Have you rented camping gear for a climbing trip?
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My friend and I are starting up a camping gear rental company campcrate.net. I'm thinking one of our markets could be international climbers on trips, since it is difficult to fly all the gear. Am I wrong? Should I only advertise to city dwellers looking to camp, or would traveling climbers use this too? Troll my idea to tears, give kudos, or ignore me....all responses welcome. I'd appreciate checking out the website before commenting. |
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Chad, Chad Lawver wrote:My friend and I are starting up a camping gear rental company campcrate.net. I'm thinking one of our markets could be international climbers on trips, since it is difficult to fly all the gear. Am I wrong? Should I only advertise to city dwellers looking to camp, or would traveling climbers use this too? Troll my idea to tears, give kudos, or ignore me....all responses welcome. I'd appreciate checking out the website before commenting.Edit: Your bottom link "the website" doesn't work, but your campcrate link does. |
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Might be useful to have specialty gear that people might not use that often. For example, there are some climbs that I'd like to do that require #6 cams, but I dont climb enough stuff that needs this to justify buying a #6. I guess this applies to things like big bros, valley giants, etc. |
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I don't think you'll get many climber clients, but I've been wrong many times... |
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Chad Lawver wrote:My friend and I are starting up a camping gear rental company campcrate.net. I'm thinking one of our markets could be international climbers on trips, since it is difficult to fly all the gear. Am I wrong? Should I only advertise to city dwellers looking to camp, or would traveling climbers use this too? Troll my idea to tears, give kudos, or ignore me....all responses welcome. I'd appreciate checking out the website before commenting.Just spitballing here so don't take offense, why would someone want to have you ship them gear if they already owned their own gear. If they have an address where they can ship stuff and access to somewhere to ship it back it seems they would just ship their own gear. By the time you pay $200 minimum to rent from you they might as well have just shipped it themselves or payed the extra baggage fee. BTW it says 3 days minimum but the way the calendar is setup it makes you do 4 days minimum, I.E. when I click on Feb 14th it won't let me choose any date until Feb 17th and charges for 4 days. Also I know there are issues with shipping fuel canisters, but that kind of ruins getting a stove for some if you still have to find a gear store to get your fuel. Might as well just pick up some cans of sterno from walmart if it's a short camping trip. |
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Just some thoughts... |
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I´ve flown to the USA to camp (as a climber) a few times. The extra weight of camping gear is actually minimal compared with the rest of the junk, between 2 people you get 46kg hold luggage and the camping gear is maybe 5-10kg. An extra 23kg hold bag from Germany costs $65 so paying you over $1000 for a two week trip makes no sense whatsoever anyway. |
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Jim Titt wrote:I´ve flown to the USA to camp (as a climber) a few times. The extra weight of camping gear is actually minimal compared with the rest of the junk, between 2 people you get 46kg hold luggage and the camping gear is maybe 5-10kg. An extra 23kg hold bag from Germany costs $65 so paying you over $1000 for a two week trip makes no sense whatsoever anyway. Climbers already have rucksacks, a good down bag can go in hand luggage and Walmart supplies the rest.THIS. If your trip is long. Visit walmart for basic stuff or just take it ALL with you. I've never had any issues. For a shorter trips you might not even have a car so packing light is a necessity that isn't fixed by a big camping kit unless it is delivered at the campground. Last climbing flight I took I fit it all into one rucksack. Tent, sleeping bag and essential clothes and basic stove. I brought a smallish rack and no rope. I climbed with people who had a rope. At worst I would have just bought a rope if necessary. |
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I see your target market as people who have little to no camping experience and want to test the gear before they decide if they want to buy their own or people who are probably only going to go camping once or once every several years and don't want crap they barely use cluttering up their garage. Maybe you could give people the option to keep the gear for X amount if they decide they like it, and it would save you on return shipping. |
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If you aren't in an area with an REI or a similar store, do know that REI has a plethora of camping and mointaineering gear for rent. A lot of guiding companies also rent gear to clients and non-clients alike, such as RMI. |
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Chris Ccc wrote:If you aren't in an area with an REI or a similar store, do know that REI has a plethora of camping and mointaineering gear for rent. A lot of guiding companies also rent gear to clients and non-clients alike, such as RMI. Seems like a very tough business model if that is your only revenue stream. Make sure you do the math on everything. God speed!!Agreed it seems like a tough business model. If you're dead set on it, I think adding more flexibility would help, like having the option to rent individual items or a discount on a package. Also, a wider variety of equipment, like winter specific gear, trekking poles, tarps, bear-hang kit, etc would help expand your market. Doing specialty items that most people don't want to buy just for one trip may open up another market as well. And the option to buy if you like the product you rented would help for people trying camping out for the first time. |
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We just car-camped in Kauai for two weeks, and rented: |
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I was thinking of renting a rope to climb in Kalymnos Greece. I've considered renting a crash pad for bouldering when I fly to a destination. But I think there are likely local places to rent at most established areas. I'd consider renting large cams, like BD #6 and above. |