Corkscreews
According to the press the UK has just had its most excessive holiday season ever, given the strength of the global economy this is no surprise, people have money in their pockets and many are looking to party.
Every wine drinker knows the frustration of wanting to open a bottle of wine, but not being able to find the corkscrew. They tend to get left outside at Barbequeues, or fall down the back of sofa cushions; in short every house should have more than one, just in case.
There is little point stocking common or garden corkscrews, as most people will pick them up at the local supermarket, and they cost very little. This may be the reason they get misplaced so easily. What you should look to provide is high quality, connoisseur level cork screws, or novelty corkscrews that will draw attention to the host when they open their wine bottles in front of guests. Have a look at www.corkscrew.com for some ideas about what makes a good corkscrew; they even have an antique corkscrew gallery.
There is plenty of information on the internet about corkscrews and what makes a good one. It is worth educating yourself, and maybe even producing a brief fact sheet for your potential customers. If you understand the problems that they are likely to face with their current model then you stand more chance of convincing them to try one of your more upmarket ones.
Given that you are unlikely to break into the Supermarket or Wine stores chains; distribution is may be limited to the following outlets: -
Family, Friends, Colleagues
Party Planning
Website/EBay
Advertise in your local newspaper or in wine magazines
Seek out direct wine sellers
Family, friends and colleagues are what we call a natural market. It is relatively easy to tell them what you are doing and to show them your stock, or a catalogue of your potential stock. The problem is that this tends to be a relatively small group, for example when I went to put together my initial email list for www.ideas2earn.com I struggled to make 250 names. The key then is to ask for referrals from the people that you know, ask them to show other people your fact sheet or catalogue and hopefully the orders will start to trickle in
The easiest extension of the natural market is to start running parties, similar to the old Tupperware parties. Read the pages on our website for more details on how to go about this. Essentially you throw a small party with food and drink at your house and use it to show off your stock. Make sure that people know why they are coming and ask them to bring a friend. Once you have exhausted your own friends and colleagues ask them if they would be willing to let you host (i.e. pay the cost of) a party at their home for their friends and colleagues. The nice part about this is that your potential customers get to handle your products and ask questions directly about the benefits, and of course you get to open plenty of wine.
Any business should have a website these days, at a minimum a one page summary of how to contact you and your product range. This can be done using simple self build tools, or even using a blog. Put the address on your business card and hand it out whenever you meet new people. You may be surprised at how much traffic you can generate. Linking your website to EBay and your adverts on EBay back to your website is a sure fire way to generate more traffic and allows you to generate sales even when you don¡¦t have a payment gateway in place. Low end models are very price competitive on EBay but you can find unusual models and higher end models which are less price-competitive and will draw attention to you as a supplier.
Advertising in your local newspaper will be a lot cheaper than you might think, and will draw interest in your products, particularly if you include a picture of one of your more unusual items. Buy some wine magazines, or search for them online, once you have an email address for the sales department you can talk to them about advertising rates and whether there are cheaper times of year to place your adverts. Remember to include your website address and other contact details.
If you ask around you should be able to track down individual wine sellers. These guys serve a pool of customers offering speciality wines by the case at prices below usual retail prices, but above wholesale. By buying in bulk they are able to generate a profit and their customers tend to be very loyal due to the personal nature of the service. If you can find these guys then you may have a ready market for your products, ask them to carry a different item each month and to let their customers know that it is available for purchase, in return you should give them a healthy percentage of your profits.
This is a fairly straight forward item to manufacture, remember that you are
looking for quality, and unique features that will make your customers ooh
and ahh.
www.Ebay.com has 500+leads for corkscrews
www.alibaba.com has 670 leads for corkscrews ad related products
You can also try www.globalsources.com/manufacturers/Corkscrew.html
for additional leads
www.google.com has thousands of entries including European and US manufacturers; you may want to think about going down this route for your top end models. Made in China may not infer the best quality.
The more distribution channels you operate the more sales you are going to make.
You are unlikely to build a career replacing business out of this, but it could give you a handy additional income on top of your main job.