How to lend

All the basic steps, rules, and etiquette for a successful lending experience.

First off, you may be wondering why you should lend your things out. That’s a good question. Find some great answers here. Or if you have more general concerns, perhaps try this post here on “common worries”.

If you’ve read those already or just want to know how to lend things on Daggle, let’s get into it.

What to Lend: Decisions, decisions…

There are two main ways to identify things you own that could be good contenders to lend on Daggle.

1. You don’t use it very often (i.e. it spends most of its time in a cupboard, store room, garage, attic…)
2. It is not of sentimental value to you (i.e. if it breaks and you get a new one, you’re fine with it)

That’s it really. Whether you want to focus on low-cost or high-end goods, popular or obscure items, or just throw on everything you have, depends entirely on you.

How to Upload an Item

Once you’ve registered and are all set up (find more on that here) click on the menu and then Account.

Here you can find your balance, the items you’ve borrowed or are borrowing, and how to deposit and withdraw funds.

Click on the ‘Add a new item’ near the top of the page to start with your first item.

Now you can start to enter the details of the item you want to lend out.

Here are some quick tips:

• Make the name nice and clear, and not too long (save that for the description) — e.g. JBL Flip 4 portable outdoor speaker
• Add the category your item would fall under. Is it electronics? Something for the kitchen? Outdoors? Home? Travel? (The categories available will appear when you click on the field, and you can add more than one.)
• Now enter the original cost of the item when you bought it (sometimes Googling helps). This helps us provide you with a suggested hourly rental rate.
• Now enter the price per hour. While we say “per hour”, remember that you will actually earn by the second from whoever borrows it. The hourly rate is just to give a more common and understandable unit of time.
• To decide the best price try this rule of thumb: “how many hours would someone use this item before they would just buy it?” Say the answer is 72 hours, or three days. Take the original value of the item and divide it by 72. For example, the JBL Flip 4 can retail at AED 350. Divided by 72 this gives you an hourly rate of AED 4. This gives you a good ball park price to play around with.
• Give lots of good, rich details in the description. The make, model, year, condition are all useful, but don’t forget to describe what scenarios or settings it is good for. Remember it’s a sales pitch (well, a lending pitch!) — e.g. Beautiful sound quality from this portable, beach-friendly, water-resistant sound system that connects by Bluetooth and has 10 hours of battery life. Great for any outdoor activities that could do with some music. Comes with charger cable for USB port.
• Finally, add some photos. Try to make these clean and clear and not have anything else in the background. In fact, you should try to have as white a background as possible. If your item is new, you can always find an online image, but if your item has damage or wear and tear, make sure to take photos of your actual item so the borrowers know what they are getting.

Pro tip: You can borrow a portable light studio from Daggle for free that will let you take great, clean, crisp photos of your items and boost your chances of lending them out! Just search for ‘Daggle light studio’!

How to Edit an Item

Once your items are up, you may wish to edit them from time to time, perhaps adding richer descriptions, editing the name to make it clearer, adding better photos, or changing the price.

For example, you may wish to set the price to zero for friends or family when they borrow an item. Even though you won’t be earning anything from it, you can at least keep track of who has borrowed your stuff and for how long!

To make any edits, navigate to your Account page again through the menu. Tap on Lending, then scroll down to My Items, where you can click on the item you wish to edit and inside the item page you will find an ‘Edit item’ button.

This shows you the same pop up as when you were adding an item. Here you can adjust all the details as you wish.

On the Edit item page you can also select to hide the item, if you decide to use the item yourself or simply want it temporarily removed from the listings. You can always unhide and restore it to the listings later so people can find it.

And if for some reason you’d like to remove it altogether, you can delete the item. This cannot be reversed, so please consider this carefully, as you would lose all the details and information about the item, including transaction history.

Lending: How to Start a Transaction

At some point you’ll likely get an email informing you that someone has requested to borrow an item. The email will include the item they want to borrow, the estimated date and time they’d like to borrow it for, the estimated amount you would earn, plus details on them as the borrower, such as name, their rating score, their verification level, etc.

At this point, there is nothing committed and you can dismiss the request, should you not be interested in lending it for whatever reason (maybe the timing is bad, or you want someone with a higher score).

If you do want to proceed, your next step is to get in touch. The email will come with their contact details, so go ahead and reach out to them. It’s best to do this soon, ideally within 24 hours, so that you have a good response time. But be sure to check when they want the item, in case it’s a last-minute request.

Once you are in touch and have confirmed they still want the item, you can can ask them any questions you like. For example, if you have a specialty item that requires extra care, skills, or licensing, you can ask if they have these and know how to use it safely and appropriately.

