Estimating retail sales for a BP
Discussion
Does anyone know how you go about this?
I had an idea over the weekend for a smallish business idea that would involve selling to the public at various events. But I'm not aware of anyone doing anything similar so it would be a completely virgin market that I'd be trying to guesstimate what sort of sales I could expect.
Are there any good ways of making these estimates accurate enough for a business plan, preferably one that a bank would look upon favourably? Perhaps just wandering around such an event with a questionnaire, annoying people by asking them if they'd buy anything?
I had an idea over the weekend for a smallish business idea that would involve selling to the public at various events. But I'm not aware of anyone doing anything similar so it would be a completely virgin market that I'd be trying to guesstimate what sort of sales I could expect.
Are there any good ways of making these estimates accurate enough for a business plan, preferably one that a bank would look upon favourably? Perhaps just wandering around such an event with a questionnaire, annoying people by asking them if they'd buy anything?
Hmmm, was going to try to avoid saying exactly the idea, but guess it's difficult to give advice blind. I suppose I'll just have to trust all you honest PHers out there not to run off with my brilliant idea. 
What I had in mind was selling (digital) camera equipment at events where you'd expect people to run out of memory / batteries / forget camera, etc. Sell memory cards, batteries (already charged), cheap digital cameras, maybe even lenses for dSLRs. Pretty much try to cash in on a captive audience and people willing to hand over their credit card and pay high-ish (compared to net prices) prices for the kit as they can have it there and then when they need it.
Events would be motorsport stuff, airshows, things along those lines.
Costs I can find out without too much trouble, it's how to estimate just how many compact flash cards I might be able to sell over a touring car weekend.
Any thoughts would be appreciated, even if it's just to say "Don't bother, it'll never work".
What I had in mind was selling (digital) camera equipment at events where you'd expect people to run out of memory / batteries / forget camera, etc. Sell memory cards, batteries (already charged), cheap digital cameras, maybe even lenses for dSLRs. Pretty much try to cash in on a captive audience and people willing to hand over their credit card and pay high-ish (compared to net prices) prices for the kit as they can have it there and then when they need it.
Events would be motorsport stuff, airshows, things along those lines.
Costs I can find out without too much trouble, it's how to estimate just how many compact flash cards I might be able to sell over a touring car weekend.
Any thoughts would be appreciated, even if it's just to say "Don't bother, it'll never work".
Interesting idea, if you have a van/stall sort of thing you could also have..
One of those kodak shove yer card in print yer pictures machines
And a service to burn the contents of a full card to a cd thus allowing the punter to shoot away without buying a new card.
You could extend the batteries thing to an exchange service therefore if the battery on my ixus 500 gies flat I had it and a few quid over and get a fully charged one back.
D
One of those kodak shove yer card in print yer pictures machines
And a service to burn the contents of a full card to a cd thus allowing the punter to shoot away without buying a new card.
You could extend the batteries thing to an exchange service therefore if the battery on my ixus 500 gies flat I had it and a few quid over and get a fully charged one back.
D
Cheers guys.
David - had been thinking along those lines. Glad to see I'm not the only one that it seems reasonable to.
Eric - thanks for the input, I get the impression you've been through this sort of thing once or twice already. Thanks for taking the time to point me in the right direction.
As to the answers to your questions, I don't believe these services are available already. At least, I've not seen anything like it. I shall probably ask on the Photography forum to see if any of them have come across anything similar. Therefore competition should be pretty minimal.
Capital outlay would be for a van/trailer (I've been planning to buy a Range Rover to tow my other car "projects" around so could tow a trailer with this) to work from and stock. I feel I'll need to have a think about what sort of products I'd need to stock from the off and calculate the cost of buying these in. As for financing this, I believe I'd be able to get a sizeable chunk of the cash required from savings and maybe tapping family for a bit more.
Other "running" costs would be similar to running a burger van or something like that at these sort of events I guess so I should be able to get that sort of information.
