Who would I call?

Am I missing something? Lots of places sell individual sockets. Sears does so:

http://www.sears.com/tools-ratchets-sockets-socket-sets/b-1214364361?Socket%20Size=10%20mm&storeOrigin=Kmart&storeOrigin=Sears&filterList=Socket%20Size%7CstoreOrigin&sortOption=PRICE_LOW_TO_HIGH&autoSearsKmartFltr=true

at $3.14 for a 10mm 1/4" drive or $3.41 for a 10mm 3/8" drive. I think the market is served already, though with some creative marketing you might sell a few hundred. If it's something you want to do - go for it - but it's not going to make you rich that's for sure!

The Amazon drop shipping is "Fulfilled by Amazon." I looked into it and it's not so small of a fee. There's fees for receiving and processing the stuff, there's monthly fees for warehousing it, there's fees for packing and shipping it, and then there's fees on the sale itself too. On top of that, there are some reports that other people's stuff is sometimes substituted for yours (say, a sale is made to someone near a different distribution center, and someone has "close enough" stuff listed on your same item page) and you have no control over the quality of that product. Seemed like a lot of risk and a lot of fees to me. I have no idea how people selling cheap stuff though that program make any money.

Not so much individual sockets, or sets. Packs of the same size sockets, 5 or 10 of the same size. In most commonly lost/used sizes, 10, 12 mm.

I don't expect to get rich, just help supplement my income some. I'm always finding new and creative ways to make money to avoid getting a "real" job.

There's just been plenty of times personally and related to me, where you get stuck with a broken or missing socket after the stores are closed. Well, if you have a 5, 10, or 20 pack of the same size, it won't matter as much missing one. Or you can lose the whole pack at once instead of a single socket.

Spam google rankings, creative ad placement, maybe take out an actual ad in a few magazines. Hell, just go around to the garages in the area and at auto-x events and sell them.

If I can get 500 sockets for under 300 dollars, I'm going to give it a try. 50 packs of 10 for 25 dollars is enough to reinvest and even get more sizes.

What would be a research intensive way to do things, would be to make "sets" of sockets for individual vehicles, but that isn't something I feel like devoting research time to yet.

I think you could try it fairly cheaply. Obviously you get better cost with huge volume, but it would be pretty easy, assuming you had some cash, to call Craftsman or whoever and buy 500 sockets. The cleverness lies in packaging and marketing. One great use of a cheap 3D printer would be to design a clever PEZ style dispenser, maybe a gumball machine style, and whatever else floats your boat. I would not buy a bag of 10MM sockets for any price. I would definitely buy a gumball machine filled with 10mm sockets. THen market it on here, in the back of the mag, amazon, a clever website, groupon, stuff like that.

In reply to tuna55:

Just the first box of bullets I could find. But something like this. Down at the indoor range, they have lots of empty bullet boxes, but specifically the plastic pieces that hold the shells. I think a 3/8 socket will fit in a slot for a .50 cal pistol round. Boxes I know I can get really cheap made locally, but could also just have stickers printed to put over existing boxes. Probably some kind of legal bullE36 M3 would stop me from using actual bullet boxes, but you get the idea.

But quite literally, a box of sockets like a box of bullets. Even thinking "Box o Sox" for a name.

Looking at it though, those AK round boxes could probably hold 10 sockets.. Hmm.. If I had any kind of photo editing skills I could even make that tiger box look alright "10 sockets, 10mm x 3/8" drive" or something similar.

As mentioned by Keith and others, I also think contacting the manufacturer for bulk pricing is the best route.

Whether selling them loose or attached to a socket rack is another business choice.

Amazon fulfillment is where you sent your product to their warehouse and they take care of the rest.

Good luck.

Jv

Good for you for being creative. I don't want to rain on your parade, but I think you're going to find out how hard it is to compete with big box, imports and e-commerce. Don't even think of making the sockets. Buy in bulk from someone already making them. Then figure out the packaging, and the best way to cut shipping costs. My fear is that you will find that you are priced out and burdened with carrying a lot of inventory (upfront cash costs), but I am rooting for you! Get an idea of price, then get creative again and figure out how to market it to make it successful. Your path to success is not the tool itself but the marketing plan.

captdownshift wrote: You can 3D print metal these days. For production time it's not ideal, but for prototyping items to exact expectations of quality expected in final production, it's ideal.

If you want to pay like 500 a socket print yeah you can.

Seriously just find a Chinese supplier with forging close to what you want and call them up and buy in bulk from them. They could care less as long as you have hard currency or US dollars. They will run what ever you want for a few more pennies then they are selling to there main buyer and keep it off the books.

Give me some 8650 round stock, a few...a lot of 1/16" and 1/8" carbide endmills and a good engine lathe and Bridgeport and I could make you some sockets.

