The search for what to rent continues, and until you begin, you’ll never know what you may discover! - by Ron Lanzo

We started this journey shortly after I began to work at American Furniture Rentals, Inc., it became obvious that even with more than two decades of experience in the office furniture industry, I knew little about the furniture rental business. I had mostly become an expert on how office furniture was sold. The process was pretty simple. Corporations who were expanding and moving to a new space usually hired an architectural firm to develop their space plans. Sometimes the architect was referred by the contract furniture company. These firms were also known in the industry as dealers–or dealerships. 

Similar to auto dealerships, they typically focus on a major line, often one of the big five manufacturers; Steelcase, Herman Miller, Haworth, Knoll and Allsteel dealerships who represent a major line are commonly referred to in the industry as ”aligned dealerships.” Their mission or goal in business is simply to sell lots of new office furniture and especially to concentrate on major projects like multiple floor corporate headquarters projects and multiple location expansions at companies like GE, IBM, Apple, Google, GM and Ford, just to mention a few. Although major dealerships do sometimes get involved in office furniture rentals, it’s more the exception than the rule and for me, I was now a furniture rental specialist, and I need to learn the reasons why it makes sense to rent office furniture and why firms choose to rent. 

And so my journey began and I continue to explore who rents what and why! In many of my previous articles, I was amazed at how many goods, services and commodities could be rented. I was sure I hadn’t missed a single thing that somebody could rent, and guess what happened next? The other day while doing some research on the Internet, I discovered a company out of the Midwest that rents chickens! As it turns out this company set up several other locations in Connecticut as franchises, and is now offering their chicken rental business to other budding entrepreneurs and suburban farmers who appreciate fresh eggs. The parent company is called Rent the Chicken, established in Pennsylvania. (http://www.rentthechicken.com/p/buy.html, and the Connecticut firm is called Rent a Hen! https://www.ctrentahen.com/) From their website, the ad reads, “…Families helping families to bring one simple food source closer to their table one rental at a time…” From the website it appears they now have laid the groundwork to offer this service in about 15 states! What an amazing idea and very creative business model based around renting rather than investing. The Connecticut couple who signed on, Joe and Ida DeFrancesco of Wallingford, CT, started with just two hens. 

A standard chicken rental package costs $450 and includes delivery, set up and pickup of contents; two egg-laying hens; a chicken coop; custom dish, 100 pounds of feed, a care guide and book. Phone and web chat support is also available. “We are really ‘egg-cited’ to see how our first season goes, and our chickens are looking forward to their vacations away from the farm,” Ida DeFrancesco said.

As I begin my 11th year here at AFR Furniture Rental, Inc., I continue to see a wide variety of companies and corporate managers who have chosen to rent furniture for a project rather than make the investment in furniture purchase. For instance, in Boston, at Publicis ReSources they chose to rent 100 training tables for a swing space construction project that would last at least six months. As it turned out it was closer to nine plus months, but the furniture rental provided a safe and secure place for their employees to continue working and servicing their customers until the construction was completed. RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design, had a similar construction project and rented both training tables, mobile storage files, called “mobile pedestals drawers,”  and seating to accommodate their workforce during construction. Swing space construction continues to be one of the main reasons why some of our customers continue to rent rather than purchase but that’s not the only reason. Summer intern program requirements have many of our larger major law firms renting desks for their select group of top tiered legal students. As an example, a medical school recently chose AFR to rent residential furnishings for their foreign interns coming to New York this spring. In all, over 25 apartments occupied for a couple of months wouldn’t warrant buying two truckloads of product when the furnishings could be rented for exactly as long as needed! Problem solved!

Ron Lanzo is the national accounts manager for the commercial division of AFR Furniture Rental, Inc., New York, N.Y.