The old saw says “Why rent when you can buy?” and I’ve got three darned good reasons. Renting is better than buying when—
- You’ll use It only once
- When It loses Its value quickly
- When you want to try It before you buy It
In the brick-and-mortar world, we rent power tools and moving trucks and library books and all kinds of durable reusables. Old news. No surprises there.
But the tried-and-true rentals model is spreading to new and unexpected corners online, and it’s earned its own page in my Online Business Playbook. Netflix started it and—based on the newer players—there’s no guessing where (or if) it will end. Check these out…
Paperback Book Rentals
Okay, maybe we should have seen this one coming? Parallel to the Netflix no-late-fees-ever-just-drop-em-in-the-mail system, BooksFree rents paperbacks on a circulating basis to subscribers who pay a monthly fee. The fees vary depending on how many books are held at one time—from 2 to 15(!) books, from $14 to $50.
Sure, Joe Subscriber could go to his local library and borrow books for free. But the “going to the library” part is a step that many (including me) are happy to avoid. BooksFree rentals ship with a pre-addressed, pre-postaged pouch to mail them back. No stamps required, no due dates, no driving, no overdue fees. Happy Joe!
Some things to note about BooksFree’s setup—
- Books ship USPS Media Mail, which is both cheap and fast.
- Joe can cycle through new-to-him books many times a month, depending on his reading speed and delivery times
- If Joe really really likes a book, he can pay for it and keep it (most of the time…tough-to-find titles can’t be kept)
- Joe can donate his own paperbacks for store credit towards “keepers”
- BooksFree also sells books
Between membership fees and shipping and keepers and donations and sales, I’m having a helluva time tracking the money on this one. In general, when I think back on how many books I read as a subscriber, I feel sure they lost money on me every month.
Once—and only once—I held a pair of books for 3 months. So that time those two books cost me…what? $30 or something? Before that, I was round-tripping paperbacks 2 to 4 times each month. On those months my subscription fee didn’t even cover the shipping.
And then I dropped the subscription because I wasn’t reading much. Which is entirely unlike our Netflix subscription, which goes unused for months as DVDs sit unwatched next to our TV…yet we can’t bring ourselves to cancel.
Something to think about.
And while you’re thinking on that, think on this—
Fashion Accessory Rentals
Now called Avelle, Bag Borrow or Steal (BBS) rents the kind of stylish stuff that loses value over time. I don’t mean like a car, which depreciates over years. I mean handbags, sunglasses, jewelry and watches that lose their value over a few months.
Best that I can tell, we don’t have to be members of BBS to rent these things. Being a member means discounts and advance notice, though, which might be worth $5 to $10 each month for the true fashionista. Either way, 100% guaranteed authentic glam can be rented by the week, month, or quarter…or as BBS puts it: for an event, a month, or a season.
Are you feelin’ it? Yes? No?
Okay, go peek at this:
Hermes Vintage Crocodile Birkin Handbag
Yup, that one costs $4,800 per month. To rent.
TO RENT.
But there’s always the Whiting & Davis Cheveron Envelope Clutch for a teensy $20 per month. Or, between those two prices, there are 2000+ other purses to choose from.
Something else to think about.
With that in mind, here’s another one…closely related, but super-super-focused:
High-End Watch Rentals
Steal the Time does a similar thing, but they only rent expensive watches.*
Just watches.
Like this Hublot Chrono Depose can be rented for $308 per week. Or for $905 per month. Or purchased outright for $9,495. Which isn’t bad, considering the MSRP is $14,200.
‘Nuf said.
Actually, one last bit…
Among the nifty things about these rentals is they keep us from accumulating short-lived stuff. We rent It, use It, enjoy It, and then return It for someone else to do the same. It’s quite smart, really…
…and I suspect there’s decent money in it, too.
There’s a lot of math to making sure it’s profitable, though. Lots to consider: buying new stock and anticipating demand and managing inventory and shipping (both ways) and pricing the membership fees and selling used stock for the right price at the right time.
But it’s doable. Folks are doing it.
And some of them have been doing it for quite a long time—Netflix has been around since 1997. Booksfree since 2000. Bag, Borrow or Steal has been in business since 2006. It appears Steal the Time is the baby of the bunch, as their domain registration is only a year old.
Durable reusables. For rent. Online.
Something to think about.
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* Curtsy to @sheamus for releasing this into the Twitterverse…
