Thoughts on local launch monitor rental service

[smrtchar]

I've been in the market for a Flightscope X3 and GCQuad for a few months now (had a different thread asking for ppl's opinion). Every time I speak to someone about it, they mention that they'd be willing to pay to use it once or twice a month which got my brain thinking about offering a Launch Monitor rental service. It'd have to be local and we'd have to figure out logistics and insurance, but wanted to hear your feedback. This is essentially my market research:

 

1. Would you rent a Flightscope X3 or Foresight GCQuad? 

2. How often would you rent it and for what duration (number of hours) at $60/hr.

3. Would you pay extra for someone to delivery it to your range and pick it up when you're done?

4. Any additional thoughts, questions, or concerns?

[ajlacombe]

47 minutes ago, smrtchar said:

I've been in the market for a Flightscope X3 and GCQuad for a few months now (had a different thread asking for ppl's opinion). Every time I speak to someone about it, they mention that they'd be willing to pay to use it once or twice a month which got my brain thinking about offering a Launch Monitor rental service. It'd have to be local and we'd have to figure out logistics and insurance, but wanted to hear your feedback. This is essentially my market research:

 

1. Would you rent a Flightscope X3 or Foresight GCQuad? 

2. How often would you rent it and for what duration (number of hours) at $60/hr.

3. Would you pay extra for someone to delivery it to your range and pick it up when you're done?

4. Any additional thoughts, questions, or concerns?

Man, I just got a Foresight Sports Sim in a Box, and I think I would be really reluctant to rent out my GC Quad - unless there was a way to assess damage to the unit easily and have a spare - because if it were damaged you would be without the quad for a potentially long time

 

Then you have the issue of the reflective dots for club data.  I believe the quad is $11k and the club data s/w is another $4k.  If you rented it at $60 an hour it would be 183 times to recoup your initial investment (w/o club data) and 250 times with club data.

 

Thinking out loud - if it were a popular thing, you could buy 3-4 quads and then start a business, but then you are collecting taxes and have to file the "profits".  Interesting idea for a $45k-$60k initial investment.  The quad definitely is better than Top Tracer range, but that only costs me $13 for a large bucket (100 balls) - I think that would be your major competition.  Your customer is the GolfWRXer - how many are near enough to make a go

 

Let us know what you end up doing.  You could also get investors to help defray the initial costs, but you also defray your profits

 

[thatbaseballguy22]

1. Would you rent a Flightscope X3 or Foresight GCQuad? 
Yes.
 

2. How often would you rent it and for what duration (number of hours) at $60/hr.
Maybe once a month, probably for an hour. Depending on the area, I feel like it would be tough to justify $60 an hour when you could pay xxx amount to get the same data, with a professional analyzing it. I know some lower COL areas have hour lessons with Trackman/GCQuad at $80-$100. So you are saying that the additional knowledge of the instructor is only $20-40.
 

3. Would you pay extra for someone to delivery it to your range and pick it up when you're done?
I would say this depends on the other options. If it's $10 cheaper to make a 10 minute drive, I'd pick it up myself.
 

4. Any additional thoughts, questions, or concerns?
Overall, I think it would depend on what area you're in. I'm not sure, but I feel like most golfers don't care about the information enough to pay the $60 an hour, and still have to all of the analysis, understanding, etc. I think most would rather just pay the extra $40 to have a professional digest the information and tell them what's wrong. And I think asking a forum like this, is going to get a much higher "I would totally do this" than your local muni would. I live in a pretty large metropolitan area and I can go to their facility and pay $30 for an hour to use the GCQuad. Personally, I don't know the situation and connections, but I feel like it might be almost a better option to buy one (or more), find instructors/courses/ranges in the area that will pay you to use during lessons (maybe you get $10 for every lesson), and then rent it at a low rate to people on the range when not in use. This depends a bit more on other factors, and may be more of a time investment than you are looking for, but just some of my thoughts.

[goudok]

60 is extremely steep when you can get an gc2 for 1/3 that.

[mgoblue83]

GCQuad is not great for what you are wanting to do. It's fantastic in a home simulator but I'd never rent one to use outside. It would be good for ball data but a huge pain in the axx for club data (stickers on every club, issues tracking club data with grass/divots etc). 

 

Flightscope X3 would be much better and I may be interested but honestly Trackman is the clear winner in this scenario. I'd rent Trackman time on a grass range at least once a month all summer to dial in distances and to improve or verify my face/path/aoa. 

