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Comment by jchallis | Hacker News Reader

The biggest stockout problems in my life are those where an inconvenience turns into a big mess. If you can expand your thinking to that problem, I'm very interested.

Specifically:

Toilet Paper

Diapers

Diaper Wipes

Paper Towels

Cat Litter

Laundry Detergent

Sanitary Napkins / Tampons

Auto-coffee refill is something I can avoid. Diaper stockout -- the horror!

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Thank you! We're always wondering what the biggest restocking problems are for people.

Your list are all products we're planning to address eventually. The real question is: what do we do next?

Toilet paper. By far the biggest market out of those listed above, bulky and inconvenient to pick up at the shops while doing other things or to stock up on, catastrophic not to have. You'd need two/three levels of comfort, probably.

You don't just order toilet paper from Amazon, subscription or not? (Although I'd imagine toilet paper usage rate is pretty consistent, so that would be easy to set up a subscription for)

No. Amazon subscriptions have been really frustrating for me - not enough flexibility around amount and timing, so either I subscribe to just less than I need and run out anyway, or just more than I need and have it piling up.

The one other thing that could be a good restock is rice. A solid restock on quality rice is something that could be really valuable for folks who cook Asian food regularly, and it's something that people generally make on a pretty regular basis, but may not have a good local store that has quality options for.

How much does a typical bag cost and weigh?

I usually buy 2-5 lbs, but I know some people who go through 20-40lbs regularly.

Rice is dirt cheap and low margin. The sort of people who eat rice everyday are also the sort of people who buy a 40lbs bag that lasts for months because rice doesn't go bad. Also, my (stereotypical) impression of people who cook rice everyday is that they are not rich and willing to spend money of this type of luxury.

My guess is that rice is one of the last products that automatic restocking makes economic sense for.

If you want to get VC funding, pick the one with the biggest market.

If you want to build a profitable business sooner rather than later. Figure out which 3 would give you the best marginal profit and choose the one you think you can execute best on.

I can't imagine having sufficiently spacious and sparsely-populated household storage that each of these things could live on its own individual scale, to be monitored in this way.

Use reusable diapers.

When I was a baby, my parents used a diaper service to exactly do this - cloth diapers laundered off-site. Here's an idea for a social-local-mobile business : bring back the diaper service.

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