Hi everyone. I haven’t completely figured out how this would work, but I wondered if people would be interested. I was considering creating a yoyo lending library. Here’s how I think it could work:
Rental of a yoyo would be $5 for yoyos with retail value of under $100 and $10 for retail values over $100.
I would take a security deposit for each yoyo of $50 in case damage occurs.
Yoyos would be shipped first class with tracking and would be returned the same way.
Rental periods would be 2 weeks long.
I’m not sure how to determine if people qualify for rental – would they need a certain amount of feedback?
I would try to stock rare and expensive yoyos so that people could try out things that they’ve never tried.
What do you guys think? Would that be a good service?
It’s a good idea, like Netflix for yo-yos or something, but I think you’d lose out financially. After awhile, people would not return the throws, and just forfeit the $50 to get a high end throw. I don’t think many would even have a $50 deposit, and those who would have it are more likely to just buy on their own. Then, if damage occurs, you’d have to keep a portion of the deposit consistent with the amount of damage. Many will deny the damage, or disagree about the extent of it, which would be further hassle.
Great idea, but in practice you would likely lose out on this and hardly break even. You’d have to bear the cost of maintaining the throws, or replacing them, to keep the library going.
I like the idea and i’ve thought about it before. I’ve lost more than $10 on more yoyos than i care to think about. Would be a great deal to try out new things, even if it was more like $14 after shipping. But yeah it would be tough to organize. I guess this is one advantage of clubs, meetups, and contests with lots of people where you can try out new things.
I think there should be a yoyo store near me, where they have tons of different yoyos on the shelves, and in front of each row of yoyos is an unboxed one so the clerk can let you try it. You could bring your own string, so it’s the right length, thus minimizing damage done to the throw. Maybe we could get a few modders and painters in there too, and it would work like you drop off the yoyo and say what you want, and you can explore around the store and try out throws, and then you can buy a yoyo and decide you want it painted or something. Then you give it to another modder and say why you want, and go home. You come back a day or two later (idk how long modding stuff takes) and pick up your stuff!
Maybe the people would have to send like $20 dollars to you before the yoyo is sent and they get that back if you get the yoyo back? Idk if that’s even a good idea haha but the library is an awesome idea!
I’m addressing the damage thing the qualification thing.
So people will probably but damage in the yoyo. If so take out a portion of the deposit according to the amount made. Now tracking damage. To do this every time you send one out you take a picture of all damage be ogre you send it. This may become hard once you get more people in it.
Now for qualification. Going by feedback is a problem for people like me. I never use the BST due to the fact that I like to buy from retail stores. I don’t know why I just do. So there has to be a better way to figure it out. A good idea would be if you have no feedback you can only get from the under $100 range. Once they use this enough they can start going up. I was thinking 15 times to upgrade. Upgrade levels would jump by $50 increments as in 0-50,50-100, and so on. I don’t know how much the deposit would be ,but it should change based on the value of the yoyo.
The only way I can see the collateral system working is if the security deposit is at or near the retail value of the yoyo. I know if I was up to no good, I’d be totally willing to drop $50 on that Cliff of yours only to “lose it in the mail” on the way back…
It’s a kind idea, and has been discussed many times before, but it’s always an exchange of risk and reward.
Yes but if someone has the money they should just buy the yoyo. By having an upgrade system you can slowly gain trust in the people and also give them responsibility. All we need to figure out is what the deposit is.
Wouldn’t be that difficult. Put yoyo in mirror box, take one picture, easy. 2 pictures may be necessary for yoyos with side damage or weird shapes, but still not impossible.
The only way it would work is if you did it like redbox. People would have to submit a valid credit card, and agree to the terms of service. Every late day a fee is withdrawn, until the retail value of the yoyo has been collected. I doubt people would be willing to submit credit card information to a shady online yoyo lender.
This comes up every once in a while and the general consensus is that it would never work.
True dat. Paypal would work better since everything would be online. But then you run into problems with people not having enough money in their paypal for you to automatically withdraw once their late.
If some of you guys want to really brainstorm this with me, I’d be more than happy to try it out. I have a pretty good collection right now and would love to make something like this happen.
