Quote:
Originally Posted by mmahany
I won't share my exact specifics as I have a certain competitive advantage over most people (nothing illegal, lol).
I will say these things:
1.) What do you know about that costs a lot of money? For me I specialize in fountain pens. It sounds silly, but that's exactly why it works. I can buy a pen from one seller for $200 and re-sell it for $500. I occasionally do the same thing with watches, but those are a bit harder. Everyone knows a Rolex is worth money. Not everyone knows if I pen is worth $500 or not.
2.) Learn some basic restoring practices- You'd be amazed how much even a simple cleaning will do for re-selling something. I will replace parts in extreme circumstances, but usually I just clean and polish whatever I'm selling.
3.) Learn to buy from the people that don't know what they're selling and sell to the people that do know what you're selling. That's usually at estate sales, garages sales, Craigslist, etc
4.) Try to keep your inventory constant and keep your costs low. What I mean is that you don't want to have a ton of inventory never actually sell anything. For me, every time I get up around 50 pens I sell them off until I get back to around 40. Instead of growing my inventory, I try and increase the value of each item: I'd rather have 30 pens worth $500 each than 300 pens worth $50 each. The good thing about pens is that the take up very little space, have low upkeep and I actually enjoy them. Cars are going to obviously need to be stored somewhere, maintained, and washed. The upkeep is fairly tougher.
5.) Keep track of all your expenses. I keep track of how much I paid for something, how much I expect to pay in fees for Paypal/Ebay/Shipping, extra parts if needed, etc.
6.) Don't screw people, but don't be afraid to maximize your profit margins. I've bought a few things for less than $50 and re-sold them for over $1000. Those people were ignorant. I'm not going to take advantage of a nice old lady, or someone who needs money badly, but if the person doesn't care about what they have, I'll try and pay as little as possible.
7.) If you plan to do this long term, don't get into fads or trends. Remember how much Pokemon cards used to sell for? Look how much they're worth now. Buy things that are timeless. Pens may not have much value except to collectors, but they've been collected for over 100 years. The same goes for watches.
If you have any specific questions just ask me. I'll happily tell you 95% of my experiences and how I run it.
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it is the Pawn Star business model. If you watch what they do, is exactly what you stated above. Buy for fair price clean it up and find people who know what it worth and sell it to them and even if you can get for cheap and the other person may not know what they have you maybe work paying extra to get it so not to total screw someone.