During the recent Uber Revolution Packaging Summit at the Frain headquarters, speakers weighed in on trends, including the “shared” economic model within CPG industry.  Company models mentioned included Uber and Airbnb.

In the new Shared Economy, access trumps ownership.  As the saying goes, “Why buy the cow?”  Today people have access to cars / rides and dwellings on an interim, more flexible basis without the worry of having to own and maintain these assets.

Divvy is Chicago-based company or service that allows tourists and locals to borrow bikes and return them to a number of different locations across the city.  The combination of convenience and access make for an excellent service to align with commuter goals – getting from point A to point B as easy as possible.

More and more services have adopted this model – and so has Frain.

We have over 9,000 machines that appear on Google in ~50 different ways – wrapper, stretch wrapper, flow wrapper, shrink wrapper, pallet wrapper, flow wrapper and so on.

Ultimately, when people contact us regarding a machine they find on Google we offer them to borrow or buy the equipment.  But, why buy the cow?  Why justify or sell internally the entire expense.

Rental or borrowing allows for the unknown future to be less scary.  Many of our customers do not know how long they’ll need the machine or how quickly they will be able to turn a profit.  Getting the machine quickly and affordably lowers the hurdle for getting from point A to point B.

Having a variety of inventory means we’ll have the machine you need access quickly and temporarily.  Our customers borrow machinery when they need it, for as long as they need it and benefit from doing so over traditional methods.