Disposable Bucket Liner - Market Research I'm Afraid!

Members online

Status
Not open for further replies.

cr0ft

New Member
Hi all,

Please forgive me using you all for a bit of market research. I currently have a patent pending on what is essentially a flexible bucket liner designed to fit into a flexible bucket. If the product went to market it would be available in a standard range of sizes to fit different bucket volumes.

I would be looking at aiming it at plasterers/tilers and builders, i.e. users of cement and gypsum based products where buckets need to be fairly clean/spotlessly clean before they can be re-used.

My experience has shown that cleaning buckets out is quite labour intensive and ties up my apprentice, especially when we do plastering.

The idea behind the liner is it is made of thin plastic and is simply thrown in the skip after the tradesman is finished with the mix, leaving the bucket ready to be reused instantly without any time spent cleaning it out. From an environmental perspective it means buckets are not being washed down drains in roads etc. The plan would be to make the liners from recycled plastic too.

My question is would you buy this product and if so what sort of price would you think is reasonable?

Thanks to everyone in advance for your replies.
 
I have over the year's bought some crap thinking it may be useful, but to be honest no I wouldn't buy one even if they were free.
Sorry but im out.
 
My thinking is that plastering buckets have to be spotlessly clean before they can be reused ideally and our apprentice spends around an hour a day cleaning out buckets for us. Based on him being on minimum wage that's £6.50 something I am spending on cleaning buckets out. If I can sell a pack of 10 liners for £5 for example I think that is a cost saving for a business and an opportunity to sell something.

Am I missing something? I'm trying to get critical feedback on why it wouldn't work if that makes sense!
 
Do you mean that it would be a bag or more ridged
Because I don't clean my wisk every day and I would be concerned that ny wisk would rip and eat it
 
@markj it would be more rigid, made out of 2mm thick plastic. Rigid enough to stand up to a mixer paddle mixing up plaster/tile adhesive. The idea is to make it that you can operate your smaller one man business with two buckets and no cleaning out.

I also think they would make the flexible buckets we all use last a lot longer as well as it would be the liner taking the beating from the mixer paddles. As plasterers would ideally be one of my target markets I'm very keen to get feedback on what you professionals think they would be worth taking into account cost of labour to clean buckets etc. Clearly there are a lot of varying views from the feedback I've had so far!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry, forgot to mention, from the prototype ones I've tested any less than 2mm and they don't stand up to a grubby old mixer paddle so that's the minimum thickness we can make them to be honest.
 
Maybe a rubber one you can use all day everyday, I'd be happy with 49%:RpS_thumbup:

LOL I don't think you can make much money selling a product that never needs to be replaced!! Look at the way the car manufacturers have gone. Cars used to last for years, not any more! Even vans rust easier now than they used to.
 
I must confess i use a flexible bucket and I wait until it goes hard then turn it over and stamp on it most of It comes out then a quick scrap and its done..
I work alone so its clean bucket or tea and sandwich and the later wins
 
Honesty is good. I'm keen to get lots of opinions before I go any further and start spending serious money on a product that no one wants!!

Not trying to sell you a set yet but if you saw them in the merchant what price would tempt you to try a pack of 10? Or could you not be tempted?
 
My thinking is that plastering buckets have to be spotlessly clean before they can be reused ideally and our apprentice spends around an hour a day cleaning out buckets for us. Based on him being on minimum wage that's £6.50 something I am spending on cleaning buckets out. If I can sell a pack of 10 liners for £5 for example I think that is a cost saving for a business and an opportunity to sell something.

Am I missing something? I'm trying to get critical feedback on why it wouldn't work if that makes sense!

An hour a day, id get urself a new lab mate, takes a minute wash a bucket out, not exactly time consuming! Cant see the need for a disposable liner.
 
i'm prety sure these exist for paint, might have trouble with your patent.

I hope not. You can get paint tray and paint bucket liners and these have been patented already but not a flexible one designed to sit in a flexi bucket. Maybe there's a good reason why you can't buy the latter one though!!
 
An hour a day, id get urself a new lab mate, takes a minute wash a bucket out, not exactly time consuming! Cant see the need for a disposable liner.

To be honest the hour a day is cleaning out our dried out tiling buckets to be honest, left on the skip to dry overnight then knocked out and cleaned out thoroughly. Plastering buckets are certainly easier to clean out than cement based products but that probably explains why feedback on here isn't as positive as feedback on the tiling forum I guess!
 
when you scrape the side of the bucket you'd rip it, , it'll never work,

We've tested a prototype one already which is 2mm thick and it stood up to our mixer drill on full tilt - it's covered in crusted on plaster too.

Any less than that and it doesn't work but we think they can be made cheaply enough.
 
To be honest the hour a day is cleaning out our dried out tiling buckets to be honest, left on the skip to dry overnight then knocked out and cleaned out thoroughly. Plastering buckets are certainly easier to clean out than cement based products but that probably explains why feedback on here isn't as positive as feedback on the tiling forum I guess!

Oh right, wondered where the hour cane from! Best of luck with it mate if you go for it but i wudnt buy something like that even if it quite cheap, id rather buy a decent washin out brush + itl last me a year or so.
 
LOL I don't think you can make much money selling a product that never needs to be replaced!! Look at the way the car manufacturers have gone. Cars used to last for years, not any more! Even vans rust easier now than they used to.
Personally I think your so wrong,I'd buy a rubber skin but not a one off disposable one
 
Mega mixer would probably rip it to pieces and you would spend most of time picking little pieces of plastic out of your wall after u have dragged shite all over and it looks like you've troweled up with ya scratcher on that basis I'm also "out" :flapper:
 
There is indeed. At present they only do a 15L bucket glove to fit their buckets though and the bucket is 300mm diameter by 300mm height. I reckon that's a tad too small for plastering to be honest. There is talk of a 30L one coming out which would be better but it was due here in September and no sign of it yet anyway.

I reckon the disposable version is better but then I would say that.

To be honest this market research has been very handy as it's pretty clear that this product would not be of much use to plasterers. The tilers seem to be much more interested and I could imagine bricklayers being fairly interested in it too. Gypsum is too easy to knock out of buckets!!
 
whats wrong with good old fashioned water and a brush to clean the bucket while plaster is still wet ??
 
i think a re-usable one would be worth a punt
but a disposable one just don't seem to be worth the agro

considering i work on me own mix up lay on and cleaning the buckets only a five minute job so dont seem viable
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top