Nerdy Fox Rentals Uses Wishlists to Offer Customized Quotes for Event Rentals with Booqable

For event rental companies, every booking marks the beginning of a collaborative journey to bring a client’s vision to life. In this process, the ability to tailor services, confirm logistics, and manage inventory effectively becomes critical. For many businesses, the traditional model of instant online reservations doesn’t work. That’s why Nerdy Fox Rentals embraced a new approach by transforming their online store into more of a wishlist platform rather than a booking platform, allowing clients to explore options and receive personalized quotes tailored to their needs.

Nerdy Fox Rentals is an Indiana-based business offering equipment for niche wedding themes such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, vintage literature, and more. Its owner, Cheyanne, recently switched to using Booqable’s rental website builder to host their event rental store. Cheyanne and her team were not only able to easily create a professional online presence thanks to Booqable’s customizable website themes, but they also used features such as payment settings, adjustable quotes, pricing displays, and more to require an order confirmation before finalizing a reservation.

The challenge with accepting instant reservations

Instant reservations work well for industries where products or services are straightforward and transactional, such as bike or outdoor gear rentals. However, event rental bookings involve a layer of complexity that these systems often don’t account for.

For instance, the owner of Nerdy Fox Rentals shared that many of their clients wanted detailed discussions about their event themes and logistics before finalizing a booking. These conversations were essential for ensuring the success of their events but couldn’t be accommodated within a typical instant reservation model.

Additionally, high-demand items like large props or themed decor often required careful scheduling to manage inventory and staff availability for delivering these items. For example, Nerdy Fox’s Star Wars-themed lightsaber props, Harry Potter-themed centerpieces, and Disney-inspired backdrops were extremely popular, but they needed to be manually delivered and installed by staff when reserved for an event.

Specialty items requiring delivery or installation meant that taking upfront bookings and instant payments could result in cancellations and refunds if staff were unavailable for these out-of-office tasks.

How an order confirmation can provide the solution

Nerdy Fox Rentals has experienced significant advantages from adopting an order confirmation-based approach. By transforming their online store into a wishlist platform rather than an instant booking platform, they empowered their clients to explore inventory and express interest without committing to an immediate reservation.

This new system allows clients to browse the inventory, select the items they are interested in, and submit an order request for review without having to pay upfront. With this approach, Cheyanne and her team can send personalized quotes and order adjustments to customers based on the items in their request, tailoring the offer to fit their specific needs. This flexibility in sending customized quotes ensures that both the business and the clients are aligned on what’s being delivered.

Payments can be collected securely via bank transfer or payment links only once the quote is confirmed, minimizing the likelihood of cancellations or refunds. To enhance security, a signature can be obtained upon pickup, ensuring mutual agreement and reducing risks.

This level of collaboration between business and client helps avoid mismatched bookings or incorrect product reservations, which are common challenges for event rentals.

How to implement order confirmations into your workflow

Booqable allows you to tailor your rental website’s settings to suit your needs, making it easy to require order confirmation before reservations. This aligns seamlessly with the concept of transforming the online store into a wishlist platform for potential customers.

You can turn off online payments in your checkout settings, ensuring no upfront transactions occur on your rental website. To further support this workflow, you can disable the ‘Show prices’ option in your online reservation preferences, removing cost details so you can send a customized quote to your users instead.

You can adjust the content of your quote or contract to include your business’s terms and agreements as an extra body of text. Using Booqable’s handy email templates, you can send this automatically generated document to your client in a few clicks from your order screen.

Once the customer confirms the quote or contract, you can finalize the reservation, process payments, and obtain a signature through the Booqable Mobile App during product handover. This approach makes it possible to manage requests with greater flexibility and provide a more personalized experience for each customer.

You can check out everything you need to know about implementing order confirmation on your rental website in our wishlist video tutorial — a simple resource for anyone looking to shift their rental website from accepting immediate reservations to requiring an order confirmation first.

Nerdy Fox Rentals customized their rental software

Nerdy Fox Rentals faced common challenges with manual booking processes and instant online reservations. By adopting Booqable’s order confirmation system and utilizing its flexible features, they transformed their operations to better serve their clients. By turning their online store into a wishlist platform, they enabled clients to explore their offerings and request tailored quotes, focusing on delivering exceptional customer experiences. Their success demonstrates how thoughtful adjustments to the booking process can build lasting client relationships and streamline event logistics.