The Reverse Rental Strategy
Buying rental inventories to flip at retail pricing.
This weekend I will be hitting the slopes and skiing my heart out in Idaho. I’ve been needing new ski boots for a long time, so I started browsing around on good old Facebook Marketplace.
There were tons of used boots listings that I had to filter through, but I found this guy who had a solid listing.
I sent him the classic “Hi, is this available?” message, and he responded super fast with a message showing me all the boots available in my size.
The next day I was in his store walking out with the Rossignol Speed Rental Ski Boots.
This business is genius for a couple of reasons.
Awesome Arbitrage
$0 CAC
Awesome Arbitrage
Arbitrage is when you find a small inefficiency in a market and use that to your advantage.
In this case, the owner of the shop is buying used equipment that needs to be offloaded from local resorts. He can get great deals by buying in bulk, and with his expertise he knows exactly what he can sell the equipment for at retail.
This isn’t a brand new idea. You see this all the time at ski swaps and garage sales. But the key to operating at this scale is organization.
This shop owner took the time to enter all of his inventory into a database that can be sorted and filtered easily. When I inquired about my size of boots, he knew exactly where to find the info for me in his airtable.com database. By tracking everything closely, he can develop efficient processes so he doesn’t drown in the day to day management of his store.
He may or may not have a Harvard MBA but this man knows how to run a business.
$0 CAC
The bane of all entrepreneurs’ existence is client acquisition. I was just talking to a friend and he was telling me they are still trying to crack the code to getting more clients through Facebook Ads after multiple years of having an excellent product.
But our ski shop owner has found where people go to look for quality used outdoors equipment. He’s a man of the people, and doesn’t get too fancy with his marketing.
When I went to visit the store, there were 3-4 groups buying equipment at the same time. I asked a few other people how they found out about the store and EVERY SINGLE ONE said they saw it on Facebook Marketplace.
I can’t say it enough. This guy has nailed the Client Acquisition process for his business.
The 2 Step Business Builder
Find some way you can provide amazing value. Whether that’s through an awesome arbitrage like this, or through a cool service you can provide.
Crush it in client acquisition. You may not be able to have a CAC of $0 like this guy, but finding the most efficient way of getting customers is the key to success.