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I hit the motherload at a local train show. Old guy had 3 tables full of assembled model train buildings with a sign that said “inventory reduction sale buy one get one.” I started picking out some of the ones I liked. Most of them were priced $4-$12 and after about a dozen I asked the guy how badly he wanted to get rid of the stuff. He said he had more bins of it at home that he didn’t even bring and said he’d sell me all the buildings for $1 each if I took them all home today. I said sure! We counted them all up and there was 298 of them, so $300 and a quick trip to walmart for some plastic bins and I’ve got inventory for the next month at least. Most of the buildings are HO scale and I usually sell them for $10-$30 depending on the size, condition and detail of the building.
I gave the guy my phone number and he gave me his. I told him I’d buy all the ones he has at home too as well as any other stuff he wanted to get rid of, we will see what becomes of that. I’ve started telling people at the train shows that I’m an online reseller and they don’t seem to mind, most of them thank me for buying such large quantities.
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Very cool score! Basically the dream to get a huge quantity of stuff that you regularly sell all for one low price. Thinking back to these occasions with my own store, these buys led to the following outcomes (all positive):
1. Once I got everything listed (usually this took a while + happened in batches), a nice chunk of immediate profit plus more sales in the weeks and months that followed.
2. Extra confidence the next time I found myself in a similar buying situation — easier to pull the trigger on a large purchase when your instinct has paid off recently.
3. Lots of sales of older and similar inventory — I think this is mostly related to the eBay algorithm, where you get a little boost in search when you’re actively listing new items and especially when they sell quickly.
I’ve started telling people at the train shows that I’m an online reseller and they don’t seem to mind, most of them thank me for buying such large quantities.
It’s so funny how the way that we think people might respond to us is often different from how they actually respond. But it goes a long way to be polite and treat people (and their stuff) with respect. There are a lot of rude and disingenuous resellers out there. Mostly Amazon FBA sellers in my experience (no offense Amazon people). But ebay has been good the last few years about marketing themselves as the home of a million small businesses, so I’ve found that people often respond very positively when I tell them I have an ebay business.
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Favorite scavenge of the week; I pulled the trigger on a lot of clothes because I thought I saw a vintage flight jacket in there. I won’t be able to tell until I actually receive it (I buy all my inventory online) but fingers crossed!
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I won’t be able to tell until I actually receive it (I buy all my inventory online)
I can’t wait to see whether you got the score you think you did. I also buy almost all of my inventory online, and there is nothing like the 5-7 business day wait period between paying for an order and waiting for it to show up in your mailbox or PO Box in my case. I was away this week and finally opened all my mail earlier today, and one low feedback seller sent me a completely different item, not even close to what I ordered in size and shape. The perils of buying online. At least eBay’s money back guarantee has never let me down.
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