The Sun's Financial Diary » Amazon sale

Recent Buy-and-Sell Activities on Amazon.com

Sun — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:33:53 +0000

No, I haven’t forgot my little business on Amazon.com, though it has been quiet for a long time. The main reason is I wasn’t able to find lot of cheap stuff (those that won’t cost me too much if at the end I have to keep them myself) that also have re-sell values. Since I usually only buy electronic or computer related products that cost me around $10 after mail-in rebates, the selection is quite narrow and the margin is very small.

Recently, I bought several items that I hope could bring me a few bucks and listed them on Amazon.com, including:

WD Passport external hard drive ($59.95)
Creative webcam ($2.99 after rebate)
Netgear wireless router ($9.99 after rebate)
TrendNet wireless adaptor ($4.99 after rebate)
Sandisk USB flash drive ($9.29 after rebate)
~~Brother label maker (free after rebate)~~ (Staples just informed me that they made a mistake with the price of the label maker. It’s $20 after rebate instead of free. So forget it)

The first three items have already been sold (that fastest is the router which I bought on Monday, listed that evening, and gone yesterday) and $25 profits were generated from these transactions. Yeah, a small number indeed and you may wonder whether it’s worth it . The thing is even though the costs of these flash drives, webcams, or routers are pretty low, I had to price them low enough, if not the lowest, as well to attract buyers. Making a few bucks is better than nothing. That’s my theory.

Since last July when I first started this Amazon business, I have sold about $1,730 worth of stuff online, after Amazon commissions. Nothing to be excited about, but not bad for an activity that doesn’t require much time either (I keep the original packing, so only need to replace the shipping label).

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Recent Buy-and-Sell Activities on Amazon.com

A Sale on Amazon.com

Sun — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:12:48 +0000

Just as I am occupied almost entirely by this blog and totally forgot that I still have a couple of items listed on Amazon.com market place, an email came in last night, informing me that an USB flash drive that I listed a couple of months ago was sold for $20.95.

I bought the item, a ACP-EP 2GB Forum flash drive, from Buy.com last year during their $20 off $50 Google Checkout promotion. At that time, I paid $32 for the product but it also came with a $32 mail-in rebate. So it’s essentially free and the $20.95 is my net profit. What interests me is that right now at Buy.com, you can buy a 2-pack Kingston 2GB DataTraveler USB Flash Drive [Affiliate link] for $29.95 after a $9 main-in rebate with free shipping. That works out a better deal than buying one from me at $20.95 plus $7.49 shipping. Well, that’s not for me to worry anyway.

Since last June when I first started to sell stuff on Amazon.com, I have sold a total of 45 items so far with a revenue of $1,622. Among them

14 books
8 flash drives
6 wireless routers and 3 wireless antennas
4 software packages

and other items in single quantity such as DVD burner, hard drive enclosure, printer, cables, and webcams etc. All the electronic items were bought new at an affordable price with promotions and mail-in rebates, thus, I really didn’t pay much with them. Whether most of them were purchased for the only purpose of selling them later to make a few bucks, I did grabbed a couple of good deals myself. For example, my best deals so far are

Canon PC160 Personal Copier, $5 after mail-in rebate (list price on Amazon.com $119.64)
Epson R340 Stylus photo printer, $9.99 after mail-in rebate (list price on Amazon.com $104.99)

and both rebates have been received. Unlike many people, I am not afraid of mail-in rebate at all. Why hate it if I can get a good product at a good price?

If you are interested in selling stuff on Amazon, here are some reasons why I choose Amazon.com over eBay.

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A Sale on Amazon.com

Amazon Sale Update: People Just Like to Shop with Amazon, even at a Higher Price

Sun — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 20:32:10 +0000

It has been a while since I made last sale on Amazon.com. Not because I emptied my inventory (in fact, I had quite a few left from last year’s shopping spree), I simply forgot to list them. Then yesterday, I finally got time to check what I have in the closet and put 6 items for sale. Surprisingly, two were taken only hours after they appeared on the Amazon marketplace and one was sold this morning, bringing in nearly $95 revenue (you can find my experience here). Once again, flash drives are very popular as the two 4GB drives I listed had no problem finding a buyer. What did surprise me is that one of the drives is currently on sale at Buy.com for $24.95 with free shipping [Buy.com affiliate link], yet the buyer chose to purchase it from me and paid $39.99 (I had the lowest price) plus $4.99 shipping charge.

