Back in 1989 we started a very small business in San Diego supplying used fitness machines to the small gyms in the area. Located in the Miramar area with JETS flying loud overhead we rented a cheap and ugly warehouse to keep our expenses low.
The business was started with a college degree in sports medicine and no money. With the dream of helping fitness centers find cheap Lifecycles to buy for their gyms, we had to be creative.
Back then, the Life Fitness Corporation was located in Irvine California. In the back of their building they had a huge 40 foot trash bin that was full of Lifecycle bikes they would throw away. They used to offer gyms a $500 trade in if they bought the newest Lifecycle of the day. When the gyms would do a trade in they would ship the bikes back to Irvine on Jeronimo road and dump them in the huge trash bin.
When the trash bin was full with 100 or so Lifecycles they would haul it off to the dump and trash them in the landfill where they would never decompose or be recycled..
Ah ha, an Entrepreneurial idea, a green-business idea. Since Life Fitness was going to throw these Lifecycles in the trash we might as well take them out of the trash and recycle them. This was before the GREEN movement was as popular as it is today. And taking trash from trash cans was not illegal.
The marketing strategy to sell these used Lifecycles was easy. We would load the bikes up on a trailer attached to the back of a pick up truck. Then drive the trailer to every fitness center we could find. Pull up to the front door and call out the fitness center manager. "How many Lifecycles would you like to buy today? Only $300 each if you take 5 or more;" we would say.
Sometimes when we had a couple hundred bikes to sell we would drive around and drop them off at the gyms free for a month. Then come back in a month to take them away. Of course we sold everyone because the members were using them. They call this the puppy dog sale.
The Used Gym Equipment industry was born from the trash can. Boy have things changed. (for the better)
Used Gym Equipment.com
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