Anelma le Roux loves collecting beautiful items and breathing new life into them. When presented with the opportunity to start an event décor rental business, she created Baie Goeters with the mission of beautifying any celebration. It has since grown to be a well-established business, and as it grew, so did the need for software like Booqable to keep on top of client bookings and inventory.
Baie Goeters
Baie Goeters was founded in the Cape Winelands in South Africa by Anelma in 2013, who turned her passion into an opportunity. She amassed a beautiful collection of furniture and decor items that she lovingly restored with her unique style. She noticed many event decor rental businesses offer similar styles and saw the opportunity to bring something new to the market.
Since 2013, Baie Goeters has constantly been expanding, and their mission is to push boundaries with design. They make it their pride and joy to search, find, collect, and reinvent old items and turn them into something beautiful. They have one of the largest event décor rental collections in the Western Cape, which is fitting as their name translates to “lots of stuff”.
The team at Baie Goeters is made up of uniquely talented individuals who have the ability to restore and improve remarkable items. They are passionate about creating furniture pieces and décor items that create gorgeous looks that stand out at any event. The business has built a reputation as one of the go-to event décor providers in the Western Cape.
The challenges of growth
While Baie Goeters has grown massively over the years, it has expanded at an accelerated rate since the pandemic in 2020. This rapid increase in inventory and bookings has brought some challenges to light. To start with, double bookings, though rare, became more frequent due to needing a central system for tracking the availability of rental items.
Another challenge was that it was hard to track damages caused to items during their rental period. This made it difficult to know who was at fault and who was responsible for their replacement. This is something that came along with more frequent use of products, leading to more significant wear and tear than had previously been experienced.
Finally, it was difficult to follow up with pending clients and keep track of where they were at with their bookings. This also had a knock-on effect on the issue of double bookings because it was challenging to know what was available on specific dates. Something had to change, and the team began looking into solutions for these issues, including trying rental software.
The perfect solution
The team found that Booqable provided a complete solution for their needs regarding managing inventory and bookings. Since implementing the software, Baie Goeters has eliminated most of the issues they were facing and overcome the challenges they presented. This has led to much more efficient processes that avoid the pitfalls they previously experienced.
They can now keep track of the availability of all their inventory in one system that all the team members have access to. The result has been that nothing is ever double booked, and the team can cater to their client’s needs without leaving anyone disappointed. This has also made tracking breakages easier as they have a complete overview of individual stock items.
Meanwhile, the order management system in Booqable allows them to keep track of the progress of pending and existing client bookings. Order and payment statuses, along with documents, meaning that anyone on the team can look up a client and know exactly what stage they’re at and whether they need to be followed up to approve a quote or pay an invoice.
Ever-expanding
Baie Goeters is showing no signs of slowing down, and Booqable will undoubtedly aid their growth. Now that they have a centralized system for managing inventory, they plan to implement better stock control. In addition, catering to more clients is also on the cards now that it is easier to track and follow up with requests made in their online rental catalog on their website.
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