GMK Group Buy Investing 2015

[billnye]

Hey guys! Yslen suggested this idea in the CMYW thread yesterday and I’ve been giving it some thought.

What would happen is: place an order of a fair amount (20 sets?) in each GMK group buy. Then, sell them after the group buy ends  at ($?) amount of profit. Will be able to sustain itself and the profit will be donated to projects here and investing in other group buys. I think it would be best if one person runs it because it would simplify purchasing the sets, handling shipping, etc. This would however, require an up-front investment from that person to get things going. I would be up for doing this myself, but if there is someone else who would be very inclined to fill this role, I wouldn’t mind.

This would help users who missed out on the group buy have an opportunity to get some awesome GMK caps and help organizers reach MOQ.

Any feedback and other suggestions are welcome! :)Josh Cathey, Today 10:28 AM

[jdcarpe]

If you have the cash to do this yourself, I say go for it. You don't have to donate the profit, just use it toward the next group buy, and so on.

I would suggest a markup of 30% as being a very fair price. So a set that costs $115 in the group buy, would sell for $150.

[billnye]

If you have the cash to do this yourself, I say go for it. You don't have to donate the profit, just use it toward the next group buy, and so on.

I would suggest a markup of 30% as being a very fair price. So a set that costs $115 in the group buy, would sell for $150.

Sounds good.

Also, I've heard some bad stuff about donating directly to geekhack, so if I donate some of the profit, it would likely go to a community project that is going on. I'd like to give something back to this community becuase there are some really great people here

[Joey Quinn]

I'll kick in money to fund this. So the idea is we get our money back after the sets have sold and there is a bit extra going to GH? Because that sounds like a win win situation.

[billnye]

I'll kick in money to fund this. So the idea is we get our money back after the sets have sold and there is a bit extra going to GH? Because that sounds like a win win situation.

If we go the group route, yea.

I talked to a vendor about this and he said it would be hard for a single person to make their money back doing this unless they ordered a larger amount of sets.

I might just try ordering 5 sets of hyperfuse and trying to build off from that to keep investing more into future group buys.

[Joey Quinn]

I'll kick in money to fund this. So the idea is we get our money back after the sets have sold and there is a bit extra going to GH? Because that sounds like a win win situation.

If we go the group route, yea.

I talked to a vendor about this and he said it would be hard for a single person to make their money back doing this unless they ordered a larger amount of sets.

I might just try ordering 5 sets of hyperfuse and trying to build off from that to keep investing more into future group buys.

If you want to go the group route then let me know and I'll help run it. I could probably buy two Hyperfuse sets.

[byker]

I'll kick in money to fund this. So the idea is we get our money back after the sets have sold and there is a bit extra going to GH? Because that sounds like a win win situation.

If we go the group route, yea.

I talked to a vendor about this and he said it would be hard for a single person to make their money back doing this unless they ordered a larger amount of sets.

I might just try ordering 5 sets of hyperfuse and trying to build off from that to keep investing more into future group buys.

I have actually been thinking a lot about this and talked to Zeal a bit about it. I was thinking of testing the waters by buying 5 sets of hyperfuse too haha. I think it would be easier for you as you are in the USA, but probably doable for me still..

[billnye]

I have actually been thinking a lot about this and talked to Zeal a bit about it. I was thinking of testing the waters by buying 5 sets of hyperfuse too haha. I think it would be easier for you as you are in the USA, but probably doable for me still..

No reason we both can't!

If you want to go the group route then let me know and I'll help run it. I could probably buy two Hyperfuse sets.

Word. I'll let you know

[noisyturtle]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

[billnye]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

[noisyturtle]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

Show Image

Don't funk with my heart, been wanting that set for over 2 years. That GB that got cancelled made me salty sour :(

[billnye]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

Show Image

Don't funk with my heart, been wanting that set for over 2 years. That GB that got cancelled made me salty sour :(

There may be hope for you my man.

Don't give up yet ;)

[noisyturtle]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

Show Image

Don't funk with my heart, been wanting that set for over 2 years. That GB that got cancelled made me salty sour :(

There may be hope for you my man.

Don't give up yet ;)

I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for Orangsicle goodness... someday. Somehow.

[slickmamba]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

Show Image

Don't funk with my heart, been wanting that set for over 2 years. That GB that got cancelled made me salty sour :(

There may be hope for you my man.

Don't give up yet ;)

I think he means china.

I'm in to help too.

[demik]

If you have the cash to do this yourself, I say go for it. You don't have to donate the profit, just use it toward the next group buy, and so on.

