Myself and my girlfriend responded to a Craigslist ad to sell glowsticks at the Pioneer Festival (big festival here in Salt Lake City). The posting said make up to $160.00 per hour selling glowsticks during the festival and parade.
I am usually a smart businessman... I know that it takes money to make money, and how to invest into certain businesses. The investment the company asked was to buy a tube of 100 glowsticks for $40.00, or three tubes of 100 sticks per tube for $100.00. We bought 4 tubes (spent $140.00) from the company, and were not able to see the actual product before we purchased the tubes.
The ad said that people who invested into the tubes during the Fourth of July made back their investment, plus pulled in a couple hundred dollars of profit in a few hours selling the glowsticks.
We started out during the night before the parade, when everyone is camping on the parade route trying to get a good spot (Utahns are weird like that). I started selling the sticks at $3.00 a stick. Nobody bought them. Then I dropped to $2.00 a stick. A couple people bought them, but nothing really to brag about. I then ran into the competitors who were selling their glowsticks... Whose product was 10x better than mine. Mine were cheesy little glowsticks, about 4 inches long, 2 centimeters around, and many were duds (didn't even light up). The competition had sticks that were 2 feet long, 3 inches around, and were as bright as LED police car lights, and the sticks flashed, danced, and blew up with a rainbow of colors. Competition sticks were being sold at between $1.00 and $2.00 a piece.
I then saw other people selling the same sticks I was... For 25cents a piece. They asked why mine were priced at the same amount as the big competitors. I told them of my investment... Turns out, they bought the same tubes of 100 sticks a tube at the dollar store... And they bought 40 tubes, spending a quarter of what I did for four tubes.
Moral of the story: I barely broke even after two days of hard work, making only $15 dollars in profit (not only did I sell during the pre-parade ceremonies, but also was selling during the actual festival the next night. My girlfriend was selling during the same times). My girlfriend ended up losing profit, and didn't even come close to breaking even.
The company that sold us the tubes said they spent around 30cents a stick, which is what they said they were selling to us was the same wholesale price of 30cents a stick. When we found out that the dollar store was selling the same tubes, their sticks would be priced at less than one cent a stick, and that's at retail price!!! So the competition profit at 25cents a stick or more would be huge! Myself and my girlfriend combined lost around $120.00 to this marketing company.
Do not invest into the glowstick business if you see this company marketing this product for re-sale, it is a scam!!!
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