If you are or were a faithful follower of this little blog I apoligize for the extended absence. Our personal lifes have been busy with a move and eBay's widget that I use to post the Auctions on the blog was down for about a month. I know what your thinking, excuses excuses.....
However, the blog and regular posting is back and better than ever.
My wife and I are working on a little project (more details later) that involves us raising about $1000. We need the money around Thanksgiving so we can start buying the different materials we need for the project. So, we sold a few things and raised $375 from that. We are taking that $375 and buying things to sell online in hopes of raising enough money to pay for the project.
It took a little longer than expected, but it finally sold. Several months ago I went to a live auction here in town and came away with a plethora of misc. items. I made it out with two Heated Towel Racks. A quick iPhone completed listings search informed me they would sell for around $50 a piece.
I don't have any idea what took them so long to sell, but the final one sold just last week.
For those of you not privileged enough (including myself) to know exactly what a Heated Towel Rack even is, it is this very cool contraption that you setup in your bathroom. It plug into the wall and gets warm. Before you climb into the shower you put your towel on it and then when you get out its all nice and warm for you.
Seems like a bit of odd thing to have. But, there are people out there looking for them.
It has been a while since I have put a Craigslist deal on the blog. Today we'll deviate from our Goodwill/Thrift Store theme of the week and do that. Several weeks ago we found a deal on a set of Ping Irons on Craigslist. After some skilled negotiation, the appointment was set and the friendly guy came over to the apartment to complete the transaction.
He brought the set of clubs that we talked about, as well as another set and a nice golf bag. After more negotiation I wound up buying both sets of Ping Irons and the Ping Stand bag from him. It was a pretty good deal.
The first set of Irons was a set of Ping S58 Irons. The second was an older set of Ping Red Dot 2+.
Here are the numbers:
Total Investment: $255 Total Return: $421.46 Margin: 40%
Last week I visited the Goodwill 2 different time. It had been quite a while since I had visited. The first day that I dropped in I was making a to my supplier that I buy boxes from to get an order that was ready. After getting halfway to their store, a torrential downpour started. Being that I was in a truck and planned to haul the boxes back home in the bed of the truck I decided to delay my trip until the rain quit.
So, to kill some time and salvage my trip into town, I stopped at the Goodwill. I loaded up two buggies full. This week I'll show you a few of the things I picked up.
This Friday version of Daily Flip is being brought to you live via Athens, Al. Wife and I are headed to Birmingham for the weekend to see several friends. One of our good friends is considering starting up their own eBay business, so we are going to spend a few days with them and give them a few pointers. Hopefully, it will be helpful.
So, be on the lookout for a Saturday Video Roundup from the hills of the 'Ham on Sunday. The video camera will be out and in action while we peruse the local yard sales on Saturday.
Today's Daily Flip is a double whammy. It's strange how when you find a new item, usually you find multiple ones at the same time. This go around, we have started to encounter external frame back packs. These are the type you go hiking with. The first was found at a yard sale this past Saturday. I passed on it at first, until the lady running the sale practically begged me to take it and said I could have it for $5. At that price I knew I could make a little money. It was a good name brand "Kelty" and in decent shape.
The second of the two came from the Goodwill store yesterday.I plan to have a more indepth post on my two recent goodwill visits in the next few days, possibly even a video. They were two of my best trips to a thrift store that I have ever had.
Anyway, the second Kelty Backpack is practically brand new. Its a newer and more popular model. I have little higher expectations for it.
This will be a abbreviated post today, due to time constraints.
We picked up this awesome Kitchen Aid Mixer at an estate sale last weekend. It was hiding perfectly under a table in the middle of a very large room with thousands of items in it. This had to be the biggest single estate I had ever seen. In fact it was so large they had to haul all of the stuff to the community center so you could see it all.
There is some lesson to be learned in the story...
It was after 11am in the morning on Saturday. It was well past prime yard selling time. I was ready to go home. It was hot, somewhere around 95 degrees. I was tired and hungry. I already commented multiple times that I was ready to head to the house.
However, my loving wife had a different thing in mind...finishing. We only had 2 destinations left on the map and she was determined that we would finish them. So, I obliged and it really paid off. The last sale wound up being a pretty sweet stop. We picked up two golf bags and a present for Stacy's dad for .... Xmas? fathers day? b-day? Any of the above...
Check out the completed listings search on this bag. There are no exact matches, but a few have a very similar style. It looks like this bag could go for over $100, but I made a conservative estimate on its resale. Either way, we only paid $5...it looks like we will be alright.
