Dec
5
“Hello, My Name is Seth, and I’m Addicted to Scheming”
December 5, 2007 |
“Scheming” is a bit of a strong word and carries some negative connotations, but it pretty much fits the bill. I could sugarcoat it and say “Entrepreneurial” instead, but, well, hell, who I am kidding. I’m not trying to sell you a book or some ginormously expensive class so we’ll just stick with “Scheming”.
I still get a kick out of all of the crazy ways I’ve found to make money over the years, from selling things on eBay, hawking all sorts of wares online via affiliate programs, buying and selling domain names, writing about poker, real estate, you name it. I wouldn’t quite say I’m consumed by the quest to monetize everything I see, but I will admit that the first leap my brain often makes when presented with new data about something is along the lines of “How can I make money off of that?”
I forget the exact path (or even the final destination), but I was bouncing around reading various blogs and happened upon one detailing the process of buying lots of iPods from liquidation.com, pretty much sight unseen, and selling them on eBay. They’re typically customer returns so you’re gambling a bit that you’ll have enough saleable ones in the lot you buy to offset the inevitable junk ones (which can still be scavenged for parts). The profit margins on the ones you do sell are pretty fat, though, as you’re getting them for such a deep discount when buying off liquidation websites.
That particular angle doesn’t really interest me, but poking around on assorted liquidation websites did make other bells start ringing in my scheming brain, as they offer a huge variety of goods in a huge variety of conditions, including customer returns and other damaged goods, but also closeouts and inventory dumping lots of brand new goods.
What caught my particular crow’s eye were lots of things that I’ve been buying all the time of lately for house projects, such as cabinet knobs, door locks, ceiling fans, appliances, faucets, you name it. And at pretty huge discounts, for literally pennies on the dollar, such as .08 for a cabinet knob that retails for $2, or $5 for a ceiling fan, or $20 for a fancy kitchen faucet that retails for $350.
The catch, though, is that you have to buy pretty big lot sizes. So you can get cabinet knobs for .08/knob, but that’s because the lot is 750 knobs, or 50 ceiling fans, 15 kitchen faucets, etc. So while I could get a great deal on some common items that typically go into renovations and rehabs, I’d have to store a bunch of excess items and/or flip a whole ton of houses to use all of it and realize the “savings”.
Or I could buy all of the above, use what I need, and also open up an online shop of my own, devoted to flippers and landlords, who are in exactly the same boat I’m in. While I don’t necessarily relish the idea of operating my own little online shop and having to deal with shipping orders, the inevitable returns and other headaches, yada yada yada, I’ve done it before and it’s not the worst thing in the world. Some of that would be avoided by the very nature of the business, too, as I’d be targeting pretty nuts and bolts folks like myself who just need some decent looking faucets to go into rentals, and would jump at the chance to pick up 5 of them at shot for a deep discount, or 10 ceiling fans, etc.
I’d basically be a middle stop between a liquidator selling big lots at huge discount and other online retailers charging slightly less than retail for single items. I could reduce some of the annoyance by only selling things in reasonable quantities, so that I’m not ever stuck shipping a single ceiling fan to someone for $7, or two cabinet knobs for $.25. Since I’d be buying at such a huge discount I could mark things up quite a bit and still offer people a hefty discount to what they’d pay retail.
The target market would be pretty small, which is probably the biggest drawback to this scheme, as there simply aren’t a whole ton of investors and flippers out there that this would appeal to. Then again, that’s thinking kind of narrowly, as I could also target apartment complexes, property management companies, etc. And there’s always the option of reselling stuff on eBay or craigslist, too, if I ever needed to get rid of some stuff.
I told my wife and she’s already cringing, imagining the house suddenly full of boxes and boxes and boxes of ceiling fans, locks, cabinet hardware, faucets, and more. I told her not to worry, that I’d just need to buy a building for storage and that we’d be good to go. I’m not so sure she was exactly reassured.
Comments
4 Comments so far
Hey Seth,, I hear ya man. I love that stuff too.
Not a scheme, but i created a site to watch the most popular auctions on ebay. Pretty fun to see who’s bidding on what.. The url is http://www.hottestebayauctions.com
I’m also selling a copy of the script on the site in case anyone wants to start their own site. Ebay pays you when you send referrals.
Have a good one,
Steve
Another idea to consider would be fulfillment services for your products. Rather than keeping boxes all around the house, driving your wife nuts, have someone else keep it and do all the work.
But of course when you have your business rolling. :)
I come here and I read your blog regularly. How surprised I was when you started talking about MY blog. Heh, I figured no one actually read it, since no one comments on it. It’s at http://www.howibecamerich.info and it details all of my “schemes” and how well they work out for me. I am currently into selling IPods as Seth mentioned, but also Scalping Concert tickets and building various online e-stores.
Seth’s Idea crossed my mind too, and all I could see was having those same 750 cabinet knobs on a shelf in my garage wondering how to get rid of them.
I invite your readers to drop by and see how I spend my House Tax money before I have to give it to the government twice a year.
Check this out. There’s a cool 1876 Mansion for sale with 73 bids. - Spooky!
http://www.hottestebayauctions.com/realestate