Browsing a Catalog

When you visit a rental company's catalog link, you land on their public inventory page. Everything on this page is managed by the rental business. HotCrate is the software they use to run it. You are browsing that one company's inventory; HotCrate does not aggregate or compare catalogs across different businesses.

Switching between views

Use the view buttons near the search bar to change how items are displayed:

• Thumbnails - a grid of cards with photos.
• Rows - a compact list, useful for scanning a large catalog quickly.

The rental business sets which view loads by default.

Searching and filtering by category

Type in the search bar to filter items and bundles by name in real time.

Use the category sidebar (or the Filters sheet on mobile) to narrow the list to a specific category. Categories are set by the rental business. Click a category name to show only items in that category; click it again or click All to clear the filter.

Date filtering and availability

Selecting dates shows you which items are available for that period. To set dates:

1. Click the Pick your rental dates section (or Pick your pickup and return dates if the business uses pickup/return day tracking).
2. Click a start date on the calendar, then click an end date.
3. The catalog updates to show available and unavailable quantities.

Dates that are grayed out or crossed out in the calendar are fully booked across all existing rentals for those items. When an item's quantity is reduced or shown as unavailable for your selected dates, it means other customers already have it reserved.

You do not need to select dates to browse. Dates are only required when you are ready to add items to the Crate and submit an inquiry.

Related

• The Crate - adding items and managing your selection before submitting
• Item and bundle pages - shareable links to individual items
• Submitting an inquiry - the form and what happens after