More Kits & Bundles
No Extra Assets
Most rental platforms require dedicated assets for every kit variant you want to offer online. Circulio’s virtual kit model calculates availability instantly by checking the assets of each constituent product against all existing bookings, baskets and padding for the customer’s dates. A business with five products can offer 25 bookable combinations with no additional assets and no extra catalogue management.
Customers Want the Answer
Not The Components
Customers arrive with a need to achieve something specific. A range of pre-configured kits that meet that need are faster to choose from and easier to commit to. Across every sector and every level of expertise, customers increasingly want pre-packaged solutions they can trust and deploy immediately.
How virtual kits expand your catalogue →Well-configured kits and bundles do the thinking for the customer. Compatibility is guaranteed. The combination has been validated for the application. The customer does not need to be an expert in the individual products. They need to be clear about what they are trying to achieve. Kits make it easy. One click, and it is in the basket.
This applies as much to professionals as to first-time renters. Speed matters. Confidence matters. Knowing that everything in a kit will work together overcomes the need for research, experience or a conversation with the hire desk.
The more use-cases a business can present as pre-configured kits and bundles, the more customers can self-serve with confidence. The constraint has never been the idea. It has been the lack of process and systems for easily creating, managing, marketing and selling them. Those constraints are embodied in rental management software focussed on back-office process. Circulio’s virtual kits and multi-channel eCommerce-first architecture release the full commercial potential of kits.
To offer a kit as a bookable product online, the platform needs to tell a customer whether it is available for their specific dates before they book. Most platforms cannot do this without holding dedicated assets for each variant. Those assets are committed to that kit and cannot be used for anything else.
The result is a choice between two commercially damaging options:
Most rental businesses end up offering fewer kits than they could, or none at all online. Both limit what customers can find and book.
Every Kit Needed
Dedicated Assets
Most rental platforms can pick kits on-the-fly at the warehouse. The problem is not the picking. It is showing accurate availability before the customer books. Without checking the live availability of the assets belonging to each constituent product, dedicated assets per kit variant are the only way to guarantee accuracy.
Same Assets
More Combinations
The customer does not know they are viewing a virtual kit. To them it looks like a convenient, well-matched bundle. What is happening instantly behind the scene is that Circulio identifies which products make up the kit, checks the availability of each of their assets for the customer’s dates, factors in every existing basket, order and padding window, and presents an accurate result. Online to the customer. In the console to the operator. Instantly.
Explore the Unified Product Hub →A virtual kit defines which products it contains. When a customer enters their hire dates, Circulio works down to the asset level, checking each asset belonging to those products against all existing bookings and padding. The result is instant and always accurate.
If all constituent products have available assets, the kit is available. If any do not, the kit is not. No dedicated assets required. No manual checking. No staff involvement needed to confirm whether a kit can be provided.
This is an architectural capability built into Circulio’s Unified Product Hub. It cannot be added to a conventional rental management platform as a feature update.
25 Bookable Combinations
5 Products to Manage
Consider a camera hire business with five products: a body, a wide-angle lens, a telephoto lens, a prime lens and a stabiliser. Those five products can be combined in 25 distinct ways. With Circulio, the business defines as many virtual kit combinations as are commercially useful. Each is a bookable product on the channel with live availability. No additional assets. No additional catalogue management.
Pricing is calculated automatically and can be overridden per kit. If all assets of the camera body product are committed on a date, every kit containing that product becomes unavailable automatically. When those assets are free again, all relevant kits become available simultaneously.
Many rental sectors require equipment to be pre-assembled or pre-grouped and tracked as a single entity. In these cases a physical kit is the correct model.
Kits in Circulio can also contain other kits, enabling multi-level assemblies for the most complex hire environments.
Physical & Virtual
Managed In One Place
Virtual kits are the right model for combinations of products whose assets are also available individually in other kits. Physical kits are the right model for assemblies that are best managed and checked as a complete unit. Both models serve real operational needs. Both are supported in Circulio simultaneously.
Less Capital
Higher Margin
For most small and medium-sized rental businesses, fleet financing is a constant constraint on growth. The virtual kit model removes one of its largest hidden drivers: the requirement to hold dedicated assets per kit variant to support online availability.
