How Has the Current Inflation Rate Affected Your Business?

This month, we asked members about how the current inflation rate has affected the economy of their businesses, from equipment costs and pricing to employee retention and wages. If you have additional ideas for surveys for CRA members, please email CRA at Info@CalRental.org.

1. What type of rentals do you have?
General Tool: 53% (10 responses)
Party: 21% (4 responses)
Both General Tool and Party: 26% (5 responses)

2. Employee numbers
More: 26% (5 responses)
Less: 37% (7 responses)
No Change: 37% (7 responses)
Additional comments:
1. It has gone up and down.
2. We have roughly the same number of employees, we are trying to up this number by a few.
3. I keep losing good employees with no new applicants coming in.

3. Wage changes?
Up : 79% (15 responses)
Down: 0% (0 responses)
No change: 21% (4 responses)
Additional comments:
1. Have to pay more due to high minimum wage.
2. UGH! Having to pay a high schooler minimum wage to clean chairs is overkill.

4. Ability to get new equipment?
Better: 47% (9 responses)
Worse: 21% (4 responses)
No Change: 32% (6 responses)
Additional comments:
1. During covid, impossible. It is better now.

5. Equipment pricing
Up: 100% (19 responses)
Down: 0% (0 responses)
No Change: 0% (0 responses)
Additional comments:
1. Some things doubled in cost!
2. I base price increases on the minimum wage increases.

6. What was the percentage of equipment pricing increase?
1. 27% increase.
2. Varies but between 15%-25%.
3. 10 to 40% higher, depending on how long it has been, since we last ordered.
4. 10 to 20%.
5. 4-10%.
6. 10%.
7. 15-20%.
8. About 5% on average.
9. 15%.
10. 30%.
11. It’s all over the place.. in some cases more than double.
12. It wasn’t a percentage increase, we evaluated the rates of our competition and adjusted items that we were low on.
13. Last time was 10%.
14. 4-7%.
15. 20%.
16. 25%.

7. Comments for equipment pricing increase percentage:
1. Biden and COVID have negatively impacted us as far as pricing.
2. Above inflation numbers generally across the board.
3. Having to raise prices to the end user.
4. Wanted to do more, but the competition is fierce for party rentals in Downey.
5. Shipping and freight up 50% in some cases.
6. Understandable but in combination with increasing interest rates hard to afford. Keeping current fleet longer.
7. With supply up, prices should drop.
8. In the past when we did do a percentage increase, we did anywhere between a 5% and a 10% increase.
9. The cost of labor is killing me and I’m just a small employer ( 7 employees).
10. Average and improved standards.
11. Costs of everything.

8. What was the percentage of equipment pricing decrease?
There were no responses.

9. Comments for equipment pricing decrease percentage:
There were no responses.

10. Accessory sales income changes
Up: 56% (9 responses)
Down: 19% (3 responses)
No Change: 25% (4 responses)
Additional comments:
1. Only because of price increases.
2. Accessory cost has increased, and we needed to pass that along to our customers.

11. What was the percentage of accessory sales income increase?
1. 27%.
2. 15-25%.
3. 4-10%.
4. 10%.
5. We didn’t do a percentage increase, we looked at the increase in our pricing from our vendors and adjusted the retail price as needed.
6. 8-10%.

12. Comments for accessory income increase percentage:
1. We do not sell a lot of accessory or parts but yes, those prices have also increased.
2. Price adjustment.
3. We typically list our resale accessories with a 30% mark up, but it varies by the type of item. For example, sandpaper is typically 33% but the pads for a polisher are 50%. We compare our accessory pricing with our competitors.
4. 26%.

13. What was the percentage of accessory sales income decrease?
1. 10%-20%.
2. 10%.

14. Comments for accessory income decrease percentage:
1. I think people are shopping for lower cost accessories, Amazon, online, etc.

15. Survey ideas
1. Disaster donations.
2. Repeal the minimum wage.
3. Coming in the future and thank you for all you do for CRA.