/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.57177088]

Do you guys think an e-bike rental business would be profitable?

This is my idea:

>buy 200 e-bikes from china for $600 each
>make a website where customers can rent one for X months
>make the 12 month contract the most desirable by giving the first month for free
>bike maintenance is simple and cheap
>insure all the e-bikes from theft

It's a rough plan, but isn't this a good idea?

[Anonymous No.57177101]

>>57177088
this is one of those plans that work fine on paper, but when trying to implement there is a million headaches and unforeseen problems.
Good job thinking of an actual business idea and not shilling some scam, but this will not work for many reasons.

[Anonymous No.57177105]

>>57177088
>didn’t factor in niggers
Ngmi

[Anonymous No.57177111]

>>57177101
Could you tell me some of these problems?
>>57177105
I did anon, I would insure all the bikes

[Anonymous No.57177112]

Niggers will just throw them into the nearest body of water

[Anonymous No.57177113]

Profit margin is too low to make it worth while.

[Anonymous No.57177133]

>>57177111
No, you’re insuring the bikes from theft. I’m not talking about theft, I’m talking about niggers.
I’ve watched niggers rag doll lime scooters into bushes for no reason. I’ve watched niggers take lime scooters and throw them down flights of stairs.
That’s what the guy above me meant by (headaches) unless you live in Japan I wouldn’t bother.

[Anonymous No.57177135]

>>57177088
What do you do when niggers steal and vandalize your bikes?

[Anonymous No.57177149]

>>57177088
Don't listen to the other anons, any business idea can be nitpicked with those dumb arguments.

How much are you gonna charge and how will you store the bikes?

[Anonymous No.57177155]

>>57177111
>why would i rent a bike when I could own one?
>how will people become aware of this rental website?
>how will the bike get to the customer once rented?
>how will they return the bike?
you also underestimate maintenance, they will likely always come back with some issue. yes its cheap but will be a constant overhead. same with insurance, how do you even get insurance for something like that? insurance will also cut into profits significantly.
this will be a near full-time endeavor for possibly less than a normal job.
literally every bike will get stolen aswell.

[Anonymous No.57177158]

>>57177133
The insurance should also cover damages
I live in Norway, so we do have bike theft but I don't think it's like the US
>>57177135
Insurance

[Anonymous No.57177161]

yea, whos gonna charge em

[Anonymous No.57177173]

>>57177088
Sounds good. Be sure to go big or go home.

[Anonymous No.57177183]

>>57177158
listen dude, try it out on a small scale. living in norway this idea actually makes sense.
just try with like $3k, see how it goes.

[Anonymous No.57177215]

>>57177149
I'm stealing this idea from a business that already exists here, but I would charge $950 for a 1 year contract and it would be the best deal

I looked into this business, what happens in case of theft or damages is, the insurance covers most of the cost.

Also the bikes would be stored in a cheap warehouse and delivered to customers by van.
>>57177161
You get a charger with an e-bike
>>57177155
I don't see why I couldn't figure out any of those issues desu

[Anonymous No.57177224]

>>57177183
I probably will, it's good that I can try it small scale before going big

[Anonymous No.57177310]

>>57177088
>bike maintenance is simple and cheap
No it isn't. Keeping a fleet of rental bikes running is challenging and labor-intensive enough when you're using simple but half-decent quality bikes without any electronics involved. Keeping a fleet of chinkshit electronic ones going for a clientele of long-term renters who will rely on you as their helpdesk and on-call wrench service sounds like an absolute nightmare. You are probably vastly underestimating your overhead for staff to keep them running and not factoring in enough spare units and parts to have on hand to make substitutions and repairs.

Can you offer a rental experience that's price/service competitive with just financing their own chinkshit bike with Affirm? Theoretically maybe but it sounds hard.

[Anonymous No.57177368]

>>57177310
>No it isn't.
I use my e-bike daily and the maintenance on it is easy enough where a complete retard like me can fix any issue with it myself
The derailleur is the most annoying part to deal with, but e-bikes don't have it. They have internal gear hubs, which are maintenance free. IGH last around 10 years.
Changing wheels, chains, lights, all of that is cheap and quick. If I can do it all from a shitty Youtube video, it's easy.
The electric part of an e-bike is simple, it either works or it doesn't. If a battery breaks you replace it.

[Anonymous No.57177435]

>>57177215
>You get a charger with an e-bike
ur gonna find each of them when they are out of charge and take them to ur house and charge them?

[Anonymous No.57177452]

>>57177435
No senpai, you didn't get the business plan.
A customer would get the bike delivered to them and keep it 24/7 during their contract length.
They would get a charger with it and it's up to them to do it at their home or where ever.

[Anonymous No.57177482]

Who will repair them? Where will you store them? Who will man the phones? Do you need a van to deliver them? How much per month do you want to charge?

[Anonymous No.57177522]

>>57177482
>Who will repair them?
I was thinking to teach a few guys how to fix them and then give them 30 hour weeks to fix them.
>Where will you store them?
Storage outside the city
>>57177482
>Who will man the phones?
No phones, only e-mail support. The business I'm inspired by has no phone support. A few people should do the trick.

[Anonymous No.57177533]

>>57177088
This room they're in is aesthetic as fuck, in a 70's/80's kind of vibe, I love it and I wish I could replicate it in my home.

