Lets just say I have done extremely well without gouging the customer, though I do admit I listed a half dozen of the boxes at an extremely exorbitant price to see how they would do.
I sold every one of the six for over 5000% markup in less than a day.
I could trash or give away the rest that I have and still have done amazing.
I should have bought 10,000-20,000 when I had the opportunity to in January. My bad.
That is when I decided to remove most of my listings and reassess what I really wanted to do with the remaining product. I wanted to see if these were going to be need for more than just panic buying. Maybe we would really need these here locally for more than just 'dust masks'
I have sold a few in my B&M store for the standard amount ($22/box) to a few loyal customers but have told everyone else that I don't have any available. I realize that they are getting a bit harder to find unless you know where to look.
This past weekend I walked into a competitors store to see if they still had any.
I like to go in my competitors stores and see how they display products, what they are selling and how busy they are. I do this when I'm traveling and on vacation also. I learned this from Sam Walton's book 'Made in America' which I highly recommend.
I found 6 boxes of the 3M N95 style. I decided to buy 3 of the boxes off the shelf ($22.95 each) and listed 2 of them on Amazon.
It was really just an experiment to see how quickly they would sell, without selling my own. They were being sold by other vendors for $57-$59/box. I listed them at $50 and they were both gone in 20 minutes. After listing fees and shipping (first class), I came out ahead by a few bucks. Not trying to make any money really, just to see what the response would be.
What I was trying to convey is, is that if someone is complaining about how to make a few dollars as a side hustle, maybe they are half blind. There are opportunities everywhere. I think maybe a person could package a 'kit', hand sanitizer, mask, gloves, etc and market them to people that are 'highly alarmed' with the news. It might fill a need.
And that is what it is all about. Meeting needs.
That is why this Thread is in the side hustles forum. I see these threads on how to get started and sometimes we are too close to the forest to see the trees. Opportunities are all around us.
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