Water/Ice
I am feeling a little mischievous this morning, but I won・t go as far as suggesting you try to sell ice to Eskimos/Inuits. It・s a simple fact that we all, at some time or another pay for these two items that come from the same source and are essentially provided to us free by mother nature.
We are prepared to pay, as are others when we are hot and there is no suitable natural source. Usually we end up buying expensive mineral water, or more ice than we need simply to quench our need for a cooling drink.
This is obviously not a year round business unless you live in the tropics, nor is it something that you would want to give up your day job for. What you might consider though is running a water or ice business at weekends and in the evenings in the summer months.
Think about your town or city, there are places where people naturally get hot such as parks, skating bowls, etc. If you really think about this you should be able to come up with a bunch of locations. You only need one to get started.
Depending upon your country and even locality you may need a license for this, it will not be a lot of work to check and could save you a lot of bother later if the authorities decide to check up on you. If a license is needed you should be able to get all the information you need including the forms from the internet. Go ahead and do it, its your license to print money.
The great thing about this business is you can start for almost nothing. Use your home freezer to make bags of ice, or bottle tap water. Providing you don・t advertise it as anything else you will not be breaking any laws. Of course if you have some money for stock you can buy mineral water from the local cash and carry and can probably charge more for it.
You don・t need to advertise as hot people will come to you when they see you. You might want to make sure you can be seen, which could mean having a bright coloured van to sell from, or a stand painted in a bright colour, or if you are starting very low cost then wearing a brightly coloured outfit such as an orange boiler suit will get you noticed and may start to build a brand if you expand later on.
If you decide to carry your stock then remember that 1 litre of water weighs a kilogram, so 20 half litre bottles will be 10 kg which is probably as much as you would want to carry at any one time. 330ml bottles would allow you to carry 30 bottles at the same weight and you can still charge about the same for them. You will want a car, or some kind of base station close by if you are to make more than pin money doing this. Keep your spare water packed in bags of ice that won・t leak and can be re-frozen when you get home.
Naturally there is only so much water that you can sell from one location. Some locations may also have more customers than you can handle on your own. You should easily be able to find people who will sell your bottles for you at good locations. You will also be copied by students and other enterprising individuals, but stay with your theme of bright colours and consistency. Get anyone who works for you in an orange boiler suit and make their life easy, drop them at the location, run new stock to them and pay them 80-90% of the profit. The key is that the percentage you make is semi-passive, if you can run a group of 10 people that would give you double to triple the income you could earn on your own. Assuming you could do 30 bottles at a buck profit in a typical evening, triple that and you are at $450 a week without touching the weekends, which adds up to an annual income of $23,400 on top of your day job (although we already noted you probably can only do this in the summer).
If you choose to bottle tap water then you will need to buy suitable bottles and of course ensure that everything is sterile. You can find suppliers online and for a business of this size should probably source locally.
If you go down the bottled water route then you can start by registering at your local cash and carry. If you are shifting large volumes then you should probably approach the water company distributors directly and see what kind of discount you can get.
Fortunately water doesn・t go off, so if you are left with some stock at the end of the summer you can either drink it yourself or just save it for the following 6-9 months.
People will try to copy you; on their own it will not be easy or worthwhile. Stick at it and do it better than the copiers.
One off events such as rock festivals and even outdoor classical concerts could make you a fortune in additional revenues. Get in touch with organisers as soon as you hear of events happening.
This is a business that will keep you outside when the weather is good, is cheap to start and will involve a lot of people contact; who could ask for anything more?