selling brewing equipment

[dfluke]

I'm not sure if it's really appropriate to post here, but I do know that there are some vendors who hang out here, so I figured I'd post my questions and see what happens.

I'm selling some roasted coffee to friends and family, and since I personally own a variety of brewing equipment, I often get asked how I make my coffee and would like to be able to offer things like the clever dripper, aeropress, filters, and hario dripper products. For grinders, I figure I'd work directly with baratza.

I've looked into reselling these, but the quantities I would need to purchase wouldn't be feasible when I'm only selling maybe two items per month.
I know there have been group buys on things like these, but should I even consider purchasing for resale or just buy the items and sell them at my cost? I'm really wanting to provide some of these services, but maybe I'm not ready for that yet.

Just looking for some advice from someone who has dealt with this before.
Thanks.

[mp]

You're right ... you're looking at some big bucks to buy some decent equipment.

Are you more interested in being a hardware vendor or roasting green and selling it?

Have you considered sourcing best places to buy hardware in town and sending people there while you concentrate on the green?

 

[dfluke]

I roast right now with my bm/hg setup. It's not large batch, but I'm getting by with the order schedule I'm doing.  I'm mostly looking at providing brewing hardware as an add on to coffee sales.  There's a couple sources locally, but they don't carry things I would like to recommend like Clever dripper. I may just have to pay full price and not make profit for a while on those types of items.

[blzrfn]

You can get a case of Clever coffee drippers from The Shrub at a discount that would allow you to sell for a small profit.  I think selling hardware that you know will showcase your coffee's quality is a good idea.  Selling coffee only to have it be put in a $20 auto dripper where it will taste just like every other coffee will not help repeat business.  Selling or at least guiding them to better brewing equipment will be beneficial for both you and your customers. 

[dfluke]

Thanks for the shrub suggestion. That's actually not a bad deal for just under a hundred bucks.
I just felt pretty deflated when hario etc. wanted thousand dollar minimums, so I may start to look for regional or other sources that would be willing to sell a product to me to resell at a price point where I could still earn a few dollars. It beats taking a huge gamble with a loan or something.

[7over]

We do a couple of things. We started out only roasting and selling the beans but like you, we were inundated with questions about how to brew and what to use. Generally, we refer people to makes and models of equipment but have been reluctant to be the source of anything. Back in February we purchased a case of Clever Drippers and sold every one of them at CoffeeCon. The Shrub gives a nice break when you buy a whole case that made it feasible to buy and resell. For small companies we buy refurbished and like new brewers from Bunn and sell those at no markup. I'm more interested in selling roasted coffee than equipment and I want to make sure that customers have a chance at brewing properly if they're going to spend money on my beans. Bunn has some inexpensive pour over brewers (APS models) that do a decent job and that's what we steer them to.
I'm looking at buying a case of Solo-Fil cups for the old Keurig machines and reselling those. Too many people have purchased those rotten brewers and then walk away from my market stand when they can't buy a case of K-cups from me. While I always point people away from K-cups, some are already victims by the time they get to me. The Solo-fill may be a better answer than the the MyK-Cup that comes with some of the Keruig machines.