Why Climloc stays available when air conditioners are out of stock everywhere else

When a heatwave hits France, the same scenario repeats itself: temperatures rise, portable air conditioners vanish from stores and delivery times suddenly stretch out.

In a matter of hours, large retailers and major online marketplaces can find themselves out of stock. Yet at the very same time, Climloc keeps delivering portable air conditioners to households, offices, shops and public-facing venues.

This capability does not come from a single large warehouse filled ahead of time. It comes from a much broader craft: anticipating heatwaves, quickly finding equipment across Europe, organising its transport and routing units to where demand is strongest.

Rental is our service. But our real core business is managing availability.

A shortage that can appear within hours

Demand for air conditioners is extremely tied to the weather.

For several weeks, sales can stay relatively stable. Then a heatwave forecast is issued, temperatures climb above 30 °C and thousands of people simultaneously look for a way to cool down their home or workplace.

Traditional inventories are rarely designed to absorb such a sudden surge.

A large retailer typically orders its air conditioners several months in advance. Once its stock is sold out, it must wait for a new shipment — sometimes for several days or several weeks.

At Climloc, the organisation is different. We do not depend on a single supplier, a single warehouse or a fixed purchasing calendar.

We track demand in real time and continuously adapt our sourcing.

Four people dedicated solely to sourcing

In 2026, Climloc has a four-person team whose main mission is to find available air conditioners.

During periods of intense heat, this team works throughout the day and sometimes late into the night to:

• contact manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors;
• identify remaining stock in France and abroad;
• negotiate the purchase of large volumes;
• check models, their capacity and their compatibility;
• organise urgent transport;
• track deliveries all the way to our operational centres.

Our teams maintain and grow contacts across Europe, notably in Germany, Hungary and Spain.

When a local market is already out of stock, we can look for inventory in another European region that is not yet hit by the same heatwave.

This continuous sourcing capability is a major difference compared with a traditional retailer.

Air conditioners found and shipped overnight

During the most intense episodes, everything can be decided within a few hours.

It sometimes happens that our teams spot a sharp increase in orders during the day, find new stock in the evening, arrange a pickup in another country and dispatch the air conditioners to France immediately.

Urgent transport is then set up so that the units can be received, tested, prepared and put back into circulation as fast as possible.

This operation involves significant cost: express transport, mobilised teams, handling, temporary storage and equipment checks. But it lets us keep serving our customers precisely when air conditioners become almost impossible to find through traditional channels.

It is in those periods that our work makes the most sense.

Pooling makes each unit go further

Buying an air conditioner often means using it for a few days of heatwave, then storing it for the rest of the year.

Rental, on the other hand, lets the same unit serve several customers in succession.

An air conditioner can, for instance, be rented for a week in an apartment, picked up, inspected and cleaned, then delivered to an office or a shop that needs one the following week.

This pooling makes better use of the existing fleet and allows us to answer more requests without depending only on the manufacturing of new units.

Climloc therefore continuously handles:

• rental departures;
• extensions requested by customers;
• pickup dates;
• returns to the warehouse;
• inspection and cleaning;
• reassignment to a new order.

Each air conditioner is tracked individually so we know where it is, when it is due back and which upcoming order it can be assigned to.

Regulating demand rather than just taking orders

Our goal is not to accept as many bookings as possible without regard for operational reality.

We must ensure that every order can actually be delivered.

Climloc therefore cross-references several data points:

• stock immediately available;
• air conditioners due back from rental;
• extension requests;
• delivery and installation capacity;
• weather forecasts;
• expected demand in each city.

This regulation work prevents selling the same unit twice or promising a delivery that cannot be met.

When a heatwave moves from one region to another, we can also reposition part of the fleet.

Stock is not considered stationary: it can be redistributed quickly between our operational centres depending on observed demand and temperature forecasts.

An operational centre at the heart of the system

Behind every rental sits real logistics organisation.

The Climloc operational centre coordinates the entire chain:

• identifying and purchasing air conditioners;
• organising transport to our warehouses;
• receiving and inspecting units;
• preparing hoses, remotes and window-sealing kits;
• assigning machines to orders;
• building delivery rounds;
• delivery and installation;
• pickup at the end of the rental;
• inspection, cleaning and return to circulation.

This infrastructure is what turns a stock of air conditioners into a service that is truly available.

Owning units is not enough. You have to be able to locate them, move them, prepare them, deliver them and pick them back up at the right time.

Why not just buy an air conditioner in a store?

When an air conditioner is still available immediately, buying can suit someone who plans to use it regularly and has room to store it.

But during a heatwave, the situation is often different:

• suitable units are out of stock;
• the last available models are sometimes sold at much higher prices;
• delivery can take several days;
• the customer has to install the hose and window kit alone;
• the unit then has to be stored all year round.

Climloc answers a different need: quickly having a temporary solution, delivered and picked up at home, without keeping a unit that may no longer be needed after the heatwave.

Our strength: making available what no longer is

Climloc is therefore not just an air conditioner rental platform.

Our strength rests on three pillars:

• International sourcing, thanks to a team that continuously looks for available units in France and across Europe.
• Pooling, which lets the same air conditioner serve several households and businesses over the summer.
• Logistics regulation, which lets us track demand, anticipate returns and quickly reallocate stock to the areas hit by heat.

It is this combination that lets us keep delivering when shelves are empty and air conditioners become hard to find.

We cannot guarantee that no stock tension will ever occur during an exceptional heatwave. But our entire organisation is designed to push back stock-outs as much as possible and to find new sourcing solutions even in the toughest periods.

Because in the middle of a heatwave, our job is not just to rent out an AC.

It is above all to manage to find one, transport it and deliver it at the moment it is truly needed.

FAQ — Why Climloc stays available during shortages