Bicycle hustling for fun and profit

[adamhenry]

Although I'm going to use this for progress starting July 1st, here's my most recent sale (6/27): I'd purchased two vintage Peugeot road bikes for $85 for the pair. Posted one of the two as-is (needed tune up and tires) for $100. Got around a dozen people inquiring, including two people offering $125. Had already made an appointment with someone before I got the $125 offers but (lucky for me) he passed on the bike, so I sold it to someone else the same night for $125. Net profit $82.50 for roughly an hour of my time (picking up bike, listing bike, selling bike).

Let me know if these stories are of interest to anyone!

Cheers,
Adam

 

[adamhenry]

Hi folks,

New to the forum. Been flipping bicycle and other items on craigslist for about a year and a half, as well as selling used books on Amazon. Both very part-time. Made $3k with bikes plus $3k with Amazon in first year.

I'm sure this has been done and discussed before, but thought I might track my progress publicly here for motivational purposes, plus see if I can answer any questions along the way.

So current inventory as of July 1st is 6 vintage 10 speed road bikes with an average purchase price of $65, four other mountain bikes, and some bike parts.

Will post sales progress here, let me know if interested, if you have questions, or if I should go away. [emoji4]

Cheers,
Adam

 

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[adamhenry]

Glad to hear a couple of people are interested! BTW, do I have this "progress" post in the right forum? If not, how do I move it or get it moved? #noobfail

In the meantime, I'll keep going with one of my favorite flips:

Saw Kona full suspension mountain bike posted for $150 "for parts". Went to check it out, and aside from flat tires and having been repainted, there was nothing wrong with it. Asked him what the least he would take for it would be, he said $100, I said $80, and he agreed. I would've bought it for $150, but some people are very easy to negotiate with. Put air in the tires, relisted it at $150, and sold it the next day. So I made $70 without relisting the bike at a higher price than it was originally listed - my profit was essentially from the guy's lack of negotiating skills.

 

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[adamhenry]

This morning, while walking the dog, I peeked in a dumpster and found:

Drill and flashlight are like new, but no batteries or charger. However, turns out they match the batteries for my cordless weedwhacker, and both are tested and working fine.

I just bought a similar cordless drill, so if I can find the receipt and return it, then I'll get back the $50 I spent on it, making this a $50 find.

The ratchet set is cheap junk, but seems to have a lot of tiny sockets, which could be handy.

 

[Rickson9]

I love hustle threads. I never did this full time like some other individuals, but I always thought that it was a very clever way to make money. I also find it fun to browse the various marketplaces to see what people are selling. The attached image is one that I did last week.

A guy was selling $500 worth of Starbucks gift cards for $250. We met at Starbucks. I verified the value and paid him. I then asked if he had any more. He said he had a single $100 card left. I asked if he wanted to sell it. After some thought, he said 'sure'. I gave him another $50 and took the $100 Starbucks card.

Honestly, I think he didn't sell as fast as he could because his post was terrible. His post was listed on Jun 27, 2014 and by all rights it should have been gone an hour later.

In short, I paid $300 for $600 worth of Starbucks gift cards. I then re-posted and sold the entire bunch for $500. I took the $200 and ate a lot on Canada Day (Jul 1st). Sorry, I'm Canadian. Otherwise I would have spent it on July 4th

PS: A week earlier I also bought a $250 Tim Hortons gift card for $190 and a $250 Harry Rosen gift card for $200. I just stayed in those respective stores until a customer came around and flipped them for $30 and $20 respectively.

PPS: Keep in mind that I don't do this 'professionally'. I just keep tabs on gift cards (because they're easy for me to value) and I only focus on sellers who happen to live near my home (because the amounts are just not worth it for me to travel to do this).

PPPS: My apologies to the OP for derailing this thread. Hopefully it offers some motivational value to keep going! Good job!

