Rentickle, a provider of trendy lifestyle products on rental basis to temporary migrants in Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, plans to add new product categories and expand to Mumbai and Pune this year.

Incubated in November 2015 and headquartered at Gurugram, the start-up providing brand-new or refurbished home appliances, furniture and electronic items to clients-on-the-move on a rental basis, is also adding new categories, like baby products, elder care, adventure gear, sports and fitness equipment, Vineet Chawla, founder, told BusinessLine .

The company had received $250,000 as equity in 2016 and another $400,000 as a combination of debt and equity in 2017 in Series A funding, spurring its pan-India expansion plans. It will soon set up warehouses in Mumbai and Pune, he said.

Enhancing lifestyle

Chawla said a major chunk of his clients are young professionals, unsure about the tenure of their stay at a place and those with transferable jobs (60 per cent), followed by newly-wed couples with limited budget (15-20 per cent) and expatriates visiting India for a few months. “Our rents vary from as low as ₹100 per month to around ₹1,200 depending on the tenure and product,” he said. These rentals are only 2 to 3 per cent of the product’s cost.

In this sharing economy that allows consumers to enjoy rented luxury lifestyle products, a popular concept in the West, the company’s customers are mainly those trying to avoid the whole rigmarole of scouting and buying new furniture and appliances, bargaining for prices, handling logistics, delivery, labour, installation and then selling these products when they move out to another place. He said Rentickle not only delivers rented products at their home but also installs these free of cost with complimentary periodic maintenance provided by the company, thus ensuring value for money.

Major shift

Renting home appliances accounts for nearly 35 per cent of the revenue coming from the 21-30 year old age-bracket while 27 per cent comes from the 31-40 year old age-group, Chawla said. Companies setting up temporary offices in other cities are also amongst its clients.

The company has so far serviced nearly 10,000 B2B and B2C clients. Apart from young professionals who find renting convenient and practical, other consumer segments include students away from home for higher studies. On the B2B segment, some hotel chains are increasingly opting for renting to furnish their hotel rooms instead of spending huge capital upfront for outright purchase.

There has been a major shift in consumer mindset from owning to renting of lifestyle products. While sharing economy has been made popular by large global companies like Uber, airbnb etc, the rented products categories has expanded to garments, accessories, high-end motorcycles and even DSLR cameras.

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