A Hustler's Guide To Buying And Selling Anything (Part 1)

[RBefort]

what has everyone flipped this month?

I had a great streak with some ipad air's recently, but since the price has dropped based upon the newest model being released soon, I've hit a lull with availability/opportunistic price. my most consistent flips have been some galaxy s4's. still some value there on ebay, great bargaining positioning for a flip since the S5 has been out for a while now. I prefer not to do progress posts because this is richkid's thread, but I've had a pretty average month.

First month flipping for me...see my posts above. Yesterday i picked up a ps4 plus game, 20 xbox360 games, and a textbook. Other day i picked up an ultimate booms speaker, 64gb ipod touch, and a brand new ipad4. Have about 700ish in inventory.

I agree with you on air. I did one flio but seems like ppl are asking way too much for them in order to flip. I say new one came out and this price reduced, but they dont care. They paid 500 two months ago so they arent going to sell for 300 or less. I havent utilized cl to resell iems much, as i found success with amazon selling stuff quickly. However, i lose tons with fees and shipping. Doubled my money so far with one week of selling ($300ish profits). Havent found the niche and still learning dos and donts!

 

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[smartman]

use an amazon fee calculator when negotiating a price so you know what your possible profit can be. I don't ever "lose" on fees, because I calculate those out when i'm making my offer.

there can be some nice price disparity with the cellular models of the ipad air still. those go for more, but you have to do your work on them like you would a cell phone, check esn, blacklisted, etc

 

[SBS.95]

Going in person is how you get the best deals. You can cut the price by more than half in some cases.

I might be alone in this, but I disagree with lowballing on the spot. Reasons:

• I've had people try to do it with me, and it pisses me off. The answer is always "We agreed on a price already, you can pay it or I'm leaving." I expect people to respect my time, so I try to respect others peoples time.
• I want to know I'm making money before I leave the house. Driving 15 minutes, having my offer refused, and then driving 15 minutes home empty-handed, is not something I'm interested in doing.
• It's way easier for me to send out 20 lowball offers through email (literally just copy+paste an email and insert my offer $#)

 

[Shades]

I might be alone in this, but I disagree with lowballing on the spot. Reasons:

• I've had people try to do it with me, and it pisses me off. The answer is always "We agreed on a price already, you can pay it or I'm leaving." I expect people to respect my time, so I try to respect others peoples time.
• I want to know I'm making money before I leave the house. Driving 15 minutes, having my offer refused, and then driving 15 minutes home empty-handed, is not something I'm interested in doing.
• It's way easier for me to send out 20 lowball offers through email (literally just copy+paste an email and insert my offer $#)

Yea going back on a already agreed upon price is bad business IMO. Its one thing if the product is way different then the pictures and description indicated, but doing it just to do it isnt right.

 

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[GuestUser140]

First month flipping for me...see my posts above. Yesterday i picked up a ps4 plus game, 20 xbox360 games, and a textbook. Other day i picked up an ultimate booms speaker, 64gb ipod touch, and a brand new ipad4. Have about 700ish in inventory.

I agree with you on air. I did one flio but seems like ppl are asking way too much for them in order to flip. I say new one came out and this price reduced, but they dont care. They paid 500 two months ago so they arent going to sell for 300 or less. I havent utilized cl to resell iems much, as i found success with amazon selling stuff quickly. However, i lose tons with fees and shipping. Doubled my money so far with one week of selling ($300ish profits). Havent found the niche and still learning dos and donts!

Was reading this and the "-ish" profits / inventory sound very familiar! The good news is that if you keep doing this and keep buying more you'll be at 40k-ish inventory $3k-ish profit.

 

[RBefort]

Was reading this and the "-ish" profits / inventory sound very familiar! The good news is that if you keep doing this and keep buying more you'll be at 40k-ish inventory $3k-ish profit.

Haha I have a spreadsheet that tracks everything. That $700 was actually only from 5 products lol Just keep on reinvesting.

I must suck with CL advertising, or don't give it enough time. How long do you post on CL/FB before posting on Amazon/Ebay? I get too antsy after 1-2 days on CL and throw on Amazon...sell the product in 3-4 hours there. The exposure is just incredible. That would probably change if I took quick profits and really resold at lower price, but hard to do if you don't get a ridiculous steal already.

