WALDO, Maine — Parents traveling with young children are finding it’s a lot easier to rent the necessities at their vacation destination instead of bringing them along.
Providing parents with must-have or nice-to-have child equipment is a fast-growing service nationwide, and Waldo resident Jill Lepow is one of the small-business owners who have found success in the field. Lepow’s home-based business, Mid-Coast Family Rentals, has grown exponentially since she founded it three summers ago.
“It’s literally taken right off,” Lepow said. “I’ve more than doubled my business from my first year.”
Business is so good that Lepow this year expanded the company beyond her initial service area covering about a 100-mile radius from her home near Belfast to the southern Maine beach towns of Kennebunk, York, Wells and Ogunquit.
“There is a big need down there,” she said. “For the past two summers I was making multiple trips down there, so to better offer our services we expanded there.”
Mid-Coast Family Rentals provides traveling parents with full-size cribs, highchairs, strollers, bathtubs, toys and any other bulky item they might forget to pack or choose not to take with them, especially when traveling by air. Lepow said airline regulations are much stricter about storing items and often charge as much to carry them as they do for a seat.
“It’s cheaper to rent baby gear than to check it,” she said. “Instead of checking it and paying the airline, I provide the same service for the same price, only I deliver it, assemble it and pick it up.”
Whether renting a cottage or staying in a hotel or guesthouse, vacationers or visitors are finding it easier to rent the items rather than take them along. Lepow said the service also was being used by grandparents whose grandchildren come for a visit. Instead of keeping things stored in a room or basement until the kiddies show up, they can rent top-of-the-line gear instead. Lepow deals with hotels, property management agencies and parents themselves.
All of the equipment is brand-name variety, safe, clean, and thoroughly sanitized between each customer use. Everything is checked over before and after each rental, and all of the products are registered with their manufacturer in case of recall notices. Lepow also receives regular updates from the Consumer Products Safety Commission about recalled items.
The company came about as Lepow was brainstorming with her husband, Chris, in 2007 about running a home-based business, and they hit on baby gear. Lepow was three months pregnant at the time and had accepted an attractive buyout package from her employer, MBNA. She planned to be a stay-at-home mom and when Chris “said something like, ‘They rent canoes and kayaks,’ and we said, ‘How about baby gear?’ and we just went with it. I love baby gear. I’m a big baby gear junkie.”
The baby she was carrying is now their 2½-year-old daughter, Amelia, who was joined six months ago by a sister, Savannah. Between the girls and the business, Lepow enjoys a hectic but manageable schedule.
Lepow said she was unsure what would happen with the business, but after acquiring an inventory and creating a Web site, it took off almost immediately. A week after the Web site went online, she received a call from the Samoset Resort in Rockport looking for a full-size crib and stroller for a guest.
“Since then I’ve been back multiple times to the Samoset,” she said. “In fact, my number one rental is full-size cribs.”
Although she didn’t know it at the time she founded her company, renting baby equipment had been a thriving business for years in other parts of the country. She belongs to a group of 43 companies in the United States and Canada that regularly shares information and tips over the Internet. She also discovered there were three other women running similar businesses serving the Bethel, Boothbay Harbor and Bar Harbor regions.
“It’s an awesome resource for all of us because we’re not competing with each other,” she said. “It really is fabulous. I would not be as successful as I am today without the Yahoo group.”
Lepow said that despite the down economy, she believes that people still will travel and will continue to need her services and others.
“I think it’s definitely picking up. I see more people with zero to five years in this business than ever,” she said. “People still have to travel. Last year the gas prices were high and they came. People are still vacationing and they are going to continue to come here. They’ve been coming to Maine for years.”
For more information, visit mainebabyequipmentrentals.com or call 342-2147.