Horse Reseller Business Plan

GFX provides a unique “1-Stop Shopping” experience for the pleasure horse owner/buyer by providing a complete line of horse related products, including the horse itself, at our location in Central Oklahoma, as a vendor at horse events, and with a website offering online catalog and purchase capabilities.

3.1 Product Description

GFX is involved in the marketing and sale of three primary categories:

1. Riding horses.
2. Full line of resale products.
3. Limited line of GFX manufactured products.

1. Riding horses.
This is the single greatest area of opportunity for GFX, and the foundation for our business. It has been identified as an empty, but much needed, market niche. The number of people who wish to buy a horse, or horses, for family use in Oklahoma, given the rural nature of our state, is countless.

These people currently have four choices of places from which to buy:

• Private individuals who are selling a horse. This usually involves a poorly trained animal with bad (dangerous) habits in potentially poor condition.
• Horse auctions in which there are nearly no rules of business integrity and only the most experienced horse people have any hope of discerning a good animal from the majority of poor animals that are sold through auction.
• “Horse Traders” who are, I am sorry to say, some of the most unscrupulous salespeople I have ever encountered. To the last they employ a variety of tricks, drugs, and misrepresentations; in essence, doing whatever is necessary to make a sale.
• Horse Ranches which sell only registered and bloodline stock that, while typically well trained and conditioned, are priced for competitive use far beyond the reach or needs of the typical buyer.

We have discovered that by working with a few select sources, we are able to purchase exceptional riding horses at very reasonable prices. We can then apply Web marketing and professional business practices to offer these horses for sale at a comfortable profit margin. Customers, most of whom have been “burned” in previous purchase attempts through the sources listed above, are relieved when they encounter our business practice. They are more comfortable with the standard business ethics we apply, satisfied with the price, and anxious to tell others to make their future purchases through GFX. The sale of horses will take place almost entirely at our residence.

2. Full line of resale products.
This is probably the most traditional aspect of the GFX business plan. We have found a variety of horse related product distributors and manufacturers anxious to have us resell their products.

Specifically we have reached agreement with:

• Southern Wholesale Tack, full line of horse tack and care products.
• Cheval Publishing, HorseBiz and PedigreeBiz equine & farm management software.
• Pelikan Industries, distributor of 2.4 Ghz wireless CCTV systems, ideal for barn & mare monitoring.

These initial relationships have been established over the last three months, primarily to experiment with the willingness and terms of the providers. Having successfully completed this exercise, we plan to attend “Equitana,” the largest equine trade show in the world, this coming June, to establish additional relationships for resale products.

The resale of products will take place primarily as we attend horse competition events around the state of Oklahoma, secondarily via our online catalog on our website, and third, to local residents and customers who visit our facility for the purchase of horses.

3. Limited line of GFX manufactured products.
We have identified a variety of horse and farm products that can be easily manufactured at our location with minimal investment in metalwork equipment and material. Examples that we have already identified include portable corrals, portable stalls, hay feeders, saddle-racks, and modular barns. Most of these items, and many more to be experimented with in the future, can be manufactured and sold direct to the public at prices far below the mainstream products they will imitate while simultaneously providing an exceptional profit margin to GFX.

The resale of our GFX manufactured products will take place primarily as we attend horse competition events around the state of Oklahoma, secondarily to local residents and customers who visit our facility for the purchase of horses, and third, via our online catalog on our website.

We have selected these three primary revenue opportunities specifically for each one’s ability to support the other two while complimenting our three primary sales strategies of Web commerce, event selling, and home retail location.

3.2 Competitive Comparison

The most obvious and general competitive edge possessed by GFX is the concept of “1-Stop Shopping.” There is a wealth of sources from which to purchase any of the items that we will be offering. However, we are not aware of a single source that has brought together all of the various products necessary to own a horse. This is particularly attractive to the pleasure horse buyer as they typically have a very limited scope of knowledge and are grateful (and willing to pay) for consolidation.

Another major competitive edge possessed by GFX is the experience and expertise of its management in business practices. A long and successful career in professional sales, marketing, and operational management gives me a foundation upon which to build this business that is extremely foreign to nearly all of the competitors. As is true in many businesses, it is often the experienced business person who is successful at a given venture while a person with an extensive background in an area fails. I have the unique ability to provide a competitive edge in simple business and marketing practices that the customers will recognize, appreciate, and reward, but of which the competitors, quite frankly, do not have a clue.

Nowhere is this more true than in the cornerstone of GFX, the resale of horses. It can not be stressed enough how wide open this large and profitable market is for the successful institution of professional selling practices. “Horse Trading” is a no-rules business as most who have ever purchased a horse have found out, and those who sell horses know. The most common theme among people who have contacted us during our experimentation stage is how grateful and appreciative they are of this approach.

Finally, the computer and Web skills we possess, particularly in contrast to our competitors in this business, offer a substantial competitive edge. Our ability to generate marketing material, create and publish digital images, and create and edit our own website provide tools that are necessary by default in today’s business environment.

Horses, tack, and equipment can be purchased from many sources. However they can not be purchased through a single source and are not represented with business, marketing, and sales expertise. Not, that is, until GFX receives this funding package and opens for business!

3.3 Sales Literature

One of the hidden assets of the GFX management team lies in their ability to create and publish quality sales literature independently.

The best example of this capability, and the central point for all future marketing efforts, is the GFX website. We encourage the reviewer of this document to visit this site now for a full review of these capabilities at: www.gfarmx.com.

Every facet of this website, its design, creation, upkeep, and modifications are accomplished entirely by Edward and Leanna Graves without the use of any external resource.

Display literature for events will also be produced on our home business computer system. Our computer knowledge, digital photographic equipment and expertise, graphic skills, and marketing experience makes this not only a realistic goal, but insures that we are able to create and modify appropriate and effective sales literature as needed, without delay, to respond to any immediate marketing need.