Thinking of opening some Trade Me drop-off stores? After all – there is a gap in the market right?
Drop off stores are big in the USA – they are places where you bring items for sale on eBay, and they list and sell them on eBay for you. The stores necessarily take a huge cut (say 30%). The items need to be of a certain value (say $50), and easily salable, which means you cannot just empty out your garage..
Well – read this first. 74% of respondents (yes – self selection makes it biased) to a drop off store survey said they made a loss after salaries.
And then think about the dynamics of the NZ market versus the US market. Kiwi’s tend to be more careful with more expensive items, and far more pragmatic than Americans. Perhaps we’d tend to list expensive items ourselves, whereas cheaper items are the ones we’d like help with listing.
I’d love, for example, someone to come and list about 100 items of mine with an average value of $5-$10.
I’ve been a fan of drop off stores in the past, but I am beginning to think that drop-off stores are going to be a tough way to make money in NZ. Of course I’d still love to use them.
The auctionbytes blog has some store owner’s comments, mostly expressing frsutration at not making money. The main response is this insight:
‘The formula is simple, open in a high traffic plaza in a community where people actually make money.”
Lance Wiggs 
I think your target market is people who for whatever reason don’t want to use trademe themselves ie. Computer illiterate. I come across numerous people who want me to sell stuff on trademe for them who cant/dont want to learn how to do trademe well themselves. The onus then is on the dropshop owner himself not to take anything that is worth less than $30 profit to him (or whatever fee he decides is reasonable). (I would think $30 myself) Must budget something for storage also and have accurate method to easily store and retrieve specific items.
I agree with your sentiments however. It does seem a bit risky albiet low risk as there is not much capital outlay.
There is quite some wisdom required to understand what is worth/worthless as I have tripped on some seemingly easily sold items, and passed on some rubbish that is worth a lot.
Not as easy as it seems.
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