I wonder do they really search to find the best deal when shopping? It’s a flash drive and I just couldn’t see the reason to have it right away. Or they maybe don’t like the hassle of submitting the rebate and waiting for the refund. For the case of the flash drive, Buy.com’s deal still comes out as a better one even if the promised rebate never come. Perhaps people just like to shop with Amazon, even at a higher price.

BTW, I also sold the Norton Ghost 10 for $29.99 which has already earned me $14 of free money from the rebates.

“I’m Lovin’ It.”

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Amazon Sale Update: People Just Like to Shop with Amazon, even at a Higher Price

Amazon Sale Quick Update and Why I Choose Amazon over EBay

Sun — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:19:12 +0000

Since most of the cheap stuff I bought in the past two months were from Buy.com and some items are still on sale over there, I initially wanted to wait a while before listing them on Amazon.com. Well, since Amazon offers free listing (which is one feature I like), I didn't really wait too much longer and listed seven of them on Amazon.com last Friday. Surprisingly, there are still many people need the flash drives as four were gone as of today (a flash drive, a router, a MP3 player, and a DVD burner). And the proceeds are $107.92, a quarter of the money I spent in November and December on buy-and-sell items. Since June this year when I started selling stuff on Amazon, the total sales figure is $1,164.6.

Early this month, when I listed the proceeds from Amazon sales as part of my year-to-date passive income, I was asked why I prefer Amazon over EBay. The main reason I choose Amazon is that they offer free listing for up to two months. There's no listing fee and I only pay the commission when the listed item is sold. If after two months an item doesn't find a buyer, I can relist it again for free. Since I am not a heavy seller (the chance of having seven for sale at the same time is rare), I prefer the long listing period so I don't have to constantly monitor the status. In addition:

Since I can only sell items that Amazon carries, I don't have to spend time to describe what I am selling;
Amazon collects the payments for me, so I don't have to deal with buyers and worry about when I can receive the payment;
Amazon sends payments to my bank account directly, avoiding the trip to the bank.

Overall, Amazon is very convenient and works well for occasionally sellers like me, even though they charge high commission (I guess that why they can offer free listing). Generally, I pay more than 13% commission on electronics such as routers, flash drives. For books, the commission could be as high as 18%.

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Amazon Sale Quick Update and Why I Choose Amazon over EBay

My Recent Purchases on Cheap Stuff

Sun — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 02:34:30 +0000

I have posted a lot of deals in the past month or so time that I felt were good for a little amount of money. Actually, not just I think those are good buys, I bought most of them myself as well. Here's a list of my recent purchases:

Canon PC160 Personal Copier, $5 AMIR (after mail-in-rebate);
Kensington PilotMouse Optical Wireles, free AMIR;
Creative Zen Nano 512MB MP3 Player, $10 AMIR;
Power Up MP3/WMA Player and USB Flash Drive, $9.99 AMIR;
Norton AntiVirus 2007 3-user pack, -$9 AMIR
ACP-EP 1GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive, free AMIR;
ACP-EP 2GB USB 2.0 Forum Recon Style SnowDrive Flash Drive, free AMIR;
ACP-EP Memory 2GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive, $4.95 AMIR;
Kingston 2GB DataTraveler USB 2.0 Flash Drive, $6.95 AMIR(*);
Epson R340 Stylus photo printer, $9.99 AMIR;
Sony multi-format DVD burner, $9.99 AMIR;
D-Link DI-624 Xtreme G Wireless Router, $6.98 AMIR(*);
Creative Live! Cam Notebook Pro Webcam, $5.00 AMIR;
TRENDnet 108Mbps 802.11g MIMO Wireless PC Card, $9.93 AMIR;

In total, I spent $450, 50% more than what I spend in October (back then I thought I probably will never spend as much any more). I didn't really need all of these, but I thought I should take advantage of the $20 Google Checkout discount offered at Buy.com before it's gone. In fact, I probably won't even consider most of the above purchases If there wasn't the discount ($20 makes a lot of difference for stuff like these). I don't think for all Among them, the most expensive one is the Epson printer with a face price of $109.99 and it's one of the items that I want to keep for my own use. The other is the Canon copier I bought today. For the rest, I probably will try to sell them on Amazon.com and use the proceeds to fund my daughter's 529 plan. Actually, two of them (*) were already sold one day after I listed them on Amazon. Even if I can't sell all of them, I feel OK with the purchases as long as I can get the rebates. So far, the rebates worked out pretty well to me. If there's no problem with the rebates, which also make lot of nice products much more affordable, why should I hate them?

