Survey for cubing service

Have you ever seen other services offering the same thing?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
OK, that price is for an XS, of course it would be cheaper for other less expensive cubes.

Thanks to everybody who took the survey! You've responded surprisingly quickly!
 
I think a cube setup service could be worth it in countries that don't have a store that does setup (cubicle / scs in US), but only if you can get shipping costs down, which is only likely if you have lots of volume or you operate domestically. However this is more cheaply done by stores that already exist in the country.
 
Ah, I responded to the survey since I thought it was new xD If you're still at all considering this idea, I agree with Micah and brodo. If I want to test out a cube for 2 days, I wouldn't want to pay $10 plus shipping.
 
This really isn't an idea worth pursuing in my opinion. It just simply isn't viable or worth it for either party.

Like other people mentioned, they can just try cubes at a comp for free, but the real issue is cost of logistics and risk.

It would be super easy for someone to just keep the puzzle and disappear, and then you're out a cube. The most trustworthy person online could "rent" a cube, have you send it to a PO box, cancel the PO box, and disappear and you have no way to really back track to them and force them to return it.

And then how do you calculate how long someone is renting a cube? Unless they happen to live in the same town, packing and shipping will add time to how long the cube is gone. Say you ship it cross-country, and it is in the mail for three days before the person even gets the cube. Do you charge them for the three days you didn't have your cube?

Afterwards, who pays for the return shipping? If it's the customer, they have to repack and ship it, and when combined with costs of renting it, they would likely just be better off buying a new cube they can keep and get more value from over the long term.

If the OP is the one also paying for return shipping, then just the shipping both ways will eat into any profit margin you might have so heavily that it simply won't be worth the hassle.

Also generally speaking, " I will have standards on who I will send my cubes to though," isn't really a good way to run a business in the real world. Businesses have the right to refuse service for certain reasons, but simply disqualifying someone from partaking in your business based on merit or whether they seem trustworthy can get you into discrimination complaints in the real world!
 
OreKehStrah said:
This really isn't an idea worth pursuing in my opinion. It just simply isn't viable or worth it for either party.

Like other people mentioned, they can just try cubes at a comp for free, but the real issue is cost of logistics and risk.

It would be super easy for someone to just keep the puzzle and disappear, and then you're out a cube. The most trustworthy person online could "rent" a cube, have you send it to a PO box, cancel the PO box, and disappear and you have no way to really back track to them and force them to return it.

And then how do you calculate how long someone is renting a cube? Unless they happen to live in the same town, packing and shipping will add time to how long the cube is gone. Say you ship it cross-country, and it is in the mail for three days before the person even gets the cube. Do you charge them for the three days you didn't have your cube?

Afterwards, who pays for the return shipping? If it's the customer, they have to repack and ship it, and when combined with costs of renting it, they would likely just be better off buying a new cube they can keep and get more value from over the long term.

If the OP is the one also paying for return shipping, then just the shipping both ways will eat into any profit margin you might have so heavily that it simply won't be worth the hassle.

Also generally speaking, " I will have standards on who I will send my cubes to though," isn't really a good way to run a business in the real world. Businesses have the right to refuse service for certain reasons, but simply disqualifying someone from partaking in your business based on merit or whether they seem trustworthy can get you into discrimination complaints in the real world!
Click to expand...
It's a bit presumptuous of you to assume what my future plans with this idea are. I understand your criticisms and even thank you for them, but to throw a whole wall of text at me about how awful my idea is kinda sucks. Especially when some things you are saying could be solved by simply some common sense and 10 minutes of research.
I have a right to select who I want to send cubes to if it's on a small scale like it is now. This approach will obviously only apply to now when it is small scale.


  • When you say people can just go try cubes at comps. Go ahead try, oh wait, you can't.
  • I would be getting around the problem of stealing by pre-screening the person (again only works on a small scale) before I considered sending cubes. My standards wouldn't be crazy high, I would just want the person to have had an account on this site for longer than 24 seconds. Also if there was any question as to the trustworthiness of a potential client, certain other measures could be taken such as asking for a deposit at least 3/4 value of the cube in question.
  • I would "calculate" how long someone had a cube for by getting the information about when it was delivered using the various FREE package tracking services and use the same method to see when the package was sent back (I would ask for the tracking number from the person renting).
  • For now I would pay for shipping and you would pay for return shipping. You would have to weigh the pros and cons of paying for the return shipping yourself. My prices, I admit, were too high. $10 a day for a cube is a lot of money.
  • If the OP is paying for return shipping then prices would have to be adjusted to accommodate this.
  • Back to my original point this solution is temporary. Even if it wasn't, people demand credibility and trustworthiness in many different businesses. Credit card companies demand high credit scores for card eligibility, loan offices make it impossible to take out a loan if you're debt history is spotty, and other services such as ebay have a rating system in place to sort out the Sketchy McShadytons prowling the web for any poor sucker from whom they want to extract money. Please do more research before making unsupported claims on the internet.
In conclusion, many of the points you make are valid, however, the majority are easily solved. I still think this is a viable business idea because of the success of other prolific renting companies including but not limited to: Uhaul (they rent much more than just trucks), literally all apartments, and the various construction/home repair hardware rental services available on the market.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk that is all

@Redcrosscfop
Would you be able to point me to the rental service you have seen in the past? I need to *ahem* have a talk with them...
 
