The possibility of starting a diesel heater business with less than AUD 3000 capital is real. It happened to one of our Australian customers. Here’s how it happened.

Background

We had an Australian customer, Oliver, who worked for a finance company, had a decent job and a good income. He’s outdoorsy and loves camping. You can often spot him in his rugged old camper on wilderness adventures.

The start of Covid-19 in early 2020 led to operational difficulties. This affected the company he worked for which made him lose his job.

With two children, Jack, 9, and Mia, 7, a mortgage as well as various living bills to pay, Oliver was in a fix. With piles of living expenses to pay Oliver was on an ardent lookout for a quick solution.

He applied for jobs at many financial companies. With no response from either one of them he even applied for an accounting position at a supermarket. But like many others, he was not the only one affected. The expansion was the least focus of most companies which is why the hiring rate was lower than ever. With no openings anywhere Oliver was losing hope.

One day, nearing the end of the fall of 2020, Oliver took his camper out into the wilderness for a camping trip. The picturesque spot he chose to camp also attracted several passing RVs. This made them join the camping trip. Conversations flew after dinner, revolving around the pandemic. Only when it started getting cold is when everyone realized what time it was.

The cold got everyone discussing the heating equipment they had in their cars. From the chat, we learned that the most popular choice was the diesel air heaters made in China. The top reason being their cheap price. Then everyone started discussing the various advantages and troubles of diesel heaters.

Advantages of Diesel Heaters

Some of the advantages discussed with the heaters were.

• Their instantaneous heating ability started only after 1-2 minutes.

• Diesel is a very easy fuel to get compared to propane heaters. You can buy it at almost every service station in Australia.

• The price of diesel fuel is about AU$1.30 – AU$1.60 per liter. Each liter of diesel fuel can keep the heater working for 4 hours straight. One only needs to spend A$3 to keep the cabin warm all night, making it a very cheap heater.

Disadvantages of Diesel Heaters

The disadvantages of heaters discussed were.

• Some heaters can make a loud noise, which is bad news for people who do not sleep well.

• After the heater turns on, a strong unpleasant smell emanates. This is common with cheaper varieties.

• Many people buy their heaters through online retail sites and look for mechanics. This is to install the heaters. They find that many heaters can have trouble codes and are especially prone to problems. Some of the most common is smoke coming from the exhaust pipe and the heater not firing well. Even after seeking help from professionals, the problems remain. This can be very frustrating. Even after many calls and emails to the manufacturer, the problems persist.

Common drawbacks of low-quality heaters

You can request a refund if it is a new heater that is malfunctioning and the problem stays. But if it is a heater that has been in use for a while, usually the seller refuses to refund the money. This leaves some people to bear the loss.

When this happens, he does not recommend to his friends to buy a diesel heater from China. And with the high price of the Webasto and Eberspaecher heaters, many few people can afford them. The conclusion drawn was that it’s difficult to buy a heater with the right price and reliable quality.

Quality of the Warmda Diesel Heaters

After listening to so many people chat, Oliver went on to describe the use of his heater. “I purchased the Warmda diesel heater in 2016.  This is a heater designed by Warmda LLC in the USA and manufactured in China.” Continuing he said, “I got it from the online platform at www.RVheater.com. And received the heater about 9 days after submitting the order”.

He also shared his feelings when he first removed the outer package of the heater. “In 2016, there was no diesel heater made in China that was available in the market, and I was able to buy a set at a cheap price”.

“Although it was a product of an American company, the heater make was in China. I was still a little worried about the quality of the heater.” Looking around at his audience he said,

“When I opened the black plastic bag outside the heater package, I saw the beautiful inside packaging. It had the company name, logo, and company address. It gave me the impression that this was a serious manufacturing company. So the quality of the product must be very good.”

He gave a comprehensive overview of the unpacking. And said, “I used scissors to cut the nails of the outer packaging to open the inner packaging. You can see half of the manual and a packing list and two small boxes. The small box and the outer packaging are similar. So is the print with the LOGO and other company information.”

“When you open the small package. Which comes with a print of the company information, you can see the Diesel heater. It stays covered by the film on the base. With a sleek design, the aesthetics are amazing.” He continued by saying that,

“There is a small yellow cardboard box, which is set up to install all the accessories of the heater. After checking with the packing list, all the accessories are complete.”