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My Recent Purchases on Cheap Stuff

All Gone

Sun — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 23:07:49 +0000

The nine items I bought on Buy.com last month were all gone (I bought ten and one was returned later after I found their rebate has conditions that I have to sign up their service to get the rebate). I sold six of them till last Saturday, and three more this week: a 4-port USB 2.0 PCI card, a wireless adapter, and a headset, making nearly $110 from the sales. I didn't expect I can empty my inventory so quick, but it seems that there are a lot of people need these stuff (I guess that's why EBay has a booming business). So far I have made nearly $730 on Amazon sales. I won't call it a side income because the size isn't really significant. All I want to do with these money is to put them in my daughter's 529 plans on top of our regular monthly contributions. For that purpose, $730 isn't a small account.

Actually, I got this selling-stuff-to-fund-529-plan idea from another blog, Financial Baby Step, I first read in June and thought it's a good idea to turn those unwanted stuff into extra funds for my daughter's future education. The reason I picked Amazon over EBay was that listing on Amazon was free (though the actual costs on commission may be higher) and I can put the item up for sale for a long time until it finds a buyer or relist it for free again after 2 months. Since I am not really looking to make money from this, I didn't put much efforts into it and all the items I sold carried the lowest price (I check my listing quite often and if I find there's a lower price, I will beat that price by lowering mine). In fact, I don't really care how much I make from each sale, as long as I can make the sell and don't lose money. Last week I bought another two pieces of hardware (a flash drive (yes, another one and the demand is strong) and a wireless PCMCIA card) on Buy.com. Hopefully, I can sell them soon.

If you are interested in selling your stuff on Amazon.com, you can find some of my experience from here.

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All Gone

Amazon.com Buy-and-Sell Update

Sun — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:35:22 +0000

Last month, I spent more than $300 on stuff that I have no intention for my own use. The ten items purchased on Buy.com throughout October are all buy-and-sell electronic devices (flash drives, wireless adapters, router, hard drive enclosure, and headset, etc.) Except a Bluetooth headset that I later found that was excluded from regular sellers, I have put all of them up for sale on Amazon.com and the sales went pretty well. So far six of them have already been sold, making a profit of $77 in total. Since all of them have mail-in-rebate, the profit is the number assuming I will eventually get the rebates back.

Since I started selling stuff on Amazon.com in June, the total sales figure is $1023 and profits $680. Back in June, I told myself that all the money I made from Amazon sales will go to my daughter's 529 plans, but I haven't done any transfer so far. Maybe by the end of this year.

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Amazon.com Buy-and-Sell Update

Make It $310!

Sun — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:52:01 +0000

I bought two more items tonight on Buy.com, one flash drive ($24) and one MP3 player ($25), and that made the total buy-and-sell spending this month to $300! In the past, I only bought single item here and there with the after rebate price no more than $10. But since Buy.com has a $10 off $30 promotion with Google Checkout this month, it makes lot of items affordable.

Though the overall prices are quite low, I do have to deal with the rebates, which may take a couple of months before I can get the money back. Do I worry about spending so much money on something that I don't really need? Yes, but not much. With a good price (lowest price for all the items I sold on Amazon), I am quite confident that I can sell them all. It's just a matter of time and how much I want to make.

One thing is for sure. I probably won't do anything in this scale again any time soon.

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Make It $310!

I Spent $255 on Buy-and-Sell

Sun — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:05:22 +0000

I spotted some good deals on Buy.com in the past couple of days and spent $175 on six items, a 802.11g wireless adaptor ($38), a Bluetooth headset ($28), a USB flash drive ($24), a hard drive enclosure ($35), a headset ($25), and an antenna ($25), which I feel could bring me some profits if I could sell them on Amazon. Since every item carries a MIR, the actual cost after the rebates is $66. Including the other three purchases I made early this morning, the total spending on buy-and-sell this month is already $255.

