Retail ideas with little start-up costs.

[Marty McFly]

When coming up with ideas to start a new business, wouldn't you all agree that retail is the way to go?

Other than farm produce, what can one start selling that does not involve buying at first (wholesale) but can later be mass produced?

With the exception of internet e-books and membership fees, I can only think of media produced by your pc at the moment. You can do one at a time as the orders come in and then get them copied in bulk.

CDs - if you can compose and play music
DVDs - of your town, a tutorial, or pornography
Printing - t-shirts and posters

Any more ideas?

[1000feet]

You could try selling any kind of digital information - that way you don't need to have a lot of inventory costs, although it could be expensive to develop.

[OnionJack]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

When coming up with ideas to start a new business, wouldn't you all agree that retail is the way to go?

Other than farm produce, what can one start selling in large quantities that involves little buying and start-up costs?

With the exception of internet e-books and membership fees, I can only think of media produced by your pc at the moment. You can do one at a time as the orders come in and then get them copied in bulk.

CDs - if you can compose and play music
DVDs - of your town, a tutorial, or pornography
Printing - t-shirts and posters

Any more ideas?

LOL I hope this topic was meant to be argumentative. Because retail is by far from the only way to start a small business. I would venture to make a completely nonfactual guess that most are started in restaurant/hospitality business. Or in this day and age the Internet.

What is your concern with large quantities but little overhead? What happens if you made 200% net on every product you sold, the overhead would be worth it? Maybe you only need to keep 10 of those products stocked.

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

When coming up with ideas to start a new business, wouldn't you all agree that retail is the way to go?

Absolutely not!

Retail has, overall, the highest start-up costs, the lowest margins and the smallest chance of success.

That makes it far from the automatic choice when starting a new business.

[Marty McFly]

Okay, I should have said when thinking of starting a business as a path towards becoming rich. Supplying a service means selling your time unless of course, you employ other people to do the work for you so it frees your time for you then to start another business.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

Okay, I should have said when thinking of starting a business as a path towards becoming rich. Supplying a service means selling your time unless of course, you employ other people to do the work for you so it frees your time for you then to start another business.

In a way Steve, in providing his work, supplies a service and by creating his own intellectual property and making it available to others is providing a service. It is a service which has value to many people including myself.

Aside from the fact that the service provides Steve a great amount of personal satisfaction it also provides him with a good income. I do not think I would see this kind of work as selling my time, indeed it would be rewarding even without the level of financial success it has achieved.

I am not Steve but I provide custom audio products to people and find myself fulfilled and having financial rewards. I would do this work for free if there were no money to be earned in this and am grateful for the income. More income is available with my work if the income becomes more important to me.

I follow my bliss in this work!

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

Okay, I should have said when thinking of starting a business as a path towards becoming rich.

Bleh. Money is such a dull objective...

If riches are your forte, though, I would still not consider retail to be the best choice. The creation and exploitation of original IP (like Steve does) is ultimately much smarter.

[Marty McFly]

Yes I'm experimenting with the internet also but rather than work a job now, wouldn't you agree that retail is better than service?

[ThoughtAddict]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

Yes I'm experimenting with the internet also but rather than work a job now, wouldn't you agree that retail is better than service?

No. Retail faces significant problems. Unless you're selling a piece of intellectual property or drugs, you're likely to face small margins. With anything other than IP, you'll probably have high overhead. And unless you have a unique product, a niche, you're probably going to face a saturated market that is relatively difficult to break into. This is even more true if you'd rely on getting any kind of public exposure.

Your concern with selling a service seems to be the time/reward peg. Even in service industries, you can, with a little bit of capital, find ways to automate and remove that peg.

The biggest problem with your question is it asks in terms of a relatively unimportant variable: money. Focus on providing something of value. If you see that custom pink mini-widgets would provide value, look to manufacture them. If you see that wild widget riding lessons would provide value, aim toward providing them, whether by articles, a blog, a book, or hands-on lessons.

[1000feet]

Countless services involving technology can be done as many times as needed without requiring you to be involved each time.

With any retail business you'll have to spend a certain amount of time in the hopes of making a certain amount of money (if everything works out right). Figure out those numbers and how to provide an equivalent amount of value per hour as a service and you're set. If you do this in an area where there's a lot of demand (ie, something that makes people money or saves them money) it's better because it doesn't depend on all the factors involved in a retail business. You can sell an hour at a time whenever you want.

[RichesWithin]

By far the best business to start where you have very low start up costs, can make 6 or 7 figures per year, can work from home, have no inventory and don't have to trade time for money is InterNetwork Marketing. Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump both call it the best business opportunity available anywhere.

If you haven't looked into it yet you will find opportunities that focus on health, nutrition, internet marketing products and a whole lot more. I personally joined an opportunity that focuses on personal development and the law of attraction. It is a dream come true for me. Just find an area that interests you and then look for a network marketing company who offers something that you believe in.

[beautyscientist]

I agree with the drawbacks of retail but it does have one huge advantage over the other ideas suggested, and one that with respect might be very relevant to you personally as you don't seem to have any ideas at the moment.

You get feedback from day one.

If nobody comes in your shop you know straight away your offering is wrong. If they come in and buy A and ignore B you know that A is the way to go.

You are risking the cost of renting the shop, but nearly all the stock you buy can be got rid of one way or another. Even if you end up flogging it on Ebay someone somewhere will buy it if the price is right.

The grocers in my town recently changed hands and it is amazing to see how much of a success the new owner has made of it. She has obviously tried some new things and followed up on the ones that worked.

Sure retail is risky, but I don't think you'll find a better way to try ideas out and learn what people place a value on.

[Marty McFly]

Okay, consider this. A barber that has 50,000 people lined up to see him is going to see the last one in a long time. A salesman that has just had an order for 50,000 pens is going to get richer the fastest. Providing a service becomes a job.

[AviMar]

Originally Posted by Marty McFly

Okay, consider this. A barber that has 50,000 people lined up to see him is going to see the last one in a long time. A salesman that has just had an order for 50,000 pens is going to get richer the fastest. Providing a service becomes a job.

If you are a barber with 50,000 people out your door, you figure out some other way to get other people do the work and still draw the people in.
But the way to go is in services & IP. Or IP based on services.
We are in a KNOWLEDGE worker age.

[beautyscientist]

Originally Posted by AviMar

If you are a barber with 50,000 people out your door, you figure out some other way to get other people do the work and still draw the people in.
But the way to go is in services & IP. Or IP based on services.
We are in a KNOWLEDGE worker age.

Couldn't agree more. But unless I am doing him a disservice, Marty doesn't seem to have any knowledge. What he has is a hunger. Retail could be one way he can create his own bit of knowledge. IP may be intangible, but it still doesn't spring into existence out of nothing.

[1000feet]

Google has no products. It must suck to be them.

[OnionJack]

Originally Posted by 1000feet

Google has no products. It must suck to be them.

LOL a little myopic no?

Exxon has a product. It must suck to be them.

[SteveWeber]

My wife and I have a successful online retail business, have some pretty good AdSense sites, do some with affiliate marketing, and have a good digital information business.

We want OUT of the retail business and are working towards building up the others. There are easier ways to make money online. We make far more profit with the digital info with only a fraction of the work. And the AdSense sites...they are close to free money compared to the retail site.

With all the supplier, shipping, and customer service issues involved, it can be quite the headache.