/biz/ - Business & Finance

i would just sell that ass

>>643781
>I'm curious about some of the ins and outs of setting up a booth as a side gig for some of the hobby woodwork I do.
Do you provide value?
Would you have use for what you sell?
Would you pay the amount you are asking?
Do your friends think what you sell is worth what you are asking?

please be more specific about what it is you sell

>>643885
I build furniture for myself, friend, and family members.

I do use it the stuff I make in my own apartment.

Good question about the prices. I'm thinking $40 for a pub table and $20 for a bar stool. They are a primitive pine type deal, but I build them Amish style with quality hand cut joints and minimal mechanical fasteners.

My friend and family think I should try charging more, but I'd rather be half as expensive as the cheapest WalMart or Ikea stuff.

Pic related (don't mind the dustiness)

>>643880
I know right? I haven't fapped to anything but vids in a decade, til I found dat ass.

>>643898
Why not go to flea markets - Pick up old or worn furniture - Put it back in good condition and sell it on ebay?
Wider market, cheaper and easier marketing options and you can even work up a recycling / good for nature / hipster brand if you care.

>>643908
I'm going to be very careful not to be rude here, but I'm interested in selling my own work; I'm not just interested in flipping furniture for cash. I love building and have daydreams about moving from hobbyist to actual business.

>>643898
Try the price you suggest, if they sell out, raise the price by $5. If they don't, lower it by $5. Simple stuff. Try to rotate different designs each week/bimonthly. Good luck. You have little to lose and everything to gain.

Why do you have to post pictures like this? I don't really care what your posts says, or is asking. All I can think about is eating that ass.

>>644029
Fuck it! I'll give it a shot, even if it's just for fun. Thanks bro!

>>644036
Isn't it the finest fucking thing you've ever seen?

>>643898
I think you should charge more. You should also create a brand name and etch it onto each piece, then create a simple website for your work. That way, when someone sees your work and they ask the owner where they got it, they'll say "it's from Anonymous' Fine Woodcrafting" instead of "it's from some bum at the flea market". Those people would be able to look you up because of your website and visit your booth or commission you to do a custom piece of furniture for them.

You don't have to create a whole ecommerce website or anything. Just put contact information, pictures of your previous work, and let them know where they can find you.

>>644965
Not a bad idea. I like it.

Follow up question: How does biz feel about guarantees/warrantees? Does a lifetime repair &/or replace policy hold water nowadays?

>>645005
Is the warranty/lifetime replacement free or would you try to upsell it?

>>645396
Free. Or is that a bad idea?

>>645498

Dumbass. Calculate the average cost of repair, the average length of time from purchase to a major failure. Make your original warranty free, to half of the calculated time. Extend the time of warranty to just before the calculated time and charge 3/4 the average price of repair.

Fucking idiot. Take a fucking class at community college or something. I think they teach these ideas in business courses.

>>645530
I'm not a businessman. I just like building stuff, and this is why I'm asking.

Tell me more.

>>645530
Also, if it helps, the base joints should handle 250lbs of shear force each, so the average American customer should be able to dance on it; meanwhile, the tops will hold more.

There's a possibility of moisture related instability, and that's what I want to protect customers from.

I was thinking about this the other day, i think you should look to make the tables so they can be disambelled and flat packed then you could potentially sell them online

>>645556
I know. I know... Glue is so forever though. I could easily make shit with a dowel + bolt, but ewwww... People might as well buy WalMart.

>>643781

my parents did it. It can be a lot of work and there are a lot of types of booths out there. The cheapest and probably easiest way is to get a truck and drive around and get a bunch of free shit off the side of the street on big trash day and add as little value as possible, if any, then put it in your booth and throw pictures up on craigslist saying where it is.

Small stuff gets stolen like no other and isn't worth it unless you get it really cheap or free and certain items just don't sell. Now that the economy is getting better a lot of these places aren't doing as brisk of business as they were a few years ago. Going to garage sales late in the day or picking through things that are obviously underpriced is a good way to acquire stuff, but this way you'll have to accumulate stuff in the summer to unload in the winter.

