Becoming a RETAILER - and whats the bizzness ?

[ThomasOrion]

Curious out starting a side-job of retail disc sales - Along with other disc golf media

I don't need to be a BIG THING - I'd just be interested in a couple manufacturers and selling online - and locally if people wanna swing by the house to see them in person - not a shop

Just curious if anyone has any feedback or advice on this?


From what I gather its not the MOST profitable venture and may be a big challenging - in my immediate area there WAS a disc golf shop, but there is not anymore

 

[elmexdela]

justin from community discs would be a solid resource

 

[elmexdela]

from what i gather its a losing game

a lot of shop owners are now slangin plastic on the fb auction sites cuz theyll get top dolla for that

 

[Future_Primitive]

Some manufacturers may require a physical store address before selling you stock discs. Pretty sure Innova is pretty strict about this as our club cant even buy stock stamps from them despite placing many custom stamp orders. MPV/Discraft may be a little more lenient and allow it but something to check into.

Seems quite risky to me, with how picky some folks can be and how much of a crapshoot ordering plastic can be. Lot of times you dont get all the great colors and ideal weights, sometimes you get the bad colors and weights. Lot of competition out there already so what do you plan to offer to set you apart? Trying to battle on price alone is not a great business plan so what value can you add to the process?

 

[skizzle34]

I have mulled this idea over quite a lot throughout the year but I just don't think there is enough customers for the number of retailers there are. Unfortunately unless you load up on "collectible" stuff and resell it at above MSRP breaking even will be difficult. People have become so picky about color,feel,and things like "dome" that if you don't have EXACTLY what they want they will just move on. I picture a room full of "ugly" colored discs like yellows and bad swirls that you couldn't give away if you wanted to. Only way I would do it is if I was able to go to manufactures and hand pick my stock.

 

[DavidSauls]

Some manufacturers may require a physical store address before selling you stock discs. Pretty sure Innova is pretty strict about this as our club cant even buy stock stamps from them despite placing many custom stamp orders. MPV/Discraft may be a little more lenient and allow it but something to check into.

Seems quite risky to me, with how picky some folks can be and how much of a crapshoot ordering plastic can be. Lot of times you dont get all the great colors and ideal weights, sometimes you get the bad colors and weights. Lot of competition out there already so what do you plan to offer to set you apart? Trying to battle on price alone is not a great business plan so what value can you add to the process?

Exactly.

Plus, the existing online vendors have large inventories. You know how much it would cost to build that much stock? Or how long it would take you to break even?

 

[DiscFifty]

Edited: Not fast enough. Info already posted. lol..

 

[aredoubles]

Hard to differentiate yourself online. Why buy from you when I can get better selection and prices from the big names who have the benefits of greater scale? Do you have an answer to that? Even things like artwork (Black Ink, Airborn, etc.) and disc shape minutiae (OTB, Thrower's Choice, etc.) are not all that unique and differentiating online anymore.

Local is the place to be I think. People will always want to see/feel/browse discs, which they can't do online, and won't want to travel far for. Unlike online, you are filling an obvious need then.

If you don't want to do brick/mortar, consider a traveling shop that you set up at local courses, leagues, tourneys, etc. For the latter, you can even offer to handle am merch payout and/or players packs. But this does take some time investment of sitting around while people browse, etc., cutting into time you could be spending actually playing or whatever else.

 

[SpikeHyzer]

You should read Jason Oxsen's recent post on FB about the DG business. It's a very enlightening read. I'll see if I can track it down again.

 

[SpikeHyzer]

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[SpikeHyzer]

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[Moose33]

I have mulled this a lot as selling online is my job and I have a resale certificate, but to me the biggest issue is; amazon is the best place for third party vendors and overall online sales, and IMO it's one of the worst places to buy golf discs. It's difficult to show multiple options like color as well as weight, and if you wanted to parent all plastic types under one sku(which would be best for visibility) you lose even more options and potential hits.

Honestly I would love to have the ability to buy more discs easier as well as add additional income, but for now running the occasional event and working with smaller manufacturers seems to be the best way to go. At least for my wants/needs.

 

[ThomasOrion]

Some manufacturers may require a physical store address before selling you stock discs. Pretty sure Innova is pretty strict about this as our club cant even buy stock stamps from them despite placing many custom stamp orders. MPV/Discraft may be a little more lenient and allow it but something to check into.

Seems quite risky to me, with how picky some folks can be and how much of a crapshoot ordering plastic can be. Lot of times you dont get all the great colors and ideal weights, sometimes you get the bad colors and weights. Lot of competition out there already so what do you plan to offer to set you apart? Trying to battle on price alone is not a great business plan so what value can you add to the process?