Oliver went on to say that, “Although I am a finance professional, I am very hands-on. And by watching the whole installation video I installed the heater myself. All I had to do was pay attention to the heater installation precautions. Otherwise, the installation of the heater is still very simple.”

“As far as I can remember, there was no irritating smell after the heater installation. When in 2019, the heater had an E09 failure, I emailed Warmda LLC Within an hour, I received an email reply from them. Based on their advice, I found the cause of the failure, which turned out to be a Kyocera glow plug. It had a power failure due to prolonged use. I purchased the heater from www.RVheater.com. It is the website to buy Kyocera glow plug. After replacing it, the heater has been working till now.”

Starting your own diesel heater business with a low start-up capital

The people sitting around the fire listened to what Oliver said. They also showed great interest in the Warmda heaters. They wanted Oliver to buy the Warmda diesel heaters for them. Oliver obliged and reserved their address and contact details.

Oliver purchased several sets of heaters from Warmda LLC. One of the guys who ordered lived close to where Oliver lived.  Since the auto repair store near his home was not open due to Covid-19, he asked him for help. Without giving it another thought, Oliver installed the heater himself. Keeping some of the profit the buying experience gave Oliver a good income.

In the days that followed, Oliver’s financial practitioner’s business sense came into play. He decided that this was going to be a good business strategy. He could buy the heaters from Warmda LLC and sell them to some RV owners. He first searched Google for reviews of diesel heaters in China. He found that many people had similar experiences. They found it difficult to find a reliable brand of diesel heaters at a reasonable price. Oliver sensed that this was a business opportunity and he was ready to start the heater business.

First, he asked his friends around him to find out if they had heaters installed in their campers. He asked what type of heaters they had, and what their feedback was on the heaters. After gathering the feedback from his friends, he recommended Warmda heaters to them. And in a single day, Oliver got 3 sets of heater orders.

Two of these three friends had purchased Chinese diesel heaters before and had complaints. The loud noise of the Chinese heaters was unbearable for one friend. Another friend

experienced occasional failures with his heater. Sometimes it worked fine, but sometimes it would have a different fault code. Although he had contacted the distributor many times, the problem persisted.

Another friend who used a propane heater before decided to switch after hearing all the perks. He asked Oliver to order one for him and he was all set to replace the propane heater with a diesel one.

Oliver placed an order for 3 sets of heaters to Warmda LLC. and they sent the heaters to him via UPS within 3 days. This is because the Australian customs do not charge duty on goods under $1000. So after 9 days after sending the request, he received the 3 sets at no extra cost and delivered them to his 3 friends.

Impressed with the service provided by Oliver and with the Warmda heaters the friends were keen to order more. They were also quick to share their experience of Warmda heaters with their friends and recommended Oliver as the main guy. These turn of events made Oliver confident to be in the heater industry as a Warmda heater retailer. So from then on, Oliver entered the heater sales industry.

In the beginning, because he did not have enough capital, Oliver started small. He was receiving orders and deposits from customers which he then gave orders for to Warmda LLC. This required him to make customers wait for a while, which he knew gave a bad experience to the customers.

After a period of piling up some revenue and having some visibility, the orders were stable. Oliver started to put together his inventory. He would order some extra stock of heaters each time when a customer needed them and was able to receive them first.

He also started to diagnose customer problems. In the case when some minor problem came up, Oliver would learn about heaters. He surfed through Warmda’s YouTube channel and asked Warmda LLC’s engineers for help.  This enabled him to get a timely response to solve the problems encountered by the customers. In the process, he has also accumulated a wealth of experience.

Conclusion 

Oliver now plans to compile the experience he has gained in the past year and put it to practice. With the knowledge, he is soon starting with his website. Here he will sell Warmda diesel heaters to customers throughout Australia via Facebook.

In less than a year Oliver has gone from being an unemployed man affected by the pandemic (With less than AU $3000 in start-up capital) To owning his own office and becoming the owner of a heater sales company. With his efforts.

We are happy to have been able to help Oliver out when the world stopped because of Covid-19. And through him, we were able to connect with more people. Now everyone can experience the quality, and reliability, of our top-rated diesel heaters.