help on starting a tackle business

[Garrett]

alright so where do I begin, I am 17 and have been fishing since I was a little kid maybe 4 or 5. I have always loved fishing. ever since I was a kid I always wanted to open a business of my own. I recently have started making my own lures and would love to go into the business. i want to start by selling just soft plastic worms and maybe if I make enough I plan on waiting about 2 more years until actually starting to manufacture my own product. I want to have all of the practice I can get before actually starting this and also need to save up some funds to start. the reason of me posting is to get some tips from anyone who is already in the business. is there anything I should be doing in the next 2 years to prepare myself? is this something that me and my girlfriend can go into and be able to pay all of our monthly bills we will have? how much do you think could be made as a salary? how much money should I be saving up for when I start? I am going to start working on a website soon. thanks for all the help in advance, garrett

[kickerfish1]

I would just do it as a hobby and see where it takes you. I am not sure many if any can do it as regular job exclusively. Your startup costs are going to be somewhat significant and also you have to have some kind of advertising to direct people to the website. 

You will need to do more than just pour plastics more than likely. You can do jigs, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, pour lead weights, etc. 

You may want to call someone that has a website and ask them all the questions you listed here. They can tell you how there business progressed and about what they make per year off selling the items.

I wouldn't count on this paying the bills for you and your girlfriend. For every product that excels like Rage or Roboworm there at probably dozens that fail rather quickly. 

When you factor in time, material like plastics, led, skirt material, molds and such for pouring, packaging, shipping, etc vs what you sell them for there will be your profit. Unless you are filling dozens of orders weekly you won't make much.

[Incheon Basser]

28 minutes ago, Garrett said:

alright so where do I begin, I am 17 and have been fishing since I was a little kid maybe 4 or 5. I have always loved fishing. ever since I was a kid I always wanted to open a business of my own. I recently have started making my own lures and would love to go into the business. i want to start by selling just soft plastic worms and maybe if I make enough I plan on waiting about 2 more years until actually starting to manufacture my own product. I want to have all of the practice I can get before actually starting this and also need to save up some funds to start. the reason of me posting is to get some tips from anyone who is already in the business. is there anything I should be doing in the next 2 years to prepare myself? is this something that me and my girlfriend can go into and be able to pay all of our monthly bills we will have? how much do you think could be made as a salary? how much money should I be saving up for when I start? I am going to start working on a website soon. thanks for all the help in advance, garrett

Work on your designs and outsource. More expensive in the short term (small scale) way cheaper in the long term. You got to separate what you like from what sells. 

Full size tool cost 7-10k per shape/size

MOQ is going to be as many pieces as the factory can make in an 8 hour shift per color. equals to about 12k for 8 colors per shape.

Website cost, and branding about 5k

Tradeshows, about 10k a year.

Social Media about 1k in pay per click. 

Expect 10k a year in sales per shape for the first couple years. 

 

It's hard to make money just selling soft plastic.

 

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Buy a few molds and sell on Facebook Bass Baits buy and barter. You might make a few bucks. 

To do it legally as a business taxes will take most of your profits.

Figure out all your cost and then your profits. You will find your time is the most expensive cost. 

To get your name out you need to advertise as a sponsor on this and other sites. That's $50 per month. I doubt you will get $50 profit in a month. And once again to move that much product on a small scale will take up all your time.

Since injection has come out everyone and their brother is selling the same ol popular baits. Many people sell them so cheap too that its hard to compete and make profit.

Hate to be a downer but been there and done that. I did this and ended up making about $5 per hour. I was better off getting a job at McDonalds

[kcdinkerz]

i dont know about selling but i do know about buying, first off the price?  so second how much details in the bait and what colors do you offer?third is the bait proven (look for reviews and ratings like "catches fish" "soft and durable" so on...) then i pick up a bag of named brand baits and say do i go with something thats always worked or try this new stuff. the old proven baits are usually in my cart when im checking out.

