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Business Strategy

How do I acquire inventory at the start?

I want to run a high end camping gear rental business but I'm not sure what items will prove popular and in demand and how many SKUs to purchase. Would it be possible to work a deal with camping/outdoor gear companies to rent out their items through our site to test demand? If this is possible, how do I go about it and what's in it for the brands?

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Sumair Anand

5 years in Venture Capital & Investment Banking

Hey, I think the number one issue you're going to face is a factor of viability, to them you're a new website, not really well known and even if they give you the listing of the products, will you actually be able to generate interest and sales for them?

Once we understand this it would be much easier to tackle them in the following way

1. Ensure them a budget from your end on digital spend which will drive variable X amount of demand

2. They have nothing to lose, you aren't physically taking possession of their product unless it is actually rented out

3. To put it on the website you will need highly clarity images, which you could agree to share with them for their own social media

4. Use a couple of stock images, run some test campaigns and some them a basic real time demand on paper which would leave them calculating the potential revenue in their own head

These are just a few things, hope it helps!

Answered over 3 years ago

Somesh Bhagat

Increasing sales through customer success

Hello. IMPO this is a wrong question.

The correct question is what s my business plan, what is my key strength in this business, and how do I plan to succeed, versus competitors.

This does not seem to be a business that has high barrier to entry. Namely, many can do this. Some of these will have deep domain know how that they will likely know the answer to this question and some may even have high credibility in trade and suppliers.

You have not specified the market, but voila - a google search for camping gear market in USA gives over 5 million searches in much less than a second. Page 1 alone has over 15 listings and 7 ads already. Many have great websites already. Some have ratings over 5 from hundreds of customers.

Are you aware of such competition in your market? How and why would you win from them?

This may help think deeper into this question and plan action. Hope this helps.

Let me know if I can help think through this into a more viable action plan.

All he best.

Answered over 3 years ago

Joy Broto

🌎Harvard Certified Global Corporate Trainer🌍

It is not that hard to get past it. First, determines COGS. Once that is done calculate your ending inventory balance and the amount of new inventory purchased, then, add the ending inventory and cost of goods sold. To calculate the beginning inventory from the amount of inventory purchased.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath

Answered over 3 years ago

Zachariah Renfro

Security, Cancel Culture, Hiring, and Ethics

Simple enough, just call the suppliers you are hoping to partner with and look to talk to someone in their marketing department. Pitch you idea as a way for them to add a new long term client.

If that fails you could take out a personal loan and buy a small number of the items needed. Then use your profits to pay off the loan and buy more items.

Answered over 3 years ago