A road trip to Chandigarh was being planned, and New Delhi-based Garima Kapoor wanted her friends from the United States to travel in style. So the 20-something management consultant logged on to a site and rented a swanky BMW 3 series model for the day trip.
"I was not buying the BMW - much to my anxious parents' relief," Kapoor laughs. "I did not feel guilty because I was only renting it," she says. The friends spent Rs 25,000 on the 24-hour rental.
Life's just become easier. You no longer need to scrimp and save for the good things of life, but rent them online. Luxury cars can be ordered from websites such as as myles.com, zoomcar.com or ecorentacar.com. Designer clothes come from rental sites such as swishlist.in. High-end furniture, bikes, you name it - the sites have it.
Renting, clearly, is not just economical but convenient, too. Kapoor holds that many young professionals hire all that they need for an upwardly mobile life from online rentals. They save money and don't have to take care of luxury items such as expensive cars or designer wear.
That's the group that Mumbai-based entrepreneur Radhika Bansal, 35, has been targeting. Bansal, who had earlier worked for Goldman Sachs, Aon and the Harvard Business Review, decided to start an online fashion rental portal, swishlist.in, with her partner Vedika Oberoi, in October 2015.
Her clients are people who like to rent high-end designer wear for a fee for different occasions - say, a date night or a simple brunch or a dressy sangeet. The cost of being spotted in a Rohit Bal sari or a pink Anita Dongre bandhani lehenga for a day could cost between Rs 1,850 and Rs 7,500. A Zara dress otherwise priced at Rs 2,490 can be rented for Rs 349, or an ASOS semi-sheer chiffon gown tagged at Rs 6,000 for Rs 849 along with an accessory such as a Rs 3,450 bronze clutch for Rs 159.
Offering similar deals are a number of online fashion rentals - including flyrobe.com, klozee.com, stylebank.in, thestyledoor.com, liberent.com and stage3.co.
Some sites also offer styling tips and alter an outfit to suit your size.
"We are catering to young girls in love with fashion or the thrifty, financially savvy, young woman who sees no point in possessing a rotating door of expensive outfits she cannot wear more than once," says Bansal.
Many of the fashion rental sites have come up over the last one year. Six months after its launch, Bansal's site now serves 3,500 customers with 200 different styles of clothing in 17 cities. It is set for a round of funding from angel investors.
Today, it is possible to rent furniture, bikes, books, hiking gear and cameras for a price from sites such as furlenco.com, grabonrent.com and wheelstreet.in. But what seems to be standing out in this emerging e-rental space is the rise of high-end products.
"Renting offers an easy solution that opens access to different lifestyle segments without the commitment to own," says Prashanth Prakash, partner of the venture and growth equity firm, Accel Partners, which has invested in rentomojo.com, a furniture and biking online rental.
Driving these sites are young Indians with plenty of earning power who want to revel in the "experience" of using luxury brands. What also eggs them on is the fact that instead of buying one kind of a car, they can rent different models.
"Self-drive car rentals are picking up," says Sakshi Vij, founder of mylescars.com, which functions in 21 cities. Customers rent cars for occasions such as a wedding or festival or book an SUV for a weekend trip. The second type of customer, she says, is the young urban professional unwilling to buy a car and get bogged down by EMIs and overheads.
"We give today's young urban professionals the ability to access luxury cars sooner and at a fraction of the cost of the cars," she observes, adding that 15-20 per cent of her customers ask for luxury cars.
The demand for renting cars was always there but now the medium to book them has become easier, reasons Aditya Loomba, managing director of Eco Rent A Car. "The experiential travel market has exploded and people are making travel plans browsing on their smartphones and on the go," says Loomba, whose fleet includes a Chrysler stretch limo and an AudiR8.
His customers rent his luxury cars on special occasions - such as when a mother brings her new baby home, when children celebrate their parents' 25th anniversary, or when an employee is given a farewell ride on his or her retirement day. "India's large aspiring middle class who want a share of the good life are feeding this market," Loomba says.
Greg Moran, head of the Bangalore-based zoomcar.com, points out that self-drive rentals are big everywhere in the world and it was a matter of time before it caught on in India. Claiming to have a 60 per cent share of the market, his 2,000-strong fleet has serviced 10 lakh customers to date, he says.
Most car rentals ask for deposits and have invested in technology for car tracking and deploying digital locks. "The margins in this business are small but our volumes are large," Moran says.
The quest for products on rent is not about status, holds Hyderabad-based metallurgical engineering graduate Sahyujyah Srinivas, co-founder of the online fashion rental, Liberent. Srinivas, 23, believes that young people rent to notch up meaningful memories - or to look beautiful.
"They want to be free to head anywhere they want and don't want to hoard and be tied down to cars, furniture and clothes," Srinivas says.
Her dresses for rent cost between Rs 750 and Rs 2,500. "We get back the money we invested after four to five rentals of each dress. The laundry and logistics are our main expenses," she says, claiming a 20 per cent increase in rentals on a monthly basis.
Payal Aggarwal (name changed), a 32-year-old TV commercial producer from Gurgaon, uses Swishlist and Stage3 on a regular basis because her work entails attending parties every weekend. "Also if you post a picture on Facebook, you don't want to repeat that dress again," she points out.
She rented a black, off-shoulder Tarun Tahiliani for a party which reached her within four hours. "It is a great idea. Who can afford to buy Rs 30,000-40,000 dresses," she asks.
But not everybody believes that renting will work in India, where people shy away from wearing clothes used by another. Vijay K.J. of luxepolis, an online luxury shopping site, who sells used and new luxury products, points out that online rentals are not big in China and may not suit the Indian mentality either.
E-commerce experts, meanwhile, are watching this space with interest. Sudeep Shukla, lead analyst, Tracxn, which tracks start-ups, says that the online rental sector has seen $65 million in investment till date. "The majority of investments are going into automobile and furniture online rental companies. Entrepreneurs are experimenting with new categories for rentals such as luxury fashion, jewellery and photography equipment. We will have to wait and watch if the balance turns in favour of leasing over ownership vis-a-vis the Indian consumers," Shukla says.
It is too early to predict where the sector is headed. But, as the tagline for swishlist.in states, all you have to do to live life king-size is rent it, rock it, and return it.