I would suggest a markup of 30% as being a very fair price. So a set that costs $115 in the group buy, would sell for $150.

Also, I've heard some bad stuff about donating directly to geekhack

do tell.

[tjcaustin]

Dat OCM looks good.  Hopefully it can get more interest this time.

[bueller]

Did someone say GMK Orangsicle set? No? Well ****

Show Image

Orange would be cool. I feel like the alphas might suit a grey background a little bit better than white though. Helps with the contrast.

[trizkut]

Show Image

Mmm..

[honoka]

This is something I've thought about aswell, but my plan was to do it as a personal thing.
But if it's done as a group, risks are shared, and possible profit could be shared aswell.
Or I'd rather see that the profit would go to buying the involved people the actuall sets they are trying to help meet MOQ, to further help meet MOQ.
This is like inception.

Obviously this would have to be a mangeable size of group that both trust each other and also can put up the dolla dolla bills.
I'm thinking maybe 5 people who can buy around 10 sets, maybe less. That would be 10% MOQ of any general GMK group buy.

Im just thinking out loud.

[ideus]

Take into the equation the shipping costs, and cost of inventory, and if you are out of Germany, the taxes as well, if they are applicable to you, in your country. New GMK products have good resale value. But as more of us go that route market may get a little tight.

[Dihedral]

Sounds like a good idea. Actually, an amazon store or website dedicated to selling out of production keycap sets could be really good for the community, so long as the seller kept margins reasonable.

[honoka]

Take into the equation the shipping costs, and cost of inventory, and if you are out of Germany, the taxes as well, if they are applicable to you, in your country. New GMK products have good resale value. But as more of us go that route market may get a little tight.

Yup, you are correct. Therefore all sets bought by this group of people should end up with a selected member. Which one could be decided by location and where geographically most of the interest lies.
This could all be very hard to organize, but if there is serious interest and people still have hope for humanity and trust each other, it could be epic.

This does not have to be limited to GMK-sets either. I imagine popular SP group buys are a candidate aswell.
I for one am hoping to be able to buy extras of future group buys and offer to people who didn't know they wanted in, or didn't have funds/time at the moment.

[JaccoW]

This could be a great idea though some calculations will be necessary to figure out how to not lose any money on this. Selling at GB prices as mentioned in the CMYW thread are a stupid risky idea.
As JD said, a 30% mark-up could be enough to cover most costs. A quick calculation shows that it's easily 25%.
Dolch + Color pack would be $175 though instead of $135. Excl. shipping. You would be looking at close to $200 for a set delivered to your door after the GB ends.

Keep us posted. I'd love to look over the financial calculations if necessary.

[billnye]

This could be a great idea though some calculations will be necessary to figure out how to not lose any money on this. Selling at GB prices as mentioned in the CMYW thread are a stupid risky idea.
As JD said, a 30% mark-up could be enough to cover most costs. A quick calculation shows that it's easily 25%.
Dolch + Color pack would be $175 though instead of $135. Excl. shipping. You would be looking at close to $200 for a set delivered to your door after the GB ends.

Keep us posted. I'd love to look over the financial calculations if necessary.

Will do! I've been working out some numbers these past few days, hopefully I can get something moving soon.

[demik]

Man. People gave sherry so much **** over this exact thing.

Also boiler did this with his store. Bought to the next tier and resold for profit after gb.

But for whatever reason sherry taking on the risk himself made GHers turn into cry babies.

Granted sherry has bigger problems now but that's beside the point.

[phishy]

I've considered doing something like this just so I can get a few sets for free for projects and to make enough to make it worth the effort of having to mail stuff out.  So if you have any info on the cost of 20 sets vs market value on GH I might be interested in funding this.  With a fiance and child, I have to find a way to make my hobbies pay for themselves these days haha

[bueller]

Man. People gave sherry so much **** over this exact thing.

Also boiler did this with his store. Bought to the next tier and resold for profit after gb.

But for whatever reason sherry taking on the risk himself made GHers turn into cry babies.

Granted sherry has bigger problems now but that's beside the point.

Yeah I find this a little bit funny as well to be honest.

While I can appreciate the idea I feel like GMK sets are too expensive to make this worthwhile, it's a lot of money to have tied up hoping for maybe a 25% return. It's a slippery slope when it comes to the community as well, I know there is always the argument that people should be paying a premium for not participating in the GB to start with but then there are a lot of new users that will be punished when they never got a chance to participate.

If we wanted to do a GMK fundraiser I think we'd be far better off doing DIY parts like stabs/springs/plates etc - they can all be had on Taobao for very reasonable prices which would allow us to still sell them to people here at a good price while making a better profit margin for the GMK fund.

