FW Virtuemart Rental is a Joomla plugin that allows you not only to sell but also to rent out the objects. In the article, we will consider the features and advantages of this extension, describe its installation and configuration.

Joomla virtuemart rent is a plugin for creating an online store based on Joomla virtuemart. It provides an opportunity for goods advanced configuration: price changes depending on the rental periods, stock balances control, etc. The review will help developers with this plugin installation, and site owners with an understanding of the main features and benefits.

Key features

Simple integration with Virtuemart the plugin is built into the payment unit. Works as a custom field where it is possible to define appearance, price, etc.

Advanced price grid allows the user to arrange by periods a rental period. Depending on them, recalculation will take place.

Stock Control Joomla virtuemart template keeps track of booked and rented items, leaving on the site only those that are in stock.

All the possibilities of the Joomla Virtuemart product

As the plugin is obtained as a convenient addition, it does not have many features. But they all play an important role:

• Rent and sale option. You can not only sell but also rent your goods. The system takes into consideration all rented goods as unavailable in stock.
• Individual settings. There is no common template for all products. You can set up each trade item separately.  
• Deposit. If necessary, you can take a deposit by renting the goods.
• Booking delay. The plugin includes situations when a product requires prior preparation and booking.
• Adaptive date format. The date is shown in the format of the country in which the user is located.

Plugin installation

If you want to look at the possibilities of the plugin before installation, this can be done by using the Joomla virtuemart demo. The site shows all possibilities of extension.

If you have any questions, you can contact the technical support or read the Joomla virtuemart rental tutorial. What is required for installation:

1. Log into your administrator panel using your credentials.
2. Select “Extensions” in the top menu of the admin panel and click on it.
3. Select “Manage”, then “Install” menu items.
   
   
4. Download the zip file in any convenient way.

If the installation is done correctly, you will see the corresponding green notification. What to do after installation:

1. Find “Extensions” in the top menu.
2. Select “Plugins”. FW Virtuemart Rental should be in the list of plugins.
3. Select it using the check mark and turn it on with the button in the top left section of the screen.

Now the plugin is completely ready to work. You can begin to fill the site with content. Joomla virtuemart show all products is obtained in two versions: annual subscription and one-off payment.

Conclusion

All the things needed to provide services for the goods rent are implemented in FW Virtuemart Rental. You can customize each item separately, take a deposit, adjust a price based on rental period.

Useful features combined with simple installation and configuration make this plugin useful for rental sites.

In this release, we have focused on the Booking form design. We have also implemented a set of updates and bugfixes. Let’s review all the changes below:

1. New Booking form design. We have improved the design of the Booking form to make it more understandable and user-friendly. The form has been divided into several separate sections and highlighted with blue color for better visual presentation and positive user experience.
2. New plugin parameter Deposit HTML Description. We have added  Deposit HTML Description parameter to the Booking form. Now if you have specific deposit terms you can specify them via this parameter.
3. New plugin parameter Insurance HTML Description. We have added Insurance HTML Description parameter to the Booking form. Now if you have specific insurance terms you can specify them via this parameter.
4. Optional Font Awesome load parameter. This parameter allows/blocks font Awesome uploading. Set this parameter depending on whether font Awesome is included in the template or not.
5. Language constants review and translation fix. We have updatedlanguage files to fix some missing translations.
6. All calculated parameters are visible on the Booking form. We have made all calculations transparent for you.
7. Rental values get recalculated. Now as the user changes the dates the values get recalculated.
8. Active pricing layer is highlighted. We have highlighted the active layer in the pricing section with blue color to bring more clarity to the price calculation.

Get familiar with FW VirtueMart Rental documentation to find more information about FW VirtueMart Rental. Please use the comments section at the bottom of each documentation page to comment and suggest improvements that will make the product experience better.

