5 Questions: WarrantyElephant.com

There’s a new website in town, and they’re committed to protecting your purchases.

In this first “5 Questions” feature, Sync spoke with WarrantyElephant.com’s co-founder Stephen Chesney about the new Canadian service.

Sync: OK, so what the heck is a “Warranty Elephant”?

Stephen Chesney: WarrantyElephant.com is a free, user friendly and secure warranty reminder and warranty documents storage service. The basic function of the site is to help users keep track of all their invoice and warranty information, so it is never lost and is available 24/7 from anywhere at any time. When something breaks, you know where to find your warranty and contact information and if uploaded, you have the documentation required in hand. WarrantyElephant.com notifies you via email of your warranty expiration at set periods prior to your warranty expiring so that the date will not pass our users by, potentially saving them repair costs. None of our members will ever have warranty issues based on expired time lines and/or lost documentation again.

Sync: How does it work, exactly?

SC: Sign up at WarrantyElephant.com, it’s free. Get your warranties together, or start with new purchases, and enter in the information WarrantyElephant.com asks for. You can just enter in the manufacturer, product, and warranty period, or you can choose to enter more (serial number, etc.). If you don’t want the hassle of remembering where you have stored your warranty documents, invoices or a picture of the product , scan them in and upload them to Warranty Elephant’s secure server, where you can look at them with the click of a button. WarrantyElephant.com will securely store your information for when you need it and sends you email reminders about your warranty expiration date at 3 months, 1 month and 1 week before your warranty expires. This will help you remember to check your item and make sure it is in good working order; if it’s not, you can use that warranty and save your money.

Sync: If it’s free, what’s the business model?

SC: In the initial phase, we’re signing up users so that we have a large user base.  Once this base is established we will be approaching various manufacturers and retailers, as well as warranty providers. Although we expect a portion of our revenues to come from site advertising, our most significant portion of revenue is anticipated to be from these manufacturers and retailers signing on to have us send out directed advertisements and discount offers to the users. We will never give out our users email addresses, however we will send them offers and product information on behalf of the manufacturers and retailers.
Imagine the value of the information to a manufacturer when we can send an email to all users that have purchased a television in the last 6 months, and offer the user a discount on the purchase of a DVD player to accompany their new television.  As well, we will have links to purchase extended warranties on products that have warranties currently expiring.  In a nutshell we want to become the central site on the internet for warranty information and discussion.

Sync: Who is this website for, exactly? Why is there a need for it?

SC: Any person who has ever purchased or will purchase a product that carries a warranty. Anyone who has lost an invoice or warranty paper, forgot about a warranty until it was too late, forgot exactly what their warranty covers or simply wants to be organized, will love WarrantyElephant.com. Every person who purchases a warrantable item will eventually experience an issue with one or more of their purchases. This free site will send them reminders of their warranty expiration dates and keep track of their warranty related paperwork for any product and service. WarrantyElephant.com will save our users time, effort and potentially money.

Sync: Finally, how did you come up with the name?

SC: There is an old adage that says “Elephants never forget” hence it made perfect sense for us to call the site Warranty Elephant as we will always have your warranty information available to you when you need it or to simply remind you before it’s due to expire. We will never forget!