And the trading game has officially started :) One antique baby stroller traded up for more cash than I paid for it – woohoo!
(Yes I know I’m kinda cheating and that it’s more “cool” to trade up for other better objects instead, but me thinks the game works much faster and easier when you can turn it into cold hard cash as well ;) Plus, Lord only knows how long it would take for me to find someone who was desperate to come across an old a$$ pram for their collection, haha… so I’m allowing money into the rules here.)
Here’s how it went down play-by-play:
- Put stroller on Craigslist in the barter section. No bites.
- Changed it to “for sale” and started it at $150. 1 bite – scammer.
- Walked into two local pawn stores and showed them a picture of it. They laughed.
- Dropped it down lower to $75 on CL. 3 bites – scammers.
- Called my mom’s friend who works at an antique store to see if she wanted it – BITE! But only to be used as decoration and not flipped :( Her best offer was $20.00.
- Dropped it all the way down to $30 on CL figuring if I can get $20 might as well try and get $10 more? 2 bites! From real actual people too.
- First person flaked and never showed up (waste of 4 days communicating)
- Second one showed ASAP and handed me the 30 bucks. Along w/ her 15 mo. old daughter who was to die for! (We may have play dates in our future)
So, 5 weeks down and I’ve turned $12.00 into $30.00 – more than double the investment. Not too bad for round one! I know I could have gotten a lot more had I not lost patience and/or had more room in this new house to store it (the thing not only drove like a Cadillac, but it was as big as one too!), but it is what it is and it’s now enjoying a brand new family over there :) I can get down with that.
Now to turn $30.00 into $60.00! Anyone reading this have something awesome (and valuable) they want to sell me? Like something your significant other is just dying to get out of the house and can fit it in the mail? ;) No joke. Be a part of our game!
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Nice, 250% return is perfect. Someday I am going to learn how to flip garage sale items on a larger scale business. I run across so many things at yard sales that are not even opened.
Totally! It’s fun to get out and about exploring too – I just picked up this bad boy for $4.00 last weekend: https://twitter.com/BudgetsAreSexy/status/361132724699922434/photo/1
Nice amount of profit made. Now just think about that profit when you are dealing with $X,XXX items.
Oh yeah, that’s the trick right there. Roughly the same amount of time put in, just a much bigger payout at the end!
How many hours did this take you? Sounds like at least 5-6 hours, so you were batting around $2 an hour. Seems like in this case the effort wasn’t worth the return (would have been if you sold it for $100 ;-) ). I guess the answer would be to only deal in higher cost items, or deal in larger scale if you were trying to make any serious money on reselling items.
I use amazon and craiglist as well to sell items. I actually like amazon better (at least for smaller higher value items), even though i pay a %, I get access to a much larger market, don’t have to deal with the scammers (at least as many), and don’t have to coordinate schedule with anyone.
Larger bulkier items (furnature. . . ) only work on craigslist though. On a side note – what is the deal with the DC craiglist? It is completely overrun by scammers harvesting email addresses and phone numbers and the posts get buried so quickly by the huge number of posts that the only way to get seen is to really lower your price. Guess it makes it better for buying right now then selling??
Haha yeah – spammers/scammers are EVERYWHERE in DC! And now they text you all the time too if you leave your cell in the posting, it’s madness. On the flip side, I’m getting better at sorting through it all and feel like I’m on to their tricks ;)
I’d have to disagree on the first part here. It might have taken you some time, but I feel like there’s some sort of learning curve in becoming a dealer of “things”. It might have come down to $2 per hour on this one, but what did you learn? Also, did you have fun?
I think those Craigslist scammers and spammers are all over it. Whenever I post on Craigslist Boston I get a million job offers for working from home. There are also real people who are idiots like the one who you were emailing for 4 days then flaked on you. I tried to buy a desk chair from some one on the list one time. I asked if she would be around the next day around 7 and she says “Yes, call meeeee” so I called the number she gave me and left a VM at 5 when I was out of work. Never heard from her so I emailed the next day and she goes “Oh I didn’t know it was you so I didn’t answer”. HELLOOO!! You TOLD me to call you AND I left you a VM! That still makes me mad and it was a month ago. I never did get that chair.
Haha yeah – they suck sometimes. And you’re right, I did have a lot of fun trying to sell the Pram throughout the process :) More so in the beginning than in the end, but still. It’s really just entertainment when it comes down to it all.
Do people collect those things for some reason?
Great job on doubling your money! =)
This is hilarious. Congrats on making the sale :)
Oh wow, I love the idea. Looking forward to see what you can do next with $30.
Stroller? :)
That sounds like a lot of work for just a few bucks. Hopefully this scales well!
