My partner and I are trying to start an online business selling model helicopters but are having a few supplier problems already []. We have been trying to gather product pricing information for a business plan so we phoned around a few of the (bigger) suppliers and they basically refused to talk to us (one was actually quite rude about it). For the most part they said they wouldn't talk to us until we had the business set up and acquired premises. Setting the business up is not a problem, we were planning to do that shortly anyway but the premises is a big problem. Our plan was to operate from home for the first few months (we have ample space) and then move to proper premises if we needed to (we were expecting to have to make the move after about a year). With quite a bit of arm twisting we managed to get one of the suppliers to tell us that the profit margins are quite tight but that we should make money but that was as far as they would go (they wouldn’t even tell us how much our initial purchase has to be). Obviously we don't want to acquire premises before doing a plan that shows that we will make some money from this venture. Is this a common situation with suppliers? Does anyone have any advice about how we might be able to find out how much our stock is going to cost without buying it first? Thanks.
------------------------
Graham Smith
--- Shallow Sea Aquatics ---
An Aquatics Community and Shop in One