Is this a profitable idea? Do you have Exp. With this? Please help

[Gear_Junky]

So 200.00 to sell it for 300.00 is a recipe for working for far below minimum wage.

This. Working hard to become poorer and not even realizing it.

 

[michael_atw]

Again, I think that a lot of people misunderestimate their real time/effort expended. If you're surfing CL, you need to include the time you spend surfing, the time you spend driving to/from to buy the instrument, the gas and wear/tear on the car, etc. Then time you spend cleaning the instrument, placing the ad, answering questions, packing, gas/wear/tear taking to ship, etc. Those little costs can add up.

Time is never "free". If you're messing around with flipping instruments, that time/money could be spent doing something else. If people have fun flipping and make some money, great. But there are real costs associated with the endeavor and one shouldn't fool themselves into thinking they're making $X when in fact they're clearing a lot less.

Consider it done. But the level you bring it is sorta overkill. I could calculate how long it takes me to brush my teeth, take a shower, sleep, work a steady job, drive, eat, etc. and make them into values but I don't.

For me, searching for the deals takes cumulatively about 2 hours a day (short 2-3 minute bursts intermittently while I am bored or not doing anything). Buying the item takes 3 minutes, unpacking it takes 15 minutes, listing it takes 20-30, questions take 5, shipping is 20-30. If you need it broken down that far, you're just adding more work. If I did add those up, it would come to roughly 2 hours per item. $100/2 = $50 an hour.

 

[michael_atw]

One word......OVERHEAD.

Never mind the hard costs of e-bay and pay pal fees...

What about the cost of gas to go pick up the stuff you are selling.And then going to ship it?

Packing materials?

What is your time worth?

Sure buying something for 200.00 and selling it for 600.00 would be a no brainer.
But that kinda deal ain't gonna come around very often (if ever)..

So 200.00 to sell it for 300.00 is a recipe for working for far below minimum wage.

Overhead? It's just me.

Cost to pick it up? I get it shipped to me (I buy mostly on Ebay). If I do pick it up (as in a craigslist deal), I drive 2-3 hours round trip at most and gas costs $20. Buy something, flip it for $150 more than I paid for it, and subtract $20. 4-5 man hours (2-3 driving, 2 to sell) and that equates to $25-$30 an hour.

There are literally dozens of very easy, FREE ways to get packing materials. Find a big box in a dumpster. Find peanuts, newspaper, foam, or bubble wrap in your place of business or from someone you know who has a place of business that throws out lots of packaging stuff.

Time is worth as much as someone wants it to be. One can watch Judge Judy and Dr. Phil and sit on my porch or stare at a wall, or one can get constructive.

So 200.00 to sell it for 300.00 is a recipe for working for far below minimum wage.

Tell that to my bank account. Next Spring I'll be buying a new car in cash.

 

[Gear_Junky]

let's not forget that actually SELLING an item (at that intended margin) is not a guarantee. Sometimes items can sit for a while. A price you saw someone asking on eBay is not a guarantee of quick easy sale. But oh well, you won't lose much by trying. I was trying to point out that it can be subtle. You can go for months under the impression that you're making money (with your math), but in the end you'll have net negative cash flow.

I've tried it several times, on several types of goods - I've been a PowerSeller on eBay 4 different times working for separate companies and for myself. Been selling on eBay since around they first opened. It's fun and can be good with the right sources. It can also drain you.

 

[SurferJoe46]

Oh stop.

From just one city's newspapers today - San Diego.

Oh stop, yourself.

Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed
Man Threatened With Box Cutter, Punched, Robbed Of $2,100 By 4 In La Mesita Park

POSTED: 7:17 am PDT July 8, 2011
UPDATED: 7:16 pm PDT July 8, 2011

[DELICIOUS: Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed] [DIGG: Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed] [FACEBOOK: Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed] [REDDIT: Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed] [RSS] [PRINT: Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed] [EMAIL: Man Responding To Craigslist Ad For Computers Robbed]
LA MESA, Calif. -- A search is under way Friday for four assailants who robbed a 21-year-old man who went to a La Mesa park to buy two Apple MacBook computers that had been advertised on Craigslist, police said.

The man was robbed of $2,100 at La Mesita Park at 8855 Dallas St. shortly before 8:30 p.m. Thursday, according to La Mesa police.

The man and a friend told police they went to the park and spotted two of the suspects sitting in a parked 1996 Honda Accord, California license plate 3STU216. According to police, when the victim and his friend approached the vehicle, the suspects got out and one of them brandished a box cutter and demanded cash.

