Our Friend Chuck Huckaby wants to share some ideas on where to find local sources of merchandise to resell.
This is a solid model for a small town business: take a local resource into a larger market.
- Find your local sources: landfills, garage sales, auctions, local manufacturers, local retailers, local farmers. Look for their overstocks, scraps, by-products, and trash!
Chuck says, “It can take a lot of hard work identifying these sources, building a relationship, and establishing the source, but it might provide years of regular income. Most people stumble over the work part.”
- Add some value by cleaning, researching, matching, organizing or improving.
Lots of antiques and collectibles gain in value when you do the research and clean up the items. Clothing resale items gain in value when they are cleaned, matched into outfits, and displayed nicely. (I miss my local clothing consignment shop!)
- Transport it to a larger market (like a big town) to add value.
- Sell online to reach the larger markets and hopefully add value.
- Sell at auctions, at flea markets, in your retail store, or on consignment in a larger store.
Right now, an entrepreneur could start relationships with local gardeners, buy their produce during the season, drive the bigger nearby towns, set up and sell the products at the farmers markets. Basics like tomatoes and cucumbers are hot sellers!
What ideas can you come up with?
[Photo: A farmers market, Frankfurt, Germany – entrepreneurs taking a local product to a larger market.]
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
- How cooperatives improve small town economies - May 8, 2022
- Metaverse business idea: virtual world tour guide - April 15, 2022
- Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns - March 28, 2022
- Trade show booth design trend: hand drawn visuals - March 21, 2022
- New business sign design? Don’t use cursive script - February 14, 2022
- Way more people prefer rural than urban, new Pew Research study finds - February 1, 2022
- Top 5 Rural and small town trends 2022 - January 3, 2022
- How to start a real small small business - December 17, 2021
- Tip for better pop-ups and shed businesses - December 5, 2021
- Small town business idea: cat grooming - November 15, 2021