5 Advantages of Renting and Why Flambu is the Future
How many times have you bought something that sat idly in your home after using it once? Nowadays, as e-commerce makes online shopping more commonplace, impulse buying becomes easier by the day. Buying items with a short-term outlook often leads to wasted time, money, and space. Purchasing items that are not certainly needed for long-term or frequent usage begins to burn a hole in your wallet, clutter rooms in your house, and negatively affects the environment.
Renting has proven to be a more cost-effective means of purchasing for both the renter and lender. Buying something brand new often comes with unnecessary added costs; you can typically get the same quality items for a reduced price when renting second-hand. All the meanwhile, as an added bonus, you are saving space in your home and helping the environment.
In this article, we will explain five benefits of renting and articulate why it is an efficient means for the future of online transactions. Additionally, we will explain why the new app Flambu, a community-centric marketplace for sharing and borrowing items locally, is an effective platform for this revolution.
1. Cost-Effective for both Lenders and Renters
For lenders, purchasing items is often a sunk cost. Most people buy, use the item a few times, and put it away in storage. In fact, most of the items we own are idle 95% of the time! However, by renting out your items, you are able to earn back some of the money you spent on the purchase, when it would otherwise be sitting unused in your home. Renting some of your rarely used items, such as a camping tent, books, or a bicycle, is an efficient way to generate some extra income.
For the renter, it’s just as simple. Renting items always costs less than buying them. You can rent for cheap, use the items and return them when finished. There is no need to waste money on items that you expect to use one time; it’s simply inefficient.
Additionally, for both the lender and renter, Flambu’s tokenization, backed by blockchain technology, means low transaction costs, with no unnecessary fees going to large centralized organizations like banks.
2. Reduces the Carbon Footprint
One (often unintended) consequence of the mass consumption so prevalent in today’s society is the extremely damaging environmental effects of our habits. The more we buy, the more has to be produced, leading to more factory work, more pollution, and more harmful impacts on our environment. Overproduction and overconsumption are arguably among the greatest challenges of our times. Our planet’s resources are finite, and yet the way we consume them today — at a high rate and along a largely linear trajectory — is not sustainable. In the simplest terms, if everyone around the world were to consume like Europeans, we would need 3 Earths’ worth of natural resources to maintain our way of life. According to the creator of Story of Stuff — an animated short film telling the story of the American love affair with stuff and how it is quite literally trashing the planet and has been seen by 10 million people in homes and classrooms all over the world — consumerism is always bad, adding little to our wellbeing as well as being disastrous for the planet. Despite the rising awareness and increasing efforts to address sustainability in many dimensions, environmental sustainability is still under threat, with accelerating growth in global greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss.
The challenges have triggered many government-backed programs, including the EU’s Sustainable Development Goals program which is leading the way towards a more sustainable future. In fact, according to reports, Amazon the e-commerce giant throws away thousands of products a week because their free returns policy became an essential consumer acquisition policy. However, an unintended consequence of this customer service is the problematic overproduction loop. Instead of being a good example to other SMB’s in terms of sustainability, they chose to destroy those items as best strategy for them to reduce their supply chain costs and operational complexity.
Therefore, there is no discussion that the more people rent, the fewer goods that need to be produced… Renting is an efficient way to begin reducing our carbon footprint.
3. Facilitates Communal Relationships
Lending and renting items on community-centric platforms like Flambu is a great way to meet neighbors and establish new connections with surrounding, like-minded people. In today’s screen-dominated society, people can spend decades living in the same neighborhood without ever getting to know the people who live on the same block. It is entirely possible that we share many of the same interests as our neighbors but there is currently no effective platform for identifying these commonalities. Sharing resources with neighbors and community members can help facilitate conversations and create relationships with others around you. You will be able to learn from others about their interests and experiences. You can meet people that you would probably not cross paths with otherwise.
4. Convenience
With new apps like Flambu, renting is easier than ever before. There’s no longer a third-party involved — you can speak directly to the person you are interested in renting from with just the click of a button. All it takes is a few minutes of your time, and you can acquire whatever product you’re looking for, for a lower price than if you bought it at a store. In addition to the convenience provided by saving time and money, by renting, you are saving space in your home as well. The average American home has over 300,000 items inside (LA Times) — any home could surely use getting rid of a few. Such renting platforms provide the means to lend out items which you don’t currently need, as well as only purchase items when you need — both of which save space in the home.
Additionally, renting an item for single-use allows you to try out an item with low cost, in order to help determine if that item might be something you’re interested in buying. So often, we buy things that we think we might get some use out of, only to find out very quickly that we have made a mistake. Trying out an item once or twice before buying it will solve that problem.
5. Allows for New Experiences
Say you’re going camping for the first time, trying a new musical instrument, or even need a larger car for a road trip you’ve been putting off. Before you begin any of these exciting endeavors, you’ll need to spend time planning out how you’ll find the means and space to purchase the necessary equipment. Seeking adventure and new experiences often comes with the financial burden of buying new equipment which you’ll often only use once. This is where renting comes in handy: if you know you’ll only be using a certain item for a period of time, you get what you need for only that period with rental platforms such as Flambu. Renting allows you to live spontaneously without breaking the bank.
After understanding all of these benefits of renting, it is easy to see why Flambu is the future of the industry. As an easy-to-use, person-to-person renting platform, Flambu makes the entire process seamless. Flambu offers you the ability to categorize your search by price, category, and location. These features can help you prioritize cost-effectiveness, convenience, and communal social benefit. For the future of online renting, look no further than Flambu.
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