Our very first stop on Saturday was to the previous home of this 1985 Gumball Machine. We made our normal rounds through this particular yard sale, not seeing too much of interest. The gumball machine caught my eye momentarily but not long enough for me to stop and consider buying it. It had a price tag of $15 on it and I quickly thought to myself, I would buy it for $10. However, I guess I was too tired , at 6:30am, to seriously consider haggling with someone.
So, we got back in the truck and cranked it up. Then Stacy looked over at me and said "What do you think about that gumball machine." I then looked it up on eBay with my iPhone and saw them going for $50-60. So, I said why don't you go back and offer them $10 for it. So, she did...they accepted...and here we are.
Last week I told you about threedifferentitems that we bought the previous week at yard sales. All three of those closed over the weekend and I wanted to give you an update on how all three of those items did at auction. I will get to those in a minute.
A few months ago I invested a few bucks into a new video camera. I had several reasons for getting it. One of the reasons I got it was that I wanted to do more videoing for this blog. I wasn't sure what form that would take on, but I thought it would be cool to show you in a little more detail what we do.
So, if you haven't read the blog in a few days be sure to check out the last 3 days post. All of them included video's or sideshows. If you don't feel like clicking back to get to them you can go here, here or here for a first hand account.
Now, back to the Weekend Roundup. There were three items featured.
We paid a total of $46 for the three items. They sold for a total of $348.85. That's a net profit of $302.85. Here are the items again:
We Paid: $6 Sold for: $49.99 Margin: 88% We Paid: $20
Sold For: $123.86 Margin: 84%
We has another awesome day of Yard Selling yesterday. We picked up some pretty sweet items. I put together a Video Montage of our day and a few of the things we picked up. Stay tuned throughout this week for updates on how they are doing on eBay and how much we made of each item.
And without further adieu...the first ever Saturday Roundup Video Montage:
Another Saturday of Yard Selling has come to a close. All 29 locals were successfully plundered, as well as a few extras that we just happened to run across. Check out the sideshow below for some sights and sounds. A video montage will be up later today or tomorrow.
Here is my first experiment in Video Editing. Yesterday I took a trip to Cincinatti to pick up a few items from a restaurant auction. I busted out my iPhone for some videoing and just finished stringing it all together. Its nothing to groundbreaking. Check it out if you must...
We were yard selling a few weeks ago and came to an older house. It was on the side a steep hill with massive oak trees all around it. I normally don't remember those kinds of details but this one stuck out. Mainly because everything at the sale was wet. The trees were blocking all the sunlight, so all the items they had laid out were dewy and just kinda nasty.
We wound up picking up several items here anyway. One of which is today's Daily Flip.
It is a portable fish finder. I have owned several boats through my short 27 years. All of which have had a depth finder of some sort on board. However, I have never seen a portable depth finder. Its actually a pretty good concept. It comes in a hard case an the transducer is on a large cord and mounts with a suction cup to the boat. It runs off two big lantern batteries.
So, as I am perusing the damp and dirty yard sell. I came across this thing. It was in a hard black case and I walked by it the first time. Stacy was taking forever at this sell so I made another round back through and this time I noticed the words on the front of the case "Humminbird." Being a boat guy I immediately knew it had to be a depth finder of some kind.
Yesterday I told you about a yard sale we went to this past week. We picked up several really unique and great money making items. The second thing we got, was a brand new (almost) golf travel bag. You use the travel bag when you going on a trip or haev some need to transport golf clubs somewhere other than directly to the course.
Imagine a large bag that your golf bag can fit into. I have picked up a few of these in the past but never at a yard sale. Usuaully, I will se them at goodwill or a thrift store. They are usually well used and have a good bit of wear on them. This one though, is still in its original box. The guy that I bought it from actually won it at a golf tournament a number of years ago. He never had a need for it so he never used it or even opened it.
So, it is new in the box. That is very big when you are selling something online. If it can be classified as NEW you can increase your selling price substatntially. Sometimes as much as 40%.
You run across some of the strangest things at yard sales. We visited a yard sale last weekend. It was at the end of the normal yard selling time, around 11:30am. I was getting hungry and ready to go home. But, we were almost done with our list. Since we have never actually finished our list that we started the day with, we thought it a good thing to finish for once. So, we both stuck it out and made ourselves go to the last few sales.