About the same time, two other suspects walked out from behind a toilet and one of them punched the victim in the face, police said. The victim was not injured.

All four suspects then fled east on Dallas Street in the Accord, which police later learned was recently purchased by an auto dealership in Tijuana, Mexico.

Police described the suspect with the box cutter as a Hispanic man of about 19, 5 feet 9, 140 pounds, with long dark curly hair and tattoos on his right arm. The second suspect in the car was a Hispanic man of between 20 and 25, 5 feet 9, 160 pounds, with long dark curly hair and a left arm covered in tattoos.

The suspects who appeared from behind a toilet were described only as Hispanic males wearing dark clothing.

On May 11, La Jolla High School graduate Garrett Berki, 18, was shot to death when he went to Paradise Hills to purchase a $600 computer for sale on Craigslist. Three teenage gang members accused of killing the Mesa College student have pleaded not guilty to murder, robbery and other charges.

Rashon Abernathy, Seandell Jones and Shaquille Jordan, all 17, are being prosecuted as adults. They are in custody in lieu of $5 million bail each.

 

[michael_atw]

From just one city's newspapers today - San Diego.

Oh stop, yourself.

...that's one newspaper article. Not 5. Not 10. Not 100. Not 1500. One transaction gone wrong out of, what, 10,000?

Your fear is almost completely unfounded.

 

[Munjibunga]

It's going to be a loser. There are too many ancillary costs to overcome on such narrow gross margin.

 

[michael_atw]

let's not forget that actually SELLING an item (at that intended margin) is not a guarantee. Sometimes items can sit for a while. A price you saw someone asking on eBay is not a guarantee of quick easy sale. But oh well, you won't lose much by trying. I was trying to point out that it can be subtle. You can go for months under the impression that you're making money (with your math), but in the end you'll have net negative cash flow.

I've tried it several times, on several types of goods - I've been a PowerSeller on eBay 4 different times working for separate companies and for myself. Been selling on eBay since around they first opened. It's fun and can be good with the right sources. It can also drain you.

Ebay's a pile of trash. But that's a whole different story for another day. It's the Wal-Mart of ecommerce in the sense of its morals and integrity. Stress balls fly off the shelves on Ebay to other Ebay members.

A guitar or part doesn't lose value if it sits. It sits in my house so I'm not paying any more than I already would have to baby it - so no added "storage" value depreciation.

I make sure to underestimate my intended sell prices when I purchase items. I say, what's the very least I can make? Then I use that as my floor. If I find something for $200 and I know I can make $350, then I make myself think I can only make $300. That way, I won't overreach my bounds, and I'll almost never lose.

 

[Lonesomedave]

michael atw:

please explain that "morals and integrity" comment

neither ebay nor wal mart makes anyone do business with them; they don't pull out guns and force anyone to work for them. not sure about ebay, but wal mart where i live has the best prices on many items. if you buy a defective item they will gladly take it back and refund your money.

if you don't like them, they don't come after you.

as far as i can see, they are nothing but good corporate citizens. i wish the federal government would leave me in peace the way wal mart and ebay do. i don't see wal mart spending me into bankruptcy or forcing me to buy healtch care insurance and to pay for other people who i don't even know.

exactly what is your beef with either wal mart or ebay?

/s/ Dave

 

[Munjibunga]

michael atw:

please explain that "morals and integrity" comment

neither ebay nor wal mart makes anyone do business with them; they don't pull out guns and force anyone to work for them. not sure about ebay, but wal mart where i live has the best prices on many items. if you buy a defective item they will gladly take it back and refund your money.

if you don't like them, they don't come after you.

as far as i can see, they are nothing but good corporate citizens. i wish the federal government would leave me in peace the way wal mart and ebay do. i don't see wal mart spending me into bankruptcy or forcing me to buy healtch care insurance and to pay for other people who i don't even know.

exactly what is your beef with either wal mart or ebay?

/s/ Dave

Well put. They don't force anyone to work for them , either.

 

[Gear_Junky]

Ouch, I did not see this thread turn into a walmart bashing venue, and certainly not ebay bashing (since the OP asked about selling there).

But it's incredibly... Well, unsmart to think of corporate entities as immoral or greedy or whatever. They act according to principles of capitalism, within the existing law. If people don't like outsourcing, that's your elected officials who are to blame. That's what people usually complain about with walmart. With ebay I'm not even sure what your beef is. Ebay is just a venue, its few actual employees in san jose are very happy. Everyone else just pays fees to sell on the most successful online selling site. That in exchange for exposure to millions of potential buyers. Everyone knows there's fees. That's it. If anything, you can buy stuff direct from china there, without paying the middle man (aka walmart).