I have my own ideas at least on being active and showing detailed info about discs - - so I hate my job and want to quit and I need to be around to take care of my family as things are tough right now - So In the meantime wanted to do something that I love anyways and see if I can make some profit to keep my family alive haha. I want to focus some of my efforts on reviews and details on specifics as well as comparisons etc, with videos and pictures and I'm all over FB as it is in all these groups anyway because I enjoy it so was wondering if theres a good way to get started. Its a pipe dream right now. :|

 

[DiscJunkie]

IIRC, Jeremy talked a while back about how he started Dynamic Discs.
He started small, in college, selling discs on ebay (back when the feebay cut wasn't so large), and bit by bit, grew it into a retail presence online.
Turns out his wife was a nurse, so they could live on her income. He mentioned that she bankrolled him (several times?) when he wanted to expand.

My point?

I think getting started as a disc retailer is great if that is your dream, but if you're gonna need a steady income for the first 3 years, get a job and sell discs on the side.
If you can do with no income for a few years, and you have money to "invest" in growth, then it might be a great way to start living your dream.

 

[elmexdela]

Hard to differentiate yourself online. Why buy from you when I can get better selection and prices from the big names who have the benefits of greater scale? Do you have an answer to that? Even things like artwork (Black Ink, Airborn, etc.) and disc shape minutiae (OTB, Thrower's Choice, etc.) are not all that unique and differentiating online anymore.

Local is the place to be I think. People will always want to see/feel/browse discs, which they can't do online, and won't want to travel far for. Unlike online, you are filling an obvious need then.

If you don't want to do brick/mortar, consider a traveling shop that you set up at local courses, leagues, tourneys, etc. For the latter, you can even offer to handle am merch payout and/or players packs. But this does take some time investment of sitting around while people browse, etc., cutting into time you could be spending actually playing or whatever else.

he would be competing with gggt which is also in the area

i would rather drive to gggt with bigger selection and likely much better prices

 

[Cgkdisc]

Might want to talk with existing brick and mortar retailers in the Twin Cities area about an arrangement where you could manage their online presence so you can work from home.

 

[Treeplant]

I've owned a couple of different businesses, tried a few different side hustles. I do fairly well for myself now after a few big swings and misses and while I love disc golf, I can say that looking at the model I would never in a million years consider selling discs as anything other than a labour of love. I have not seen any part of disc golf, from owning a course to running events to training to bag making to selling discs that makes sense as a pure business venture given all the alternatives out there in the world.

There's a part of me that would be interested in buying out a local vendor for retirement one day, to have a shop to hang out and have some buddies run or something, but it's seriously an awful business model coming in cold. Maybe if you're well connected in your area (and it's a hot disc golf area with no local competition) or you've got direct access to pros or whatever, but really, it's a terrible retail model with lots of competition and suppliers like Grip/Discfraft etc. who have shown zero consistency as some posts in this thread point out.

Hats off to the guys who run these businesses and turn a profit, but seriously, if you really need the money (i.e. family to support) I can't imagine this makes sense to invest in. That said, if you have true, killer marketing skills you can make it in almost any retail market, but learning retail marketing is extraordinarily difficult without a mentor/guide who has experience.

I highly recommend developing a side hustle that you really love, and maybe that's disc golf, and if so good luck and go into it planning on succeeding, but go into it expecting that you may invest a few, or ten, or twenty grand in inventory, and watch most of your money tied up in cycling inventory with not much real cash-in-hand profit to show for a while. If you run it from home you'll be shocked at how much time you have to spend with drop ins (maybe you're okay with that though).

 

[DiscFifty]

The problem is unless you're the guy making and selling the discs, you have to move alot of product to make a buck. I have friends that sell discs on facebook and they always say stuff like "man..I should start my own disc golf business!" Selling enough discs to buy beer is one thing, selling enough to live on is something completely different.

It's been a while since I was involved with a start up selling discs, but I think profit from a typical DD disc was around $7.00, is that about right still? If so, if you sell 15 a day, 7 days a week, you can gross around 35k before other expenses such as..... life.

 

[joecoin]

... I have not seen any part of disc golf, from owning a course to running events to training to bag making to selling discs that makes sense as a pure business venture given all the alternatives out there in the world.

...

Maybe course designer/installer? Marketing to local government entities that are (typically) clueless. Need a high population density demographic area.

 

[ThrowaEnvy]

Well I think everybody has good points, one of my local shops is outta a guys basement. Wall to wall with discs. It's established retailer and I think the guy bought it for 15000 ish just for the stock I don't know about profit for the original owner. He does have some older rare goodies that became valuable sitting on his shelf.

I tried an MVP dealer order about 10yrs ago just to get them out here. I ordered the minimum 40 discs and I was making about five maybe seven bucks a disc. It was a lot of hassle to make $250. I got stuck with a bunch of purple discs. I missed out on some fun times at the tourney because I was slinging discs in the parking lot. Gave away a few as prizes and finally I'm down to my last 4th gen? purple ion and anode and a Axis with weird glue seam on the top.

I have sold a few at my place during my tourney, I've actually been dumping my used or rarer new discs that way last year. It's a good way to get them out of the basement and make a few bucks