Adding New Loader Models Helps Rental Business Prosper
Bart Grabhorn offers his rental customers what they want: Bobcat loaders.
Deciding what type of equipment to offer customers is a challenge facing every rental store owner. Success in meeting that challenge hinges, in part, on knowing what customers want. But the particular make and model of equipment can also play a big role in the results. That’s where Bobcat® loaders, excavators and other compact equipment can give rental store owners an edge when making that decision.
Bobcat machines offer customers the performance they need to minimize the time and labor required to complete a project. At the same time, Bobcat equipment offers rental store owners the durability and reliability they need to maximize productive uptime.
Bart Grabhorn, who owns Grabhorn Enterprises, Scapoose, Ore., is one rental store owner who has profited by adding new models to his lineup of Bobcat loaders. He serves a mix of small contractors and homeowners in a mostly rural area near Portland. Four years after he opened for business with two Bobcat skidsteer loaders, he added his first Bobcat compact track loader, a T190.
That decision was based, in part, on information provided by his dealer, Bobcat of Portland, and his reading of the market. “We have some very wet areas around here and a machine like the T190 can keep working on soft ground to extend the work season by weeks and even months,” Grabhorn says.
Why did he select this particular Bobcat compact track loader? “It looked to be the most rentable size in my market,” he replies.
Still he was concerned that customers might balk at the T190’s rental rate—about 10 percent higher than what he charges for his Bobcat 753 and 863 skid-steer loaders. “I didn’t know if the return on investment of the T190 would suffer,” he said. “But once customers used the machine and realized its value, there’s been no resistance to the higher rental rate.”
The T190 has since proved to be very popular with his customers, including homeowners, Grabhorn reports. “They’re people with large lots or acreages who prefer to do jobs, such as landscaping, themselves or they can’t find contractors to do what they want done. Often, they’ll rent it for a day or two.”
The T190 hasn’t hurt his skid-steer loader rentals, either. “For some applications, such as spreading gravel or digging holes for pole buildings, the skid-steer loaders are still a better choice and the rental rate is lower,” Grabhorn says.
Two years after buying the T190, its ability to make money persuaded him to add his second Bobcat compact track loader, a T250. “It’s a true high-production, do-all machine,” he says. “Most customers who rent it are landscape contractors or dirt contractors who don’t have a fleet of equipment, but occasionally need the machine for special applications.”
Coffee Shop Conversation
When it comes to deciding which Bobcat attachments to add to his Bobcat equipment lineup, Bart Grabhorn listens to his customers. “I talk with them at the coffee shop and they tell me what they’d like to have,” he says.
As a result, customers of Grabhorn Enterprises can choose from a broad selection of Bobcat attachments: an auger with a variety of bit sizes, a Brushcat® rotary cutter, smooth and tooth buckets, combination bucket, hydraulic breaker, industrial bucket grapple, landscape rake, pallet forks and sweeper.