Virtual kits and capital efficiency →A rental business using virtual kits does not need to hold dedicated assets for each kit. A business with 10 camera body assets and 20 lens assets does not need 10 sets of every lens combination. It needs 10 body assets and 20 lens assets. The combinations available at any time are determined by which of those assets are uncommitted for the customer’s dates.
Camera and lens rental. Body assets, lens assets and support accessories combine into dozens of kits for documentary, portrait, video production and event photography. A customer arriving for a specific type of shoot sees a curated set of packages, not a flat list of individual items to assemble themselves.
Camera and Lens Rental →
AV and conference equipment. Projectors, screens, microphones and switching equipment for different room sizes and event types. Calculated from the same underlying assets regardless of the combination.
Computer and AV Rental →
AV and events. Speakers, microphone systems and lighting packages can be pre-configured into multiple permutations based on venue size and audience capacity. A small corporate breakfast event and a large outdoor conference draw on the same assets but present as entirely different bookable packages.
Pro audio. PA system combinations, monitor configurations and stage setups for different venue sizes and performance types. A small rehearsal space kit and a large stage kit draw on the same assets.
Pro Audio Rental →
Music performance and hire. Guitars, amplifiers, effects units and keyboards can be pre-configured into different combinations for solo performers, bands of different sizes and different venue types. A jazz trio package and a five-piece rock band package share many of the same assets but present as distinct, bookable options.
Lighting and events. Standard and bespoke lighting packages calculated from fixture, controller and power distribution assets. Pre-configured options rather than a component-level parts list.
Lighting and Events Rental →
Broadcast and production. Camera systems, lenses, support rigs, monitoring and recording equipment combined into packages for different production types and scales. Field production kits, studio configurations and outside broadcast packages all draw from the same serialised assets.
Broadcast and Production Rental →
MedTech and medical devices. Virtual ward kits require different combinations of home-monitoring equipment depending on the patient’s condition and care pathway. A cardiac monitoring package and a post-surgical recovery kit may share assets but present as distinct, clinically appropriate configurations.
MedTech and Medical Devices →
Any Sector With
Combinable Products
The virtual kit model is relevant to any rental sector where the same assets are regularly hired in different combinations. These are the sectors where the commercial benefit is most immediately apparent, but the model is available to every Circulio customer regardless of sector.
Common questions about virtual kits on Circulio
What is a virtual kit in Circulio?
A virtual kit is a defined combination of products whose availability is calculated instantly by checking the assets belonging to each of those products against all existing baskets, orders and padding for the customer’s hire dates. It has no dedicated assets of its own. No additional assets are required to offer it as a bookable product online.
How is a virtual kit different from a physical kit?
A virtual kit has no dedicated assets. Its availability is calculated live from the assets of its constituent products. A physical kit is a pre-assembled or pre-grouped unit tracked as a single inventory item by serial number and QR code, checked in and out as a complete entity. Circulio supports both types simultaneously.
Can I offer both virtual and physical kits on the same channel?
Yes. Virtual kits and physical kits coexist in the same platform, the same channel and the same warehouse workflow. Customers see both as bookable products. The operational difference is invisible to them.
What happens to asset availability when a virtual kit is booked?
The specific assets committed to fulfil that booking are recorded as unavailable for the booking period. Those assets are then unavailable for any other booking during that time, whether for a different kit or as a standalone item. This is automatic and requires no manual management.
Can virtual kits contain other kits?
Yes. Kits in Circulio can contain other kits as constituent items, enabling multi-level assemblies for complex hire environments where a top-level kit is itself composed of defined sub-kits.
Does the virtual kit model require additional platform configuration?
Virtual kits are configured in the Circulio console by defining which products make up each combination, along with pricing and channel publishing settings. Circulio’s onboarding team works with customers during implementation to define kit structures as part of the standard onboarding process.
Interested to see what virtual kits can do for your business?
Book a demo and we will show you how Circulio’s virtual kit model expands your bookable catalogue, removes the capital cost of duplicate kit assets and keeps availability accurate across every combination in real time.