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Saurabh Thakur Startup business adviser and eCommerce consultant

Chandigarh, India

Marketing analyst, and business advisor having more than 6 years of experience in this industry. I help businesses to increase ROI and improve brand's online presence.

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Startup Business Advisor

Saurabh Thakur • Chandigarh, India
Created 3 years ago in Business / Getting Started

I'm working in this industry since 2014

Saurabh Thakur Chandigarh, India

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Saurabh Thakur

Chandigarh, India

Marketing analyst, and business advisor having more than 6 years of experience in this industry. I help businesses to increase ROI and improve brand's online presence.

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Saurabh Thakur answered

Is there any software to start marketplace like TaskRabbit?

Yes, there are many software solutions available that can help you start a marketplace similar to TaskRabbit.
TaskRabbit is a popular online platform that connects individuals or businesses with local service providers for various tasks and services. If you're looking to build a similar marketplace, here are a couple of software options to consider:
Yo!Gigs: YoGigs (https://www.yo-gigs.com/) is a seamless end-to-end home service management software packed with all the latest features and built with modern technology to launch a fully-functional services marketplace similar to TaskRabbit.
Sharetribe: Sharetribe is a customizable marketplace software that allows you to create and launch your own peer-to-peer service marketplace. It provides the necessary features for users to post tasks, search for service providers, book appointments, and manage payments. Sharetribe offers a user-friendly interface, built-in payment processing, and various customization options.
Cocorico: Cocorico is an open-source marketplace solution designed for building service-based marketplaces. It provides features for task posting, service provider profiles, booking management, and payment integration. Cocorico is highly customizable and offers flexibility for tailoring the platform to your specific marketplace needs.
However, it's important to carefully evaluate your requirements and consider factors like customization options, scalability, integration capabilities, and support when choosing the right software for your marketplace project.

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Software Development

Saurabh Thakur answered

How to ensure a smooth and efficient booking process for my heavy equipment rental business?

Business scaling these days is tough but you should be happy to know you are in the right direction. From my understanding, you want to transition from being an offline heavy equipment rental business to a well renowned and recognized brand. However, in the online space, you will also be competing with businesses like United Rentals and Sunbelt Rentals who have fully enabled tech to handle all sorts of rental orders.

To get on their level, find a technology partner or invest in a rental tech that can both simplify operations for you and make you look like a proper brand. Below are some things to consider in your business expansion plan for making a strong digital transition:

1. Get Good Software Tech: There are numerous cart plugins and add-on options that add a rental module to a website but it is better to begin with a complete rental solution in the first place. Instead of just enabling online ordering, the rental software (https://www.yo-rent.com) will give you complete control over several things such as:

Order management
Inventory management
Rental agreements
Rental security
Rental add-ons
Verification documents
Overdue returns
Late cancellations
Quotation requests

Adding a cart plugin or a few integrations will fail to deliver all aforementioned functionalities that you need to launch a fully operational rental store.

With an online rental software, handling hundreds of orders will become easy with features like:

Booking calendar: Take rental date inputs and orders directly on the website
Rental security management: Collect and disburse rental security on the website
Late cancellation charges: Charged small fines for late cancellation of orders, i.e., post processing
Track returns: Take in charge of completed and overdue returns
Rental add-ons: Automate upselling and cross selling on every order

2. Focus on Branding: The way you represent your brand is absolutely necessary to compete against big players. They all have a defined brand voice, tone, vision and mission statements and strictly adhere to them. They also pay close attention to small details and ensure quality every time. Their customer support is fast, reliable and helpful.

3. Give more Value: The last point on my list is very simple. To build a name in the industry, you need to provide better value than your competitors. This can simply be in terms of rental pricing, free add-ons, discount strategy, loyalty program and more. You can test these offerings with geo-specific targeted marketing and scale up when they bring results.