Turns out, that was a really good idea. We hit the jackpot there. The first item we picked up, Stacy and I both saw on the way into the sell. It was at the very front of the sale and was sitting on the floor and was half way pushed under the table. I couldn't really make out what it was at first, but it appeared to be some type of specialized equipment.
We always keep our eyes open for weird specialized equipment. Things that are relatively small, heavy and look expensive are usually a pretty sure bet in our world. This was no exception. After 20 minutes of perusing over all the other stuff at this sell and buying several items (more on this later in the week), I came back to the cool looking piece of equipment we saw on our way in.
After some closer examination the piece had a name on the side of it. It was a Keystone Telebinocular. Any idea what that is? Yes, me neither. But, it has something to do with getting your eyes checked. And apparently they are in high demand....
A few days ago I told you about a recent auction I visited where I picked up two different espresso machines. Today I'll show you the second of the two. Upon first glance it looks like some space aged coffee maker from the 50's. Turns out it is a somewhat rare and highly collectible piece.
After posting it on eBay I started receiving inquiries about it. Usually when that happens I know I have stumbled upon something good. I was receiving some very odd request though. Instead of getting questions about the machine itself, I was getting questions about the leaflet / manual that was with it.
Two different people in particular kept asking me to take good pictures of it and send it to them for their collection. This seemed like a very odd request and I thought, "If they want it bad enough they can just buy it." So I ignored their emails and kept the auction going.
After 5-10 more emails from these people and an unsuccessful first eBay auction for the item, I decided I would take a picture or two and send over to them. After doing so I got a very nice email in return. In the email the individual put a link to a blog that they have been writing for the past several years.
This person is on a quest to hunt down every Atomic Espresso machien that was ever made and to learn all about the history of these machines and their makers. Its a very cool story. If you have some extra time go on over to his blog (http://tinyurl.com/3akdatt) and read a little bit.
Anyways, like I said, the first time through at auction it did not sell. So, I decided instead of lowering my auction price down, I would put it in our store and make it a 'Buy it Now' item with a "Best Offer" option. Normally I would not do this, but since there seems to a community of collectors out there I will wait a few weeks and see if I get any bites on it.
Curious what it will sell for? Here is the completed listings report:
Based on these numbers and digging into a little more than normal research I have estimated we can get around $350 on eBay. Here is the rest of the breakdown on this cool vintage coffee machine.
When I woke up this morning I took my morning pilgrimage to Yahoo.com and the first news article that poped up was one about a man who bought a few Ansel Adams negatives at a yard sale in the Southwest. This is a must read and a awesome story.
Ansel Adams glass negatives bought ten years ago at a garage sale for $45 were found by appraisers to be worth $200 million at a minimum, according to several reports published on Tuesday.
These particular negatives, which have never been appraised before, were purchased by Fresno, Calif. painter Rick Norsigan in 2000. He thought that the photos could have possibly been taken by Ansel Adams, reported CNN.
Experts say that the negatives have never been developed and printed, but some appear nearly identical to published works of Adams.
After buying them, Norsigan spent the next ten years getting the 65 negatives, which depict the natural wonders of California such as Yosemite and Fisherman's Wharf, examined, to find out if the photographs were early photographs taken by Adams.
During his quest to determine the authenticity of the negatives, he utilized the services of a curator of the Boston Museum of Art, CBS reported.
Art appraisers in Beverly Hills, Calif. came to the conclusion that the negatives were taken in the early part of Adams' career. Adams is believed to have had 5,000 plates during his early career but they were destroyed in a darkroom fire in 1937. (continue reading)
Recently, we attended a local auction and came away with two unlikely items. Well, a few months ago they would have been unlikely. In the past few weeks Espresso Machines have become a common staple in our inventory. These two espresso machines were especially unusual, to me at least, so I thought I would show one of them with you and see what you thought.
The first of the two is an Olympia Express Cremina machine. It is a fairly small one spot espresso machine. It is made in Italy and apparently is a very high end and expensive machine. Click here for some info on it.
I was surprised at how expensive it was, mainly because of another espresso machine that we sold a while back. It was a 3 spot machine. It was much bigger, much heavier and sold for right around $1,500. This machine on the other hand is relatively small and light. However, it is projected to sale at around $1,000.
I have gone through quite a few different categories of products over the last few months. Everything from Golf Bags to Motorcycle Helmets and Restaurant Equipment. Just last weekend Stacy and I went yard selling and it was a really lousy day of yard selling. Maybe the worse we have ever had. I finally broke down and picked up a few items just to break the monotony of the day.