[Seattlegolfnut]

I like your thinking. I'm a pilot on the side and in general aviation there are a lot of airplanes owned by small groups of people who share operating costs, maintenance, etc. In the past, I've thought about co-opting a professional grade launch monitor with friends to share around our home sim setups and for when we all go to the range to hit and have a beer. But same with the airplane, there would be times when I'd get the bug to use it and someone else has it tied up. So never pulled the trigger on the idea.

There are several ranges in Seattle that have TopTracer installed. I'm not a fan for many reasons but it's fun to get some numbers with buddies and beers.

 

More ideally for actually practice: there's a place in the Seattle eastside area that has several indoor hitting bays (like 7 of them) set up with Trackman and multiple cameras, and you can schedule "practice" sessions by the hour -- I think it's around $25 / hr. It's indoors, and ya outside on grass range would be best situation, but this is a good compromise. Show up, start the timer, hit, stop the timer, pay. And you can even skip the "pay" part each time if you setup an account loaded with prepaid funds. I find that I get enough feedback at home on my skytrak, cameras & foot spray powder, but every now and then it's good to get some club head data on the Trackman. While I don't have a personal issue with the tech side and getting everything configured, I don't want to deal with it when I just want to hit balls. So I think the right model is to rent the setup in "ready-to-hit" config. Make it hands off for the golfer to deal with any of the tech stuff -- just show up and hit. Plus if you leave it to the golfer to configure, some are inevitably going to do something wrong and complain to you that the "unit is crap" or worse break something.

 

So to your questions:

 

1. Would you rent a Flightscope X3 or Foresight GCQuad?

Perhaps, the GCQuad or GC2+HMT for indoors, or the Flightscope / Trackman for indoors/outdoors. But I really don't want to deal with stickers as mentioned above.

 

2. How often would you rent it and for what duration (number of hours) at $60/hr.

An hour at a time of pure hitting, not counting time to setup and configure -- Since I can use Trackman + 2 Cameras indoors for $25/hr maybe outdoors on grass I'd be wiling to spend another $5 maybe? Wouldn't want to pay anymore for outdoors on a mat vs. indoors on a mat -- I trust the ball flight I see on the screen.

 

3. Would you pay extra for someone to delivery it to your range and pick it up when you're done?

Not sure I'd pay extra, but I would want setup / config included. I don't want my time or nickle spent on having to do all the setup myself. Also, I would prefer not to have the liability of transporting it around.

 

4. Any additional thoughts, questions, or concerns?

I think the pre-setup indoor rental is most ideal. Makes most sense to me for year round revenue in most climates and less headaches of inventory moving all around. But if you can get an outdoor range set up with Trackman, Flightscope, etc. instead of Top Tracer; include cameras and keep costs reasonably comparable to indoor, I'd be a customer. Just feels like a tall order if you don't already own or have access to the range itself.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Seattlegolfnut

[dschenker]

Sounds like a sweet idea. I also think the indoor rental would be better than outdoor.

[rp4golf]

On 4/29/2021 at 5:04 PM, smrtchar said:

I've been in the market for a Flightscope X3 and GCQuad for a few months now (had a different thread asking for ppl's opinion). Every time I speak to someone about it, they mention that they'd be willing to pay to use it once or twice a month which got my brain thinking about offering a Launch Monitor rental service. It'd have to be local and we'd have to figure out logistics and insurance, but wanted to hear your feedback. This is essentially my market research:

 

1. Would you rent a Flightscope X3 or Foresight GCQuad? 

2. How often would you rent it and for what duration (number of hours) at $60/hr.

3. Would you pay extra for someone to delivery it to your range and pick it up when you're done?

4. Any additional thoughts, questions, or concerns?

 Everything else aside, I'd guess you'd run into an issue with any course or range allowing you to run your own rental business on their property.

[Ty_Webb]

On 4/29/2021 at 7:04 PM, smrtchar said:

I've been in the market for a Flightscope X3 and GCQuad for a few months now (had a different thread asking for ppl's opinion). Every time I speak to someone about it, they mention that they'd be willing to pay to use it once or twice a month which got my brain thinking about offering a Launch Monitor rental service. It'd have to be local and we'd have to figure out logistics and insurance, but wanted to hear your feedback. This is essentially my market research:

 

1. Would you rent a Flightscope X3 or Foresight GCQuad? 

2. How often would you rent it and for what duration (number of hours) at $60/hr.

3. Would you pay extra for someone to delivery it to your range and pick it up when you're done?

4. Any additional thoughts, questions, or concerns?

 

1. Yes I probably would

2. $60/hr is pretty steep. Especially if you're including the time I have to take it to where I'm going to use it. I'd be more inclined to do it if it was a "for a day" fee - say $100 for someone to drop it off at my door in the morning and then come pick it up at the end of the day. 

