Article
Should I Buy or Rent a Trade Show Case?
If your business’s sales strategy includes trade shows, you likely always have to consider how your setup, display materials, and other items are transported between trade shows and the business. Part of this equation is determining whether to buy or rent all the necessary transportation cases.
Trade show cases – to buy or rent
To help you decide, we’ve identified five aspects you should consider when buying or renting a trade show shipping case. These five aspects are frequency of events, size & weight of your objects, convenience, customization, and storage.
Frequency of events
This is the most obvious aspect to consider. If you are going to trade shows every week, then there is no question about it – you should purchase a custom case. However, if your trade shows are several weeks or months apart, the decision becomes less obvious. In that situation, you should consider the items below.
Convenience
Renting an ATA trade show case can be very convenient. You just pick the size you want and they will have it delivered to you. Purchasing an ATA trade show case may be slightly less convenient though. If you are just ordering a standard, stock size, the experience would be fairly equivalent to renting one. However, if you are going to buy one, we recommend customizing it to your exact needs. The downside with customizing is that it will be slightly more expensive and take time talking with the manufacturer about what all you want in the case. While slightly more time consuming, we believe that you will be happier in the long run with a case tailored to your specific requirements though.
Customization
As mentioned above, customization is a huge benefit to purchasing a new case. If you just need a very basic box to throw miscellaneous parts in, then this will not be valuable to you. However, if you have several different objects that need to be organized properly or sensitive devices that need custom foam cutouts, a tailor-made case will be the best option. Custom ATA trade show cases can include custom:
- Trays
- Labels
- Wheels
- Shelves
- Handles
- Dividers
- Removable sides
- Waterjet cut foam
- Anti-static or anti-microbial foam
These customizations can make transport, storage, organization, loading, and unloading much simpler and convenient.
Size & weight of your objects
Large, heavy objects will likely require a custom case because they will not fit into a standard rentable size. If your objects tend to smaller items that could fit together in a variety of ways or even thrown into a large opening together, renting could be a good possibility for you. For very large objects, you may even want to consider wood crates for transportation instead of ATA or trunk cases.
Storage
The last thing to consider is where you will store the trade show cases when they are not being used. Most customers we work with are extremely tight on space and try to minimize the amount of items they need to store. If you are in a similar situation, you might find that it is not worth storing several trade show cases in your facility if they only get used once or twice a year.
Key takeaways
Overall, if you are frequently at trade shows, need custom aspects to your case, have large objects to transport, or have room to store cases, purchasing a new ATA trade show case would be the best option. While this article is focused on renting vs. purchasing a trade show case, it is important to note that we are solely a custom-built case company. If you ever need custom wood crates, cases, or injection molded cases, we would be happy to help.
About Vol Case
Volunteer Case & Container is the oldest custom crate and case manufacturer in the East TN area. Founded over 30 years ago, all of our protective packaging solutions are still designed and assembled at our facility in Oak Ridge, TN. We specialize in custom wood crates, ATA cases, wood or plastic containers, injection molded cases, and waterjet or CNC cut foam inserts. Our customers span a variety of industries including nuclear, government, aerospace, military, medical, R&D, and more. Our team has experience designing and building everything from huge wood crating for 70,000+ lbs machinery to small injection molded cases for key-sized objects. Whatever your needs, our team works on quick turnaround times to provide you with high quality protective packaging. Contact us today for a free quote.
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