[Anonymous No.57177535]

>>57177158
>Insurance
Insurance is not magic, how do you even have 120,000 bucks for all these bikes if you're too dumb to know after a while they'll stop insuring you because you cost them too much with all the niggers?

[Anonymous No.57177554]

>>57177535
Wouldn't they just increase the premium in that case?

[Anonymous No.57177590]

>>57177088

As long as you're not in a nigger filled shithole where the bikes get stolen, should be fine.

[Anonymous No.57177664]

>>57177522
>No phones, only e-mail support. The business I'm inspired by has no phone support. A few people should do the trick.

Adds a lot of labor and complexity a bit by dealing with people over the phone but it will set you way over the competition.

I'd consider do phone service 8am to 4pm

Phone service may allow you to avoid having to service the bike yourself and wasting the time and labor if you can explain an easy fix to the customer.

If you are in Norway this may work. I'm in a medium sized city in the Midwest and there is a company that rents electric scooters around here.

They are GPSed and the company just goes around collects them and to charge them. The city is probably 25,000-30,000 people but there is a university close so I think that is the target demographic although I see more people just riding them to and from work if I had to guess.

They use a mobile app and you enter your debit/credit card to rent it per minutes. I have no idea the rate I've never used one but man do black people FUCKING LOVE THEM.

Idk if they get destroyed often but I see people zooming around on them all the time. I've never witnessed them personally being abused by customers. Seriously though its almost always black people using them. I mention that to give a counter perspective to the other posters who suggest it won't work because of that reason. The business model is different than yours but probably quite similar.

Godspeed OP you should give it a shot but as others said start a bit smaller. Maybe 20-30 units and go from there. Unfortunately its hard to know but some models like this require a lot of units from the start to be worth doing but you can always test proof of concept.

[Anonymous No.57177717]

Better hope no niggers come near your bikes.

[Anonymous No.57177748]

>>57177664
>Adds a lot of labor and complexity a bit by dealing with people over the phone but it will set you way over the competition. I'd consider do phone service 8am to 4pm

Good idea.

>Idk if they get destroyed often but I see people zooming around on them all the time.

Yea I see people drive around rental bikes all over the city, so my idea might actually work.

>Godspeed OP
Thx anon
>>57177717
I'm in Norway which is, dare I assume, nothing like Detroit

[Anonymous No.57177770]

>>57177088
Make sure they go about 60mph and have enough torque for highway speeds. Think of it like leasing these bad boys out to anyone living in a major city.

In places like New York, Portland, DC, SoCal, if you could rent this for about 200 bucks a month there would most likely be a market for it.


>the only problem I see with this is, why would I want to rent an ebike from you for 12 months when in that time frame I would have spent enough to buy the bike outright.

[Anonymous No.57177896]

>>57177770
>>the only problem I see with this is, why would I want to rent an ebike from you for 12 months when in that time frame I would have spent enough to buy the bike outright
This is what I dont get either. If op is going for a bulk discount, that's risky, he should test this out on a smaller scale first.

[Anonymous No.57177935]

>>57177770
>>57177896
>the only problem I see with this is, why would I want to rent an ebike from you for 12 months when in that time frame I would have spent enough to buy the bike outright

I thought the same thing at first, but I see these bikes everywhere and these companies have been around for years. Sometimes the world makes no sense.

[Anonymous No.57177973]

>>57177088
if viralx made an anti-scammer marketing project work in a market full of scammers you can make it work chum

[Anonymous No.57178882]

>>57177554
Which eats into your profit margin which I doubt would be much to begin with. And yes they’ll raise your premiums but eventually it just won’t be worth it to them and they’ll drop you

[Anonymous No.57178896]

>>57177088
why would someone only rent an ebike for 12 months when he can just finance it for 12 months and then own it??

[Anonymous No.57178920]

>>57177088
Are you jewish? If not you're gonna get sued by a jew the second you turn a profit.

[Anonymous No.57178988]

>>57177111
wastes

[Anonymous No.57179802]

I used to work in a bike shop. Owner said bike rentals wasnt as profitable since insurance was very expensive. Im no expert but your gonna have to think about that. You could get sued real quick for a bike with a mechanical issue if someone gets hurt. And if niggers from Detroit ever end up on vacation out by you, your bikes will not be in the best shape anymore.

[Anonymous No.57179845]

>>57177935
I think your issue right there is that they work directly from the manufacturer. Bird, lime, and other rental apps banded together which could mean something.

It’s not that they don’t make money doing this. But in the beginning they had tons of money to throw at this project to make it somewhat profitable

[Anonymous No.57180065]

>>57177664
these scooters are in every mid-sized european city, are they rare in the US?

[Anonymous No.57180758]

>>57177215
If the business already work where you live it sounds like a solid idea, just do the same as the competition but better and cheaper

>I would charge $950 for a 1 year contract and it would be the best deal
Now that puzzles me, why would anyone would pay $950 to rent bike for a year instead of paying $600 to own the same bike?

[Anonymous No.57180760]

>>57177088
>Throws rental bike into river

What now?

[Anonymous No.57180876]

>>57177088
>bike maintenance is simple and cheap
Ebike batteries are shit and rapidly deteriorate