selling novelties at the 2010 olympics
 

Hi all. I have been speaking to some of my contacts at factories in China. One of them have recently produced a mold of a olympic related novelty toy. My pricing on it after tax, duty, shipping etc. is less than $1. I can get these in volume in the thousands. imo this novelty item can be a hot olympic toy for kids, and I can easily see vendors selling it for $10-20. I have made a small plan if I were to invest in some of these and bring them over. Can anyone see any flaws or add suggestions?

-toy is certified to be safe for use
-has no olympic copyright infringements. I read the bill that goes over this and had a lawyer look and I will not get in trouble with Vanoc.

My thought is to get samples here ASAP. Set up meetings with olympic venues and see if they are interested in selling them at the events (you know those guys that go up and down the stands) and wholesale them to these venues. I could also do the same with stores around downtown and whistler. I was considering starting a vending business and hiring people to sell these around the streets at the olympics, but that is more overhead. I can still sell these for a couple bucks a piece and make a good profit, the venues will probably sell them for 5x that. Everyone wins.

My concerns are since this is not official olympic merchandise, will olympic venues and stores be interested in selling it? I am very confident these toys will be a hot sell. There is only 1 factory with this mold, and my friend told me one company out in the boonies made an order for 5000 of them a few weeks back. I don't think there will be much competition.

My risk is low, I put up a few bucks for samples, set up meetings, get deposits if I make any sales and then place an order. 20 days later the goods come in and I cash in. If i can do these in volume in the thousands I would make some nice change. I have all Dec. off from work so if I can setup meetings, pull sales in Dec, place the order early Jan in time for the olympics, and have the goods arrive just before Feb. hits this logically should work. Am I thinking too simple? thoughts?

I'll begin by answering that you already missed the deadline for CoV street vending licence. It expired in Feb of 09. The licence would allow you to 'street vend from March 09 - April 1 10' for a cost of $700ish.


I dont think official olympic venues will sell non olympic merchandise - im sure they signed a contract that prohibits from them doing so.

I'd suggest you markt these to small gift stores around vancouver/gastown/whister village.

Also try to do some research and see if you can place these novelties in the goodie bags that the big shots will get at the games. There is one local lady who designed some metal art thing, and her items are now in that goodie bag.

You can also try to approach dept stores such as The Bay/Zellers.


Finally, i'd look at volume instead of margin ;), doing so maybe you can milk it in London in 2012 - just how Jet Set Sports did it back in Beijing :).



if you go big time - i'll send you my invoice along with a screen shot of this page. my charges are competitive.