Just throwing this out there...

I've been watching a lot of The Apprentice and Dragon's Den again

I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried something like this personal business venture stuff?
Like buying and selling?

I'm talking small money, I would only ever be able to put up say £300 at once, and dont really have my own transport. But I do have time off work to commit to something

So has anyone ever tried this themselves? Or even had any fun ideas about it?
What would you buy in order to sell for profit? Where would you get it?

Around Christmas there were some black guys that musta made a deal with the post office. They had a wooden stall outside the entrance and were selling hats n mittens for super cheap.

I've had quite a few random ideas but mostly for fun, like "buy some tubs of ice cream and sell ice cream at the beach...before it melts".

My brother bought some tickets online and sold them for profit iirc.

I'd love to have a van and go round picking up cheap/free items like wardrobes in order to sell them on.

Jaso

United States2147 Posts

May 20 2011 02:19 GMT

So, er, what you're saying is.. a store?

Fontong

United States6454 Posts

May 20 2011 02:26 GMT

Yeah I've done this before. When I was like 10 or so I made some lemonade and sold it to my neighbors. You seem to be slightly more ambitious though.

FFGenerations

7088 Posts

May 20 2011 02:37 GMT

On May 20 2011 11:26 Fontong wrote:
Yeah I've done this before. When I was like 10 or so I made some lemonade and sold it to my neighbors. You seem to be slightly more ambitious though.

Well selling lemonade is probably nearer than owning a store for me!
You know, hauling big bottles of cold drinks around the beach is possibly a better idea than ice cream (but still need a car). Although you know I could find a very local retailer and sell small canned drinks for them. Like buy 50 cans for 40p each sell for 60p , 50x.2=£10. selling 1 can in 5 mins = £2.30/hour woohoo.

FFGenerations

7088 Posts

May 20 2011 03:48 GMT

well....

in my city,

you can apply to be on a waiting list to have a stall in one of just 5 streets (im guessing there are ~5 stalls, since i see fuckall of them). this is £1200 per quarter.

"mobile" (walking around) trading is only allowed in the outskirts of the city (housing estates and fuck else). this costs £180 per quarter.

trading of food is allowed, with an additional licence (£), an inspection, and "hygiene training" (i think they mean some ridiculous college course, not sure)

walking around the beach with 25 bottles of water in a box sounds like itll get me arrested and fined :/

latest thought is to get a bicycle with a freezer bag and fill it with budget lolly pops from a local supermarket:+ Show Spoiler +

cost of bike and attachment
cost of uniform
12p/lolly
cost of ice
50 lollys per bag at 50p (maybe 40)
= £19/50 sold
heres the problem, do i think i can sell 1 per 5 minutes?
12/hr = +£4.56/hr
as we can see its a bit lame, and 1 per 5 minutes is optimistic to begin with

WormBeard

United States46 Posts

May 20 2011 06:12 GMT

Something like this is my dream and I think about quitting my job everyday to do something like this. Im going to be going with the bicycle idea. Requires no permit that I know of and most of the gear can be obtained for free or cheap. If I go through with this I will create a blog.

Also you dont need ice you can use freezer packs. Selling things that dont spoil and maybe even dont require being frozen are a great idea. ie bottled water, all sorts of candy, candy bars, energy bars etc etc.

FFGenerations

7088 Posts

May 20 2011 06:38 GMT

the issue here with that is its illegal to do it within the city "A" zone. the B zone is just housing estates with no one walking around wanting ice lollies. they pretty much only walk from their car to their front door. it might work out in some cities but mine is a high profile coastal place and i can imagine getting shut down real fast.

on the other hand

you really must read this. i spent like 100 hours reading it just now.
http://www.businessopportunitiesandideas.com/58/start-a-leaflet-distribution-business-for-under-200

WormBeard

United States46 Posts

May 20 2011 06:51 GMT

I live in San Jose CA. There are guys doing this all the time. Mexican guys pusing ice cream carts etc etc. People in downtown selling all kinds of stuff on corners. I emailed my city to find out anyways. I don't think it would be a problem if moving around every 20-30 minutes though.

Ill check out that link soon

thanks.