I didn't buy anything major at all, just a few $5 items. However, at one of the church sales we went to I ran across an item that really caught my interest. It was a very large Sound Mixing machine. If you don't know what that is think of that big board with all the slides and knobs on it that you see in a recording studio (or just scroll down and look at the picture).
The guy at the church sale had a pretty hefty price tag of $3,500 on it. Being that the most expensive item I have ever purchased was less than $1000, I was a little turned off by the price tag. After all I didn't want to have that much money tide up in anyone thing. But, after sleeping on it and doing some eBay research I decided I would buy it.
So, I hunted it down on Craigslist and negotiated the price down to $2,650. That is $850 lower than his asking price. After all, the old saying is true, "You make your money when you buy, not when you sell." So, I still somewhat hesitantly turned over the $2,650 and headed home to list it.
After my research I determined that I probably could get between $4-6000 for the board. It sells new for $11,000 and usually a used item goes for 35-50% of the original retail price. My strategy was to list it at a 7 day auction on eBay at a lower price and if it didn't sell the first time through I would relist it in my store at a higher price with a OBO (or best offer) option.
So, now that you have all the back story on it, check out the board and its current status below:
Paid: $2,650 Current Bid: $4,000 Current Margin: 34%
In my last post I talked about my future posting habits and how you would see a flurry of post. I then went on in the previous days to hurt my back and disappear completely from the blog. After a lot of bed time, ibuprofen and my first ever chiropractor visit I am feeling...somewhat, better.
I finally dragged myself back over here to type up a post for your viewing pleasure. I have had a load of really good deals lately and will show you some of them in the following days. Note: I'll try not to completely go AWOL on you again.
Up today is one of our latest Craigslist finds. Remember our goal in using Craigslist as a product source is to at least make a gross profit of 20-30%. So here is the breakdown.
Description: Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 II APO DG EX Lens
The last 2 weeks have been pretty quiet around this blog. Stacy and I have been traveling for the past 6 weekends and it has taken its toll, mostly on this blog and our overall mental well being. Since we have been out of town so much we have not been yard selling as normal and being that yard selling is the main topic of this blog I have been lacking fresh material to talk about.
However, that is about to change. We have taken a vow to go on a 'travel' fast for the month of July. So, starting this week we will be back to our regular daily blog post. So, for the 30-40 of you that read regularly be sure to check back early and often.
As for today, I am continuing the theme of the past few weeks of Restaurant Equipment. This is one of the last pieces I have from the auction that I won back in June. It is a really cool piece but it had to be serviced in order to get it up and operational.
It is a Pie Making Machine. Any idea what that is? I didn't either. Check out the video below to see it in action. Once you see the video, check out what it is currently getting on eBay (below the video):
Continuing the theme of restaurant equipment, we had one of our best sales yet yesterday. We bought a Market Forget ET-3E Counter top Steamer a few weeks back at a local auction. We paid $65 for it at the auction. It had a few issues with it though, it was missing two legs and one of the side panels was missing as well.
I thought I would put it up for auction on eBay without attempting to order any parts and just see what happened. I figured if it didn't sell the first time through that I would order the parts and fix it up a bit and resell it (at a higher price). So, I started it at .99 cents and put a low reserve on it. And what do you know!? It sold the first time around for right at $400! Not a bad sell at all.
The restaurant equipment genre continues to only get better. 1 week ago today I picked up my second load of restaurant equipment from a local auction. This trip we loaded up on a few larger items. One of which was a professional commercial grade Espresso machine. It's a great piece. It was handmade in Italy by Marzocco.
There were no concrete completed listing comparisons in order for me to have a really good idea on what I should pay. There were several that had not sold in the past and several of a different model that had sold in the $2000 - 3000 range. I did more research by Google'ing the model name and saw that a few used equipment websites had this piece listed at $4000-5000. Now that doesn't mean I will get that much for it, but it at least made me feel pretty good about getting close to $2000 for mine.
I wound up winning the piece at the auction for $700. It was a little more than I would have like to pay, but still within a reasonable range. So...what did it go for?The auction has not complete yet, but here is where it is currently.
Christmas of last year we were visiting Stacy's parents in her hometown and being the ever looking buyer that I am we decided to go visit a few of the thrift stores in the immediate area. There happened to be a two within a few miles of the house and they were side by side. So, we parked at the first. It was more of a flea market style store. Several individuals had rented a section of the store out and set up their items on a table and each item was marked with a price. The marked price was usually well over priced which directly led to us departing that store and heading to the next, The Downtown Mission.