Oh, and if you're still reading this, and you live in Toronto, and you're good at hustling, I would be willing to talk to you to bankroll you for some shits and giggles

 

[Geeko]

If you have a truck there is a surplus of free furniture here. Did my first flip on a lazy boy the other day.
Purchase = $0 (free)
Rehab = needed new lever for reclining. Used a lathe to make a new one out of wood. $0-1
Sold = $150
Profit =$150
Total time working = 20min

Sent from my SGH-S730M using Tapatalk

 

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[ZCP]

Write the ebook. It will take you one weekend. It will make you money while you sleep. Fastlane.

Quit making excuses and do it. You have perfected a process. Now sell / scale the process.

 

[adamhenry]

Trades, like "Barter Kings" are interesting too.

A while ago I posted an old ten speed road bike for trade, without a price. I had purchased the bike for $70, then spent $20 on tires, so $90 initial investment.

Lots of interesting offers, then got an offer of an iPad mini. Traded for the iPad, so put it up for trade.

Got an offer of a Canon Rebel T2i, which I traded for.

So basically I went from a $90 bike (that had I sold for cash I would've sold for about $130), to a $300 iPad, to a $600 camera.

Kept the camera, though I'm sure I could've kept going.

 

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[adamhenry]

Ok, maybe a few minutes now to tell my latest story.

So I had posted the iPhone 4S for trade, and this guy emails me that he wants to trade a Windows phone. Of course, I don't want a Windows phone, nobody does, so I asked what else he had to trade. He emails me a link to his classified ads, has a few things for sale, and I poke through the listings.

He has a brand new air compressor for sale. I look it up, and it appears to have been about $250-$275 new. I could actually use a compressor for a few things, but am also interested in it for resale, so I pitch to him that he should give me the compressor + $50 for the iPhone. I also offer to come get the compressor for that deal.

He writes back that he'll give me the compressor and $60 (?) for the phone. So he's negotiated himself up $10 at this point.

I agree, and the plan is for me to bring it to him after my kids are asleep.

After dinner, I'm resetting the iPhone, when I suddenly realize it's an iPhone 4, not a 4S. The guy that sold it to me has given me an iPhone 4, with a manual for a 4S, and I hadn't been careful enough to double check that it was what he said it was.

So I email compressor dude, and apologize that it's only a 4, not a 4S, and ask if he is still interested.

I almost suggested we just do a straight trade, phone for compressor, but held my tongue.

He writes back that he's still interested, but that he'll give me the compressor and $50, not $60, which was my original offer in the first place.

So I traded a $100 smartwatch for an iPhone 4, which I thought was a 4S, which I then traded for a $250 compressor and $50.

 

[adamhenry]

Still been flipping, just haven't got around to updating this thread, so maybe I'll get back on track in September.

I don't think I'll do the ebook/course thing at the moment - I realized what I need to do is focus on flipping at the moment without getting carried away with too many side projects.

Here's the formula I'm experimenting with now, and while I'm using it with bicycles, I'll give an example using iphones to make it simpler:

1. Take your available cash, and divide by .6
This will give you a figure that you can negotiate down from.

So let's say I've got $180 cash. Divide by .6 and I get $300.

2. Search craigslist in a particular category for items for sale up to $300. Look for items that are priced as either a good deal or at market value.

Let's say I search the cellphone section and see ads for the iPhone 7 with amounts of $300, $275, $325 etc. Therefore $300 is about market value for this phone.

3. Contact all the reasonably priced ads, and offer 60%.

In my example, skip the ad for $325, but the $300 ad gets an offer of $180, the $275 ad gets an offer of $165, etc.

4. Buy one for close to 60%.

So someone might write you back and say they'll take your offer of $180 on the $300 iphone, or they might say they'll take $200 or something.

5. Relist for either market value or under market value.

So let's say you pick up the iphone for $200 - you could relist it at $250 for a quick sale and a nice profit, or, depending on how fast they sell, you might decide to list at $275 or $300.

