An interesting Business Concept

A few weeks ago my wife told me she had heard about a company in town from which toys could be rented. The shiver of fear that started to run down my spine changed to hope when she continued on to say that they also BOUGHT second hand toys.
My daughter, at seven years old, has a lot of stuff she is no longer interested in and most of it is made of plastic. My least favourite item was a play house which was kept inside her bedroom and took up far too much room, besides she always preferred to play on its roof rather than inside it.
We piled lots of unwanted toys into the car and headed off to the place. The building was an uninteresting warehouse but we were quite surprised when we entered the shop. It was spacious, bright and comfortably air-conditioned. Toys were neatly stacked on shelves all the way to the high ceiling. much of the floor space was taken up with bigger items such as playhouses, play gyms, wading pools filled with coloured plastic balls, cribs, strollers and bikes. In one corner was a small office and in another corner a coffee machine, some sofas, cushions and a bookcase filled with second hand children’s books.
We found out that they also organise children’s events such as birthday parties and hold them inside the premises. It seemed an excellent idea, especially considering how many toys there were available for the kids to play with.
The place was busy with half a dozen sets of parents doing some kind of business there. Mostly renting, it seems. Anita, who ran the place with her partner Rose, was there with a couple of school kids helping out. She spent a lot of time with each customer and was very happy and cheerful. It took a long wait before she could finally deal with us. My wife had earlier sent photos of the items we wanted to sell and we had been given an indicative amount that Anita thought she would pay. She inspected the items, asked us not to bother assembling them as they would need to go for cleaning and gave us the full sum even though some parts had been left at home. We came back later with the missing parts.
My daughter was happy as the money went into her piggy bank. I was happy as I had got some plastic junk out of the house and my wife was happy as she knew that the toys would make other children happy and not end up in a landfill.
There was a student there doing a study of the business model as a school project. He asked us some questions like “is it your first time?” “Would you do it again?” and “would you do it more often if it was closer?”
We left the place impressed with what these two ladies have achieved. I like the “worthwhileness” of the business. It’s a good business which results in everyone being better off in some way.
There is only one business like this in the Every Franchise directory. It is called Baby’s Away, you can find it in this Category. There used to be similar one which had what was perhaps my favourite business name in the whole directory. It was called ”Hire for Babe”, but I remember having to delete it a few months ago when a routine check found that the link was dead. And perhaps there is a lesson there. No matter how sound the business concept, no matter how many “feel-good” qualities it has, success can never be guaranteed. But I certainly wish Anita and Rose success and who knows, in a few years they could be franchising and there will be an outlet near you.