Bodyweight exercises have been around for millennia. The ancient Egyptians, East Indian, and Chinese cultures practiced resistance training. The Greeks advanced this pursuit into the development of free-weights with a hole for gripping called the “haltere.” In the late 1800s, the flywheel-and-ratchet rowing machine was invented, which can be considered the first exercise equipment. Treadmills and stationary bikes soon followed, and a near-exponential curve of innovation has since taken place, especially in the realm of functional training and exercise equipment. It is now possible to simulate a variety of outdoor pursuits, such as cross-country skiing, mountain climbing, and biking. Now, some exercise equipment even features an aspect of virtual reality for the sake of immersion or massively multiplayer gamification for those who want to test their skills against strangers across the world. It is evident, however, that free-weights will always be here in some form or another, as resistance exercise remains the cornerstone of bodybuilding.

An exercise equipment business is a great fit for someone who personally understands the benefit their products provide. Nowadays, there are two major ways to start an exercise equipment business. The first is the retail distribution model. This consists of purchasing exercise equipment directly from fitness equipment manufacturers and selling them directly to consumers. The second way is to become a wholesaler, who buys a certain number of products and resells them to retailers or distributors. While exercise equipment reps used to knock on doors as affiliates and pitch their products through screen mesh, those days are over. Most consumers will surf the web to find the best deals, so an online footprint and SaaS (software-as-a-service) based exercise equipment payment system is crucial, as well as an email marketing platform to apprise those on your mailing list of upcoming deals or discounts.

No matter how you decide to approach your exercise equipment business, Payment Integrator will make it stronger. We have industry-leading exercise equipment payment processing solutions that can be deployed frictionlessly into your existing on-premise sales software or software as a service (SaaS) framework. We can also help tool your CRM to traditional point-of-sale devices should you decide to operate your own brick-and-mortar exercise storefront. All of Payment Integrator’s solutions are customer-specific and operate in a secure, PCI compliant, P2PE tokenized environment. We also have solutions that easily integrate ACH payments, credit and debit card payments as well as e-wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. 

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