You just have to love Amazon...
 

I buy and sell a lot of stuff on both ebay and Amazon. I recently bought some items via auction from a company that was closing. Normally I do thrift stuff so this was new to me but opportunity was there.

On Saturday I listed just a tad over $8,5k worth of items retail.. Today being Wednesday, I've already sold $2,6k worth of those items...

It's just insane the market potential that is there for even small business.

not bad, but what profit did you score on that $2600 in sales?

I ordered some stuff from Amazon the other day, kinky stuff.... and it went missing. First time ever.

Who ever got that package got some interesting surprises. LOL .

My gripe with Amazon at least the last time I checked is they will give exclusive rights to sell certain items. I do something similar but I primarily buy business equipment. Last I checked if I tried to list a used piece of equipment it would get blocked by the manufacturer. But then again my industry focus is notorious for trying to kill the secondary market.

Well I scored roughly 12-14k worth of items at the aution and paid $622 if I remember correctly. What I actually paid for was about 6k worth of items.

The rest I got for free because the auction company was throwing stuff out that people didn't pick up or didn't want. I will likely get more money out of the free stuff than what I paid for.

Right now after Amazon fees I'm just a tad under $2k profit. I normally don't do these kind of auctions but I think I'm gonna start..lol

Much easier than thrift stores.. I still do very well via thrift stores but most of that gets sold via Ebay and selling there is a lot more work.

Well you have to watch and check listings to see who is selling what. Otterbox/Life proof are like Nazis on Amazon. If you try reselling there they will attempt to get your account banned or at least they used to do that.

If you see only the manufacturer is listing the items and no resellers, it's usually not worth selling it on Amazon because there is likely issues with selling that item.

Great job. Seems you got yourself a good new revenue stream. Gotta like getting free items as well. Even if you just get rid of them on ebay for some money.

Are you a hobo crockette?

http://i.imgur.com/EtTbhoK.jpg

The free stuff was crazy.. tons of electrical supply stuff.

i also do sales on ebay. amazon the money is ok (affiliate). i have not opened my store yet. maybe mid next month. if you want to exchange some ideas i am game.

Hobo's, were migratory workers, not bums. They were one of the first organized work force in America and even had yearly Hobo conventions and codes of conduct.

Im not really a migratory worker nor do I hop trains or keep my belongings in a sack with a stick.. Therefore I am not a hobo, but I have nothing aginst hobos because they work for a living and aren't useless bums.

You gotta love getting free stuff. For a few years I bought storage unit auctions and sold the stuff in them. There were several small storage companies that would regularly have very few people show up for the auctions. Many times I was the only person that showed up and they just gave me the units because they wanted them emptied.

One of the best units I ever had was given to me for free. I made about $15K off that unit.

This is actual equipment. The mfg's are using the knockoff loophole to keep used equipment off. Although someone told me not long ago amazon caught on and changed this I just haven't tried. I have a whole floor of my building packed with NIB retail shit I've picked up over the past few years I just don't have the motivation to deal with the packing and shipping smalls. It will probably end up in an auction at some point.

I've always bought and sold stuff, mostly cars, dirt bikes and so on. I had my used car dealers license at one point but that was a ball buster..

Prior to doing the thrift store reselling I did look into storage auctions but it was retarded due to those TV shows drawing out big crowds. Added to that I didn't really have a place to deal with all the stuff from a unit so I passed on doing those.

Its the same thing otterbox does. They claim other sellers are selling counterfeit products with zero proof just to get you banned.

I actually stopped doing it because of those TV shows. Before the shows there was a small group of people that showed up at a lot of the auctions and the units went for reasonable prices. After that show became a hit a lot of people started showing up and bidding outrageous prices because they assumed every unit was going to have some kind of hidden treasure in it. It made it hard to make a profit.

The Internet has created national and global markets. I think that is great as it is very empowering for new entrepreneurship and wealth redistribution for those that are willing to work at it.

Good luck with your store :thumbsup

Oh I've already been running a ebay business for about a year now with Amazon mixed in. My ebay business is mostly mens clothing and is my bread and butter, it's just a lot of work.

Amazon has always been a second selling platform for me, usually my electronic finds. My biggest problem with Amazon is finding a constant amount of inventory in used products.

Amazon however always amazes me with the speed some items sell. The very first week I sold on Amazon I had over $600 in sales. I ended that month with $1,1k only because I ran out of items and couldn't source more at the rate they sold.