Though I myself am interested in some items (for example, the Bluetooth headset), I have no intention to keep them for my personal use, unless nobody out there wants them. Actually, for all those buy-and-sell items I purchased in the past, only one, a wireless router, still remains in my hands, all others were sold sooner or later. I like to see them head to their new owners, but won't worry too much if one or two eventually get stuck in my hands. First of all, they are very cheap any way (averaged $11 a piece); secondly, I can really use some of them (of course depends on which one I have to keep); finally, since I have already profited more than $600, it won't be a total waste of money if any of them can't find a buyer in the end.

Let's see how much money I can make from them.

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I Spent $255 on Buy-and-Sell

Sold on Amazon, Again

Sun — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:39:55 +0000

It has been a while since I have multiple items sold on Amazon.com in one day. Considering that I now have a very small inventory (only five items before the sell and once at the peak time, I had about 25 items listed), I am very happy to see them on the way to their new owners.

When I checked my email this morning, there were two emails from Amazon payment center, all for cleared transactions for two items I listed in the Amazon marketplace. One is for a notebook card (bought for $5 after $45 MIR and sold for $9.95) and the other is for a USB flash drive (bought for $15.96 after $14 MIR and sold for $33.2). I had very good months of July and August when I sold nearly $600 worth of stuff on Amazon. The sale slowed down dramatically as I cleaned out my closet. Though I will continue to take the buy-and-sell approach (find bargains on internet, buy them and sell them on Amazon), I won't expect anything like in the summer. So far, I have sold $863 worth of stuff (no used, all new), and made a profit of $600. Talking about side-income, this should definitely be counted in.

While I enjoyed the lettle money made from selling books, printers, routers, and flash drives, I can’t help thinking why people buy used stuff or new ones but from seller like me, especially computer hardware and electronics. Aren’t there also very cheap, brand new ones out there? For example, the flash drive I just sold was on Buy.com early this month, with a list price of $39.96 and a rebate of $14. However, for the entire month of October, Buy.com has a promotion with Google Checkout. If your order is $30 or more, you can get $10 off immediately if you use Google Checkout instead of your own registration. The final price I paid was $15.96 and only a couple of weeks later I sold it for $33.2.

This only reason I can think of people buying used is that they buy it in a hurry. They have to use it right away, so can’t wait a good deal to come up. However, for the flash drive, it’s hard for me to see what the rush is. Another possibility, people hate rebates. Sure some rebates cause troubles and seem taking forever to get the check, but a good rebate from a reputed retailer shouldn’t prevent you from getting the product you want at a favorable price. Otherwise, you may end up paying much more. I myself don't mind use rebates and won't feel bothered if I have to call to straight things out.

Anyway, if you also want to make a few bucks by selling your stuff on Amazon, the following are what I thought you may want to know:

Only those items Amazon currently sells on its website (either from Amazon or from a third party retailer) can be listed for free. Amazon only gets paid if the item is sold;
To list your own items, you have to setup a pro account and pay monthly fee;
Free listing is for 60 days only, and once the listed item doesn't get sold in 60 days, Amazon will remove it from the marketplace, but you can re-list it immediately;
Amazon collects payment for you and credits you some of the shipping cost (buyer pays for shipping), so you avoid the hassle of dealing with the buyer, but you are responsible for the difference between the actually shipping cost and the shipping credits you received from Amazon;
Proceeds will be sent to your bank account directly on a biweekly basis;
The commission is quite steep though there's no listing fee, for example, the commission for a $69.99 book is $12.72 and the commission for a $74.99 printer is $8.19.

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Sold on Amazon, Again

Amazon.com Sales Update

Sun — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 02:12:00 +0000

Well, after what seemed to be a booming month of August, my sales on Amazon.com run into stalemate in the past week. The last sale was made on August 19th, since then all the remaining seven items still belong to me. I admit that those leftovers are not very attractive, so it didn’t and won’t really surprise me if none of them finds a buyer. Besides, I didn’t find any good deal recently that let me make the buy-and-sell. I guess it will be a while before I can have any significant numbers again.

Since I started selling stuff on Amzon in later June, a total of 19 items (yes, not a lot) were sold. Among them, 11 were books, which is the most profitable block. I also sold 4 wireless routers, one printer, one wireless antenna, one cable kit, and one hard drive enclosure. I made $468 out of the total sales of $684. Not bad for two months.

