The £100 challenge – start a business

[daemon]

spikeyhead said:

I've also had a plonker from Turkey buy a pair of items for £100 each, then ask about the postage, curse that it was more than he expected and refuse to pay.

If your markup is that large, is / was there not scope to even 'meet him halfway' on the cost of the postage and still make a decent profit?

[spikeyhead]

daemon said:

If your markup is that large, is / was there not scope to even 'meet him halfway' on the cost of the postage and still make a decent profit?

I've only got six of those units, they'll comfortably sell for £100 each. Had he asked in advance I'd have considered a deal, but as he didn't, I won't. I know they won't stick around when relisted.

[daemon]

spikeyhead said:

daemon said:

If your markup is that large, is / was there not scope to even 'meet him halfway' on the cost of the postage and still make a decent profit?

I've only got six of those units, they'll comfortably sell for £100 each. Had he asked in advance I'd have considered a deal, but as he didn't, I won't. I know they won't stick around when relisted.

fair 'nuf

[3200gt]

I wish someone set up an ebay type site which banned traders. Ebay was good in the early days when it was mostly individuals clearing out their excess and clutter. Now its all traders selling the same stuff at fixed prices. Just another Amazon.

by popular demand from another thread.

[spikeyhead]

3200gt said:

I wish someone set up an ebay type site which banned traders. Ebay was good in the early days when it was mostly individuals clearing out their excess and clutter. Now its all traders selling the same stuff at fixed prices. Just another Amazon.

by popular demand from another thread.

You can filter to just look at auctions and remove the buy it now stuff. That tends to remove a lot of the generic tat traders. I will say it's been very useful in building up my little enterprise.

[johnfm]

poprock said:

I suppose I should post another update.

Our club night was on Friday.

We were in profit by £430 beforehand.

Took an investment of £100 from a friend for this one - it as her 30th birthday and she wanted to have her birthday night out at our club, with a live band of her choice … so we agreed to split the cost of paying the band.

So - £530 up before opening.

£100 venue hire
£200 band fee
£20 tip for our glamorous door lady
£0 on promotion (doing it mostly online now, with only a minimum of printed posters that I run out myself)

Balance at £210 profit before opening the doors.

January was always bound to be a quiet month for us. The majority of Glaswegians took an extra two days off this year and aren't even back at work until tomorrow.

We made £260 on the door in the end, which puts us at £470 in profit heading into February.

Frankly, we were glad to turn any profit at all in January with the extra expense of a live band. £40 added to the pot at the end of a great night out isn’t bad at all.

So. Three months in and we’re up by £470. Not setting the world on fire, but having a bit of fun without losing out.

Is there a bar at the venue? I assume so.

Why aren't you making anything from the bar take?

[R1chy11]

I'm a bit late into this but my idea is to sell good quality t-shirts with printed designs on them.

The designs will be submitted by creative students and they will get paid a commission for each one sold. The t-shirts will also be limited run to keep the designs fresh and create an element of exclusivity.

I've started things off but struggling to really get it going alongside work. Hopefully posting in here will motivate me a bit more.

Any feedback welcome.

[poprock]

johnfm said:

Is there a bar at the venue? I assume so.

Why aren't you making anything from the bar take?

It doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. The venue always keeps the bar take. Promoters get either a fixed fee from the venue or they get the door take.

In this industry, the venue hold all the cards. If you were mega-successful, maybe you could negotiate something. We certainly can’t at this stage.

It’s the same as a band playing in a bar - they sell tickets, the venue sells beer. Never the twain shall meet.

[typer0612]

Tempted to join this challenge, i should be focusing on my dissertation but anyway,

I was wondering if this would be viable, say secure a space (outdoors perhaps, or in a shopping mall).

Set up a quick learning crash course in BSL (British Sign Language) which i would teach myself (I do realise i am not qualified for this but i could get qualified).

If 20-30 people signed up for this and learnt a range of terms in BSL in 30 minutes / 1 hour, that could be of use to them at another point in life.

say 25 x 10 = £250 for one session, run three sessions a day in that location?