 

[michael_atw]

as far as i can see, they are nothing but good corporate citizens.

That's...scary you would think that. I suggest you educate yourself in the Ebay forums...or just listen to the deep well of lawsuits against Wal-Mart. Or just examine each one's real company principles in depth. You haven't seen very far on this one. I'm really confused as to how buying health care came into a passing comment about Wal-Mart's "morals and integrity". But hey, whatever gets your arguments through the night.

"neither ebay nor wal mart makes anyone do business with them; they don't pull out guns and force anyone to work for them."

Yes...but I don't think you understand the full extent of what it's like to do business with a place or work for a place for 10+ years and then have them pull the rug out from under you. Many Ebay sellers are shutting down after being in business since the late 90's with Ebay because Ebay is constantly changing the rules on them and taking away thing they had originally given them. It is akin to your employer of 10+ years one day telling you in two months they will be cutting your vacation by a week and trimming your paycheck down by $1 an hour. This is all even though they are deemed a healthy enterprise. I doubt if you'd take your co-workers saying "You don't have to work here. If you don't like it, go somewhere else."

But I digress. I don't really have to explain it - it was a passing comment...and the research and stories abound in both cases.

 

[michael_atw]

Ouch, I did not see this thread turn into a walmart bashing venue, and certainly not ebay bashing (since the OP asked about selling there).

But it's incredibly... Well, unsmart to think of corporate entities as immoral or greedy or whatever. They act according to principles of capitalism, within the existing law. If people don't like outsourcing, that's your elected officials who are to blame. That's what people usually complain about with walmart. With ebay I'm not even sure what your beef is. Ebay is just a venue, its few actual employees in san jose are very happy. Everyone else just pays fees to sell on the most successful online selling site. That in exchange for exposure to millions of potential buyers. Everyone knows there's fees. That's it. If anything, you can buy stuff direct from china there, without paying the middle man (aka walmart).

You really don't know very much about the practices of Ebay. You might want to go read the hundreds and thousands of Ebay forum threads in response to many of the very amateur, deceiving, outright disgusting practices of Ebay. Everything from Ebay shutting down 10,000+ feedback sellers for no reason to Ebay CSRs lying on the phones. And many, many more.

 

[Lonesomedave]

Michael ATW;

well, can't comment on ebay because i have not sold anything there

my comment on wal mart remains and i see you did not dispute it nor offer anything except gross generalities.

they don't force anyone to buy there...DO THEY? just asking.

they don't force anyone to work there...DO THEY? just asking.

sounds like the same old liberal crap.

if you don't like how they conduct business, don't buy there.

if you don't like how they treat employees, don't work there.

you did not dispute my points... they are good corporate citizens and they have the best prices on many items. these lawsuits you refer to. how many are filed by disgruntled employees who are just pissed that wal mart chose to do something different than they themselves would have done it... i.e. to give them a promotion or something. tell you what, you start a business, from the ground up, and then you can run it the way you want. let wal mart run theirs the way they want.

grow up.

/s/ Dave

 

[Jbyjnkx57]

Well I bought two German authentic Warwick streamers from their used site and they came fine and each one cost $1500. Plus my second one I had a %15 off coupon so it was more like $1300. A steal for sure.

 

[michael_atw]

Michael ATW;

well, can't comment on ebay because i have not sold anything there

my comment on wal mart remains and i see you did not dispute it nor offer anything except gross generalities.

they don't force anyone to buy there...DO THEY? just asking.

they don't force anyone to work there...DO THEY? just asking.

sounds like the same old liberal crap.

if you don't like how they conduct business, don't buy there.

if you don't like how they treat employees, don't work there.

you did not dispute my points... they are good corporate citizens and they have the best prices on many items. these lawsuits you refer to. how many are filed by disgruntled employees who are just pissed that wal mart chose to do something different than they themselves would have done it... i.e. to give them a promotion or something. tell you what, you start a business, from the ground up, and then you can run it the way you want. let wal mart run theirs the way they want.

grow up.

/s/ Dave

Thanks for making a very small sentence into a political circus. "Liberal crap"? What?

 

[Lonesomedave]

michael atw-

you're welcome.

/s/ Dave

 

[crozier247]

With all due respect to the posters, we don't need this turning into a politics and retail store thread

 

[SurferJoe46]

...that's one newspaper article. Not 5. Not 10. Not 100. Not 1500. One transaction gone wrong out of, what, 10,000?

Your fear is almost completely unfounded.

