Due to coronavirus restrictions, the demand for the rental of things, as well as consumer income, has decreased significantly. A row of rental had to close. Dmitry Big, the founder of the Next2U rental service, along with other market players, analyzes how the picture changed during the year and due to which it was possible to remain afloat to those who continued their work in 2021.
First wave. A sharp drop of revolutions
Dmitry Big, the founder of the service rental Next2U
Full Lokdaun in March - April The strongest thing affected the rental of clothing - during this period, demand was almost zero. Fell the demand for this direction and on our service: at once by 80%. The actual rent has become less than 95%.
To show the dynamics of demand in the first half of the year, we rated search queries in Yandex for this period. Graphs are built on the averaged data on request clusters. These are keywords like "dress" or "wedding dress", additional keys "Rent", "Rental" and "rent", plus geolocation.
The restrictions were dipped into depression a whole chain of businesses. The consumer has nowhere to go, which means there is no point in renting clothes. It is impossible to conduct events. When allowed - it is unknown, no one wants to plan and risk.
Together with rollers of outfits and accessories, companies employed by rental decor, furniture and equipment for events were strongly affected. Following them: Rolled photo-video technicians and those who take on the events.
Irina Krupoderova, the owner of the studio "Dresses in the Office", noticed that the profit of her business fell 65%. Partially preserved the demand for outfits for filming and dresses for pregnant women, but prices had to increase due to the costs of compliance with the necessary antiviral measures.
"We provided additional conditions for disinfection and dry cleaning, because of this, the cost of renting some dresses has grown. But people were not particularly interested in disinfection or why the price grew up - they simply were very worried that they could get sick or their relatives. For these reasons, last year there were more sales of dresses, including with an increase in activity for the new year. These are outfits that are no longer suitable for rent - we sell them to the regions, "Irina shares.
Photo: Iriska Kruglova / Shutterstock
The fall in demand was touched by not only evening outfits, but also products from the category "Childhood". But coronavirus coronavirus, and feeding kids and home games with older guys - on schedule. The restrictions in the first half of the year did not have so much on renting dry pools with balls and weights for newborns - unlike carnival costumes, beds and wheelchairs.
"Quarantine". Survival and new business models
Selfolation revealed new consumer habits: all over the world grew service delivery, e-commerce and training online content increased. For us, the direction of rental of sports simulators was particularly relevant: clubs were closed, people were locked in apartments and wanted to preserve the physical form.
In March every day there are dozens of calls with one question: "Do you have sports trainers for rent?" We understood the growth in demand, but before they did not develop this category, and the range was small. We started looking for a quick start of a new direction.
"At first, they offered to accommodate the rental of sports equipment on our site - all companies called without exaggeration. They answered in one voice that the simulators had already disassembled. Then the idea appeared in fitness centers: combine idle equipment and high demand. We were supported by the Association of Fitness-Industry Operators, in parallel we called the clubs of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The manager has contacted more than 300 companies, the proposals placed less than 10. The reasons for low conversion are different: someone "closed fitness on the club" and did not want to do anything, someone did not know how much restrictions will continue, others did not want to show profits in their Reasons, "says Ekaterina Kravnova, the co-founder of the rental service of Next2U.
Despite organizational difficulties, the range was enough - part of the heads of fitness clubs rated the idea to earn on idle simulators. And in order to support landlords, in March and April we strongly reduced the service commission. Advertising was invested minimally - the leap of demand for simulators was organic and rather short.
Together with prohibitions for flights and events, people began to travel more around the country and interested tourism. For rental of tourist equipment, everything was not so bad - the weakening of restrictions just coincided with the full-fledged start of the summer season.
One of the leaders on successful transactions on Next2U was the private landlord Dmitry Trechkinin, which gives more than 100 things and spent 485 rentals for the year. Its main range - tourism, but there are children's products and tools. According to the observations of Dmitry, his income from the rental last year, though decreased, but not critical. The landlord reports that the number of tenants of the tourist inventory due to the abolition of flights was outwarded, but only for the period of the first prohibitions. When the restrictions weakened, people began to rent even more often than before.
Photo: MICK-HAUPT / UNSPLASH
RESULTS
During the year we lost several large players: among them Rental of Tiara Dress and Oh My Look. According to our data, many private landlords with their small clothing rollees left the site. For rent in 2020, some owners of gaming consoles and sports equipment were stopped.
They were injured, but the projects in which the rental of goods related to events are developing as an additional direction are configured. So, for example, Natalia Gavrilina driving Red Carpet Dress, parallel to sales of dresses, so she was able to keep the business afloat and even plans to promote the direction of the lease.
"For the year of rental transactions was about 15. But for us, the rental is not the main direction, we continued to earn money on the wholesale of dresses. We did not have to sell a rolling assortment to somehow survive. Especially we are not going to close, prospects and demand will be when people will start attending activities to work and leaving. It is clear that instead of buying a dress in retail for 800 thousand rubles. They will choose rent for 3 days for 6-8 thousand, - concludes Natalia.
The rental market passed through great shocks, nevertheless he survived. The situation with Coronavirus showed that attention to situational demand and the availability of additional reserves are able to save business and even suggest a direction for development. Experts from RaEK and TIR-Center in the final report for 2020 noted that the sheering economy in Russia overcame the mark in the trillion rubles. For 4 years, the transaction volume rose 2.5 times - from 392 billion rubles. In 2017 to 1.07 trillion. Last year. In the context of 2020, the situation was complex, but in the long run, we observe growth prospects.
Retail.ru.