I'm not sure how much success you'll have with iPhones, but I'm having a lot of success with this with bikes, like maybe 1 in 6 people writing back to either accept my offer or counter offer close to it. The beauty is that you can relist at less than they had listed the item for, and still make a profit.

For example, there was a bike listed at $180 - I offered $110, and he counter offered at $120. Picked it up for
$120.

Market price is around $200, so I've got it relisted at $200. If it doesn't sell through the week, I might relist for the weekend at $175. The bike is in mint condition, so there's no work involved for repair or even cleaning.

It's a very safe risk, because I know that if I needed my money back people would be falling over themselves to give me $120.

I also just sold a comparable bike in worse condition for $160 that I'd listed at $175, and at $175 I had probably a dozen inquiries.

 

[jon.a]

Still been flipping, just haven't got around to updating this thread, so maybe I'll get back on track in September.

I don't think I'll do the ebook/course thing at the moment - I realized what I need to do is focus on flipping at the moment without getting carried away with too many side projects.

Here's the formula I'm experimenting with now, and while I'm using it with bicycles, I'll give an example using iphones to make it simpler:

1. Take your available cash, and divide by .6
This will give you a figure that you can negotiate down from.

So let's say I've got $180 cash. Divide by .6 and I get $300.

2. Search craigslist in a particular category for items for sale up to $300. Look for items that are priced as either a good deal or at market value.

Let's say I search the cellphone section and see ads for the iPhone 7 with amounts of $300, $275, $325 etc. Therefore $300 is about market value for this phone.

3. Contact all the reasonably priced ads, and offer 60%.

In my example, skip the ad for $325, but the $300 ad gets an offer of $180, the $275 ad gets an offer of $165, etc.

4. Buy one for close to 60%.

So someone might write you back and say they'll take your offer of $180 on the $300 iphone, or they might say they'll take $200 or something.

5. Relist for either market value or under market value.

So let's say you pick up the iphone for $200 - you could relist it at $250 for a quick sale and a nice profit, or, depending on how fast they sell, you might decide to list at $275 or $300.

I'm not sure how much success you'll have with iPhones, but I'm having a lot of success with this with bikes, like maybe 1 in 6 people writing back to either accept my offer or counter offer close to it. The beauty is that you can relist at less than they had listed the item for, and still make a profit.

For example, there was a bike listed at $180 - I offered $110, and he counter offered at $120. Picked it up for
$120.

Market price is around $200, so I've got it relisted at $200. If it doesn't sell through the week, I might relist for the weekend at $175. The bike is in mint condition, so there's no work involved for repair or even cleaning.

It's a very safe risk, because I know that if I needed my money back people would be falling over themselves to give me $120.

I also just sold a comparable bike in worse condition for $160 that I'd listed at $175, and at $175 I had probably a dozen inquiries.

Do you know that you just described part of the basics of a house flip?

 

[adamhenry]

How to make $50 with a cellphone photo:

His ad:

My ad:

His was listed at $200. No buyers, so I convinced him to deliver it to me for $150. I wiped off one side of the bike, took the shot with my cellphone, relisted the bike for $200 and sold it within 12 hours.

So my time involvement was a few emails, meeting him, wiping down bike, meeting buyer.

I wiped down the rest of the bike before the buyer arrived

 

[Kyle Tully]

Then it turned into a second income project. I was able to leave my $60k high stress 9-5 for a $30k low stress 9-5, thanks to the supplemental income.

Now it's moving towards a part time 9-5, where I could work a regular 9-5 three days a week and this would supplement it enough.

That's the hook for your info product right there.

This is all most people really want to know, how to make a few hundred extra bucks a month to take the pressure off.

Take detailed notes on exactly what you're doing, set an aggressive goal to get a report written covering your process, then launch it and use the funds from both these activities to start something with much bigger potential.

