Rouse Services

Rouse Services is a leading equipment data and intelligence business focused on the rental supplier industry.  They were an independent company for over 75 years until 2020, when they were acquired by Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers for $275MM USD. Ritchie Bros. is a publicly traded company based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Who are Rouse Service’s Customers?

Rouse Services, also known as “Rouse”, has a singular focus on meeting the needs of equipment rental companies (though this may change after the Ritchie Bros. acquisition). Some of their more notable customers include:

• United Rentals
• Sunbelt Rentals
• HERC Rentals
• Sunstate Equipment

It is estimated that their customer base includes ~200 rental suppliers as of the time this was written.

What Kind of Solutions does Rouse Services Provide?

Rouse describes their solutions in a three-prong offering:

• Appraisals
• Sales
• Analytics

Appraisals include classic appraising, or valuing,  of used equipment. Rouse specializes in appraising equipment for rental suppliers when acquiring a rental company. It’s no secret that the Nationals are highly acquisitive, doing 15-20 corporate acquisitions each for United Rentals and Sunbelt Rentals.

The Sales solution from Rouse is a remarketing capability. Through an online marketplace platform, they help rental suppliers create an e-commerce capability to self-sell used assets. The benefit of doing this is to prevent divesting of an asset through auction, which normally has a 10-20% lower sale price, as well as a 10-12% auction fee on top of the sold price. Sales also includes a rather new SaaS used valuation platform.

Analytics is primarily focused on benchmarking invoiced rental rates. More on that below.

What Kind of Data Types does Rouse Services Cover?

Their data types include:

• Used Equipment Prices / Used Equipment Valuations / Equipment Price Benchmarking
• Invoiced Retail Rental Rate Benchmarking

Probably their most well known product is their invoiced retail rental rate benchmarking product. 

Sold within their “Analytics” division, the retail rental benchmarking product is used by several hundred rental suppliers to identify invoiced rate trends, and benchmark to those trends. Generally, the primary benefit is to ensure business is not lost by being above market rate. Often, for those well below market rate when first using the product, it’s an opportunity to significantly increase rates.

They have an extensive asset type coverage, which includes:

• Lift and Access Equipment (e.g. JLG, Genie)
• Construction Equipment (e.g. Caterpillar, Komatsu, Deere, Case CE, JCB)

Due to Rouse’s focus on supporting rental suppliers, their equipment type focus originated in lift and access equipment, which is the asset type most carried by rental suppliers as it is most supplementary to a core construction fleet.

Their methods of delivering data include:

• SaaS / software
• Databases
• Analyst Reports

Rouse maintains several ETL processes to ingest used equipment sales and invoiced rental rate data to support their products.

What are the Alternatives to Rouse Services?

Rouse Services has several alternative providers, depending on product line:

• Valuations: EquipmentWatch, FleetEvaluator by Sandhills
• Rental Rates: EquipmentWatch (although slightly different)