Wholesale Selling Tips

[HuGo]

I need tips of what I can buy in bulk or wholesale that people are always buying/need so I can sell for a profit. I am not talking about car parts. It could be anything. I have a friend that buys bracelets. She buys them for .50 cents and she sells them for $3-5 a piece. What's popular and I know I wont have massive boxes just sitting and know it will sell.

Tips please

[PapayaSF]

Wow, that's a very general question! The basic answer is "it depends."

A lot depends on where you are. Here in San Francisco, we have a number of used bookstores that pay cash for books, and more that trade for them. Because I've been doing this on and off for years, I'm pretty good at buying books at flea markets and garage sales and thrift stores for $.25-$2, and selling most of them for $1-$8. Sometimes I find ones worth $50 or $100 or more, and those usually get sold on Ebay or Amazon. (A few top finds have been worth $800-$1200.) But you really have to know what you are doing, and there are other book scouts doing the same thing. It helps that I like looking through stacks of old books.

Other items people do this sort of thing with: vintage clothing, antiques, records and CDs. Again, it takes a lot of experience before you can consistently make money (on average), so it's usually a hobby that makes some money.

It would be interesting to know where she sells the bracelets: at her store? Someone else's store? At street fairs? Obviously, you need a reliable place to sell for this to work at all. And what prevents your outlet from buying wholesale themselves and cutting out the middleman (you)? In the case of book scouts etc., it's that used bookstores usually count on customers coming in with books to sell or trade, and don't pay employees to go to the local Salvation Army (or wherever) to look for books.

Other ideas: My ex makes custom photo albums and journals and such. She has an arrangement with a local art supply store, so someone can buy special paper and have it used to cover a book. There's a local boutique that sells interesting old lamps, and lamps made out of old plumbing parts and such. They're all by one guy who buys junky things at flea markets and spiffs them up and assembles them in interesting ways.

So I guess it comes down to: 1) What knowledge do you have that you can use to buy items somewhere that can be resold at a profit? 2) Where can you reliably resell them? 3) How much time and effort are you willing to put into the project? Remember, if it's easy and lucrative there are probably other people out there trying to make a go at the same thing, so the more special knowledge or skills you have, the better.

[HuGo]

she buys the bracelets at downtown la and sells them on eBay.

[Maverix]

Condoms. Lots and lots of condoms.

[THAT318]

what century are you in? people still use condoms? lol kinda hard to flip condoms out your garage or on ebay... if you can get a connection to a o.e.m manufacturer for bmw or any other manufacturer for that matter you can flip oem parts on ebay. i believe another user on the org has an ebay store and thats what he does.

[b.u.ti-ful]

You have to stick to your own personal area of expertise.

That way you know prices and whether or not somebody wants it.

I used to sell a battery mount for vintage BMW motorcycles that cost $11 each from BMW and the bikes needed five of them.

I ordered bulk ones that were exactly the same as BMW's plus they were stainless, so people ate them up. I got them for less than a buck each in quantity.

But, you almost need a small catalog of items to make any real money.

[THAT318]

sign up with DBL Distributing... they have a catolouge full of electronics u get the stuff at whole sale and can mark it up to whatever you want as long as your beating the stores prices people will come to you. and you can post it all over craigslist and ebay.