[Brayberry]

Unless you have a few custom molds only you have, it won't be worth it.  There's to much competition for the same baits from the same molds.  Taxes eat a HUGE part of your profits, supplies take another large chunk.  Makes lures for fun, not a living 

[Bluebasser86]

I enjoy making baits and hearing stories from guys that do well on them, but even with having them in a pretty popular local store and selling hundreds a year, I make enough to cover the cost of materials and enough to keep myself and my friends that help me stocked up on jigs, bladed jigs, and various styles of jigheads. The market for fishing lures is so flooded right now it really takes something special to make anything.

If I was going to go into the lure making business to actually try to make a living, I'd start learning how to carve big swimbaits now. 

[smalljaw67]

I had a business making and selling lures, but it was more of a hobby because I still had the day job. The only way I would have been able to go full time was to invest a lot of money and that would have required either hitting the lottery or getting a loan. Manufacturing can make money but it has to be done on a large scale, most companies that have soft plastics get manufacturing plants to make their product, like D&J or Harry-O, you pay to have production molds designed and made and they will shoot your baits for you and send them out for you to package but it takes a sizable investment to get started. My advise would be to go to college and get a degree in business administration or marketing and save up and go from there. A lot of guys have businesses like mine was, and that was low volume specialty products and my business catered to a small group of tournament anglers. I made jigs just like you can buy in a store but because of the low volume I could focus on detail and it gave me a small amount of market share but it is a niche market and you don't make enough like that to quit your day job. I don't want to discourage you, if you have a strong enough desire you can make anything work, but you have to be smart about it, go to TW and click on hard baits and then scroll down and look at the list of manufacturers and realize that is what you have to compete against. The good news is that we, as anglers are always looking for the next greatest thing and all it takes is that one bait that could change your entire life, RAD lures had it happen with the chatterbait, but the odds are very low so you need a strong desire, good luck.

[Garrett]

I would really love to go into the industry of lures. I have a few very unique ideas for new lures. I though selling to enough of the mom and pop shops and maybe have some of the pro guys buy from me that would be a pretty good profit and enough for all of my expenses. you guys are making it seem like the wrong road to go down though is there a better business to go into dealing with fishing?

[Kevin22]

Theres only two places in this industry where an average joe can make a living. Bluebasser hit one. Carve and design swimbaits. The other is painting lures. Both are skills though, but both can be learned and mastered with time and practice. 

You can't make a living with soft plastics, you can't hardly break even after taxes. You'll find that there are a lot of people "hobby pouring" and making basically the same baits as you are, but they aren't paying taxes or trying to make a real profit. They will  undercut you to the point you lose money. Who is going to pay $5 a bag for GP sticks when you can buy the exact same baits from some kid on ebay selling them for $1.75 a bag because daddy bought all the materials for him.

If you have unique ideas you better drop a few grand and get a patent lawyer and a patent now. As soon as a pro staffer for one of the big companies sees the bait and ships them off to R&D, you will not have an unique bait anymore. 

[Incheon Basser]

2 hours ago, Garrett said:

I would really love to go into the industry of lures. I have a few very unique ideas for new lures. I though selling to enough of the mom and pop shops and maybe have some of the pro guys buy from me that would be a pretty good profit and enough for all of my expenses. you guys are making it seem like the wrong road to go down though is there a better business to go into dealing with fishing?

Hi Garrett. I'm a lure designer for a tackle company. I have Developed 20-25 shapes since I have been in the industry. Worked with a few companies over the years. I just happened into the industry. Knew a guy who knew a brand who needed help … like I mentioned before, you'll need about 150k to start an actual Tackle Company. My suggestion is work for a big brand. Two majors that can help you are Product Management and or Fishery Research and Biology. That is what most "Lure Designers" are. 3D Industrial Design is a good skill to have. 

You need to be able to turn your ideas into 2D technical drawings at the very least. Note pad sketches is a good place to start but will not get you a job. 

It's fun job. But once you work for a fishing company you'll never have time to fish for fun again. 

[smalljaw67]

11 hours ago, Garrett said:

I would really love to go into the industry of lures. I have a few very unique ideas for new lures. I though selling to enough of the mom and pop shops and maybe have some of the pro guys buy from me that would be a pretty good profit and enough for all of my expenses. you guys are making it seem like the wrong road to go down though is there a better business to go into dealing with fishing?