>>645560
So... If I make my own stuff, flea markets are a waste of time?

>>645540

If you are just doing this for fun, don't think about maximizing profits or warranties etc...

>>645498
The thing with creating a warranty is that you would also have to create the terms of the warranty. That could get complicated. You could find a warranty from other furniture manufacturers and take key points out of it. Just be warned that as long as you have a warranty, there will be people who will try to take advantage of it. You would also need to keep a database of your customers to verify when they purchased the item.

It may be work than you're willing to put in. If the flea market works out and you decide to start a business or at least start doing commission work, you could use warranties, but other than that it probably wouldn't be worth the trouble. Especially if you charged for it. I would think maybe 5-15% of your customers would purchase one.

Good furniture is meant to last. If they trust you, they'll probably trust that the furniture won't break, especially with the elderly.

>>645530
Be chill my friend. Not so rough.

Anyhow, I've been practising would carving recently OP, had to take a break for the last week, cut myself and had to get it stitched up but I'm back at it.

There's a really popular flea/farmers market in my town, planning on trying to sell some little wooden crafts like spoons, bowls, little toys like Jacob's ladders and shit. I want to actually get good at carving first, though.

Also the idea a guy posted above about etching a name seems like a really good idea. I could take the dremel to the finished product, etch out "anon's classic crafts" or some shit like that, setup an etsy store or whatever the fuck.

I saw a nigger selling wooden spoons for 45 fucking dollars on etsy. Once this finger heals I'm gonna start eating breathing living wood carving. People seem to really like "homemade" crafts.

Flea markets in general kind of blow. I used to have a stand that I ran in a flea market for about a year and all you really end up doing is bullshitting with other vendors. There's very little money in it - hardly anybody actually intends to buy anything at a flea market.

In fact, oddly enough, the most lucrative businesses at flea markets are often the ones selling products to other vendors. There was a vinyl sign guy that was really cool at my market and he was nonstop printing up graphics and vinyl decals for all of the other vendors in the place trying to make it big selling to broke old people that just wanted to take a walk. There was even a guy that sold nothing but tarps and canopies, I shit you not, and he sold a lot of that shit to everyone that came in to set up a stand.

Basically, if you can't somehow take advantage of business from other vendors, flea market is a waste of time.

>>645626
I have a tendency to over complicated shit, but maximum profits seems like it would be almost as fun as building stuff.

>>645910
I wish I was talented/patient enough to do the detailed stuff. If I could think of a rad old-timey name, and I can actually sell some shit, I'd buy engraved wooden name plates for every piece I sold. Are you in the Boston area, by any chance?

>>645920
Flea markets honestly can't be any worse than Craigslist, right? r-r-right..? (pic related)

>>646283
I'm not very talented, nor am I patient, but the thing is, people don't seem to care. I've checked peoples etsy stores, and people don't seem to actually care about the quality or anything. I've seen knots in the wood, chips taken out because someone made a mistake carving it, etc.

But people don't seem to care, in fact I've seen people praising the mistakes saying it adds character to the piece or you can really tell it was handmade, etc.

At this point I'm thinking I might keep the actual carving to a minimum. I think a lot of cuts could be done with a circular saw or whatever, and then I'd just go over and take some material off with a knife, to make it look like it's actually been hand carved.

And sorry bud, I'm up in Ontario.

>>646283
I honestly don't know if Craigslist or Flea Market is worse. At least with craigslist you can do business on your time and don't have overhead for renting a space and keeping it presentable and stuff.

But people do seriously dick around on craigslist. They haggle, they show up and go "oh, well, I only have half the money," or they'll offer you a trade for some other garbage they have laying around instead of money even if you clearly say cash only. A friend of mine is a sort of an animal collector and she was recently getting rid of a bunch of reptiles and arachnids and she'd put "cash offers only" and people would still contact her going "I have a spare fish tank, you want a fish tank?" And she spent weeks with this one stupid fuck that had a million questions about a rare spider she had but was like "well, it's only worth something to a breeder, I'm not a breeder, so I'll pay you a quarter of what you want." and she'd say no and he'd go back to asking a million questions about it. Obviously a breeder trying to get a spider on the cheap.

