How to Bootstrap 2k Dollars in a Month with Craigslist

[1step]

I just stumbled across an old spreadsheet I used when I was buying and flipping craigslist items. I wanted to share this in case others need to bootstrap to afford their business ventures. Maybe this will help convince someone to step into the fastlane and take a "risk"

I started doing this right before I quit my job a little over a year ago. I wanted to do this for a while to make sure it worked and to know that if worse came to worst I could always fall back on this and pay my bills by flipping products from craigslist. I would still have plenty of time to work on building my business and with minimal time invested I could at least cover my expenses to afford more time to work on my end goals.

I ended up only doing it for a month because it was so simple and I was easily able to meet my financial goals.

I started with $300 and while I had more money than that, I only wanted to spend $300 to replicate a bad situation.

All of my trades were with electronics because 1. Thats what I know best and 2. There are lots of opportunities to take these from a small local market and sell them for more in a large market like amazon or ebay. When you buy locally you likely wont be competing with many people so you can get much better prices.

Start Now - This was all done late 2011 and Early 2012, the holiday season creates a lot of opportunities so now is a great time to start this. People get gifts that they don't want/need or they are selling their old products that got upgraded over the holiday season so theres a lot of movement.

First Buy - My first buy was a dell laptop that could also be used as a tablet, I thought I would be able to flip this quickly but it didnt happen, I had to sit on it for a week or so before someone bought it. I bought it for $300 and thought I would be able to get $400 but ended up only getting $350. If I could do it over I would take the initial $300 and buy 3 $100 items or 2 $150 items so that I could keep the money moving faster instead of sitting on one item and waiting for it to sell.

First Amazon Sale - After selling the previous laptop I bought a nintendo 3DS which I ended up flipping and selling on amazon, this was my first amazon sale ever so I figured out how much shipping would cost and how much amazon fees would kill my profit margin. Amazon fees are 15% for most products so you can count on that. At this point I just used USPS priority flat rate boxes for all my shipping. Price depends on the size of the box but I think this one was around $5.

Apple Products - After that I bought and sold a ton of apple products. Ipods, iPads, and iPhones primarily. iPods and iPads are easy flips, just send a low offer to someone on craigslist and then sell it on amazon. I made about $50 on most of the ipad and ipod flips. Just check on amazon and see what the used products are selling for and keep track of the prices on an excel sheet. I created a cost guide at the time that was just a big excel sheet, for instance iPad2 16gb used wifi $450, iPad 2 16gb (used) wifi3g $525, etc

Big Profit Makers - For me the biggest profit makers were the xbox 360 and PS3 bundles. I would buy the bundles with controllers, games, connects, etc and piece them out on amazon. On the PS3 bundles i bought I made about $150-200 on each buy. On the xBox 360 I got $100-$150 profit for each bundle. Obviously listing the extra items took more time than normal but it was well worth it in the end. The systems are a bit heavier so I def recommend using flat rate shipping, I think they fit perfect in the largest of the flat rate boxes which are about $12 for shipping I believe.

Cell Phones - Buying phones are pretty risky because sometimes they are stolen or have unpaid bills which makes it harder to be able to use them. I did a couple of cell phone buys but they almost always lead to more trouble than it was worth. I honestly cant remember all the details so do research before you buy phones. I believe ATT are the best to buy because they have sim cards.

Clothes - I bought on large bundle of clothes. It had a ton of good stuff in it with tags and I thought I could make money on them easily but it was a pain. I ended up with 20 garbage bags of them. Clothes just arent my thing, I knew nothing about them and didnt want to take pictures of every item so I just ended up donating them to goodwill. I bought the bundle for $100 and ended up donating them and writing it off on my taxes which made it worth a lot more to me.

Google Voice - I always used google voice to communicate with the people on craigslist. I didnt want my real phone number out there so I got a new one with google voice and transferred the calls to my cell phone.

Big Finish - As previously noted the start was slow because of my tight requirements with how much startup capital I would use. Once I got money though the last week was where I made the most of my profit. I ended up making $1200 the last week of the month. Once I got the cash I was able to hold 5-10 items at a time and always be making a deal.

Safety - I met at night a few times but I only met in well light places that were busy (walmart, grocery stores, 24 hour places) I didn't go to anyones house and I never would. Always keep your safety in mind.

