Every parent of young children has an unwanted-toy graveyard somewhere in the home. Today’s prized playthings inevitably become tomorrow’s cast-offs, ready to be given away, discarded or boxed up in the garage. The alternative, offered by Texas start-up Babyplays, is to receive four to six toys by mail each month. Parents can keep the toys as long as they like, and send them back to receive a fresh batch. Monthly subscription rates range from USD 36.99 to 64.99.
Babyplays offers a range of age-appropriate toys, and depending on their membership level, parents can rent up to 10 toys a month. Besides reducing clutter, members can save money by renting instead of owning. You could call it the Netflix rental model applied to toys. We’ve seen start-ups tweak the rent-not-buy concept in innovative ways: in August 2007, we wrote about a German company, Lütte-Leihen, that sends parents a fresh batch of baby clothes that can be exchanged for new ones each month. The same model has been applied to women’s accessories, with companies like Bag, Borrow or Steal offering members access to designer handbags and jewellery.
A factor all of these firms must reckon with is the need to acquire an adequate inventory of items to accommodate customer whims—a potentially expensive proposition. That said, the rental model still has plenty of new potential applications. What’s key is that many consumers are becoming less interested in full ownership, opting instead for the convenience and flexibility of renting or fractional ownership. For many more examples, check out our sister-site trendwatching.com’s briefing about transumers.
Website: www.babyplays.com
Contact: support@babyplays.com
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
In New Zealand we have had Toy Libraries for years. Run by community groups, for very modest fees.
Works well.
Good call, Andrew! I was just going to add a comment with almost exactly those words, but then I saw yours. :-)
Our yearly toy library subscription is NZ$40 if you help out twice during the year, otherwise NZ$80. This is MUCH less than Babyplays, in fact, our yearly fees are about equal to their monthly fees!
Here's the "Toy Library Federation of NZ" website:
http://toylibrary.co.nz/
One great thing about toy libraries is that you can take the noisy ones back. :-)
-Ben
This is a great idea but how does it cope with breakages. Half the toys from my childhood ended up broken and I probably had at least five Barbies with out heads! Do they charge for a new toy when this happens as I imagine it would happen a lot - particularly with younger chidlren. It's surely going to be expensive for either the parents or the company.
Kate, Thank you for your comments and for your encouraging words. We find that most parents take especially good care of our toys. There are times when pieces get lost, but they usually turn up in the next months package. It is not my objective to charge parents retail prices for lost items, so we give them time to locate misplaced toys. If they still can not find a toy after 30 days, we will charge them only what it cost us to replace that piece.
What about germs? Are the toys sanitized between use?
Ya, my wife has the same concern... "yeah except how good are they about cleaning?"
I think is a great concept, its like NetFlix for kids!
Great idea for the US. In the UK local libraries and government iniativies like SureStart operate free toy libraries.
http://www.surestart.gov.uk/events/newsevents/news/index.cfm?news=280
In China, we had this business model around year 2000, while the business seems not good today. Most companies were closed during the past several years. How about the business in USA? Is it very popular?
I´m researching experiences and evaluating feasibility to start a business like this one, it makes me noise when you mentioned that most of them in China are already closed down. Please, if it´s possible give me details to consider. Thanks
Hey Raúl, where are you from?
We are under the process of developing this idea in Chile and with plans to extend operations to Argentina and Perú.
Where do you plan to do the same?
We might start a Latinamerican Toy rental division.
What do you think?
Contact me, please.
cbarroil@hotmail.com