Try before you buy!

In addition to the specialized tools you might find on AST, a new concept is surfacing... What is it, you ask?

Well, silly, it's trial use! For example, the ECU just listed allows those toying with the idea of tuning their car to try it out by only putting down a deposit and a fee of $10 to rent it for a whole month! You really can't beat that unless you know tuners personally.

This particular setup is a Honda P28 ECU equipped with Hondata s300, boost option, and VTEC control. Rent it out today!

http://www.automotivespecialtytool.net/detail.php?id=63

Current Feature Addition / Update List

So, with everything we learned at leading up to and during SEMA, we came up with the following list of planned feature additions and changes:

- Integrate the handling of deposits

- Integrate monitoring of transactions (i.e. enable uploading of pics & notes at the following points during the transaction: shipping from lender to borrower, just received by borrower, after use by borrower/shipping to lender, received by lender

- Integrate shipping estimation tied to my Fedex account directly to shopping cart (pull dimensions, weight, lender address, borrower address, etc. from Database)

- Enable the ability to book the same tool for multiple date ranges that don't overlap

- Search by zip code, availability date, price & enable combination filters (i.e. search by zip code, then filter by price, etc..)

- Tools wanted post as a standalone page of the site that users can post to if logged in

- Confirmation emails for newly registered accounts to prevent spam

- Way for users who don't have tools listed to be contacted anonymously (i.e. not just on "tool detail" pages)

- Feedback tied to lender and borrower email or username on a per transaction basis?

- Replicate listing button (for tools that have already been created), must require a different picture

- Have a "lend for free" option under the "pending approval" page so lenders can refund the borrower if they want to lend for free after the fact

- Have a "lend for free" option under the post a tool page

- Have the shopping cart automatically adjust the rental rate based on number of days requested by borrower (i.e. i list $1/month for my tool as a lender and borrower wants it for 15 days, so ($1/30)*15=$0.50

- "Tools Pending Approval" or another similar page within My Account to include tools I've tentatively borrowed from others but that havent been approved yet

- Reminder emails for: upcoming due dates to both parties (tool to be shipped out by X date, returned by X date, tool inactivity date for lenders

- Automatic resizing of uploaded photos, but keeping aspect ratio...

- Automatic invoicing of people who have held onto tools past their due date

- Rent to own option for lenders during post a tool as well as a second rent to own confirmation agreed to by both parties before deposit funds are disbursed

- Social media feed for homepage: blog, FB page, Twitter posts, YouTube

Did we miss anything?? What else would you guys like to see?

We're really trying to get folks to post up their tools when they have time as this is what needs to take place for this whole idea to work. Let us know if you have questions or concerns.

The site is fully functional!

So, with the implementation of anonymous messaging through the site and debugging of the Paypal express checkout, the site is fully functional. While we're still investigating other alternative payment methods, we realize that a lot of people recognize Paypal and have used it before. Down the road, we plan on offering other payment systems and will also show how much cash can be saved by using those methods... However, we're celebrating a bit as the initial launch is finally complete!

Paypal, in its infinite wisdom...

So we did have our soft launch at SEMA and, of course, encountered hiccups... But, to our surprise, it wasn't our math with the checkout that was wrong... It was Paypal's newly implemented fee structure (as of August 10th, 2010). They no longer allow merchants to refund customers for free... This annoyed us a great deal and as such, we're working on alternative payment processing vendors that will keep the site as cheap as possible AND bring value to the service at that cost.

I should note that the site remains ABSOLUTELY FREE for lenders. You will never get charged a dime by us. We designed it this way to encourage folks to post tools up and build the P2P database.

We have a short tutorial video on how to post tools up located here.

We learned a lot at SEMA and also discovered there was even more interest than we thought. With that said, we do have a lot of work to do to incorporate requested changes, address concerns, etc.

We hope we can still depend on your input as potential users of the site as it develops.

Thanks a ton, guys and girls!

- Ramzi