 

[adamhenry]

Squeezed in a sale before bed last night! So an update on my progress:

July 3 = Sold Peugeot bike $60 - cost $42.50, net $17.50
July 3 = Sold Sekine bike $60 - cost $40, net $20
(Sold two bikes at once for $120)

From a cash flow perspective we add:

July 3rd = +$120 Sold two bikes

July net = +$95

 

[adamhenry]

I have two friends that own their bike shops these days. Started out long time ago, just bike racing. They got jobs at the local bicycle shops, learned the ropes and now own their own. Bicycles are good business any way you want to see it. Everyone buys one, thinks they need one. I've seen a lot of them here in the Netherlands, bike ramps instead of car ramps. It's a beautiful thing really. Good for health, Good for the roads, Good for the guy that sells them. Good for the guy who designs them. Even renting them in tourist areas makes a good profit. Hope you raise the bar in this area.

Thanks Mattie!

My day job is actually working in a bike shop.

I recently left my $60k hotel job for the $14/hr bike shop job, as sort of a transition to doing the reselling business full time.

Each day I learn more about bike repair, plus it gives me access to cheap parts - so that $100 bike shop purchase I mentioned above is me paying off my tab of parts at cost plus 10% (staff discount).

I've found that more important than learning bike repair at work, is learning efficiency - we do a $40 bike tune up in half an hour at work. At home, knowing how to fully tune a bike in half an hour allows me to add a lot of value to a bike in a short amount of time (bike goes from "needs work" to "fully tuned").

In the long run I don't know that I'd want the overhead of a shop - at the moment I'm looking to turn this into a full time, from home, reselling business.

But anything is possible.

 

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[adamhenry]

Ok...These flipping threads annoy me. Especially when they say they've been flipping for over a year.

I accept and applaud the fact that flipping is great to build sales skills and get your feet wet in business in a low risk way - and even have fun doing it.

BUT. This is such a violation of the time commandment from the book that it's not even funny. WHY aren't you investing 1 or 2 hours per evening into a project that could scale your income with less time rather than these 1 at a time deals?

Good point.

Ryan at recraigslist.com flips appliances for a living. Then (or maybe concurrently) he started a blog about flipping on craigslist. Now, he has an online course that he sells for $150, for people interested in starting an appliance flipping business. He recently launched another course on starting a T-shirt business.

A $100 online course seems like a good scalable project. It's surprising when you do the math. For me at least, $100 x 100 people *seems like* it should equal $1000.

But it's $10,000.

Does anyone else have that feeling? I think it's because the $100 price tag for the course seems reasonable (after all, the goal of the course is to have you flipping appliances for $100 profit/appliance). It also seems reasonable to imagine convincing 100 people to buy the course.

So $100 seems like a small amount (I regularly buy bikes for $100 to flip), and 100 people doesn't sound like a whole lot of people.

But $10,000 would be a large amount of money.

I have no idea what Ryan's real numbers are. Heck, if I built a $100 course and 10 people signed up, I'd be very happy with the $1000.

So Ryan's path was:

- flipping
- blog
- online course
- multiple online courses

I'm still in the flipping stage, and yes, have been for a year. I'm not sure if I'll go the same route Ryan did, but I'm working on figuring out my path.

So should I start a blog? Maybe. How would I know if people would want to read what I write? How would I get practice writing?

Maybe by starting a thread with my adventures on a forum.

By the way, sold a bike seat for $10 tonight that I got for free.

So for cash flow, July is at +$105 as of July 3rd.

I'm both very open to suggestions of other paths to wealth, or ideas for next steps. Also happy to answer questions about my journey so far, maybe I can help someone else get started.

Let me know what you think.

 

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[Blhhi]

This is such a violation of the time commandment from the book that it's not even funny. WHY aren't you investing 1 or 2 hours per evening into a project that could scale your income with less time rather than these 1 at a time deals?

This has been discussed in another thread, but the point is some people are starting from almost $0 (or less, if you're in debt). These flipping threads offer concrete advice on how to make something out of basically nothing.

