How to Start a Trailer Rental Business

Industry size and growth

The global trailer rentals market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 4% over the next few years. This growth will be driven largely by demand in emerging economies, particularly home improvement and bigger commercial drivers like construction industry where it’s forecast that retail sales for trailers will increase more than 10% annually.

This news comes as a bit of a surprise given what we’ve seen thus far, after all we are seeing global economic growth despite increase in interest rates and the aftermath of the global pandemic. 

Trends and challenges

Trends in the Trailer rental industry include:

• Industry consolidation and the general shift from long-term leases to short term rentals has caused an all time high demand for trailer rentals. Bigger brands also seemed to want a bigger bite of the trailer rental cake, evidently due to the huge demand from the private sector. Small local players need to improve 24/7 customer service and ease of booking a trailer via a digital platform to be able to compete with the large rental companies like Circle K, Shell and Ikea and so on.

Challenges in the Trailer industry include:

• The combination of easy deployment, low risk and many competitors will make it more difficult to enter the market than before. If you plan to have your main target group in the private sector, customer acquisition will be tough, because of the low usage of trailers from each customer. Rarely the same customer will need a trailer for a long period of time or many times during the year.  Focusing on bigger commercial construction companies for example, will create a more even revenue stream but will demand much more work and rental items.

Pros and cons

Pros

• One of the highest paying business ideas for entrepreneurs is a trailer rental company. Trailers are easy to maintain, and you can find them in any size or shape that suits your needs at an affordable price. One new utility trailer will set someone back just $1,200, not including costs like storage space (which most people have plenty of) so they’re really pretty cheap compared to other businesses available these days . The key to making money off of a trailer rental business is simplicity. By focusing on self service and self booking, you can keep your operations simple.

Cons

• The trailer rental industry is a competitive market with many different types of businesses competing for customers. You will face competition from other rental companies and large corporations, such as Shell, Circle K and more established companies  which rent out utility trailers.

The types of trailers you can rent out will depend on the customers that are looking for them. You might start your own rental business with one type, but then find yourself needing to offer other options depending upon where or how often they’re being used in order to get more foot traffic into your shop. 

The price of starting a small rental business can be daunting, but it’s worth the cost. The initial investment should include anything from website design and advertising costs to legal paperwork for your LLC or corporation structure as well as insurance coverage on equipment you’ll need in order to run properly. 

The key to success in any industry is having a good plan. The best way for entrepreneurs and small business owners alike, it’s important that they are able put their ideas into action with something tangible at hand – which means creating an outline or roadmap about what you want to do over a time period of three-five years from now (or longer. When presenting this type material during discussions where funding may be sought out; investors will look towards seeing if there’s enough visibility regarding milestones along the journey as well as how money might get spent once implemented. We will help you with this. Now you just need to fill in the outline with your vision and goals for your rental business.

1. Write an executive summary
2. Company description
3. List your products and services
4. Perform a market analysis
5. Organization overview
6. Who is your customer?
7. Make a marketing plan
8. Provide a logistics and operations plan
9. Make a financial plan

READ: ”How to create a business plan for rental business”

Customers have a list of expectations for their rental experience. These include: accuracy in the listing, easy navigation when booking and smooth hand over of the rental item booked. Make sure you are equipped with the best software tools available. 

A good rental software must contain these two functions:

• Online booking system: What your customer can actually see and experience on the website. Choosing, booking and paying.

• Management system: The part of the software that you use for handling orders, control inventory and have an efficient admin operation.

READ: ”Essential software and tools for a rental business”

Marketing changes with the times and it’s important to stay on top of consumer trends. A good marketing strategy is one that has been prepared, identifying your company’s goals so they can be reached more easily by following an effective plan with defined milestones along the way. A stable foundation will make reaching those targets much easier than trying some wild goose chase through unknown territory.

Please read our blog for how to create a marketing strategy to learn the basics of marketing.

READ: ‘’How to create a marketing strategy for rental businesses’’