Convenience - Unless I was set to make a lot of profit I always insisted people meet me in the parking lot of the grocery store thats less than a mile from my house. People will try and make you drive to their area but you can waste a ton of time doing this (and gas). I did drive a distance a few times but I mostly stayed in my area and ALWAYS weighed profit vs time/distance.

$50 - My goal was to always make at least $50 on each trade. that was the minimum it would be worth to me so when i was figuring out how much to offer I would normally use this $50 + shipping +amazon fees to figure out how much to offer the seller.

Selling on Amazon - Because all the products you would likely buy on Craigslist are already for sale on amazon you dont have to worry about creating a listing or taking pictures. All you do is name the product quality, name your price and list it for sale. It is extremely simple. Just make sure and be as specific about the product condition as possible so there are no surprises when the buyer gets their product. If you sell on ebay it will take longer to list the products as you need pictures and to write the listing. Selling on amazon is much quicker.

A Few More Quick Points

I ended up having about 22 products in my possession over the course of the month.

I ended up making $2000 in profit after the month ($1200 in the last week)

I didn't track the number of hours I spent doing this but a rough estimate is about 30 hrs over the month.

I normally would check craigslist at about 1PM, 5PM and 9PM. After lunch, right before work ends, after dinner.

My area isn't one of the largest cities in america, I would imagine in order for this to work you would need to live in a decent sized city.

The show didn't exist when I was doing this but Ive seen a few episodes of Barter Kings, you could probably learn a bit from them about negotiating deals and getting better prices.

Hope this helps

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Thanks for sharing!

Sometimes its the first to respond to a craigslist ad that gets the deal. For anyone looking at doing this here's a tip to be notified quickly of a new ad for any products you're looking for.

I use "If This Then That" to create an email or text alert whenever anything I'm searching for on craigslist comes up for sale. For example if you are looking to buy ipods you can create a "recipe" in IFTTT that will "trigger" an alert.

1. Choose the "Craigslist" trigger channel
2. Choose a trigger - here you simply copy and paste the results URL for your desired search, in this case you'd go to craigslist and search for "ipod" then copy the results URL
3. Then choose an action channel - this is what you want done once a trigger fires. In my case I choose Gmail and enter the gmail email address where I want to be notified of any new "ipod" search results

You could also use a craigslist app to set up notifications for search terms but in my experience the IFTTT triggers seems to come thru quicker than the craigslist app notification do.

Here's a tutorial video I just found:

BTW, there is so much more you can use IFTTT for. “If This Then That” recipes instruct two different technologies to talk to each other in order to perform a combined action.

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013...ions-to-help-streamline-your-life-test-drive/

 

[IceCreamKid]

I did this while I was in college to bootstrap my first business(which ultimately failed lol). Curious though, how do you test the video game systems to make sure they work? i.e. how do you avoid purchasing an xbox with the RROD(red ring of death)?

 

[1step]

Curious though, how do you test the video game systems to make sure they work? i.e. how do you avoid purchasing an xbox with the RROD(red ring of death)?

I actually just had trust in the people for the first couple. Later I decided to take my power adapter that converts the cigarette outlet and this worked fine for testing the system. I never got burned on video game systems although Im sure if you do this long enough you could. I did get burned on one cell phone that was supposed to have a clear ESN but it actually did not. I still ended up making a little on the phone but not as much as I had hoped.

I use "If This Then That"

Awesome tip, I was using a similar system back when I was doing this but it wasn't nearly this easy to set up, this will definitely help those that end up running with this.

 

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[1step]

Also dont forget to make sure the cell phones or laptops actually work. Theres a phone number you can call to make sure the cellphones have a clear ESN, it takes a few minutes but if you just insist on doing it this could save you a ton of time and prevent you from losing your money.

 

[sethnejame]

Love this post man. What a way to hustle! Just goes to show that there's no excuse for not having enough start-up cash to get something going. The way I look at it, it's just a fun way to start a business.

 

[Gale4rc]

So basically the name of the game is buy cheap off craigslist, sell higher on amazon ? Would it be more profitable to just build those amazon listings instead of posting anything on cragislist ?

