Pedal Genie

I thought that the service was a fantastic idea. The problem I ran into was that the pedals I wanted to try out were never in stock. I constantly got reminders to keep my wish list full, but generally I'd get the bottom of my list every time. Shipping was slow as well. What that amounted to was me paying a fairly hefty monthly charge to try out maybe one or two pedals per month, and those pedals were my least wanted. I completely understand that stocking a lot of duplicate pedals is expensive, but that issue should have been addressed before the business was launched. It would be like a Netflix account that cost 30-40 dollars per month and never getting a newly released movie, but rather some arbitrary movie you had to pick "just in case" the movie you wanted was rented out. I think the service would work better if you used the old Blockbuster practice of movie rental...You invest in a LOT of the top rated pedals, have a formula in place in your business accounting software that lets you know when you've made a significant but fair profit on the rentals, then sell the pedals as new releases come out at a greatly reduced cost for pure profit, while keeping a few in stock of the more popular ones. For instance, the new Boss CE-2W Waza Chorus sounds phenomenal and would cost me 199.99 with no tax and free shipping from Sweetwater.com. I would gladly pay Pedal Genie's Standard fee of 39.95 per month, if I could get that particular pedal right away, keep it a couple of weeks, ship it back, and have the next pedal on my list (Let's say the new Friedman BE-OD overdrive pedal..also 199.99), shipped right away. That would be valuable to me as a musician. It would be worth demoing 2 pedals a month that I want to try, or if I really like it, keep it a month to jam. Even if Pedal Genie had to pay full retail for pedals, it would take roughly 5 rentals to pay for 1 unit. You could buy 200 of them if that's what it took to satisfy customer demand, rent them until you not only break even, but keep renting until you reach 100-200% profit. By then, demand would decrease as people buy their own. That is where you look for the sweet spot to sell your overstock. You wait too long, I've gone and bought myself a new one because I liked it so much, I had to have one. You sell too soon, your price will be too high because you haven't profited enough yet on the rental. Again, a software metric could be set to let you know financially where that sweet spot is. As a frugal customer and being a musician for 42 years, I know what things are worth and I'm fair. Nothing is free and all of us want the best deal we can get and still come out ahead. From that perspective, I can tell you that as a customer, I'd be a satisfied musician who would flood social media and use word of moth to promote your business if I could say the following : "Pedal Genie is incredible. They are all about supporting musicians. I pay 39.95 per month to rent any pedal I want. They always have the latest and greatest in stock, and worse case, I may have to wait 1 or 2 days to get what I want. They provide free OVERNIGHT shipping, so you get your next pedal to try within just a few days after you ship the one you have back. AND, if you can wait a while until the popularity decreases, they will SELL you their rented pedals at 40% off! So, I rented the new Waza pedal AND the new Friedman pedal in the same month, so it only cost me 40 bucks to try them out. Then a couple of months later, I bought them both for 119.99 each. So, with the rental, I only have about 140.00 each in them and they would have cost me 199.99 each new. They offer a 30 day guarantee on used pedals, so it's a win!" So, you see, Pedal Genie has to invest in a BUNCH of pedals (a good project manager with an accounting background, and even better, also a musician, would be perfect for making that decision based on reviews and true costs). But the pro for Pedal Genie is a greatly increased customer base. A little profit from a lot of return customers wins over a lot of profit from a few disappointed customers like myself. You recoup your investment plus rental profit, plus sales profits as long as the savings to the customer is significant. And the right insurance policy gives you peace of mind. Having a few certified repair technicians in-house is also something that would pay for itself if your volume is big enough. Being able to repair abused or non-warrantied items, and making sure a pedal about to be sold is in good condition in-house is invaluable. So, the end result? You have happy customers spreading your good name (Like Sweetwater. I ALWAYS bought my gear locally until I dealt with them. They are phenomenal and the value is crystal clear. Every musician I know uses them now and all their friends as well. And I have the same sales rep dedicated to me every time. They know me by name and nothing is impersonal or canned). Your profits increase. Customer satisfaction increases. The win for me is that I get to try the pedal I just saw on Sweetwaters website for as long as I want, and later if I choose and can buy one before you sell out, I can buy that pedal with a short warranty, and save about 50 bucks in the process. What keeps me from being a returning customer or telling everyone to try Pedal Genie is that I never once got the pedal I wanted and it seems like I saw the price on buying a rented one and it was at a very small savings. I'm the kind of guy who thinks it's very much worth paying an extra 20 or 30 dollars to get a brand new unit with full warranty. But I'll buy used if it's in good shape and I can save 50 or more. Sorry for the long message. I just really think you have a great concept and if it was just a bit more musician -friendly, you'd have a guitar pedal Amazon.Com on your hands. Respectfully, Bobby White

Decent service. Lots of pedal choices. Due to mailing issues out of pedalgenies hand, pedals took about 3 days to send and return pedals. I could only check out 2 pedals per month for about a week each. It is kind of expensive to borrow 2 pedals a month to play with. Lots of pedal choices though, great idea. No issues at all when dealing with pedalgenie. Always prompt service

Really liked the concept of the company. My only complaint is that the pedals didn't come with return labels. I don't have a printer and neither do most of my friends or family. If this issue is ever addressed then I would most likely resubscribe to the service. I am a little bummed that after paying for a full months service plus $2 for a shipping label that I was only able to try out one pedal. That's not much of bargain at $42.

What a great idea- the Netflix of pedals. So nice to be able to try them out for a bit before making a purchase. The down side for me, and the biggest reason why I cancelled my subscription was that it took too long between pedals, often 7-10 days from the time the return pedal was sent until a new one arrived. It worked out to maybe 3 pedals a month. One of the local music stores here has a "Pedal of the Month Club" for less money and I can ride my bike there to exchange one when I want. The other thing was that the inventory seemed limited. I'm aware there are many, many good pedals out there by many good builders/companies and it really isn't possible to stock all of them, but I would hope the stock would include the "editor's pick" pedals from Guitar Player and/or Premier Guitar. On the up side, everyone at Pedal Genie was very nice and helpful. Maybe it was just some bugs needed to be worked out, like the turnaround time.

The turnaround time was not quick enough when I was a member. I was only able to check out two pedals in a one month period. I would of like to at least been able to check out four to make it worth my while.