Paying strong emphasis to these three points can help you scale and grow your online heavy equipment rental business. For streamlining bookings and related processes, I would recommend you YoRent online rental software whose free product tours are also available on its official website and don’t require any sign up.
Click here to see https://www.yo-rent.com/yo-rent-versions-demo.html

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Rentals

Saurabh Thakur answered

How do I start an equipment rental business ?

Online Equipment Rentals is a multi-category business and narrowing it down to a specific niche is extremely important for a strategic start. Highly popular sub-niches within the equipment rental business include construction, medical, agriculture and adventure gears, etc. Analyzing the global demand for equipment rental businesses, multi-vendor heavy equipment rental business is a promising business idea in present and coming years. To begin with, you can start by defining a business model comprising target audiences and locations, revenue streams, and market research.

Subsequently, you can move forward with a technology solution like YoRent (www.yo-rent.com/equipment-rental-software.html) that offers a seamless user experience to vendors and customers as well. Once you are done with platform development, you can start on-boarding vendors and customers across the platform. You will require to invest a few dollars in marketing the business in an efficient manner. Since you are planning from the root level, it can take you 6-8 months in establishing authority in the market.
To find out more, you can contact with me!

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Saurabh Thakur answered

How do I ensure the safety of designer clothes in my fashion rental startup?

There are some things that you can do for the safety of your rental dresses. Getting business insurance is the first and most practical thing to do but it is not possible to claim insurance after each and every instance of product damage. So apart from insurance, you will also need to have care measures.

In my opinion, switch your rental model from offline to online or just start using a rental software. I am suggesting this because of various reasons. With modern rental software (www.yo-rent.com), you can secure your rental dress inventory in many ways.

Inventory management: With a computerized system, you can keep track of every dress you lend. This will help you ensure that your dresses do come back to you after a rental period is over. You can also keep track of orders and check overdue returns and send alerts and notifications for the same.

Start charging late return charges: Rental software like Yo!Rent and Booqable provide features to levy late returns. Basically, you can define different late return periods, like 24 hours delay period and 48 hours delay period. For all defined late return periods, you can levy different late return charges.

Collect and manage rental security: You should also collect rental security from customers at the time of taking orders. This can be handled either manually, or again with a software that has a dedicated rental security module. You can use this security to reimburse any product damages or deduct late return charges.

Keep a maintenance buffer period: Keep a buffer period between two rental orders for maintenance and upkeep of products. One way to achieve this is by keeping the returned product out of the inventory. Once the product has been successfully inspected/repaired, you can add it back to the inventory. This function is often automated in rental software.

Mention your Terms and Conditions: Keep the rental terms and conditions for each and every dress that you have completely transparent with the customers. You can also integrate an eSign feature in your software so that you can get the conditions signed before completing the transaction. Some examples of terms and conditions are: No wash, no ironing, ironing only on low heat, do not wear in direct sunlight, etc.

Ensure good packaging: The most regrettable product damages for a dress rental business are shipping damages. Here, you cannot blame the customer nor deduct reimbursement. Instead, you often have to pay for repairs from your pocket. Thus, it is much better to ensure proper packaging in the first place. For reference, you can rent a dress from your competitors and take note of their packaging standards.

Taking these security measures right from the initial phase of your business can prevent losses in the long run. Meanwhile, the more the attention you pay towards the security and maintenance of your dresses, the more revenue you can generate per dress. All aforementioned options are also readily available in many rental software, so consider adapting the online dress rental business model that can help you in scaling and growth as well.

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Rentals

Saurabh Thakur answered

Does all rental software charge a monthly fee?

There are very few rental software solutions in the market that do not charge a monthly or recurring fee. Yo!Rent stands out as one of the top options in this category.

Yo!Rent is a self-hosted, white-label rental software that comes with a one-time license fee, meaning you own the platform for life without worrying about ongoing monthly subscriptions. This makes it an ideal and cost-effective solution, especially for startups and niche rental businesses like baby equipment rentals, where budget control is important.