Fucking dickheads on craigslist. Still, at least you don't have to pay for a spot to watch old people take a cruise?

>>646439
There's a fairly large flea market nearby. A few decades old, hundreds of routine vendors, indoor and outdoor, 10,000 guests per Sunday, restaurants and such, and it charges a modest fee for admission. In your opinion, would this be a better venue as it relates to dodging the old person circle walking crowd?

I've been there a few times, and the crowd seems fairly working class family type.

This is a great thread for a change on biz.

I sell a lot of shit on Craigslist I get from yard sales or pick out of the trash.

Just curious, what price range is the average flea market booth?

Also, I have a large back yard and I was thinking about growing cucumbers for the farmer's market in the summer.

Anyone know what this type of booth goes for?

Let me put it this way:

>I sell trash at flea markets
>Trash that doesn't sell is sold wholesale at public auction
>Anything good goes on eBay or Etsy

Flea markets is more about finding things to resell than it is to actually selling, unless you're at one of those hoity toity "antique" flea markets where everyone has a silver spoon up their ass.

>>647593
>>647593
>>647593

Here down South we expect to pay $5-10 per table out in the open, usually 10-20 covered under a building.

>>647617
That's helpful, thanks. The flea market around here is horrible. Really just retailers selling horrible shit like fake cologne.

I was more interested for the farmer's market but I bet the prices are exactly the same.

>>647617
Also, where do you get your junk? There's a lot on Craigslist around here but I get most of mine at yard sales in the summer months.

Do you pick through the trash? Do you drive around on garbage day?

>>647626

The prices might be a little higher at the farmer's market. I sold at one years ago but that was before the things were really popular with the hipster crowds. But there are produce people at flea markets too, no reason you can't sell at both places.

>>647657

The county has a trash dump where people can leave electronics and other big items. You can pick through these items all you want. Leave and take whatever. It's cleaned up about twice a month and what is left is sent to landfill or recycling. Most of it is junk not worth fooling with but I do get a few computers here and there and sometimes decent audio equipment.

Flea markets, yard sales, estate sales, public auctions (both the storage type and the traditional type with an auctioneer), thrift stores are my big ones. Auctionzip.com is great for finding auctions in your area.

Thrift stores were God-tier years ago but everyone saw all of those picker shows and all of these thrift stores think they are retail outlets now. Plus many of them have made eBay accounts and just sell straight on there. Storage auctions were good before Storage Wars came around, it's usually shit now. I rarely go to them anymore unless they're out in country bumpkin areas.

Estate sales and auctions are 50/50. Sometimes you score, sometimes you don't, just have to know what to look for.

Yard sales are when I do my best sales, but yard sale season down here in Georgia/Alabama doesn't start until March but will go all the way until September.

Finally, Black Friday. Last year I put $4000k on a couple of credit cards buying shit at Wal-Mart and other retailers and resold it on eBay. The margins are usually low ($3-5 profit on many items) but it's about quantity. Anything that doesn't sell can be returned. It's kind of a shitty dick move to pull, but fuck 'em. If you really want to be a dick, you can no-receipt up to $70 worth of items at target. A $30 wal-mart game becomes a 59.99 refund ...

>>647696
Thanks man. I did very well at storage auctions before the show. The last one I went to was full of camera crews and they were actually filming the Canadian version. I didn't even waste my time and I haven't been back.

Yard sales are the absolute best for me too. Ebay is not feasable in Canada because we get fucked over so bad with exchange, shipping, and no one wants to risk duty.

Thanks for your input. Nice to see a real /biz/ minded person rather than your typical - "How can I make money with no effort while sitting on my computer crowd."

