How it works
Ebb and Flow Outdoors is an online marketplace that allows you to find, book, and pay for outdoor gear rentals - or rent out your own gear so it earns you money while you're not using it.
For Renters:
1. Sign up with us and create an account.
2. Search for the gear you need.
3. Submit a rental request to the rental listing owner.
4. Securely pay for your rental through our site, if the owner approves the request.
5. Receive a rental confirmation.
6. Pick up your gear and ENJOY THE OUTDOORS!
If you have questions about the gear before requesting a rental, or while using the gear, you can contact the owner directly through the listing.
For Rental Listing Owners:
1. Sign up with us and create an account.
2. List your gear, name your price.
3. Receive rental requests.
4. Communicate with renters to answer questions, to accept requests, or deny requests.
5. Get paid whenever your gear gets rented!
We recommend that you be as descriptive as possible regarding your gear (describe sizes, condition, intended uses, etc.) and upload high quality photos. You may also require booking agreements or terms that the renter must abide by, so please include those specifics on your listing to ensure a smooth rental process. You will notice that listing options include fields for cancellation policies and additional fees. As a rental listing owner, you can use these fields with your discretion.
Fees, Payments, and Disputes
Transactions are facilitated by Stripe and Paypal. We charge a 15% fee for each transaction, with a minimum transaction charge of $2.00USD, in order to cover the costs of running the website. You will need to have a credit card or bank account to rent or list through our site. When a renter and rental listing owner agree to a transaction, both parties are agreeing to any payment terms disclosed in the listing.
When a rental listing owner accepts a rental request, Stripe will hold the funds for you until you mark the order as "Complete." Do not mark an order as "Complete" until both the rental listing owner and renter are satisfied with the transaction. This allows us to resolve any disputes more easily. We encourage you to contact us if you have any disputes during the transaction process. Paypal process transactions more immediately, so you would expect to see immediate transfer of funds if using their payment processing.
In order to enhance trust among our members, we ask that all members to agree to cover the cost of any damage to goods they rent from rental listing owners, aside from normal wear and tear. Although we cannot enforce this request, we want our online community to feel secure renting to and from each other.
Community Guidelines
We want to ensure you feel safe renting gear to and from our members. Therefore, we review all listings and will remove any that violate our community rules or appear suspicious. We reserve the right to remove members from our community who violate our community rules if we determine they are placing our community at risk of harm. In service to community safety, we hold users accountable to the following rules:
1. List only gear that you personally own and is well maintained.
2. We value respect for all Ebb and Flow Outdoors members; please maintain respectful communication with members and do not send spam, threaten members, harass members, or engage in offensive communication toward members.
3. Do not share your contact information (phone number, email address, website, etc.) in your listing. We also request that you avoid including links to other websites in your listing.
4. Respect members' time; please respond to messages in a timely manner.
5. Ebb and Flow Outdoors is a third-party marketplace. By using this site, you are required to comply with any and all local laws, regulations, safety measures, and applicable booking agreements required by rental listing owners.
6. Do not share your contact information through our messaging system until your rental has been confirmed.
7. We do not allow members to personally accept transactions for their listings. All payments for rentals listed on our site must be made through our platform.