Buying and Selling

Trading for goods and money has been around since the first man (or woman) walked the planet and wanted a latte.

There are a great many approaches available and one I have found is to to get on down to Goodwill or other similar store and purchase something at a cut rate price and sell it on Craigslist or Ebay. Always a capitalist (or at least pretending to be one) I figured I would give it a try before posting and this is what I made in the last month in my spare time.

1) Black and Decker Iron- purchased for $7.00. Sold for $22.50

2) B&L telescope. Purchased for $12.00. Sold for $37.00

3) Craftsman cordless drill in case. Purchased for $5.00. Sold for $20.00

So, with only 3 transactions I made $55.50. Figure in a little gas that it took to get down to the store as well as to meet up for the transactions I would say my net profit is $45.00. OK, so not exactly enough for a down payment on a Lexus but will buy a nice dinner for 2 or 3 boxes of store brand diapers if you’re in the same boat as we are in. Every little bit counts.

Other sources for bargains: local flea market (swap meet), garage sales are awesome, discount clothes stores such as Ross, clearance items in stores, etc.

How about Ebay? Take two auctions I recently came across (ok, I searched for them so that I could write about them). They were for a nice set of oxford shoes. Identical in every way down to the size and color ( I lucked out). One went for $34.11 while the other sold for $21.51. Why the difference in selling price? One auction had nice big pictures whereas the other had a sample stock photo (yuk, yeah, I said yuk). People want to know what they are paying their money for as money is tight these days so advertise advertise advertise. Just do not mislead.

Auction tips: Some of this information is repetitive but bears mentioning again. If selling on auction it is best to keep in mind the ending date of the auction is important. Just because you are a night owl does not mean your target customer base is in a similar boat. End your auction after 5pm and avoid holidays.
I recommend the following auction website which will help you schedule you auction duration.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/calendar

Some notes: No broken or need of repair items. People generally do like to hassle with repairing something they just purchases. Good condition. No heavy items in case shipping comes into play. Take very good bright pictures from great angles. Think like a buyer. Clean it up very well to an almost like new condition so that you can even advertise it as like new-trust me when I state it brings in more dollars. I once had a old BMW 3 series I purchased for $700.00. The headliner was falling all over and so I just ripped it out. The buyer thought the the purple painted (German cars use funny colors) headliner was the coolest thing. I made $1100 on that car with little effort.

Selling sources:

Ebay: Fees are high so be careful of your profit margin. Making $10.00 when listing/seller fees are $6.00 makes little sense.

Amazon: High fees but they do offer shipping credit. Good exposure.

Craigslist: The most popular of any of them, post pictures, be descriptive as a vast majority of transactions occur in person, stick with your price and use terms such as Firm when listing price if your margin is low. Factor is gas, drive time, etc. Never invite people to your home. CASH ONLY.

Happy selling.