Combining John's drill bits and Hugh's flyer

Hi,

On another board someone made fun of the messages I post here, and I must say I find it rather liberating. In other words, I've already made a fool of myself, so what do I have to lose? I might as well enjoy myself and increase my knowledge by posting questions, rants and editorials.

Questions such as:

If we combined the cool informal flyer that Hugh described in the linked message below with John McTighe's $7 profit drill bit sets, I wonder if we'd have a way of making a few bux?

The flyer could say 'I've got such-and-so drill bit set and I'll sell it for only $10. Call xxx-xxxx, first come, first served.' Or something like that.

What do ye think?

Boyd (village idiot) Stone


http://www.sowpub.com/cgi-bin/forum/...g.pl?read=8242

Boyd,
Just this morning I was thinking exactly the same thing!

Mark

> Hi,

> On another board someone made fun of the
> messages I post here, and I must say I find
> it rather liberating. In other words, I've
> already made a fool of myself, so what do I
> have to lose? I might as well enjoy myself
> and increase my knowledge by posting
> questions, rants and editorials.

> Questions such as:

> If we combined the cool informal flyer that
> Hugh described in the linked message below
> with John McTighe's $7 profit drill bit
> sets, I wonder if we'd have a way of making
> a few bux?

> The flyer could say 'I've got such-and-so
> drill bit set and I'll sell it for only $10.
> Call xxx-xxxx, first come, first served.' Or
> something like that.

> What do ye think?

> Boyd (village idiot) Stone

> Boyd,
> Just this morning I was thinking exactly the
> same thing!

> Mark

Where is thew cool flyer from Hugh at?

Dave

Boyd,

Me thinks that $7 is a pretty slim profit for a flyer type promotion. You'd have to sell a ton of those things to make any real bux after promotional expenses. The problem, I think, is that even though the $10 sale is 70% profit, you'd only be selling one item and the actual dollars made per sale is too small to allow for spending much money on promotion.

HOWEVER, if you did this kind of promotion for, say, a garage sale which included a whole bunch of neat-yet-inexpensive stuff (like you can get from the catalog supplier where John McTighe got his drill bits), I think one could probably make some good money, and I think flyers just might work for pulling people into the sale.

One of the coolest flyers I ever saw was for what could be best described as a "house sale" (vs a "garage sale"). As I recall (this was probably 20 years ago!), the flyer was on a full sheet of paper, with a heavy black ("magic marker" type) hand written headline at the top of the page. It went something like "Millionaire Goes Broke!" "Now I Have To Leave The Country, And I Must Sell Everything Quick!"

Then the rest of the page was a typed list of maybe 15 or 20 different household items --- furniture, lamps, etc. Each item was very briefly described (one line) in a way that it made it sould like it was something a millionaire would own --- but the prices seemed to be a real bargain! At the bottom was something like "Lots of other stuff too!" Then it gave the address.

It was the kind of flyer that made you want to go to the guy's house just to see if he had something neat that you might be able to pick up cheap. The flyer left you with the impression "Wow, this is a chance to get a real bargain on some nice stuff!" There was truely a sense of URGENCY communicated by the flyer. It had a definite if-you-want-to-get-in-on-these-amazing bargains-you-better-get-over-here-quick! kind of pull on you. (Now I wish I had kept one of those flyers!)

Anyway, it seems to me that if one had a lot of different items to sell, and if one could come up with a flyer that communicates (a) the stuff is *nice*, (b) the prices are a *real bargain*, and (c) you better hurry over here or you're going to miss out!, then I think one would have a good chance of being successful at it.

--- Hugh