Portable DVD players for rent on trains and planes
Un idée très sympa: take long train journeys, mix with boredom, add the ever-decreasing costs of portable DVD players and discs, and you're in the business of French 'Cinétrain', who will let you rent a mini-DVD player and a movie of choice on departure, which you then watch during your rail-bound journey, and drop off at the kiosk at your station of arrival (all for EUR 9,95).
Cinétrain offers this new service at 7 major train stations in France, from Paris and Lyon to Aix-en-Provence and Marseille. Amazon and the French Railways (SNCF) are partners.
Besides Cinétrain in France, there's InMotion Pictures in the US, doing the same thing for air travel, with 21 airport-based rental/drop-off spots.
InMotion charges USD 10 a day for the service in which a traveler rents a laptop-size, battery-powered, portable DVD player, a movie and a headset. InMotion's plan is to be in 30 airports by the end of the year and 150 North American airports within five years.
Opportunities
Springwise sees a major market for DVD player/disc rental 'on the go'. It will work with any infrastructure that offers drop-off points right after usage. Train stations, airports, bus stations and vast rental car networks are obvious starting points (road trips with children: need we say more? ;-).
For customers with DVD-enabled laptops, plain on-the-go rental is a pleasant option, as every mailbox becomes a drop-off point (like the now-famous Netflix model for home-rentals). And with multi-language discs, catering to international crowds on airports and European train stations shouldn't be a problem. And what about books? Games? Digital cameras? Full service laptops?
May we suggest that serial entrepreneurs, Blockbuster, Greyhound, Amazon, Amtrak, Avis, Netflix, British Airways, EasyJet, Southwest Airlines, and Hertz get moving!
Useful links
Please note that Springwise is not associated with the company / product mentioned in this article.