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How to Make It on Craigslist

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#61

Post by josephjrobison »

He's got the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid. I love stories like this of people doing not ground breaking jobs and just hustling and making it happen.

I work in a high skilled tech job that requires lots of thinking and analysis, and sometimes I over think and over analyze everything I'm doing, which is why I think I admire a job that requires pure hustle. Not saying that's my cup of tea to do full time, just something that I could apply to my everyday job to make me more productive and focus more on doing than analyzing!

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#62

Post by r00fus »

redthrowaway wrote: post #51
gerggerg wrote: post #38

I really dig his attitude and sense of accomplishment. Who'd a known a pawn shop with free pickup would be so successful.

I wonder if it would be possible to scale the business. If you wrote a script that could flag potentially lucrative items for manual review, you would likely be able to cut out much of the searching, allowing you to target CLs in multiple cities. If he's making $38/hr in one city, he could hire someone for $18/hr in another to drive around and pick up / drop off items and pocket the $20 difference. I'd be interested…

As he mentions several times in his posting, time sensitivity is critical. Minutes, even seconds can make/break a deal... automation may be much slower than a human who's constantly scanning.

Furthermore, it's clear that it's not just "pickup" and possibly "delivery"... the author is making a clear buy/sell/bargain decision on the spot... what happens when the pickup results in a fraudulent item?

Clearly this means that whoever is driving around needs to be trained, and once trained, can be your competitor (I see few barriers between a trained pickup-person and the author scanning craigslist)

Kudos to the entrepreneurial spirit here, but I highly doubt it's scaleable.

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#63

Post by roseburg »

redsymbol wrote: post #8

The greatest part of this story is what Ryan accomplished personally. From reading, he went from someone who consistently had great trouble professionally, to someone who is successfully able to support himself and his family financially. Ryan, if you're reading this, congratulations! This appears to be a major personal accomplishment and milestone for you. Best of luck as you grow into your next level of success.

Thanks! Appreciate it.

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#64

Post by roseburg »

kalid wrote: post #5
midas wrote: post #2

It makes sense intuitively that heavy appliances would be the most profitable. People don't say, "sure you can have my iPod for $20" but I could see them being willing to part with a washing machine for that price if someone would carry it out of their third story apartment.

I'm curious how he's able to move giant appliances / half-ton loads of steel out of people's homes by himself.

I have a really solid aluminum hand truck with stair skids on it. Most appliances weigh less than 250 lbs (I would guess average would be 175-200 lbs) and I'm able to move even the heavier ones up and down stairs by myself (not always easy!) It can be pretty physically demanding work sometimes, and I will ask questions to find out how difficult it might be to remove/deliver an appliance and bring help if I need it.

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#65

Post by roseburg »

aeeeee wrote: post #7
kalid wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how he's able to move giant appliances / half-ton loads of steel out of people's homes by himself.

I'm thinking he gets a little bit of free labor out of his kids :)

Not yet :) They are all years old and younger. When they are teenagers though...

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#67

Post by roseburg »

unreal37 wrote: post #52

A nice story. This guy found his inner "hustler" - hustler in the positive sense. I sell a lot of items on craigslist, and I have no problem with the idea that someone bought it from me to resell it because I underpriced it. Hell, if someone threw what I gave them in the garbage, they can do that too. I no longer want the item, I got what $ I asked for it, and I'm out of the equation. The only thing I'd have a proble…

I'm straight up with people. Sometimes people will pick up on the fact that I'm not the average consumer joe buying their appliance and they ask what I'm going to do with them. I tell them and no one has ever complained. I show up on time, do all the work myself, pay cash, and people are almost always happy. I've actually got a lot of repeat business from buyers that felt I treated them right. One guy turned out to own a large apartment complex and ended up buying 30-40 appliances from me this past year.

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#68

Post by nir »

_delirium wrote: post #41
pavel_lishin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not extremenly different from panhandling. I want to say you're wrong, but I'm not even sure how you reached this conclusion. > It's definitely abusive of the Craigslist community. How so?

For the purchased items I think it's fine, but for the items people are donating, the intent is usually that they be claimed by someone who plans to use them, not someone who plans to flip them. Though it does depend on the item; sometimes people give things away because they just want to get rid of them, especially with hard-to-move things like appliances. You can sometimes tell by the tone of the listing what the i…

I'm just now leaving an apt and put up stuff on CL. Some of it I'm willing to give for free (donated a bunch to charities, but they won't take everything)

As long as someone takes care of moving out of my place, I'm happy. If it goes to someone like this guy who flips to make a living and support his family, that's cool with me.

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#69

Post by [deleted] »

_delirium wrote: post #41
pavel_lishin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not extremenly different from panhandling. I want to say you're wrong, but I'm not even sure how you reached this conclusion. > It's definitely abusive of the Craigslist community. How so?

For the purchased items I think it's fine, but for the items people are donating, the intent is usually that they be claimed by someone who plans to use them, not someone who plans to flip them. Though it does depend on the item; sometimes people give things away because they just want to get rid of them, especially with hard-to-move things like appliances. You can sometimes tell by the tone of the listing what the i…

[deleted]

Re: How to Make It on Craigslist

#70

Post by roseburg »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #3

I didn't see any discussion about the cost of driving around town all the time to pick stuff up. Still, depending on his average distance, if he averages three items per day he might not be much worse than a lot of people's average commutes.

The van I drive, a Toyota Sienna, gets pretty good gas mileage . I factor distance/time and what I will be able to sell the item(s) for before pulling the trigger. I listen to music and relax while driving around. I avoid rush hour traffic if at all possible. I drove approx 15-20k miles this past year picking items up and delivering them. It's by far the biggest cost. However, that's pretty much my only overhead, as I sell the items out of our garage/house for now. (I've gotten pretty good at knowing what will sell and what won't, so I stay away from items that I will have to sit on for a while or are difficult to store.)
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