What would you pay to RENT Bost Noise Cancelers?
 

So I am thinking about adding this service to my website... renting Bose Noise Canceling headsets.

How much would you be willing to pay to rent them? Here is what I am thinking

5 days @ $50 (includes round/trip postage)
Each additional day is $8.50

I appreciate your imput.

how much do they cost to buy in the states ?

i have no idea if 50 is close to the rrp or not.

I think they cost $300 retail.

That said, since I've got in-ear phones which are at least twice as effective at reducing noise as the Bose sets, I'm not your target buyer.

Bose - Better Sound Through Marketing... :)

Anyone who flys enough to want a pair might use such a service once to test them, and after that buy their own pair.

I'm also not in the target market, since I bought a couple of non-Bose nc headphones for less than $30 each. But if I didn't have those, I might be interested in a rental just to see how they work, and then once I experienced the difference, my flight frequency is perhaps about right to consider renting rather than buying. But I typically only use them on the airplane, not in between flights. So I'd be even more interested in a rental I could pick up at the departure airport and drop off at the arrival airport. For such a rental, $50 as a minimum rental is too much.

If your website venture is successful enough to attract their attention, I'd think you'd pretty soon see competition from the InMotion airport shops, and possibly also from the Bose airport shops. I'd expect InMotion would probably rent them for about $7.50 per flight (or per day), and the Bose shops might rent them for $10 or $12 per flight or per day, but offer to apply all of that toward the purchase of the headphones.

Especially for 5 days. So if I took a single two week trip, I'd have to pay $150 to rent a pair of headphones?

Why would I do that when I could just go buy them(and keep them) for $300?

I don't know how well this would do, seems like a strategy that isn't built on repeat patronage considering the amount you're charging.

wow way to expensive.
Why not work with those movie kiosks or someone who already has a presence in an airport and rent them at the departure airport and drop them back at the arrival ariport and charge $7/day. That might work, $50 plus planning ahead is going to require to much investment of money and time.

Your real market might be European. They cost nearer $500 over here.

On my jaunts to/from Japan, before I bought a pair of my own in LAS, I would have gladly paid around £20 to hire them for a single trip.

If you can get kiosks in airports where affluent Brits go on long haul holidays (Thailand, Australia, Mexico etc...) you'd be amazed at what people would spend on them.

The QC1's, which I use (hand me downs when the wife got the 2's) sell used on e-bay for under $100 all the time. I would buy a pair.

If I was renting for that kind of money, I would probably buy a pair of a lesser brand to have as my own.

It's just not something I would rent at that price.

I think the flaw is that nearly all of your renters would be one-time.

If they rent and like them, they'll probably buy a pair. If they rent and don't like them, they won't rent again.

Either way, there's no repeat business. It would probably be a more appropriate venture for an existing Bose store, who could rent them out with postage-paid return mailer and a coupon to be used toward purchase.

Of course, most of those coupons would likely end up on e-bay or in CC. ;)

Offering this type of service would make more sense offered at an airport kiosk, possible bundled with DVD and or cell phone rentals.

I don't think I would be willing (or could even afford) to pay more than 10 bucks a day.

I'd be willing to rent them for $10 for the flight. I'd probably stretch to $15 for one day, or $35 for a week. I don't use mine unless I'm flying. I use ear buds when I'm not flying

Will you be marketing to the person that flies enough to remember how loud the plane can be, but hasn't committed to a purchase?

I went back and forth about paying $300 for my QCII's. I bought a pair of Maxell $30 headphones, and saw a bose kiosk at the Denver airport. I purchased the bose to try them out, I knew that I could return them within 30 days... The Maxell's have been sitting on a shelf ever since.

Bose Headphone Rental
 

Your idea is a good one, but I question the weekly rental price and think your target audience might incude the non-frequent flyer. I am on my second pair of QC2 headphones (lost the first pair at LGA) and recommend them passionately to my friends, many of whom might be interested in renting for long transcontinental or overseas flights. I find longer flights much easier to bear with the Bose headphones.

I think it would have to target the impulse renter, since if you plan ahead, you could just buy them from Bose and try them, since you do have 30 days to return them. That way, you would only be out shipping at the most, and if you like them, you can just keep them. I think the price would have to be much lower.

fuzz