Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> Delivery costs $99. Pickup cost varies with the size of your order - if you’re just renting a few items, we’ll keep it between $99-$149, but if you’re outfitting a whole apartment on a 4th-floor walkup, pickup is likely to be a bit more. There is a $99 refundable deposit - we charge you on the first day of your lease, and as long as the furniture is in good shape when we pick it up, it’ll be returned after pickup! There will be a $49 charge added for a weekend delivery.

That's approximately how much IKEA charges for delivering an order though they only charge based on distance. It doesn't matter if you have a single tea light candle or furnishing an entire 25-bedroom castle.

Delivery costs aside, I'm wondering who would pay the steep premiums for these items. Take this bed for example: https://rentfeather.com/collections/bedroom/products/remy-up...

It's listed as $28/month assuming you commit to a 12-month term. That's $336 in total.

What appears to be the same bed is listed on Wayfair to buy for $338: https://www.wayfair.com/Langley-Street%E2%84%A2-Rasmussen-Up...

The annual cost is the same with the difference being at the end of the year you own the bed rather than being on the hook for an eventual "return fee".

So who would willingly enter such a deal? Is the market targeting people who don't have the credit to buy the items out right?

Or is the moving in/out aspect the real kicker? Sure it's a pain in the ass but that's a steep price to pay to avoid one phone call to a moving company (or even just a CraigsList "Free bed ... just pick it up" posting).

EDIT: Here's an even better example. I'm pretty sure these are exactly the same bed as the pictures are identical:

Purchase Queen for $200 w/ free shipping: https://www.wayfair.com/Zipcode%E2%84%A2-Design-Colby-Uphols...

Rent from Queen for $28/month = $336 + $99 shipping: https://rentfeather.com/collections/bedroom/products/dunham-...

I was just about to comment exactly this. I immediately recognized several items from Overstock, Wayfair, etc.

The price of several of the items on Feather is close or sometimes more then the retail price from Overstock/Wayfair and delivery is not included. What am I missing here and what value do they provide?

Feather might as well just drop ship the furniture to your door and send somebody to assemble it.

Edit: Looks like Wayfair even offers 2 day shipping on some items and usually provides an exact delivery day: https://www.wayfair.com/Zipcode%E2%84%A2-Design-Colby-Uphols...

This is anecdotal but a lot of my Furniture is from Overstock/Wayfair and arrives within a week living in a city. Ikea also delivers for a flat fee within a day or two.

Happy to jump in here to talk about pricing, as it seems to be a big topic of conversation (and rightfully so).

- The $338 bed that you linked to is on a massive, one-time sale right now. I've refreshed the page several times and the price keeps changing. The manufacturer must be testing a bunch of things out - take a look. Let's leave that one example there for now.

- The Purchase Queen you linked to does look nearly identical to what we get from our manufacturer that must also sell to Wayfair. And the price on this item has shifted dramatically on Wayfair as well.

Seems you grabbed a particular item that doesn't favor us well in the rent vs buy equation. For the majority of our items: try the same comparison and let me know what you find.

Point here is, we should be more aware of the dynamically shifting prices of items on other sellers websites and re-price our items accordingly. Good catch, thanks.

The specific price comparisons aside, it would make sense to offer ownership after X months. So you can position yourself as a rental + financing service. If you pay rent for, say 14 months, you own the stuff.

That combined with skipping the return fee would set up some interesting dynamics (if you’re at month 10, are you going to ride out the rental to own it or do you pay to get it out). Can’t decide if that feels user hostile or not though :-).

For what it's worth, when we bought from Wayfair it took us 9 weeks to get our couch after paying for express shipping, and it looks OK but it's a really crappy couch. Not saying Wayfair is a bad option, just there's a reason why it's so inexpensive.

At a certain point it makes sense to pay for convenience. It may not be for everyone (honestly it's not for me), but that doesn't mean there's no market.

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