It seems lately that a whole bunch of Bounce House companies
have gotten together and created a new commodity out of thin air: time. Right
here in our very own backyard of sunny South Florida there are more and more
party rental companies jumping on this bandwagon and up-charging parties that
go beyond 4 hours. You have to stop and ask yourself ‘why?’ Why is time
suddenly one of the ingredients used to figure out how much to charge you?
Here are some thoughts on the matter.. It used to be that everyone
charged their advertised rate for the whole day – meaning it would be delivered
and picked up the same day but the amount of hours it stayed was up to the
customer. But now that time has suddenly become a commodity factored into your
bottom line, if you want to keep your bounce house more than 4 hours you now
have to pay more money. Considering the fact that most people schedule the
delivery at least an hour before the party begins and the pick up after the
party is scheduled to end it means you’re really only getting 2 or 3 hours use
of your Bounce House.
There are 2 reasons why this trend has gained so much
traction. First and foremost is the obvious reason – this is a money-grab.
Business owners have figured out a short cut to boosting profit by creating a
sense of insecurity about your party. ‘Is 4 hours *really* enough time?’ ‘Shouldn’t
I book a few extra hours just in case?’ – This is what they want you to say to
yourself during the booking process but here’s a better question to ask: ‘What
are you going to do with the Bounce House after you pick it up from my party?’
Think about it. You know we need to clean, disinfect and deodorize every Bounce House between uses. This is done during the week when no parties are scheduled.
So it goes to follow that it is only possible to rent a bounce house to 1
customer per day. So if they don’t need it back after 4 hours to rent it to
someone else, why do they need it back so soon? Again the answer is simply that
they have come up with an easy way to get a few more dollars from you by
letting you assume the equipment is booked to another event after your rental
period is up.
There is one other, less influential reason for the new time-limiting
style of booking and that is logistics. It’s simply more convenient to schedule
their pick up route if times are tiered instead of having all pick ups ‘when
the sun goes down.’ As a Bounce House company struggling with schedules this
reason is much less offensive than the money-grab reason but this in itself is
not sufficient to bully the customers into a much shorter rental or a much
higher fee.
This is a poor trend in this industry and one that we here
at Palm Beach Party And Bounce pledge to never participate in.
If you have an upcoming event and are interested in renting
an inflatable – all day for one low charge – then please visit our website at
www.palmbeachpartyandbounce.com
