Looking For Ideas! How would YOU implement something like THIS?
Ok, here is the scenario.
Imagine you have just moved or relocated to a remote location. It is a seasonal destination - think island.
So, you get tourists during the warmer months and then things die down in the fall and are dead during the winter.
There are the tourists of course, but there are those who stay in this location year round.
There are a couple of grocery stores, and things like a "home center" where you can get some regular items like towels etc. But the places like the home center are very limited in the selection of inventory they carry. And the grocery stores can be limited - but even worse they are expensive because everything needs to be shipped in. So something you might only spend a dollar for on the mainland can be more like 3-4 dollars on the island.
Now add this to the scenario. It is possible to take a ride over to the mainland - and even possible to bring a car over. The ride to the mainland takes in total around 3 hours (which would suck up 6 hours round trip) and if you bring a car you can add between 200-300 for the service of putting it on the boat and bringing it back. So in order to make a ride worth it, you want to make sure you purchase products that will save you a lot of money - and you want to buy in bulk when possible.
There might be 2-3 people all looking for a specific product every time they go - and they may benefit if they knew their neighbor was making the same trip for the same thing.
There is a flow of people who regularly go over to the mainland. Maybe every couple of months. Once they get there you can find all the stores you want.
I just returned to this island and I caught a ride with someone who has been living here for quite some time (about 20 years). She had the car packed to the hilt with things like xmas decorations and dog food.
I started to think about it on this trip back of how a swap forum of some kind might be beneficial to those who are here year round. This could be like a club where members can have lists of items they have an issue getting or maybe they only grab when going to the mainland. They could save money on shipping if lets say they have an item found at a Walmart could be added to the car and brought back with a bunch of other stuff. And if there needed to be a return of the item it could go back on the next trip. So who ever does the trips would need to be trustworthy. Also, these trips could be shared - where maybe each member commits to one trip a year and they pay for that ride over and back and grab things for everyone on a list.
I'm looking at ideas of how to organize this type of thing and also how I would monetize this idea.
How would you monetize something like this?
Would you charge members a nominal fee to join? Or if it is free to join how would you make a profit? Would you make this an exclusive private membership site or would you make it an open forum that anyone could join?
This would obviously be a very community based membership as it would be all locals running errands for each other. The other thought is me going over to the mainland every month or so and doing the shopping. This can be running errands too or what ever type of business someone might need taken care of. Or I can hire and someone to do this as well. I also may be able to find someone on the mainland who is a permanent fixture - and that person could be responsible for making trips over to the island every couple of weeks with a list of requests and then they do a drop off and return the same day.
Anyway, I'm swishing this idea around in my head and looking for some views of how to manage it that I maybe have not considered.
How would you do this?
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"