Online Sales Market Research Project
This is a project of OSAC. It is an initial stab at analyzing what opportunities are out there for moving stuff online from our existing gizmo piles.
At our first OSAC meeting, March 10 2011, we had people take on areas for research. This page is a place to dump this research.
The Metric
We discussed using a basic 1-3 metric for each category of item, and I came up with the following (cut and paste away!):
- abundance:
- weight:
- testing:
- interchangeability:
- fragility:
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity:
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while:
The annotated list:
- abundance (1=unicorns; 3=kudzu)
- weight (1=less than a kitten; 3=more than a sack of cats)
- testing (1=little/no testing needed; 3=fussy)
- interchangeability (1=snowflakes; 3=Pringles)
- fragility (1=rock; 3=lightbulb)
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity (1=under $50 3=more than $100)
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while (1=up to $100; 3=more than $300)
NB: Sometimes 1 means good, sometimes bad (such as easy to test as well as not abundant). Don't worry about this. Once the numbers are in we can account for this. For now, just answer these based on the above criteria.
Laptops and Laptop Parts
EBeth and Jen
High End Scraptops & AS IS Laptops
- abundance:2
- weight:2
- testing:2
- interchangeability:2
- fragility:1
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: 3=$100
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while:3=$200
High End Scraptop parts (screen, optical drive, ect)
- abundance:2
- weight:2
- testing:3
- interchangeability:2
- fragility:2
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: screen 2=$50, optical drive 1=$20, keyboard 1=$9
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while:$ screen 3=$125
Laptop Ram (sold in bulk)
- abundance: 3
- weight: 1
- testing: 1
- interchangeability: 3
- fragility: 2
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: 2=about a $1-2 ea, sold in lots of 20 or 50
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while:
General Thoughts: Selling bulk laptop ram is profitable because we do not test it and we have heaps of it, more than we could possibly sell in the store. DDR2 & DDR3 2GB is about the only ram worth selling online fetching about $20 ea but we do better to just sell it in the store.
Advanced Testing Stuff
Meredith and Ebeth
A/V
Tony
Vintage Amps/Tuners
- abundance: 1
- weight: 3
- testing: 2(?)
- interchangeability: 1
- fragility: 3
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: 2
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while: 3
General Thoughts: For rare, vintage and fetish amps, it may be worthwhile to put on ebay, as foreign collectors drive prices up greatly. This involves having to answer questions regarding overseas shipping, and we can expect shipping costs to be close to $50 for these monsters. For items over a couple hundred bucks, this may be a good route. Otherwise, local consignment or selling through the store may be a better avenue.
Vintage Headphones
need to check with Santi
- abundance:
- weight:
- testing:
- interchangeability:
- fragility:
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity:
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while:
Recording Equipment
- abundance: 1
- weight: 2
- testing: 2
- interchangeability: 1
- fragility: 2
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: 2
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while: 3
General thoughts: I'm picturing anything ranging from EQ's and microphones, DAT recorders, etc. I think this is an area with proven demand that can fetch much more online than we can expect in the store. The testing would be one-off, oddball, and the q/a from potential buyers would likely be high on some items.
Speakers/Parts
- abundance: 1
- weight: 3
- testing: 2
- interchangeability: 1
- fragility: 2
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: 2
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while: 3
General thoughts: Some of these look junked out, but sell for mucho. These are rare. Some models of speakers are worth selling as parts, such as drivers, and can bring a lot, even though they are heavy. Very fetish! Not sure how we'd test or how we currently test speaker parts.
A/C power adapter (groan)
Tony
- abundance: 3
- weight: 1
- testing: 1
- interchangeability: 2
- fragility: 1
- Price we can expect to get with some regularity: 1
- The rare gem we could actually expect to see once in a while: 1
General thoughts: There are a few of these that we see good numbers of, that bring around $20 with regularity. This would be a volume item, really only feasible once we had processes down pat and could crank through sales/shipping, maybe utilizing volunteers. There are some oddballs that fetch more than $25 and may be worth looking at. I don't know what I was thinking even saying this out loud, frankly.
Printers
Stepper Motors
- abundance: 3
- weight: 1
- testing 3
- interchangeability: 1
- fragility: 1
- price we can get with some regularity: 1
- The rare getm we can actually expect to see once in a while: 1
Video Games/Accessories
Mike
Macs/Mac parts
Paco
PDAs/Camers/MP3 (Tom Stuff)
Ian