Renting optics

[marley]

I rack up a lot of cabelas points from using their card for my business. I've thought about buying several pairs of Swarovski Binos and spotting scopes and renting them out. Do you think this is something that people would do? Say $20 a day? I wonder how many hunters out there that draw a great tag would be willing to rent some binos and spotter rather than forking out the 2000-3000 bucks to buy them?

 

[TOPGUN]

It might work out for a reasonable price if someone lived close to you, but it would seem like the hassle wouldn't be worth it for long distance transactions. If you had to ship them and worry about insurance, postage, getting them back or possibly damaged, etc. is what I'm thinking about. I would think to avoid the latter problems you would have to almost charge an upfront high fee to cover possible loss/damage and then refund that amount if/when they are returned in good condition. I'd rather think about hunting than all that hassle.

 

[osu92]

You might look at optics4rent.com. They do exactly what you're thinking about. I used their service a couple of times before I had the cash to plunk down on a nice spotter.

 

[littlebighorn]

Marley,
My son had a similar idea last year when we really wanted to have a pair of KOWA Highlanders for my desert sheep hunt. We also looked at optics4rent and came to the conclusion that it would take some serious up front money and logistics management to make it work. I think there may be a market out there for such a venture, but getting the word out to the right audience might also be an issue.
It seems that most people who can appreciate great optics find a way to get their own but I am sure there are guys like osu92 that would go for it. Good luck