1. Tires – for people in snow country or the Midwest where the weather is starting to change, it is time to get rid of the snow tires if you haven’t already and put on a new set. Tires are something that you will need to buy sooner or later because of wear and tear on the road.

2. Educational materials – books, dvds or cds that teach hard skills like math, sewing, gardening, etc. are popular as people cut costs and look for ways to save money. They also are looking for ways to retrain themselves to get back working if they have been laid off or had their hours drastically cut.

3. Chocolate – carried over from our winter what sells list, this popular item is a perennial because people turn to chocolate for it’s taste and beneficial properties.

4. Tax preparation help information – similar to or more specific with educational materials are items specifically related to tax preparation. Software packages are sometimes as cheap as dirt if not free but the trade off is that you have to be doing a very simple return to use the programs. More complex tax returns can still run you more money from at least $139 for both Fed and State filings to several hundred dollars.

5. Movie tickets – people are going out more if the price is right. Even if they are on a tight budget and with movie tickets for first run films at $10 if there is a high profile movie coming out they will find money for that.

6. Alcohol – booze is still selling though people are turning to bulk products like 24 packs of beer or inexpensive vodka from price warehouses. Other people are trying to cut out drinking to save money so that leads to my seventh item:

7. Self health programs – to save money on medical insurance and since nobody can afford to be sick, people are joining programs to lose weight for the summer (have to fit in those bathing suits and prevent heart attacks), smoking cessation and programs to stop drinking.

What are some other things that sell or might make good investments for now? Kindly start posting and let us all know.  There are always ways to make money, stay in business and see what is popular in sales.  We all just have to look for them.

Mar 19, 2009

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.   Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax”?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!

 If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book listed below.  Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

What Sells In Spring

I can’t blame them. With the economy in flux, retailers are doing whatever they can to make money. Your best way to profit from this is to look at all the sales and actually see if there is a bargain in what you are buying. One example from Game Stop, for Friday, was a Guitar Hero World Tour for $189. Prior to Christmas you would see that it is the exact same price. Obviously, if you are reading this blog entry six months to several years later you will see the system discounted because there will be a new “latest and greatest” but the interesting thing to note is that there is NO sale price on this item.

Hot selling items aren’t being treated as loss leaders this year or if they are, the items are few and far between because retailers just can’t afford it. A loss leader is something that a retailer sells that will not generate a profit and they may in fact lose money on but they advertise and sell the item because it drives customers into their store.  There are a lot of people who just love to shop and they don’t mind waiting in lines for saving a few dollars.  I’ve tried that for a few sales and depending on what you are trying to buy (a Sony PSP, back a few years ago), there is a fun feeling about getting the item at a sale price but after awhile, especially if you are watching you pennies and your health waiting outdoors for sometimes hours in bad weather, you have to ask yourself if it is worth your time, health and energy. 

But that is the power of a good loss leader.  It will draw customers out for whatever the hot thing of the year happens to be.

The stock market will be open and even though there will be light training there may some opportunity to pick up not so much as a loss leader but an undervalued leader. Yes, folks, I am still talking about looking for bargains in premium stocks. If the balance sheets look good and even if their sales are down, the company may be a good investment.

Just like a day after Christmas sale, the stock market has been hammered down like shoppers tearing through the shelves and store racks looking for bargains. Because people are gun shy and there are so many companies oversold, I think there are more bargains to be had in the stock market than in the stores this year.

You may want to do your own due diligence and be the judge yourself on that.

Watch whatever it is that you are buying and add to your positions slowly.  There may be a lot more downside to the stock markets and you may want to consider just jumping in and out of a stock though if you have the element of time and can afford to wait, you’ve picked some good companies, that is where you make money.  Eventually there will be some sort of recovery.  As to what it will be or when are the million dollar (make that trillion dollar) questions.

On personal notes:

If you are driving and going out in the cold, dress warmly. Be careful for snow and rain. For those of you fortunate enough to be in warmer climates, be cautious just the same. A lot of people may be recovering from too much booze or worse, they are still drinking. Don’t drink and drive, gang-I know you already knew that but just a reminder.

I’ve also started up a book sales page here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale. If you like poker, Heroes (the TV series), comic books, Watchmen, etc, there may be some fast links to get you to what you are looking for.

 If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book listed below.  Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

In any event, hope you are having a safe, happy holiday and are healthy.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Day After Christmas Sales Continue

It could be that you are doing nothing wrong and that the economy is just in flux and as a result, your customers just may be all over the map in trying to decide to buy something or not. Maybe they stocked up on the goods that aren’t going to perish over the next few days or week like paper towels, toilet paper, aspirin, coffee.

Maybe your business is still new enough that you haven’t quite nailed down the trends for your area.

First questions I would want to try to answer-How are your competitors doing? Are they running into the same problems? If so, just cut back on your orders and keep your inventory a little lower and wait till it sells through. You don’t want to overstock or go deep into your credit lines if you carry them for business and risk being stuck for both inventory you can’t sell and lines of credit that need to be paid off.

Has the local economy changed and is price now more of an issue for what you are selling? If so, can you discount your goods somewhat to clear them off the shelves and at least break even pricewise? Breaking even isn’t as good as making a profit but it beats losing money. That is totally unprofitable.

Did something else change where the competition is offering something a little more high tech, or efficient or anything like that? If so, you will need to review and see if you can liquidate your inventory and sell something more in line of what the buying public is interested in.

One of my favorite sayings is “Nobody ever went broke from selling through all their inventory.” If you have sold through and are temporarily out of stock, be glad that you received cash for what you ordered and trying tweaking your orders just SLIGHTLY for next week or month. You don’t want to over order and find that the demand for your product has shrunk.