Because Amazon limits the items can be listed for free (must be those Amazon carries), I don’t think I will try to get rid off all the stuff I no longer want to keep. And I still didn’t make up my mind about listing on EBay.

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Amazon.com Sales Update

Amazon Sales Update

Sun — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 03:53:00 +0000

In my previous post, I said that I bought a hard drive enclosure kit for $15.99 AR and intended to sell it on Amazon.com.

Last Friday night, two days after I received the kit and put it for sale on Amazon, it was sold for $29.99, the lowest price for the same item listed. After the commission and shipping cost, the kit brought me a profit of $9.35.

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Amazon Sales Update

Good Day On Amazon.com

Sun — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:47:00 +0000

Orders just kept coming in.

Today alone three items I listed on Amazon.com were sold, bringing in a profit of $110.00. All of them are books I no longer need. So far I have sold 11 items on Amazon and there are still 13 up for sale. Looks like I may need to find some new stuff to sell soon.

Actually, all my five orders in the past week came from books. From these sales, I noticed a trend: as the fall semester is about to begin, there are strong demands for college textbooks.

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Good Day On Amazon.com

Buy and Sell

Sun — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:48:00 +0000

I ordered two items today, a disk enclosure for $15.99 AR and a FireWire card for $5.99 AR. Do I really need them? Probably only the enclosure if I have to keep it. The card is definitely to be put up for sale on Amazon, which I plane to do right when I receive it. I feel that for electronics, a quick sell is the key as they can become obsolete in the matter of months.

So far I only tried to sell those stuff Amazon carries and it’s possible that some may get stuck in my hands since there are many competitive offers from other sellers as well, though I set up my price really low for most of the items I sell, if not the lowest. Listing those on EBay is another option, though I am researching on it.

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Buy and Sell

Sold on Amazon.com

Sun — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:39:00 +0000

A couple of years ago, my Linksys router was damaged because of a power glitch. Without any backups, I had to buy a new one at the regular price, which was much more expensive than those you would get when they were on sale.

Since then, I always bought a backup one when the price was right, either free-after-rebate or less than $10 after rebate. I had gone through wired router, 802.11b wireless router, and 802.11g wireless router, and I have a backup for each of them. Oddly enough, none of my router ever gave me any problem since the Linksys router, and the three backups were sitting in the closet only to collect dust.

Last month, when I was browsing the Fatwallet forum, an idea came up to me after reading some posts about selling stuff on Amazon.com. Why not sell my spare routers on Amazon as well? Not just the routers, I also have a bunch of items I want to get rid of. Wasted no time, I went to Amazon.com and began the process of listing my stuff.

I am not sure about Ebay, but becoming a seller on Amazon is quite simple. Since I already have a buyer’s account, the only extra steps are 1) provide a valid phone number so Amazon can call the number immediately to verify you indeed own the number; and 2) provide the checking account number so Amazon can deposit the proceeds to your bank account directly. Actually, you can list your item you want to sell first and provide your bank account later when the first item is sold.

The first item I listed on Amazon was a textbook I no longer needed. After specifying the condition of the book and giving a sale price, Amazon told me how much commission I would have to pay if the book is sold and the shipping credit Amazon will return to me. If I agree with the terms and conditions, I can list the book right away.

Since it was my first attempt to sell and I didn’t have any ratings, the price I asked for was the lowest among the prices from other sellers. I just wanted to test the water first. Surprisingly, a little more than 24 hours later, the book was sold!

A rather painless process!

In less than a month, I have sold all my three spare routers, an inkjet printer, and another book and collected about $235.

Not bad at all.

If you also want to sell your stuff on Amazon, the following are what I thought you may want to know:

Only those items Amazon currently sells on its website can be listed for free;
To list your own items, you have to setup a pro account and pay monthly fee;
Free listing for 60 days;
Amazon collects payment for you and credits you some of the shipping cost so you avoid the hassle of dealing with the buyer, but you are responsible for the difference between the actually shipping cost and the shipping credits Amazon pays.
Proceeds will be sent to your bank account directly on a biweekly basis;
The commission is quite steep though no listing fee, for example, the commission for a $69.99 book is $12.72 and the commission for a $74.99 printer is $8.19.

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Sold on Amazon.com