Most people say "Do this, do that, do the other thing, and then you'll make money like me." Other people go so far as to talk about their success, but give no real data. "I make $10k a month reselling on ebay! Just go look something up, buy it, and then sell it!" They don't tell us their name, or show us their profile on ebay, or tell us what they sell. It's all nebulous. They may as well say "Work hard and you will make money."

This guy is saying "This is what I did today. This is how much money I made." I respect this information 100x more.

I've been thinking a lot about this whole subject--reselling, flipping, etc. I really was skeptical of it. I didn't want to go buy a bike for $50 and have it sit there, or sell it for $60 and put 2 bucks in my pocket after shipping. But having this guy's posts pop up in my e-mail all the time have finally spurred me on. I have $20 in the bank. I'm working on an app, but I need money between now and when it's done. I'm going to jump into this.

Thanks @adamhenry.

 

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[adamhenry]

Browsing ads in your area, here is a potential flip:
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/bik/4544637305.html

Could be sold like this one:
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/bik/4553335312.html

No, the two bikes aren't exact matches, but then they're not far off. I'd say the cheap one is probably more attractive too - notice how you can't exactly see the bike, since it's placed in front of other bikes in the photo. This is a case where you might not get $375 for it, but should do better than its asking price.

It's probably closer to this ad:
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/bik/4544659832.html

So with these examples, there's a bike posted for $70, with a crummy photo, that appears to be an equivalent of some other bikes posted for sale in the $300 range.

Keep in mind that the bikes in the $300 range might be priced too high and might never sell, so maybe you'd get $150 for the same bike.

Also keep in mind that $70 is the asking price. Could you get it for $50? Less?

Maybe you go and ask the seller what their lowest price is, and they say they'd be willing to let it go for $50. Well, now the new asking price is $50, and you're going to negotiate it from there, maybe getting it for $40 in the end. You might be able to sell it quick with some nice photos for $100, and pocket an easy $60.

Note that these are just quick guesses based on 3 minutes of browsing ads in your area, but it's an example of the kind of thinking you want to do when looking for flips. Bikes, iPhones, or goats.

 

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[adamhenry]

Ahh Bicycles. Yeah I loved them so much I wanted to buy a bike shop. I think I visited everyone in Eastern North Carolina. I was semi serious racer. Serious about ridding but sucked in races.
I think I was ridding about 250 miles a week when I was stationed in Okinawa. Dear lord some of those hills.
Craigslist lurks a close second to Pawn shops. A lot of gear is stolen. Bikes and Tools being a top contender.
I love when someone posts pictures of Sears craftsman tools and they still have the plastic hangers on them. Seriously?

You will swear you will make a million dollars selling bikes and trying to find the holy grail. The time it takes for you to fix one up and sell for a profit is slim margins. Kind of like traying to sell a used car. lots of tire kickers and people who will waste your time. Don't even try shipping them. It will take you an hour to pack the darn thing up right so that the Gorillas at UPS don't crush it.

I have even built up my own road bikes. 2 Cannondales and a Aluminum Motobecane frame I bought from FleaBay (eBay).
Bought some Campy C-record parts from eBay and made a hybrid using old school Campy parts, Especially the Delta Brakes.
I hadn't built a road bike in over 15 years. It was fun. I should take a picture of it and post it here. I bought a cheap indoor trainer. I can't ride the rollers anymore. I used to ride it for about 15 mins while Game of Thrones was on and my perineum was on fire! Dear lord these racing saddles are hard!

Well, I don't think millions on bicycles alone will happen. Definitely have to be careful with time and margins - My current plan is to try and buy less than $100, quick tune and clean up and sell for $200+.

