The money-making technique covered in this chapter requires nothing, no special training, and no investment. Well, not exactly nothing. Do you have a dollar? Let's start by tripling it into three dollars. What you are about to read works as well with one dollar as with $500+. We used to do it every week. We spent over $500 per week and turned it into over $1500 per week! (We recommend that you start small, however, with $1 to $100, until you gain experience.) As the weekend approaches, your newspaper will list yard sales in the classified section. These sales occur on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from early in the morning until the middle of the day. Even if you work on the weekend, you can probably go to many of the early sales. Do so. Buy anything that looks like it can be sold for at least three times more than you have to pay. You can buy rocking chairs for $5-10 which are worth $35; you can get blue jeans for 25 cents that are worth $5, you can get books for 5 cents each. You get the idea. Of course not every sale you go to will be great, but at least 1/3 of all yard sales have incredible deals. The reason: Lets say a homeowner just bought a new 32" color TV. This new toy is very exciting, but the old one, the 25" TV they bought last year now lives in the garage. It is no longer exciting at all. They realize how much is is worth, but they just want it out of the garage. They don't want to hassle with selling it properly. (If only they knew how easy it is!) The first person with $35 gets it! I have purchased a sewing machine for $5, a reclining chair for $5, a great big wooden desk for $30, a blender for $2, a computer printer for $15, table lamps for $1 each, an oxy-acetylene welding set with full tanks for $125, an air conditioner for $35, even a Mercedes-Benz for $500! And these are just a few things, just the things that cross my mind right now. As tempting as it may be, do not keep these things for yourself. If this only showed you that you can have three times more toys with the same amount of money when you buy used things at yard sales instead of new things at K-Mart, if would be well worth what you paid. But we'll go a big step past that! How do you sell the things? I have some systems. The first ones are great for those of you who do not like retail selling: * Second-hand stores always need merchandise but don't want to risk much money. They love consignments. The consignment arrangement works like this: You bring things into the store, but you get no money until one of your things sells. Then you get all but a certain percentage. For example: You buy a TV set for $10. It sells for $40, but the store charges 25% commission. You get $30. That's $20 profit, or 200% in one week! You can do this with hundreds of items, and at several stores. If you invested the same $10 in a money market account, you would get $2, (20%) and it would take a whole year! Do not hesitate to ask stores about consignment. They want to make money with your stuff as much as you do. * Consignment to specialty stores works even better. I bought a Canon AE-1 35mm camera for $40. If I had sold it in a second-hand store, it might have taken two weeks for a customer to come in who needed a camera. This customer might have paid $120. Instead, I took it to a camera store who sold it in less than a week for $250. They exposed the camera to many people who needed cameras, and they were capable of explaining the specific details of this camera to close the sale. After the store's 25% commission, I made $187.50; a profit of $147.50. * You can hold your own yard sales. It does not matter where you live, as long as you put an ad in the paper. You can make over $1000/day, but you can only have a couple of sales per month. If you have too many sales, you may have to deal with upset neighbors. * Selling at a flea market works well. It helps if you display your stuff well and make sure prices are marked on everything. As with most types of selling, state your price right up front, even if it seems too high. People will rationalize and arrange their mental budgeting to make room to buy your item. But if the price is not stated, they may automatically assume it is too high and walk away. * Starting your own second-hand store is a possibility. We recommend that you get a lot of experience with the other selling techniques first. You need to know that you can cover the large overheads of having a store before you try it. One tip: do as much yourself as you can. The huge expense that breaks many new retailers is employees. SHOP CAREFULLY Knowing what to buy and what to turn down is 90% of the reason you will succeed well. * Check items for proper repair: Toaster ovens, cameras, typewriters, bicycles and TV's are especially prone to malfunction. Clothing that is stained or torn will never sell. Don't buy broken things unless you know that you can fix them. If parts are required, consider that the parts may cost more than your profit. You can't sell broken things. A portable cassette player ("ghetto-blaster") that you could normally sell for $35, with a knob missing will not sell for even $3. * Consider style: 8-track stereo and Super-8 movie equipment are dead in the marketplace. Nobody will buy these things because they have been replaced with videotape and cassette technology. For the same reason, an electric typewriter that was $300 is now worth $25, because new electronic ones cost less, yet have far more options. * You must know what a thing is worth before you buy it. I don't buy clothing because I know little about clothes. If you are a photography buff, or if you like gardening, you read the magazines in your field, you know what's popular, and what prices things go for. In other words, if you are a computer expert, you would recognize a modem, know what it is worth, and how to sell it best. Get a Sears catalog to use as your guide. Never buy a thing for more than 1/6 of its new price. * When in doubt about a specific item, let it go, there will be other deals. * Never quietly pay the full price for an item. Always ask the seller if they will take less than the stated price. There is considerable art to this "wheeling and dealing." Generally, open the bargaining at 2/3 of the asking price. Let the seller know that you can afford to pass up the offer if the price doesn't meet your limit. Take a little time to wheel and deal on high-ticket items, but not on the small stuff. It is worth ten minutes of your time to reduce the price of a piece of furniture by $100, but how much time is it worth to reduce the price of a paperback book from 15 cents down to 10 cents? For those of you considering this great opportunity, quit considering and start doing it! You may like to learn even more (and increase you profit even more). ANOTHER COMPANY presents our new IBM-compatible tutorial disk: GARAGE SALES FOR FUN AND PROFIT This disk is easy to use and works with any IBM-compatible computer. It teaches all about buying and selling second-hand merchandise. It has guideline charts of cost and markup. It tells you all about the pitfalls to avoid. And it tells about detailing and repair for those of you who would like to spruce up merchandise for even more profit. Price: $19.95 (No extra charge for postage, handling or tax!) Send to: ANOTHER COMPANY P. O. Box 298 Applegate, OR 97530 USA Or call: 503-846-7884 Please specify 5.25" or 3.5" disk size. (Outside USA: Send US funds drawn on a US bank) ____________________________________________________________ End of chapter - press [Esc] or right mouse button.