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Donald Boone knew it was time to leave Corporate America when saw an overlooked market within the B2B world.
While working with Amazon Business, the procurement side of the e-commerce giant’s operation, he saw first-hand how brands didn’t have any easy way to rent out their equipment.
“If you have something to sell…you go and sell it on Amazon. But if you own your brand and you want to build a commerce experience and your own website, you turn to companies like Shopify,” Boone said. And while Shopify’s platform and integrations make it easy for businesses to start selling, it simply doesn’t meet the needs of businesses renting out equipment, he added.
Beyond just shipping requirements, rental companies have to think about insurance, credit card holds, bundling products, and, of course, the logistics required to get everything back in one piece.
Equipment rental is big in the motion picture industries as sets often rent out camera kits and gear. But it is also important for those with electrical equipment, power generators, shipping containers, and other heavy machinery items.
He knew it would be hard for more established e-commerce platforms to change their platform to support the complex rental process. So after receiving an angel investment from a friend and fellow Amazon employee, Boone started BoxedUp to streamline the B2B rental process.
BoxedUp launched as a marketplace last November with a focus on the camera equipment space. But Boone said the team quickly realized that customers wanted the ability to manage the rental process right on their own website. B2B rental companies can now do that by licensing the platform’s technology through BoxedUp Storefront. Storefront allows businesses with rental equipment to manage inventory, invoices, orders, and delivery logistics in one spot.
More than a dozen businesses from across the country have already signed up for Storefront since launching this summer, Boone told…
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