I'm intrigued though, Eric, by your comment that all this needs to be dealt with before assessing the size of the market. I'd have thought it's all pretty academic if I figure out I'm only likely to turn over £50 a weekend as that wouldn't even pay for the burgers I'd be likely to consume.
David - had been thinking along those lines. Glad to see I'm not the only one that it seems reasonable to.
Eric - thanks for the input, I get the impression you've been through this sort of thing once or twice already. Thanks for taking the time to point me in the right direction.
As to the answers to your questions, I don't believe these services are available already. At least, I've not seen anything like it. I shall probably ask on the Photography forum to see if any of them have come across anything similar. Therefore competition should be pretty minimal.
Capital outlay would be for a van/trailer (I've been planning to buy a Range Rover to tow my other car "projects" around so could tow a trailer with this) to work from and stock. I feel I'll need to have a think about what sort of products I'd need to stock from the off and calculate the cost of buying these in. As for financing this, I believe I'd be able to get a sizeable chunk of the cash required from savings and maybe tapping family for a bit more.
Other "running" costs would be similar to running a burger van or something like that at these sort of events I guess so I should be able to get that sort of information.
I'm intrigued though, Eric, by your comment that all this needs to be dealt with before assessing the size of the market. I'd have thought it's all pretty academic if I figure out I'm only likely to turn over £50 a weekend as that wouldn't even pay for the burgers I'd be likely to consume.
LexSport said:
I'm intrigued though, Eric, by your comment that all this needs to be dealt with before assessing the size of the market. I'd have thought it's all pretty academic if I figure out I'm only likely to turn over £50 a weekend as that wouldn't even pay for the burgers I'd be likely to consume.
Eric is an accountant, and does things the correct way. I'd be trying to do them all at the same time as assessing the market will take time whereas finding out how to finance it might be very easy (ie yes here is some cash, no there is none).
Whatever you do make sure you have some sort of written plan you can use to measure how you fare against your expectations.
D
I wasn't actually instructing you to do all those things in that particular order but there will be a certain amount of outlay required before you can do anything and you might as wll do some exercises to find out what you need to spend out in order to set yourself up.
From what I've heard from businesses that attend these types of events, some organisers can charge quite a lot for having a stand. I don't know the exact figures but I'm aware of a number of businesses who gave up attending shows because of profiteering by the organisers.
From what I've heard from businesses that attend these types of events, some organisers can charge quite a lot for having a stand. I don't know the exact figures but I'm aware of a number of businesses who gave up attending shows because of profiteering by the organisers.
davidd said:
Interesting idea, if you have a van/stall sort of thing you could also have..
One of those kodak shove yer card in print yer pictures machines
And a service to burn the contents of a full card to a cd thus allowing the punter to shoot away without buying a new card.
You could extend the batteries thing to an exchange service therefore if the battery on my ixus 500 gies flat I had it and a few quid over and get a fully charged one back.
D
This would seem a better way of doing it, far less capital outlay for a start! Must admit if my card was full or battery was flat I'd probably be prepared to pay £5 or £10 for the photos to be copied to CD, whereas I wouldn;t pay £40 for a new card. Equally I might pay £5-10 for a fully charged battery in a swap rather than buy a new battery.
LexSport said:
Hmmm, was going to try to avoid saying exactly the idea, but guess it's difficult to give advice blind. I suppose I'll just have to trust all you honest PHers out there not to run off with my brilliant idea.
What I had in mind was selling (digital) camera equipment at events where you'd expect people to run out of memory / batteries / forget camera, etc. Sell memory cards, batteries (already charged), cheap digital cameras, maybe even lenses for dSLRs. Pretty much try to cash in on a captive audience and people willing to hand over their credit card and pay high-ish (compared to net prices) prices for the kit as they can have it there and then when they need it.
Why not open a small chilled beer stall in the middle of the Sahara desert??, can't fail, captive market and no competition for 200 miles..........
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