Lets talk biziness. I want to make a small cat toy out of plastic, maybe one or two parts, similar to pic related.
How much initial capital do I need for a prototype and a first batch of maybe 1000 pieces? Who can make it for me? How will I get it listed on amazon? How do I start dropshipping it?
Don’t do that OP
pls help I need to get out of this cuckery
3D print a prototype, save thousands.
How much capital do you have? Mechanical engineer/designer reporting in.
freedom formula on YouTube unironically I source products from China and sell them on amazon, not trying to shill but they're bearable to watch and they walk you through the steps
Manufacturing is really really expensive in the US. You're going to have a bad time if you don't know what you're doing and get jewed.
t. mechanical engineer
Thats one option, but theres not much to test, ideally would just try to sell a bunch of pieces right away to see if theres plenty demand.
Really don't mind burning a few grand on it
Do you wanna manufacture in America? or do you wanna get fucked by chinks? Either way you have a long road ahead of you
I would hope to use
So if you're gonna sell any volume of this at all, it will need to be injection molded. Machining the mold from steel is what will cost you.
Your first steps are to get a solid model of what you'd like, along with some material specs (cat safe or some shit). Then shop it around for quotes. Consider packaging as well. Once you know your tooling/part/packaging/shipping costs, you can make a decision here.
One does not simply make a small cat toy without owning a global conglomerate?
Is there any acceptable freeware CAD software nowadays? I used ProE a few years back so could find my way around
Fusion 360, last I checked it's free if you don't make any money. It's made by Autodesk.
Basically. If you’re working with China. You are gonna get chinked. You need someone with experience to get a quality product. The molds will be expensive. The manufacturers will try and cut every corner they can. I’d recommend not doing this op
Thanks i'll check it out. So once I make the model, find a quote, make the mold and get chinked they will send me a few thousand pieces to my house. then I can list it and start selling and make bank?
you should focus on finding stupid cat blogs, or cat related websites. Help them earn money by having readers click amazon referral links to your product. Price out some facebook and google ads to get things going.
As a baseline, run your quote through Protomolds. Should be high, but they won't buttfuck you on part quality. Quick turnaround too. Just use the most common non-toxic material you can spec. Call them and ask them to help you.
Assuming they are saleable. Yes. Then you still have to actually sell them. Just dropship something that someone else is already making. It’ll be much easier
unless you have an idea for an incredible cat toy, and the marketing dollars, do this.
This is what I'm thinking. While I'm happy OP made this thread since it's actually Jow Forums and not abut thots, Pajeetcoins, or a Jow Forums thread I do worry that any manufacturer would expect him to produce a huge initial run and won't produce them on a "Just in Time" basis.
So that means he's left with a huge outlay for a lot of inventory, which isn't really true dropshipping even if he does find a middleman who will take care of the packaging and inventory (like Fulfilment by Amazon).
Also, if it's a simple product, what certainty does he have that they won't produce identical products for others - who just find different packaging, sell it elsewhere? Freeloading off your R&D dollars.
small production molds (few k parts) can easily be made from aluminum (especially if the material is some kind of tpe or tpu), the mold price will drop in half or so.
listen to this faggot. even if you have some super great idea, theres barely any point in pursuing it. you will have to go through chinks if you expect any reasonable prices, and they will simply steal your idea and flood the market with copies with lower markup. the only real way to make it in manufacturing in 1st world country is make some niche "artisan" shit and sell it with insane markups to idiots.
Even if I manufacture locally they can easily copy it i guess
Find a fucking plastic molding place in the US. There are several of them in South Florida--I work with them. Fabricators are not uncommon. You don't need the chinks to make this kind of thing.
t. mold designer. work at a mold shop. please send work sir. also don't send work to india they are worse than chinks at this.
you can use kickstarter once you have a prototype on hand. Just make a really nice video.