Thread: A Hustler's Guide To Buying And Selling Anything.

I've finally manned up and started the flipping. For some wierd reason I've been moving toward luxury items. The allure keeps snatching me until I can figure out some cheaper higher margin items. Hey, gotta pay the costs to be the boss right?

First one:

Bought a Gold and diamond Movado watch for 900$ off Craigslist. Flawless, but quickly found out the resell value of movado specificially is terrible due to the economy. Long story short I unloaded it on Ebay for 1250. After fees I walked away with about $250. Not bad for a first time. I rolled those profits and I jumped down to a $475 purchase of a lot of 18 luxury handbags (coach, burberry etc.) that were returns to Nordstrom. I have a potential profit of up to $2500 of those. I hope to net at least $1000 for a profit of ~$500.

Really good stuff. Sounds like I should get into the hustling game

Originally Posted by The Spark

I've finally manned up and started the flipping. For some wierd reason I've been moving toward luxury items. The allure keeps snatching me until I can figure out some cheaper higher margin items. Hey, gotta pay the costs to be the boss right?

First one:

Bought a Gold and diamond Movado watch for 900$ off Craigslist. Flawless, but quickly found out the resell value of movado specificially is terrible due to the economy. Long story short I unloaded it on Ebay for 1250. After fees I walked away with about $250. Not bad for a first time. I rolled those profits and I jumped down to a $475 purchase of a lot of 18 luxury handbags (coach, burberry etc.) that were returns to Nordstrom. I have a potential profit of up to $2500 of those. I hope to net at least $1000 for a profit of ~$500.

$475 for 18 luxury handbags = $26. something each handbags when this good deals comes out you should think about it ... why are they so cheap ? My first relaxe would be ... copy? China replica?

I used to buy a lot of this stuff on internet from China wholesaler when I was 16 years old ... it brought me troubles ...

Very cool hustla!

As far as I'm concerned any entrepreneur who isn't corporate is a hustler.

The source is direct customer returns and shelf pulls. Many have either small stitching mistakes or perhaps a small smudge that makes them lightly used. I know my source. This is the first time ill be doing thus and I believe it may take me sometime to unload but in prepared as I below profit is inevitable.

These more expensive items are driving me nuts. Receiving 1 legitimate reply for every 100 bogus attempted 'just ship here' paypal scammers. Sending me texts at 4 in the morning because they are in some far away country in a completely different time zone.

In the ad(s) I make it very clear that these are in person cash only deals, and to not waste my time by contacting me if they aren't in the area... and they keep replying anyway (although at a lesser frequency, some of them can actually read I guess)

Yesterday got some jerk wanting me to send something to 'The United State' where his wife is, or some bs. Which of the 50 states in the united one? lol it's almost unnerving.

I'm going to be paying that extra money to get them all listed on a more legitimate website (ebay, amazon, etc) and then creating my own. I'm going to probably use flat rate stores (if they still exist). I want to focus on higher dollar amount items with good profit margins (more room to negotiate when buying and selling).

At that point the only things I would offer on CL would be things that are too big to be 'shipped to Ghana, or Botswana, or Nigeria, or China etc'. Like cars for instance.

Hey Ryan, are you TYPING out your listings on craigslist or are you using an IMAGE that describes the listing?

One thing I've tried in the past that greatly reduces the amount of spam that the bots pick up is typing up my ad in Microsoft Word (listing your phone number, description, etc) then taking a SCREEN PRINT of the Word document and uploading it to craigslist. There's a way to put much larger images than just the 4 that they offer, I can't remember how off the top of my head how though, just google it. And if I recall correctly, you have to put a tiny bit of text in the ad for CL to accept it, but most of everything the customer needs to know will be listed on the image / screen print.

Hopefully trying that will eliminate any more 4 AM text messages.

hustlin in th streets makes way more bank but i choose to hustle the same way you do

Wow... Thanks for this thread Ryan. I've just started doing same thing in my area :P Hope you'll achieve your goal.

Originally Posted by kwerner

Hey Ryan, are you TYPING out your listings on craigslist or are you using an IMAGE that describes the listing?

One thing I've tried in the past that greatly reduces the amount of spam that the bots pick up is typing up my ad in Microsoft Word (listing your phone number, description, etc) then taking a SCREEN PRINT of the Word document and uploading it to craigslist. There's a way to put much larger images than just the 4 that they offer, I can't remember how off the top of my head how though, just google it. And if I recall correctly, you have to put a tiny bit of text in the ad for CL to accept it, but most of everything the customer needs to know will be listed on the image / screen print.

Hopefully trying that will eliminate any more 4 AM text messages.

You can do the ""img src="" code still I believe. Although my posts are starting to get flagged.

go to imageshack.com








then under the picture put the keywords, your finished ad should look like this...




2003 bmw m3 automatic 325i 330 3 series coupe

You can post HTML in craigslist ads, therefore, you can post images that call from another site. I have done this in my craigslist ads.

I passed (or past?) $7,000 now, mostly inventory (lot purchases) with around a grand in cash.

I started a new job today. I basically clean dishes, scrub toilets and mop floors (if you're reading this Russ, it's a b&b haha). Not the most glamorous or alluring, and I don't stay up at night dreaming about how awesome tomorrow will be on the job. Chose it because it allows me to make my own hours (and to maybe take on a second job). But I'll clean 10,000 toilets if it gets me closer to my goals (and I probably will at the rate I'm having to clean 'em) and if you can't say the same, why are you here?

