Here’s the idea I wrote in 40 minutes. Please read if you are bored. Problem • Back in 1970s (or maybe 60s), people used a luggage & suitcase to travel long distance by airplane. Today, the number of travelers by airplane is substantially increased but the method to carry personal items are still the same, luggage & suitcase. Solution/Goal Create a product/service that makes the male travelers’ luggage for >5 days trip to as small as a carry on bag that fits under the airplane seat. (My apologies that I limited to male traveler only. I respect women and I believe more women leaders should be born. I’m a man, so I just don’t know what women have or need to carry around during the trip.) Expected positive outcome by achieving this goal • Airplane design: Airplane needs to carry less luggages = More space gets available to improve the design. • Price: Less weight = less fuel cost = Airfare may get cheaper (just like LCC) • Convenience: It simply gets easier to travel. Major large items that occupy the luggage • Shoes (some people carry gym shoes or second pair of shoes in the luggage) • Clothes (business or leisure) • Toiletry items (this item can be possibly removed if hotels can provide onsite) If we can get rid of those items from the luggage, I assume most of people can travel with backpack only. Method 1: Package delivery service • Packaged toiletry and electronics charger delivery to the venue (Hotels only to start with. No Airbnb). The brand is private labeled (inside is basically a famous brand such as P&G) • Clothes/shoes package delivery service. Users can pick clothes and order before the trip. This requires measuring the size of the user’s body. Each clothing brand has different standard in the size, therefore, it requires a partnership with a large corporation that has stores all over the place, so the user can walk in to measure the size to set the standard for his clothing options. The clothes will be professionally cleaned and reused by other users. Once a certain level of damage is observed, those clothes will be recycled or donated. • All orders can be done by app with certain lead time. Pros of method 1 • Simple to use once the size is measured. All the user needs to do is order in the app before the trip. Cons of method 1 • Users get less option to choose the item. Less design option. • Users need to physically visit the body measuring service (unless there is a software using camera or sensor to measure the size with smartphone. It exists but I doubt it is that accurate) • Users need to accept to use the clothes that somebody else possibly wore before. This may be resolvable by giving a discount for used clothes or additional charge for brand new clothes. Method 2: Travel item storage/manage/shipping service • Users can send his own clothes to a warehouse that manages storage, cleaning, packaging, and shipping, so users don’t need to measure the body size. • Toiletry delivery service will be the same way as method 1. Prepackaged and shipped to the venue. • User can request the shipping from the app just like method 1. Pros of method 2 • Users don’t need to measure their body. • Users can pick their own favorite clothes/shoes. Cons of method 2 • The clothes/shoes sent to the warehouse won’t be available to the user in daily life. • Liability issue I like method 2 better. It's more simple. It’s almost 2020. It is crazy to me that people still carry a luggage with rollers. I see high tech ones with GPS, charger, etc. I’ve also seen the luggage that follows the owner, but I just don’t believe that’s the real solution. I want to see the world evolves. I’m posting this online because if.….if somebody who can elaborate this idea to the feasible level and make this happen, the travel industry will be drastically changed in a good way for the users. I don’t think I can make it happen by myself, but I want to see it. I love to see criticism more than compliment (if there’s any). Discussion only makes this idea better. Thank you for reading this!!!!
Great job thinking about this idea. However, I’ve seen same/similar service on shark tank. Cannot give you the exact episode/season., but I have seen it.
I wonder what happened to the business afterward!
I definitely saw ads a number of years ago for Method 2. Doing some digging it could be DUFL. Though candidly DUFL could have been just the competitor that survived until today. https://www.dufl.com/
In method 2, you still need to ship the baggage. For international travel- If it's cargo flight, you are still using space but just on a diff flight. If it's on a ship, the cost is less but time taken is more. [Just for discussion, not to criticize]
Yes! Thank you! It requires deep cost analysis. I posted here because there are so many smart people.
Obviously, I don't watch TV at all 😂
Tlrd.. Please summarize 😉
"Let's kill Samsonite business😉"
Isn't that 🍌 job? 😂
Good idea but unnecessarily overcomplicated. Things don't need to be tailored for most customers. Only richer customers would like to pay for that luxury and I don't see luxury customers needing to worry about their baggage limit or weight. (Unless you want to advertise this as a travel-light option to the rich and deliver these things straight to their hotel) For most middle-income customers, US works on the one size fits all market... so Size S, M, L. That's it! Have 3-4 options for sizes and options to pick from. Sell this through Amazon prime now ( the 2 hour delivered service) or 1-day prime delivery.
That's a good idea. Simply sell clothes on Amazon and advertise as the way to travel light huh? It'll be cool if somebody gathers all the simple and affordable clothes and advertise on IG or FB as travel solution for the commission. No inventory required cuz you are not selling them but just advertising! It's actually a great idea to make some cash.
The problem with this is that unlike the meal-prep boxes, Dollar shave clubs etc.. that have a subscription based model ( i.e. loyalty == continuous income), your product isn't something that the same customer that needs too often. So you could partner with airlines or hotel to sell these. Instead of letting customers purchase these directly, allow the hotel/airline to sell this as another amenity/feature that comes with their high-end reservations. Coming over for a short trip? Didn't bring underwear ( or whatever)- here's some premium stuff and much more that's available for simply $15 more ( or included within the price of the reservation/ available as a perk since you're a Gold or Platinum member) and you get to avoid the $40 check-in baggage fee/ hassle of lugging your stuff across the country.
Also, people sharing clothes is gross. No cheap, let alone high-end, customer will like that. You need cheap single use good quality shit. Resell/donate/repurpose/recycle after washing.
Yeah...maybe that's where to start with. The customer segment in the first place is fairly wealthy people. Then there will be a next step to expand.
Simpsons did it
Didn't know that. Haha!