Intro to Selling & Payment Options

Learn about recurring fees, security deposits, down-payments and other rental charges

There are various ways rental businesses like to charge for their service, or fees. Most of them can work well with Product Rentals Pro, but often this is in conjunction with another app. PRP itself doesn't get directly involved in the payment aspect, but our rental widget works nicely with other apps that do, with some being official partners with PRP.

First, let's list out some of the ways a rental business might want to charge differently, other than just full payment up front, which is how things work on standard Shopify.

• Part-payments / Downpayments: Partial payment now (i.e. a down-payment or a deposit) in order for the customer to secure their booking, with the remainder being charged at a later date (e.g. closer to delivery or the rental start date) [more info]

• Refundable Security Deposits: Charging a security deposit at the time of rental, which is later refunded upon safe and on-time return of the item(s) [more info]

• Authorisation charges: Making an authorisation charge against a customer's payment method, to ensure penalty fees can be captured if required, or to cover the value of the item in the event of theft or non-return.

• Damage fees and non-return/late-return fees: Capability to attempt charges against a customer's vaulted payment method for penalties in accordance with accepted terms & conditions.

• Recurring rental fees: Charging periodically for a rental (e.g. monthly) over a longer period - either a finite period (e.g. 12 months), or indefinite (e.g. only ends when the customer chooses to return the item).

We will be building out documentation for each of these cases over the coming weeks and months, but for now, we only have specific guides for the ones that have [more info] links above.