Once you are satisfied, you can arrange the drop off and meet them at the agreed time and place.

Important Safety Note

Your safety is paramount. For the most part, meeting a borrower through Daggle should be safe two main reasons. The first is our verification process that allows us to confirm who our users are by verifying:

• email address (level 1)
• mobile phone numbers (level 2)
• IDs (level 3)
• proof of address (level 4)

The second is our star-rating system. If you see someone has a low star rating, this could be because they previously demonstrated poor behaviour, and you can decline to lend them the item. You would also have the opportunity to give the borrower a low score if they acted inappropriately in any way towards you during the transaction.

Combined, this deters bad actors and allows Daggle to remove those with bad scores, keeping the Daggle experience as high quality as possible.

Above all: Please be considerate of your safety. The safest option when meeting someone for the first time is to agree to meet them in a public place or with a friend. If ever you are concerned that someone using Daggle is a threat or harassment, please email complaints@daggle.org.

When you finally meet, show them the item and allow them to inspect it. You can then answer any questions they have or agree to any change in price they may request, say for example if they are going to have it for an extended period of time. (To change the price, simply click on Edit item and update it.)

It is advisable that you then both take photos of the item so you each have a record of its condition before it is lent out.

To lend the item out, navigate to your Account page and then tap on Lending. Under Requested Items, you will find the item and a button that says Start Transaction.

When you click on this is brings up a QR code. The borrower will then scan this using Daggle from their side.

If for some reason they are not able to scan the QR code, the borrower can enter the 3-word code instead.

Once the code is accepted, the transaction has begun!

Lending: Tracking the Transaction

Now that they have your item, you can carry on with your day. While you’re doing that, Daggle will be transferring funds from the borrower’s account to yours on a real-time, per second basis.

(Read more about real-time payments, or try our post on managing your Daggle account.)

To track this, simply navigate to your Account again and under Lending you will see Active Transactions. Here you can see all the items you’ve lent out. for how long they’ve been borrowed, down to the second, and how much you’ve earned so far — pretty cool, huh?

If you click on the item, you can find more details, such as the total time the item has ever been lent out, so over time you can see which of your items are the most popular and earning you the most.

Lending: How to End a Transaction

At some point you will have to meet again so the borrower can drop off the item and return it to you. It is advisable to check in with the borrower that you will still meet at the agreed time and place. If so, go ahead and meet them there.

When you meet them, be friendly, ask them how it was or if they had any issues. (Remember: at the end of the transaction they will star rate both the item and you).

You can then inspect the item to make sure it doesn’t have any damage or missing pieces. If you are happy, then find the item in your account page and click on End Transaction.

By clicking on it your phone will bring up your camera. The borrower will then have a QR code for you to scan. If the camera isn’t able to pick up the QR code, not to worry, you can simply type in the 3-word code instead.

That then closes the transaction and all real-time payments stop. Well done!

Lending: After the Transaction

And that’s it! You’ll be taken to a star-rating page, should you wish to give the borrower a score. Hopefully everything was perfect, but if it wasn’t, feel free to reflect that in your ratings.

The page will also tell you how much you earned on the item during that transaction, so you’ll know what the final payment was.

Back in your account page, the item will no longer be flagged as an active transaction and will now be available again to lend to the next user.

What if you’re not happy with the condition of the item when it is returned?

The first step is to discuss it with the borrower. Without being aggressive or accusatory, asked what happened. You can both refer to the photos you each took to confirm that there was damage made.

It is up to the two of you to resolve, whether it be compensation, or some other solution. Whatever you can both agree on.

If there is no agreement, and you remain dissatisfied you can inform the borrower that you are not happy and that this would lead you to give the user a low star rating when the transaction ends. This might encourage them to be more conciliatory.

If that doesn’t work, please email complaints@daggle.org explaining the case, including as much detail as you, including time, place, user, item, photos, etc. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

What if you’re not able to meet the borrower due to an unforeseen emergency?

Life happens, and there will be times that you can’t meet the borrower to take the item back. That means the borrower keeps on paying you, even though they are finished using the item. This is unfair, so what can be done?

Well, Daggle has an Emergency Stop mechanism (coming soon) that can help, making it fair for the borrower without putting your item at risk. You can read more about it here.

That brings us to the end of your lending journey into the real-time and sharing economies! If you’re interested in how to borrow items, you can read our borrowing guide here.

We hope you have a great experience using Daggle. Please do let us know if you have any thoughts or suggestions on how we can it even better!

Happy Daggling!