 

[RBefort]

So annoying getting flagged on CL...some little twerp with nothing better to do flags all 4 of my ads for one product that I have over 4 markets. I usually only waste time flagging when I know it isn't a real person; i.e. 2k for a 2009 car worth 20k saying to email them at xxx@gmail.com. Someone also invaded my market of posting a WTB ad for ipods/ipads/etc. Grrrrrrrrr

 

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[SBS.95]

Haha I have a spreadsheet that tracks everything. That $700 was actually only from 5 products lol Just keep on reinvesting.

I must suck with CL advertising, or don't give it enough time. How long do you post on CL/FB before posting on Amazon/Ebay? I get too antsy after 1-2 days on CL and throw on Amazon...sell the product in 3-4 hours there. The exposure is just incredible. That would probably change if I took quick profits and really resold at lower price, but hard to do if you don't get a ridiculous steal already.

I'm the same way. A few days on CL, then it's time to put it online to the masses. Even if I'm paying fees, I'm getting money back that can go into more inventory.

Maybe if you live in a big city CL exposure works better. I remember in the early pages of this thread, @RichKid would talk about doing 3-4 deals a day. Right now I have probably 15 items or so listed on CL and I get MAYBE 1-2 emails a day, most of which turn into nothing with the person never laying out a time to meet or just stopping communication randomly. Just not a very good market around here. Flip side to that is if other people aren't getting as much attention to their ads, maybe more accept my offers.

 

[RBefort]

I'm the same way. A few days on CL, then it's time to put it online to the masses. Even if I'm paying fees, I'm getting money back that can go into more inventory.

Maybe if you live in a big city CL exposure works better. I remember in the early pages of this thread, @RichKid would talk about doing 3-4 deals a day. Right now I have probably 15 items or so listed on CL and I get MAYBE 1-2 emails a day, most of which turn into nothing with the person never laying out a time to meet or just stopping communication randomly. Just not a very good market around here. Flip side to that is if other people aren't getting as much attention to their ads, maybe more accept my offers.

Agree...this is also why I go back to ads a couple weeks older or more and inquire again or remind them of my offer if I recognize the ad. I try to tell people upfront that the market around here sucks for selling and they won't get a ton more offers, but they want to find out for themselves Not to mention, 95% of them don't even go back to re-list the ad when it expires, update the ad so it goes to the top, etc.

 

[P3HSB]

Had a small victory last night. Here is how the deal went down.

Process
The Search: Spent 1-2 weeks constantly searching for products and making offers. Used @Vigilante strategy. "Make 20 ridiculous offers, and see what you can get". Guess what, I actually found a diamond! (Difficulty 10/10 hardest part)
Item: Found a vintage Univega road bike for $80 (Ebay price, $200 and up)
Strategy: For this deal, I utilized @MichaelGrey and @adamhenry strategy "Aka: it's easier to make £50 on a £300 smartphone." So instead of setting my price at $200+, I set the price at $140. I also utilized the pre-selling tactic. Before purchasing the bike, I took the sellers picture and made advertisements to confirm demand for the bike before putting down real money. (felt risky to take other people's pics and use, fortunately it only lasted 1 day)
Advertisement: Posted a total of 6 ads. 5 Billboard ads at my school and 1 Craigslist ad. For my ad copy, I used keywords like "need gone asap, moving out, no room to park bike etc"
Messages: Received 0 offers from the 5 Billboard ads. Received 5 offers from the Craigslist ad within 10 minutes of listing. BINGO!
Picking up the Item: was a 20 mile trip. It was on the way to where I was already heading so it was a hassle free commute.
Getting the item ready: I wiped the bike clean. It took approximately 20 minutes. Had oil under my fingernails but it was worth it. Wanted to WOW and satisfy the buyer!
The meetup: Got home around 9pm at night and called the buyer from Craigslist. We ended up meeting in front of a local Supermarket near my house. Used @Mike Kavanagh advice about meeting in public in front of cameras. It was late at night, so this was a must!
Success: We exchange goods, shook each others hands and both had a smile on our faces.
Duration: 2 days total to complete the transaction. Day 1 was putting up ads and Day 2 was picking up the bike and selling it.
The Math: Bought the bike for $80. Sold it for $140. Profit: $60.00
Shout-out to @Vigilante, @MichaelGrey, @adamhenry, @Mike Kavanagh, for the helpful tips/advice and motivation.

And here is the picture of the bike!

(Disclaimer: what has worked for me might not necessarily work for you. I am just sharing my experience)

 

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[adamhenry]

@P3HSB

Awesome. I love how systematic you were.

