How to Start Your Own Business, Based on My Experiences: Part 4

In my opinion, based on previous experiences, perhaps the most important step to opening your own business is finding and purchasing your inventory. This is crucial to any business' survival. This is especially true in the video rental business! The important thing to keep in mind when gathering your inventory is the average cost per unit, or in this case per movie. I have determined for my store's needs, I can not afford to pay more than three dollars per movie including all costs (purchase price, shipping, etc). Your own needs will be based on the productive pace of your area. Obviously, the more money your store makes, the more you could afford to spend on used titles for your inventory. There are a few ways to go about finding your stores inventory.

The most popular and unfortunately probably most expensive method to ordering used movies is to use online auction sites. The most popular of the online auction community of course is eBay. There are tens of millions of users on eBay (buyers and sellers) everyday. This site runs around the clock, everyday and all day long. In a recent search for the key term 'DVD lot,' my search returned over twenty five hundred active auctions from all over the country. These lots ranged from three movies to well over one thousand movies per listing. Just a quick side note, when I searched just for 'DVD, I found over one million results.

The hardest thing to avoid on eBay or any other fast action auction situation is paying too much for an item or paying more than you intended to or could afford. The most valuable and challenging lesson I had to learn when purchasing my inventory was to predetermine a per piece price that you can afford and stick to that price no matter what! It does not matter if the auction is just starting or seconds from being over, as soon as the cost for a lot goes over the per piece price that you set out to pay, back down and walk away from that auction. As I have mentioned already, there are thousands of auction lots available for your video inventory and as long as your price is reasonable, you will achieve you inventory needs if you stick to your grounds.