Well - after some consideration and late night thinking for myself - I find that you are absolutely NOT right!

Craigslist crimes

By Union-Tribune

Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 4:02 p.m.

A list of some notable crimes locally and nationally that involved deals through Craigslist:

March 2011: A former San Jose State student was convicted of 10 felonies for using Craigslist to lure robbery victims and use a Taser on them while taking their cash and other electronics. Ellis T. Jones III was a member of the San Jose State football team in 2006 when he was arrested in connection with a the crime spree.

Feb. 2011: A Los Angeles man who arranged to buy an iPhone from a stranger he met through Craigslist was instead robbed of $500 at gunpoint. Daniel So, 19, and Garrett Helstrom, 20, of South Pasadena were arrested after an investigation by the sheriff’s gang unit.

Jan. 2011: A San Diego man who put his car up for sale on Craigslist was targeted by a car thief who drove off in the classic 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle after the meeting seller on Imperial Avenue and 32nd Street for a test drive.

Dec. 2010: Four bodies found wrapped in burlap sacks on Long Island, N.Y. were identified as sex workers who advertised on Craigslist.

Dec. 2010: Police in Oakland warned Craigslist users about a recent series of robberies in which potential buyers were lured by ads offering incredible deals on expensive-model cars only to be robbed at gunpoint and physically assaulted on at least two occasions.

Nov. 2010: In Bakersfield, Law enforcement urged caution when selling property online after two reports in one week of snatch-and-run robberies of an iPad and a cell phone from victims selling personal electronics on Craigslist who had arranged to meet a potential buyer in person.

Nov 2010: Craigslist customers drove from Hollywood to Santa Clarita to buy a camera at an unbelievable price but instead became victims of a robbery when they were met by three suspects wearing ski masks who blocked their vehicle in and took all their personal belongings as well as the cash they had brought to buy the camera and their cell phones.

Oct. 2010: A prostitute who advertised himself on Craigslist was convicted of first-degree murder in a Contra Costa County Superior Court for killing a retired Bank of America executive who had hired him, then setting the victim’s Bay Point townhouse ablaze. Alejandro Hernandez Rivera, a 24-year-old janitor from Vallejo, Rivera admitted that he strangled 66-year-old Theodore Neff in 2008.

July 2010: La Mesa police arrested two men who used Craigslist online ads as part of a scam to rob two men of their iPad tablet computers in separate incidents on June 14 and June 18. In each case, when the victims met the potential buyer, the thief took the device and ran away. Christopher Michael Cook, 19, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of grand theft. Jesus Guillermo Sanchez, 20, was ordered to stand trial.

Nov. 2009: Three men were charged with stealing cash and property from victims they found on Craigslist. In what Chicago Detective Joseph McGuire called “robbery by appointment,” a dozen Craigslist customers were robbed at gunpoint by the purported sellers of low-priced TV and electronics on eight occasions over two weeks in October and November.

May 2009: John Steven Burgess, was sentenced to five years in prison relating to the death of San Diego State University student Donna Jou. Burgess met Jou through a Craigslist ad and he took her to a party at his home in Los Angeles on June 23, 2007. The convicted sex offender later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and told the judge that he dumped the 19-year-old’s body into the ocean after she overdosed on drugs.

April 2009: Philip Markoff, a 22-year-old medical student, is accused of killing Julia Brissman in a Boston hotel room. The two had met after Markoff responded to Brissman’s massage-service advertisements on Craigslist. Markoff, nicknamed “the Craigslist Killer” commits suicide in a Boston prison cell Aug. 15, 2010, while awaiting trial.


News: Another Batch Of Craigslist Crimes - Long Island News, Long Island, N.Y.

Since the discovery that the four female remains from Gilgo Beach were murdered at the hands of a Craigslist killer, many Long Islanders have been waiting for news about progress in the case. In the past weeks more crimes have been committed after exchanges between persons on the website. Though Craigslist has taken down its controversial adult services section, the recent incidents prove that the website is still an avenue for crime.

Last Tuesday night a nineteen-year-old man from Hazel Park, Michigan was shot to death in the upper torso. The man had scheduled a meeting with a fraudulent seller of the popular Android phone after advertising that he wanted to purchase it on Craigslist. He had been contacting his killer through text messages and agreed to pay $80 for the phone and $15 to have it delivered to his home.

The victim's aunt, who provided him with a residence since September, claims to have heard two shots around 7:30pm on Tuesday night. He was taken to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak where he was pronounced dead. The original meeting place for the exchange was intended for a gas station near a major highway. It's unclear why the teen was shot and killed for such a miniscule robbery.