Check with your orders from previous months and see what might be changing in trends. One example is summer items won’t sell in winter months usually and the same holds true for winter goods sold in summer. It is also tough to sell holiday products, like Christmas or Hanukkah decorations out of season.

Sometimes it may be just consumer blips but if all else fails, slow down on your ordering or stop entirely ordering the items that aren’t selling and seriously think about getting rid of excess inventory if the goods don’t look like they are moving.

If you plan on donating to charity the goods, make sure that you get letters from the registered organizations that you are donating the goods to and make sure that you have appraisals to substantiate your claims. The IRS and state tax agencies are checking deeper into non-cash contributions, especially if they are not supported with the proper documentation.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

You are reading Kim Isaac Greenblatt’s blog, profitable, and what to do with excess inventory problems.

Take video game systems for instance.  People use to spend hundreds of dollars for a gaming system and games if it were the latest and greatest and they felt they had to have it.  There was a reason that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft tried to time the release of their gaming systems at Christmas or at the latest, January.  People’s minds are already primed for spending and being on the self-indulgent side.

Alas, for the near future I think those days are gone.  People don’t have the money that use to and with large companies needing to be bailed out by governments, jobs being on the line, timing the release of products may not make a difference overall.

Movie producers and distributors have some success with timing releases in order to prevent film piracy.  What could we do as business people to be more profitable and is there any hope in trying to time a release of product or introduction of a service?

The best thing to do is to start writing about what you are trying to sell and see if there is a market for it. If you are getting any kind of response and you have market penetration where people can actually read your press releases, your stories, your upcoming events, then you have a decent forum to see if there is any interest in the item.

You can also just go ahead and get the product on the market as soon as possible. If you have the budget to advertise the heck out of the product (say the latest and greatest iPod type of hand held music player) you may get some sales.

One of the reasons we are internationally in such a mess financially is that companies with their preprogrammed software trading tried to “time the market”. The problem is that everybody is trying to time the market so conventional wisdom as to when to buy or sell stock, commodities or even when to start selling stuffed teddy bears doesn’t quite work anymore.

So back to basics.

Have a good product, something that you think there will be a demand for, price it reasonably and get your distribution chain in place so you can start taking orders. All in all, once you get the details straightened out (not an easy thing to do obviously), it is easier than trying to time a market!

Kim Greenblatt

Kim Greenblatt, in his blog, profitable talks about timing markets.

Voting with your pocketbook is one of the greatest strengths in the international capitalistic market that we are in. Oil prices have dropped because people have dialed back on their driving in the United States and decided to save their money. When the want to spend money, they want to try and do it on their own terms. When it came to gasoline, however, it had to hit a market hurt point where people could just not afford to pay the high prices. Well, extra oil has been pumped and there is at least (for now) a little more out there. Basic economics of supply and demand kick in here.

But what about if you are entertainment for somebody’s wedding? What if the groom, who is writing the check for your band, asks to sit in on the drums? What do you do? If you are a shrewd business person as well as musician, you ask the drummer to sit out a set and let the groom sit in.

Putting ego aside you will be part of a lot of pictures and possibly the band to be called for all the social functions for this family. One would think this is common sense in business but so many individuals and companies like to force upon their customers what they want them to have. In some businesses, it may make no difference but if it is something that you or I can modify, sure, let me try and change it up.

The companies that offer the most versatility will make more money in the long run because people will pay for what they want. People will find money to spend for things they want. Isn’t it a great idea then to give the customer exactly what they want if you can? Remember, if you don’t, there is another website, blog or store down the block waiting to fill in the niche for you!

Part of all my book proceeds go to research finding a cure for Rett Syndrom and reversal of symptoms.

Kim Greenblatt

Questions or comments? Let me know about them! Thanks for taking the time to visit and for more information or to get back to the beginning of the blog, go here.

Kim Greenblatt, in his blog, profitable, reminds people providing products or services that he (or she) who pays the piper, calls the tune.

First, don’t try to be something you aren’t.  I wish I could write romantic fiction because if you are good at that you can make a lot of money.  I don’t have the chops for it.  You’ll note that none of my books are romantic fiction though I have dabbled with children’s fiction and young adult horror.  The reason I have written fiction books is because I think (and I have been told) that I am pretty good at it.  Well, I’ve actually been told that my first book was kind of quick and the second one is better, but they both are part of an overall series.  But I digress….

 Second, There is money to be made if your niche is big enough.  Everybody is good at something.  The question is can you monetize what you are good at.  If you are good at more than one thing, like I am (ahem, hey it is my blog and I can leave modesty at the door), try and pick the one or two things to focus in on so you don’t waste your energy.

Third, expect to be an overnight success after several years of work.  It is rare that you will get the instant monetary recognition or even fame that you want right out of the chute.  Remember, people may be tickled by a novelty but will they stick around and buy anything from you?  Only if you can show them that you have something to say that hasn’t been said before or you are showing them how to make some money.

Fourth, watch your costs in terms of money and time.  Sure it is fun to be able to take an ad out in the American Super Bowl if you have a few million dollars.   Will that really translate to sales though?  The flip side is all that time you are using to make domino art, as cool as it looks, will it help you get gigs setting up falling domino exhibitions around the world?  You can be the judge of that stuff yourself.

Fifth, whatever you do, be prepared in your business to be able to work the market so you don’t end up having to close up shop so early.  And be sure that you don’t end up having so small a niche that you will be limiting yourself in your market.

Unless your market is everybody who has a name of Joey.

Questions or comments? Please post them below.
Kim Greenblatt

This profitable blog talks about getting attention, keeping attention and monetizing it!