A few years ago I read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. The book inspired me immensely because it was the first time I really consider what life could be like if I wasn’t an employee.
One of the themes of the book is that everyone should have a business of some sort.
He suggests Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) as one possible route, but after reviewing a number of programs I decided I was not a fan of the business model.
Being a full-time employee and having a lack of startup capital made me rule out franchising. I needed to find something smaller that I could do on the side.
JPCashflow co-contributor, Peter, told me a few stories about his father-in-law selling items on eBay.
His market was primarily car parts, but it sounded as if you could find a market for pretty much anything on eBay. In fact, his father-in-law had so much success that he needed to rent storage space for all his inventory.
The proceeds of his eBay business produced enough money to purchase a new car. Needless to say, I was intrigued and thinking that this was an avenue I should explore.
Figuring out what to sell was kind of hard to decide.
My boss at the time mentioned that he would often sell random items from around the house. He mentioned things like an old used thermostat and other random parts often sold for a good amount of money.
Based on this information I started with items around the house I no longer wanted.
To my surprise, this worked pretty well. It was around this time my neighbor told me about the town’s “take-it-or-leave-it”. This was a nice term for a shack at the town dump.
I went down there with him one day and I was surprised to find that there were some perfectly good items brought there.
One of the items found at the dump <ahem>, take-it-or-leave-it, was random pieces from china tea sets.
What I discovered was that these items could be sold for upwards of $15 in some cases. While this was an easy way to make some extra cash, it was unsustainable. I needed something that would be more consistent.
It dawned on me that there was probably opportunities to be found on Craigslist for this type of stuff, so I started to browse various categories. What I found was that there is indeed people giving away free items, but there are also people who will sell bulk lots of things at incredible prices.
An item that caught my eye was vinyl record albums.
Someone was offering a bulk lot to anyone who was willing to pick them up.
When I picked them up I discovered that they were in near-mint condition and included titles dating back to the 1940s. Aside from picking up albums for free, I also made deals for lots costing $20 to $50.
I would then take these albums, clean them, price them, and list them for sale. It wasn’t long before I shifted to Amazon, because I liked the sales platform and the fact that listings didn’t expire.
As I write this, I’m still an employee, so if you were wondering if I made a fortune selling records/albums the answer is “no”.
While the benefit of this business model was that it required zero capital to get started, it wasn’t the best product.
Vinyl records are a very niche product that lacks sales volume and the consumer who purchases them are often very picky collectors. What might seem like a minor defect to you might be completely unacceptable to them.
The item is also rather large and breakable, so that’s another issue.
The biggest problem I had with the business was that margins were low on most albums and I wasn’t a fan of merchant fulfillment (i.e. me shipping the items personally).
Since the time discussed in this post, I’ve moved onto selling easier to ship items, for higher margins, with fulfillment by Amazon. That is a topic for another day, but I would invite you to consider the opportunities that you have on your local Craigslist.
Perhaps you’ll find a product type that others are giving away and that you can make money with in another marketplace.
Maybe you’ll find that you can do retail arbitrage buying items low on Craigslist and selling them higher elsewhere.
Of course, you could do what everyone else is doing and list items on Craigslist for sale as well.
Whatever you do, just remember to take action on some sort of side business. If you’re waiting for “someday”, you’re leaving your future up to chance. If you’ve never sold anything online before, follow these action steps:
- Open an eBay or Amazon Sellers account. eBay is more suitable for used items than Amazon, but you can sell new or used products on both platforms.
- Take a look at a few product listings and make a list of what makes them appealing or unappealing.
- Find something in your home that you don’t need any more.
- List it for sale online and wait for a sale.
- Rinse and repeat
Congratulations on your new source of income.
P.S.
This should go without saying, but use common sense safety precautions when using Craigslist.
Always meet in a public place and ideally, have a friend with you.
If a seller or buyer strikes you as suspicious, then cease communication.
No sale is worth risking your safety.
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