Photography rental platform Lensrentals will soon have even more equipment to choose from — on Tuesday, December 5, Lensrentals and LensProToGo announced a strategic partnership between the two platforms that expands both companies rental inventory. Both companies will continue operating separately, but the agreement allows both companies access to the other’s inventory to fulfill more rental needs.
By allowing customers to access inventory from both companies, the partnership effectively creates the largest photo and video equipment inventory in the industry, according to Lensrentals, including cameras, lenses, video cameras, accessories, and even drones. The expanded inventory is also available for try before you buy programs, which allow photographers to rent the gear, then apply that fee towards the purchase price if they decided to keep the gear.
For Lensrentals, the partnership expands the company’s video knowledge base and provides an East Coast facility for faster shipping for customers in the area. The company said that both brands will continue to offer the customer service creatives using the rental programs are familiar with.
“Building an East Coast presence with a team that share our values and focus on customer service, is an important goal for Lensrentals,” said Lensrentals co-owner Drew Cicala. “The LensProToGo opportunity allows us to increase our visibility on the east coast of the US, and continue to offer a more specialized consultative approach to photography and video gear rental. We’ve long admired the LensProToGo team, share many similarities in our businesses, and overall approach to helping customers achieve exceptional results. LensProToGo team’s video market expertise blends well with our own, will greatly contribute toward expanding our product offerings and knowledge base for customers to draw upon.”
The partnership officially closed on December 1, with the announcement following on December 5. Earlier this fall, Lensrentals also acquired ATS Rentals, merging the company’s video and projector rentals with their own inventory. The acquisition was finalized in September but unannounced until December 5.
“We’ve known the Lensrentals team for many years, and by agreeing to blend our operations we can maintain our company ethos and service-first approach to customers,” said LensProToGo CEO Paul Friedman. “On a day-to-day basis our customers will now be able to access cameras, lenses, lighting, drones, and more in the largest rental inventory of photo and video equipment in the country. We’ll also continue to spend as much time on the phone and email as our customers need, we enjoy our customers and the relationships formed, and we look forward to expanding those relationships even further.”
While the partnership expands inventory, photographers and videographers can still request a rental through the separate platforms at Lensrentals.com and Lensprotogo.com.
