Tents
At its most simple a tent is somewhere to sleep when you are outdoors. If you plan to camp it is a fun experience which teaches us a little about getting back to nature, and in an emergency it can also provide shelter when there is no other source available.
I started thinking of this idea as a leisure / fun business with a view to providing cheaper tents to families and student to use for recreation, or for providing cover to large events such as wedding receptions. I have come to realise however that there may also be ways to help charitable organisations provide shelter for refugee camps around the world.
Starting with the fun side, it is relatively easy to find 2, 4, and 6 berth tents for sale in standard configurations. www.hemitshut.com has 1 man configurations starting at about $180 and goes up to more than $500 for a 4 season 4 person configuration. Given that the materials used are essentially fire resistant nylon or canvas and lightweight aluminium support poles it will be possible to manufacture them for a fraction of this cost.
Sites like www.eurekatent.com have industrial strength tents, such as military quality which would be more useable for organisations such as charities, and they also carry larger tents/marquees for events such as weddings.
We talk about finding stock (as usual) in the section below, assuming that
you have found a supplier, or drop-shipper you will need to focus on marketing,
we have the following ideas: -
Ebay
Website
Scouts and other youth groups
Direct Response
Garden Centres
Charities
Wedding Planners
Tent hire companies
Rock/Pop Festivals
Ebay currently has about 1800 items listed under a search for tent, and pricing is competitive. This will be partly to do with the time of year as most people are not thinking about camping in mid March. Later in the year there will be more interest, which suggests more advertisers and also higher prices. One way to start may be to buy some cheap tents now and market them in the summer months.
Google has almost 21 million hits for the word tent. You will need to be imaginative with your keywords and web site address in order to gain traffic from the search engines, but with determined marketing on and offline you will drive traffic. You can also use your website as a catalogue/shop window for customers who find out about you through your offline promotions, make sure you include a payment gateway if you think you can generate business from outside of your immediate area.
If I were marketing tents I suspect that no amount of networking would sell very many for me. My first stop would be at the local Scout group to speak to Arkala. I would be looking to find out what activities they had planned for the year and whether I could beat what is being offered on the high street and/or by other suppliers. Remember that a $ profit here could well be an ongoing source of profits for years to come. Try to build a relationship with the group, run talks or activities for them as well as selling them tents.
Direct response can work for a product like this, but I would not be handing out flyers, or making telephone calls to individual households as the odds on finding one who wanted a tent would be pretty slim. The answer here lies in advertising in newspapers, lifestyle magazines, and those supplemental catalogues containing gadgets and home ideas. You can reach a much wider audience this way and will get orders from browsers. Make sure you give as many contact options as possible, at a minimum phone number, email, website and address. You may also want to add a fax, cell phone number and radio call sign (ok I・m kidding on the last one).
I often recommend garden centres as a place to try and sell your product. Many of them are privately owned and they carry a wide range of products. This means that they may be flexible in how they can work with you, perhaps giving you display space in the peak summer months and displaying a catalogue in the winter months. Don・t ask them to pay upfront for any stock, and if there is a cost to them in displaying your goods, try to compensate them fairly for doing so.
Everyone thinks that you can・t/or shouldn・t make money from charities. My view is similar to my view on selling to religious organisations; providing that you can get them a better deal than anyone else is giving them you are doing them a favour. If you happen to make a $ on the deal that doesn・t mean that you have done them any less of a favour. Of course you can (and people do) set up companies solely to service charitable causes on a non-profits basis, but even then it is necessary to charge more than cost to cover administration fees, rent and other costs involved in running any entity. The non-profit organisations simply ensure that their ：profit； is ploughed back into charitable causes. In many ways selling to charities ca be harder and take longer than other sales as the process needs to be completely transparent and above board. Providing you work with the purchase department you should soon learn how to deal with the red tape though.
Wedding planners will often need to find marquees and other smaller portable covers. Try to contact a few and see whether there are possibilities for you to rent, or sell these items. You will be able to get them manufactured on a bespoke basis if something special is needed.
There are companies that specialise in renting large commercial tents for big events. Try contacting a few to see where they buy their stock. Ask them whether you can tender then next time they are looking. Make a note of any time frames that they give you and make sure you follow up about a month before they will next be looking.
As a one off entrepreneurial event I cannot think of a better venue than a pop, or rock festival. Not the one day events, but the 2,3, or 4 day events that run every summer. Getting a stand will be expensive but you will get to enjoy the music and you are likely to sell more tents and camping accessories to badly prepared youngsters with money in their pockets than at any other event in the year.
Before leaping in and ordering stock I would strongly suggest that you attend at least one trade show and talk to people in the industry. Understand what features are important, what improvements have been made recently, and what the hot selling models are. This knowledge will be invaluable to you when talking with suppliers.
Buying stock is relatively easy, www.globalsourcing.com and www.alibaba.com will have both large and small outfits with experience of dealing with overseas orders. Speak to several and order some samples. You will soon be in business.
You shouldn・t need to carry a lot of stock as these are large ticket items. Get some samples and work out what your order time is. If a customer is in a hurry then sell them a sample.
If you plan to sell at events such as festivals you will need stock, carry cheaper items and mark them up according to demand.