Another Slow Week, Behind the Scenes Work Going On

This was the first week since starting the project that I haven’t made any sales…. OUCH. It’s mostly my fault, I haven’t been able to get to an auction for a couple weeks, so no new inventory. I almost sold some items over the weekend, but the buyer went AWOL (a common occurrence on the “Offer Up” or “LetGo” apps, btw). So, I’ve decided that when there’s slow points in the progress, I will take advantage of the down-time to share other thoughts/posts that are related (see Friday’s “Why Drinking Lemonade is Going to Save the World”), how-to’s, or more in-depth accounts of other efforts I’m working on that haven’t hit pay dirt yet. Today’s update will be that last part.
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Right now, I’m working on two main “other” ideas. Building/Selling Furniture and décor, and importing a product to build a brand/online store. I can already tell, the bigger/more complex these ventures get, the more time and investment it will take to get them up and running. Buying and selling things from auctions is about as simple/quick as it gets, so I need to mentally re-calibrate so that I don’t get discouraged if the other ideas take a little longer to reach a payoff. 

The furniture build effort is going well. The first attempt, a little side-table using the reclaimed wood I purchased from an auction, is so far serving its purpose successfully and netted the project $40. This weekend, I successfully completed trial number two. Pam has wanted a rustic-ish “Farmhouse” style table for a while, and when we were shopping for them at the little shops here in Lebanon, they were $800-900… woah. Similar styles in furniture stores, etc, were well over $1,000! Because the style is rougher lumber and simple construction, I figured this would be something I could try and build so we could have a nice table and save some money. Then I figured if I was successful, maybe I could build and sell some tables, then my customers could save some money and the project would have another nice revenue stream!
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So, this weekend, we built a table for Pam (to be fair, she helped a lot… the style and finish, color, and a fair amount of the staining/painting were all her!). I  decided to use new, untreated lumber since we have babies that like to chew things (treated lumber is apparently safe for most indoor applications, but ingestion is toxic so we went with un-treated just in case) and new wood would be much easier to work with to get a nice, smooth finish on things. 

I spent a little time Saturday morning in-between family activities, and most of the day Sunday, working on the table. I think it probably took 8 hours total, but the second attempt could potentially be quicker now that I’ve figured out the tactics.  I think I can build them for about $150 plus about 6-8 hours of work, and I think I would be pretty competitive at a base price of $450 and can customize the size/color for customers (there are others on Craigslist, similar in the $500+ range). I’m pretty happy with the results, so I’ll use the pictures of this table and see if I can get some orders locally (if you live near Southwest Ohio and want one, let me know!)

The other main effort going on “behind the scenes” I’ve alluded to before, importing products and selling them under a new brand/company. If you’ve heard of this before (people grabbing random products, slapping a brand on them and creating a small revenue stream on Amazon), this is a similar strategy but I’m much more interested in building and actual Brand/Company around a portfolio of products in the similar niche.  At this point, I think I’ve figured out a first “entry” product. I’ve picked this item because one of my hobbies has a pretty lively and personal online “community”, and I think I can use that as an entry point to sell some quickly or even do a pre-order arrangement. At this point, I’ve found 2 suppliers and received quotes. I’m also in the process of setting up an account with UPS for importing/freight forwarding, which is a bit of an elaborate dance. I’m learning all about the import game, but suffice it to say that shipping things across the world for commercial sale isn’t quite as easy as mailing a letter.

I think that UPS (many others do the same service, but UPS called me back first!) will be helpful in this process, as they offer door-to-door shipping services (taking my potential product through customs, shipping, etc) at a pretty affordable rate, and my suppliers per-piece price is pretty good. I’m still figuring out logistics, but I think the total price of ordering/receiving a first batch of this product will be about $2,000. That’s a good deal higher than the cash we have on-hand right now (and I would want to leave some emergency money in the bank!), so I need to get back to work buying and selling items and push the furniture effort so that I can get going on this first small business!

Sorry for the slow week, but I’m really excited about these two new efforts, so they are taking some significant time. I do think that longer-term, they have a great potential for some great money making opportunities, and I’m really enjoying the whole process. The idea of making money doing things that I really enjoy is as appealing as ever, so despite the slow progress my motivation is still high!

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