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Steve, this is awesome! Did you put this idea in the BBB Outdoor Living? Got some ideas for you on your butler invention!

I have something just like this Steve for my wine bottle (larger one that sticks in the ground) and glass holders for the wine glasses or regular that look very similar to this…I bought mine at a Pampered Chef party and they sell them online. Maybe you could call them, they sell very well, see if you can put it with that line of product? Just an idea. There is competition with this product, so I would do a little more research, my guess they have not patented theirs, but probably have….

Thanks for the replies. I do not know of BBB outdoor, but I will find out.
Andrea, I am familiar with the Pampered chef item. Similar yes. My parent product BB1 holds 2 drinks each, with or without koozies at about waist high for use when standing. On line I sell them in sets of 2 which gives each opposing team a place for their drinks. Since outdoor games have become so popular in the past few years the need for a place to put my beer is what prompted me to build / market these.
When I first launched my site there was no competition, there was only one similar waist high product however it is more of a scoreboard than a drink holder. I wanted mine to be more attractive so that they can be used for many outdoor events ie; outdoor wedding receptions, graduation parties, or simply outdoor entertaining without a permanently attached scoreboard. I will soon be offering an optional detachable scoreboard. The shortys came about after the campers, gardeners and fishermen saw the taller version. Plus it seems that apartment dwellers like the shorty with the optional hard surface base for use on their balconys which are typically small spaces. I have even had folks use them at grave sites to hold flowers and candles.
Courtney, I want to hear your ideas.

Hi Steve!
I love the product, we defenitely can use a few of them here in our back yeard when gathering around the bonfire:)
I hope you will hear more advices from some experts here on these boards; but here is a couple of ideas. What comes to my mind is I would go to all possible small (private?) stores, shops, restaurants – why not? – start there. Some magazines are looking to advertise a new product – contact them, (Better Homes etc). Contact teleshoping studios, they are pretty much friendly to new vendors.
Another way to put a light on a product is to go to the trade shows, you really can get some deals there.

Hi Steve,
You probably got my email earlier. Besides the “camo” painted Butlers for all those outdoor folks. I thought about as an added incentive to buying the Butler, the consumer can be offered some name labels. I can hear it now…"buy the Butler today and we will give you for FREE these handy “name bands” for your beverages". One other store to market would be “The Great Outdoors”, not sure where their corp. ofc is but they’d be an awesome store to target.

Hi Steve, What area of Cincinnati are you in?

Mark

Steve….forget about mass retail chains. You have to crawl before you walk and teaming up with retailers is almost like “flying”. You are so far away from that especially in this economy.

You also have to realize that the way a product stacks on a shelf and stacking efficiency matters much as well as profit per size let’s call it. If a product is the size of a deck of cards and stacks 100% efficient like that and say brings a profit of $10 dollars, buyers would be thrilled.

Teaming up with big retailers isn’t everything. I turned down Home Depot 3 years ago. The deal they wanted I would have made peanuts!

Do this….get in catalogs. It’s much better odds of being picked up. You get 10 or 20% more your way in the deal. They won’t bug the heck out of you about packaging and display cases, racks etc. and last…once your in there you are less likely to get bumped than on a retail shelf with a similar product. Catalogs are much more loyal.

Start hitting garden centers. From your local one to garden centers that have 5, 10, 20 stores. Try lumberyards with a garden center.

Have you asked for a spot in the literally 100’s of garden magazine and other publications? They cover new products for free in the hopes of when you get big you will advertise with them and plus they want to show the reader all the new stuff.

Get a sales history like I’m doing and then maybe you can push the “big boys” back a little (the retailers) when the economy bounces back….or maybe just forget the big retailers and stay in the secondary market. (There are 3 markets: primary (big retailers), secondary (smaller stores, regional retailers etc., and the custom markets (much smaller)

Here….go look up these 3 products…Shoulder Dolly, Forearm Forklift and Grill Charms. There are many others. They list all their little stores and some bigger ones too to show their “assumed” sales history. That is what you need to do first. Get that list…start small….especially in this economy.

Getting into the game with retailers in this market is cut throat…they’ll bleed the little guy to death these days. Go to Jim Debetta on these forums for this subject. He is our expert on this.

Ron Komorowski
Inventor of Handi-Straps
www.handi-straps.com

Ron,
I hope you never leave this site! You have a wealth of information and certainly seem to have everyone’s best interest at heart. Thanks for sharing your info!

Ron, anyone out there that could direct me to a plastic manufacturer preferably in the US? Just need a simple plastic lid made. I know they have minimum requirements on orders, etc..

Well I’m not going to type again all that info I emailed you…but the best resource is ThomasNet.com but not all manufacturers are in there and there seems to be less maybe because getting listed on the Thomas Registry is not free.

The other thing Courtney…if you need just a few pieces to get started, rapid prototype machines are getting much better and spitting out cheaper sample pieces at high quality (quality has improved too).

To have your"first run" manufactured you will need a mold. The mold starts at about $4000 for a simple shape (single port) and aluminum is cheaper than steel but steel does not warp as fast. Once you have the mold a quick run of a small quantity might not cost you that much. You may want 16 port or even more for large quantities and single port is costly for bigger runs doing one piece at a time…ofcoarse.

Recently plastics manufacturing is something we lost to China (we can’t try and keep it all) but with progress in automation manufacturing here is returning especially if it is a large piece that takes too much space shipping from China.