Renting the equipment is a logical and common solution, but the sourcing and renting of specialized lab equipment presents several challenges:
- Because a lot of lab equipment is so specialized, it can be difficult to find and may require considerable research.
- To ensure that rental rates are fair, procurement protocols typically require a minimum of three rental cost estimates.
- Sourcing the equipment from multiple rental suppliers can be time-consuming and cumbersome.
- If the application and the equipment are new to a lab, there may be confusion about model-specific capacities, capabilities, and specifications.
- Lab managers may have concerns about the credibility of the supplier and reliability of the equipment.
Solution: Often, solutions for the laboratory industry can be found by looking at the ways that other industries have addressed similar problems. In this case, let’s consider the travel industry. When people need to book trips today, and they want to compare options like pricing, location, and availability, they don’t research each airline, each hotel, and each rental car agency individually, one at a time. They leverage the efficiencies of an online marketplace, like Expedia, Travelocity, or Kayak. The marketplace technology makes it easy to submit a few pieces of criteria and then instantly receive side-by-side comparisons of multiple businesses that meet said criteria. In minutes, travelers can find, compare and book the travel arrangements that best meet their needs.
The most popular and successful online marketplaces have generally been designed to serve the consumer market—think eBay, Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb. However, the technology and automation of a well-designed marketplace can be easily adapted to drive the same type of efficiencies for the B2B world. Surprisingly, businesses and entire industries (including laboratory) have been slow to develop and integrate the online marketplace model—but that’s about to change.
KWIPPED.com is an online B2B equipment rental marketplace designed to make it easy for businesses and organizations to rent specialized equipment. KWIPPED.com supports 16 different business industries, one of which is laboratory equipment. The online marketplace enables lab managers or procurement staff to easily find the lab equipment they need, submit a single rental request with criteria and specifications, and receive quotes and feedback from an entire network of marketplace suppliers—usually within hours. KWIPPED. com is a valuable (and long overdue) technology that allows lab mangers to:
- Source and rent lab equipment from a single website with unprecedented efficiency
- Receive side-by-side comparisons of important factors, like: equipment quality and specs, availability, and costs
- Reallocate valuable resources back to the lab work
- Try out specific equipment models before deciding to purchase the equipment
- Have confidence in the suppliers, which are certified by KWIPPED.com and rated by other renters
It’s ironic that laboratory professionals (and students) are known for pushing the limits and living on the cutting edge of innovation, but have not yet leveraged the efficiencies of online technology. The next time you have to rent a piece of lab equipment, remember, the lab industry has an online marketplace too—and it’s called KWIPPED.com.
For more information, please vist www.kwipped.com
