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[RSpall]

I'm looking for a potential career path of starting up a company that sells cricket kit as something on the side of my normal job.

I have just finished my first cricket season of selling kit to locals in my area and within the county i live. It's something i have been thinking of for a while and now want to push on a little. I have looked in to having bat stickers made and getting a design put together.

I have bought kit at a very good price offline so far and made good money on it.

All tips would be appreciated and interesting to see peoples thoughts.

[Buzz]

can I suggest you have a read through the forum. I realise that the search function is a little ropey - but there have been just the one or two on here who have trodden the path you a going and a huge amount of information already available.

knowing what your USP is going to be will be a good start, having a high quality supplier will be another good move.

EDIT:
In case you weren't sure... buying a load of OLS blank softs and stickering up a load of MSR bats won't give you a USP... you may want something more. Just a thought. (This isn't a slight on the MSR bats by the way, my experience of them is that they are usually very good value)

[Stuey]

Out of interest which county?

[RSpall]

Cornwall.

[SLC]

What are you going to do better than everyone else? Price? Quality? Unusual branding?

[Stuey]

Cornwall.

Lovely part of the world, got some relos in Newquay. Good luck, as with everything people will try to talk you out of it or give horror stories, but if its 100% what you want to do go for it, it'll be a labour of love 

[RSpall]

relos?? I live in Newquay. The tourists have gone home now so i'm currently looking at this to keep me going along side my current job.

As i am just starting up and their are lots of big brands out there already so i don't think i will be able to better them on some levels. I think the kit that i am already selling is as good as any kit at the moment and i am selling it at better prices than anyone locally. There is only one cricket shop in the whole of Cornwall and this is why i think i can make something of it, or at least try. The shop here is a good shop but is very costly. He charges around 300 for good bats from all the top brands and pads up to 100. As i already have another job i was hoping to under cut this considerably and see how it goes. If it kicks off i just sell more.

Any ideas where is the best place to sell your kit? Ebay seems to be good for Steve and his bats but there doesn't seem to be any pads or gloves on there that aren't second hand or from a dealer.

[tim2000s]

Might be worth having a read of the interview with the majority shareholder in Mongoose. It's a tricky industry...

http://184.154.5.91/cbforum/index.php?topic=31853.0

[Stuey]

relos?? I live in Newquay. The tourists have gone home now so i'm currently looking at this to keep me going along side my current job.

sent a pm

[tailender]

relos?? I live in Newquay. The tourists have gone home now so i'm currently looking at this to keep me going along side my current job.

As i am just starting up and their are lots of big brands out there already so i don't think i will be able to better them on some levels. I think the kit that i am already selling is as good as any kit at the moment and i am selling it at better prices than anyone locally. There is only one cricket shop in the whole of Cornwall and this is why i think i can make something of it, or at least try. The shop here is a good shop but is very costly. He charges around 300 for good bats from all the top brands and pads up to 100. As i already have another job i was hoping to under cut this considerably and see how it goes. If it kicks off i just sell more.

Any ideas where is the best place to sell your kit? Ebay seems to be good for Steve and his bats but there doesn't seem to be any pads or gloves on there that aren't second hand or from a dealer.

You going to sell just bats or softs and bags etc? personally, I met the guy behind a well known (but small) brand a few months back and funnily enough we discussed ebay, he seemed to think its best to avoid as it immediately devalues your brand. 

[EaglesCC]

You going to sell just bats or softs and bags etc? personally, I met the guy behind a well known (but small) brand a few months back and funnily enough we discussed ebay, he seemed to think its best to avoid as it immediately devalues your brand.

This is an interesting view point. How do you value a small/ start up brand in the first place?

eBay for all it's faults is actually quite a good marketing tool for start up brands. It helps gain brand awareness. The down side is that you're immediately compared to cheap alternatives and unless you're USP is very unique, the brand may be dismissed very quickly.

I guess that is what said brand is meaning by devaluing a brand. 

[Stuey]

The more I read and the more experiences I hear, starting a brand seems to be a lot of hard work for potentially very little financial reward. There's a lot of smaller brands (more than I realised) looking for a share of the market, overly dominated by the big brands. From the outside looking in, you either need to offer something different (i.e. B3) or have/be an established batmaker with a good reputation. Both require skills developed over a period of time or a lot of money to buy them in.  Good luck to those who tread the path.

[GarrettJ]

It's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller

[Ayrtek Cricket]

Cricket is a saturated market in terms of bats/softs etc. the ease at which people can now import goods from india/pakistan etc has moved drastically forward from when i 1st started a company 10 years ago.

back then i had to find someone who made soft goods in india and came with a decent reputation, now thanks to websites like online stockist you can simply buy them yourself and add a sticker to a blank bat or add a logo to an existing design.

The other thing to realise about the cricket is that its a discount market. As soon as a product is launched the price will immediately be cut down from the RRP to make it more appealing to the consumer. This has a knock on effect for everyone from retail to wholesale to distributor to manufacturer. Each has to make sales and a margin when selling on the product through the various routes to market.

In order to make a living from the cricket market it all comes down to volume of sales and establishing a healthy margin whilst doing so. Even then i dont think you'll see many people retiring and sunning themselves in the Bahamas as a result of having a brand in the cricket market.

[tbarnfield99]

In my mind there are roughly ten 'large' brands that hold 75% of the market, you then have 50+ small brands all vying for that last 25%, it's tough.