How much time does it take to sell on amazon on average? (if you can get into details on this I would be grateful)

Also is there any tips you have for selling on amazon? Or is it just pretty straight forward, list product with good pictures/details and it will sell (eventually) ?

 

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[1step]

So basically the name of the game is buy cheap off craigslist, sell higher on amazon ? Would it be more profitable to just build those amazon listings instead of posting anything on cragislist ?

Yep thats what I did. I still post on craigslist just in case. For videogame systems I didnt post on CL as the prices normally dont warrant it. For ipads, ipods, iphones you might get a hit off CL. It really depends on the product you have but I would list on both places as all it takes is an extra 5 minutes to create a CL ad. Also once you build your CL ad for say an ipad, you can just edit it in the future and repost which makes it go a lot faster.

How much time does it take to sell on amazon on average? (if you can get into details on this I would be grateful)

I dont know, really depends on the product. if you are selling used products the customers have to look under the special "used items" list. I always try and put mine for the cheapest so that it sells first amongst the "used" products. Most of the popular products ipad, ipod, iphone, etc sell in a day or two. the videogame systems and random games normally take a few days. Maybe 3-4 for the system and a week for the games depending on how random they are. Controllers always sold fast. And Kinects (just realized I probably spelled this wrong in my first post) sold fast too but this was a few years ago remember

Also is there any tips you have for selling on amazon? Or is it just pretty straight forward, list product with good pictures/details and it will sell (eventually) ?

When you are selling these items you are just piggybacking on regular listings that already include pictures. Literally all you do is tell condition (and describe it if needed, can put the accessories included etc.), price, and shipping cost/speed. Its all very simple once you get started

Just goes to show that there's no excuse for not having enough start-up cash to get something going.

Thats what I was hoping to get across! Thanks!

 

[MHolland]

Great tips, everyone! Thanks for sharing. No excuse whatsoever for not being able to come up with a little seed money!

 

[Daniel A]

how do you avoid purchasing an xbox with the RROD(red ring of death)?

I used to intentionally buy PS3s (PlayStation 3s) with YLOD (Yellow Light Of Death) when I was in HS off of eBay. I fixed them at home and sold them back on eBay for ~$100-200 profit each. Plus it took only 1-2 hours to fix each of them

After there was no market for it anymore I had to stop. I don't think there is a market for RROD XBOXs anymore but I bet people did the same for that back then too.

To avoid RROD though...eBay has really good protection for buyers, same with PayPal I believe. If it is advertised as functional but it isn't I bet you can get your money back. If you use CL to buy, test it I guess. Meet at McDonalds or Starbucks and plug it in an outlet to test it lol.

PS: I have one broken PS3 still sitting in my closet :joyful:

 

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[Bosstradamus]

thank you!

 

[1step]

I used to intentionally buy PS3s (PlayStation 3s) with YLOD (Yellow Light Of Death) when I was in HS off of eBay. I fixed them at home and sold them back on eBay for ~$100-200 profit each. Plus it took only 1-2 hours to fix each of them

On the same thought broken phone screens are huge right now. I bought a few phones with broken screens and changed them. It is a bit of a pain to change them (iphones) and there is quite a bit of competition but its another way to make some more money out of each sale. I did a few 3gs, they took about 2 hours to fix the screen (each time).

 

[Daniel A]

On the same thought broken phone screens are huge right now. I bought a few phones with broken screens and changed them. It is a bit of a pain to change them (iphones) and there is quite a bit of competition but its another way to make some more money out of each sale. I did a few 3gs, they took about 2 hours to fix the screen (each time).

I might look into that! I did that for a PSP (PlayStation Portable) but the replacement I bought came from China and it wasn't too good so I gave it to my cousin. If I just need to replace the screen alone I bet it won't matter but with the PSP I had to change the whole casing too and it made it look like a copycat PSP haha. I didn't want any complaints on eBay.

There is a guy named Daniel V who did some really cool stuff with iPhone repairs...I wish I had done it haha. It's actually a very profitable business with him having to do little work too. Here's part 1 of the podcast where he talks about it. I think he is off to even bigger things now though.

 

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[McNandez]

I did this for a while too, with small pieces of furniture - I wasn't nearly as methodical as you, though, and I wish I had been. I used the money to pay for textbooks; in retrospect, it would've been more wisely spent as capital, but alas.

