Pay-up-front: Minimizing rental package item configuration
Factors such as upgraded rental packages based on mixture of equipment levels, single day rentals up to rentals over two weeks in duration and varying price levels for walk-ins vs. groups vs. wholesale accounts, etc., can result in a significant amount of rental package item configuration. But there are a few options that can help minimize the number of items that must be configured.
1. Dynamic Pricing capability for groups. In order to prevent reconfiguring the same list of rental items over and over just to accommodate special pricing, consider using Dynamic Pricing capability. A Dynamic Pricing Rule may be configured and attached to an account. Whenever that account is applied to a sale, the Dynamic Pricing Rule associated with that account re-prices the rental items as appropriate.
Example of using Dynamic Pricing capability:
School groups receive a 20% discount on rentals. A Dynamic Pricing Rule could be configured like this:
IF(DCI(RENTALS),DISCOUNT(20))
This rule is attached to each account configured for use with school groups and whenever rentals are sold to school groups one of the accounts specifically configured for use with school groups is applied to the sale. The result is that rental items sold to school groups are priced at 20% less than the regular rate.
2. Dynamic Pricing capability based on age. Consider configuring a Dynamic Pricing Rule that re-prices items based on the age of the guest attached to the item. That way, duplicate rental package items do not have to be configured just to handle price variances based on a child vs. an adult vs. a senior guest.
4. Equipment exchanges/upgrades/downgrades that do not impact the price of a rental item. When configuring rental packages, consider adding all components that could potentially be rented by the guest without requiring any additional exchange of money.
Example 1:
When a guest rents a Demo Ski Package, typically she rents a demo ski and a demo ski boot. But at times a downgraded sport or basic boot simply fits better. The guest does not receive any sort of partial refund on a demo package in this situation. The Demo Package item is configured with a DEMO SKI component, a DEMO BOOT component, a SPORT BOOT component and a BASIC BOOT component. This allows any one of the three levels of boots to be attached to the same Rental form without having to configure a rental package item for each possible scenario.
Example 2:
A basic ski package and a basic snowboard package cost the same amount. Instead of creating a rental package item for each type of rental, a single BASIC PACKAGE item is configured that includes the BASIC SKI, BASIC SKI BOOT, BASIC SNOWBOARD and BASIC SNOWBOARD BOOT components. This allows any of the four components to be attached to the Rental form. One caution when consolidating packages in this manner: There is a chance that all four pieces of equipment could be attached at the same time to a Rental form generated based on the purchase of the BASIC PACKAGE, essentially giving the guest two sets of rentals for the price of one. The Salesware Rentals module prevents two of the same type of equipment from being attached to a Rental form at the same time, but because all components configured for the BASIC PACKAGE are different types, they could potentially all be attached to the Rental form at the same time. Rental technicians and operators must be trained to watch for these situations in order to prevent guests from checking-out more than one set of equipment at a time.