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Reselling is great. It’s an easy way to make money and an easier way to earn points when you know what you’re doing. I originally started reselling in early March, thanks to the inspiring blogs: Big Habitat and Online Selling Experiment. That month I made just over $900 in profit. Pretty good right? April, May, and June were not even close to that. I kind of fell off the map in terms of reselling, but after my latest AoR I realized just how profitable reselling can be for minimum spending requirements without much work. Don’t get me wrong I love manufactured spending to hit minimum spending requirements, but I also like to throw in some real spending to avoid account closures and financial reviews.
Where can you buy product that will actually sell? The answer is everywhere. Buying products that will actually make you money, however, is a different story. I suggest looking at stores you normally shop at for regular product like Staples, Kohl’s, ect and look for product you know about. I love technology and I keep up with it, so I often buy technological items like tablets, mice, monitors, and laptops. The trick is to use coupons and deals to lower the price enough to resell it.
Buying an item that’s $50 at Target to sell on eBay for $100 (after fees) is a great investment, however, that’s not always the case. Usually the item will be $110 at Target, while it’s only $100 on eBay. The idea is to use coupons, sales, and credit cards to your advantage.
Let’s say you had a RED card (5% cash back) and a 20% off coupon. If you stack those you could buy the item for $82.50 and make $17.50 (21% profit) off the purchase.
Now let’s say there is an item selling for $20 at Staples and eBay. Staples has a coupon to get 15% off your purchase, which means you would definitely buy that at Staples. Then you could turn around and sell it on eBay for $20 and break even (after fees), yet still earn points and Staples Rewards (5%). It’s not profitable, but it will earn you points towards a minimum spending requirement!
Returning for profit, by which I mean buying something online for points and returning it in store for a gift card, is a form of reselling and manufactured spending, but it’s definitely a darker side of the game. I have never done it and never plan on it. In fact, I don’t recommend anyone do it, because it’s shady and verging of illegal. I just wanted to mention that it was a form of hitting a minimum spend requirement.
Check out Big Habitat and Online Selling Experiment for reselling ideas and tips. Their blogs are full of them. I’ve been hitting the reselling train hard this month and I have a few posts scheduled around it coming soon, so definitely check back next week!