River-Running Inner Tubes

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OPENING DAY

That Saturday was hot, humid, and sunny. "If we can't sell tubes today," Bob noted, "we might as well ditch the whole idea." Once at the roadside, we propped our biggest offerings against the side of the truck and put up a makeshift sign. Before long people were stopping ... and buying: Within four hours we'd sold out! Our first day's gross was $121 . . . leaving us a net profit of $75.

During the week that followed, we busily searched out and purchased another supply of tubes (our average cost over the season worked out to about $2.50 apiece) and tried to devise ways to enhance the desirability of our products and up our profit margin. Soon we hit on the idea of fashioning seats for the fanny soakers.

Canvas and webbing—though we knew they'd produce classy perches—were eliminated on the grounds of high cost. Rope, however, proved inexpensive (we paid $3.00 per 100 feet of cotton clothesline) and completely workable. With the addition of about a dollar's worth of rope and perhaps 15 minutes of labor, we were able to increase the price of any tube by $3.00. The modified rafts sold like bug burgers at a bullfrog's barbecue, too . . . with some folks even buying two, so they could pack along coolers, fishing gear, and the like. (See the accompanying illustration for seat-lacing tips.)

Occasionally, when replenishing our supply of rafts, we were lucky enough to locate a tube from a mammoth piece of agricultural or construction equipment. The huge floaters are rare (after all, they can cost upward of $150 new, so most folks patch them when they spring a leak), but we found that such giants—when equipped with rope seats—easily brought in from $20 to $40 apiece . . . and we made an attempt to have at least one "super tube" on display whenever we set up shop. They're great attention-getters . . . and surprising numbers of folks were willing to pay premium prices to buy the "Potomac Cadillacs".

RE-RECYCLING INNER TUBES

In order to give our customers the best possible deals, and to maintain our supply of bargain boats, we soon began offering to buy back undamaged tubes (at half price) at the end of a day. That practice let folks enjoy a day on the river for an out-of-pocket expense of as little as $2.00 apiece . . . and often allowed us to get two or three (or more!) sales out of the same boat in the course of a weekend.

AIR APPARENT

After our first month in the tubing business, we felt that we were putting too much demand on our friendly service station owner's air pump—despite the small payments that he'd finally agreed to accept—so we purchased a used electric compressor for $90. If you decide to try the tube sales business, it would be best to get free air at first—as we did—if possible . . . but once your enterprise is established, we think you'll find the convenience provided by a low-cost compressor (which, naturally, you'll be able to use for a number of other household tasks) well worth the price.

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