A couple take aways you may already have figured out :

1. The billboard ads didn't generate interest. For your next flip you can skip them, saving time. You can always try them again if you have trouble moving an item.

2. Your first experiment worked. Therefore you know that this kind of bike will sell for at least $140 - a vintage road bike (granted that one has a couple updated components). So in your area, vintage road bikes = $140+ for a quick sale.

3. You also have a feel for how the response rate from Craigslist relates to a completed sale. That is, five responses within 10 minutes of listing = same day sale. So if you test another item, and get a similar number of responses in a similar period of time, you can consider a same day sale likely. I'm testing items this way with some fake ads - eg. Canon T3 @ $275 = crickets. Sea kayak @ $350 = 4 responses within 30 min (bingo!).

 

[Vigilante]

Had a small victory last night. Here is how the deal went down.

Process
The Search: Spent 1-2 weeks constantly searching for products and making offers. Used @Vigilante strategy. "Make 20 ridiculous offers, and see what you can get". Guess what, I actually found a diamond! (Difficulty 10/10 hardest part)
Item: Found a vintage Univega road bike for $80 (Ebay price, $200 and up)
Strategy: For this deal, I utilized @MichaelGrey and @adamhenry strategy "Aka: it's easier to make £50 on a £300 smartphone." So instead of setting my price at $200+, I set the price at $140. I also utilized the pre-selling tactic. Before purchasing the bike, I took the sellers picture and made advertisements to confirm demand for the bike before putting down real money. (felt risky to take other people's pics and use, fortunately it only lasted 1 day)
Advertisement: Posted a total of 6 ads. 5 Billboard ads at my school and 1 Craigslist ad. For my ad copy, I used keywords like "need gone asap, moving out, no room to park bike etc"
Messages: Received 0 offers from the 5 Billboard ads. Received 5 offers from the Craigslist ad within 10 minutes of listing. BINGO!
Picking up the Item: was a 20 mile trip. It was on the way to where I was already heading so it was a hassle free commute.
Getting the item ready: I wiped the bike clean. It took approximately 20 minutes. Had oil under my fingernails but it was worth it. Wanted to WOW and satisfy the buyer!
The meetup: Got home around 9pm at night and called the buyer from Craigslist. We ended up meeting in front of a local Supermarket near my house. Used @Mike Kavanagh advice about meeting in public in front of cameras. It was late at night, so this was a must!
Success: We exchange goods, shook each others hands and both had a smile on our faces.
Duration: 2 days total to complete the transaction. Day 1 was putting up ads and Day 2 was picking up the bike and selling it.
The Math: Bought the bike for $80. Sold it for $140. Profit: $60.00
Shout-out to @Vigilante, @MichaelGrey, @adamhenry, @Mike Kavanagh, for the helpful tips/advice and motivation.

And here is the picture of the bike!

(Disclaimer: what has worked for me might not necessarily work for you. I am just sharing my experience)

Rinse.

Repeat.

HELL YES.

Keep going.

What can you turn your new profit into?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

WTF? 27 pages and no GOLD?

 

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[DeletedUser394]

I BIRTHED A GOLD THREAD OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.



Sounds weird, but haha this is cool.

Keep it going ladies and gents! Make them $$$$.

 

[GuestUser140]

Congrats

Had a small victory last night. Here is how the deal went down.

Process
The Search: Spent 1-2 weeks constantly searching for products and making offers. Used @Vigilante strategy. "Make 20 ridiculous offers, and see what you can get". Guess what, I actually found a diamond! (Difficulty 10/10 hardest part)
Item: Found a vintage Univega road bike for $80 (Ebay price, $200 and up)
Strategy: For this deal, I utilized @MichaelGrey and @adamhenry strategy "Aka: it's easier to make £50 on a £300 smartphone." So instead of setting my price at $200+, I set the price at $140. I also utilized the pre-selling tactic. Before purchasing the bike, I took the sellers picture and made advertisements to confirm demand for the bike before putting down real money. (felt risky to take other people's pics and use, fortunately it only lasted 1 day)
Advertisement: Posted a total of 6 ads. 5 Billboard ads at my school and 1 Craigslist ad. For my ad copy, I used keywords like "need gone asap, moving out, no room to park bike etc"
Messages: Received 0 offers from the 5 Billboard ads. Received 5 offers from the Craigslist ad within 10 minutes of listing. BINGO!
Picking up the Item: was a 20 mile trip. It was on the way to where I was already heading so it was a hassle free commute.
Getting the item ready: I wiped the bike clean. It took approximately 20 minutes. Had oil under my fingernails but it was worth it. Wanted to WOW and satisfy the buyer!
The meetup: Got home around 9pm at night and called the buyer from Craigslist. We ended up meeting in front of a local Supermarket near my house. Used @Mike Kavanagh advice about meeting in public in front of cameras. It was late at night, so this was a must!
Success: We exchange goods, shook each others hands and both had a smile on our faces.
Duration: 2 days total to complete the transaction. Day 1 was putting up ads and Day 2 was picking up the bike and selling it.
The Math: Bought the bike for $80. Sold it for $140. Profit: $60.00
Shout-out to @Vigilante, @MichaelGrey, @adamhenry, @Mike Kavanagh, for the helpful tips/advice and motivation.