The other way of doing it i would guess is online conferencing but complicated etc etc

P

[AyBee]

typer0612 said:

Tempted to join this challenge, i should be focusing on my dissertation but anyway,

I was wondering if this would be viable, say secure a space (outdoors perhaps, or in a shopping mall).

Set up a quick learning crash course in BSL (British Sign Language) which i would teach myself (I do realise i am not qualified for this but i could get qualified).

If 20-30 people signed up for this and learnt a range of terms in BSL in 30 minutes / 1 hour, that could be of use to them at another point in life.

say 25 x 10 = £250 for one session, run three sessions a day in that location?

The other way of doing it i would guess is online conferencing but complicated etc etc

P

Is there that much demand to learn BSL?

[Legend83]

Think I might take a punt on this.

Going to dabble in sourcing reasonable unlocked mobile phones and flogging them on. Seems to be a fairly good market for these on Ebay so the onus will be on me to pay the best price I can for my good to achieve any margin.

L83

[typer0612]

AyBee said:

Is there that much demand to learn BSL?

No i wouldn't have thought so but if there was a half hour session available in a shopping centre and you wanted to teach your kids for example or something like that??

I would assume a lot of people would be interested.

[typer0612]

Legend83 said:

Think I might take a punt on this.

Going to dabble in sourcing reasonable unlocked mobile phones and flogging them on. Seems to be a fairly good market for these on Ebay so the onus will be on me to pay the best price I can for my good to achieve any margin.

L83

I have attempted this and failed, i broke even. I wish you luck.

(More than £100 for a decent phone in the first place too)

[daemon]

typer0612 said:

Legend83 said:

Think I might take a punt on this.

Going to dabble in sourcing reasonable unlocked mobile phones and flogging them on. Seems to be a fairly good market for these on Ebay so the onus will be on me to pay the best price I can for my good to achieve any margin.

L83

I have attempted this and failed, i broke even. I wish you luck.

(More than £100 for a decent phone in the first place too)

Been there too.

Everybodys at it. And you're competing against people who are just selling off their upgrade phone so can always be cheaper than you. Then theres the scammers. Then theres the 'this phone you sent me isnt working' brigade.

[spikeyhead]

daemon said:

typer0612 said:

Legend83 said:

Think I might take a punt on this.

Going to dabble in sourcing reasonable unlocked mobile phones and flogging them on. Seems to be a fairly good market for these on Ebay so the onus will be on me to pay the best price I can for my good to achieve any margin.

L83

I have attempted this and failed, i broke even. I wish you luck.

(More than £100 for a decent phone in the first place too)

Been there too.

Everybodys at it. And you're competing against people who are just selling off their upgrade phone so can always be cheaper than you. Then theres the scammers. Then theres the 'this phone you sent me isnt working' brigade.

It's an area where there's a lot of people all trying to work at low margins, so a pointless pool to jump into.

[bishbash]

daemon said:

Been there too.

Me too, I even looked into buying phones with cracked screens and then replacing them, even these weren't really worth it.

[therealpigdog]

AyBee said:

typer0612 said:

Tempted to join this challenge, i should be focusing on my dissertation but anyway,

I was wondering if this would be viable, say secure a space (outdoors perhaps, or in a shopping mall).

Set up a quick learning crash course in BSL (British Sign Language) which i would teach myself (I do realise i am not qualified for this but i could get qualified).

If 20-30 people signed up for this and learnt a range of terms in BSL in 30 minutes / 1 hour, that could be of use to them at another point in life.

say 25 x 10 = £250 for one session, run three sessions a day in that location?

The other way of doing it i would guess is online conferencing but complicated etc etc

P

Is there that much demand to learn BSL?

Depends how you market it surely - my wife has signed up for baby signing class, and most of the other mums she knows are doing the same. Plus, it takes babies a fair while to pick up, so success/failure can be blamed on them

[Legend83]

Advice taken!

[mondeoman]

Quick update: after listing on the 'bay for 2 months, I got my first sale!! Woo bloody hoo! And a notional profit on the sale as well (of about a fiver )

[poprock]

It’s still a profit!