How to start up business

Percy1983

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Nah, but I like that idea lol. I don't know enough about cars though.

It's not exactly something rare, more collectable, but some are far harder to get hold of than others and they vary in size. Although, that's for new items. I guess there may be some old rare items out there, but I highly doubt I'd ever find any of them.

My point is spend a few quid on a shed or lockup and get listing on bay collection only, you can't discount the millions for search ebay everyday.

Flyonthewall

Percy1983 wrote: »

My point is spend a few quid on a shed or lockup and get listing on bay collection only, you can't discount the millions for search ebay everyday.

I know ebay is a popular platform, but personally I wouldn't bother with collection only auctions/BIN for anything other than massive and/or heavy items when buying.

Point is, I wouldn't bother with collection only for what I want to sell. It would be shop or postage. Ok, so not everyone might think the same and it could be worth a try. It depends how far people are willing to travel though and for how much. I'd have to look into whether it would be worth it. Perhaps try Gumtree or something first as that would be free.

Flyonthewall

"I'm slightly less pessimistic for you myself, as you say we don't know your items that you are selling. Maybe you have found that illusive high volume high margin perishable impulse buy that isn't going to get undercut online and which you can develop and franchise your model before the copy cats turn up. You may have that marketplace disruptor. And full credit to you if you do. I'm sure you can understand why people are nervous for you, but ultimately it is your punt. If it doesn't work out, better it doesn't work out whilst you're young enough and robust enough to bounce back!"

Thanks lol. I do understand, although I'm still wondering how such a simple question led to all this

It's not something I'm just about to jump in to. Anything like this requires a lot of thinking, research and planning. Now would be the perfect time for me to attempt a business idea though.

"I will bet everyone on this board has had at least one great idea that's cost them dearly. But if they hadn't tried, it would still be a great idea in their minds, and they learned from the experience. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we get lucky. We're all still alive and all ate a meal today, so we're already ahead. "

Exactly. That's why any idea I have I write down, think about, research, ask questions on etc. One day I'll hopefully have the perfect business plan and be able to give it ago. All you can do is hope it works out.

"When a business starts up, there are a lot of costs you suddenly realise you had never considered. Many people model their business around the ideal they have in mind, but forget it takes time to build a business. Look how many years Amazon made a loss on every single sale in order to create a market from nowhere. Staggering.

The problem is that it is easy to go spending on printing, stickers, advertising, car decals, nice desk and phone, etc., but when the first problem hits, there just isn't the cash in the bank to make it go away. Money makes most problems go away and having on hand cash means you can jump on spot opportunities, those moments when you see a chance to nail a competitor, or even just pay for a lawyers letter, or even refunding a faulty item. If you have cash, you can seize the moment, if you don't, you have the choice of taking on expensive credit, liquidating loads of stock without margin, or missing out. Instead of business predator, you become prey, effectively. Your competitor with on hand cash could do the deal, pay off the lawyer, whatever and leave you for dust. Cash is so so important!

So, this is why people are wary that you're over committing by leasing a property if you haven't proven the product demands is there first on the markets etc. Markets are by far the cheapest way to see the product in punters hands, with massively lower risk. Massively lower. Sounds like you're not cash rich right now, so you are going to need to be canny and not commit to long term costs. There are not really any grants for starting in business, the point being that businesses are supposed to be commercially viable, and if they are then you can attract a backer for cash flow. Get out there with a fistful of notes, test the idea on a market stall for a day. Do people like it? Do they take your mobile number and actually call it for more sales? Do people have any useful suggestions of where it would be good to try selling? If it goes well, become a market regular and then take the shop, if it doesn't you can cut and run at any stage without a a wily commercial leaseholder hitting you up with a fifty grand bill for repairs/whatever. The market stall you can try out for a few hundred quid point, you can't even afford the commercial property lawyer for a shop at that price."

Indeed.

