Selling custom audio cables on EBAY?

[Blah067]

How well do you think this would go over?

I can buy procuts for cheap in bulk, and build custom cables (or even take requests) and sell them for just under whatever retail is selling it for? Does anybody think this could work? Could I turn a small profit?
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[mixmaster]

This will be a hard market to sell to. I've found most people who need a special cable are using things in more advanced ways. These same people usually have the skills to make it themselves, rather than go thought the hassle of trying to explain their needs to someone else.
For more standard cables, I doubt you can buy enough material to get the same pricing that big manufactures get, and the labor cost for someone to sit at a bench and hand assemble something will be much higher than a machine doing the assembly in a factory.

[tweetersaway]

not to mention, competing with companies who boast big warranties on their products. In this market, you will definitely get some calls about cable breakage, not matter how good you are at soldering.

If you really like doing it though, who's to stop you? Get your name out there locally instead. A lot of places around may need/want custom cables, but have never really considered having somebody come in and do it for them. If you do good work, your name will travel pretty fast.

[museav]

Maybe you could based on what Guitar Center and Best Buy sell cables for to the public but it would probably be difficult to do it for less than some established firms selling online or for the actual dealer costs.

Perhaps this is all familiar territory for you, but when you get into selling products then along with the direct product cost there are also numerous indirect costs such as maintaining a cable and connector inventory (you would likely routinely have to purchase raw materials some time before selling the related end products), returns and warranty issues, samples (at least until you are a 'known' many people will probably not buy anything without seeing a sample) and so on. Then here is dealing with sales tax and receiving payments.

Looking primarily at only truly custom cables might be a bit better as many of the production efficiencies that make it possible for some companies to mass produce more 'standard' cables at a lower cost would no longer apply and they might actually not be at all cost effective for 'one off' products. The flip side is addressing issues such as a custom cable which is returned or canceled after you already built it and that may not be easy to resell.

You might find are some local Contractors that need custom cables on a fairly regular basis. A sister company of one I worked for had a couple of big projects where they had a couple of full time people just to make the custom cables involved.