For anyone interested, there's a nice profit margin in buying (or taking advantage of the "free" listings) stuff like coffee tables, dining table chairs and head/foot boards on CL, cleaning them up a bit and flipping them. People seemed to just want something that looks nice, and it's amazing what a good sanding and staining will do. Granted, you need space to be able to do that, which I did then.

I would buy or pick up my pieces on the weekend, spend a few hours of free time during the week cleaning or sanding or staining, then selling them the next weekend. Because I didn't keep as great records as you, I'm not sure exactly how much I cleared on the average month, but I made back the cost of my supplies my first weekend, and saved up enough to pay for my books and then some.

Thanks for posting about this! It's encouraging to be reminded that not a day goes by without an opportunity to make money.

 

[Bosstradamus]

On amazon did you sell as a professional or individual?

 

[1step]

On amazon did you sell as a professional or individual?

Individual at that time. Dont remember the fees but at some point it only makes since to do professional but just starting out I was nowhere near that. I think the math was around 40 sales a month to make professional worthwhile. Maybe you can update us here

I did this for a while too, with small pieces of furniture

Bam! Another good idea, custom furniture is huge right now (at least in my area). If you are handy and have the space this is a great strategy. I know for instance a pallet chair is very popular, in essence it is a chopped pallet that is made into a chair. How much does a pallet cost? Free on CL all day! How much does it sell for? $100 all day!

There are tons more things exactly like that (such as what is mentioned in the quoted post). If others go this route, pinterest is your friend, look at these popular pins for DIY furniture, there are TONS and can be a gold mine. The people who pin them dont want to build the stuff, they are asking to be sold and are telling you whats popular. Build/Flip it and profit.

 

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[Bosstradamus]

Individual at that time. Dont remember the fees but at some point it only makes since to do professional but just starting out I was nowhere near that. I think the math was around 40 sales a month to make professional worthwhile. Maybe you can update us here

Just set up a sellers account. Individual is less than 40 items a month. Pro is 40 items plus.

They charge $.99 per item, plus $1.35 variable fee, plus 15% referral fee (it says for media items, not sure about other item types)

You get a shipping credit if you do it yourself. The credit you depends on how and what you're shipping.

More questions if you don't mind. It says you have to file 1099 tax form for more than 50 items sold in a year. Were the taxes you paid substantial?

Did you advertise your products? if so was it worth it?

Did you ever deal with fraud? if so was it a hassle?

Lastly who did you ship through: fed ex, usps, ups?

 

[1step]

More questions if you don't mind. It says you have to file 1099 tax form for more than 50 items sold in a year. Were the taxes you paid substantial?

I never sold 50 items on amazon doing this. I dont remember how many I sold but it was just a month so under 10 probably. (the rest sold on CL or ebay)

Did you advertise your products? if so was it worth it?

I wouldnt do this

Did you ever deal with fraud? if so was it a hassle?

I didn't, but its certainly a risk. Amazon is very customer focused so in any dispute the customer will likely win. I would make sure and take pictures of the product and its serial numbers incase anything fishy happens the pictures could help.

Lastly who did you ship through: fed ex, usps, ups?

USPS offers the best prices so thats what I do. If you are shipping a system you might want to consider UPS or Fedex but I just used the USPS priority mail flat rate boxes. Fedex cam out with some flat rate boxes recently as well so you might want to look into those. UPS and Fedex are more reliable with their delivery but are way more expensive. USPS does have more issues with "losing" packages.

 

[Singularity]

Awesome thread, I will attempt this in a couple of weeks when I am back in Canada. Did you do all the packing yourself? Did you use bubble wrap? Are there any guides that you used that showed you how to pack items properly (particularly electronics)?

 

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[Mike Kavanagh]

Are there any guides that you used that showed you how to pack items properly (particularly electronics)?

There are tons of guides on how to ship products on Youtube. Don't get caught up in analyzing this. Asking these kinds of questions here wont elicit the response you're looking for.

Jump in. The water's fine.

 

[Singularity]

There are tons of guides on how to ship products on Youtube. Don't get caught up in analyzing this. Asking these kinds of questions here wont elicit the response you're looking for.

Jump in. The water's fine.

Right you are Mike, thank you!

 

[Morph]

I had a bad experience selling on amazon.

