Move to California and open a small appliance store selling nothing but electric citrus juicers.
Over the years, I've developed a feel for what sells on eBay, although I'm always looking for an additional "niche" to take advantage of. One of the items I concentrate on is VINTAGE juicers, the ones made in the 60's - 80's mostly. The reason is, they actually had POWER back in the days when things were built to last. Most of todays juicers are cheap, Chinese crap that stall out if you apply much pressure to the reamer (as when juicing a lemon/lime, orange, etc). Ya' burn 'em up, ya' throw them away and get another one. They many times run 10, 15, or 20 watts at most and the vintage stuff runs as high as 100-125. It's a major difference in power. I've been selling 10-15 vintage juicers per month for 15-20 years now and they are PLENTIFUL in most every thrift store you find. When we spend the weekend running the "thrift store circuit", I'll many times return home with as many as 30 GOOD juicers from a single weekend of shopping and they normally run $2-$6. I also snag every one I run across at estate sales (EVERYBODY has a juicer stuck somewhere in the back of their kitchen cabinet). Again, I'm not inferring ALL juicers are eBay gold, I KNOW the brands, styles and models that sell and those that are not worth fooling with. I just ran a count and as of this morning, I have 41 juicers in stock and just shipped two this morning (FedEx) to California.
We go to Los Angeles every year about this time (except this year, of course). Lynn's mom has a large, Bearss lemon tree in her back yard and that thing produces elebenty-bazillion lemons every year, over about a 5 month stretch until around Christmas. BUT, a few years back, we were out there and she was filling a trash can full of lemons, that had fallen to the ground, and throwing them away! We about crapped! We LOVE lemons and these things put out twice as much juice as the crappy Lisbon or Eureka lemons you normally find in the grocery stores. She said she can only eat so many lemons and her neighbors all have their own trees! You can't even GIVE them away. Whenever we're there, I drink NOTHING but lemonade just because I can't stand seeing those things go to waste. All mom had was one of those old-timey, green glass, hand juicers that she would use to juice 2-3 lemons at a time as she needed them.
Ok, the decision was made, Lynn and I were going to get her an electric juicer, juice a bazillion lemons, put a cup or two each in Ziploc bags and freeze the juice (we do this at home if we find a load of lemons someplace). We'll freeze different sizes, 1-cup, 2-cups as well as large bags for volume like 4-5 cups. The bags lay flat and really don't take up much freezer space, plus mom lives alone and never has the freezer full anyway. She lives about 3-4 blocks from a Target, so we headed down there first. They had ONE, super cheap-assed, Chinese juicer on the shelf. We asked a clerk to check the back and she told us that was the ONLY juicer they had! Screw that. We headed to Walmart and found .... wait for it ... NOT ONE FRIGGING JUICER! At WALLYYWORLD!!?? We talked to a clerk about it and she said we may want to try a "bigger Walmart"! WTF? I didn't even know they HAD different sizes, but we headed for a Super Walmart in the area. Zilch, Zip, Nada! Not ONE juicer to be found. Double WTF? Ok, screw the new juicer thing, it's for mom and a used juicer sounded tacky, but what'cha gonna do? We'll simply hit a local thrift store and buy a used juicer. After all, we knew from experience we'd end up with an oldie but goodie for $2-$3 that will out perform ANYTHING we could have bought new. We hit 6-8 thrift stores and .... NOTHING! Not one frigging juicer to be found! We'd wasted the whole day driving all over L.A. and used close to a tank of frigging $4/gal. gas while doing so. We ended up going back to the Target a few blocks from her house and buying the ONE pos they had in the whole store, then went home too exhausted to juice any lemons until the next day.
Now, remember I said above, I sell 10-15 juicers/month on eBay and although I don't keep an official record, I can honestly say probably 95% of my juicer sales are shipped to California. (actually, 95% may be a conservative figure) I don't get it and have NO explanation for it, but they DO know their juicers out there and know the GOOD, vintage stuff. But why TF is it, you can't even find a crappy, modern juicer out there? If you're looking for a sure-fire business opportunity, go to California and open a juicer store! You could retire in 5 years!
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Originally Posted by Big Muddy
