Not sure how to grow this business?

[kdewar96@gmail]

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all having a great 2024 so far. Just posting to see if anyone has advice on how to expand my business. I'm selling second hand goods only in one city at the moment, I source the stock and list and sell on gumtree/fb marketplace myself. I don't have any warehousing or employees as neither are needed and it keeps profit margins pretty high. Turnover is close to 6 figures and has been growing every year since I started in 2019.

For the past 4 years i've been wanting to start something new that I can scale, because this business seems very challenging to replicate in every other city without me being there or without me giving away my niche/idea for free. But I keep looking at the numbers and can't help but realise that I don't need a new business or product I just need to figure out a way to multiply this.

I'm not sure how I can do what I do solo at the moment, but in every city in the UK. If I could make 75 of myself I would be making 75x the income, and without much extra headache.

If I employ people to find the items, then list and sell them I would need to transfer money to people I don't know and also once employees have the idea why would they need me? (its very low barrier to entry). Should I try the employment model or should I sell a course giving the idea away( others can easily bring in an extra £2000/3000 a month for themselves with my idea if they have a car and a phone).

Only issue with the courses is it's a one time purchase and maybe not much recurring revenue, but again employment is hard because there's no value on my end once they have the idea.

I hope I explained the issue well enough and wonder if there is a solution? Any advice/help/any useful comments would be much appreciated!

 

[Shopclicks]

Hi @kdewar96@gmail

Just to give myself and others a bit of clarity.....

Are these large items which cannot be posted or delivered by a third party?

Is there any work involved in-between buying and selling (repairs, cleaning, etc) ?

Do you see sourcing or selling/delivery as the barrier to scale the business?

 

[kdewar96@gmail]

Hi @kdewar96@gmail

Just to give myself and others a bit of clarity.....

Are these large items which cannot be posted or delivered by a third party?

Is there any work involved in-between buying and selling (repairs, cleaning, etc) ?

Do you see sourcing or selling/delivery as the barrier to scale the business?

Hi thanks for the reply.

Yeah large items and its not that a courier can't take them but most individuals on facebook/gumtree won't spend the time packaging items up and dealing with a courier sadly.

No work its literally just buy the item - take pictures - list it and sell. And the demand is high, I tested it in another area while I was on holiday there and it worked there aswell.

Yeah sourcing and then delivery is the biggest issue I have to scaling it.

 

[Shopclicks]

On the face of it, it looks like you would need to have an 'agent' in other towns to do the picking up and delivery to the buyer.

Can you do the buying remotely?
Or is this a cash only type deal?

You would need to find 'agents' who you can trust and possibly send them funds and pay them a commission for time and travel.

Alternatively, you could do buying and delivery trips. So, for example, you take a trip to City B having already organised your 'buys'. Then you do the same for City C and so on.
Then the next time you go to City B, you are buying again and dropping off anything you sold in that area.

This is a similar idea to a business which operated near me in the north of England. The owners had a van they would take to France every 3 weeks and they would buy French antique furniture. They advertised on Facebook and sold a lot. They used the trip south every 3 weeks to deliver everything they had sold, then went on to France to pick up new stock.

 

[eteb3]

Check the taxi market in your target towns: some are fussy about courier work, but many will take this sort of job, especially if you don't go through the despatcher.

Given it can probably fill the dead times when they haven't got a fare, you might find them responsive as "agents". They could even take a fare while your item is in the boot, until it's convenient to drop it off.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Yeah large items and its not that a courier can't take them but most individuals on facebook/gumtree won't spend the time packaging items up and dealing with a courier sadly

Most couriers dont want to be dealing with these types of people anyway
I can assure you of that ?

 

[fisicx]

Why do I need you @kdewar96@gmail ?

What’s to stop me setting up my own local business doing exactly the same?

I know three local business already doing exactly what you are doing.

 

[Simon Scott]

Do you have a USP/ niche or particular knowledge of the certain categories you purchase in? If so this may be the key to expanding. Other than that, reselling used products isn't anything new so you're basically in the same boat as any other persons out there. From my experience Labour is always the most difficult hurdle, so finding someone to do something they can do themselves with minimal overheads is unlikely - maybe is your source a part-time worker on purely a collect and ship courier type arrangement?

Selling the course is a well run horse. Might work - only know if you try.

You could try and source persons who would want to go in on a type of joint venture, but i would imagine the above applies.