VER merging with PRG. Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Someone sent me that yesterday. Personally, I don't see how rental houses stay in business today anyway. They pretty much give everything away. Having someone take your gear for a week, but only paying you for three days just doesn't seem like a good business model to me.

I wonder if I could talk the power company or my ISP into only charging me ~40% of the rate each month.
 
Run&Gun said:
Someone sent me that yesterday. Personally, I don't see how rental houses stay in business today anyway. They pretty much give everything away. Having someone take your gear for a week, but only paying you for three days just doesn't seem like a good business model to me.

I wonder if I could talk the power company or my ISP into only charging me ~40% of the rate each month.
Click to expand...

The three day week isn't the problem; that has been an industry standard for many years. It's the depth of the discount on top of that. Rental houses are routinely having to meet upwards of 70% discounts--I've seen over 80%. It is generally agreed that VER was the first of the larger rental houses to drive the discounts to these levels, and that forced the others to have to match to stay competitive. I'm not crying on their behalf.
 
CharlesPapert said:
The three day week isn't the problem; that has been an industry standard for many years. It's the depth of the discount on top of that. Rental houses are routinely having to meet upwards of 70% discounts--I've seen over 80%. It is generally agreed that VER was the first of the larger rental houses to drive the discounts to these levels, and that forced the others to have to match to stay competitive. I'm not crying on their behalf.
Click to expand...

70%(or more) on top of a 3-for-7 is ludicrous. And the fact that these companies even entertain these terms, much less actually grant them, just shows how messed-up this industry is on so many levels. I'm not a rental house, but I do rent my gear out. It's usually short term, one to three days and there is usually no haggling or discounting. Every now and again, one of my "regulars" will ask for a discount when their shoot is a lower budget shoot and therefore doesn't have the budget to pay the rate they normally would, and I'll oblige, because it's not the norm with them. I also have a much different perspective. I'm an owner/operator, not a rental house and therefore not competing with them or their rates. This is my personal gear that I own and work with to do the jobs that I get called to do. Rentals are not my main source of income. Far from it. It's more or less just gravy on top. I'v had people walk away before, because I wouldn't meet some of the ridiculous rates they've thrown out. If my gear isn't here for me to use when a shoot comes up and I have to turn around and rent it from someone else, I have to at least be able to "break even" on the equipment portion.

I haven't experienced it, but I've heard of guys getting called from producers coming into their areas and instead of hiring the guy and all of his gear, they bring in a rental camera, because they are getting it for pretty much nothing from a rental house and they just want to hire the guy to shoot and then like $100 for his lighting package.

I'm like you Charles, I'm not shedding any tears for them. And hopefully this is a glimpse of the future, and the rental houses will "wake-up" and stop giving gear away for free and start charging more realistic rates. I've said this countless times before, higher gear rates are better for the whole industry.
 
Bet this will make many owner ops happy! VER might no longer be such insane price competition for them any longer.
 
Owner ops lose all the time.
The equipment is the loss leader in order to be hired.
Without the rental houses to set established pricing standards the owner op is going be on his/her own for pricing standards.
And we all know how that works out.
 
We had a VER move into town here last year(maybe earlier) and I didn't even know it until I received an invite to the traveling Fuji lens lunch 'n learn show last summer and it happened to be at VER.
 
yoclay said:
Owner ops lose all the time.
The equipment is the loss leader in order to be hired.
Without the rental houses to set established pricing standards the owner op is going be on his/her own for pricing standards.
And we all know how that works out.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I agree with that. At least historically speaking. My cameras have each made back many times more than they cost. My all-time champ is still my tape VariCam. It made several times it's purchase price the first year I had it.
 
Don't worry about rental companies making money. The trend now in the pro rental world is consolidation where one company is buying up all the other companies. In a couple of years there will be only one or two rental companies and they will be in control of fees.
 
mico said:
Don't worry about rental companies making money. The trend now in the pro rental world is consolidation where one company is buying up all the other companies. In a couple of years there will be only one or two rental companies and they will be in control of fees.
Click to expand...

There will always be upstarts that grow bigger in the face of that, at least in large markets. When a larger company starts to control the market that leaves room for others to undercut. Line producers are not lazy, they will chase the deal. Smaller markets are a different story.
 
And you have places like Lens Rentals .com that are based on-line, and like Amazon, don't necessarily depend on a physical location in a particular location to be able to serve any particular market. We all know there's something to being able to walk-in somewhere and get something immediately or 'after hours service', but if people are able to work/plan in advance, having something shipped in isn't a big deal to them, especially when their priority is saving money.
 
VER has treated me very very well and I have the greatest boss in the world so, i'd be pretty heartbroken if I did loose this job to someone else's mistakes but as of right now everything across the company is business as usual. Nothing to worry about. I'm hoping to be able to transfer to another location once they come out of chapter 11 in a few months. Looking at finally saying goodbye to Chicago and the state of illinois. onto greener pastures.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top