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Part 2 of 3
Call For Builders/Sellers
Although you may have built your first scrubber with parts you already had, if you are going to be building several of these to sell, you'll be needing to buy everything new. A basic bucket-build includes the bucket, waterfall pipe, vinyl tubing, pump, screen, clips to hold the pipe to the bucket, lights, light timer (set to 18 hours ON), and the drain for the bucket. I'd probably include about as much vinyl tubing as you can fit into the bucket for shipping. (Customers are much happier when they don't have to make an unplanned trip to the store for tubing.)
My first tally came up to about $60 for the parts; then you need to add the pump. The one linked above is $80, for a total of $140. So you could sell the whole thing for $199, which would be fair for the amount of work you put in to make it (mostly, cutting the slot). Just print up an instruction sheet for the customer to read, and you are done! Now I'm sure if you searched around, or bought in bulk, you could cut the cost in half. But as far as the customer's cost is concerned, I think something like $199 is a good deal to wipe out algae in their tanks. But you can set your own price.
So making the scrubbers is easy enough. Where do you market and sell them? The obvious place to start is by letting people on the forums know you have them, starting with forums that have current scrubber threads like this one. Most forums also have a buy/sell section, which is a good place. The next step might be a banner ad on these forums, and then maybe you could buy a whole sponsor-forum. Next I'd target the LFS: Let them use a bucket for one of their problem tanks (of proper size) to prove the bucket works, then work out a deal whereby he buys from you and resells, or he holds them in consignment and gives you the money after he sells them. You set the price, of course.
You could also do a "loan-to-buy" offer, where you let a customer use a demonstration bucket of yours for free for maybe 2 weeks, and when you go to pick it up (when their N and P are reduced), they'll want to buy a new one from you in order to keep their N and P from going back up.
---- might be an option later on, when people know what these things are. Also you could always do a litte site of your own. And don't forget Craigslist. But people have to be already looking for scrubbers for these online places to work, unless you advertise it as a "mega powerful algae remover"
Then there are the traditional magazines that you could advertise in. They get expensive fast, but the reach a lot of people. You'll probably want to get some sales going with the above efforts first.
Basically, you are trying to reach beginners. The types with FO, FOWLR, or softie/LPS reefs, who are on their first or second tank, are your best customers. They spend money (sometimes lots of) on something if it makes their tank the way they want it, especially if it does so without them having to expend any effort. 9 out of 10 people who walk into a LFS are this type of person. So getting familiar with your LFS(s) will be very important.
Guarantees: Although most everyone on these forums that has set up a scrubber properly has seen great results (and possibly even eliminated all their nuisance algae) within 8 weeks, you can't make a guarantee of the same to a customer, because you have no control over how they will use it. So by saying something like the scrubber "usually" clears out algae within 8 weeks, you will be covered in case they mis-use it. Now, if you are hired to build and install it yourself, and maybe even to do weekly cleanings of it, you might be able to promise more.
Size: Most customers will be beginners, using FW or SW fish setups under 100 gallons. For these folks, a standard 5 gallon bucket with 144 square inches of screen should be fine. If you find that they have a very heavily stocked FO tank, or a tank of 150+ gallons, you may recommend to them that they get two buckets (hooked up in series or parallel). Or at least to start with one, and then add another later if they like the results. But building a "bigger" bucket is not a good idea for now. Keep everything to one size.
Support: Once a customer has purchased from you, you'll want to remain in contact with them afterwards in case they have questions. Most of them will have their questions immediately after purchasing, which is when they are trying to get it hooked up and working. After that, you probably will never hear from them again, except for a few that think that it's your fault that their tank is dying from some bad-husbandry issue of theirs. This is when you rely on your no-refunds policy.
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