People are still making money on eBay...!

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by teamplayer

Hi Diem.
What impresses me is this.
"I bought and sold second-hand laptops. Now, in this case, I didn't always sell on eBay. However, I often bought on eBay - and sold through the local trade newspaper. I could make hundreds of bucks per sale!"
I am sure many of us would like the full details on this. What kind of laptops?
Which newspaper did you sell them in, can this still be done today?

Hi Trevor,

First, sorry for my slow-ish reply... I've caught a virus or something, and it's slowing me down (I feel more tired than normal)...

When I was buying and selling laptops was the early to mid-2000s. Laps were more expensive then than they are now...

I'd deal in second-hand laptops which were around the $2,000 range. I found I could get generally a 10% spread... That is, for example, I might find a laptop I could buy for around $1,800, and sell it for around $2,000, and make around $200 profit.

Laptops are less expensive nowadays, but I bet you could still do something similar with high-end laptops.

However, you can get a bigger percentage profit with other products...!

When I did the DVD box sets (mid-2000s), I was buying Xena (the Warrior Princess) DVD box sets for around $25, and I found I could sell them for $80 to $120. (The ones I bought were heavily discounted. I found most of my buyers, though, were in country towns, where they didn't have such easy access to the discounts like I did!)

Of course, I learned it all from Gordon Alexander's "The Chattel Report"...

As long as you have the energy to do it, there's no excuse not to have spending money...

More recently, with a partner, I bought a load of products and we filled a shipping container with them, which we then exported. Now, this is quite different... But, at its core, it's really the same kind of thing - buy low, sell high. (It's a bit more complicated, though, since you have to deal with customs and that sort of thing... But - at its essence - its the same thing, really...!)

Best wishes,

Dien