Online renting of toys becomes child's play

PUNE: Come Saturday and five-year-old Rohan anxiously waits for the doorbell to ring. And when it does, he knows that the toy-delivery man has arrived to drop off new playthings that his mom rented for him online.
Swati Pattar was worried when her son didn't show any interest in going out to play. But this was only till she discovered that she could rent a toy slide for a few days and let her son play with it within the confines of the house."Rohan was an introvert who would keep things to himself and it was a task to get him outdoors. But once he got used to the toy slide, he was eager to go out and try the bigger ones," she says.
Pattar and her son have since then been loyal customers of Toyshare, an online toy library, which does delivery and pickup of small children toys across the city.
The trend of renting toys online is catching up in the city. Not only does it save time and money, but it also helps children develop new set of skills. "Renting a toy makes more sense, as the child gets to play with a variety of toys over a period of time and parents don't have to shell out a lot of money. It's a win-win situation for both the parties," says one of the parents.
As family structures and job profiles change, it is not uncommon for parents to find themselves in a quandary - when they want to give their kids the best of everything, but wonder how to keep up with the rising costs.
soon find themselves staring at storage troubles for the pile of toys and baby items that their child has outgrown. With joint families no more being a norm, there are no cherished toys, clothes, books, cots and cribs to be handed down.
Nikunj Verma, the brain behind Gbabe, a company which makes baby products like prams and strollers available on rent, says: felt the absence of an extended family here, while she was in her third trimester of pregnancy.
"As a parent, I wanted to give my baby the best of everything, but gradually realized that things were too expensive." she said.
This led Verma to brainstorm on how to solve this issue, and gradually was born the idea of setting up an online space where parents could find products like prams, high chairs and car seats at almost one-fourth of the retail price.
The absence of an experienced hand to answer doubts and queries made Verma realize what women in nuclear families needed. "Since parents were already visiting Gbabe, I decided to extend the website and build a community where expecting and new mothers could have heart-to-heart discussions and learn from other people's experiences too," she says.
Gbabe became popular within two years of starting up as mothers with infants and toddlers found it very convenient to get products picked and delivered to their doorsteps. For parents like Neha Krishna, who wished to take a vacation with her four-month old daughter, Gbabe's model proved to be life saver. "I was really keen on a vacation, but was unsure if I should buy a new car seat and if my daughter would even like it. I took a trial from this portal and my daughter really loved it," says Krishna, who claims she saved around Rs 15,000 for taking the renting route instead of buying the product.
The community of parents who has taken to renting out baby products is only growing with many vouching for the products' cleanliness. Both Verma and Sushma Bhat of Toyshare supervise the meticulous cleaning and sanitization of the all the products once they are back from the parents.
While children eagerly wait for the deliveryman, parents are happy that they are now able to expose their children to a variety of toys and books than they could have otherwise been able to afford.
"Any number of toys is not enough for growing children as they get easily bored. This library also helps in making my son responsible as I teach him how to take care of the toys," says Trupti Sahasrabudhe, parent of a three-year-old. "I am extremely glad that this way my son is learning from an early age the concept of sharing," she adds.
While Toyshare works on a package subscription basis, and rents out toys, books and CDs for up to a month at a go, Gbabe has individual rental amounts for each product and is flexible on the time duration of the rental. Verma says the business model for such ventures is slightly different. "It is all about building trust with parents and giving consistent personalized service."
Another Thane-based company Precared was started with a similar aim of helping parents deal with expensive toys which later only pile up in the house. Tabrez Khan, the founder of Precared, says he realized in 2011 that there was a huge potential for reselling and buying of baby products, as the discard rate was quite high.
"All products for infants and toddlers are very expensive, and since parents are well travelled, they want products of the best brand with the maximum features. But I realized that the trust factor in India was low for sharing used baby products. Therefore, I decided to build an online marketplace just for this niche sector," says Khan. Khan's Precared examines the condition of a product and rates it on a scale of one to five stars and prices them accordingly. Khan shared that Precared is now selling almost 3 lakh units per year to customers all across India. All these companies claim that most orders are from return customers. "Once convinced of the quality and cleanliness, we were hooked on to using the rental model. It was effective and affordable."
AVAILABLE ON RENT
Toys, books, CDs, prams, strollers, cribs, car seats, high chairs, cradles, cots, walkers, rockers, baby gym, bicycles, toy cars, scooters, swings, slides
COST
Baby products can be procured on rent or on second-hand sale at half the rate
AGE GROUP
0-8years