I see people on here really think ahead which is great. However, they seem to think I'm missing a step. I tend to ask about one thing while researching another though. If the other thing doesn't work out I've still learnt about something else and if both work out I'm two steps ahead

lincroft1710

Flyonthewall wrote: »

you don't get people haggling like that in a shop and they expect higher prices.

You clearly haven't met my partner, she always tries to get a discount, whether shop, market, car boot or tradesman quoting for a job. I now also try for a discount in shops, because if you don't ask you don't get!!

Percy1983

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I know ebay is a popular platform, but personally I wouldn't bother with collection only auctions/BIN for anything other than massive and/or heavy items when buying.

Point is, I wouldn't bother with collection only for what I want to sell. It would be shop or postage. Ok, so not everyone might think the same and it could be worth a try. It depends how far people are willing to travel though and for how much. I'd have to look into whether it would be worth it. Perhaps try Gumtree or something first as that would be free.

So people wouldn't be willing to travel miles for your items on a ebay buy it now with collection only, but would be willing to travel the same number of miles to your shop they have heard some how?

Flyonthewall

lincroft1710 wrote: »

You clearly haven't met my partner, she always tries to get a discount, whether shop, market, car boot or tradesman quoting for a job. I now also try for a discount in shops, because if you don't ask you don't get!!

lol exactly. We don't haggle enough in the UK.

Flyonthewall

Percy1983 wrote: »

So people wouldn't be willing to travel miles for your items on a ebay buy it now with collection only, but would be willing to travel the same number of miles to your shop they have heard some how?

Depending on various things. If you pop into a shop you'd be willing to buy something of lower value while there and you might see other things too. If you saw it on ebay would you think let's travel to some random persons house miles away for one (low value) item or would you think I wish it was in a shop or they'd post it to me?

I'm not saying people certainly won't collect, it's just that personally I wouldn't like to go to someones house to collect something, but I wouldn't think twice about going to a shop.

As I said, Gumtree would be a good way to see if local people are willing to buy and collect. If that's fine then ebay would be worth trying to see if there are other buyers, possibly further away.

Percy1983

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Depending on various things. If you pop into a shop you'd be willing to buy something of lower value while there and you might see other things too. If you saw it on ebay would you think let's travel to some random persons house miles away for one (low value) item or would you think I wish it was in a shop or they'd post it to me?

I'm not saying people certainly won't collect, it's just that personally I wouldn't like to go to someones house to collect something, but I wouldn't think twice about going to a shop.

As I said, Gumtree would be a good way to see if local people are willing to buy and collect. If that's fine then ebay would be worth trying to see if there are other buyers, possibly further away.

So we are in small and cheap items, I would probably just stay on ebay or such and get it posted, wouldn't even know if a small local shop stocked it.

Savvy_Sue

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Any items I've got to sell would be private sales. It would be daft to make that into a business and be taxed on items I shouldn't be.

You may think it's daft to make this into a business, but as soon as you start buying stock with a view to selling it for a profit, you MUST register as self-employed with HMRC. The whole time you are selling your collection of priceless Vinyl or your extensive collection of books, that's fine, but once you start buying with a view to selling, you ARE trading.

Your profits may not mean you have to pay any tax, especially if you don't have a day job, but that's beside the point.

Flyonthewall wrote: »

As I said, Gumtree would be a good way to see if local people are willing to buy and collect. If that's fine then ebay would be worth trying to see if there are other buyers, possibly further away.

That sounds sensible to me.

BTW, have you found our Ebay board? Could be worth a look to see if there are ways around your fears about the costs of postage. And there's bound to be a bit about Gumtree there as well.

Flyonthewall

Percy1983 wrote: »

So we are in small and cheap items, I would probably just stay on ebay or such and get it posted, wouldn't even know if a small local shop stocked it.

Some of them, not all. Small doesn't mean lightweight though and it doesn't mean that it doesn't cost much to post. Postage prices for all companies have gone up recently.