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You make a great point. I think it would be amazing for a host to go above and beyond to provide a box of amenities of items that could be extra. If I stay for a week I would definitely take that into consideration and buy items that I could bring with me. I definitely do that when I go to visit my parents.
However, for those of us that use Airbnb for 1-2 night stay and get charged $200 plus for a house where it’s my boyfriend and I- could this make sense?
How often do your guests stay and is it usually a family or couple/ or someone on business travel?
I originally provided mini bottle of shampoo and conditioner, 1 of each per stay. But the waste was ridiculous. Usually the guests didn’t take them home and if they’d only used a little bit out of the bottle I didn’t like to throw them away. I also felt like I couldn’t put them back out with some missing so I spent way too much time refilling them and had half bottles hanging around everywhere.
Now I just have normal sized bottles in there and to be honest, the guests seem much happier. I think providing hotel-style shampoos led them to judge my place as it it were a hotel, and not just the guest room in my home. It saves me so much time and money too
Thank you for your honest feedback. Would you ever provide any snacks or coffee maker with coffee?
Additionally, would you mind sharing how much a night you are setting your listing at? I don’t mean to pry but this information may be valuable to determine our market.
No, it would not make any sense unless I as a host had a maximum number of guests as two and my maximum night stay was 2 nights. That is likely rare to find.
People who don’t travel with shampoo are just grateful that they have a big free bottle to use. I do get reservations for a couple who are only staying for 2 nights. But it makes no sense to me as a host to reward the 2 night stays with amenity boxes that cost me much more than them using from the shared shampoo bottle.
Sorry to be discouraging @guestbox but I think this is a non-starter. Your main market would be high-end properties because, as others have pointed out, us mid-to-lower end rentals will not be interested in paying for something we can easily provide by ourselves. So, you would need to compete with some big players that advertise on Amazon etc. There are huge costs involved, not least to the environment: individually wrapped items are SO wasteful, plus all the packaging, shipping and delivery entailed that will contribute further to pollution.
‘No need to leave information if not interested’…that’s exactly my point @guestbox. I don’t know if I am interested or not, because you haven’t provided me with the information I need to make that decision.
Hence my point about this not being good practice in terms of digital marketing.
Happy to help! My place is an average of $85 usd/night (we’re not in the us, but I’m assuming you are so that gives you some comparison). This is for our guest room within our home, max 2 people (1 queen bed). Our room price is pretty much mid-range for our area.
I have always provided instant coffee, teabags, sugar (all in refillable storage containers) and single uht milk portions. Little snacks are something we provide at peak times when the room rate is at a premium (max 125usd). We spend approx 2usd per guest, per stay. I hope this info helps!
I don’t agree that your idea is a non-starter. I think you do have a market for this product, but I don’t think it is your typical Airbnb host. I think your product would go down very well with high end/boutique hotels and guest houses, luxury lodges etc
They don’t have the info because they are in the research stage. If the co-founder was a former Airbnb host and found this as a necessity then they would have already been moving full speed ahead.
I would be interested to know if any the past posters offering this same product are actually making a living doing this. I am too lazy to research on Amazon.
I’m sorry you have had this experience with your listings. Do you read reviews for them before you book. It’s worth checking with a host too and then you can be prepared.
Where a listing says it provides essentials - the vast majority. They should provide shampoo and shower/bath gel as a minimum.
Many hosts go over and beyond.
I provide shampoo, conditioner, soap, hand-cream and make up removers. And this is a room in a shared house.
There are many of us on here that have higher price point listings (based on where we are located) and do provide showering supplies, snacks, etc. However, I can not imagine how a box delivery would be any cheaper than Costco (US) or the Condis (Spain) bellow our flat.
@guestox - I’m being critical here for your own good.
To begin with the whole idea of the guest box has many flaws for many reasons but I want to address the fact that you are researching your idea here now.
General business practice is to conduct as much research in the first stages before even attempting to launch a website (with no search engine presence and no Alexa ranking), a FB page (with only 133 followers) and a Twitter account (with only 10 followers). Until you’ve got your ducks in a row then you shouldn’t even think about promoting your business on a public forum like this that has a great search engine presence.