Why Yo!Rent Is a Great Fit for Your Business:
No Monthly Fees – Pay once, and it's yours forever. No hidden charges.

Tailored for Rental Models – Yo!Rent supports both B2B and B2C models, perfect for baby gear like strollers, cribs, car seats, etc.

Multi-Vendor or Single-Store Capable – Whether you plan to grow into a marketplace or start solo, Yo!Rent can handle it.

Advanced Inventory & Booking Management – Manage availability, track returns, and schedule deliveries with ease.

White-Label & Fully Customizable – Launch under your brand with full control over the design and domain.

Scalable & Secure – Built to grow with your business and hosted on your own server.

If you're looking for a reliable, scalable, and budget-friendly rental platform without the burden of monthly charges, Yo!Rent is a top-tier solution worth considering.

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Rentals

Small Business

Online business

Saurabh Thakur answered

Which software best suits building an online party equipment rental marketplace?

Many online marketplaces are emerging in the events industry that simplify sourcing party supplies for all sorts of parties and events. These marketplaces are also able to reach out to wider markets and leverage digital marketing. Thus, capturing a hefty market share. To step in the same space with them, you require a ready-made party rental software that can provide all required functionalities right out of the box.

You can consider Yo!Rent party rental software (www.yo-rent.com) that has next-gen features for rental operations. For example, it allows business owners to provide bulk order discounts and sanction a rental agreement with digital signature capabilities. Some other features that it has to support party rental operations are:

Inventory management: You can track your party and event rental inventory in real-time and also keep tabs on supply returns. You can set custom stock level alerts, view shipping profiles, buffer periods and inventory reports as well.

Document verification: Yo!Rent allows business owners to collect necessary ID proof and address proofs on the platform itself. These documents can be stored and deleted after order completion.

Late Returns and Cancellations: To prevent late returns and cancellations and recover lost opportunity costs, order processing costs, Yo!Rent allows business owners to define and levy custom charges.

Tiered Pricing: In the party rental industry, the option to rent supplies for days, weeks and months gives more flexibility to hosts and organizers. With Yo!Rent, you can easily set daily, weekly and monthly tiered pricing for all party supplies.

Product Bundles: Create custom product bundles for specific occasions and events and sell them all together at a discounted price. Yo!Rent provides many such monetization options that help you convert big ticket sales.

Multilingual and Multi-Currency: Yo!Rent allows party supply businesses to target diverse audiences and geographical regions as well with its multilingual and multi-currency capabilities.

Due to all these features, Yo!Rent is a highly preferable rental software for party rental operations. As it is also available at a one-time cost, its costs can be easily recovered within 10-20 months. On the other hand, with SaaS software, your software cost will only increase with time because of recurring payments, transaction charges and upgradation costs.

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Tech startups and entrepreneurship

Saurabh Thakur answered

Which software is best for managing equipment rentals and inventory?

I would suggest you to explore the YoRent equipment rental software.

YoRent is one of the best software solutions specifically designed for managing equipment rentals and inventory. Unlike generic inventory management tools, Yo!Rent is tailored to meet the unique needs of the equipment rental industry, making it an ideal choice for businesses dealing with heavy machinery, construction tools, medical devices, and more.

Key Features of Yo!Rent:

Advanced Rental Management: Supports hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly rentals with automated pricing and late return management.

Real-Time Inventory Tracking: Efficiently manage availability, maintenance schedules, and stock levels for all rental items.

RFQ Module: Allow customers to request quotes for bulk rentals or custom duration.

Document Management: Securely handle rental agreements, verification documents, and digital signatures.

Multilingual & Multi-Currency Support: It supports Multilingual & Multi-Currency functionalities to process cross-border business operations. Due to these features, it can be used to power rental marketplaces all around the globe.

White-Label Solution: Completely brandable with your business’s logo, design, and domain—ensuring a fully customized and professional experience.