The name is rather ironic, because it wasn't downtown and I'm not exactly sure that they had much of a mission. However, they did have some good merchandise. As usual upon entering any thrift store, I headed directly to the sporting goods section. That is usually where most of the decent deals reside. As I turned the corner to that area the rather large collection of Golf Bags caught my eye. There were at least 20-30 of them all stacked up in a giant metal bin. Every bag was filled with 20-30 clubs and they were crammed in tight.
There were no prices around so I went back up to the front (Note to store owner: Put prices on your stuff) and asked the cashier about the golf bags. She said they were selling them for $25 a piece. I was taken back a bit by this price, as I normally pay $4 at Goodwill and up to $10-15 at a yardsale for most any golf bag. I just told her thank you and we left.
Fast forward nearly 6 months.
Those golf bags were still on my mind when we went back to the in-laws for another visit. I told Stacy that we needed to go back by there and see if that lady would negotiate on the price. Normally in a store setting like they have, negotiating isn't done but as the saying goes "You don't get what you don't ask for." So after going into the "Downtown Mission" I headed right around that same corner again to see every single golf bag in the exact same place it was 6months previous. I knew then my negotiation would probably end well.
I found the cashier and proposed that I would pay $10 per bag as long as i bought 5 or more......and....she agreed. You see, they were donated to her store and they had been sitting there for at least 6 months taking up space and not making the "Downtown Mission" any money at all. So an offer from an outsider to get those bags out of her way AND to make some money off of them was very agreeable to her.
I proceeded to sift through the bags and pull out a few good ones. In all I pulled 5 bags. 4 of the 5 bags wound up being sell-able. One of them was in much rougher shape than I saw while at the store. (I have inserted the 4 auctions below). This wound up being the find of the year so far!
Before I go further I want to use this story to illustrate a principle of capitalism.
Many, many time I get this question, "Why do people sell things so cheap to you if they could sell it for more their selves?" or "Aren't you cheating people by paying much less than the item is worth?"
Those are both legitimate questions ans questions worthy of a response. I won't answer them directly in this space but I hope the above story will illustrate the answer to these.
You see, value is relative to each individuals circumstances and skill set.
To that Thrift Store owners who had those bags donated to her shop, the difference in $10 and $25 was negligibile. It was even more negated by the fact that those bags had been in her shop so long with out selling.To me, someone who specializes in Golf Bag Reselling, I know multiple channels to sell those Golf Bags and have networked with specific people that would buy the right bag. So, I can demand a higher price.
Hope that helps.
Bakc to the story. I have listed the 4 golf bags below. Check them out.
The first golf bag i researched was a Polo Ralph Lauren golf bag. I had never seen a Polo RL bag before and honestly didn't even know that made them. I started the bag at $15 and just set back to watch what happened. Within just a few hours I started getting emails about the bag. One of which went on to explain to me that this particular bag was originally sold in a Ralph Lauren Boutique in New York City for $1700. I couldn't believe it!
This particular individual happened to collect these bags and he gave me a ton of information on it. He went onto tell me that he has seen similar bags in slightly better condition go for $500-800 on eBay. He said that these bags rarely show up because there are so few of them our there. Apparently, only 100 are made every 10 years and they are rarely sold to the public in stores.
He estimated my bag to be worth $300-800. He said I should not have a problem getting $300+ on eBay for it. I promptly took the auction down and have since relisted it with a higher starting price and a low reserve.
These types of stories are fun but don't happen often.
Update: The auction closed at $713. We paid $110. That's a total profit of $603. It wound up going for less than expected but there is nothing to complain about when you make that kind of money!
Final Margin: 94%
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A few days ago I told you about a new product genre that I was beginning to experiment with, Restaurant equipment. I know, I know, it sounds like an odd things to get into. So far though, it is looking to be a very nice choice. We went to an auction nearly 2 weeks ago and picked up a few pieces of equipment. Some needed a few part and others needed a good cleaning, but they were all operational and ready to go. I did my normal research method to determine what I should pay for them and didn't go over my budgeted amount. I came home with some pretty high margin items. Not only that, they are high dollar and high margin.
If you remember back a few weeks ago to this post, I talked about how normally the more money you spend per product the less margin you normally expect. For example I can by a $3 bag and make $50 on it. That is equal to a 96% profit margin. However, it is very difficult to spend $300 and get anywhere close to that same 96% profit margin. Its a sliding scale of sorts.
