A Case Study: Potato Price Differences

There was this guy who dropped out of high school and went to work a regular job, but he found it boring, so he started thinking about starting something on his own.

One day, while buying vegetables at a wet market, he got an idea. He noticed that potatoes were selling for 2 yuan per jin — a pretty decent price — but the taste wasn't great. In his hometown, they sold for less than 0.3 yuan per jin, and those potatoes were mostly used to feed pigs. People rarely ate them themselves, except for the occasional stir-fried potato shreds, which actually tasted way better than the ones sold in the city.

So he thought, if I could get potatoes from farmers in my hometown and sell them in the city, making even 1 yuan per jin wouldn't be bad at all. He started by having his family mail him a bag of potatoes, then went to several wet markets and gave samples to the vendors. They tasted them and were impressed — the potatoes had more starch and didn't have that "sandy" texture you sometimes get in city potatoes. So they signed purchase contracts with him.

He went back home, rented a truck, and bought a full load of potatoes. Since everyone in the village knew each other, they agreed to take the produce and pay him after he returned. Then he loaded the truck and headed straight for the city, delivering potatoes store by store. He sold the entire truckload in one day. After deducting expenses, he made over 10,000 yuan in a single day.

**Takeaway:** If there's anything special or even just ordinary in your hometown, as long as the price is low there but high in the city, you can use this approach: secure buyers first, then source the goods. It's a very smart way to go about it. Think bigger — whenever the price of something is lower in one place and higher in another, contact buyers first, prepare the goods store by store, and then deliver.

Pay attention to price differences for the same product across different places. The next big opportunity might just be right around the corner.