What an event rental website needs to book more orders
An event or party rental website has one job: turn a visitor into a complete quote request or an order. Here’s what the sites that do it well have in common.
Devon Race
3 min read
An event rental website should let a visitor find the item they need, see what it looks like and roughly what it costs, check that you serve their area and send a complete quote request or order in a few minutes, on a phone. Everything else on the site supports that. Most rental sites lose orders by hiding prices, using stock photos, asking for too little information or making the visitor call.
I build these sites for rental and production companies, including the Pipe and Drape Atlanta rental site. Here’s what I put on every one.
Categories the way customers search
People search for the item and the event: tent rental, table and chair rental, dance floor rental, pipe and drape, LED wall rental. Give each main category its own page, written in those words, with the sizes or options, what they’re used for and what’s included. A single page that lists everything can’t rank for all of it, and it doesn’t answer anyone’s question well.
Real photos of real setups
Show your own inventory at real events: the tent lit at night, the room fully draped, the stage at the festival. Customers are picturing their event, and your photos are how they do it. Stock photos tell them nothing about what will arrive.
Prices, or at least starting prices
Many customers won’t contact a company that hides every price. Item prices, package prices or starting prices filter out the poor fits and give the good ones the confidence to ask. If delivery varies, explain how it’s priced.
A quote form that asks the right questions
The form is where many rental sites fail. A name, an email and a message box produce requests you can’t quote. Ask for what you need to quote the first time:
- Event date, and delivery and pickup times if known
- Event address or venue, and whether it’s indoors or outdoors
- Guest count
- The items or package they’re interested in
- Ground surface and access, for tents and staging
- Phone and email, and how they prefer to be contacted
Service area and delivery, stated plainly
Say which areas you deliver to and how delivery is priced. A customer outside your area should find out on the website, not after a phone call.
Fast on a phone
Many rental customers browse on their phones, often between other tasks. Pages need to load quickly, buttons need to be easy to tap and the quote request has to work without zooming. A slow site loses orders before anyone sees your inventory.
Connected to how you book
Every request should land in one place with an owner and a reply the same day, ideally in your rental software or CRM rather than an inbox. If your software offers online booking or a quote cart, connect it to the site so simple orders can be placed without a call. You can see this working in the quote form demo.
Common questions
- Should an event rental website have online booking?
- If your items and pricing are simple, online booking can capture orders outside office hours. For tents, staging and large events, a detailed quote request usually works better, because those orders need a conversation.
- How many pages should a rental website have?
- Enough that each main category and service has its own page, plus pages for packages, delivery and service area, your work and a quote request. Depth on the categories you most want to rent matters more than a page count.