And here is the picture of the bike!

(Disclaimer: what has worked for me might not necessarily work for you. I am just sharing my experience)

Congrats, the first of many!

Selling quickly builds momentum. You've done one, so you can do 10.

Experiment with pricing. Try selling one at $220 with a little less "must go quickly"-talk, longer description and nice pictures. Just experiment, you might make an extra $80 for doing just that.

 

[PHD]

I have also found that if you get into items when they are in fad it can pay to do a no reserve auction on eBay.

A couple of years ago when super Nintendo's were hot I could advertise a buy it now for $150 and no one would touch it, no reserve auction would see them going for near $300.

I never saw it as a risk because the evidence (ended eBay auctions) suggested I was going to make money from them as long as I bought at the right price.

 

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[Excalibur]

what has everyone flipped this month?

I'm slacking. I did 2 flips this month.

A bagged Dodge Dakota. Picked it up at an auction for $1,416.
Asking $2,800. Settled at $2,200.

Heat shrink tunnel. Got at auction for $59.47. Flipped for $1,000.


Currently sitting on step van # 16 I think it is. Paid $615. Asking $2,500. Will probably get 2k.

Tried to get into a fleet of Toyota Yaris' earlier today, but they went for more than I was comfortable paying.

 

[SBS.95]

I'm slacking. I did 2 flips this month.

A bagged Dodge Dakota. Picked it up at an auction for $1,416.
Asking $2,800. Settled at $2,200.

Heat shrink tunnel. Got at auction for $59.47. Flipped for $1,000.


Currently sitting on step van # 16 I think it is. Paid $615. Asking $2,500. Will probably get 2k.

Tried to get into a fleet of Toyota Yaris' earlier today, but they went for more than I was comfortable paying.

Wow- great margins. Let's see pics of that Dakota, should give everyone a good laugh.

Do you need a dealer license where you live? My friend and I have a little experience with flipping cars, but god damn, it seems the biggest barrier to entry in doing it more often is the legality of the whole thing.

 

[P3HSB]

Rinse.

Repeat.

HELL YES.

Keep going.

What can you turn your new profit into?

Will use the new profit to buy everyone on here a beer!

In all seriousness, will probably reinvest the profits back into the hustle and build an inventory similar to how @MichaelGrey, @RichKid and other folks on here. As of right now, my brain needs more evidence that I can pull this off consistently. Going to buy and sell a 100 more times.

 

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[smartman]

@Excalibur your hustle sounds sick! fleet of yaris'(yari?) would sell pretty well on craigslist. decent resale value on those bad boys. I was looking to pick one up in the last year, couldn't find one at a nice price.

Sold an electronic drum kit today. for 1000. bought it for 800 in january. played it a bunch this year, then finally got rid of it. I had to relist it on craigslist for maybe 4 months. I'm in a position where I can sit on things to maximize profit, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Bought the remaining inventory of an atv/motorcycle shop this month. No clue what the possible profits will be from it. I'm hoping to make a few grand

 

[GuestUser112]

I've been clogging up the other thread, so I'm going to start my own. In here, you will find tips, tactics, and strategies as well as my own personal successes and failures (akin to a diary, but far more interesting) in learning the game of 'hustling'.

For many people (and probably the origin of the word corroborates this), 'hustling' has a negative connotation. I don't live in the ghetto (okay..well I kind of do haha), but in my opinion hustling is an awesome and empowering word. To me it simply means that you can make money in almost anything you do. (provided legal).

Back to topic: The greatest thing about this, is that you can make money ANYWHERE, selling almost ANYTHING. There may not be a market for the stuff in your particular area... but guess what, there is an entire world at your fingertips when you buy and sell online.

