Why is "rent instead of buy" favored? How can "everything can be rented" offer savings and risk avoidance?

Recently, driven by the longest Spring Festival holiday, China’s consumer market has been very lively. However, beyond “buy buy buy,” some people are also considering “rent rent rent” as a new option. From cameras and evening gowns to jewelry, from robots to home appliances, this Spring Festival, “everything can be rented” is not just a money-saving trick but also a new lifestyle.

Join the reporter’s lens to explore the rental market during the Spring Festival. Why is “rent instead of buy” so popular? How cost-effective is it? What new consumption scenarios has it created? What changes has it brought? How can “everything can be rented” help save money and avoid risks?

Lightweight Consumption Sparks New Vitality in Tourism Market

This Spring Festival, against the backdrop of continued growth in cultural and tourism consumption, rental services have fully integrated into all aspects of travel, from professional cameras for scenic spots to outdoor skiing equipment. “Rent on demand, travel light” is becoming a new trend among tourists.

During the festival, in a photography store near the Shangxiahang Scenic Area in Fuzhou, customers came in nonstop to select and rent cameras. Many tourists chose to rent professional cameras to start their photo-taking journeys. The store offers various brands and models of cameras and lenses, precisely matching different needs.

For experienced photography enthusiasts, a professional telephoto lens worth over 100,000 yuan makes high-end ecological photography more accessible.

Camera Store Sales Consultant Wen Qianqian: These lenses costing over 100,000 yuan are mainly used for bird ecology photography. We use this low-cost rental method to reach our target audience. From initially renting cameras to possibly purchasing one directly.

Consumer Liu Xinxuan: I used to rent cameras to try them out. The experience was pretty good, so today I came to buy one.

The survey found that some camera rental stores have expanded into diverse business models, offering photography classes and organizing special travel photo activities, leading photographers into bird-watching hotspots. This not only increased store revenue but also boosted local homestays and catering services, promoting the “bird-watching economy” and eco-tourism.

Bird-Watching Guide Xie Fanglin: Almost every month, groups come here. We provide transportation, accommodation, and shooting assistance, all offered by local villagers, giving us development opportunities.

From renting a camera to activating an entire industry, the rental economy leverages lightweight methods to stimulate demand for heavy assets and promotes the coordinated development of supporting services. In Mingxi County, Fujian Province, famous for eco-bird watching, over 30,000 bird-watching tourists visit annually, generating over 2 billion yuan in output.

At Wanfeng Ski Resort in Tonghua, Jilin, snow equipment rental is also a top choice for many visitors. The resort offers over 5,000 sets of snow gear of various brands, sizes, and styles, from beginner to professional.

In popular tourist cities like Xi’an, Chengdu, Xiamen, and Kaifeng, clothing rental shops have sprung up like mushrooms, with Hanfu, Tang suits, and ethnic-style long skirts becoming popular around scenic spots. This Spring Festival, car rental platforms also saw a significant increase in orders. According to Shenzhou Car Rental, bookings during the holiday increased by 20% year-on-year, with a record high for long-term rentals of nine days or more.

Tech Rental

Unlocking New Industry Possibilities

The popularity of cultural tourism rentals not only meets tourists’ demand for relaxed, efficient, and high-quality travel but also promotes refined upgrades in tourism services. By offering affordable rentals as an entry point, it has transformed from single-item rentals to diversified services, expanding consumption scenarios. In 2026, the CCTV Spring Gala featured robot performances that amazed audiences. This Spring Festival, robot rentals have moved from niche novelty to mainstream consumption, unlocking new industry potentials through tech rentals.

In Shanghai, a leading robot rental platform experienced explosive order growth during the holiday, with over 1,000 orders from the first to the seventh day of the Lunar New Year. Entertainment and commercial marketing robots have become mainstream.

Chief Marketing Officer Li Kewei of Qingtian Rental (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd.: We already have 200,000 registered users and about 500 service providers nationwide. When a customer places an order on our platform, our customer service team immediately follows up, communicates, and quickly matches with a service provider.

With continuous upgrades in robot functions and expanding application scenarios, robot rental has evolved from experimental trials to a professional service aligned with market needs.

Li Kewei: Previously, buying a robot meant purchasing an expensive experimental product. Now, it’s about acquiring a robot that better fits your needs. This will generate incremental value for many industries, and the scale of this increment will be enormous.

In the core area of the digital economy, computing power leasing is becoming a “necessity” for AI industry development. As the core productivity of the digital economy, demand for computing power is diverse and fragmented. Traditional long-term cloud leasing models cannot meet short-term, concentrated computing needs of enterprises. Tsinghua University’s post-00s startup team identified this pain point, integrating over thirty data centers, three major cloud providers, more than 700,000 idle internet cafe computers, and over 30,000 personal computers to launch a per-second billing fine-grained computing power leasing service, enabling on-demand and flexible resource allocation.