Last week, a twenty-seven-year old woman from Wisconsin met a forty-five-year old man from East Williamsburg, Brooklyn at John F. Kennedy Airport. He paid for her airfare and taxi to his apartment. The pair had shared information through Craigslist, and he allegedly arranged to have her stay in his home for the exchange of cooking/cleaning services.

The woman got a job at a restaurant in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She claims that the man kept her as a sex slave for eight days by chaining her to his bedroom. He only allowed her to leave to go to work, giving her the opportunity to call her mother who later contacted Brooklyn authorities.

She was found by police in the fetal position shaking on the bed. The man was charged with assault, rape, and unlawful imprisonment, and was kept on $350,000 bail. In 2004 the man had been involved in a misdemeanor assault charge for domestic violence which was eventually dropped.

Weeks after twenty-two-year old Megan Waterman, one of the four Gilgo Beach victims, went missing twenty-four-year old Elena Jasmir Lozada disappeared from Portland, Maine. Like Waterman and the other victims, Lozada had also posted services on Craigslist. She lived less than ten miles from Waterman.

Lozada is five-foot-two and approximately 110lbs. She has short, wavy brown hair and brown eyes and a distinguishable scar near her left ear. She is Hispanic and was last seen in Portland while staying with friends on July 23rd, 2010. Her mother last heard from her on July 6th, 2010, and claimed that Lozada spoke of moving out of her apartment and planning a trip to Boston, Massachusetts. Police believe she may have ended up in Dorchester, Massachusetts and are urging anyone with information to contact Detective Christopher Giesecke from the Portland Police Department.

On Sunday, January 30th, 2011 Waterman was the first of the Gilgo Beach victims to be buried. She rests in Portland, Maine. The night before her funeral friends and family gathered in a Portland-area roller-skating rink, a favorite of Waterman's, to honor her. On Monday, January 31st, 2011 a memorial service was held for Gilgo Beach victim Melissa Barthelemy fifteen miles southeast of Buffalo, New York in Elma. Services for Amber Lynn Costello, a third victim, were held in Lindenhurst, New York. Her ashes were buried next to her mother in North Carolina.

Craigslist was created in San Francisco and has been established since 1995. It receives approximately thirty million postings per month, making it the seventh most popular website to be designed in English. Lawsuits have caused the website to change its "erotic services" section to "adult services" before it was removed altogether following the Gilgo Beach slayings. It's estimated that a third of the website's revenue came from adult advertisements. As of 2007, an estimated 260,000 people per city were on the site for adult services, making that aspect of the site the most popular section (and almost twice as popular as the second most popular section).

In addition to robberies and sex crimes, the website has been known to be the backdrop for crimes of revenge. One case involved a man who posed as his ex-girlfriend and invited aggressive men to take advantage of her after soliciting for it on Craigslist. The woman was later raped at knifepoint while at her home. Another case involved the mother of a nine-year-old girl who solicited sex while posing as the mother of her daughter's enemy.

Los Angels Times - January 12, 2010

Craigslist's vast network of classified-ad websites has been a boon not just to bargain hunters but also to criminals searching for victims.

The San Francisco-based company has been linked to a wide range of crimes in recent years, from petty thefts to grisly murders.

The most recent was a rape in Wyoming allegedly orchestrated by the victim’s ex-boyfriend, a former Marine in Twentynine Palms. The 27-year-old mechanic is accused of placing an ad on Craigslist purportedly from a woman seeking "a real aggressive man with no concern for women." He allegedly continued the impersonation in e-mails and instant messages, enticing a 26-year-old Wyoming man to the victim's house to engage in abusive, humiliating sex.

Craigslist Users Linked to 12 deaths, 330 Crimes In Past Year - by Athima Chansanchai

Craigslist can be dangerous, so much that a recently released study — commissioned by rival Oodle, which runs Facebook app Marketplace — calls it "a cesspool of crime." The report links the famous classified service to 330 crimes and 12 deaths in the U.S. over the course of a year — 20 deaths total since the site began 16 years ago.

All I'm saying is to be very careful out there. Bad times bring out bad people who have nothing to lose and they don't mind mixing it up with someone showing up with a $3000 bass or the cash to buy one that doesn't even exist.

.

 

[michael_atw]

Well - after some consideration and late night thinking for myself - I find that you are absolutely NOT right!



.

One has a better chance of dying in a car crash than getting robbed on craigslist. Better sell your '97 Sunfire and get to spreading all the fear over at the Ford Mustang forum.