Apologies, but this makes your business seem like a very amateur start-up. You’ve no brand, no back-up and (or so it seems to me) no real marketing and promotion campaign that’s professionally organised. It all seems to be very haphazard and this is not a good thing for potential clients or investors to see.
You demonstrate no background. You say that your business partner is an ex-Airbnb host - why ex? If she was a good Airbnb host, she’d still be doing it and making plenty of money and your GuestBox idea would be a pleasant add-on. How long was she hosting? Why did she stop? These are questions that potential customers will ask themselves. They’ll also ask about your experience in the hospitality industry, your retail experience and, because this is an internet-based business, your technical ability and the back-end of your supply service.
I’m sure that you’ve thought of these things but you’ve really jumped the gun by posting about your potential service before you’re organised.
The idea may seem interesting, but although the idea comes easy, the product is generic, and the operation and marketing is what is key here. Most importantly, although I have bene contacted by dozens of startups in that space alone, I have yet to meet one host who tells this is a major pain they experience. Guests may feel differently, but the buyer is the host.
Either you compete with Amazon/Costco and you go cheap with volume; or you go luxury. If you are not experienced and excellent at operations and marketing, this will be very, very hard down the road.
Yes it’s an idea that comes up regularly. I’ve maybe seen one or two posts from hosts that want to know where they can buy miniatures. Generally these tend to be new hosts who in the first flush of excitement want to replicate a hotel experience for their guests.
It’s also the first thing out of the window when they remember that they need to make money.
My experience so far with amenity boxed products for hosts has left a lot to be desired. In almost all cases, I can procure the exact same products for much cheaper.
Obviously my opinion is my own but I personally don’t really care about snazzy boxes and would much rather purchase in bulk vs pay a premium for amenities in a cute box delivered on a one off basis.
In other words if it were a business that operated on the premise of bulk buying and passing the cost on to all of the buyers, I would give it a look.
So far, I’ve been able to get much better prices on my own. I don’t necessarily need someone to curate my amenities for me. I think a better idea would be to organize a big group buy and negotiate the price with suppliers based on volume.
I’ve done it locally with great success and can only assume doing so with a larger group of hosts would yield even better results.
There’s another important issue with these boxes. After years of experimentation I’ve found that, for example, if we’re talking about treats guests prefer local goods to give them a flavour of the area. Local honey from the farmers market and croissants from the local bakery mean that the money we are spending on our guests stays local.
Guests like this and often ask where they can buy these goods so again, the money stays in the local area. (This is one huge advantage that Airbnb has over hotels, too).
For toiletries, I’ve found that the most commonly used product is shampoo. Ready-made boxes or amenity packs often include many other items so after three or four months, you’re left with dozens of bottles of body wash, mini tubes of toothpaste and so on. So making up your own is much more cost-effective. And for most products, guests prefer their own favourite brands.
Many of us supply goods to our guests depending on where they’re from. Guests from the US get any sort of supermarket bottled water. Guests from Europe get Perrier or San Pellegrino. And I love having guests from the UK because in the ;international’ section of the supermarket I can pick up real English tea,
Lol. Because as everyone knows that stuff they sell abroad labelled ‘tea’ is a travesty! Yorkshire Tea or nothing, thank you !! I like it malty, with real depth of flavour. Oh and made with boiling water. Hot water simply won’t do at all!
Absolutely! And for Irish guests I get a brand called Bewley’s.
Guests from the UK are often interested in trying these ‘weird’ ( ) American foods that they have heard about but when they first arrive, there’s nothing quite as soothing as a cup of Yorkshire tea.
The only place I’ve found good tea outside the U.K. (I.e. robust blends that can take milk) is India. Not really a surprise I suppose
I’m intrigued by American food. Mostly because it’s all sorts of colours and artificial flavours I can’t find over here. Hot Tamales for example. And in sizes that make my eyes go round with excitement. Can I really buy a bag of crisps I can swim in? Oh look it appears I can. In bubblegum flavour.
I know it’s not healthy but I love it. Even the healthy stuff is extreme. Santa Monica was a delight.
The boy and I often talk about driving around the US on a food tour.
) American foods that they have heard about but when they first arrive, there’s nothing quite as soothing as a cup of Yorkshire tea.