I was buying phones and flipping them for a profit. Amazon's policy was to hold payments for weeks on end meaning I had to wait before buying again. Then I got burned on their returns policy. Amazon will basically refund a customer whether you like it or not and without evidence that an item is faulty. A customer claimed that his phone had become locked, I requested that he send it back to me so I could verify this fact (and possibly sell it in a different country to recoup some of the loss), but no - he didn't want to and Amazon enforced the refund.

Anybody could order a second hand phone, wait for a month, claim that it had been blocked by the network and get a full refund no questions asked.

If I were to sell on Amazon again I would think carefully about what type of products to sell.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I had a bad experience selling on amazon.

I was buying phones and flipping them for a profit. Amazon's policy was to hold payments for weeks on end meaning I had to wait before buying again. Then I got burned on their returns policy. Amazon will basically refund a customer whether you like it or not and without evidence that an item is faulty. A customer claimed that his phone had become locked, I requested that he send it back to me so I could verify this fact (and possibly sell it in a different country to recoup some of the loss), but no - he didn't want to and Amazon enforced the refund.

Anybody could order a second hand phone, wait for a month, claim that it had been blocked by the network and get a full refund no questions asked.

If I were to sell on Amazon again I would think carefully about what type of products to sell.

If this kind of stuff bothers you, you probably should not consider entrepreneurship or business as a career lifestyle. This kind of consumer grab-a$$ is part of the game. It's normal. It's standard. I just had someone "steal" an INSIDERS subscription -- I could waste my time and fight it with PayPal -- or I can just refund the amount immediately and remove the BS from my life.

I've had the same thing happen for books at Amazon -- they read the shit and are offended that their precious 401(k) was insulted and reamed a new a$$ then request a refund.

 

[Mike Kavanagh]

I had a bad experience selling on amazon.

I don't know what happened there. I think you could of beaten that one.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=15015721

They have to return the item to get a refund.
Next time get a rep involved. I got burned on eBay but Amazon seems a bit friendlier to sellers than them.

 

[Morph]

Fair enough. I'll just accept that this stuff happens and get on with it...

 

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[1step]

Did you do all the packing yourself? Did you use bubble wrap?

Its really not hard, I used some random supplies I had around my house like packing paper and bubble wrap. If you order stuff from amazon save what they send in the package. If not maybe buy a small roll of bubble wrap, you can also just use paper depending on the item.

Just get started and attack the issues as you get to them, thats what being an entrepreneur is all about, problem solving.

Anybody could order a second hand phone, wait for a month, claim that it had been blocked by the network and get a full refund no questions asked.
If I were to sell on Amazon again I would think carefully about what type of products to sell.

Yup, its possible. Amazons terms are very favorable to the buyer. Like you said amazon will also hold your money for a few weeks to make sure you aren't scamming people. If you don't have a ton of money to invest you should definitely sell on CL to start and move to amazon later when you can afford to have the money sit.

 

[IAmTheJeff]

I'm very curious - to sell on Amazon, I've heard that you ship the product TO AMAZON, but you shipped to the buyer....I haven't looked yet, but may they have changed their terms?

 

[RHL]

I use "If This Then That" to create an email or text alert whenever anything I'm searching for on craigslist comes up for sale. For example if you are looking to buy ipods you can create a "recipe" in IFTTT that will "trigger" an alert.

Rep transferred. You probably just increased my IRL income by about $5,000-8,000/yr with this one post. So often, getting the crushing deals on high end cars I depend on comes down to luck and timing. Not anymore. I am extremely tech savvy and I had no idea this software existed. I'm so tired right now I can't even process what this is going to mean for business, but very, very good things. My first >$10,000 profit car flip was on a deal I found 40 minutes after it had been posted. This could make that a repeatable event rather than dumb luck.

 

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[oddball]

Anyone have a way to open another amazon account if you get banned? Stupid incident that happened years ago crippled my selling ability. I'd love to be able to flip some stuff here and there again for some side income and Amazon made it stupid easy.

 

[IAmTheJeff]

Anyone have a way to open another amazon account if you get banned? Stupid incident that happened years ago crippled my selling ability. I'd love to be able to flip some stuff here and there again for some side income and Amazon made it stupid easy.

Surrogate seller!