What I have discovered in the used restaurant equipment world is that you can have a happy medium of both. Here is an example below. I pad $110 for it. The average selling price on eBay Completed Listings is $1182. That is right at a 92% profit margin (if it goes that high).
Within the next month or so I will have a guide available to you that will show you exactly how to buy similar type of items, where to find them, what to pay for them and exactly how to go about researching them so you don't over pay. If you would like to be notified when that guide is available then sign up for the newsletter on the right side of this screen now. Here is the auction. It is set to end in a few days.
Some of our friends, BJ & Amy, have become avid Goodwill visitors in the last few months. He usually stops by the Goodwill outlet everyday on his way home from work. I am always surprised at some of the stuff he finds in there.
Stay tuned to the blog through this week. There are some exciting things going on that will be introduced in the coming days and weeks. If you want to learn more about how to make money on eBay you'll want to pay special attention. AND if you like free stuff you will want to go ahead and register for our weekly newsletter (on the right side of this page).
Over the last few weeks I have started researching a new genre of products. I ran across a video series that talked about buying and selling restaurant equipment on eBay. I have never thought of getting into these type of products, mainly because of what I perceived as a major logistical problems with shipping.
However, after digging into it a little deeper I have started experimenting with this. I went to a auction recently and came away pretty surprised at the possibilities. I purchased a little over $1,500 worth of equipment, good enough to get a good feel for how it would work. I will be listing the different pieces over the next few days. I will keep you up to date as I get them listed.
This Memorial Day version of "Item of the Day" is brought to you LIVE from Gardendale, AL. We are now on the last leg of my 5 day 1,400 mile Memorial Weekend journey. This will be the final work related activity for the rest of the day.
I have told you about a lot of different items that we have bought over the last few months. One that I have (surprisingly) failed to mention is 'old' cameras and camcorders. In the ever expanding digital camera world there still exist a niche of old school photographers and cheap video-ographers that love the old stuff. 35mm SLR Cameras and Hi8 and Super VHS Camcorders are still all the rage in some circles.
This is stuff you can pickup for dirt cheap at most yardsales and thrift stores. Most people have had these old relics laying around the house for so many years that just want to be rid of them (think old cell phone). Any money they can get for them is just a bonus. So, be on the look out for Pentax, Minolta, Canon & Vivitar 35mm SLR cameras. The more lenses that come with the the better. Many times a really nice zoom lens can be worth 5x what the camera body is worth.
Also, in the world of video cameras keep your eye out for brand names (Sony, Sharp etc) that are operational. Be sure you test it before you buy it. If it has a case, charger and a good battery that is a bonus.
That is it for today. Here are some recent cameras we have picked up:
I have been traveling all over the southeast the past few days. After trips to both Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Stacy and I headed off to Athens, AL for a graduation. Then I dropped Stacy off in Birmingham for wedding activities and now I am writing this live from Montgomery, while sitting on the couch of my cousins house. Amidst all of the traveling I haven't found much time to do any updating. Here is a quick status update on the BHAG progress over the last 7 days:
You know what that means? A full 21 days before the deadline we have surpassed the $10,000 mark! God has definitely made it possible for us to be able to pull this off. I have been contemplating a few new projects that those of you who read this could participate in. I'll be rolling that out in the next week or so, along with some major cosmetic changes to the BLOG. Thank you to everyone who keeps up with the BLOG. I'll be back to regular posting tomorrow.
Andy Andrews talks about the Butterfly Effect. The premise behind the Butterfly Effect is that everything you do effects everyone else in the world in a large way...usually larger than you can imagine and it does so forever. In other words, be careful what you do and don't do. Your actions matter.
So I have been reading a good bit about that concept lately and really have fallen in love with the idea. So, for me the next logical question was, "How do I use that for Good instead of Bad?" In other words, how do I let my actions, ideas, thoughts and deeds affect everyone around me positively?
I still dont know the answer to that question, but I am working on it. I just picked up a book (got it for my birthday), it is entitled "Made to Stick." It falls along the same lines as the questions that I have been asking. Here is a quick video interview about the book.
I said all that to introduce the "Item of the Day" today. It isn't something I bought or found. It is something a friend of mind picked up. He heard of people that had bought and sold stuff on eBay before. Obviously, being a good friends of mine he knew that I did that. So, he ventured out on his own and started buying stuff himself.