I get up in the morning before the sun rises, return emails/calls, then go to work, then get off work and take more emails/calls, schedule meetup times, meet people to either buy or sell items, then run home to eat, then take an hour long train ride to get my ass kicked at the gym (wrestling class) for 2 hours, then take the train back home for another hour. Get home by the time most people in the city are sleeping, eat, answer more call/emails. Sleep. And then repeat next day.

You know, I used to say 'I really want to succeed', and yet I never put the effort in. I was kidding myself. Most people (even on this forum) will never accomplish their goals. You have to be willing to sacrifice, to work hard, etc, etc, etc. You're kidding yourself if you think this just happens overnight.

A couple of months ago I had $1.25 in my bank account, weighed less than my dog (he's a big dog...but still I was skinny), did nothing, had no friends, was intimidated by everyone.

Now I'm 70% of the way to my first financial goal (and to a 5 figure net worth... not much but at 19 I'll take it), I have a six pack (ain't talking about beer), have some amazingly awesome friends, I look like I could kill you (in the mma, wrestling sense of the word), and nothing intimidates me except my own potential.

So here it is, if you want something, it's simply a matter of figuring out what you want, how to get it (google knows all) and then quit making retarded excuses and get off the couch and make it happen. It's simple, but not easy. Forget the motivational rah-rah nonsense. If you need external influences to keep you motivated, you've already lost. You have to have that hunger....lol, the irony is that I'm about to quote motivational speaker Les Brown.... 'You gotta be hungryyyyyy!'

Keep hustling.

That's all.

Hey Ryan, do you have any opinion on the ideal/optimum cash to inventory ratio? Would there be a way to measure sales velocity at different ratios? Great work!

Originally Posted by Rickson9

Hey Ryan, do you have any opinion on the ideal/optimum cash to inventory ratio? Would there be a way to measure sales velocity at different ratios? Great work!

I don't have any set rules on that. Say I have $2K in cash and I have an opportunity to buy a wholesale/below wholesale lot of 190 Green Lizards (lol) for $10 each and they retail for $50 (That's pretty routine for items when I buy a lot... 5x or more retail value than what I paid).

In a situation like that, I'd buy them in a second because my $900 investment has the potential to become $9,500 just like that... not to mention I have a lot of room to sell lower and still cash in big.

I'm not buying inexpensive lots like that anymore but it's an easy example of what I've done so far.

So, I always like to have some cash but won't hesitate to use most if not all of it on a big deal.

To be honest, I have no idea what your second question means. Although I think the question can't be answered since I don't keep a certain ratio of cash to inventory in the first place... so there's no way to measure.

Transitioning to the next faze of my plan. I'll still be doing some hustling like this, but I've figured out a way to outsource most of the work and increase profits (as a $ value). Already planning ahead for the $100k mark (Won't be from what I'm doing in this thread though)

I'm like you in the sense that I'm more of an investor than an entrepreneur. My road to wealth will involve simple businesses/models that work and have worked for a 100 years in most cases. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel or come out with my own products/services. And eventually I'm just going to invest in startups and what not... but it ain't going to be my startup.

There's no unique product, service or invention in my future. I'm just going to do what successful people have always done, and either do it equally well, or hopefully better than they have.

how many hours is yuour new job a day? is the hourly wage worth it?

i delivered pizza at one point and was asveraging about $15 after gas. I'm still selling stuff on amazon and ebay.

Originally Posted by RyanDrake

I passed (or past?) $7,000 now, mostly inventory (lot purchases) with around a grand in cash.

I started a new job today. I basically clean dishes, scrub toilets and mop floors (if you're reading this Russ, it's a b&b haha). Not the most glamorous or alluring, and I don't stay up at night dreaming about how awesome tomorrow will be on the job. Chose it because it allows me to make my own hours (and to maybe take on a second job). But I'll clean 10,000 toilets if it gets me closer to my goals (and I probably will at the rate I'm having to clean 'em) and if you can't say the same, why are you here?

I get up in the morning before the sun rises, return emails/calls, then go to work, then get off work and take more emails/calls, schedule meetup times, meet people to either buy or sell items, then run home to eat, then take an hour long train ride to get my ass kicked at the gym (wrestling class) for 2 hours, then take the train back home for another hour. Get home by the time most people in the city are sleeping, eat, answer more call/emails. Sleep. And then repeat next day.

You know, I used to say 'I really want to succeed', and yet I never put the effort in. I was kidding myself. Most people (even on this forum) will never accomplish their goals. You have to be willing to sacrifice, to work hard, etc, etc, etc. You're kidding yourself if you think this just happens overnight.

A couple of months ago I had $1.25 in my bank account, weighed less than my dog (he's a big dog...but still I was skinny), did nothing, had no friends, was intimidated by everyone.

Now I'm 70% of the way to my first financial goal (and to a 5 figure net worth... not much but at 19 I'll take it), I have a six pack (ain't talking about beer), have some amazingly awesome friends, I look like I could kill you (in the mma, wrestling sense of the word), and nothing intimidates me except my own potential.

So here it is, if you want something, it's simply a matter of figuring out what you want, how to get it (google knows all) and then quit making retarded excuses and get off the couch and make it happen. It's simple, but not easy. Forget the motivational rah-rah nonsense. If you need external influences to keep you motivated, you've already lost. You have to have that hunger....lol, the irony is that I'm about to quote motivational speaker Les Brown.... 'You gotta be hungryyyyyy!'

Keep hustling.

That's all.

here is a decent hustle from last year:

super mario all-stars was rereleased around Dec 2010. I sold some pre-orders on Amazon, at the time amazon had sold out of their preorders. The preorders from amazon were going for $29.99, but after amazon sold out, i was able to sell a bunch of them at $70 to 90 depending on competition. I think I cleared at least $1000 in profit just from mario. Thanks Shigeru Miyamoto!