Most of my questions have been answered-ish, but I'll bump anyways to keep a "starting a business" thread alive on /biz/. Imagine that...

Aspiring wooden spoon guy here. Thought I should mention, if you have some unique talents, you could try that at a flea market.

For example, I have a buddy that plays the bag pipes, he was able to rake in about 5 grand a summer by playing for a couple hours each Saturday. Nothing wrong with that money.

I imagine juggling or balloon tying would work similarly, but the bag pipes worked super well. If you guys haven't heard them irl, pipes are loud as fuck. So people would actually seek out the sound and then drop him some change, where with something like juggling you need niggas to actually happen to walk by you.

>>643781
I currently run a few booths at a flea market, anything in particular you want to know?

I work it 52 weeks a year, Friday - Sunday... been doing it for about 4 years and do about $100k in sales a year.

>>645560
Depends on the area. I had one market where people would steal off my table in front of me, then others I could walk away and leave the booth wide open and have people standing in line when I got back.

>>648227
Juggler and balloon sculpter here. Juggpe fire if you can , ask around cafes that do open mic night type of shit. Good tips.

I used to make 50 bucks an hour tying balloons at raves. Kids on acid dont want anything fancy , you can blow minds with a simple dog , youll get swarmed though so its way more exhausting than a kids party. The promoters love it though because its another layer of novelty to add to gogo dancers and jumping castles and whatever the fuck else they throw in to pull heads

Juggling was hard to learn. 3 balls is easy. 5 is hard. 5 that are on fire is harder.

Making balloons is like a weekend of learning and you get good fast once you have people lined up.

Running a stall at a flea market/antique store is for old people who can't turn on a computer. No point unless you are a buyer looking to get a good deal from some guy who thinks his stuff is the same price as 1960.

>>648299
Thanks for replying! Questions.

What were you selling?
What were the demographics of the typical buyers?
Do you feel you could have crossed over to your own physical location leveraging the exposure you were getting at there market?

>>648299
Fuck this board is slow. Also glad to hear from you. Please tell us where you get your shit.

>>648460
I have built some pretty simple furniture. I am interested in your bar stools. What are the costs of the raw materials? Did you use a plan you found on the internet?

>>648532
They cost about $7.00 in materials. As far as the design, I just saw some stools I like, and started making saw dust.

I build my own shop equipment too. (pic related- table saw)

>>648631
Also, my new 8" long glue table, so I can start building bedroom furniture.

>>645530
Lmao of course he wasn't going to think about MTTF or extended warranty pricing immediately, you have no chill

>>648633
>>648631
I am ujMqzrPn. Thanks man, that's so cheap its like you can't lose. Really nice...

I'm going to have to dig up some plans though, I am a little junior to wood working, too much so to wing it.

Here's a bench I put in my kitchen.

>>649666
Did you mill your own raised panels for that bench? If so, that's some fairly sophisticated joinery.

We're at an odd stage... Nobody in America knows how to build shit anymore, because our cost consciousness has eroded domestic production, and we rely on walmart/ikea to supply our imported particle board home goods. The funny thing is, the prices for the slave labor mass produced garbage have risen to a level that makes high quality solid wood look like a bargain.

>>649672
I totally agree with that about price. Make some jigs and and you could slap those benches together in no time. Definitely potential for you. A youtube channel, a website, who knows. You might even be able to reach the higher end market with those minimal costs. I know in the Toronto area where I am people pay a fortune for shit made out of salvaged barn materials - which is literally garbage.

That bench is a handful of 2 x 4s, a sheet of mdf for the sides, and panels. 1 sheet of 3/4 inch birch for the top.

I just set the guide on the table saw and cut those panels with the left over mdf and nailed them in with a brad gun.

Again, I know FA about wood working but I have a lot of respect for those who can do it well.

OP my uncle owned and ran a wood working business for years. He liked building furniture but he said that there isn't the volume or money in furniture to stay afloat as a full time job. The money is in custom cabinetmaking. Might want to look into it.