[Closed] Ethics of pinching an upcycling/re-purposing idea and selling it?

The prices they were charging were bonkers (from £100 to £300, for something I could make for £25 or less)

Anything you can buy commercially for£100 or more can be made for £25 or less.

I spotted a really nice idea for a product, re-purposing some cheap vintage gear. There was a link for a Japanese company which just ended up at a 'coming soon' web page.

Some 'products' aren't devised to sell, just to show how clever your ideas are and are about raising your profile - up cycling stuff is very bloggable but the problem with clever up cycling ideas is if you try to take them to market theres not much stop the people you're trying to sell or through just taking the idea and making their own - in much the same way as you're proposing to do yourself. Its also an product that you've observed thats failed to establish itself 3 times, what can you do to make money with a second hand idea that a major online retailer can't.

The other thing is if the 'thing' you want to up cycle is in finite supply then as soon as your design takes off you immediately run out of material to make it out of or you drive the price of that item up by increasing the demand.

Can you copyright up-cycled junk?

yes you can, in the same way as you can copyright a collage, or a recording or performance made with samples

Anything you can buy commercially for£100 or more can be made for £25 or less.

Hmm - if I give you £25 can you make me a sportscar?

Hmm - if I give you £25 can you make me a sportscar?

Yep.

Nice profit margin in it for me too.

[url= http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Mini-Sports-Car-6910 ]The Sports Car you asked for ;)[/url]

colours wrong neal or I would have one

(from £100 to £300, for something I could make for £25 or less)

£25 to make. What about the heating, lighting, rent and rates for the workshop you make it in?

If ultimately sell it for £100 a £25 production cost isn't that low. You have all kinds of costs to consider.

Now Oakley have a good business model, AFAIK a typical pair of Oakleys cost about $1 to make.

The Sports Car you asked for

Sold out - dammit 😉

That new Lego for architecture nerds is a genius idea, though. I was feeling a bit geeky wanting a Lego Death Star, the architecture series fits in much better with my style (black polo necks and square glasses).

Anything you can buy commercially for£100 or more can be made for £25 or less.

Anyone else think we have an early contender for stupidest comment of the year?

thats what happens when the phone rings while you're editing you post 🙂

Sold out - dammit

Yep.

I've bought them all !!

People are willing to pay £25 for them apparently

Kerchiiiing !!£€$!!!

colours wrong neal or I would have one

£25 to you sir + £5 for a custom respray in the colour of your choice.

[quote=richc ]Anyone else think we have an early contender for stupidest comment of the year?

Clearly it's not completely true as there are some commodity items with less profit margin, but it's not a bad generalisation.

Interesting point given I'm thinking of making something where the electronic components will cost me ~£20 (which doesn't allow for a casing etc.) and I'd like to sell for £60 at most. I'm sure it's feasible for me to make money on a hobby basis, and I guess if it went into large scale production (it won't) the parts cost would get a bit cheaper.

I'm back. The 'or more' didn't belong in the sentence. But its fairly reasonable for something sold at the £100 mark to have less than £25 worth of stuff in it. In the instance of something sold through a retailer rather than direct from the maker retail and distribution would swallow around half the ticket price so how many of these gismos would you have to make a day to have them out there, in stock, selling, to bring back an attractive daily wage?

But without the OP really giving away what thing he envisages making it would appear (if its sold through somewhere like Notonthehighstreet) that it would be something sold on the basis of its aesthetic attractiveness, fashionableness or for its novel or quirky qualities - in which case its market value is dictated by that - how rare, new,handsome and novel and item it is. So the material cost is, erm, immaterial. But in this case the mystery gismo is already 3 steps removed from being novel.

richc » Anyone else think we have an early contender for stupidest comment of the year?

[url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/morrissey-due-to-slip-into-coma-soon#post-5649521 ]Just a week after I was nominated for post of the year[/url]

peaked too early

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.
Mac - you're right, this would be sold on its quirky qualities. Ideally, Shoreditch hipsters would be lapping them up. In practical terms though, I don't think it has ongoing business potential. I just thought I could probably make three of these awesome, decorative-yet-functional mystery devices in pretty much the same time that I could make one, and try to sell the other two. If anyone actually bought them, I could make a few more. I have the tools and the kitchen table already, so it's just the raw materials and my time involved - which would otherwise be spent in front of the telly.

When I've made the first one I'll either post it on here for some feedback or bung it on the For Sale forum for a squillion pounds.