Yeah, a number of businesses tried it between 2007 and 2010. SnapGoods was probably the best known. This article lists 8; 7 went out of business, and the 8th one is just limping along with only about 10,000 people signed up for it. (And that one, NeighborGoods, only survived after removing the option to rent something.)
There just wasn’t a consumer base interested in the idea, basically. Silicon valley loved to talk about it, people loved writing articles about it, but it turns out that nobody could get consumers interested in the service.
From that article, which quotes the person who tried to found one of those companies
There was just one problem. As Adam Berk, the founder of Neighborrow, puts it: “Everything made sense except that nobody gives a shit. They go buy [a drill]. Or they just bang a screwdriver through the wall.”
When it comes to people doing car-sharing, it doesn’t well between private person and it seems like the Uber model won out.
On the same token a company that’s more like Uber and that has much lower transaction costs due to self driving cars has a higher chance of success.
Timing is very important when it comes to startups. Where webvan failed, instantcart does much better.
Sure, that’s very possible. Just because it didn’t work last time doesn’t mean it can’t work now with better technology.
I think anyone who goes into it now, though, had better have a really detailed explanation for why consumer interest was so low last time, despite all the attention and publicity the “sharing economy” got in the popular press, and a plan to quickly get a significant customer base this time around. Something like this can’t work economically without scale, and I’m just not sure if the consumer interest exists.
You make excellent points. I hadn’t even heard of SnapGoods, NeighborGoods etc.
I’m imagining it not as a peer to peer service, but more along the lines of a car rental company that owns a fleet of things it rents out.
I think you’re right about the need to build a significant customer base rather quickly. My guess is that it might be feasible to first offer big expensive things that people don’t usually own already, like a fancy jacuzzi, a top end VR rig, a complete “wedding size” soundsystem and a bouncy castle. And once you’re known for those, work your way down into more normal consumer goods, guided by the requests of your first customers.
Yeah, a number of businesses tried it between 2007 and 2010. SnapGoods was probably the best known. This article lists 8; 7 went out of business, and the 8th one is just limping along with only about 10,000 people signed up for it. (And that one, NeighborGoods, only survived after removing the option to rent something.)
https://www.fastcompany.com/3050775/the-sharing-economy-is-dead-and-we-killed-it
There just wasn’t a consumer base interested in the idea, basically. Silicon valley loved to talk about it, people loved writing articles about it, but it turns out that nobody could get consumers interested in the service.
From that article, which quotes the person who tried to found one of those companies
When it comes to people doing car-sharing, it doesn’t well between private person and it seems like the Uber model won out.
On the same token a company that’s more like Uber and that has much lower transaction costs due to self driving cars has a higher chance of success. Timing is very important when it comes to startups. Where webvan failed, instantcart does much better.
Sure, that’s very possible. Just because it didn’t work last time doesn’t mean it can’t work now with better technology.
I think anyone who goes into it now, though, had better have a really detailed explanation for why consumer interest was so low last time, despite all the attention and publicity the “sharing economy” got in the popular press, and a plan to quickly get a significant customer base this time around. Something like this can’t work economically without scale, and I’m just not sure if the consumer interest exists.
You make excellent points. I hadn’t even heard of SnapGoods, NeighborGoods etc.
I’m imagining it not as a peer to peer service, but more along the lines of a car rental company that owns a fleet of things it rents out.
I think you’re right about the need to build a significant customer base rather quickly. My guess is that it might be feasible to first offer big expensive things that people don’t usually own already, like a fancy jacuzzi, a top end VR rig, a complete “wedding size” soundsystem and a bouncy castle. And once you’re known for those, work your way down into more normal consumer goods, guided by the requests of your first customers.
The items that Bauhaus currently rents out might be a decent starting list: https://www.bauhaus.info/service/leistungen/leihservice?show=All