Renting baby equipment from other parents - feedback please

[izzylizzy1]

Hi There

I'm looking into setting up a web-based service which would connect travelling families with parents at their holiday destination who have baby and child stuff available to rent/ borrow eg bikes, cot, high chair, sterilisers, buggies, car seats, scooters, jumparoos, bouncy chairs, etc.

Holidaying families can therefore:

• travel light
• save money (significantly less hire fees than traditional rental companies, no delivery charge, no extra airline luggage costs)

Those offering stuff to rent can:

• make some pennies on the kiddie stuff they aren't currently using

And it's got huge environmental benefits as we're getting more use out of all this baby stuff that everyone has kicking about the house/ under the stairs/ taking up the spare room.

To me it makes a lot of sense, but I wanted to do a sanity check first!

Honest feedback appreciated:

• what are your first thoughts?
• What appeals most to you about the idea?
• what would you be most concerned about?

TIA

There was a thread asking about this very same thing a few months ago - was that you, or a different poster ?

From what I recall, the vast majority of posters said they couldn't see themselves using it.

Some didn't like the idea of using equipment they didn't know the history of and wouldn't see until the got there.
Many said that if they lived away from their parents, then they tended to beg, borrow, or buy equipment to leave there for when they were there each time.

I think questions were asked about delivery (which would increase your costs) or having to collect once there - which is the last thing you need if you've just done a long journey with little ones.

So it's like air bnb for kids stuff?
I love the environmental side of this - I'm horrified by how much stuff we have sitting in our loft doing nothing and would happily lend out the non-precious stuff to people visiting the area. Equally I would have loved a jumparoo or bouncy chair on some of our early holidays - not the sort of thing accommodation will provide. Thumbs up from me!

But most airlines let you take 2 "big" items per child free? And other stuff is pretty cheap. I'm just back from holiday with two small ones (both under 3). We took buggy plus car seats plus cot in the free allowance. Plus some toys. 20kg is a lot for kids. Then bought a bucket and spade etc there. Why would I need to hire anything? I dont trust car hire car seats anyway.

We traveled a lot when DD was tiny - we are from Germany so all family visits were mostly by plane and also traveled at least once a year abroad or in the UK for a family holiday.

I found that you hardly need a lot of things for a short visit. I would never again travel without my own car seat and I always took my own buggy. Both are easy to transport and normally free on planes.

We looked for cottages/villas who provided cots and highchairs though. I wanted them upon arrival and not hours later trying to find the owner.

So base-line: we needed a cot, highchair, buggy and car seat. All can be taken with us easily and if you travel a lot you find packable or collapsable sizes.

Thanks for your comments everyone.

Backforgood - I see your point around the history of the stuff. That issue exists with traditional rental companies also.

Perhaps we're been more relaxed about renting stuff - we can never be bothered to take our travel cot so have always found one at the other end, but we do normally take our own car seat as we've had some bad experiences. But, if you could pick your favourite brand of car seat and see pictures in advance, I wonder if that would encourage people to use one at the destination....

Are there any other instances you can think of where renting items short term might be useful eg kids parties, lots of family visiting at Christmas, etc?

Thanks

But, if you could pick your favourite brand of car seat and see pictures in advance, I wonder if that would encourage people to use one at the destination.... .

We once booked with a worldwide car rental agency. We were told in advance what brands they used. We had an email and a telephone confirmation from the hire station the day before that the car seat was available.

Guess what - it wasn't there. They wanted to give us an older, less secure style and DH then also discovered - a broken one.

Never again. And that was in our home country, so language wasn't a problem. It took an hour to solve the problem and suddenly miraculously a seat appeared.

If you book from private individuals they can tell you everything you want to hear, you never know if a car seat was in an accident or not. A professional hire would have a duty to replace if a car seat has been involved.

We later rented a seat but my in-laws collected it the day before we left home. It was the right seat group but it was too small for DD.