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Propane.
Then Coleman Fuel.
Then Portable Wood Stove.We gotcha covered!
🙂
Well, we have 3 gallons…so you still have us beat!!!
I haven’t seen him a lot, but from what I have seen he mainly shows that he has a brick and mortar shop that he can get a lot if items coming to him. He also does auctions, some estate sales, some driving around as well, but I think most of his high dollar stuff comes to his shop. And he has employees there, so they are essentially doing a lot of buying for him.
I think he shows a lot of driving out to deals, but I’m not sure what % he buys vs. people in his shop.
Ok. 100 gallons of Olive Oil? You win buddy!
That is awesome!
Agree Jay. But it also works in other ways, not even for “Doomsday”. Just good to have what you need. If I spend on one thing (not cars, houses, or clothes), I spend on consumables that we will need at some point and can use up when either money is tight, there is a snow storm coming, etc.
My tactics?
When I use 1, buy 2 next time. It slowly grows your inventory without a huge investment up front.
If on sale and doesn’t go bad (TP, Deodorant, Shampoo, Detergent), fill up the cart. I have’t had to purchase shaving cream for 18 months now, and my boys are still raiding the basement when they need it. We found a deal once…
Keep at least two of everything in the basement. So 1 in use, 2 in the basement. You never run out, and when you need a shopping list, go see what you only have 1 of in the basement.
We are so full right now, I’m not allowed in the grocery store this summer. We have 3 full freezers, and I need at least one to be empty by October for hunting season. So when summer is tight, we “eat on” the storage in the basement.
Your last paragraph is part of the goal: The ability to scale (at least at this stage, before we go to the REAL level of scaling) while requiring a set of skills that can be deployed from (almost) any location.
There are two large barriers to a full time living at this:
1) It takes a lot of work, especially at the beginning, and the payoff is slow. You have to invest a lot of time, a decent amount of capital, and sales take time to flow in. I believe this is why 90% of people only do this part time. Not knocking that at all, but the time to grow this into a serious money making operation is significant. Growth Takes Time. And the quick return crowd fall out fast. And the churn and burn crowd fall out after 12-18 months. It just takes a lot of work and time to get good at this, knowing what to buy, what price to buy it at, how to list, what photos work, how to price, how to ship, how to inventory, how to do accounting, how to do taxes… Barrier 1: This ain’t easy.
The second barrier is the ability to scale. When scaling up:
Step 1 is to hire employees to list/photograph.
Step 1A is to make sure you have the margins on your products that can absorb that extra cost.
Step 1B is to be able to find enough product to keep your employees working (I call it “keeping them fed”)
Step 1C is to make sure you have the capital to pay for the inventory for them to list, and their labor, knowing that the payoff in higher sales will come months later. For us at our STR, we are looking at a 4 month hole in cash flow to absorb this next step. Other people will be higher or lower than that depending on what they are selling, but that hole is there, and it is real.After successfully navigating Step 1 (and that is a big step), how do you move to Step 2, which is your original question: Outsourcing the sourcing. Private label, bulk buys, store buyouts, wholesale, or hire an extra people that you pay to shop for you. This is our next move I’m plotting now. While we are working solid this year at getting through the growing pains of Step 1, I’m hoping to get Step 2 nailed down. This is why I decided to move my Colorado Trail Hike to next year. I can’t leave while we are growing through the hole and leave Veronica to manage by herself. She could, and she would…buy I won’t do that to her.
And that is the rub on scaling: How to grow the sourcing. If we were a manufacturer, it would be easier. Once you have a product that is selling, you can scale up or down as demand requires, and your skill is how to increase demand or find a new product. For resellers…it is a different question.
And when I get it nailed…I’ll let you know… 🙂
Knorr packet or Idahoan packet – $1
Foil Chicken Packet – $2.50Calories: about 750. Add 1oz of Olive Oil and you are over 1,000 calores for that price.
Check that cost per calorie to many of the premade stuff.
And then you can add Harmony House stuff to make it REALLY good. More expensive, but really good.
I agree with that…but better to keep the insurance to as low a cost as possible.