So far I haven't had trouble with tire kickers - I think this is a pricing issue - if you price too high you will get tire kickers and take longer to sell. Key is to buy very low, then sell at a price where people are still getting a deal, and are in a hurry to buy. I price at a point where I will get multiple inquires, then can cherry pick the guy that says "I want it and will buy it tonight" vs. "I want to come take a look at your bike".

Easy cash, good bootstrapping method. Goal at this point is to use craigslist flipping to free myself up from nine to five career - by increasing net cash each month higher than the last month. Could lead to flipping higher value items (cars? real estate?). At this point my next move will be to drop to for days a week at my day job, as profits from flipping increase, hopefully in a few months.

 

[Amail]

Just to address the "Flipping isn't Fastlane" sentiment, think again. The amounts he's dealing in are small, which is perfect for someone learning to find needs on the fly and how to negotiate. He's spotting opportunities laid out before him and making deals. If he gets it wrong, big deal; he eats $100. If that's a lesson he can apply when he's making six figure deals then it's money well spent.

The guy's building a killer skillset. Never underestimate the power of a dealmaker who knows how to negotiate.

 

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[adamhenry]

Sold three junky mountain bikes for $40, so July = +$545

 

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[adamhenry]

Sold bike basket for $15, so July = +$600.

 

[adamhenry]

Haven't got around to updating my figures for August, but mostly I took a hiatus from bicycle flipping to reevaluate, and also spent some time accumulating, packing and shipping some books for Amazon, as I hadn't done so since May - I'll update my costs for the books sometime soon.

Wanted to get some feedback on an idea - I'm thinking of creating an online video course on bicycle flipping that I'd sell. To get feedback on the course, what I'd do is write up the info in sort of an ebook format, and post a chapter at a time here as I complete it for free in exchange for feedback. Maybe post a link to a pdf of a chapter that Fastlane forum viewers could follow. I'd look to get comments either on the forum or by pm or email or something, that I could then incorporate into the course. The pdfs would essentially be all of the content of the course and you'd get it for free instead of paying for it, the difference from the course would simply be format.

If you'd be interested in getting this kind of content, maybe like this post or comment below or something. Thanks!

 

[adamhenry]

Was listed at $70, I bought at $50. Needed work so I relisted "as is" at $100. Sold for $100 and doubled my money.

 

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[adamhenry]

What's your end goal with this?

I've seen the thread pop up a couple of times and assumed you were looking to bankroll another idea... but just read the first post where you said you've been doing it for 18 months already.

Seems like a long time you could have been building up something with a LOT more potential.

Goal is extraction from my 9-5, in order to be able to work on something else. Basically being able to resell items on craigslist is the fastest way for me to sever the hour/$ link.

While the thread is titled "bicycle hustling", there are of course limits to $/hour - bicycles only go up to a certain $, and I can only hustle so many / hour.

However, this could fork in a number of different ways - can lead to blog, ebook, course, or other informational products - could lead to flipping products with higher ROI eg. vehicles, real estate, businesses.

Also, the 18 months part may be deceiving. It started as a 'beer money fund', and then I realized I could make more than beer money.

Then it turned into a second income project. I was able to leave my $60k high stress 9-5 for a $30k low stress 9-5, thanks to the supplemental income.

Now it's moving towards a part time 9-5, where I could work a regular 9-5 three days a week and this would supplement it enough.

It's also ramping up fast, where the plateaus are shorter. The first year was along the beer money lines, then this winter/spring I was able to drop the $60k, then by July I'd hit another plateau, and now I'm quickly moving towards part-time 9-5.

While it can be an easy way to bankroll another venture, I also feel it's a good First Aid Survival Training Course. What I mean is that I know now that I can experiment with any fastlane project, and if it goes belly up I can use craigslist flipping to generate cash out of nothing.

So step one is the surgical removal of 9-5.
Step two will be fastlane - may be related to step one (info product etc.) or may be unrelated.

 

[adamhenry]

OK so here's a quick summary for the last couple days. My day job at the bike shop seems to be drying up, so wasn't at work the last two days (and won't be today either). So I had to hustle!

