Sharing industry in China is witnessing a huge boom. Some of the businesses like the bike sharing companies are doing a great business as the users unlock their bikes with their phones before they peddle off. However, not everyone has been lucky in terms of running a successful sharing business. A Chinese umbrella sharing company which rents out umbrellas has faced a loss of 300,000 of its products in just three months of its establishment.
The Sharing E Umbrella was established with an investment of £1 million pounds and allowed the users to borrow umbrellas for a fee. A report mentioned that most of the 300,000 products which were made available for the borrowers in many of the Chinese cities have not been returned. How does the umbrella sharing service work? People get to pick up umbrellas from the public stands and pay 5p for every thirty minutes.
Zhao Shuping, the founder of Sharing E Umbrella expressed that he had an impression that everything on the streets could be shared after watching the success of bike sharing. The problem was, many of the customers were unclear of how the umbrellas had to be returned. Zhao added, “Umbrellas are different from bikes. Bikes can be parked anywhere, but with an umbrella you need railings or a fence to hang it on.” However, the founder was determined that his business idea should not turn in to a failure despite the fact that he lost £6 for every umbrella which was not returned by the borrowers.
The founder added that he would make available 30 million more such umbrellas for rent across China by the end of 2017. A couple of months back, there were reports that even a bike sharing company suffered a loss when many of its bikes were either lost or not returned as they did not install tracking chips in them.
Photo Credits: zerohedge