Oh, and don’t forget to report that $18 on your taxes! :)
HAH! You don’t have to do that, right? Selling stuff you already own?? (Yes, I am that dumb – I do not know the right answer, haha…)
Nice! I’m in. We’re house hunting now, so I’ll have plenty of stuff to trade once we get settled. In the meantime, I’ll start slow and see if I can trade something this weekend. I’ll keep you posted.
oh yeah – moving is the best time to de-clutter and make some side $$$. good luck this weekend!
Could I interest you in…a Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Upper Deck rookie card, by chance?
I’m sure at SOME point it was worth $60, right?
Seriously though, if you can keep scaling up those returns. you’ll be trading for a ticket on space tourism trip with Virgin Galactic in no time.
Do you know what’s funny, actually? Last year I bought that EXACT same card at a yard sale – for a whopping $3.00! Haha… They actually go for $30-$150+ on eBay depending on the condition of it and what it’s graded at (something we didn’t have back in the days of card collecting when I was doing it.)
I feel like an Antique dealer could have done better to sell that than just using it for display but who knows. Great job on the return though!
Ha I knew that pram would sell. It was way too cool not too, although I really thought you could have gotten $100 for it. Can’t wait to see what you get next. :D
Not a bad flip at all! I’m with Cat though in thinking you would’ve gotten more out of it, but more than doubling is pretty sweet.
Oh, I definitely could have. Just needed it out asap and lost patience ;)
I can’t believe it didn’t sell for more. I had a hard time trying to get one, they kept getting snapped up for $150 and up! At least you made more than you paid for it.
Well done! Lately I have been flipping children’s bikes on CL. I pick them up for $10 at a garage sale, then sell them for $25-50. My best deal was buying a Specialized girl’s bike for $15 and selling it for $90. It’s an easy buck for me (I’m a SAHM), and since I have a large 2-car garage, I can hold them for a few weeks until I get the price I want. I love it!
Oooh that’s hot!! Way to find a niche and ramp up :) I wish you many a bike deals this up and coming yard sale weekend!
Congrats on selling it! Not as much as you wanted but something!
I’ve been having some trouble with craigslist too! No spammers but a lot of flaky people. Don’t quite understand it. Two people said they wanted it, then canceled the meet up, and now one isn’t answering back and the other canceled entirely. This is after I held the items for a week for them. It seems like on Craigslist giving your word doesn’t mean much.
Yup, welcome to the club! Keep trying though – eventually it works out and you have cold hard (yummy smelling) cash in your pockets :)
Good job J.! This is such a cute stroller. I would actually pay $60 seriously I am not kidding. :)
Bananas were $0.1/lb today at the supermarket, I can send you 300lb for $30 and you can sell them for $0.5 just setting up a shop in your street haha!
Not a one flip thing and not sure customs will be happy, but a cool markup!
HAH! I remember paying like $1.50 for them at Union Station in DC. Total rip off but they just tasted damn good and were convenient ;)
Ugh, we had people flake out on us multiple times when we tried to get rid of a desk through Freecycle. I hate when that happens. But at least you eventually managed to get rid of the pram for a profit, even a small one!
We’ve been saying we need to do a yard sale. We have furniture and clothes and glassware, and some electronics that we really need to get rid of since we aren’t using them and we need to make room to store baby stuff, since we do want a second baby so it doesn’t make sense to get rid of everything Amelia outgrows just yet!
Congratulations. I’d have to agree too with the post that your time is worth something as well. This is what would prevent me from doing this, although, I have been able to do that with brand name children’s clothes found in a tag sale. After my child was done with them, I’ve consigned them. However, the return was so little. I was happier to have them be reused — (children’s clothes are usually in good condition, because kids’ grow out of them so fast, they don’t have too much time to wear out. For me it is more about not wasting good things and getting pleasure out of knowing someone else could use them. I love freecycle for this reason.
I can understand that. If it wasn’t fun for me, or I wasn’t trying to make a game out of it, I probably wouldn’t waste my time either. But luckily I don’t see it as a waste :)
Congrats on the “flip”…Longtime CL user and my advice….be patient. I agree you do meet some ….”characters”…as well as ” no shows” but for the most part CL rocks and you do meet some nice folks. Gonna echo Sarah’s advice on selling bikes….but you have to know what your buying. Recently bought a mountain bike at a yard sale for $7…put a tube in the rear tire…adjusted the brakes…oiled the chain. Did some research and found the bike sells new for $300. Put it on CL and sold it for $155…in two days…to a very nice guy. Just lucky I guess. I do have a Joe Montana Sports Illustrated pewter sculpture in the original box WITH certificate of authenticity..$30 takes it home..Might be a good “flip” for you…football season is right around the corner!
Hah! I just searched eBay to see what that was and def. not what I was expecting, haha… was hoping it would be some large decoration piece – nope :) And you can buy it there for $15-$20 too, so will have to decline the offer this time around, but feel free to hit me up with more! That was fun to check out :)
I also sell used stuff online, but I am usually posting on local sites. I do get good deals as well and it is really a big help.