If I had the Fadal VMC from work in my garage I could whip out a program and mass produce the little berkeleyers. The deepwells would be a pain in the ass, though.

1000 sockets at $0.20 each will cost you all of 200.

You are going to pay a lot more for any packaging than you did for the socket.

If you're staying with the gun theme, how about old magazines preloaded with sockets rather than rounds?

In reply to NOHOME:

dude thats berkeleying awesome. The closest I'd seen that caught my attention so far was at kole importers. quarter inch drive, 5-12mm sets for $4/set and aside from 8, 10, and 12, the rest would be junked basically.

Tuna, I'd have to experiment a bit. I have lots of empty ammo boxes laying around I could sticker up, I don't have extra magazines. I imagine I'd have to do some customizing, but maybe I could stamp some out with my press(hey a use for it). My sportsmans club used to get boxes made for the turkey calls we gave away on JAKES days at a card factory nearby, I just need to find out which one.

You also do have me looking around, between chasing the little one, for cheap gumball machines. Buy a loaded machine, then just get refills for it later maybe? Or use different colored plastic lids to differentiate sockets? I just think I'd have trouble selling something so big. Unless I talked to the guys that put M&M and candy machines in all the bars and stores around here and set one up for sockets?

To be honest, I've been trying to google what I should google to search. Looking for brand names and wholesale really didn't work, and looking for wholesale sockets was bringing back socks. I'm gonna have to buy some from where nohome posted and test them out to make sure they don't suck/strip right away but damn, did not realize they could get that cheap.

I haven't bought a 3d printer yet, that is on the list of needed tools, but I might be able to barter with a guy with a RC car shop at the end of the street that has one to make some custom holders. I'm also thinking of offering rails of the same size because even buying rails at harbor freight is like a buck a piece.

Gotta call my buddy the accountant tonight to and find out how to do this on the up n up, instead of just paypal. I imagine the govt will want some tax money from sales and probably have to setup an LLC to cover my ass, that officialness is beyond me though.

Be real slick, offer SCCA members free shipping or a discount or something. Heck, my region is still looking for a sponsor for our end of year showcase event, while it wouldn't be a vehicle donation, they'd appreciate the sponsorship and that could make for good exposure. Realizing as I type this that our autocross meets are at Wyotech, so where better to setup tool sales than a mechanics school?

EDIT: unless you have an account or I'm an idiot(likely), something is wrong. Those .19 cent ones say 11mm when I click on them, cheapest 10 I can find is $3.45 from blackhawk.

I think you'll have better luck with a telephone than Google. It's amazing how much you can get done when you start dialing, and how much stuff is NOT explicitly listed on the web.

At 19 cents, you're back in the range of cheap, nasty sockets and are competing with HF. You said you wanted reasonable quality at the start, and coincidentally that costs more. I think you really need to consider your expected selling price unless you're just looking to sell packages of disposable sockets.

I just can't believe we go from 20 cent crap, to 3 dollar husky/cobalt with no middle ground.

Jut hard to get on the phone chasing the baby. Do have some emails sent out to spero, msc, and a couple manufacturers.

Had the idea to try to find who manufactures the pittsburgh pro line, that's going to require digging.

Baby leaves thursday, friday will be on the phone all day between this and concrete companies and another project I got roped into.

Frankly I'm amazed I get anything done off the forum, just easy to have a browser window open and hit refresh every now and then regardless of what the little poop machine is doing.

That was a 10 second search just to prove a point that what you want is on the shelf somewhere. A supplier search for what you are doing is going to take a lot longer and will require face to face negotiation; remember, even that 19 cent socket is retail already. You need to buy wholesale. Before you even start, you should have other parts of the business plan put down on paper.

Starting with the phone call to place the order, and ending with putting the customers money in your bank account, what and how many steps do you need to take, how long do those steps take and how much money do they cost? Try to think of at least 50 steps and assume you missed a bunch.

Got a reply from wttool

10mm sockets imported 1/4" or 3/8" drive your cost $2.15 Each Delivery: 2-4 months for 500pcs

So... thousand bucks for 500, that much lead time would let me do a lot of thinking and figuring things out. BUT can I sell 50 ten packs at 30 bucks a pop? That would be 500 "profit" before shipping costs, containers, and any print advertising.

I'd consider paying 30 for 10 of the same size that I'm very prone to lose, but I don't always make the right or popular decision. I'd also want free shipping if I was doing that, but 5 or 10 bucks for shipping, or a discount on shipping for buying more than one pack would help me seal the deal.

Dammit, why does NOT having a real job have to be so difficult?

I need to start knocking projects OFF the checklist, instead of making it longer. Anyone want to come follow me around for a week yelling at me to get things done?