[billnye]

Man. People gave sherry so much **** over this exact thing.

Also boiler did this with his store. Bought to the next tier and resold for profit after gb.

But for whatever reason sherry taking on the risk himself made GHers turn into cry babies.

Granted sherry has bigger problems now but that's beside the point.

Yeah I find this a little bit funny as well to be honest.

While I can appreciate the idea I feel like GMK sets are too expensive to make this worthwhile, it's a lot of money to have tied up hoping for maybe a 25% return. It's a slippery slope when it comes to the community as well, I know there is always the argument that people should be paying a premium for not participating in the GB to start with but then there are a lot of new users that will be punished when they never got a chance to participate.

If we wanted to do a GMK fundraiser I think we'd be far better off doing DIY parts like stabs/springs/plates etc - they can all be had on Taobao for very reasonable prices which would allow us to still sell them to people here at a good price while making a better profit margin for the GMK fund.

I think the idea of a fundraiser is good, but that would be more of a one time thing, kind of like the Cherry legends SP thing. If we do it by ordering sets in the group buys, that cycle will continue as long as new group buys are being created.

I don't like the idea of making profit off of people for missing a group buy, but I am fine doing it if it helps us reach MOQ for sets. Some sets (such as hyperfuse) have had great success and easily made MOQ, but some sets like Ivan's 85/15 have been struggling a bit and a big investment could help tip them (similar to what happened with Dolch).

[SpAmRaY]

The biggest problem I see is being able to sell the extra sets after the fact at a markup. I mean popular sets like dolch sell well BUT when you add an additional 20-30% on top of the group buy prices people tend to be a little picky. If the idea is to buy extra sets to reach MOQ the people doing that need to be prepared to know they may be stuck with sets that may or may not sell easily, if a set is popular enough it will meet MOQ regardless.

The biggest thing stopping me from backing a GMK buy at this point is fear of being stuck with product. I mean out of a 250 MOQ I think I could charge a low enough price the sets would sell and still make enough money to break even at 175 sets BUT that's still 175 sets that would have to sell.

[bueller]

Man. People gave sherry so much **** over this exact thing.

Also boiler did this with his store. Bought to the next tier and resold for profit after gb.

But for whatever reason sherry taking on the risk himself made GHers turn into cry babies.

Granted sherry has bigger problems now but that's beside the point.

Yeah I find this a little bit funny as well to be honest.

While I can appreciate the idea I feel like GMK sets are too expensive to make this worthwhile, it's a lot of money to have tied up hoping for maybe a 25% return. It's a slippery slope when it comes to the community as well, I know there is always the argument that people should be paying a premium for not participating in the GB to start with but then there are a lot of new users that will be punished when they never got a chance to participate.

If we wanted to do a GMK fundraiser I think we'd be far better off doing DIY parts like stabs/springs/plates etc - they can all be had on Taobao for very reasonable prices which would allow us to still sell them to people here at a good price while making a better profit margin for the GMK fund.

I think the idea of a fundraiser is good, but that would be more of a one time thing, kind of like the Cherry legends SP thing. If we do it by ordering sets in the group buys, that cycle will continue as long as new group buys are being created.

I don't like the idea of making profit off of people for missing a group buy, but I am fine doing it if it helps us reach MOQ for sets. Some sets (such as hyperfuse) have had great success and easily made MOQ, but some sets like Ivan's 85/15 have been struggling a bit and a big investment could help tip them (similar to what happened with Dolch).

Going to take a long time for it to really help though. Say you sold five sets, the profit on those five will only cover slightly more than one extra set.

[pr0ximity]

EDIT: Whoops, wrong thread!

[tbc]

I'm a little confused about the purpose of this thread.  so the point of this thread is to find a way to help GMK GBs hit MOQ right?

are we talking about hitting the 250 MOQ or are we talking about hitting the 400 unit tier for a price reduction?

it sounds like we basically want a group of people to buy EXTRA sets instead of a single person buying all of them because that is an incredible financial burden.

simple yes.  why am I confused?  because we actually do this all the time already.  looking through ivan's GB theads, i consistently see people 'doubling up' or quintupleting up just to help the GB along.  after they buy extras, there is nothing preventing them from selling at a markup (ivan says he doesn't care).


so basically, this thread is just a plea to the general public to please not judge people for upselling in classifieds because it is for a good cause.  also, i guess we're making this existing course of action an official strategy?

did I miss anything?


for the record, i do have some actual suggestions, but I want to clear things up before writing them out.

[Synjin]

I'd be more than interested to join this as a group