And, that's just what I did, recently. After driving to the next county to take my daughter to her Orthodontist visit, I had to pay a visit to the nearby Goodwill that I only get to visit about every six weeks or so. There wasn't much to get excited about during this visit... until I spotted NINE sealed boxes of this item. It's an extension set for a game called, "The Settlers of Catan." Now, I'd NEVER heard of this game, but those nine boxes sure caught my eye. And, as a bonus, they were marked at $1.50 each. I used my handy dandy smartphone to do a little quick research and found that there were some listed on eBay for around $16. I figured that my $13.50 wasn't an awful lot to invest and was hopeful that I'd sell at least one to cover my expenses.
I listed them on both Amazon.com and eBay and have sold six of them, so far (some on each venue)! I've priced them at $16.75 with free shipping on eBay and $10.99 + $5.49 shipping on Amazon. So, for my $13.50 investment, I've made a profit of just over $50 with three left in inventory. One sale was to Canada and one to New Zealand! And, these are super easy to ship because they fit nicely into a poly bag and weigh just under 16 oz. No, I'm not getting rich selling these, but at this rate, they'll all be gone in another week, they are easy to store and easy to ship, so it was an easy profit.
Another chance I took last week was purchasing two big bags of various construction type blocks. I could see some Wooden Lincoln Logs and K'Nex in there, so I grabbed them up and paid $8 for the two bags. Once I got them home, I had to task of sorting through them so I could get them listed for sale. Here are the results!
Not too shabby for an $8 investment, huh?
And, finally, my most favorite sale of the week. Back in April, I picked up this cutting board that was in the shape of a pig, was obviously from the 1970's, and was new in its original package. I believe I paid $2 for it. Three months later, it sold for $42.49 ($49.99 - 15% sale)! I'll take that any day.
So, the lesson here is... don't be afraid to take a chance! Sure, there are LOTS of Lincoln Logs and Legos listed for sale on eBay on any given day. So, I had NO way of knowing if mine would sell quickly or sit for a year. Fortunately, they both sold within just a few days. The game extension set has been a quick seller, as well. Now, as for that pig... well, there was really no way to do research on it since it was a pretty unique item. So, I took a chance! It was different, for sure, and there are folks who collect anything "PIG." So, I just put him out there for sale and waited for that right buyer to come along. They usually do and they always have $$ to spend.
