Shopping for your little ones can be a daunting affair, with the overwhelming and often expensive assortment of gear available out there. And once you get the items, how are you going to travel with them?
The hassle of packing, checking, and lugging around of all that gear can be a nightmarish affair that can put off even the most dedicated of parents, not to mention the extra-baggage fees.
On top of that, when your little bundles of joy eventually grow up, that leaves you with a heap of unused paraphernalia cluttering your home.
Enter Baby Jimbo, an online baby gear rental service established in 2017 that may have the solution to all that.
Baby Who?
Named after one of the company’s founders, Hazim—whose nickname is Jimbo, Baby Jimbo is the brainchild of husband and wife team Hazim and Shazwani.
Proud parents of two themselves, they founded the company together with the aim to make family holidays less of a hassle and to allow first-time parents to try out a variety of baby gear before buying them.
“After a year of trying and using different products, we spotted the gap in Malaysia’s market for the rental of modern baby gear products. That’s when we decided to offer this rental service to other parents who faced the same situation as us,” Shazwani said.
“We started small, by sharing used items that we bought for our own kids with our friends who came in from out of town. When demand picked up, we decided to expand bit by bit and started to do this full time,” she added.
Today, Baby Jimbo’s stock has grown to include a variety of strollers, car seats, trikes, breast pumps, bouncers, high chairs, cribs, toy packages and more. They can even deliver to customers all across Malaysia.
A Baby Booming Business
Since their founding, Baby Jimbo has had more than 400 customers with many return customers looking to try out more products.
Unsurprisingly, many of their customers are first-time parents and parents who travel to domestic and international locations with their young kids in tow.
“We started to get international customers from USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia; who travel to Malaysia and in need of good rental gear while they are here,” Shazwani said.
For first-time parents, a rental service may be just what they need to try out expensive premium baby gear, to see if they are suitable for their children before taking the plunge and purchasing them.
“We often have mothers wanting to ‘try before they buy’ particularly for the higher-priced items as they want to be sure they are making the best choice for themselves and their babies,” she explained.
For example, the 4Moms Mamaroo electronic baby rocking chair that retails for around RM1,500 can be rented at an affordable RM150 for a week through Baby Jimbo.
Shazwani added that the average rental price is about RM150 for 3 days or 7 days, depending on which product is booked. The minimum rental duration is 3 days, and the maximum rental duration is 1 month.
But Is Sharing Really Caring?
In any rental service, products are expected to have changed hands regularly between complete strangers, which always brings up concerns about safety and cleanliness.
I think we can all agree that this is especially important when it comes to our children and the products we expose them to.
When asked about this, Baby Jimbo assured us that all their products are checked regularly to ensure they are up-to-date and meet all current federal safety standards.
“Our ‘eye for great products’ comes from our experience as parents and from our children—there isn’t a product which we, or our children, haven’t tried and approved before it makes it to our online store,” Shazwani said.
Before delivery, Baby Jimbo also replaces damaged products and thoroughly clean the gear using non-toxic cleaning procedures as well as a special UV Sterilizer.
A Rental, Not Retail Future
Of course, services such as Baby Jimbo are not unique, with similar companies popping up all over the country, such as MyBABYRENTALS and Babybarnitems.
In fact, Baby Jimbo is just one example of how the business model itself is and continues to be a growing trend here in Malaysia, with more and more aspiring businesses beginning to adopt the concept of shareable products and services.
With the prominence of ride-sharing services such as GrabCar and SoCar as well as companies that rent out a variety of other conveniences such as portable WiFi and power banks, it is no huge leap to say that sharing is the future.
Shazwani, co-founder of Baby Jimbo.
Not to be left behind, Shazwani shared that they have plans to expand from Baby Jimbo’s Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp storefronts by creating their own website or app so that it would be easier for people to book their products.
She also shared that they would like to develop a marketplace app that will serve as a platform for people to rent out their own unused baby gear to others in order to earn extra income.
“We think renting items should be quick, reliable and convenient; just like our service, coupled with that personal touch that we believe our customers are looking for,” she said.
- You can read more about what we’ve written on baby services and products here.
Featured Image Credit: Baby Jimbo
