I haven’t done this in quite a while, but here’s a video on how I used to make a quick few hundred dollars. I don’t see how this could fail if you do your research.
I never tried to make this more than just a little extra cash to help finance the start-up of other ventures. With the right organizational skills and the ability to spot opportunities, I don’t see why this can’t be scaled out to bring in a full-time income.
One thing I forgot to point out is that if I couldn’t sell the items on Craigslist, then I’d post it on eBay as a last resort. I think that only happened once, but I found it to be a great resource to unload things. It might cut into your profits a bit, but that’s just the cost of doing business.
Note that I live in Chicago where Craigslist is a very active website and there is a market for just about anything you can imagine.
Millionaire Money Habit: Rather than trying to find obscure markets with no competition, I always followed a philosophy to go where the herds are. Find a way to get involved in areas where the masses have needs or wants, and you should have no problem making money.
4:40 pm on July 23rd, 2008 1
Nice, Ryan. I’ll give it a shot.
5:07 pm on July 23rd, 2008 2
Very good post. It sounds like for the most part it would work much
better for people who live in a city near major retailers, but a
great idea.
10:30 am on July 24th, 2008 3
Thanks! The big city point is a good one, but in a different way. Because I live in a big city, it was always harder to take advantage of these deals. You had to act and make quick decisions.
I got in the habit of calling stores before going to pick up items, and I’d inevitably get the response, “you’re the 10th person that’s asked about it this morning!”
Living in a more rural area may make it more difficult to get rid of stuff though.
One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that a lot of the best deals require rebates that take 6 - 8 weeks to process. That means you need to be pretty organized and may even need to initially take a loss, but you’ll make your money when the rebates come in. I never had a problem with getting my rebate, but always kept copies and a spreadsheet as to when I sent, etc.
6:51 pm on July 24th, 2008 4
Thanks! I will def check out the site