4 ms·

I am not sure how they thought this would succeed, unless they plan on pivoting into the most distributed umbrella retailer ever. Umbrellas are too cheap to de

by sqeaky 9y ago

I am not sure how they thought this would succeed, unless they plan on pivoting into the most distributed umbrella retailer ever. Umbrellas are too cheap to defend with technology. Something like GPS wouldn't help recover umbrellas in a cost effective way, maybe in some future where GPS receives are a penny apiece, but not today. The only way I see to deal with the problem of people keeping umbrellas is to bill people who take them. Get their credit card or other payment information and let them know when they spend their quarter, or whatever, on the umbrella that if they don't return by a certain time it they will be charged for it. Then you just accept that you are an online retailer with a storefront of everywhere. Even then this presumes that somehow the umbrella is unusable without registering, how do you make that happen? I will just presumed they solved that one.

jimmies 9y ago
>Umbrellas are too cheap to defend with technology. Something like GPS wouldn't help recover umbrellas in a cost effective way, maybe in some future where GPS receives are a penny apiece, but not today. I wouldn't go as far as locating them, but keeping track of them using technology seems feasible. How about having an NFC tag implanted to the umbrella to make sure it is returned?
- chii 9y ago
  I bet you'll find that ppl will rip out the chip and return just that, unless there's a human checking the returns.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    Do you think there are enough disreputable people to make that a problem? I mean it chip has a unique ID or its not doing its job, and you get the payment info of each user. There are incentives to not stealing these things, so you are really just worried about vandals and immoral penny penchers trying to skirt the system.
  - jimmies 9y ago
    Then take their deposit and ban them from the system when you come to inspect and found the chip without the umbrella...

by sqeaky 9y ago

jimmies 9y ago

>Umbrellas are too cheap to defend with technology. Something like GPS wouldn't help recover umbrellas in a cost effective way, maybe in some future where GPS receives are a penny apiece, but not today. I wouldn't go as far as locating them, but keeping track of them using technology seems feasible. How about having an NFC tag implanted to the umbrella to make sure it is returned?

chii 9y ago
I bet you'll find that ppl will rip out the chip and return just that, unless there's a human checking the returns.
- sqeaky 9y ago
  Do you think there are enough disreputable people to make that a problem? I mean it chip has a unique ID or its not doing its job, and you get the payment info of each user. There are incentives to not stealing these things, so you are really just worried about vandals and immoral penny penchers trying to skirt the system.
- jimmies 9y ago
  Then take their deposit and ban them from the system when you come to inspect and found the chip without the umbrella...