Have you ever been tempted by advertisements for a home assembly business “opportunity” that comes with a guaranteed customer base? If so, just before you send off for details, ask yourself why this offer is being made online instead of being marketed to people who live in the same neighborhood as the assembly business. Surely it would be cheaper to offer people in the vicinity of the business the chance to assemble products – people could pick up the kits themselves and save the business shipping expenses. The reason why such businesses prefer an online market is that they prefer to remain as remote as possible from those who sign up to their so called “opportunity”.
Before embarking on a home assembly business you need to be aware that there are hidden costs. You will be charged to have the company send you the pieces and parts. You will also have to pay to send the finished products back to the company that hired you to assemble the products. So you see, the reason why they don’t hire people in their immediate neighborhood is because that is not where the money is – for these companies the profit is in charging distant customers these extra hidden costs.
The sales pitch is usually about how easy it is to assemble the products at home. Anybody can do it, they tell you. The company tells you they will send all the parts together with a list of companies which will purchase the finished products from you. Supposedly, if you buy the parts, assemble the products and sell them directly to the buyer, you will make a nice profit. It sounds too good to be true because it IS too good to be true! Here’s what often happens. You order the parts, but when they are delivered you discover that you need one or more special tools in order to successfully build the products. It turns out that those tools are not in your toolbox or even in your local hardware store.
Where can you get the tools to finish the job? Naturally, the same company that sold you on the business opportunity also happens to sells the very tools you need to do the job. The price per tool is typically set at a ridiculous price, and then there is the shipping cost, but “in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound”, as the saying goes, it just seems like a minor inconvenience and one of the inevitable costs of setting yourself up in the assemble-it-at-home business. After all, you have been promised that if companies like the quality of your finished work, they will become regular buyers of your products.
So now you have the tools you need you begin to construct the first few items, to the exact specifications in the plans and start to send letters to the list of companies which may be interested in purchasing. Those companies that answer your letter request a sample product. So you pack it and post it – all at your expense of course – and you receive a reply in which it is explained that your product has been rejected, probably one of the two most common reasons. Either your product does not meet their specifications for one reason or another, or they claim to have seen a huge increase in supply or a sudden downturn in demand. A huge increase in supply would not be a surprise – remember, you were probably just one of several thousand “mugs” who answered the ad, paid through the nose to set up your business, and sent in a sample product for the company to reject but not return!
There is a good chance that most of the companies on the list will send you the same answer – or maybe one or two will generously offer to purchase everything you have laboriously built for just a fraction of the cost. You are reduced to a situation in which you can either sell your products at a loss and consider it a valuable lesson, or you can try to sell them on your own.
Don’t forget to congratulate yourself for paying top dollar for low-quality materials and tools just to build something that no one wants!
None of this is to say that there are not companies offering legitimate assembly work. But before buying into their offer it is essential that you check how many parts need to be assembled, how many new tools will be needed, and how much those tools cost. You also need to verify that the potential buyers are legitimate. Contact them directly and inquire about their specifications. If the assembly company will not give you names and numbers of these purchasers, don’t give them any of your hard-earned money.
