Gretchen Batzel and her husband started AJ’s Family Camper Rentals in Pennsylvania to give families a chance to enjoy the outdoors without breaking the bank. What began with a single camper has grown to a three-unit rental offering, complete with bedding, kitchen supplies, and outdoor gear.
They also rent trailers, tents, grills, and games, and sell essentials like toilet paper packs and food kits through their camping rental website. Their customers include solo travelers, families booking weekend getaways, and even full-season adventurers. Early on, they ran into a major challenge. “Our Shopify website was set up by a ‘professional’ company but did not work for what we intended for rentals,” Gretchen explains.
The site couldn’t handle date-based bookings or manage inventory for multiple units. Gretchen had to step in manually to organize everything, which took up valuable time and limited their ability to grow. That changed when they found Booqable. With Booqable’s website builder, availability calendars, and support for selling items alongside rentals, AJ’s Family Camper Rentals got the foundation they needed to launch with confidence.
Switching to a rental website that works
Before using Booqable, the Batzels struggled to find a system that could actually handle their bookings. Their Shopify setup looked professional but wasn’t built for camper or gear rentals. They needed something that could show availability, accept payments, and manage orders without all the workarounds.
With Booqable’s rental website builder, they were able to create a site that let customers book directly online. Booqable comes with built-in rental logic, including pre-made website templates, date selection, automatic price calculations, product categories, availability display, online payments, and an automatic webshop confirmation email. “We came to Booqable and built our own website without needing help with the coding portion,” Gretchen says.
The rental website builder allows them to:
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Add product pages for campers and gear with pricing, booking rules, and photos
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Customize their website content to clearly explain rental policies like pet-friendliness and festival use
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Accept bookings and payments directly through the site without needing outside tools
What once required constant oversight is now handled automatically. Customers get a clean, user-friendly site to book from, and Gretchen gets back hours each week.
Showing availability without the guesswork
With demand increasing, the Batzels needed a way to show customers when each camper or item was available. Handling weekends, full weeks, and season-long bookings manually wasn’t realistic. “Booking for each item is possible now with multiple availability calendars being displayed for each item,” says Gretchen.
The individual online availability indicators and pop up calendars for each product shows real-time availability right from their rental website. Booqable updates these calendars automatically whenever a reservation is made, so customers can plan without needing to ask if something is available.
This calendar feature helps them:
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Prevent double bookings with live calendar updates
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Reduce emails and inquiries about availability
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Let customers confidently choose the right item and date range
With Booqable handling the calendars behind the scenes, the Batzels can focus on prepping units and planning for growth instead of cross-checking dates.
Selling items alongside rentals
In addition to rentals, AJ’s sells common camping supplies, with items people often forget or prefer to buy ahead of time. Tracking both rentals and sales was tricky without a system that supported both. That’s where Booqable’s sales item feature came in.
Sales items can be added to the same online shop as rentals, as customers can select both from their product catalogue. Booqable handles the rest, marking the item as sold, updating the sales item inventory by the amount of stock purchased, as well as reserving any camper rental items included on their order. Each day, all Gretchen has to do is to check the dashboard for pickups and returns, print packing slips, and prepare the orders all from one system.
This setup allows them to:
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Sell paper goods and food kits alongside rental items
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Automatically update inventory for both sales and rentals
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Manage orders, pickups, and returns in one place
Instead of tracking things manually or across platforms, Booqable keeps their whole operation connected from online checkout to packing up the camper.
Ready to grow with the right tools in place
AJ’s Family Camper Rentals may be in their first year, but they’re already planning for the future. Gretchen sees the business expanding to multiple locations and a wider range of camper types and accessories. “We do plan to have more than one location with more options,” she says.
That kind of growth will only be possible with tools that let them work efficiently and serve customers reliably. Thanks to Booqable, the Batzels have built a rental website that actually works for their needs. They can display real-time availability, accept online bookings, and handle both rentals and sales from the same platform.
It’s taken the pressure off managing everything by hand and made it possible for them to focus on delivering great experiences to their customers. With their foundation in place and a growing demand for their camper rentals, they’re well positioned to keep building, one trip at a time.
