Hey Diggy,
Good to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive at the end of high school! Don’t let that fade. The guys above have good points, but there’s a niche for everything and a balance between what you buy your raw goods at and what you sell the final product for, that’s profit.
You’re question is how to make more profit from kit guitars, and now I haven’t investigated it myself, but it sounds like your a dude with a bit of time and an appetite to mitigate some risk...
My thoughts on the above comments seem to say that there’s a personal preference associated with components that don’t result in profit at the end of the day right. The hardest part about kits is the pre and finishing of the body and neck... that’s where your time (and the cost of that time) goes.
Maybe it’s worth testing if there’s a niche for beautifully finished bodies and necks that people can simply bolt their own components onto. Maybe you’d get $350 for that instead of the $400 max for something loaded with upgraded parts and you’d save a bunch of money on your buying side.
Everything you do will start with a max value that you can sell it at, the market chooses that. You can choose how much you spend on buying the materials, and the rest of your profit champ.
Anyone else have a thought on that approach?