Renting uniforms can offer many advantages over buying them. If you want consistently comfortable uniforms that help your employees look professional, buying can be a long-term hassle without offering much advantage.
Alsco Uniforms will maintain and launder your rented uniforms. You can scale your operation quickly, getting exactly the amount and type of gear you need, without needing to make huge bulk purchases.
You also don’t have to worry about your employees’ uniforms looking good. When you rent, any stained, torn or otherwise damaged uniforms will be replaced quickly.
The Allure of the Buy
Buying uniforms outright has some obvious points of appeal. For one, buying a uniform means that it is fully yours. It can be modified to any degree you desire, and if it’s lost or damaged, your company won’t be required to replace it or otherwise pay for damages.
Sometimes buying uniforms is a reasonable solution. For some operations, it may be possible to source what is needed at a low enough cost that it is competitive with renting.
Unfortunately, many businesses simply assume that buying uniforms outright is a smart, long-term investment over renting. Renting uniforms is often a cheaper, more efficient choice that businesses fail to consider.
Why Rent Uniforms?
Renting uniforms has some obvious advantages over buying. For one, renting is highly scalable. As a business expands, it can rent more uniforms. If it contracts, the business can reduce how many uniforms it’s renting. It isn’t permanently committed in the way it would be if buying the uniforms.
This is doubly true for uniforms intended to serve a temporary purpose. If a company opens a few temporary locations with set closing dates, it likely doesn’t need uniforms for an especially long period. If uniforms will only be needed for a year or so, buying them is unlikely to pay for itself.
This highlights another advantage of renting uniforms. Many uniform rental companies, including Alsco Uniforms, have provisions in place that allow renters to swap uniforms out as they get dirty or worn out. If a company purchases a uniform, it must maintain its uniform inventory on its own.
Rent Smart
Consider how the rental company handles wear and laundering. At Alsco Uniforms, we repair uniforms as needed when they’re laundered. We also fully replace them when they become too damaged.
It’s especially important to pay attention to what is being offered when buying or renting clothes that have some type of significant utility, such as personal protective equipment (PPE). Legal or not, many products are widely available that look like high-quality PPE but are of low, and even dangerous, quality. With Alsco Uniforms, you’ll get protective equipment that meets the highest safety and hygiene standards.
What to Look for in a Rental Provider
It’s easy to say that a company ought to look for a rental service that can meet its needs. And for some companies, this might be simple. A small operation looking to help make its team look like a cohesive unit could probably be serviced by most trustworthy operations without major concern.
But a company needs to be more discerning the bigger the scale at which it operates and the more it requires from the gear being rented. If you need hundreds or more uniforms with particular qualities, such as shock or flame resistance, it’s critical to contact multiple companies and make sure your choice can meet all your needs.
It’s also a good idea to research a company’s practices and reputation. Alsco Uniforms is well-established, with a positive reputation built on the trust of many thousands of customers. We also make an effort to run our business sustainably and ethically. Whatever company you might consider, make sure you look past the marketing and see what the company is actually doing and how people feel about the services it provides.
Conclusion
Regarding long-term decision-making, it’s important that a company never assumes a particular option is cheaper than another. Renting uniforms, especially if that rental comes with laundering and repair services, can often be inexpensive or comparable in cost to buying, but renting will almost always be more convenient.
When performing cost calculations, remember that convenience genuinely can offset price. If a company saves several hours on laundering and repair (let alone on the cost of the materials needed to do these things), that time can be spent elsewhere to generate profit.
At Alsco Uniforms, we can help equip your team with uniforms at an affordable rate. Check out what we offer, and feel free to contact our team with questions. We’d love to show you everything uniform rentals can bring to your operation.