I see no reason not to buy stuff in your local area, if only to resell online to some guy 1,000 miles away. It's all about the pursuit of the $$$.

I'm far from an expert yet, but if in one week I can purchase over $1,000 worth of stuff with no initial investment, there's really no reason you can't either (unless you're an idiot... which is entirely possible :groove.

$1,000 for a few hours of work (6 hours maximum I'd say it took me) sounds good to me. In fact I only left my house ONCE for business purposes, even though I put together at least a dozen deals. What I'm getting at is... this is just a start.

I'm going to build this up to great heights, eventually clearing $1,000+ on every deal. But everyone has to start somewhere. I'm taking you along for the ride, and you're welcome to emulate any strategies and tips you'd like.

There's plenty of money in the world to go around!

-Ryan

You were drunk when you wrote this weren't you

 

[DeletedUser394]

You were drunk when you wrote this weren't you

What?

I'm a teetotaler. So no.

What a pointless response on your part.

 

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[GuestUser112]

What?

I'm a teetotaler. So no.

What a pointless response on your part.

Haha. I was drunk when I read it. My bad compadre

 

[The Grind]

Never flipped before, started looking on ebay, I found a widget for 80, its a bid. 2 days left on bid. They sell for over 200. And the item condition says "seller refurbished". Do items with this margin exist? What should I be checking to see if its legit? It is a bidding item. How can I be sure to win the bid?

 

[MakeItHappen]

Never flipped before, started looking on ebay, I found a widget for 80, its a bid. 2 days left on bid. They sell for over 200. And the item condition says "seller refurbished". Do items with this margin exist? What should I be checking to see if its legit? It is a bidding item. How can I be sure to win the bid?

Most bidders will start bidding in the last minutes or seconds. People who try to bid low to make money via reselling use special software that will make the bid in the last second so that other bidders don't have time to manually bid again.
So the chance of the price increasing to its real market value is very high.

If you try to bid to resell for a profit you have to bid on a lot of auctions and can expect to win 5% to 10% of your actions as long as you don't bid very low.

 

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[MakeItHappen]

BTW I made some money a couple month ago buying used books on eBay and reselling them via Amazon.
The hourly wasn't really all that great, but if you would get a software coded that would check all the eBay lisitings and compare them with Amazon prices and bid automatically on eBay. Than you would ship the books straight to Amazon FBA and let them sell and ship the books for you.

I guess you could make some decent cash with very little time invested.

 

[RBefort]

Do you ever raise prices if you are doing a fixed price and see a bunch of watchers? Granted, I only have 8 watchers and ran a 5 or 7 day fixed price ad on ebay for an ipod touch...already got offered $27 lower than my fixed price, so I was thinking I should have made it higher. Seems like doing anything for a long period of time on Ebay is just wasting time. People just want to wait until the last second (especially on auctions), but not sure the point on fixed price, unless you're hoping to just lowball at last second when you see the seller hasn't sold. If that's the case, I'd rather just run a 1 or 3 day fixed price ad...I am too scared to do auctions

 

[PHD]

Do you ever raise prices if you are doing a fixed price and see a bunch of watchers? Granted, I only have 8 watchers and ran a 5 or 7 day fixed price ad on ebay for an ipod touch...already got offered $27 lower than my fixed price, so I was thinking I should have made it higher.

It depends on what margins you are aiming for and how desperate your are to sell.

If an item ends with lots of watchers and no sale it often helps to relist the item and lower the price slightly, eBay will send a message to people who were watching that it has been relisted and the lower price usually convinces one of them to jump on it.

 

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[RBefort]

It depends on what margins you are aiming for and how desperate your are to sell.

If an item ends with lots of watchers and no sale it often helps to relist the item and lower the price slightly, eBay will send a message to people who were watching that it has been relisted and the lower price usually convinces one of them to jump on it.

I am opposite. Had price at 235 OBO and got a lot of offers for 200 with one pending at 220 after negotiating. Since he is locked in for 48 hours, I just raised price to 250 OBO to encourage higher offers than 220. Yay or nay thinking/mentality? Don't want my watchers to disappear, but hopefully they see discount when they offer 230 and go for it

 

[PHD]

Yay or nay thinking/mentality? Don't want my watchers to disappear, but hopefully they see discount when they offer 230 and go for it

Trial and error my friend. If it is a one off item just bump it up in price and wait till you get the price you want.

If you are trying to move product you may have to meet the market.