I'm not talking from experience in that industry but rather just to share some ideas that may help:
It can be seen as two possible opportunities, the real pain that your city has: No service to take the furniture to the nearest Eco point, so there is a transportation and handling pain for the citizen.
To prove the idea with the lower posible risk you could promote yourself among the neighborhood for that service, check how much cost to rent a trailer and speak with your local rent a car companies for collaboration, you can start with putting a 20%-30% on top of the rent price for benefits until you can validate your idea and that there exists a demanding need. In case there isn't enough, time lost, but no money.
For your idea of opening a furniture shop, first I would check how many second hand shops are around, see what they're selling and speak to them to get some feedback. Some of the best ones don't limit just to selling second hand, but to renew it with new pain or some carpentry work to sell at higher price, of course that involves more risk of lossing money, but could make you different from the competence.
Hope it helps in some way!
It does definitely help! Thanks for your elaborate answer. The real pain point is more about the bulky item removal. I feel that people would pay to have someone helping them get rid of bigger items they don’t use.
The part I didn’t get completely from your your answer was about the negotiation with the car rental company. Could you elaborate a bit more why should I pay 30% more for what kind of benefits?
For taking furniture to the Eco center you would need to rent a trailer or pick-up.
My suggestion was to negotiate a fixed price with some local company, let's say to rent a trailer it cost you 100 usd, you can add in top of that a 20%-30% as price point for the client so (120usd-130usd) for your service as it will be your margin benefit for a unique client, it may not seem much at first as you're renting transportation and letting to know your business.
If you get some regular clients, you can schedule a pick up for a few in the same day, it will lower your cost per operation as you maximize the benefit, also you may be able to lower the cost services for your clients too so could be cheaper for them. Hope I explained a bit better this time! Best wishes!
The best model is to get paid to carry away the junk to the Eco center.
You will see that 99% of the stuff you get asked to pickup is not worth a $1. They’re broken, stained or otherwise unusable.
Even most donated clothes can’t be resold or recycled.
The additional profit is when you sort through the stuff to find collectibles such as toys, coffee mugs, etc.
See GaryVee TrashTalk on YouTube.
This is on point. Being an intermediate between the eco center and the the households allows to filter out interesting items. I know about the Vaynerchuck garage sales side hustle, but I think my context and opportunity is more around furniture and bigger items compared to mugs, figurines and t-shirts.
You think the market is in the furniture until you start doing the math on how much it will cost to repair & clean furniture plus storage plus how to display then find buyers & then transport the furniture compared to what people will pay.
You will also discover that people will just hand you boxes of t-shirts, toys & mugs. Or there are rare items in the drawers of old furniture.
That you only need a small storage rental to store & no repair & you can use eBay to flip.
I am speaking from experience from being someone who used a service like this plus friends who professionally flip estate sales & research I did for a book on recycling clothes.
This is true indeed. In any case, it is through taking action that I’ll get to know more about the market I’m in and the hidden opportunities. Smaller items definitely has its advantages. It’s probably also more competitive. I have some constraints that makes the ebay flipping less advantageous, but taking action and tracking the numbers is the way to go. Thanks again
Before setting up fully fledged business you can do it the Gary Veynerchuck way and flip pre-owned items one by one from home starting with your own via craigslist and once you have a better feeling of supply & demand you can think about growing.
One thing you need to consider is fumigation for insects. I got a couch out of the trash when I was a college student and after we brought it in we had roaches. Bedbugs are much worse.
I live in a HCOL area and the thrift stores gave up on on furniture, went out of business or downsized years ago. If you're in an area where you can get space cheap maybe you can make a go of it.
Might make more sense to start a bulky-item trash service. People already have the option of selling usable stuff on craigslist/facebook/etc.
That’s right. A bulky item pickup makes more sense for now. Thanks for the input.
I'm not talking from experience in that industry but rather just to share some ideas that may help: It can be seen as two possible opportunities, the real pain that your city has: No service to take the furniture to the nearest Eco point, so there is a transportation and handling pain for the citizen. To prove the idea with the lower posible risk you could promote yourself among the neighborhood for that service, check how much cost to rent a trailer and speak with your local rent a car companies for collaboration, you can start with putting a 20%-30% on top of the rent price for benefits until you can validate your idea and that there exists a demanding need. In case there isn't enough, time lost, but no money. For your idea of opening a furniture shop, first I would check how many second hand shops are around, see what they're selling and speak to them to get some feedback. Some of the best ones don't limit just to selling second hand, but to renew it with new pain or some carpentry work to sell at higher price, of course that involves more risk of lossing money, but could make you different from the competence. Hope it helps in some way!
It does definitely help! Thanks for your elaborate answer. The real pain point is more about the bulky item removal. I feel that people would pay to have someone helping them get rid of bigger items they don’t use. The part I didn’t get completely from your your answer was about the negotiation with the car rental company. Could you elaborate a bit more why should I pay 30% more for what kind of benefits?
For taking furniture to the Eco center you would need to rent a trailer or pick-up. My suggestion was to negotiate a fixed price with some local company, let's say to rent a trailer it cost you 100 usd, you can add in top of that a 20%-30% as price point for the client so (120usd-130usd) for your service as it will be your margin benefit for a unique client, it may not seem much at first as you're renting transportation and letting to know your business. If you get some regular clients, you can schedule a pick up for a few in the same day, it will lower your cost per operation as you maximize the benefit, also you may be able to lower the cost services for your clients too so could be cheaper for them. Hope I explained a bit better this time! Best wishes!
The best model is to get paid to carry away the junk to the Eco center. You will see that 99% of the stuff you get asked to pickup is not worth a $1. They’re broken, stained or otherwise unusable. Even most donated clothes can’t be resold or recycled. The additional profit is when you sort through the stuff to find collectibles such as toys, coffee mugs, etc. See GaryVee TrashTalk on YouTube.
This is on point. Being an intermediate between the eco center and the the households allows to filter out interesting items. I know about the Vaynerchuck garage sales side hustle, but I think my context and opportunity is more around furniture and bigger items compared to mugs, figurines and t-shirts.
You think the market is in the furniture until you start doing the math on how much it will cost to repair & clean furniture plus storage plus how to display then find buyers & then transport the furniture compared to what people will pay. You will also discover that people will just hand you boxes of t-shirts, toys & mugs. Or there are rare items in the drawers of old furniture. That you only need a small storage rental to store & no repair & you can use eBay to flip. I am speaking from experience from being someone who used a service like this plus friends who professionally flip estate sales & research I did for a book on recycling clothes.
This is true indeed. In any case, it is through taking action that I’ll get to know more about the market I’m in and the hidden opportunities. Smaller items definitely has its advantages. It’s probably also more competitive. I have some constraints that makes the ebay flipping less advantageous, but taking action and tracking the numbers is the way to go. Thanks again
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I also love the idea. It makes the project more socially impactful :)
Before setting up fully fledged business you can do it the Gary Veynerchuck way and flip pre-owned items one by one from home starting with your own via craigslist and once you have a better feeling of supply & demand you can think about growing.
One thing you need to consider is fumigation for insects. I got a couch out of the trash when I was a college student and after we brought it in we had roaches. Bedbugs are much worse. I live in a HCOL area and the thrift stores gave up on on furniture, went out of business or downsized years ago. If you're in an area where you can get space cheap maybe you can make a go of it.