Sometimes, in life, serendipity strikes and leaves us with strange coincidences. Today in the niche world of the camera community, On the same day that Nikon announced they bought RED, another merger is announced. Lensrentals is acquiring BorrowLenses.
These companies are two of the leading services in online camera equipment, both making it easy to have your equipment shipped and returned with ease versus renting a camera or kit from a local camera house or sourcing locally from the community.
Read below for our thoughts on this shocking merger.
The Scoop on Lensrentals
Lensrentals
Lensrentals is already incredibly dominant in this particular space. If you want to rent a camera, drone, lens, or kit, and have it shipped it you with a handy prepared return label and great customer service, LensRentals offered more than 6000 pieces of grip, camera, and lighting equipment to choose from.
With this acquisition, which includes not just the brand and customers, that number will certainly go up.
Will They Consolidate Warehouses?
Lensrentals
Lensrentals is based in Memphis, and has long allowed in-person pickup and drop off. BorrowLenses was in San Carlos, CA; no word yet on if LensRentals will keep that location.
There are potential benefits to a West Coast presence, both for in-person return and pickup, and also for cheaper last minute shipping costs. However, considering the price of California real estate, it could also make sense to put all the inventory in Memphis.
That being said, perhaps the strategy is to expand the physical locations for more accessibility. Time will tell!
Thoughts on Mergers
Boeing airplane
Boeing
As well covered by Jon Oliver on his recent segment on the Boeing-McDonnel Douglass merger (which killed thousands), we don’t always love a corporate merger. But we're optimistic about this one.
First off, the folks at Lensrentals have always been pretty solid, with a deep commitment to a level of nerdy lens and film gear knowledge that you only get to have when you think about nothing but lenses. Secondly, there's still plenty of competition in the space. You can still rent locally or use Sharegrid as much as you want.
It always seemed likely that in the end there would be only one “rent online and we ship it to you” company left, and it’s looking more and more like Lensrentals could be the monopoly there.
