Booking / Hire apps - Have I found all available options in the app store?

[SpareAndSquare]

Hi everyone,

We are currently looking to streamline our hire section of the website with an app or something made for us that will suit our needs better than what we have found available.

We are a commercial cleaning machine supplier and have a large hire fleet of machine that we want customers to be able to book out and hire online. We currently use an app that works to some degree but is not exactly what we require.

This link shows the app in action on our website at the moment.

What we would like, is to show customers different options to hire. For example 1 Day hire is £000, 3 day hire is £000, 1 week hire is £000 and 1 month hire is £000 rather than the customer having to select each individual day they may need the machine.

What would be ideal for us to, would be the option to have a second add to cart button on machine pages where you can purchase, or hire the unit.

1 Button (Purchase) 2nd Button (Hire).

When the Hire button is clicked, a pop-up to appear with dates the customer can pick from and prices displayed.

We have tried a few of the available apps on the app store and whilst all work the whole process for us to set-up, and customers who are trying to hire the machines to navigate can be clunky and we would love to streamline the whole process. 

Has anyone got any recommendations on apps you use or have used, or how we can modify certain apps to work better for our store? 

If apps are not the best way forward, can anyone recommend a developer who could build us something custom to work on our store? We also do not like the customer paying the deposit for the machine via the usual payment options. This is because we have to pay transaction fees for the deposit, and then refund it at a later date which is an accounting nightmare. We would prefer deposits to be paid by bank transfer or in cash at the time of collection so we can hold the money until the machine is returned in good condition.

Thanks!

[CST]

@SpareAndSquare   

Thanks for posting!  I was going to reach out and recommend BookThatApp but I can see you've just installed the app so you're one step ahead of us 🙂   

There is considerable flexibility inherent within BookThatApp app that would help with your current workflow, including the ability to both hire or purchase the same item and do pre-set hire periods such as 1 week, 1 month, etc.   The app also offers a comprehensive admin portal that provides useful productivity features to manage your rentals, including run sheets, email & SMS reminders, Shopify customer integration, staff accounts and more.   

BookThatApp also offers an API that allows you to fully customize your booking experience.   Here is an example of a customer in a similar industry who has used the BookThatApp API to customize their booking form.  https://www.megahire.com.au/ 

Finally, looking at your website, it looks as though you may offer both product rentals as well as service appointments.  BookThatApp supports multiple types of booking forms, which is perfect if you need different forms for different types of rental or service appointments.   

Feel free to drop us a line at support@zetya.com if we can help get you set up or if you require access to the API.

Chris

[SpareAndSquare]

Thanks @CST , I had not come across this app for some reason until after I had posted in here yesterday. It does look like this will be our best option, and hopefully can be set-up enough to make the whole process far better than it currently is. The website you have linked to in your post is set-up almost exactly as we would want to get our rental products set up. 

I have had a quick look through the app this morning and the setup process, can you help with the customisation when we require it?

Looking forward to getting this setup and implemented on our store as we have had a surge in people requesting hire machines and have just invested in a large selection of new hire machines.

[CST]

@SpareAndSquare 

We can definitely help you get set up,  leverage the app features, and provide API access.  Our support team is available Mon to Fri, 24 hours per day to get you up and running.   Just drop us a line at support@zetya.com and we'll be happy to help.

For UI customisation and/or other front end work, we recommend you partner with a Shopify Expert in your local area.     https://experts.shopify.com/     

Feel free to reach out if I can answer anything further.

Thanks!

Chris

[PaulNewton]

---

@SpareAndSquare wrote:

We have tried a few of the available apps on the app store and whilst all work the whole process for us to set-up, and customers who are trying to hire the machines to navigate can be clunky

---

This really wont change with most off the shelf apps even with heavy customization|integration work.

Shopify's a generalized platform and so are even most niche feature apps, most common denominator and all that.

Either you'll need a series of apps/services wired together , or full development or your own app to get truly streamlined end-to-end for all features you've mentioned.

We would prefer deposits to be paid by bank transfer

That's a complication with a standard payment gateway your not gonna be able to collect that information separately from the other payment method. And to even gather that detail during checkout requires Shopify Plus.

or in cash at the time of collection so we can hold the money until the machine is returned in good condition.

That's a complication too depending on if your using shopify POS or again if the gateway being used facilitates that as shopify does NOT have COD system(outside of india) .

You may need to wire together a draft-order/invoice system to take the deposit in person that maybe prevents fulfillment of the main order until draft is paid.

Or edit the order after initial payment so that an addition amount is required and you mark that as paid once cash is on hand.

This is because we have to pay transaction fees for the deposit, and then refund it at a later date which is an accounting nightmare.

You should put a dollar amount on that to figure out if the nightmare is worth living with versus finding an app/service to handle the deposit process and paying that monthly fee instead of a processing fee, or if it's more expensive than the cost of fullscale app development.