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Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff

rentzar.co

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Re: Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff

#4

Post by marcospolanco »

joenathan wrote: post #3

Rentzar.com where you can find next to near free stuff! Seriously, what's to keep people from just paying for one day only to never return?

Reasonable concern. A credit card hold or a cash deposit could solve that. What solutions have been used for other 'sharing economy' startups?

Re: Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff

#6

Post by joenathan »

marcospolanco wrote: post #4
joenathan wrote: post #3

Rentzar.com where you can find next to near free stuff! Seriously, what's to keep people from just paying for one day only to never return?

Reasonable concern. A credit card hold or a cash deposit could solve that. What solutions have been used for other 'sharing economy' startups?

If the cash deposit covered the complete value of the item no renter would want to pay such a high cost(the renter would then be vulnerable to theft; same with a credit card), and if the deposit didn't cover the value of the item then a thief would still benefit.

>What solutions have been used for other 'sharing econom[ies]'?

Two things come to mind, rental cars and places like rent-a-center. To rent a car you have to give ID and a credit card, and if the car is stolen the police can and will be contacted. Whereas with rent-a-center they can't call the police, police don't deal well with "small" stolen items. Rent-a-centers employ call centers that harass the person into paying or retuning and calls family and friends to shame the person into paying. If that doesn't work they turn it over to a collections agency who has the power to continue to harass and even ruin someones credit.

I don't see something like this working P2P and in the startup space, it requires too much "infrastructure" if you will, to work and be successful in deterring and overcoming theft, loss and damage.

Re: Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff

#7

Post by rgarcia »

Some honest feedback, FWIW...

What's your plan to get users? A large part of the success from other asset-sharing services is due to the fact that they initially chose a vertical (Airbnb: apartments, Getaround/RelayRides: cars) and made a small number of people in that vertical incredibly happy. Generalizing to "all things" has the advantage of making your target audience/market bigger, but also seriously risks making the average experience worse for a couple of reasons: (1) you're constrained to keeping the interface generic enough for "all things", and (2) by not targeting a vertical, demand/supply becomes much less targeted, meaning you need a large user base for the marketplace to be useful.

Re: Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff

#8

Post by cmcewen »

marcospolanco wrote: post #4
joenathan wrote: post #3

Rentzar.com where you can find next to near free stuff! Seriously, what's to keep people from just paying for one day only to never return?

Reasonable concern. A credit card hold or a cash deposit could solve that. What solutions have been used for other 'sharing economy' startups?

Airbnb is pretty much the standard: https://www.airbnb.com/safety#features

Re: Show HN: P2P Marketplace for renting stuff

#9

Post by bravura »

You have a chicken-and-egg problem.

Also, each renter now must do fulfillment themselves. If I'm renting my bike for $5/day, it's a huge pain if the person that is renting from me is twenty minutes late to pick up and return it.

What I want to see is someone who focuses on have all the household essentials for rent, and does fulfillment themselves. I think electric drills are typically used for 5 minutes total by most owners. Could I please rent hardware and one-off supplies from one place? Pretty please?

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