[metacast]

First time poster. Here is the scenario:

I work online and have some extra time on my hands and have a girlfriend in the house that I can put to work on the organic chemistry set.

I was wondering if you guys knew any easy-entry local markets, or even global markets?

Building the site and marketing a product is no problem; but I've little experience and am not sure what markets are open.

There are seasoned vets here that can give me some advice. What do you guys think?

At the end of the day I'm just looking to generate some extra cash and have fun.

Cheers!

[Borek]

My first thought is: check what are the legal requirements for selling glass and reagents.

It is not a problem to design a fancy chemistry set. It is a problem to make it legally viable and safe enough to not risk being sued to death. Unfortunately, safe sets are often way too lame to be attractive.

[curiouscat]

I agree with what @Borek say but I'll add this: I think the market may be good. What has happened is there used to be good quality sets but liability fears caused all the big companies to shy out of this niche market.

So the current offerings are quite thin and watered down. On the plus side there's a lot of things you can put in one, and as a smaller player you may be able to be a tad braver than the very touchy multi million companies who are ripe targets for suing and forced to settle on even frivolous lawsuits for purely brand notoriety concerns.

A lot of that is eased by being a small operator.

[Archer]

I always wanted a chemistry set when I was a child but my mother would not allow me to have one (too messy).

My friend had one and one day we mixed all of the chemicals together in a test tube and shook it to see what happened.

I have no idea what was in the chemistry set but it popped the cork out of the test tube and made a locallised black mess (we had the sense to perform this experiment in his garage).

In hindsight I am guessing that the black was activated carbon and the pressure build up was from bicarbonate and some mild acid (also in hindsight my mother was correct in not allowing me to have one at such a young age).

Unfortunately, safe sets are often way too lame to be attractive.

The manufacturers of the chemistry set I had access to were sensible enough to make a set which would still be safe if someone with no common sense mixed everything together and shook it to "see what happens".

As Borek says, if you make a set then you would need to consider the lowest common denominator who is not qualified to have potentially hazardous chemicals in their possession.

[curiouscat]

The manufacturers of the chemistry set I had access to were sensible enough to make a set which would still be safe if someone with no common sense mixed everything together and shook it to "see what happens".

As Borek says, if you make a set then you would need to consider the lowest common denominator who is not qualified to have potentially hazardous chemicals in their possession.

I see what you mean, but I think we (as a society) somehow hold chemistry sets to a higher standard. Smacking someone  with a baseball bat on the head or swallowing the batteries in your toy car or jamming a fork into a power receptacle or flying your kite into a power line are all equally likely to cause serious injury.

So long as a chemistry set is marketed to, say, a 12+  audience, & has sufficient instructions & warnings why can we not assume some common sense? Lots of toys n household items easily accessible to a 12 year old can be darn dangerous if he chooses to use them in the wrong ways.

"Mixing & shaking it all together" ought to be a misuse that carries no liability to the manufacturer.

/rant

[Archer]

I agree completely but today's society of law suits for the most pedestrian of accidents has made the world a different place, when I was a child batteries could be accessed via a clip, now I need a screwdriver to replace the batteries in my kids toys.

Chemistry sets for young people should be available but when we need "caution, contents may be hot" written on coffee cups I think there may be too many people desperate to purposely injure themselves for a big cash payout from the manufacturer.