In this release, we have done a few bugfixes and updates to improve user experience with FW VirtueMart Rental. Let’s review all of the changes below:

• Layout styles update. We have removed some Booking form display failures, which resulted from previous totalBooking form design update.
• Rental price is 0 when the form is empty. Even though the dates are not chosen within the calendars, the total rental price is displayed as “0”. This feature brings more clarity to the price calculation process.
• Total price includes deposit price. Now if the dates are selected deposit price will be included in the total rental price.
• Deposit and Insurance fields display. Bug resulted in system titles display on the front-end. Now deposit and Insurance fields are displayed as text areas.

Get familiar with FW VirtueMart Rental documentation to find more information about FW VirtueMart Rental. Please use the comments section at the bottom of each documentation page to comment and suggest improvements that will make the product experience better.

This release was basically centered around one very specific and important feature -  package renting. Having thoroughly analyzed all our customers’ requests, we have found that sometimes there is a need to rent several products at a time on the same dates, especially when it comes to party or camping rentals. As a result, we have come up with a new solution that facilitates package renting -FW VM Rental Dates Module.

FW VM Rental Dates Module works in pair withFW VirtueMart Rental Plugin. If earlier you had to enter rental dates for each particular product to see its total rental price, now you can specify them via the corresponding fields of FW VM Rental Dates Module and they will be automatically filled within the plugin calendars for each particular product within the category. In other words, once the dates are picked in the module calendars, they automatically appear in the plugin calendars for each particular product within the category. The total rental price also gets automatically calculated with regard to the specified dates. As a result, the only thing you have to do is to add a needed product to your shopping cart.

Another new feature of this release is availability display. Earlier, you could spot availability of the product only by the availability indicator signifying whether the product is available in stock or not. Now you can see the exact quantity available in stock via the corresponding field on the booking form.  

Get familiar with FW VirtueMart Rental documentation to find more information about FW VM Rental Dates Module and FW VirtueMart Rental. Please use the comments section at the bottom of each documentation page to comment and suggest improvements that will make the product experience better.

In this release, we have implemented several important functionalities allowing for better product usability. Let’s review all of them below:

• Booking form display in different positions. Earlier, the only obligatory term was to set an “addtocart” position for a booking form, otherwise, it didn’t work. Now it is possible to assign a few extra positions to the booking form - ontop, normal and onbot. As a result, you have more options for positioning the booking form in your template.
• Total rental price and stock details on the category page. Earlier, the total rental price and stock details displayed only on the individual product page. Now this information can be displayed on the category page. This feature allows to quickly scan through all total rental prices and stock number and choose the product you need to add it to cart. This feature works in pair with FW VM Rental Dates Module. If the FW VM Rental Dates Module is displayed, you can specify the rental dates in the module fields, and all products available for the specified rental period will be displayed on the category page along with calculated total rental prices and stock details. 
• Calendar translation. Now the booking calendars can be translated to different languages. The language of the calendars depends on your website language so if your website language is French, the calendar gets automatically translated to French, and there is no need for any specific configuration.

Get familiar with FW VirtueMart Rental documentation to find more information about our product. Please use the comments section at the bottom of each documentation page to comment and suggest improvements that will make the product experience better.

Add to cart button on category page

Stock control at checkout 

1. Create a product category to show rental business direction and its respective products.

2. Add products to the newly created category.

3. Display a category to show products, their pricing terms, deposit/insurance information, and available quantity.

4. Configure the FW VM Rental Dates Module to allow for package rent.


Check out our Baby carriage rentals guide to learn how to configure every page of Outdoor gear rentals showcase. Now let’s review the key features and benefits below.

Group rentals 

Once a category is created and products are added to the category, it is time to configure Rental Dates module. Rental Dates module allows to simplify package rent when a bunch of products are rented for the same dates. If you specify the pickup and return dates in the calendars, all baby carriages falling under this period will be displayed on the category page. See the screenshot below.