Reminder - at my regular day job I make $14/hr x 8 hours = $112.

Sept. 3:
Sold Kona Zing +$50
Sold helmet and pannier rack +$15
Sold Kona Lana'i +$35
Hauled away a TV +$10
Sold bike lock +$5

Total Net Income Sept 3 = $115

Sept 4:

Sold Gary Fisher: +$60
Sold vintage cooler: +$25
Sold bike seat: +$5
Sold Barletta: +$30

Total Net Income Sept 4 = $120

 

[Magik]

This is a great thread. There is a lot to be learned in flipping and hustling. Many people in the salvage game who move thousands of dollars a day in goods started out this way.

I am starting to flip stuff myself. I've always dabbled in it. When I managed a cell phone store I would flip phones from time to time when I came across a steal. I've sold lots of my own stuff via CL and Ebay. Sold a pair of KRK Rokit 5 studio monitors for $180 on Saturday. Bought them in 2004 for around $300.

On Friday, I bought a dusty wood wine rack (holds 24 bottles), a bicycle, and a Technics vintage turntable for $100. Should be at least $100 in profit once I sell all three. The pain is in having money tied up in inventory. The bike and wine rack may take too long to sell. I'm going to focus on things that can be flipped quickly, and I think I've got a few ideas there.

My goal is to make $300 a week, may take me a few months to get there.

 

[ZCP]

@adamhenry start adding a line to each report noting what you did that day for creating your fastlane vehicle. You must do something each day. Could be as simple as 'researched file formats for submitting ebook' or 'wrote the title for chapter 3'. Just make sure you do something each day to begin moving this forward!

 

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[adamhenry]

Sept 14:

Sold Vintage Bridgestone +$90
Sold Pannier rack +$10
Sold another pannier rack +$10
Sold bike seat +$15

Total Net Income Sept 14 = $125

Net profit mtd = $1,095

 

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[adamhenry]

Ah, the bicycle hustle. I used to do this a lot before I got my business off the ground. Seems like an eternity ago, but fond memories.

The deals can be pretty solid, if you are always looking and use the right keywords on Craigslist. I would go to flea markets and bike swaps all the time looking for deals. I typically would rebuild and tune the bike, finding a way to add value to the item. Sometimes I'd sell them on eBay too.
The face to face transactions improved my negotiation skills, and helped me get better at the art of selling.

Focusing on the high end realm could help net you a much higher average profit. Some vintage steel lightweight bikes, if they are in nice shape and photograph well, can sell well on eBay if you are willing to wait for a buyer and package/ship it out. I've been able to nearly double my money on some bikes purchased in the $600-800 range, and even got a 9 fold profit on an extremely rare rusty vintage bike. Just watch out for the 'too good to be true' deals, I have steered clear of those deals that smelled fishy since it's just not worth it.

Bike swaps can be hit or miss, but there is good money in the bike parts too. Keep looking and you may find opportunities to multiply your hustle profits. Like they say, you create your own luck.

In the end though, I found it hard to sustain this in the long term. In my ecommerce business I focus on selling new items, which allows me to scale and ensure a more consistent user expectation of the goods I offer. Rather than expending the effort that goes into photography, writing copy, and listing to sell one individual item, why not continue to sell a dozen or hundreds of the same item?

Good luck with the hustle!

While I do sometimes work on the bikes and add value as Turbo suggests, I generally find this happens when I've made a poor choice for a flip. While repairing a bike may be profitable in a $/hr sense, I get the most enjoyment out of buying and selling. So if a bike needs work I'd rather sell it for less profit and move on to my next flip.

Haven't got into eBay, mostly because I haven't been inspired to learn it. Also don't really think it's necessary, as Craigslist provides a large enough market for me at this point.

I would like to move on to some higher value bikes, I just tend to spot a lot of the lower value flips and spend my bankroll there. Maybe after this next round of selling.