Mobile Responsive & SEO-Optimized: Great UX across all devices and visibility in search engines out of the box.

Yo!Rent is also self-hosted, giving you full control over your platform, data, and scalability—ideal for startups and growing businesses that want to avoid monthly fees or data privacy concerns.

You can explore more https://www.yo-rent.com/equipment-rental-software.html

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E-commerce Solutions

Small Business

Saurabh Thakur answered

What’s the best white label ecommerce platform to build an online store for my designer clothing brand?

If you’re looking for the best white label eCommerce platform to launch your online store, I’d like to introduce you to Tribe, a powerful and modern self hosted eCommerce platform that delivers more value compared to many well-known names in the industry.

Tribe is specially designed for startups and businesses transitioning from offline to online, it offering everything you need to launch, scale, and manage a professional online store without the complexity or high costs often associated with traditional platforms.

Why Tribe Stands Out:

White Label Solution – Completely rebrandable under your business name, domain, and design.

Comes with a Ready-to-Use Mobile App – Launch your ecommerce app instantly and reach mobile-first customers with ease.

Feature-Rich & Scalable – Includes multi-vendor capabilities, advanced product management, SEO tools, analytics, and more.

Built for Modern Commerce – Designed for user experience, conversion optimization, and mobile responsiveness.

Self-Hosted solfware – You maintain full control over data, branding, and scalability.

Whether you're a small business or a growing brand, Tribe empowers you to build a customized, professional eCommerce presence quickly and cost-effectively, making it one of the best choices in the white label space.

You can explore tribe website to get more detailed info: https://www.tribe-ecommerce.com/

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Tech startups and entrepreneurship

Online business

Saurabh Thakur answered

what should I use ready to use software or a custom?

Buying a clone script is not the right choice to create a website or marketplace for your dream business. As you mentioned, two approaches that can be chosen for building your freelance marketplace like Fiverr. I would suggest you choose a full-fledged freelance marketplace software. Considering a ready-made solution can be a more advantageous approach compared to building a website from scratch.
Here’s why:

Benefits of Using Ready-Made Software:

Cost-Effectiveness:- Developing a marketplace from scratch requires significant investment in terms of time, money, and resources. Ready-made solutions, like the Fiverr clone, provide a more budget-friendly option as they come with pre-built functionalities.

Time Efficiency: Building a platform from scratch can take months or even years. Ready-made software can significantly reduce the development time, allowing you to launch your marketplace much faster.

Proven Functionality: Ready-made solutions are often tested and refined over time. They come with essential features like user profiles, job postings, payment gateways, and reviews, which are critical for a freelance marketplace.
Technical Support and Updates: Providers of ready-made software often offer technical support and regular updates, ensuring your platform remains secure and up-to-date with the latest features.

Scalability and Flexibility: Many ready-made solutions are designed to be scalable, allowing you to start small and expand as your user base grows. They also offer customization options to tailor the platform to your specific needs. YoGigs is one of them that caters the demand of freelance businesses.

Clone vs. Full-Fledged Marketplace Software

While a Fiverr clone can offer a quick start, there are full-fledged freelance marketplace software solutions that may provide a more comprehensive and flexible approach.

Here’s a comparison:
Clone Software:
Simplicity: Clones are designed to replicate a specific platform, making them straightforward to implement.
Basic Features: They typically include only the core functionalities found in the original platform, which might limit customization.
Short-Term Solution: Ideal for those looking to launch quickly with basic features but may require significant modifications as the business grows.

Full-Fledged Marketplace Software:
Robust Features: These solutions are built to support a wide range of functionalities, including advanced search filters, detailed analytics, and diverse payment options.
Customization: They offer greater flexibility for customization, enabling you to create a unique marketplace that stands out from competitors.
Long-Term Viability: Designed to support long-term growth, these platforms can adapt to evolving business needs without extensive rework.
Best Software to Develop Freelance Marketplace like Fiverr

YoGigs is a viable option for startups and aspiring entrepreneurs searching for full-fledged marketplace software solutions. It offers advanced features tailored for freelance marketplaces such as user management, service listings, secure payment gateways, powerful admin tools, and many more.

