My experiment in reselling a Wii for some extra cash is now over. I am a bit disappointed in the results, but I still came out ahead, so it wasn't a total failure.
My eBay auction ended with a high bid of $450, plus $39 for shipping, handling, and insurance. I was hoping for closer to $500 though. Here's all the details:
| Sales Price | $450 |
| Shipping, Handling, & Insurance | $39 |
| eBay Listing Fee | - $4.35 |
| eBay Final Value Fee | - $15.13 |
| PayPal Fee | - $14.48 |
| Cost of shipping box | - $8.00 |
| Shipping & Insurance | - $24.78 |
| Cost of Wii | - $375 |
| Net Profit | $47.26 |
The profit wasn't close to $100, as I had hoped, but it is still acceptable, considering the tiny amount of time I put into this. Close to a 13% profit in five days, most of which was just waiting for the eBay auction to end. I figure I spent less than 1 hour on the whole deal.
eBay and Paypal fees killed me. I knew they were expensive, but forgot how expensive. No excuse for this. I could have easily looked up the fees before I placed the auction. However, had I decided to sell this on Craigslist or some other site instead, the amount of time I had invested would have been more, so it's a trade off between effort and cost. I also could have used a 3 day auction length instead of 5 days. No one bid until 2 hours before the end time, which I half expected, so there was a lot of wasted time there. I also only had 5 bidders. I was expecting closer to 15, based on the other auctions I was seeing. And finally, my auction ended on a Tuesday night, at around 9 PM Pacific time. Auctions that end on weekend nights tend to do a bit better.
All in all, I'm happy with my $47 profit, considering how little work I put into this effort.
6 comments:
Next time put the starting bid at $1 that would put your Ebay listing fee down to about .50. The only thing you need to worry about is to make sure that it doesn't sell for less than what your minimum, but in that case a friend with an ebay login could surely help out there ;)
*ahem* told you so. :) Anyway, $50 profit for almost no effort is nothing to sneeze at.
The fees on ebay/paypal are astronomical. I truly admire the way they've created a cartel/market wherein they, without really -doing- anything, skim 10% or more from small transactions on a vast scale.
I think you approached it wrong on two counts. Craigslist would have done you better. The purchaser would be happy to get it for less than $480, and you'd have no fees to deal with. Just a pile of cash. Also, I didn't realize you bought an extended bundle. Problem there is you're diluting the "in-demand" item with easy to find accessories. Your markup on those will be low or even nothing.
I made that mistake with one of mine that I sold. I bought an extra controller at the time, and ended up selling that off for $10 less than I paid, just to move it.
Anyway, I'm about to repeat the experiment. I managed to get hold of another 4 base-model Wii's ($307 tax-in). I hope I can move them before Nintendo magically finds supply and floods the market when demand is at its greatest. Probably sell again at $390 or maybe try for 410 or 415. We'll see.
I found the bundle at Costco. That's the only way they sell it. I missed out on another one by about 5 minutes yesterday. I was there and they had just finished putting out a new pallet and they were snapped up fast. I saw people walking around with them in their carts, but by then they were all gone.
I am starting to loose interest in this blog. it used to be one of the best.
And I would not call what you did no effort.
what ever happened to those that you were invested in LLCs?
Anonymous - sorry you feel that way. The fact of the matter is it is holiday season and things are slowing down in my investing life as demands in my personal life take precedence. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, literally every weekend of mine is booked with things to do relating to holidays, birthdays, etc. Not much is going on with me and real estate right now.
The Louisiana deal was supposed to go to auction last week. That has been postponed. I will write about it soon, but right now, things are up in the air and I am expecting a resolution any day now, so I don't have much new info to give. It's really day by day and I don't want to write anything until I have some hard facts.
As for the other LLCs, I can post about them too, but again, there isn't much news.
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