“Consumers who are on the fence about buying the Apple Watch will be able to take it for a test drive, so to speak, before deciding whether or not it’s worth the investment,” Cadie Thompson reports for CNBC. “”
“The gadget rental start-up called Lumoid plans to rent Apple Watches as part of its wearable rental program for consumers, said, Aarthi Ramamurthy, the company’s founder and CEO,” Thompson reports. “Lumoid will roll out a waiting list on its website later this week for consumers looking to get their hands on the device when it begins shipping in April.”
“Currently, Lumoid lets customers rent a set of five wearable devices to test for seven days. At the end of the week, if the customer decides not to make a purchase, they only pay $20. That fee, however, is waived if they decide to buy one of the brands they tested. Then Lumoid ships a new model of the chosen device to the customer,” Thompson reports. “The Apple Watch will be included in this program when it becomes available, Ramamurthy said. The price for renting a set of wearables that includes the Apple device, though, will likely be priced a little more than $20, she said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Arline M.” and “David E.” for the heads up.]
If you are renting an Watch, can you also rent some arm candy too? Will it cost a little more than $20.
I have a pair of iJeans and some iSocks with sophisticated designer holes you can rent, they’re revolutionary, and the batteries last for years, the Swiss are fuXXed!
Why not just buy it, and return it if you don’t like it? You have 2 weeks.
That’s a very good point for the US and other countries with penalty-free return policies.
From a retailer and manufacture perspective, buy and return means those units must be sent in for refurbishing, then re-sold at a lower price. Whereas these rentals I imagine are not sent back to Apple for a full refurbishing, but are just cleaned up, erased, and ready to rent to the next person. I imagine the user would in fact get a brand new unit if they decide to buy it.
From the user perspective, they of course shouldn’t have to care what inconveniences a buy/return does to the seller, if it means saving $20 (look at it as a restocking fee penalty).
On the other hand, Lumoid’s business model seems to be sending you *several* devices to try out for a week, for $20 total (waived if you buy at least one of them). Most people probably don’t want to get hit with a $700-$1000 (or more!) charge on their credit card bill for buying several items at the same time, even if a week later they return everything. I wonder also if there’s a limit on how much you can return within a day or three.
I thought the article was going to say something abusing a return policy.
As an Apple Reseller the rental model may be worth looking into as an option. It should help reduce the number of returns and get consumers to try the watch out. Likely they will all end up keeping it.
For all the hoohaa surrounding the iWatch, I don’t believe it will be another ‘iPhone’ or ‘iPad’ in the levels of success these products have shown.
I think Apple will look back at this period with regret.