Good Idea to stick with?

For my Entrepreneurship Merit Badge i had to brainstorm some ideas for a Business that i would later have to design a product and sell that product or service.

I created "Plants in a Jar" it was a glass vase with a colored sand design in the bottom, sealed off and then put rocks, soil, and the plant in the top. The total cost of one thing was about $15 i sold them for about $19-$20. I only had to sell them for six months and only sold to my neighbors.

Would this be a good thing for me to continue and maybe sell at a Saturday market? (we have these in the summer in Ohio)

Anything will help

SOSJ.

a better strategy would be to sell them to saturday market vendors, this helps you go from s to b.

that being said, more profit would have to be built in so there is room for the vendors slice of the pie

What do you mean by "s to b?"

sorry, selfemployed to business owner.

Depends on what your goal is for sticking with it. I think you could definitely do something with it. You should look into cutting your costs.

One way you could do this is to take your current profits and find a better supplier for your materials. 15 bucks seems high for your cost. This would probably require a bulk purchase, but would increase profit.

Try this first to see if you could manage bulk purchasing.... Go to IKEA (if not one near you, they have online ordering, just not sure about the plants) and check what you can find. I was just there and saw everything you need!

glass vase - 1.50
rocks - 1.00
plant - 1.50
sand - 1.00
potting soil - 6.00 enough for multiple vases

6 bucks should do ya'.

ok that makes sense. Would they be willing to buy tho? I was only making a small profit doing it myself, although i don't know how much i could sell them for, they might have a hard time making enough profit to want to buy them from me.

well there are two components to your transaction

1.) manufacturing or assembling

2.) selling to consumer

If you build profit into each step, each can be outsourced. I agree with mtnman, you need to lower your costs.

Wow thats great, thats a 9 dollar cost cut for me. I will go check out the IKEA site to see if there are any near me...i just hope i can sell enough that buying bulk will be an option.

Part of what you need to figure out is how much somebody would pay for it. If you try to sell just like anything else, a common thing, then your price may be too high. However, if you try to sell it as something exclusive, high-class, artsy, then you probably can ask for a higher price.
By the way, I think you are the youngest member of the forum, welcome aboard and say hi to your dad from me, it was great meeting him last weekend.

Also, you could eliminate the soil by using a different plant, such as bamboo like this...http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thu...blue_rocks.jpg

I have thought about that, but when i looked into it, it seemed i would need a bigger jar or cut out the sand. In my mind the sand is what really sells it, that and the fact that you don't have to water it much.

If i was to do that i would try and find a bigger jar than i am using now. I think you can just buy the Bamboo things. The things i sell, are hand made and not sold in store, as far as i know.

SOSJ

+++ speed for working on a plan. Keep on researching and refining it.

I have another idea,

I live in a smallish town, and really close to the "town square" and their are many small shops around there. Would it be a good idea to try and sell to some of the shops, so they can sell the plant?

SOSJ

If you can produce them at a pricepoint that allows room for a retailer and you to make a profit, then I would sell them to whatever store carries something similar. You actually have somewhat of an advantage here. You have your story. Go into the store- Hi I am son of slim jim and I am trying to earn my entreprenuar badge, would you be interested in stocking this item?

I actually think thats a pretty cool idea, and any product that you can make and mark it as "classy" or "expensive" is something to really look into. I mean why open a hair saloon in a small town when you could try and cater to rich people in Paris.

I have already finished the Merit Badge, so I don't think I could go in there and say, "I'm working on completing a Merit Badge", but I think thats a good idea and will think about other things to say and use as an "entry".