Selling to "Mom & Pop" shops is the wrong way to go for small volume. Back in the day before the internet, this is how you would get name recognition but now a days all you have to do is start a face book page and take to social media. The problem with selling low volume to tackle shops is that if you make a lure, and figure out the price to be $5.00, well the tackle shop is going to have to make money on it too, that means you have to sell to the stores for even less and that cuts into profit big time. Most stores will only pay 30-35% of original cost, that allows them to make enough profit that they are willing to give shelf space for your product. Then there is a thing called FET or Federal Excise Tax, that is 10% on everything fishing related you sell, so that has to be figured into the cost. If you decide to do it "under the radar" meaning you make and sell baits without obtaining a business license or Tax I.D. number, well if you get caught you can lose everything, especially if you don't keep records on what you pay out for material or bring in from sales, that is when the IRS agent will guesstimate how much you make and it isn't going to favor you. The reason you will get caught is because there are guys that do this for a living, and if you are doing it but not reporting your take, well you can really undercut a legitimate business because you aren't paying the taxes and fees and the traditional cost of doing business and when you begin to do that you'll end up getting reported. I actually don't blame guys for reporting others, I never did it because I had a day job, but if I was trying to survive on what I was making by manufacturing and/or selling baits, yeah, I might be inclined to report a hobby business not paying taxes because that business can really give a much lower price as I have to make sure taxes, fees, and profits are built in each bait.

[Munkin]

If you want a job dealing with fishing lures go to work for BPS in the fishing department. I am going to echo a lot of what has already been said concerning making money in fishing lures.

One of my graduate school projects I had to do a business plan for a fishing tackle company. When you run the numbers the only two ways I found to make money was volume which means outsourcing or find a niche. Niche is how 6th Sense started as he was repainting baits and selling on ebay ahead of everyone else. Now everyone and their brother is painting KO 1.5 crankbaits to sell on Facebook or ebay.  The same goes for soft plastics as everyone has the same molds so they sell the same baits leading to market saturation. Unique custom designs are what will set you apart but custom molds cost money.

Allen

[Garrett]

I have a few unique ideas that I know will be brand new to the market. how much does a custom mold cost for a new bait? I have a few ideas for advertisement for social media but is there any other good advertisement ideas. I don't plan on selling my baits for anywhere near $5 but somewhere closer to half of that. 

[Scott F]

35 minutes ago, Garrett said:

I have a few unique ideas that I know will be brand new to the market. how much does a custom mold cost for a new bait? I have a few ideas for advertisement for social media but is there any other good advertisement ideas. I don't plan on selling my baits for anywhere near $5 but somewhere closer to half of that. 

You'd have to sell a lot of baits to turn enough profit to put some money in the bank.  Lucky Craft sells baits for $17 not because they cost a lot to make, but to increase their profit margins. Good luck.

[Garrett]

well I was more comparing my price to zoom baits. should I be asking more for each? 

[Kevin22]

You have a lot of research to do. Zoom can charge so little because they make a million baits a day and buy components by the semi load. You will be making 100-1000 baits a day. At zoom prices you will not break even, even if you don't pay your taxes. If you want a bait company like zoom, better have a couple million dollars laying around for startup money. Then you can sell your baits for $2.50 a bag. 

[Scott F]

1 hour ago, Garrett said:

well I was more comparing my price to zoom baits. should I be asking more for each? 

Have you done any work to figure out how much it will cost to produce, package and distribute your baits? How much time will be involved in production, packaging, sales, book keeping, shipping? If you haven't, you'd better before you invest much money into this project. Don't be surprised if the numbers show your costs are higher than what others are selling their product for.  As a rule, profit margins in the tackle business are on the low side which is why you see a lot of small business' fail. There just isn't much profit in selling fishing tackle. Bass Pro Shops stores carry a lot of clothing because that's where the profits are.

[Munkin]

2 hours ago, Garrett said:

well I was more comparing my price to zoom baits. should I be asking more for each? 

