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Heavy steel product - how to scale?

chuckypita

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My partner and I own a welding & fabrication shop. We do custom railing, artistic iron gates, custom steel garden planters, etc.

The term "impact millions" has caused a stir in my soul because - like MJ's books suggest - both scale and magnitude are causing me problems. Our growth just isn't what it could be.

I'm located just out of Salt Lake City Utah - and I'd love to send product to Chicago, or New York or Seattle - but these products are extremely heavy. I mean, the shipping cost for a 4' tall by 2' wide garden planter would be almost as much as the price of the design.

How can I take our custom made product to people in other cities in a cost effective manner?
 
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Kak

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The way I see it, you basically have 3 options...

1. Larger margin products that can eat shipping and still be valuable to customers and profitable to you.

2. Better local market penetration.

3. Ship batches to other cities to get better economies of scale with shipping. Different product hubs. Wholesale could accomplish this.
 

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I don't have a sure answer, but what comes to mind is the fact that information is lighter than iron. Maybe sell the plans, or license them to fab shops closer to the customer? It's that or solve the problem of shipping costs, as far as I can think it.
 

AllenCrawley

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Is it possible to manufacture the products in such a way that it would require a little bit of assembly by the customer in order to ship in much smaller boxes?

Back in the day I did a lot of marketing work for a company that makes large metal sculptures like palm trees and cacti. I believe they ship product in a way similar to how I mentioned above. They charge $150 flat fee plus $50 for each additional product. I think they had a distribution system of some kind or fulfillment warehouses closer to the coasts. They are headquartered smack in the middle of the country.
 
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chuckypita

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I don't have a sure answer, but what comes to mind is the fact that information is lighter than iron. Maybe sell the plans, or license them to fab shops closer to the customer? It's that or solve the problem of shipping costs, as far as I can think it.

Wow. I didn't even consider that. Maybe make some blueprints of each one of our custom made steel planters and move forward from there... that's a fantastic idea. THANK YOU.
 

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You're welcome. Hope it helps :)
 
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