I’m just finishing off my first draft of a trade book (ie, here’s a small flat fee Tim, give us 50,000 words) on business models.
An idea arises.
So, lots of amputees out there.
Drop shipping is becoming more of a thing. Internet sales are becoming more of a thing.
So, combine the two.
You, the customer, go around these drop shipping sites (or you, the business, sign up to every drop shipping site in the country). Order is paid for, drop shipped to business site.
Seamstress adjusts the clothing according to the specific needs of the amputee. Properly done, well sewn. The amputee having sent in pictures of the state of the limb so that proper measurements are known. Instead of trouser legs being pinned up and the like.
Then adjusted clothing is sent on to customer. Margin charged for seamstress. This should be (note, should be) lower than the cost of taking to a seamstress out in meat world, search costs lower and so on. Margin is gained on the original drop ship plus on the adjustments.
Original marketing to start at least would be pretty simple. There are various organisations aiding amputees after all.
If this actually works you can send me some money.
Oh, the sort of seamstresses who actually have needles?
Can you adjust your focus for ubermensch like Tim Newman and I who are too tall and evolved for regular people clothes?
So instead of normal clothes minus a bit, adds bit on like?
Could cost an arm and a leg to set up.
“in meat world, ” is not the happiest expression especially when amputees are involved! Really
I can’t see it paying. The market is niche; and the biggest concentrations of amputees are in impoverished war-torn shitholes. Clothing alterations are very cheap in the third world. Come to that, they are hardly expensive in the UK.
Stick to writing, sounds like a loser.
JS: “Can you adjust your focus for ubermensch like Tim Newman and I who are too tall and evolved for regular people clothes?”
There are already ready-made clothes providers for tall people. There is currently nothing equivalent for short people in the UK. Designer Peter Manning runs a successful line in short-arse clothes in the US. Might be worth investigating for someone? But more designer rather than independently outsourced alterations would be the way to go.
To be brutally honest Tim: whenever you mention a business idea, it sounds like the type of thing my old Dad considered before he frittered his pension on one of them. Just stick to the boring same old would be my advice.
@tomsmith
“There are already ready-made clothes providers for tall people.”
Hmmm. I beg to differ: stores like ‘High and Mighty’ cater to the fat and the tall and fat.
“There is currently nothing for short people in the UK.”
Tesco and Sainsbury’s have an excellent kids clothes range. If you’re on a larger budget, try Boden Mini.
Haha, I lol”d
Good luck choosing between half mast correct width and enormous.
Well, more opportunity in the area of extreme sized people than previously thought. Amputees probably a low % proposition though, literally, whereas there are many gangly tall people, giant fat people, and little short-arses around.
First person to tap the market properly with stylish and we’ll designed clothes might clean up.
Well ^
Maybe OXFAM might pay you to develop the idea?
Seems like a neat fit for their latest plan which seems to also infer a global tax regime…. If spud hasn’t been trumpeting it already and I missed it….
There’ll be plenty of surplus arms and legs from Tim’s business, so an ideal opportunity to take away his industrial waste and use it to extend clothes for orangutans.
Similar idea with much greater scale potential is for hard-to-fit types of all sorts. For instance, off-the rack suits never fit me properly — always need pants taken in and finished, and jacket nip-n-tuck. If a tailor has my 3D model, I can order from any number of sources, have shipped there for alterations, then on to me. Somebody is probably already doing this, but same idea.
It’s a shit idea.
Stick to heckling from the sidelines. And enjoying the EU.