YoGigs is a cost-effective and fully customizable solution so businesses can customize it as per their needs or requirements and you can launch the Fiverr-type website within a short period similar to a clone.
Unlike clone scripts, with YoGigs you will get a professional-looking website that attracts users and provides the features that need.

You can explore more: https://www.yo-gigs.com/

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Software Development

Saurabh Thakur answered

How do you think the future of the car rental industry will be shaped by technology in the next 5-10 years?

The car rental industry has already evolved and is expected to majorly transition online. This implies consumers would be able to rent cars on an on-demand basis through their mobile phones easily. For car rental companies, managing their rental fleet, and keeping track of customers and bookings would also get easier. However, this will result in a major challenge. To stay competitive, all offline players will need to adapt to digital transformation. Even to reach customers and build an online presence, businesses will need a multi-functional car rental website that updates customers on all required information and accepts 24/7 bookings.

Along with bookings, operations such as collecting rental security, tracking overdue returns, and resolving consumer issues and complaints, all will be shifted offline. For the majority of the changes mentioned above, we don’t need to wait for years. Instead, we can see them happening shortly. Car rental companies have already started to make their online transition. In value proposition, they are standing head-to-toe with incumbents like Budget-Avis Group, GetAround, Europcar, and Turo.

The presence of many rental software and solutions, such as YoRent, and Sharetribe have made it even easier to make the digital transition. Players who go digital fast would be able to reap the same benefits, follow-ups may lose some competitive edge.
You can browse YoRent’s offerings by clicking here https://www.yo-rent.com/car-rental-software.html , if you’re planning to launch a scalable car rental business.

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Rentals

Technology

Enterprise Software

Saurabh Thakur answered

How important is a website for a rental startup?

A website is a must for modern businesses, be it rental or sales. Rental operations are also quite difficult to manage than sales operations and building a website brings automation, that’s why websites are more important for rental businesses.

Let’s discuss in detail:

For Managing Rental Operations:

Rental operations are complex. You need to book equipment for certain dates. First, you accept rental dates from customers, collect a security deposit, verify documents, and then track returns for your order. In case of any damages, you have to make deductions from the rental security. All of this can be quite tiresome in manual operations, especially when manual operations give customers the scope for dispute. Instead, it is better to develop a feature-packed website that can automate all these operations for you and help you handle orders.

For Reducing Operational Costs & Reaching Breakeven Point:

With offline operations, you need to hire a workforce to showcase equipment to customers, manage inventory, do invoicing, and send return reminders. All of these operations along with many more are automated on a rental website. This helps you reduce operational costs and reach a breakeven point faster.

Brand Building:

Even if you are a startup, customers want a premium experience. Eventually, they will compare you to existing online players and top businesses. Thus, it is better to provide customers with an interface and experience that matches those of leading players. By building a rental website, you can reflect the professionalism that customers expect from rental companies. Moreover, having a professional website will also boost your reliability and trust.

Access to Digital Marketing Tools:

Almost every business is using digital marketing today to promote their services. With a rental website, you can access a number of digital marketing tools, such as on-page SEO, paid campaigning, backlinking, social media marketing, and more. With solid digital marketing plans, you can increase your online reach and attract more customers. With a checkout functionality on your website, the overall conversion time will also be less.

Reports and Analytics:

Collecting metrics such as visitors, views, bookings, transactions, revenue generation, top-performing products, top customers, top regions, etc. is important to make data-based marketing, growth, and business management decisions. Your rental website can collect this data automatically and prepare reports.

For building the most appropriate rental website with rent-centric functionalities such as a booking calendar, agreement management, rental security management, rental add-ons, document verification, and more, I recommend checking out Yo!Rent rental software. https://www.yo-rent.com

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