CEO Fu Zhi of Gongji Technology Co., Ltd.: Most cloud providers have built data centers with investments of hundreds of millions. When leasing to you, offering precise leasing means the idle costs are borne by the cloud provider. Using resources from thousands of households to serve specific needs, you pay only for the minutes used, avoiding waste.

Currently, the company serves over 100 AI firms, helping them reduce costs and improve efficiency through flexible computing power leasing, addressing critical demand issues.

Chief Technology Officer Liang Ding of VAST: Computing power is vital for an AI company, much like a traditional power plant needs coal. It determines our R&D speed and how many users can be supported during inference. We want as much flexible computing power as possible, so we can better meet our needs.

Minsheng Leasing Provides Inclusive Services

Enhancing Quality of Life

The investigation shows that the “rent instead of buy” model is deeply integrated into daily life, becoming a key driver of consumption upgrades. In the social welfare sector, toy rentals and rehabilitation aids rentals precisely address consumer pain points.

In Handan, Hebei, a shared toy store has become a favorite spot for local parents to take their children out. The store offers hundreds of toys, including educational blocks, electric toys, and plush dolls, catering to different age groups. This toy rental service is popular among young families.

Today’s young families want to meet their children’s diverse toy needs but face high prices, quick boredom, and limited space at home. Toy rental solves this dilemma. The store enforces strict disinfection protocols, ensuring safe play.

In Jiaxing, Zhejiang, rehabilitation aids rental has become a new highlight in elderly care. The center offers over 40 types of assistive devices, including wheelchairs, multi-functional transfer machines, smart nursing beds, and stair-climbing machines. Originally costing thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, the daily rental price is below 5 yuan, with smart nursing beds as low as 0.4 yuan per day.

It is reported that the annual growth rate of appointment bookings for assistive device rentals in Jiaxing exceeds 40%. Local authorities have set up multiple rental service points based on the principle of convenience and proximity.

Zheng Xiling, Deputy Director of the Elderly Work and Social Welfare Department of Jiaxing Civil Affairs Bureau: Besides the city-level centers, we have set up rental service points in town and street community elderly care centers, village care centers, and some elderly care institutions to help seniors enjoy a better quality of life.

2024 China Rental Economy Transaction Scale

Surpasses 4.2 Trillion Yuan

In July 2025, the Development Research Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation released the first “White Paper on the Healthy Development of the Consumer Rental Industry under the Circular Economy.” The report shows that in 2024, China’s rental economy transaction scale exceeded 4.2 trillion yuan, serving over 750 million users. The market size in 2024 surged by 116% year-on-year, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 80.3% from 2025 to 2029, reaching 40 times the 2023 level by 2029.

From cultural tourism and travel to tech industries, from family parenting to elderly care, and from tangible physical rentals to intangible resource sharing, the application scenarios of the rental economy are continuously expanding. How does “rent instead of buy” create new consumption scenes and what new changes does it bring? Let’s hear expert insights.

“Everything Can Be Rented” Leading a New Consumption Trend

Opening New Development Tracks

Su Li, Associate Professor at the School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China: China’s rental economy is in a rapid development phase, creating many new tracks in the consumer sector and becoming a new engine for economic growth. “Rent instead of buy” lowers the threshold for consumption, transforming potential demand into actual consumption. It not only stimulates consumption but also pushes traditional consumption and service sectors to upgrade, improving quality. The rental economy drives innovation and development in related industries and spurs a large demand for professional services. It accelerates digital transformation and mode innovation in traditional industries. Overall, the rental economy is becoming a key driver for industrial upgrading and high-quality economic development in China.

How to Enjoy Benefits and Avoid Risks in “Everything Can Be Rented”

Moving from “buy” to “rent” is not just a rational upgrade in consumption concept but also a key leap from “owning products” to “enjoying services.” While rental is booming, issues also arise. The government has introduced many laws and regulations, but as the rental economy extends into consumer goods markets, what are the weak regulatory links? How can “everything can be rented” be cost-effective and risk-averse?

Balancing New Business Models and Consumer Rights Protection

Su Li: In terms of consumer rights, the rental economy has obvious weaknesses. Some platforms face information asymmetry, unstandardized services, difficulty in refunding deposits, and quality assurance issues. Additionally, regulation of emerging formats like computing power leasing and pet rentals is also a challenge.

Su Li: First, we need to accelerate the improvement of relevant laws and regulations, possibly formulating specific regulations or departmental rules for the rental economy, clarifying key aspects such as rental contract formats, deposit management, platform responsibilities, and dispute resolution. We should actively innovate regulatory models, utilizing big data, AI, blockchain, and other new technologies to enhance precision and efficiency, enabling early risk detection, early warning, and early intervention.

Su Li: Moreover, we should establish a collaborative governance system combining government regulation, industry self-discipline, and platform autonomy, building mechanisms for information disclosure, contract standardization, credit evaluation, and complaint handling. Special attention should be paid to deposit and prepayment regulation to ensure fund safety. Establish quality standards for rental items and clarify repair and compensation responsibilities. Ultimately, this will form a mature, standardized new ecosystem for the rental economy, becoming an important force for high-quality economic development in China.