71–80 of 177 posts
> I started the year with almost nothing and ended with a used van, a new utility trailer, less debt, fully paid bills and money left to take the family to Hawaii. > less debt > family to hawaii Something does not compute here.
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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 t…
It is possible to pull it off, it's just going to take a lot of work finding the right detail oriented/trustworthy person in another city that's in the right situation to pull it off. Hopefully in a year I'm writing about how I was able to scale it to multiple cities.
Thanks for the note!
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> I dont mean to nitpick, but I get really annoyed when people do extravagant things when they can't afford it. Everyone does. Good luck getting people to settle on your definitions of "extravagant" and "afford."
Your absolutely correct that we all have different perceptions of "extravagance" I think a vacation to hawaii from portland for a family of four while still in debt is clearly extravagant, and unaffordable. But's thats just my opinion, and I dont expect you, or anyone else, to share it. Debt shouldn't be seen as ok to have but I think that is sadly how most Americans view it now.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/01/craigslist-robb...
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> 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…
If he wasn't flipping the stuff, he'd be looking for donations. That's why he started doing this in the first place.
This encourages me to try it out in my area. I would like to see how much i can make if i try it part time if possible.
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.
Yes. They will take a lesser fraction of the value in cash when there is a positive value in getting rid of it. Small items are easy to get rid of anyway (you could just throw it in the trash), and if they have value they may be willing to store them and wait. My overall reaction to the article, though, was that he's doing a fair amount of work for a pretty so-so return, and it looks hard to scale it upwards. (That $…
Interesting story, it's fascinating to see what people are doing to make ends meet in the new economy. Similarly, I know someone who makes well over $100,000 a year buying, fixing, and reselling things on Craigslist and eBay. They found a very specific (and obvious) niche that is highly profitable to be in, I imagine if this guy specialized more he will see greater returns as well.
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 f…
I've learned more this past year of grinding it out than from all my years of school. (and some college) Thanks for the comment!