A yearly tradition: how A.S.Adventure turns rentals into long-term customer relationships

Twenty Years of Rentals, Reinvented

A.S.Adventure has been in the winter sports rental business for twenty years. What once began with carbon copy receipts and large paper ledgers has grown over the years into a cornerstone of the in-store experience. Customers come back every year, already know their size, and the staff member needs to ask no more than a few confirmatory questions.

A few years ago, a new ambition emerged: to systematically expand summer rentals as a category. Tents, backpacks, child carriers, sleeping pads, bike racks—products that people don’t need very often, but for which they like to visit a specialist. That called for more than just an expansion of the existing system. It called for a fundamentally different inventory model and a rental operation that operated within the same digital space as all other customer processes.

“For winter sports, our equipment was really spread out across the different stores,” Nicky explains. “But for summer rentals, we couldn’t make the business case work if we had to build it with scattered inventory. We needed a centralized inventory.”

Central warehouse, local flexibility

The inventory model is intentionally hybrid. Each store maintains its own inventory, tailored to its location and size. In addition, there is a central warehouse that all stores can draw from. This is useful for products that are too expensive to stock in every store, and essential for summer rentals that need to be quickly reallocated during peak months.

“The module is actually designed to be even more flexible than how we use it today,” says Nicky. “In principle, every store could reserve items from each other’s inventory—a true omnichannel model.”

That room for future growth is no small matter. The range of rental products is still expanding, and the module scales along with it without requiring new development each time.

“We’re not yet renting out our full range of products, but the system is ready for it. We add new categories ourselves—that doesn’t require any development.” — Laura Goossens

One platform, widely supported by the team

The biggest practical benefit for the store is that the Rental Module has the same look and feel as the point-of-sale system everyone is already familiar with. Previous rental receipts can be looked up and copied. It sounds simple, and that’s exactly the point. For the customer renting skis for the sixth time, it feels like talking to someone who already knows them. For the employee, it saves minutes on a busy day.

“We used to have to go through the same routine year after year: look up the previous receipt, and if you could even find it, copy everything over to a second screen or print it out,” says Nicky.

Maintenance schedules are now also built into the process; previously, this had to be tracked manually. Preparation lists can be printed directly from the system, so that on a busy Saturday in January, stores are already ready with the right sets for each customer. Checks upon pickup and return are performed using standardized checklists. In the event of damage or missing items, the system automatically calculates how much of the deposit will be withheld. An optional protection plan for customers is also seamlessly managed through the same platform.

Jan De Koninck, store manager at one of the stores that handles both summer and winter rentals, also sees how this facilitates collaboration between departments.

“Our colleagues upstairs in the rental department can save a file at the register, and the colleagues downstairs can open that file directly. These are all capabilities that didn’t exist before.” — Jan De Koninck, Store Manager at A.S.Adventure

The same familiar interface also makes rentals accessible to the entire team, not just the dedicated rental specialist.

"In the past, we didn’t necessarily have people who wanted to fill in at the rental department. By the time they’d opened the old software, they’d already given up. Today, it has the same look and feel as the register. Anyone familiar with the register can just sit down at it." — Nicky Laureyssens

The integration with the point-of-sale system also has a commercial advantage: the rental process flows seamlessly into the rest of the shopping experience, naturally leading to conversations about additional purchases.

For those who want to try something out before buying, A.S.Adventure also offers a “try-like-buy” program: rent first, and if you later purchase a product from the same category, you’ll receive a discount—10 percent on summer rentals, 15 percent on ski rentals. It’s an accessible way for customers to experience a more expensive product first.

What Rentals Mean for the Store

For the store, rentals aren’t just an extra service on top of sales—they’re an integral part of what A.S.Adventure is all about.

“We’d start losing a huge chunk of our revenue if rentals were to disappear tomorrow. It’s part of who we are. It’s an opportunity we offer our customers. It’s circular, and customers expect that from us to some extent.” — Jan De Koninck

It gives people access to high-quality outdoor gear they wouldn’t otherwise use. “We sometimes have Fjällräven tents that cost 700 euros each when new,” Jan explains. “That’s an opportunity for them to rent one from us and give it a try.” Child carriers, one of the most popular summer rental items, are a typical example of what young families rent for a single season—and sometimes end up buying afterward.

Summer rentals also attract a new audience: young people who want to discover high-quality outdoor gear but are inundated with cheap online alternatives. Renting lowers the barrier to entry and lets people experience for themselves why quality makes all the difference. Whether that leads to a purchase or a second rental, both are fine.

So at A.S.Adventure, rentals aren’t a separate business. They’re intertwined with the advisory role the stores already play: someone walks in for information, is torn between buying and trying it out, and can continue that conversation with a rental that flows seamlessly through the same system as a purchase.

Looking Ahead

The Rental Module continues to evolve, both at Tilroy and at A.S.Adventure. New categories are being added, the central warehouse is expanding accordingly, and internally, we’re exploring ways to further digitize certain processes.

That potential now extends beyond the national border as well. Bever, the Dutch outdoor retailer within the same Yonderland group, also uses Tilroy’s Rental Module. It doesn’t offer winter rentals, but it does have its own summer rental operation that grows alongside the product range in the same way.

“The fact that we can continue to expand our product range and offerings simply means there’s demand and that it works. You wouldn’t increase volume if the process weren’t sound. That shows it’s a super-handy tool and that it’s also easy to scale.” — Laura Goossens

For Nicky, the real value lies in how customers experience it: “If you have a high-quality product, in any segment, rentals are a great way to let customers experience what quality feels like—whether or not that leads to a purchase. Sometimes someone just comes back to rent a second or third time. That’s fine, too.”