eCommerce add-on WooCommerce
• Marketplace add-on like Dokan

How to build a rental marketplace website

HOW TO INSTALL DOKAN PLUGIN

Here is the installation guide in a video.

Create a Rental Marketplace website With Dokan

Before install Dokan you must have to install WooCommerce in your WordPress site.

For you we’ll show you the whole installation process.

Step 1: First you have to login to your WordPress site. Then go to Dashboard ->Plugins. In the plugin search box type WooCommerce.

Click on “Install Now” option and then activate WooCommerce.

Step 2: Now you already know how to install any plugin. After successful installation of WooCommerce again go to Dashboard ->Plugins. In the plugin search box type Dokan.

The activation process is similar like WooCommerce. After successful installation and activation you will automatically get a dashboard inside your WordPress as shown below.

Step 3: There is no limitation to set the number of vendors in Dokan. To configure the settings go to WP-admin ->Settings ->General.

To add new users navigate to WP-admin -> Users -> Add New. As an admin, you can add vendors, customers, subscribers, shop manager etc. See the below image.

Your rental marketplace is almost ready now. Now it’s time for your 
vendors to add products in their shops. Once they will add products your marketplace will be on-board.

You can change the default themes if you want. Check all other themes from Dokan compatible themes.

How digital rental services help consumer

Instead of buying things like house, cars, bikes, etc., it is a more practical & cost-effective way to rent. According to a study, most users of online rental marketplaces are below 35.

Online rental marketplaces provide consumers to use products without buying them; on the other end, these online store help people make some money from their used products.

How Dokan helps to generate revenue for rental multi-vendors

Dokan is a Multivendor Marketplace solutions that support WordPress, which is one of the most popular and widely-used website platforms today. With Dokan, anyone, even those who don’t have technical knowledge in creating online stores, can turn a WooCommerce store into a fully operational Marketplace, similar to Amazon, Etsy, Alibaba, and eBay to name a few.

By using Dokan multi-vendor marketplace, you get paid a commission for each sale to offset the costs of maintaining the site. That’s a new revenue stream if you use Dokan to run eCommerce. And, with existing stores, you benefit from the increased traffic and can continue to sell your wares right alongside the other vendors.

Dokan is ease of use and flexibility, which is the most important things to look for in an eCommerce solution. Open-source plugins like WooCommerce and Dokan are built with flexibility, integration, and customization as top priorities. Since both WooCommerce and Dokan are open sourced, you can change anything you like about them. Both platforms appeal to store owners who want the power and flexibility to stay competitive.

How Renting products online works

• Normally, a renter searches in the internet for a specific product he/she is looking for, like “Books on rent”, “house on rent”, etc.
• The renter got different websites according to the search results. He/she collects information on the product from those sites.
• Then, the renter compares different sites & selects the one he/she believes with best quality offers & value for money.
• The renter orders the product to rent for a fixed period of time.
• After using the product, it is returned to the owner.

Features renters look for before renting a product

Starting a renting marketplace has emerged as a popular concept now a days. Many young entrepreneurs are inspired by the success of Airbnb, Chegg, Rent the Runway, and other rental marketplaces, and want to explore their business.

Let’s have a look some of the features that renters look for before renting a product.

• Quality of product,
• Reliable website and
• Personalized offers.

What are the biggest challenge of renting marketplace

As we mentioned earlier, product quality is the main concern that people have before renting a used product. When customers pick a particular website to rent a product, they rely completely on it to get products in good quality. On the other hand, when owners list their products on the website they believe that it will get their product back in the same condition as they offered it.Thus, for any rental marketplace, ensuring the quality of rented items is the biggest challenge.

Online rental marketplace depends upon the analytics to understand the customer requirements and expectations. Understanding the customer requirements and delivering products & services as per customer requirements make you retain most of the customers. Analytics helps you to enhance the service provided to the customers. According to a report by Marketing Metrics, 34% of customers switch to a different platform because of dissatisfaction with services.

As we mentioned earlier, the online rental marketplace works on the one-to-many business model. Many customers rent the same product for a particular period of time. Managing the logistics support in the rental marketplace is based on optimizing supply and demand. If you have the number of product in your inventory as compared to the demand for rent, the inventory carrying cost applies. In case the supply is less than the demand, you will lose the customers.

There are so many other things that can go wrong while running a rental marketplace. Products can get damaged in the transition period. There may require expensive shipping while transporting large and heavy products. The cleaning process of product and so on. Marketplace owners need to understand various difficulties they can face during the entire process.

Key things to remember when you are going to open rental online service

For online rental marketplace,earning trust and confidence of both, owners and the renters, is very important. New person should work upon following areas to ensure a good experience for customers.

• Profile authentication before renting products

• Insurance policy for expensive items

• Check quality before renting a product

Key Website Features for Rental Marketplaces

Let’s have a look at all the website features that can help any website become a big name among peer-to-peer marketplaces.

1. Homepage

You can either go the traditional route when it comes to the design of its homepage, or a more modern look via huge banners and sliders. But it is crucial that you keep everything to the minimal, focusing mainly on the website functionality.

As soon as the user lands on the homepage, an intuitive banner should attract them that highlights what the website is all about. In addition to it, the top fold can give important links like how it works, categories and login/signup. A search bar should also be present above the banner image.

2. Recently Rented

The second important thing of an homepage is to showcase a dedicated section of recently rented items. Many eCommerce websites have started to apply this particular strategy into their homepage.

3. Featured Products

There should also be a dedicated section right on the homepage which will show all the featured products listed on the website. The information would include:

• Product Images
• Product name
• Category of the item
• Price per day

4. Footer

Like most of the eCommerce websites, the footer should be kept to the minimal. It should just hold the content pages along with certified payments gateways.

You can also keep the following features:

• How it works
• Feedback
• Login/Register
• Email
• Invitation/Referrals
• Review
• Search results
• Item page with Request an item, Post new items, Manage items

Final Word

There is huge growth of renting used items. Starting-up a rental marketplace is a unique idea. There are lots of markets which have very less direct competition in this sector. As a result, new comer can easily enter the market with their rental platform & grow their business rather seamlessly. However, to ensure long-term success in such business, priority should be given to customer satisfaction, which you can achieve only by implementing the tips provided in this article.