Listening to stories

WE have found, at WhyBuy headquarters, that our biggest barrier to market dominance is going to be the presumption that rental companies – unless heavy machinery is involved – will be peer to peer. The perception is that peer-to-peer is inconsistent at best and grubby at worst. We make sure that our products are nicely packaged and as good as new, every time.

ARE we, as a nation, prepared to step out of our habit of buying? Germany has the greatest proportion of home-renters in Europe, and Germans still prefer to rent accommodation rather than own it. Less than 40 per cent of the population own the homes that they live in compared with more than 65% in Britain. We have been a nation of buyers not renters, and the economics of renting are perceived to be expensive. They needn’t be.

NOT only is WhyBuy the only rental business for fun stuff in London, but also we are competing actively in markets that we’re told are saturated. We hire out all the items that customers don’t want to own forever.

PEER research was the foundation of WhyBuy, where all of Jamie Conway’s London-based friends and family banded together to be a sounding board for WhyBuy’s launch in June 2020. That group provided key insights into the need for convenience to make the business work. This is why WhyBuy delivers and collects in a one-hour slot.

TO make sure that all products are working, clean and easy to use, we make sure every product is re-cleaned in the warehouse if it’s left on the shelf for more than a week. Before any item is sent out, it’s re-cleaned and re-checked to make sure all the extra parts are still in the box. What’s more the ‘how-to-use’ one-pager might not replace the manufacturer’s manual, but it’s written to be a quick set up guide.

PEER into the future, and we’ll see that renting will become the norm. WhyBuy is set up to make it easy for people to embrace this future sooner rather than later.

And since you’ve read this far, there’s one message, I’d like to reinforce. Please read the first word of each paragraph.

If you’re in London, please download the WhyBuy app (www.toSto.re/WhyBuyUK) and if you see something you’d like for when lockdown is over, please use my surname for a 20% discount code, WELCH.