Using food you will ACTUALLY use makes sure you don’t have things spoil and if you have to use it, you know how and what it tastes like.
+1 on both of your points Jay. Community is best, and store what you eat.
The only “prepper” food I have are MREs that I have found cheap at garage sales. Gonna have to eat a few soon before they expire… 🙂
For the love of Holy, don’t do Mountain House. Way overpriced for the calories you get. I go the hiker route…
Try Knorr packets with foil packed Chicken or Tuna. Or the Idahoan Potatoes with same. Much cheaper, tastes better, better value. I even did a Thanksgiving Dinner once: Boil water, add to Stove Top Stuffing, add chicken, add cranberries. One Pot Hiker Thanksgiving Dinner.
Or go higher end with Harmony House. That is much better Freeze Dried Food.
I hear you. The good news (and bad news) is that it isn’t easy. There is a lot of research and time spent trying to find items that will yield a profit that is worth it. I have found only one source that SOMETIMES has items that are worth a shot. There is a second source online that has the profit potential, but much longer tail. BULQ and other such sites just don’t work unless you are looking for low margins and your process can absorb that.
The other barrier is the initial cost. the low end of these buys are in the $300-$600 range. One place I’m tempted to try has a low end of $3,500 per order.
There are always the barriers to building scale in this business. For yard sales/thrift stores it is the commitment of time. You can 4X-10X your money in these places, but it takes time, some capital, and commitment to do it. For the bulk buying or online arbitrage it is higher capital and research time to find them.
Ain’t nuthin’ easy…anyone who says differently is selling something…
Preparedness would be us. Water, food, supplies, tools, clothes, etc. Just works out in daily life. Each vehicle has a Get Home Bag, and we use that stuff regularly. We could live on the food in the basement for probably close to a year.
And I’m always looking for more stuff when scavenging…
We don’t do Free Shipping very much. I have started trying that on some lower end brands to see if I can kick in some sales. Not on shoes at all.
We have Free Returns on all our items. We are the opposite of KatieScott: We have had no increase at all. We are still at 1.7% Return rate, same as what we were when we turned on Free Returns 2 months ago. We only had 4 returns last month at a total cost of $20.
Sourcing time for clothes and shoes is primarily on Saturdays from 7am to about 1-2pm. We look for them at yard sales on Fridays as well, but that is just a supplement.
Can I outsource the sourcing? I have some thoughts on doing that, and I think I can, but my focus has been that rather than outsourcing the purchasing, I am looking to find ways of doing bulk buys, wholesale, etc. that can be done from anywhere (so I could do some buying while on the road / hiking when needed to keep a crew of listers and photographers working). I have tried two online purchases with mixed success (one wasn’t bad and I will try again, the other was horrible).
Week of 6/3-6/9
Total Items in Store: 2,194 (Up 42% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 161
Number of Items Sold: 68 (Up 17% YOY)
(Includes 1 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether, 0 Amazon)
Weekly STR: 13% (Down 3% YOY)Total Product Sales: $1,727 (Up 53% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $290
Highest Item Sold: $110 – Joseph Abboud Navy Blue Pinstripe Suit
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week (who knew that could happen?) and Veronica leads for the year 12-11.eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,368
# Sold: 48
STR: 15%
ASP: $23.46eBay Shoes
# Listed: 236
# Sold: 10
STR: 18%
ASP: $34.48eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 590
# Sold: 9
STR: 7%
ASP: $25.64Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 161
# Sold: 1
STR: 3%
ASP: $19.82Our processes are really starting to work. We hit a new high in the number of listings created this week, 161. Our goal is 150-200 per week, and this is the first time we really hit that goal. And on top of that, we hit 161 listings while I was at my contract job for 2 days. With Veronica now on SixBit, and with our photographer, we are hitting the numbers we want to hit.
Now, I need to replace myself in this job. That is the next goal…
Ryanne: I have never seen that ability on any return. I will have to keep an eye out for it.
PS – Regarding the cost of the returns. We had 4 returns in May, 3 were first class and 1 was Priority. All rates were the same rates that I paid to send it out to the buyer. Total of $19.73, so our cost was about $5 per week for the month.
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