He liked the idea, he knew it could work....so he did it.
Very simple and very cool at the same time. So many times I hear people with ideas and stories, but very rarely do I see somebody ACTUALLY DOING something about it. So, I really get excited when I see somebody doing something. The fact that something H did had a small role in helping them take that step is even cooler.
So without further adue...finish reading this and go make your idea happen. Small or big, it makes a difference.
Here is the item our friend picked up recently at the Goodwill.
This weekend we took a road trip down to Florence, Al. We went to a live collectors auction. Our good friends Mike and Angie instigated the trip and it wound up being a really productive trip. We spent around $400 in total. The auction had a variety of some really cool items. They had everything from a Nazi Dagger to Political Buttons and Shotguns.
I came away from the auction very intersted in getting into buying and selling used vintage firearms. There is a little more liability and precautions that have to be taken in the industry, so it might be alittle while before I venture into it. There is profit to be made though.
For instance, several shotguns that I knew, from my past hunting expereience, a little about sold for awesome prices. A emmington 870 Express sold for $80 and a Remmington 1100 Semi-Automatic sold for $120. But guns go for well over $200 new. Great deals on both.
Here is a run down of a few items that we bought.....and of course, what we paid for them.
This weekend was really good. We were busy, got a lot accomplished and had some good recreating time as well. After quick trip to Alabama, a visit with the in-laws, kiddy carnivals and motion sickness we ventured back to Tennessee and got 40 items listed to eBay. We then kicked back for the 4-1/2 hour lost Finale...and it didn't disappoint. Many pontificators will nit-pick little things about the show, but I just like to hear a good story and you cant argue that LOST as a whole was not a good story, great even. I loved it and am looking forward to re-watching the entire 120 episodes over the next few months.
On to eBay....
I get a lot of questions about what I do. How I do it. But most of the questions are "How can I do what your doing?" types of questions. Most people see the larger ticket items that are sold in my store or on this BLOG and think you have to have lots of money to get into this type of thing. The whole "Gotta have money to make money" adage is usually recited.
That couldn't be farther from the truth.
So from time to time I like to show you some really inexpensive items that we buy and what they sold for. The purpose of doing this is to show you that you can start with as little as $1. You can literally pickup free stuff off of Craigslist and make a profit. Anyone in this country has the opportunity to do this and make money at it. It is not terribly difficult. Its a fairly simple concept.
Here is the model:
Pay $1...sell it for $10.
Pay $10...sell it for $25.
Pay $25...sell it for $65.
Pay $65...sell it for $125.
Pay $125...sell it for $200
Pay $200...sell it for $325
Pat $325...sell it for $575
Pay $575...sell it for $900
Pay $900...sell it for $1700
Pay $1700...sell it for $2800
Pay $2800...sell it for $4300
Pay $4300...sell it for $7500
Pay $7500...sell it for $10,000
(And Repeat until satisfied)
See yesterday's BHAG Update for a real life example of how this works and what it looks like.
What most people want to do though is look at the guy that is at the $1700 step and say, "Well I don't have that much money to get started." The thing is though, you don't need that much. In fact most people, if they tried to start with that much money, would screw it up!
When you start slow and with next to no money, you learn all your lessons a lot easier. After all, if you lose one dollar, its not that big of a deal. If your are at the $120 stage and you loose $20, its not that big of a deal. In fact, it was all profit anyway.
I'll write more about this start up process at a later time. Here are some recent items we have bought for as little as $1 that did not turn huge profits, but they slowly compound on one-another to build something greater:
I wasn't planning on updating again until tomorrow, but while I was pursuing around eBay this morning I took a glance over at our total sales for the last few weeks. If you recall, several weeks ago I told you about our goal of turning our $1,150 we sold our broken down car for, into $10,000 in less than 60 days.
I knew that we had been doing pretty well and that we were at least in the 'ballpark' of reaching our goal. When I glanced at our total sales today I saw that we are a lot closer than I thought!
Here are the sales figures straight from eBay:
Keep in mind that that does NOT include our shipping cost and any money that we made off of shipping. Which honestly, we make around $5-10 on each item. This usually covers our eBay fees that we pay on each item.
If you have ever wondered if it is possible to make money or even make a living on eBay, hopefully this shows you it is very possible. I am in the process of posting around $3,000 of merchandise we've bought over the last 3 days right now, so hitting our goal shoudln't be a problem.
I hope to update in a few weeks and show you where we have not only hit our $10,000 goal, but well surpassed it!
