Lowe’s Home Improvement is rolling out its first equipment and tool rental department on Thursday in Charlotte.
The Lowe’s at 217 Iverson Way will be the first to open Lowe’s Tool Rental, offering rentals of commercial-grade equipment for pros and do-it-yourself home improvement customers.
“We could have gone a lot of different places but this is our home, and we wanted to make a statement that Charlotte comes first,” Fred Stokes, senior vice president of Pro Sales and Services for Lowe’s, said Tuesday.
By renting equipment brands like Husqvarna, Bosch and Metabo HPT, customers can save on the cost of owning, maintaining and storing tools, Stokes said. Items for rent include floor and prep installation, lawn and garden, and towable equipment like trenchers and concrete mixers.
Tools for drain cleaning, restoration, sanitation and concrete also will be available.
The price will depend on the tool and length of rental, said company spokeswoman Alice Lee. Rentals come in half day (four hours), full day and weekly increments. For example, an orbital floor sander would cost about $60 for a full day rental.
Stokes said one of the top searches on lowes.com is people looking for rentals. The Mooresville-based company has been focused on capturing the professional customer. It launched a loyalty program in March and Pros JobSight in June to help home professionals work virtually with their customers.
THE NEW RENTAL DEPARTMENT
The Charlotte store was the ideal site to start with because it had the right size stand-alone building that had housed lawn and garden products, Stokes said. The roughly 4,000-square-foot rental departments will include newly constructed spaces expanding the Lowe’s store or separate buildings on store property.
The departments will include a mechanics shop, onsite cleaning and customer demonstration zone, Rachel Meyer, director of Lowe’s pro tool rental, said on a company video.
Equipment reservations check-in and check-out can be made online or at an in-store kiosk.
New products for like cleaning brushes and carpet cleaning solutions also will be available for purchase, according to the company.
While not all of the 2,200 stores in the U.S. and Canada will have a rental department, Stokes said, more are expected in the Charlotte area.
That also means, on top of hiring more than 100,000 people during the pandemic nationwide, the new rental departments will require adding a manager, mechanic and about five workers at each site.
On Wednesday, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison reported strong second-quarter results, with 30% revenue growth from customers focused on the home repair and maintenance, according to a company news release.
The company reported same-store sales growth of 35% in U.S. home improvement, and website sales grew 135% as the COVID-19 pandemic pushed more customers to shop online, according to Lowe’s.
