Best Buy to let you rent gadgets before you purchase themJune 13, 2017 - 12:11 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Retail is tough. Customers have to be able to figure out which item will best suit their needs while retailers need to make sure their customers are happy enough with their purchases to keep them. One way to serve both needs is with a solid "try before you buy" system, which lets consumers get some hands-on time with items before committing to a full purchase. This is even more useful when customers are looking for big-ticket items like fancy wearables and high-end cameras. Big-box electronics retailer Best Buy has partnered with gadget rental startup Lumoid to provide just such a system, which is due later this month. As Engadget reports citing ReCode, Best Buy you will soon be able to rent items like cameras, wearables and audio devices with a featured button on Best Buy's website. A Best Buy spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that drones will not be on offer through the rental service. Best Buy's website will have a button that sends you to Lumoid's site to manage the actual rental of these items, many of which may be "open box" returns instead of new items. You'll earn about 20 percent of the rental price in Lumoid credits, which can then be applied to a purchase of the rented item. Best Buy gets to breathe new life into items people have already bought and customers get to check out big-ticket items for a low monthly fee. This new program could give Best buy an advantage over Amazon, which does not currently offer a similar rental service. Letting customers rent a higher-priced item like a Sonos speaker, Sony Alpha camera or Apple Watch could get them the time they need with the device to decide if the purchase is worth it. Lumoid's founder, Aarthi Ramamurthy, says that wearables get the highest conversion rate from rental to purchase, with one in three renters deciding to buy after the try. We've reached out to Lumoid for more details on this partnership and will update this post. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | U.S. warns Georgia not to side with Moscow against the west Georgia has been warned by the U.S. not to become an adversary of the west by falling back in line with Moscow. Power of One Dram sums up two-year program with Teach for Armenia Idram Junior also joined the companies during the visit, bringing with it a fascinating intellectual game for children Moscow slams EU mission in Armenia for “provocative activity” The EU mission is doing more and more against Armenia’s neighbors Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, Mikhail Galuzin said. Yerevan Mayor to travel to Paris on May 15-19 The official delegation headed by Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan will travel to Paris from May 15 to 19. |