Gymwarehouse can now offer leasing options for your gym equipment installation.
Gym Equipment Leasing
Finance of gym equipment through a lease mechanism can provide a tax effective and attractive way for business to obtain their capital equipment. We recognise that for some gyms leasing offers the opportunity to upgrade equipment and maintain good cash flow and tax advantages. We have worked with a long established lease finance provider to offer leasing options on your capital fitness equipment investments.
Having held a consumer credit license for a number of years, (Initially with the ‘Office Of Fair Trading’ and now with the FCA), Gymwarehouse can offer third party gym equipment finance to our customers. Typically we can provide Gym Equipment Finance, (subject to acceptance) 3 year or 5year finance options through a Lease Finance Scheme. This is generally by means of a gym equipment lease finance program in conjunction with our partner who specialises in leasing. Finance for Fitness equipment may be available for new start businesses but will most probably be limited to 3 years.
Sample Leasing Rates For Gym Equipment:
Are you looking to buy or finance Commercial gym machines? Gym Equipment Finance through Third party is also available from Gymwarehouse. An outline of how this works is as follows*:
- Customer prepares a provisional list of Equipment desired to finance.
- Gymwarehouse Quotes cash price on the equipment and confirms with customer this is the fitness equipment required for finance.
- Gymwarehouse provides quote to Finance company who will contact Customer and go over the lease finance details with customer.
- Customer will need to provide certain details to finance company, (i.e. Directors names/addresses, Years Trading, Accounts, Install/delivery address, Assets that finance can be secured against)
- If successful the finance company will offer finance based on a given period / fixed duration.
- Customer will need to sign paperwork and pay initial instalment.
- Gymwarehouse will deliver/install equipment.
- Upon completion of contract payments, (typically 3-5 years, or 36-60 monthly repayments) title of goods will pass to customer.
** this is outline of procedure/process only, customer will have full details from finance company and customer should refer to this.
Sample Leasing Rates For Gym Equipment:
Capital Agreement – Equivalent Weekly Cost/Repayment
£2 000 – £11.46
£5 000 – £28.14
£10 000 – £56.28
£20 000 – £110.56
£30 000 – £165.81
£40 000 – £221.08
£50 000 – £276.35
£75 000 – £407.08
£100 000 – £542.77
(based on 5yr lease for established business, subject to acceptance). These rates are example only and customers are quoted on a case by case basis.
Further Leasing information from financier:
Buying or leasing gym equipment—What gym owners should consider
For newer and independent gym owners, kitting out your gym with the equipment needed to attract potential members can be a daunting task.
The upfront costs can leave little budget left for other essentials such as marketing and staff costs.
Leasing some of your gym equipment could be a way of overcoming this problem.
Staggering payments over several years can free up the cash flow necessary to run and expand your gym, particularly during its infancy.
Furthermore leasing gives you the flexibility to upgrade equipment without having the burden of having to sell your originally purchased equipment, often at a much lower price.
That being said, these advantages of leasing do not mean that it is always the best option when financing gym equipment.
Rather, when making such a decision you need to consider 3 things:
• The type of equipment that you are acquiring;
• The role that this equipment plays in your gym;
• Your longer-term business goals.
The type of equipment that you are acquiring
Purchasing equipment outright will usually be more cost effective than leasing, especially if you can get good use out of that equipment for a long period of time.
Outright purchasing is a high-risk game— you are banking that any equipment that you buy will help you to earn you more money than what you originally paid.
The riskiness of such purchases is significantly decreased if you can be confident that the equipment in question will not quickly become damaged or obsolete.
Free weights, benches and racks are examples of types of equipment that fall into this long-shelf-life category.
The life span of electrical machinery, on the other hand, is less easy to predict, particularly when you consider unforeseen innovations.
Leasing may therefore be more appropriate for this type of equipment.
It’s not just the type of equipment that you should consider.
The way that you position your gym in the fitness market should also play a role in what equipment you decide to purchase or lease.
For premium gyms that have offer state of the art equipment, the value-life of equipment is going to be shorter, meaning purchases are going to inevitably involve higher levels of risk.
These types of gyms typically charge higher membership fees, so the additional operating expenses created by leasing should offset this.
The members of gyms created for those on a budget have lower expectations when it comes to having the latest and greatest equipment, meaning that deriving value from purchases is a safer bet for owners of these types of gyms.
2) The role that the equipment in question plays in your gym
Sizing up the risk of purchasing gym equipment also involves an understanding of the role that the equipment in question has in your gym.
If a certain type of equipment plays a central role in your gym, being regularly used by a majority of members, then the risk of a purchase not paying dividends is greatly reduced.
This goes back to an understanding of the equipment you are after and your gym’s position in the overall market.
If you position yourself as a gym for families, for example, cross trainers and static bicycles are likely to be more central to your offering than squat racks and boxing facilities.
Therefore buying the former types equipment represents a lower risk than the latter.
If you are looking to get new equipment to break into a certain market by offering different types of services, leasing can give you the flexibility to test the market without as making as large of a financial commitment.
In short, it is ideal to own the most important and fundamental equipment in your gym. This is particularly true if you are not expecting the equipment to rapidly depreciate in value.
Specialist machinery, for which the market for it has not been as established, is more suitable for leasing. If the value is not there, then shorter leases can save you more money in the long run than a purchase.
3) Your longer-term business goals
The decision whether to purchase or lease your equipment can affects your operating costs and immediate cash flow.
The upshot of this is that while leasing gives you the tools for growth— state of the art equipment and freed up capital, it will thin your profit margins due to the on going costs of the lease.
Purchasing, on the other hand can put a dent in your marketing and operational budget, limiting your scope for short-term growth, but this comes with the benefit of being able to maximise profits on existing members.
You really want to consider where you currently are with your gym, and where you want it to be in the next few years. Are you looking to capitalise on recent growth, or are you still looking to make that growth happen.
Its also worth considering what exit plans you have with your gym.
For potential buyers, a gym that owns all its equipment (so long as that equipment is not in desperate need of replacement) is a much more attractive prospect than one which has the additional operating costs of leasing its equipment.
Buying your equipment adds to the assets within a business, meaning that the value of your gym will be higher when it finally comes time to sell.
Roger Wood is the Business Development Director of GSM Finance, an Asset Finance Broker in London. He has been helping small businesses secure the equipment they need to operate since 2009.