Hi (:
As the title suggests, I’m curious, has anyone ever attempted to sell their homemade string and how much have you made off of it. I’d like to buy another yoyo and while I have enough for one, I’m trying to save money for when I go off to college (junior atm) so might as well try selling string haha. Thanks in advance!
Don’t quit your day job.
The number of string you can make per hour will tell you all you need to know. So sit down for an hour and make some string. I would be willing to bet a part time job at tacobell will pay better.
If you can find a way to make it cheaply(as in: efficient use of your time, not "make crappy product), in large quantities to make distribution viable with mark-up, then maybe.
I’d suggest a “real job” for the “real money” though.
Just thinking.
Minimum wage is $8/hour in California.
A typical string is gonna cost about 10-40 cents RETAIL, which means you gotta make them for half that(at least).
5 cents a string, 20 strings per dollar, 8 dollars per hour, you gotta make 160 strings an hour. That’s just to break even with a wage, so to speak. We haven’t even covered the cost of materials, which includes bobbins and plastic bags or other packaging/bundling and labeling. Do you sell as 5 counts, 10 counts, 25 counts, 50 counts, 100-counts? To start off with, you’re new, 10 counts are the only way to go. Once you have some good reviews proving your string is something decent, people will want higher counts.
Also, keep in mind being methodic in how you do things, including your raw materials to make the string. You want consistency. While anyone can get a bad string from any brand, that’s one thing I like about even YYE string and the other stuff I buy and use: consistency.
Even if you end up making a premium string like Trixta, Type X, Snakes, or something else that can sell for 40-60 cents each retail, it helps adjust those numbers a bit, but your costs shouldn’t necessarily change too much for your side of the equation.
It’s a numbers game and how much value you put into your time.
You might see about selling yoyos and lessons to supplement your income.
Haha if I had a job I wouldn’t even bother trying x) I have more enough money to simply buy a yoyo but I feel like I should work to buy another one and jobs just aren’t coming my way (I’m and 17 year old high school student haha)
Well at the moment, I suck. Really just messing around with them right now so I don’t have a 15 string rig or anything like that. Also, I agree with you and if I’m able to get a job this summer I probably won’t bother. Thanks for the advice!
It could be lucrative to cut some yards though. You can work as many hours as you want too.
Yeah efficiency and consistency is what I’m lacking at the moment but as stated above I’m just messing around at the moment. Thank you so much for your knowledge (getting all master shifu on you) this is really making me think twice about this.
Oh yeah, about reputation and reviews I was thinking of having a test group that would be sent a 5-10 pack for free simply for a review. This group would have to be relatively skilled though and would have to have used strings such as chaos/angel/alchemy/etc so they could give me a comparison.
True, I mean I’m only doing this so I can buy another yoyo. It’s not like I’d be doing this for the rest of my life (unless I magically get partnered with clyw or something lol)
No, you’ll lose money almost guaranteed. Unless your time is worth $0, even then no.
Minimum Wage It’s $10/ Hour in CA,…
ah crap.
[quote=“iYoyo58,post:10,topic:54482”]
I have a friend that makes $8.50 atm D:
You might break even. But it is hard work
iYoyo58, it’s $8.00 in California. Unless you live in San Jose, which I’m assuming you do, where minimum wage is $10.00 then yeah. But for the rest of California, we’re stuck at $8.
In my opinion, it depends on how good your string is.
All the high-end string manufacturers out there now put out unbelievable products and charge what we consider “fair” prices for it. If you think you can do better than they can while keeping your cost in check, you’ll probably make a small profit over time. It sounds like you just want to make a few quick bucks to buy a new yoyo, though, so my advice is to stay out of the string business unless you’ve of a mind to revolutionize it with an amazing new variety of string. Personally, I’d pay $1.00 per YYSL AMMO string, but that’s just how much I love it and how much more fun I have throwing when I use it.
I considered selling string for a brief period, actually. It was about the same time Matt started shipping samples of YYSL out for testing. The minute I tried his string, I decided I should “pack up and go home”, so to speak.
If you can’t make better string that the best there is, don’t bother trying. It sounds harsh, but people won’t pay the same money for something “so-so” that they already do for something they’re comfortable with and adore.
Ah well I guess that settles it, I’ll just continue to make string for myself lol. Thanks for the advice~
It gives you cancer.
Hahaha man… If you actually want money to buy a yoyo just get a job. It will cost more than you can imagine to make string, it takes a lot of time, and the profits are slim. I do it because I enjoy it, and on a good day I can make about $20-$25 per hour (that’s the amount I make divided by the time, and I have guys who buy ridiculously large orders). If you want a social life I’d suggest getting a real job and not making string because it takes tons of time
You know that Kevlar string by Gen Yo? I’d buy that stuff if someone made it.
Yuck. One of my least favorite strings ever. No bounce, feels like sandpaper. Durable i guess, but i’ve never broken a string anyway so not worth the trade offs.
Yeah I live in San Jose 
Come on over! You could be getting 2 more dollars an hour 