Making a Living as a Reseller- Part 1, by BIF

JWR is a proponent, with good reason, of living at your retreat and living your preps. He has also pointed out from time to time that it can be a challenge to obtain a job in the American Redoubt. They are available, but sometimes a job require special skills or a willingness to take a step down in your salary or career path. One thing he suggests is finding a way to make a living that is compatible with your lifestyle and available at your retreat location, whether it is in the American Redoubt or not.

Buying and Selling As a Source of Income

For those of you wanting to make the move towards self-sufficiency in a career, or for those who are just looking for extra income, let’s talk about buying and selling as a source of income. I think with a little practice, anyone can learn to make money by reselling things. Buying and reselling goes back to prehistoric times before money existed.

Stone Axes Versus Steel Axes

Years ago, I read a doctoral dissertation on the trade in stone ax making materials in pre-historic Australia. The best material for ax heads was available only in a few locations. The interaction of indigenous peoples across Australia to obtain materials, distribute the materials across the continent, trade, and manufacture the ax heads was incredible. That trade and the related social norms and structures, which had evolved over thousands of years, was destroyed (inadvertently?) by missionaries who disrupted the traditional way of life by giving steel axes away to anyone who did some work for them. However, that is a different story.

A Perfect Market

A quick academic explanation for how reselling can work relies on the concept of a “Perfect Market”. A handy definition of a perfect market is “a theoretical market in which buyers and sellers are so numerous and well informed that monopoly is absent and market prices cannot be manipulated.”

Basically, you make money by buying in an imperfect market– one with a limited number of buyers and one in which there is less than perfect information about the value of an item. You then sell in a market that is closer to perfect– one with many buyers who understand the value of what you are selling, usually after doing some research about the item so you can describe it accurately, using the terminology the buyers expect.

Internet

The Internet has done a great job of creating something close to that perfect market. It has made global markets available to anyone almost anywhere in the world. Where in the past, you were limited on who you could reach and how you could do it, now you can reach thousands of knowledgeable people interested in what you are selling and do it for free or at little cost.

Tools To Help You`

There are a lot of tools out there to help you in your reselling business. One of the best tools to help you with this is eBay and its search feature. A little research, playing around, checking out prices on things you spot at garage sales, et cetera can be a good way to start your new selling career. Use eBay to check out the things you see for sale locally. On eBay, you can view items that really sold and find out how much others actually paid for them. You can use your smart phone to look up what something sells for while you are at the garage sale, thrift store, et cetera to get an idea about whether or not it is worth your time to try to resell it. There are other sites and forums to sell, and we’ll cover some of those in the article as well. However, eBay is the granddaddy of them all and the place I would recommend you start.

In This Article

In this article, I’ll discuss how to get started and build a stake with no investment and talk about how you can make money selling or reselling items that others want. For fun, we’ll put a time limit of two months on building the stake. We’ll also talk a bit about OPSEC.

Just a note, I consider myself to be a casual or hobby reseller and will approach this article from that perspective. There are quite a few people who are into reselling as a means of make a living. We’ll talk about how to get started as a full-time reseller, but you will need to do some research on your own to be successful.

A Little History

First, a little history before we get into some practical information. One good thing that the Internet has provided for us is avenues to sell stuff that are accessible to virtually everyone. In the old days, you had few options. You could pay for an ad in the newspaper, post an ad on the bulletin board at the grocery store, sell through the weekly shopper newspaper, get a table at gun shows and flea markets, call in to the Sunday radio trade show, or have a garage sale. Today, there are numerous channels, such as Craig’s List, eBay, Esty, Facebook sale pages, and many others that technology and the Internet have made available to us and that reach far beyond our local area. That’s not to say there still isn’t a place for flea markets and some of the other traditional methods; there are just more options now.

Using eBay Since 2000

I have been bargain hunting and buying and selling, since long before the Internet became available to people other than the military and research institutions. In the past, I was limited as to how I could reach potential buyers and how broad an audience I could reach. I started using eBay somewhere around 2000 or 2001. I remember the digital camera I used. (I probably still have it somewhere.) It only had a resolution of about 256 k and no removable media.

The power of using the Internet to reach buyers really became apparent to me when I sold an original Case V44 WWII Raider Bowie knife using it. I had tried to sell it at a gun show table in Early 2001 with no local buyers interested at a price of $45. I think someone offered me $30, but I felt that was too low and declined the offer. A couple of weeks later, I put it up on eBay. If memory serves, I sold it to a collector in Australia for around $225. I was hooked. After selling on eBay for somewhere around 10 years, I got a bit burned out. I think my overall positive feedback at that time was somewhere around 2500, which is not bad for a part-time gig.

Partnered With a Friend For Awhile

I did partner with a friend for awhile. I took care of acquiring stuff to sell, and my partner took care of listing and shipping, but eventually my partner got burned out too, and we stopped. Yet, I started back up on eBay earlier this year, and I will tell you that a number of improvements have been made over the past few years in listing, shipping, and tracking, all of which make selling much easier.

Kid Who Trades on Craig’s List For Porsche Boxster

About 2010, I also remember reading about a kid who was maybe 15 years old and who started bartering using Craig’s list. He started with a used cell phone but by the time he was 17 and thirty or so trades later, he owned a Porsche Boxster, and got a lot of attention driving it to high school. I know it is true, because I saw it on the Internet. You can google the story yourself, if you want to find out more.

Enjoy Flipping Items

As a hobby or casual reseller, I enjoy finding items that are underpriced, preferably by a “professional”, and flipping them at a substantial profit. There are a lot of people out there who buy and resell as a full-time job. You can spot them at book sales and estate sales with a smart phone app scanning UPC symbols on books, records, DVDs, and even VHS tapes that automatically look up the price of the item on the Internet. (Some apps automatically post the book or whatever it is for sale at the same time.) You see them at bulk sale outlets with shopping carts piled to the sky with a hundred pounds of merchandise to resell (sold to them in bulk for something like $.89 per pound but resold for maybe $1000, if they have a good eye). I’ll tell you how to get into that kind of reselling, but it does not really interest me (at this time).

That’s enough about history. Hopefully you are still with me.

Numerous Strategies Available

There are numerous strategies available to you concerning how to get started, how to gather inventory, what to use as an initial investment. There are several Facebook groups consisting of communities that help each other buy and sell, share tips and techniques, and help sellers identify and describe what they are selling. Some of the more “famous” resellers have weekly live online broadcasts talking about trends and things to look out for in the reseller marketplace. I am not going to try to recap all of them in this article. Rather, I will lay out a basic plan, using a strategy I followed just for this article. It’s one that I think anyone can do. This strategy will get you exposed to reselling and provide a stake for you to acquire merchandise in bulk.

We’ve just covered the introduction of this four-part article series. Tomorrow, we will get started with details.

See Also:

• 2 – Making A Living As A Reseller- Part 2, by BIF (Active on 9/19/18)
• 3 – Making A Living As A Reseller- Part 3, by BIF (Active on 9/20/18)
• 4 – Making A Living As A Reseller- Part 4, by BIF (Active on 9/21/18)

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

This has been part one of a four part entry for Round 78 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
5. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and
6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 78 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.