Abstract: A process for a distributor to rent items comprises the steps of providing an inventory of items available for rental and establishing a membership list of customers. Each membership in the membership list may include a plurality of customers with one of the plurality of customers being designated to pay for rentals and return rented items to the distributor after a selected time. Each customer may establish a prioritized choice list of preferred items for rental. An account validation is performed for each customer having a choice list, and the inventory is checked to determine availability of items on the customer choice lists of validated accounts. A priority engine arbitrates between conflicting choices of different customers. The most preferred item that is available to each customer based upon the inventory and the customer priority is then shipped to each customer that has requested a rental.