How To Buy & Sell Mid Century Modern On Craigslist For Profit - Vol. 5
This series will show you how to buy and sell Mid Century Modern Furniture and Decor on Craigslist for a profit. We use these techniques for buying and selling MCM, but the tips and tricks we will show you here can be applied to any niche.
Craigslist is a great vehicle for scanning items that people are selling too low and turn around and flip for a higher profit. The beauty about using Craigslist vs. buying from a Thrift Store or going to a Flea Market is the low cost of time and energy involved. With Craigslist you don't have to leave your house with out knowing exactly (well almost exactly) what you are going to pick up and how much profit you are going to make on it.
That being said Craigslist has become highly competitive with resellers and so below are the tips and tricks we recommend for beating your competition and getting the most out of Craigslist.
In Vol. 5 of this edition we're going to share a few tricks with regards to buying items. If you have a certain type of item you think you can make money on, chances are a few other people have already been flipping said item for awhile. So how do we set ourselves apart from our competition?
Post Ads From Inside Your Vehicle & Offer Delivery: So this tip is a bit two fold but they relate so close that I figured I'd post them in the same volume. Following right where we left off in Vol. 4 (if you haven't read it go there and read it now, it relates to much to this article that you need to read it first) you've now gotten into your vehicle with the item loaded and you have copious amounts of pictures of said item. Before you drive off go to Craigslist either on your phone (what I do is actually bring a little Macbook Air w/ me and I use my phone as a hotspot and search and post directly from my computer in the car, way faster) or on your computer and post the item you just bought with the photos you just took or saved from their ad.
This is good for a few reasons. Too many times after a day of picking up items you're either rushing home to meet with people who want to buy items from you off Craigslist or you're just too plain exhausted that you don't feel like doing anything and you just put off posting. Every day however you don't post the item is 1 more day that it doesn't sell, which is 1 more day it takes up space in your limited supply of storage which is 1 less item you can buy in that month and eventually significant money loss at the end of the year. So posting right away every time you buy an item drastically increases the amount you make. The sooner you get items sold the sooner you can buy more. And the faster you can do this for the year the more money you have. Its simple. To be truly successful at buying and selling Mid-Century & Danish Modern furniture you need to master the art of the quick turnaround. So post right away.
The second part of this tip is you want to offer delivery when you initially post the item. Look its already in your car so lets assume you have the means to deliver for now. Delivering is great for a few reasons. 1. Less work. You're going to have to unload it anyways so either you unload it at someones house and you're done with it or you unload it at your place and then have to move it again once someone actually buys it.
2. You can usually make extra money delivering items and add it as an additional revenue stream. I found that in my geographic location (downtown in a city) that most people for someone reason always ask how much I'd charge for delivery but then are too cheap to pay for it. Honestly I'd tell people $10 for delivery (things like a chair) (and only because its like 10 minutes away and I want it gone) and they'd scoff and say no. Then I started to tell people that I'd deliver for a bottle of wine and items started flying off the shelf. Same people that wouldn't want to pay $10 for delivery will buy us $30 bottles of wine because they like the idea of it. We honestly add around 20 bottles of free wine to our collection every month from doing deliveries.
Once I'm home from picking up items, assuming they haven't sold with free delivery I then go and edit the ad. Ill change the free delivery to "willing to deliver for a bottle of wine" and I'll raise my price to the normal price I'd sell the item for. And that brings up the fourth and final point which is really just a continuation of point three. 4. You make more money on an item when you deliver (sound familiar?) because most people when they show up to buy an item will negotiate. You already know this and thats why you post items for 20% more then what you actually want to sell the item for. But when someone requests you deliver there's this sub conscious thinking that they have where they think that because you're doing them a favor by delivering that it would be rude to negotiate. 99 out of 100 people that ask for delivery will not negotiate. So lets say you have a heavy credenza in your van and you don't want to unload it. Leave it in there for now. Offer delivery curb side for a bottle of wine. If you wanted $500 for the credenza you probably had it online for $600. When you deliver you'll get the item out of your van so you can buy more items, you'll have only unloaded it once, you'll get a free bottle of wine, and you made an extra $100 on the item because they were too appreciative of your delivery service to barter.
You're welcome :)
After reading this I really hope you apply the tips and tricks I just mentioned. You can make this job a full time job if you want to but it doesn't have to be that way. Apply the above info into your life and work less! If you guys like these tutorials on how to buy and sell don't forget to subscribe to be notified of the latest content as it comes out and as always if you don't mind hitting the share button below this it would be much appreciated!
Cheers, MCP
