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OWJones

I think it's time to switch product lines...

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Got a call from my sister-in-law about a community garage sale being setup in a car dealership parking lot.  No fee to setup, was going to run from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, right on a major highway, etc., sounded like a great deal.

 

The day was almost perfect, temps in the low 70's, a little bit of a breeze, but not bad, forecast called for possibility of rain/storm some time during the day.

 

I showed up at my brother's house at 6:45 AM and they filled the bed of my pickup with boxes and totes of their items and then got in their own loaded SUV and we took off for the dealership.  It was in the next county and there is no direct route, so it took a little over an hour to get there (including a pit stop at Hardees for breakfast - we don't have a Hardees in our town, so we always make it a point to stop when we're heading that way).  Got to the lot, setup my pop-up 10x10' canopy, setup our tables and started putting out inventory.  I had brought a whole bunch of pre-made buttons along with my button making gear, a bunch of pre-printed art and a large stack of blanks for people to design their own buttons.  I also put out an assortment of garage sale themed decals that I had made just for this event (attached) and other misc. decals, a couple of hats with rhinestone designs, some dye sub samples and a large stack of business cards.

 

My brother's wife is one of those coupon freaks like you see on TV - she has a 2 car garage filled with items she has bought with coupons, most of which she got for pennies or for free.  They brought body wash, soap, electric toothbrushes, glucose meters, Trident brand gum, disposable razors, feminine hygiene products, laundry detergent, air fresheners and more.  They were selling items for between $0.25 each (for packs of gum) up to $2 - the only things more expensive were the 2 gallon jugs of laundry detergent which I think were $6.  My S-I-L also had brought a bunch of frilly fu-fu wreaths that she makes, some mason jar mugs that she had me sandblast for her and more of her kitchen towels.

 

When the rain finally hit, high speed winds hit, too.  They lifted my canopy off of the ground, flipped it on it's side and sent it crashing into other tables.  This was with a 2 gallon jug of laundry detergent tied to each leg and sitting on the little feet to help hold the canopy down.  We got the canopy upright and taken down before anything got damaged and started throwing everything into the backs of our vehicles.  We'd seen the clouds coming, so we'd already boxed up everything that could have been damaged by water, so we got lucky there.

 

We tallied up our cash for the day.  I sold 22 buttons at $1 each and that was it.  Hardly anyone even looked at the decals nor the hats nor the dye sub items.  I handed out a few business cards, but not nearly as many as I would have liked.  Of the 22 buttons, I'd say it was a pretty close split between pre-made buttons and people designing their own.

 

My sister's craft table sold 4 kitchen towels at $5 each (she raised her prices) and that was it.  $20 net and at least $9 in raw materials (one towel + one hot pad, both from Dollar Tree, plus one large sewing button go into each one), so perhaps $11 in profit for her craft 'business'.

 

The table my brother was watching, with all the coupon goods, sold $437 worth of stuff, of which probably $410 was profit (accounting for gas to the sale and gas to go to the store and buy the items in the first place).

 

After paying for Hardees and gas, I think I cleared $2 for the day... but I did get to eat breakfast at Hardees, so it wasn't all bad...  I think I'm going to give up vinyl and become a competitive coupon consumer...

Garage Sale Designs.eps

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sorry things didn't go better Jones, and for the weather incidents - makes for a long day

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There's big money to be saved... and had, in the couponing world!  I haven't ventured there, as the extreme couponing really takes a lot of time, effort and dedication.  Kudos to anyone that has the patience for it!

 

Sorry things didn't work out so well on your end!  We have a "Holiday craft show" coming up at the local high school in November, and hubby and I have been tossing around the idea of renting a table.  Not sure how well decals will sell at something like that.  Maybe if we are doing hats, mugs, etc by then.  We've also been invited to join a swap meet at a gun club, the end of July.  It's a 2hr drive, but free to set up, so we may do that one.  We haven't quite decided.

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What about shirts?. There's a flea market here, I swing by once in a while because the best buy sells is open box items cheap. There's a guy that cuts vinyl there, custom shirts for 10 bucks. He doesn't stop all day, so he must be cleaning up. I don't have time to do that now with kids and work, and this vinyl thing is kinda blowing up, But maybe in the future. He's gotta be doing five bills in profit a day.

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The key is custom on the spot which equals more only to set up. I don't count the shirts, vinyl, canopy tent, computer, cutter, or heat press. You have those already and would have used them doing premade items. However if you don't have a large enough vehicle you need to borrow someone's bigger vehicle, rent a trailer, or buy one. Next you have to power the computer, cutter, and th heat press so you need to buy a generator and its got to be one that handles all those components. They are not cheap I looked into them. So to start producing custom work at a swap meet and if you need to rent or buy the trailer, and purchase a generator your looking at let's say a 7x14' trailer $4000 and a decent 2500 watt generator $300 to $600 . That's a lot of money to start.

However OWjones my friend don't feel bad up here its a little better on the premade decals and shirts etc. but not by much. Sorry to hear it was crummy. However if its illegal merchandise that's had to do with sports, people will buy it.

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Simularly...I posted 35 Ebay auctions on 35 of 62 designs, waited like a expecting mother.....NODA....could not compete with the 99cent run off, the 10foot lettered LOVE STINK'S which sold more than the count of posts I made, I lost roughly time and effort along with posting cost at around 30 bucks even if you re-post I still have to pay posting fees...ETSY has been minimal, out of 48 items at I think is 20-25cent for 3mts posting I have sold 5 wall art and with that they didn't want the 24 x 36 cut, they wanted a 8 x 8 cut, which drops my sale from 20-25 to 8-10 bucks.....Too  many doing the same thingin Vinyl cuttings, only separating factor is my designs are original concept(at least that's what I think)...BUT I am working on the idea that is related to the field of work I do daily, just trying to find a cheap patent lawyer to get clarification on 1 topic.....

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Petro, I've never heard "cheap" and "lawyer" in the same sentence before. If you find that you might want to play the lotto with that much luck.

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well all I seek is a definitive answer...I have been assuming that THIS company makes a particular product, well that product is sold and shipped world wide, I found that I can make a similar product and a lot cheaper in a sense , and my end result is pretty too....Now, this product is a add-on to a NESS'RY product and without it results are useless, I have found out that THEY don't make the product that I am interested in and that a 3rd party does it for them so would there be a patent infringe if I compete by making mine and market a comparible similar product to the very same businesses that buy from the company in question....The are no copyright statements or symbols of any kind on the product I am dealing with, I know that means zip just cause their finger print isn't on the thing but can I become a competing product against their's and produce on an even scale so to speak.....

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As long as it's not an identical product with at least a small innovation I'd think you'd be fine. However if they feel you're cutting into their bottom line expect legal troubles even if you are in the right. Unfortunately they can tie you up in court and basically bankrupt you before you could prove that you were OK to fo what you're doing. I can see why you want to talk with an attorney on this one.

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ok, stupid ? , i know but here goes. If i wanted to do t-shirts at a community sale- when you say custom, do people come up and tell you what they want on it or do you have designs cut already or what? I wouldn't know what people would want to have precut !! OK OK, my friends say i dont' get out much. hhehehee. Is there a limit to what can go on it so as not to go in the hole on one.Thanks for the garage sale signs. Gonna get those when i get home.

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