Service providing items needed for temporary accommodation

Problem

Many household items are used for only a fraction of their potential lifespan. So far, no functional recycling or reuse system has been developed for all of these types of products. For those phases of life that involve using temporary accommodation, such as student exchanges, houseware items like crockery and linen are often discarded as waste.

Solution: service providing items needed for temporary accommodation

Viako offers its customers kitchenware and small household items in the form of ready-made kits. The kits contain items such as crockery, kitchenware, textiles and bedding. The customers can sell the kits back to Viako at a lower price after use. Customers may include exchange students or construction companies that buy the product kits for the flats housing fixed-term employees.

Viako’s revenue logic and benefits

Viako sells the product kit to the customer for the period he or she needs it. When the customer is finished with the product kit, Viako buys it back at a price specified in advance. Thus, the goods contained in the kit can be sold again. The customer may also keep the whole kit, in which case Viako holds onto the deposit included in the kit’s sale price.

In the future, Viako aims to work with student foundations that provide student housing, which would allow students to choose the kind of product kits they need and pay the costs as part of the rent.

Benefits to customers and end users

The items offered by Viako are second-hand, which means that the customers extend the products’ life cycles by using them. The kits are provided for the customers’ use for the exact period they need them for at a significantly lower price than an equivalent selection of new products would cost, delivered conveniently as a single kit.