ORLANDO, Fla. — As more equipment dealers seek to right-size their fleets and customers look for ways to avoid high interest rates, a growing demand for dealer rentals is emerging.
“The customers are what drove us to get into rental,” Rob Cox, vice president of sales and rental at Ohio Cat, said in a Jan. 15 presentation at the 2025 AED Summit. “It continues to grow year after year after year, and more people are renting. To keep up with customers coming in the door at Ohio Cat, we felt we needed to do it in the rental business.”
Broadview Heights, Ohio-based equipment dealer entered the rental market in 2006 with 20 employees primarily dealing with earth-moving equipment. Ohio Cat has since increased its staff to more than 140 and has $300 million in total revenue across all of its rental operations.
In addition, Ohio Cat’s fleet compound annual growth rate (CAGR) increased by 15.3% per year and revenue CAGR increased by 22.7% per year, while increasing its locations by 71%, according to Cox’s presentation.
“We’ve come a long way, and there’s a lot of advantages to growing your rental fleet,” Cox said. He said Ohio Cat continues to grow its rental business due to innovations in equipment technology and the type of product support that dealerships can supply.
Growing pains
To grow Ohio Cat’s rental operations to meet customer demand, getting the right technologies in place to have a proper “line of sight” on the equipment was critical, Cox said.
“If we were really going to grow, we had to have a system where we could see our data and our analytics on the spot,” he said. “We didn’t have that until 2011, when we got on [Integrated Rental]. We’re the fourth or fifth dealer to do that.”
Integrated Rental is a heavy equipment rental management software company and platform that Ohio Cat began working with in 2011.
Still, one of the biggest challenges to Ohio Cat maintaining its growth over the years was developing a rental culture as rentals are different from traditional sales, Cox said.
“Rentals are a little bit different, as it’s faster paced. It’s not selling machine over six months; you got to answer a phone and follow up immediately,” he said.
Two other challenges dealers face when growing a rental division are facilities and capacity, Dorrie Fryman, director of rental services at Ohio Cat.
“Our fleet has grown at a pace that it’s outpacing how quickly we can open up new locations, so unfortunately, that means things tend to get backed up in the yard, she said. Some rental technology integrations have helped, but facilities and capacity limitations also limit rental upside.
The third annual Equipment Finance Connect at the JW Marriott Nashville in Nashville, Tenn., on May 14-15, 2025, is the only event that brings together equipment dealers and lenders to share insights, attend discussions on crucial industry topics and network with peers. Learn more about the event and register here.
