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"This
Innovative New Rental Business
And 'yes' they don't mind if you 'steal' from them, in fact they encourage it! More info on that in a moment. A good business idea will often revolve around solving some sort of problem. If you can throw in the potential for on-going repeat business, then you could have a real winner on your hands. Well, this particular business has both, and it's very original too. Solving
A Problem
For The Fashion The idea behind the website, is that there are many women that like to have a nice designer bag to carry around with them. Problem is; by their very nature, designer bags are very expensive. Many women also like to have different bags to go with different outfits, or to use for specific occasions. Then there is the ever-changing fashion consideration. What might be 'in' this month; could very well be 'old hat' the following month. This can obviously lead to some seriously high shopping bills for woman, who love to be seen with the latest designer accessories. Enter 'Bag Borrow Or Steal', a Florida based company operating from their website at: http://www.bagborroworsteal.com. Women are able to choose from a very extensive range of designer bags. The difference is, instead buying them; they can rent them on a month-by-month basis indefinitely. They are given the flexibility of being able to change from one bag to another as often as they wish. There are three different membership options, which are all paid on a monthly basis.
The 'Trendsetter' option gives you access to bags from emerging designers. Upgrade to the 'Princess' option and you get to choose from a range of household designer names. At the top end of the scale, the 'Diva' membership offers the most expensive and exclusive designer bags available. With both the 'Princess' and the 'Diva' membership, you are also allowed to choose from the range of bags available in the membership option(s) below them. I Liked This Concept A Lot... I like the way they named the various membership levels available. They could easily have gone for bronze, silver and gold, like most companies do. The names they used are much better. You can imagine a woman wanting to aspire to the 'Diva' level of membership, purely because of the perceived image/attitude that comes with being a 'Diva'. I'm not so sure that the same woman would get as excited about being a 'gold' member. (Austin Powers fans excluded) Even with the basic membership you are still a 'Trendsetter'. I think the idea is cool, and you should consider borrowing the 'naming concept' and 'adapting' it, to suit any membership options you might create for your own products. Delivery There is a charge of $9.95 every time you change a bag to a different one. This covers a return FedEx delivery that is insured. A pre-paid return delivery note is sent out with every delivery. When returning a bag either to exchange for another one, or if they cancel their order, all the customer has to do is use the pre-paid FedEx call tag. The basic membership covers the rental of one bag at any given time. You can rent up to five bags at the same time by simply multiplying your monthly membership by the number of bags you want. The 'Steal' Option If a customer falls in love with a particular bag, they have a 'steal' option. The bag's age, condition and market worth is evaluated and the customer is given a price for which they can pay to keep the bag. My Opinion... What I like about this is business, is that it deals with products that are expensive to buy. Expensive products usually come with big profit margins, and this is no exception. As this can be run from a website, there is no need to set up shop in an exclusive part of town. Most 'boutiques' in the designer market are usually found in exclusive 'high rent' locations. With a website, you can reach the whole country without having the big overheads that will be weighing down on your high street competitors. Start Up Costs With something like this, you might initially think that you need to lay out a load of money on stock to get started. I reckon you could probably start this up very inexpensively. To do this you would need to set up a good supply chain. You wouldn't want to be holding a load of very expensive stock. At the end of the day this sort of product can go out of fashion very quickly, and it's value could drop almost overnight. You should look at setting up a deal with one or more suppliers that would allow you to buy 'one off' items from them. Although you might not get the same deal as someone buying bulk, you could use the bargaining angle that you will be giving them on-going repeat business. Bags that get sent back for exchange can be rented out again. There is also a big market for second hand designer clothes and accessories. Ideally, you should try and find someone that will be willing to regularly buy your old stock, as you decide to release it. As another alternative, you could sell your old stock on eBay. Summary All in all, I think this has very good potential. If you work hard at building a good supplier relationship, then your initial start up costs shouldn't be too high. The key part of this would be in getting a good PR launch with plenty of coverage in the popular newspapers and magazines. It's certainly a service that if run well, will benefit by getting plenty of free word-of-mouth business. If This 'Doesn't Get Your Rocks Off... If renting out women's designer handbags doesn't get you hot under the collar with excitement, do a brainstorm. How could you 'steal' or 'borrow' this business model, and use it in a completely different market? Think about it...how do you think the concept for 'bag, borrow or steal' came about? They just looked at existing rental businesses and adapted the same model in a completely new market. It's not rocket science...so get thinking! I hope you found this thought provoking,
Jason Lewis |
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ere's
a great idea for a rather unusual rental business, that is currently
doing very well in the States. As far as I am aware, there isn't
anyone currently operating this kind of service in the UK. I'm
not sure about the rest of Europe though. 
