New Delhi, Sept 9 (KNN) In many life events such as parties, school & office functions, trainings, travel and medical emergencies, renting products is far more desired option than buying. People are increasingly realizing that the value is in consumption than ownership. After all, as famously said, “People don’t really want a quarter-inch drill. They really want a quarter-inch hole.”
 
Rentsher, has surely realized this belief and brought a one-of-its-kind online renting service in the global market.
 
Abhijit Shaha, Head of Business and Product, Rentsher, elaborated more about the start-up trailing up and down its journey to success.
 
Talking about the idea of creating Rentsher, Shaha said, “First issue here is discoverability. How, the people who have spare products can meet with the people who need those products. And even after that there are two big issues. How can the owner trust the renter with their products? Moreover the logistics of collecting and returning the products is often prohibitively complicated and expensive for people to choose this option.”
 
He further added, “We have answer to these problems. RentSher is ‘managed product rental marketplace’ where anyone can upload their products to give them on rent and anyone else can rent them out. RentSher provides end to end services including online booking, payment and home delivery and pickup.”
 
The idea popped up with an unusual parental dilemma of the founders of Rentsher - Ketaki Shah and Abhijit Shaha.
 
“I needed range of products and toys for myson which was used for a very short period of time as our son either grew out of them or got bored of them. I was looking for a way - friendly to the environment as well as pocket. That is when I realized that we might not be the only ones thinking this war,” Shaha said.
Shah and Ketaki bounced the idea with their longtime friends Harsh and Anubha and realized the need is there not only for baby products but for a range of other categories. “Thus RentSher was born,” the company co-founder Shaha said.
 
 The ultimate aim of RentSher is to increase the consumption of already manufactured products by means for sharing/renting.
 
Presently, RentSher features close to 1000 products in range of categories including costumes, toys, projectors, laptops, medical equipment, sports, camping gears and many more. 
 
As of now, Rentsher is operational in Bangalore and expanding to couple of more cities soon.
 
Online renting service, being a new concept for many, posed the challenge for RentSher to convince people of the idea.
 
“The most frequently asked question to us was - what if I give my product on rent and it gets damaged?”
 
We assured Owners and gave them protection against breakage or loss of products. After seeing that the products are rented and returned safely, especially in hassle free manner as RentSher handles pickups and deliveries, many are now actively approaching us to put their products for rent, he said.
 
RentSher is bootstrapped startup with initial funding coming from Founders’ savings.
 
Yet to finish its first year, RentSher has so far given out more than 1500 products on rent.
 
With flood of offers on big platforms, many people end up with buying things they don’t need every day. This works in RentSher’s favor as these people are the ones who can put these products on rent through RentSher. Also after mass consumerism, many people are consciously moving to environmentally and economically better option. Global trend shows adoption of sharing economy as next trend after e-Commerce.
 RentSher is on the forefront of this trend in India and is playing key role in changing people’s mindset.
 
On being asked about the USP of Rentsher, Shaha said, “End to end service. Unlike most marketplaces, RentSher is managed marketplace where owners are verified, products are checked for quality and there is owner’s protection. But most importantly end to end services from booking online, online or COD payment and home pickup and delivery make renting as easy as booking a movie ticket.”
 
“Our large numbers of customers are delighted with our services and keep coming back asking for more,” he added.
 
The growing popularity of online shopping trends has sparked many debates about the existence of the conventional markets. In this regard, Shaha was of the view that there is continuation in the trend.
 
“However as we have seen globally, even in matured markets, e-Commerce is less than 10 per cent of total retail and this ratio will be even less in India for next few years. Having said that more and more people will warm up to online shopping and the market size will continue to grow,” he argued.
 
Going further with the discussion, the entrepreneur talked specifically about the trends in the conventional renting market, and online rent services. “Renting industry in itself is new. There are few distributed offline players for specific categories such as costumes, office equipment, camping gear etc. But this is very fragmented market with no dominant player.”
 
Sharing his plans for the coming years, he said, “In coming year we want RentSher to be at the forefront of sharing economy in India. We plan to strengthen our platform, cover all tier I cities in India with extensive fulfilment network and build a sustainable, growing organization”
 
 “We would love to see India strengthening its governance and build solid policies around online trading, comparable to developed nations in the world,” he concluded. (KNN/ Jyoti)