 

Category price and stock

Rental Dates module works in pair with category price and stock functionality. When rental dates are entered within the module calendars, all products available for the same dates appear on the category page along with calculated total rental price and stock quantity. Thus, as we enter the rental period for the baby carriage category, all baby carriages available for the specified period will be displayed on the category page, along with calculated total rental price and stock number. This feature can be handy on the initial screening stage. See the screenshot below to see how it is displayed.

Pricing grid 

If the price and stock number fits your needs, you can go to the individual product page to get into the details. On the individual product page, there is a tiered pricing table showing different prices with regard to different rental terms. It helps to see how the total rental price was calculated.

 

 

FW VM Rental Plugin is a ready-made solution for your Joomla VirtueMart website. A transparent and easy-to-use booking form shows how the price is calculated and what’s included in the price. Except for the package rent, category price/stock functionality, and tiered pricing, it features plain booking calendars, insurance/deposit functionality, stock control, and many more. Get familiar with FW VM Rental documentation to find more information about our product.

A rental services industry is growing steadily so if you are considering to add rental functionality to your Joomla website, FW VirtueMart Rental Plugin is an effective solution here. There are many different types of rental businesses - party rentals, bicycle rentals, dresses and suits rentals, etc. In this article, we will review an outdoor gear rental showcase created based on FW VirtueMart Rental Plugin.

The showcase is dedicated to a specific kind of rental business - outdoor gear rentals. However, this showcase will be a perfect fit for any other rental business. We will describe each page of the showcase,its elements, and the business idea behind each element. Make sure to understand that to proceed with creating the same website you need your Joomla website to be up and running with VirtueMart component and FW VirtueMart Rental Plugin. To learn how to get started with FW VirtueMart Rental Plugin, review Getting started documentation page. If you have Virtuemart component and FW VirtueMart Rental Plugin in place, it takes around one hour to create a similar website. The overall process for creating such a website looks as follows:

1. Install and configure VirtueMart component to your Joomla platform.
2. InstallFW VirtueMart Rental Plugin to your Joomla platform.
3. Create a product category to show rental business direction and its respective products.
4. Display a category to show products, their pricing terms, deposit/insurance information, and available quantity.
5. Configure theFW VM Rental Dates Module to allow for package rent.

Check out our Outdoor Gear Group Rentals guide for more details on configuringOutdoor gear rentals showcase. Let’s, review the showcase page by page in the sections below.

Category page

In this showcase, a category presents a rental business direction. This page displays one category -  Outdoor Gear Group Rental. However, if you have multiple rental businesses, you should create a page showcasing multiple categories.  

Here you can see the following elements:

1. Rental dates module. Specify the required rental dates and, as a result, these dates will be automatically filled for each particular product within the category and total rental price will be automatically calculated with regard to the specified dates. This feature is especially helpful for package rent when there is a need to rent out a group of products on the same dates.
2. Product section.This section displays a product image and product details.
3. Availability indicator. This indicator signifies whether or not the product is available in stock.
4. Product title and price. Specify a title of theproduct available for rent and its rental price using these fields.

Product page

A product page displays a booking form with all rental details  - rental terms, deposit/insurance information, calculation data, etc.

 

Let’s review all the elements below:

1. Pick up/return calendars. Specify the rental period using plugin calendars. You can do it either manually or automatically via Rental Dates plugin.
2. Pricing grid. You can specify detailed pricing terms using this grid to bring more clarity to your customers.
3. Maximum rental period. This field allows to set a limit for the rental period.
4. Available quantity. This field displays a number of products available in stock. If a required number exceeds the number of products in stock, “add to cart‘ button will be inactive and the customer won’t be able to order the product.
5. Calculation section. This section displays calculations adding some transparency to the total rental price calculation.
6. Summary box. This box brings more clarity to rental terms showing the exact number of rental and billable days.
7. Deposit amount. If your rental business works on deposit terms, you can specify a deposit amount using this field.
8. Deposit terms. You can specify deposit terms using this field.
9. Insurance amount. If you protect your rental business with insurance, you can use this field to specify an insurance amount.
10. Insurance terms. You can specify insurance terms using this field.
11. Total rental price. Total rental price calculated with regard to the specified terms and dates.