Last edited:
A bit tangential from the current discussion, but I can actually see myself using this service if it's really good and inexpensive. If I could pay $5 to test out the best 7x7 on the market for a couple of days, I'd do it no question! It really depends on the price, though.
 
Aerma said:
A bit tangential from the current discussion, but I can actually see myself using this service if it's really good and inexpensive. If I could pay $5 to test out the best 7x7 on the market for a couple of days, I'd do it no question! It really depends on the price, though.
Click to expand...
Yeah give me a PM if you're ever interested!
 
NevEr_QeyX said:
It's a bit presumptuous of you to assume what my future plans with this idea are. I understand your criticisms and even thank you for them, but to throw a whole wall of text at me about how awful my idea is kinda sucks. Especially when some things you are saying could be solved by simply some common sense and 10 minutes of research.
I have a right to select who I want to send cubes to if it's on a small scale like it is now. This approach will obviously only apply to now when it is small scale.


  • When you say people can just go try cubes at comps. Go ahead try, oh wait, you can't.
  • I would be getting around the problem of stealing by pre-screening the person (again only works on a small scale) before I considered sending cubes. My standards wouldn't be crazy high, I would just want the person to have had an account on this site for longer than 24 seconds. Also if there was any question as to the trustworthiness of a potential client, certain other measures could be taken such as asking for a deposit at least 3/4 value of the cube in question.
  • I would "calculate" how long someone had a cube for by getting the information about when it was delivered using the various FREE package tracking services and use the same method to see when the package was sent back (I would ask for the tracking number from the person renting).
  • For now I would pay for shipping and you would pay for return shipping. You would have to weigh the pros and cons of paying for the return shipping yourself. My prices, I admit, were too high. $10 a day for a cube is a lot of money.
  • If the OP is paying for return shipping then prices would have to be adjusted to accommodate this.
  • Back to my original point this solution is temporary. Even if it wasn't, people demand credibility and trustworthiness in many different businesses. Credit card companies demand high credit scores for card eligibility, loan offices make it impossible to take out a loan if you're debt history is spotty, and other services such as ebay have a rating system in place to sort out the Sketchy McShadytons prowling the web for any poor sucker from whom they want to extract money. Please do more research before making unsupported claims on the internet.
In conclusion, many of the points you make are valid, however, the majority are easily solved. I still think this is a viable business idea because of the success of other prolific renting companies including but not limited to: Uhaul (they rent much more than just trucks), literally all apartments, and the various construction/home repair hardware rental services available on the market.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk that is all
Click to expand...
It’s not really presumptuous to assume you wanna make money off of this idea. The idea itself is fine. It would just be very difficult to find a way to make it reliable and profitable such that it’s worth the time it takes to handle the logistics, plus your screening process.
Now, as far as the 3/4 value deposit idea goes, that could work. I’m not sure how many people would really want send a stranger some money upfront as a coverage for a cube coming in they don’t get to keep. The problem with this fix is that if somewhere like theCubicle or SCS sees an idea like this become popular, they can just implement a return policy, for popular cubes people are interested in, such that you have a day to try the cube and if you want you can return it. It’s no longer a new in box cube, but because it’s from a list of hot cubes, they can then take it and simply clean it out and turn it into one of their preset up cubes. They would probably need some kind of return fee or you might have to pay return shipping or something. Or have this return option as an extra thing you can pay for, and get your money back on when if you keep the cube.
I want reiterate that I don’t want to discourage you, but simply want to highlight how difficult it will be to make money from this.
 
OreKehStrah said:
It’s not really presumptuous to assume you wanna make money off of this idea. The idea itself is fine. It would just be very difficult to find a way to make it reliable and profitable such that it’s worth the time it takes to handle the logistics, plus your screening process.
Now, as far as the 3/4 value deposit idea goes, that could work. I’m not sure how many people would really want send a stranger some money upfront as a coverage for a cube coming in they don’t get to keep. The problem with this fix is that if somewhere like theCubicle or SCS sees an idea like this become popular, they can just implement a return policy, for popular cubes people are interested in, such that you have a day to try the cube and if you want you can return it. It’s no longer a new in box cube, but because it’s from a list of hot cubes, they can then take it and simply clean it out and turn it into one of their preset up cubes. They would probably need some kind of return fee or you might have to pay return shipping or something. Or have this return option as an extra thing you can pay for, and get your money back on when if you keep the cube.
I want reiterate that I don’t want to discourage you, but simply want to highlight how difficult it will be to make money from this.
Click to expand...
It's presumptuous of you to assume that I want to take this anywhere. That's what I meant. Of course I want this to be a profitable endeavor, anyone would. Believe it or not even small scale businesses want to make money. I can see your concern for how everything would work but I haven't really taken the steps to calculate costs. The purpose of this thread was to make the survey known and gather info about my possible customer base. Mainly I would be running this thing out of speedsolving but if I ever wanted to expand to a larger set of people I would consider NOT pre-screening. I think we have different ideas in out head of what this will turn out to be.

SatansJester said:
No one can trademark, patent or otherwise IP protect the idea of renting something to someone.
Click to expand...
That's not the point of what I was asking, I just wanted to observe their strategies and possible flaws.
 
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