There is no way you can compete with Zoom for least cost. I am not trying to discourage you but just stating facts as I learned them through research. Zoom uses an industrial machine that can shoot like 3k baits an hour that is how they keep costs down. There are companies that can do this for you but you must order like 5k of the same bait in the same color. Additionally if you want a custom mold for one of these machines they are $4-6k. Custom lead molds are cheaper and will cost about $300- 400 per size for each size in spincast. Like I said earlier you need to find a niche market and build a loyal customer base. The attached swimjig head I had custom made and the master cost me $168 and if I want them to make a production mold it will be another $160. I plan on starting a lure business when I have enough free time and have set aside about $5000 to start just for reference.

 

 

Allen

[Garrett]

well I was thinking a injection mold would help me produce a decent amount of worms per hour. having 2 people working everyday one person could make works while the other takes inventory, packages, and ships everything. yeah I'm not going to become rich off of this, my idea was just to make a living doing something I enjoy. 

[Comfortably Numb]

Make it a job and you wont enjoy it anymore

[Deleted account]

21 hours ago, Comfortably Numb said:

Make it a job and you wont enjoy it anymore

x2. Having worked in the sporting goods industry in 4 different categories, and pretty much every position, I will tell you without a hint of doubt to separate what you like to do from what makes you money, or you will be unhappy and/or pennyless.

[Bruce424]

Ehh just make a bunch of baits then sell them out of your trunk at a big local lake or tourney. Under the table cash. Just make sure they are great quality. Then you'll get a good reputation then they come back for more. Like an ice cream truck! but for...baits?

[ClearCreek]

If you are going to get in the fishing tackle manufacturing business you will need to contact the IRS and obtain a Form 720 so you can pay your Sportfish Restoration Excise taxes.  

ClearCreek

 

 

[smalljaw67]

On ‎3‎/‎31‎/‎2016 at 10:05 AM, Garrett said:

well I was thinking a injection mold would help me produce a decent amount of worms per hour. having 2 people working everyday one person could make works while the other takes inventory, packages, and ships everything. yeah I'm not going to become rich off of this, my idea was just to make a living doing something I enjoy. 

You are talking about hand injection, I know of a small company that makes their own products but they work 7 days a week and they have over 300 molds. If you want to make a living you have to make an investment, so if you start out with 2 sizes of stick worms, a creature bait and a worm, you would need between 6 to 10 molds of each in order to be able to produce enough to make a living at it. In order to have a custom mold made, you will need to pay to have the cad work done and depending on how many cavities you want it can cost a lot, figure around $500 to $1000 depending on the complexity and number of cavities and then figure you'll need 6 or more molds. In order to manufacture enough baits that you can sell to make a living from it, figure you'll need a facility to put at least two large Zorn injection machines, and have $4000 molds made that will allow you to shoot between 50 and 100 baits per round, then the packaging, you'll heed about $300K to get started. I know you don't want  to hear it but in order to make baits to make enough money to pay for materials and pay yourself enough of a salary to make ends meet, you'll need to sell an awful lot of baits and here is the kicker, you'll have to figure out pricing, you just can't decide to charge whatever you want. You need to break down the cost per bait for your material expense, then you have to break down your overhead, things like electricity, storage, packaging, shipping and other expenses related to the production of your baits. Then when you have all that figured out it will give you the basic cost per bait to make, but then you need a sale price, so you have to figure in federal excise tax, along with other taxes and that is figured out by you or an accountant as you have to figure the lowest amount you need in order for your business to operate and still provide you enough money to live on. When that number is figured out then you have to figure out you estimated quarterly tax, city, state and county tax and depending on where you live, you may even have to pay a manufacturing permit or a zone approval fee because you can't manufacture on that scale in a residential area. This may sound like a lot of crap and it is, but that is what you have to go through in order to make a living at this. Most smaller companies outsource to a bulk manufacturer and they will have their baits shot to their specs and colors and then shipped to them where they will package and distribute the baits themselves. That way you have lower overhead but you also have a lower profit margin but a lot less headache and investment. The scale you are looking to do it is what is called a "hobby business" where you can make enough for your supplies and a some spending cash but you still need a day job, just too much expense and it isn't possible to make the kind of volume you need to make it your job. Remember, Zoom probably gives away more baits in a month than you could make with 1 person helping you in a year, just let that sink in. Now, as I said before, if you are determined enough you can do it but it won't happen overnight, it will take long hours and a lot of work to do but it can be done if you have enough drive.