Adding rental functionality to your Joomla website is not complicated at all. If you like the concept of the booking form, you can add a similar one to your website with minimum effort. We have clearly outlined all steps for adding rental functionality in our Outdoor Gear Group Rentals guide. Should you have any problems while configuring the website, feel free to ask questions in the comments section at the bottom of the documentation page.

Rental industry with its low investments and simple process has always been a good choice for small businesses. Rent is a good way to save for customers on repair tools, clothes, camping trailers, etc. This concept started so-called "share economy", which is actively replacing common "ownership economy".

Rental websites are related to e-commerce development. We can say for sure that rental is more complicated than any sales website. Starting with a booking calendar and sophisticated pricing tables, depending on items quantity and rental periods, and up to insurances and deposits required for certain types of rentals.

Our FW Virtuemart Rental solution was built for a popular on Joomla! free Virtuemart shop, which is still a good option. We designed our product as an add-on that handles all the tricks of rental business. Rental periods, stock control, booking calendars, form designs, deposits and insurance, multi-type products is not the full list of FW Virtuemart Rental offers to the clients. The ease and effectiveness is proved by 5-star reviews on Joomla! Extension Directory. FW Virtuemart Rental comes with the rental demo website and detailed documentation.

Besides support that come with the product, we are ready to help our clients and customize functionality for the needs of their business specifics. Our 14+ years of web development can be a win-win opportunity for many businesses that look for expert advice and a way to save investing money into their websites wisely.

If you are in the rental business or plan to start it, you should definitely get in touch and share your vision of successful rental business. From our side, we will help to identify weak spots in your concept and point out the ways to make your business more successful.

Reading time: 10 mins. 
Implementation time: 35 mins.

With the right tool creating a similar rental website is easier than ever. Our party rental website provides the following benefits:

• Easy bookings via Transparent and informative booking form.
• Quick package rentals via Rental Dates Module allowing for booking multiple products at the same time.
• Reliable stock control with stock indicators and low stock notifications.
• Flexible pricing terms via a pricing grid.
• Discount pricing via a pricing grid allowing to show original and discount prices.

Documentation reference: Getting started documentation page.

• Create a parent category with child categories to show different rental services on offer and respective products within each child category.
• Add and configure products. Set up pricing terms, discount pricing, insurance/deposit functionality, etc.
• Display a category to show products on your Joomla VirtueMart website.

• Configure FW VM Rental Dates Module to allow for package rent.


Page with party rental categories

• Rental Dates module section.  If your customers need to book multiple products for the same dates, they can enter these dates into the Pickup date/Return date fields of the Rental Dates module and see which products are available for the specified dates by going to the needed category. 
• Categories list. Add as many categories as it is determined by your business model.
• Category title. Simple and concise title of the category so your customers could easily navigate to a required category.
• Category image. Upload category image to present it on the page.   

Page with party rental category

• Rental Dates module. If you specify rental dates on the page with multiple categories, they get pre-filled on this page. However, you can enter rental dates right here, on the category page.
• Total rental price. The total rental price calculated with regard to the rental period  indicated via Rental Dates module.
• Stock control indicator. Signifies about stock sufficiency/insufficiency with green/red color.
• Stock quantity. A number of products available in stock.
• Add to cart button. Click this button to proceed directly to the checkout stage, without getting into the details of the rental deal.
• Product details. Click this button to get into the details of the rental deal - calculations, pricing terms, discount details, deposit/insurance rates, etc.

Product page

• Discount pricing terms. The original price is shown as crossed and discount price is highlighted with red. 
• Total rental price with a discount. Total rental price is shown along with the discount amount.