Vulture bikes started as I was searched for a bike on facebook after my bikes got stolen in the prevoius year. During my search I noteced some intresting things in my local bike market: The pictures were blurry, the bikes were dirty and the people were generally un responsive. The prices of bikes didnt make sence, some way to expensive, some pretty cheap. I also found that the price of a used bike is totally up to each indivisual person, how much they needed a bike, how much they liked the color, how much extra money they have and so on. There were a ton of bikes available in my area, the most densly populated county in Florida. This combination created a perfect oppurtunity for a fun challenge.
After I bought myself a bike I bought a few more cruisers. I didnt have a car down at school, so I recruited my friend spencer to help me secure bikes around St. Pete. I promised him half of the profits. Within the week I had three bikes, I quickley cleaned them and posted them with clear photos to facebook. It took about a week and a half, but I sold three bikes for around $70 each. each sale came with ample profit, about $40 per bike, more than enough to satisfy spencer and I. I sold 10 bikes in the first month; my biggest score was purchasing two bikes for $30 in a package deal, turning around the next day selling one for $50 and Another for $80. Things began to heat up when matteo returned to campus. I came up with the name on a coming weekend soon after we established as a trio. Spencers favorite animal is a vulture, and I found it fitting. Our slogan works perfect: "we scavenge deals for you" aluding to vultures and our ability to provide used bikes at reasonable prices. Since we dont typically present ourselves as a company, people often questioned how we are getting so many bikes, including the bike shop at our school. The semester went on. The three of us lowballed bike sellers on facebook, matteo and spencer drove, and I handled sales on my facbook account. Mid-Semester we ammased a nice inventory, storing the bikes outside behind our dorm building, what we refered to as "our facility".
Matteo began posting on instagram and was able to make a few sales to students on campus, as well as buy a few bikes from kids. As the end of the semester came I saw a perfect oppurtunity to help kids get rid of their un wanted bikes. There are hundreds of bikes on campus and most sit idle the whole year. Most people barley rode them anyway, and I suspected many wouldnt want to worry about storing them or moving them for the summer. I sent out the following email to the student body.
Hi,
If anyone has a bike that they don’t have plans for, I will buy it!
Send me an email here.
Thanks
In the coming days I recieved over 30 emails and acquired about 12 bikes, ranging from free to $15. We stored some for the summer and some were sold to a bulk buyer that I found on facebook the next day. At around the same time we started frequenting the pawn shop and buying bikes from them. We put a bunch of bikes on "Layaway" $10 down a peice, and im not sure what we were thinking! that we would come back for them? those bikes were forfited back to the pawnshop after the 30 day grace period. We even saw the first ever bike I had bought for myself there. I bought it for $50, sold it for $80, I then saw it posted on facebook shortly after I sold it, and now about two months later it was sitting at the pawn shop for $30. We ended up selling about 50 bikes that sememster and did about $3,000 in revenue.
That brings us to september of this year, when We had about 5 bikes in storage and matteo quickly got to buying up bikes on facebook. We also started buying golf club sets at the pawn shop, unfortainatly they pulled back on buying cheap bikes. I also was able to get in touch with a bike rental company who was selling cruiser bikes for just $20, I made the drive to Anna Maria Island and bought 8 decent cruisers. Recently, we have been away from school for about a month due to the recent hurricanes with about a stash of 30 bikes in matteos room. We return to campus with big marketing plans to offload these bikes, including posters and paid facebook advertising.
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