3. See number 2 - I'm not going to pay extra for that, but I think I'd expect that to be included unless you're not charging me for picking it up myself

4. It's hard to see this working out unless you have a dedicated space that people can come and use it. There's a place near me that through the winter has three hitting bays with trackmans in each one. It's indoors and can pitch up at lunchtime, hit balls for an hour and that costs $50. It means hitting off mats, which is not as good as hitting off grass, but given that I'm getting space, balls, and trackman, together with computer and software all set up for me, it's a better deal than yours. 

 

If your goal is to get one for less than full whack and share the cost with others, perhaps some kind of timeshare deal with it would be good. If you find 4-5 likeminded people and you split the cost, then each of you gets the device for a week at a time and it just goes in circles, I think that could find traction. If you want to make it a genuine business then I think you need to find a venue for it. I have no idea if a driving range might be willing to let you put them in 3-4 bays and then charge additional to use those bays and you split profits with the range. 

[leekgolf]

I can rent a Trackman 4 at my club for $20/hr. I can also rent a Flightscope x3 at a local range for indoor use for $35/hr. I don't think the market will support $60.

[Chipperyamane]

Where are you guys that are having access to x3/tm to rent for 20-30/hr? Our club got a gc2 over winter and rented it for 25/person/hr which is ridiculous. Golf Galaxy just got tm and rent out for 60/hr I think. I have an x2 elite that I’m wanting to figure out a way to make some money with but I think I’d need to get courses for people to be more interested in it over cold times. 

[hammersia]

Depends on your local market and how many of the people you already know would be up for it - as has been said, they'd have to wrxers really. Finding new people to rent it to as a standalone unit as a business would be so niche as to be hopeless imho.

 

The pilot model of shared ownership is more realistic providing you can trust everyone and get a decent rota going.

 

 

 

 

[Siper11]

There's a company in So. California (https://nobogeysgolf.com/) that has a similar set up with Trackman units. They have a monthly program that's ~$100/month. I also think PGA Superstore has an annual program that allows unlimited use of their "range" of GCQuads. 

 

[TourSpoon]

I pay 50 an hour for Trackman in an indoor fitting studio with cameras about once a month. The best part is the AC! I really lose interest in club/ball data if I have to use range balls. 

 

I don't see this as a sustainable business model, but if you are just looking to defray some costs it may not even be worth the aggravation. 

[SE Gamer]

It's a cool idea. If you're doing it solely to recoup some of your expense, it might work. Trying it as a business is a different story. There are place that already do some sort of LM rental. But I'd venture to guess most treat it as a loss leader. They don't really turn a profit on it. But offer other services (balls/range, lessons, fitting, club sales, etc.). And hope to capture customers for those by offering the LM service.

I'd also imagine that far more people would hypothetically want to rent, than who'd actually rent. Case in point, I managed some high dollar apartments at one point in the past. We did a survey of residents about making a non-pet friendly community, pet friendly. Overwhelming response was that the residents would like for us to go pet friendly. Which we did. But care to guess how many pets we actually ended up with over the next couple years? Not many. It's apples to oranges. But the core reality is the same. A lot of people like the idea of something a heck of a lot more than actually doing it.

[Bubbtubbs]

1 hour ago, SE Gamer said:

It's a cool idea. If you're doing it solely to recoup some of your expense, it might work. Trying it as a business is a different story. There are place that already do some sort of LM rental. But I'd venture to guess most treat it as a loss leader. They don't really turn a profit on it. But offer other services (balls/range, lessons, fitting, club sales, etc.). And hope to capture customers for those by offering the LM service.

I'd also imagine that far more people would hypothetically want to rent, than who'd actually rent. Case in point, I managed some high dollar apartments at one point in the past. We did a survey of residents about making a non-pet friendly community, pet friendly. Overwhelming response was that the residents would like for us to go pet friendly. Which we did. But care to guess how many pets we actually ended up with over the next couple years? Not many. It's apples to oranges. But the core reality is the same. A lot of people like the idea of something a heck of a lot more than actually doing it.

Like the idea of getting healthier/more fit versus the reality of the work and time commitment involved. 

[Mrgreen36]

It's 40 bucks an hour to rent a trackman bay around here, why would I pay 60 bucks an hour just for a gc3 or 4?

[OscarBravoLeft]

I recently upgraded to Trackman from my X3 and thought about doing something like that with my X3. Just not sure if people would want to do that locally.