With ebay on the other hand and men's clothing I can source more product in 2 days than I can get listed in that week. I really want to make Amazon my primary selling platform, but right now it's hard to come up with the right products consistently so ebay is my main income platform.

Unless it was designer names I always had trouble selling clothes on Ebay. Are you selling designer stuff or just regular men's clothes?

I only deal in designer items, my average sell price on ebay is $30 and I average around $18 profit from that. I cater mostly to 2 specific clothing items and mix in random things here and there. I do have a 3rd clothing item I've been buying, but I have so much other inventory I haven't had time to list that stuff.

My biggest problem with clothing, is the process work, doing all the measurements and everything related to getting good pictures. Takes a lot of time, Amazon on the other hand is super fast but I don't have the right inventory most of the time for it.

My other issue is I'm just working out of two 10x 20 storage units so I can't really hire someone to do all my process work.

I started this biz just to give me road money for my travels and it just becomes more and more work... lol I really didn't even want it to be as big as it is now..

I know what you mean about it getting too big.

I bought my first storage unit just out of curiosity. I paid $100 for it and I made $400 profit. Six months later I had shit stacked everywhere, I had bought a truck and I was looking for a place to lease that I could work out of. I got to the point where I had a ton of stuff that doesn't really sell well online, but does sell at things like garage sales so I started looking into getting a retail space. I ended up hurting my back and during that time I got back into doing adult online stuff (I was taking a break from it before) and realized that this was a lot easier that sweating my ass off all day while dealing with other people's junk.

I hate checking out Amazon reviews before I buy something.
1#Great item, works great
2#Piece of crap, stopped working in one day.

The worst are the ones where there are like 100 five star reviews and a couple 1 stars so you dig to find the one stars and they say something like, "Item got lost during shipping."

That has nothing to do with if the item is any good or how the seller handled it. That is the shipping company's problem.

That's one of the reasons I done do storage auctions, too much extra stuff. When I'm buying stuff myself, I already know it will sell and for about what price.

One thing that never ceased to amaze me with storage units is what people will put in them. Some of those units can get expensive to rent. People are paying $150 a month to store $400 worth of shitty furniture and household items. Some of the literally had garbage in them. If the people had gotten rid of the trash they could have gotten a unit half as big.

I buy a lot of shit ebay/amazon. Never gotten into selling anything though. Do have some connections on getting certain things pretty cheap. Never had time to research it to see if worth a shot or if I'd end up with a room full of premium watches etc... I'd have to unload on the corner if amazon didn't work. :1orglaugh

My dad's friend been doing those auctions in Florida for years and did pretty well. He said the same thing and doesn't buy as much these days cause said people watch those shows and go ape shit thinking someone planted a treasure in their locker as well. :1orglaugh

I think it would be fun to go but the bidding aspect would probably make my competitive nature trump sanity. $1000 for a chair and some used q-tips, score! :1orglaugh

wow you can buy 10 crack pipes on ebay $4.99 fast n free shipping :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Not long after the show became really popular I saw a couple of guys get in a bidding war over a shitty 5x5 unit that literally had about 5 garbage bags in it (you couldn't see what was in them but 95% of the time is either clothing, sheets, blankets or actual garbage), a typical lazy boy style recliner in poor shape, a particle board entertainment center they likely won't be able to give away and a few random small, shitty item. Very likely nothing of value here and they battled until one guy bought it for $600. Half the people there laughed at him and told him he would have been better off to just light the $600 on fire.

I never saw him at another auction. I think he learned a lesson.

No Crips in Chicago monkey not sure who I would resell them to. :winkwink:

Best deals I can get is on good shit like fancy watches etc... for 50-65% off. Just haven't looked to see if a billion people are selling them or if the original manufacturer won't dig me buying in bulk and reselling them etc... as I know some categories people get touchy as had a friend selling something on ebay and the manufacturer contacted him and said ya can't resell for some reason don't remember.

gangster disciples are Cripz. you don't want to short stop them tho. you may make the primetime news spot. i could post your article :winkwink:

closest gang to my place then, sorry haven't kept up with street gangs as my family ties are to Capone.

I'd be honored, obituary copy/paste premium content :1orglaugh

There's an online company here PARFUMS.CZ It's 50% less than shops and sometimes more. the guy went from working in his bedroom to a $multi-millionaire in a few years.

If I had to work, online sales would be the way to go. Only tangible goods.