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[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Well recently I was trying to buy some drywall from home depot but it didn't fit in my car. If there was a way to transport it cheaply... not sure how you'd actually get that business though.

I think maybe there's like an uber for packages you can sign up for too, so you could deliver packages.

Then also you could help people move their stuff when they're moving from one house to another, but that might not fit, not sure.

Anyway, there's 3 ideas!

[–]RatherSmallPotato[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I thought about immediate delivery from Ikea and such, I guess building materials is also an idea. They rent vans at 49 dollars for 3 hours at ikea, but many people can't drive, and it still uses up their time. They could order online and I could pick it up for them.

No idea how to find these people, though.

I thought about some "immediate/emergency" moves, people are willing to pay more, and there is lots of competition for planned stuff. But again, no idea how I'd get to these people. Facebook ads, maybe.

[–]yetanotherone_sigh 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Home depot rents pickup trucks for something like $19.99 plus mileage for an hour. You need to adjust your price point to be competitive and still earn more than minimum wage.

[–]JasonCarswellMental Orgy 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's a hellova lot of convenience there.

You don't have to find a way to Home Depo, gas it up, etc. It can come to your door and leave you at your door.

And labour / extra hands.

It's apples and oranges to Home Depo truck rentals.

[–]yetanotherone_sigh 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, kinda depends. In my case, I have a truck. But if I wanted to buy a sheet of drywall and only had a car, I'd drive to Home Depot, park my car, rent their truck, and take the drywall to my house. Then return the truck to Home Depot and pick up my car. That works well if you are buying stuff there. Way better than going to a rental place and having someone drop you off at U-Haul or Penske or whatever. Everybody's going to do what is most convenient / cheap / practical for them at the time. The trick is to find a niche that no other business has filled. Such as: We will pick you up at your house, drive you to Ikea, you pick out your stuff and buy it, we help you load it and drive it to your house. We help you unload it and we will help you with labor to assemble it. We provide a tool box with simple common tools and a cordless drill. That might be a business model.

I think the one I'd stay away from is actually renting the van to other people and they drive it. That seems like you'd need a real business license and real business car insurance and a bunch of stuff. Really hard to fly under the radar when your own liability is on the hook. My wife sold a van to a friend on payments. He is one of those "gig economy" guys who drives 12 hours a day for Amazon deliveries and Uber Eats and Grubhub and stuff like that. He constantly picks stuff up and delivers it. He ended up getting in a wreck and totaling the car. It turns out that he didn't insure it for business use and they won't cover the loss, and he had only made two payments. Yay.

I'm one of those cautious people who constantly says "what can go wrong here?" so that it doesn't bite you.