BTW: We had a very productive trip down to Alabama this weekend. We visitedSpring Creek Auction house in Florence, AL. We picked up some great deals. Check back tomorow for a full update on that.
If you are a regular reader you know that I have started dabbling in selling dinnerware on eBay. I have written a few post on it (here and here). The first round of auctions finished up last week. Here is the summary of the 'first set ever bought'. I bought it at a Dogwood Estate Sale. Check out the numbers on how it turned out.
We Paid: $25
43 Total Pieces
Dinner Plates: 6pcs
Cereal Bowls: 6pcs
Cup/Saucer Sets: 6pcs
Fruit Bowls: 2pcs
Bread/Butter Plates: 8pcs
Salad Plate: 6pcs
Creamer Dish: 1pcs
Grand Mug: 4pcs
Gravy Boat: 1pc
Pepper Grinder: 1pc
Oval Roaster Platter: 1pc
Open Caserole Dish: 1pc
Sugar Bowl: 1pc
(A few pieces where chipped or cracked and they counted cup/saucers as separate pieces)
We listed each piece in a seperate auciton. The cup/saucer sets and bread/butter places where listed in pairs. We put them all on 7 day auctions and started them at $9.99. We slowly got traffic on the items over the 7 day period. We got a few early bids but the majority of the bidding occured within the last hour of the auctions.
A total of 19 items sold the first time through. These auctions grossed $205.34
That is a net profit (after fees) of $159.80.
This number doesn't take into consideration profit made off of shipping cost either. This should bring another $20 of profit.
We have another 21 auctions left outstanding. These auctions that did not sell the first time through, we will put them in our eBay store and list them as a Buy It Now or Best Offer. The total of these items listed price is $252.
I had a few thoughts after my post this morning. Normally the items that I put on this blog are bought very cheaply, usually less than $15, and they usually sale for 20, 50 or even $100+. With the posting of the golf clubs that I have posted the last few days you have seen a different method buying.
What is the difference?
In the Yardsale/ Estate Sale / Auction world you normally pay rock botton prices that return 100-200% margins. That is easy to do...on a small scale. Anyone, and I mean, anyone can make $1000-2000 a month working 15 hours or less a week doing this. Simply going to yardsales on the weekend and listing the things they buy can produce several thousand dollar a a month.
They key to this method is to start with a SMALL amount of money (no more than $50) and slowly buy and sell and learn about what you are buying. Working at it and investigating EVERYTHING you buy BEFORE you buy it. You then use the profit you make from your sales and turn it over and slowly build that original $50 into a larger sum of money.
Now if you do this for two months and you are dilligent you can easily have $2000-4000 at the end of that time. So the question you have to ask yourself at that point is, "What do I do now?" Here are your options:
1) Keep doing what you doing
2) Keep doing what your doing AND Add some larger ticket items to the product mix
3) Cash out and start over
4) Quit buying small items and start buying wholesale low margin items
In the 6 months I have been doing this I have goine through all 4 options. You'll have to personally evaluate what you want to do once you reach this point, but lately we have been doing step #2.
So what we have started to do is, continue buying the unique one of a kind items from yard sales but also we have been buying more expensive items from other sources (i.e. Craigslist). Now, what you have to keep in mind is that you wont make the crazy high margins with these items, but you will make more money PER ITEM.
For instance, with the below golf club. I paid $150, it sold for $219. That is a profit of $69 (before fees). That is a profit margin of 32%. That is nowhere near the profit margin I made on the 35mm splicer I bought a few weeks ago. I paid $9 for a Floral Stemming Machine at Goodwill and it sold for $29. That is a profit margin of 69%, significantly higher. However, the total profit was only $20. It would take selling more than 3 of these to equal the same amount of actual money that the one, lower margin, golf club sold for.
Clear as mud? Good!
As we go forward you'll keep seeing a mix of HIGH margin items as well as HIGH dollar items as well.
I don't have time for a lengthy post this morning but I have been promising an update on the Golf Clubs buy last week. Here is my second pickup I had. I found it, met the guy, paid for it and was back home within 2 hours. I also managed to pickup a few other items off craigslist while I was en-route to him, multi-tasking got to love it!
Remember in the previous posting (check it here), we made $80.
Here is the auction:
We Paid: $150
It Sold for $210
Net Profit (after fees): $50
That brings the total golf clubs craigslist haul for last week up to $130
Check back later on for another golf clubs/craigslist update.
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