Deal # 3 - Book Flip on eBay with ROI of 89%

I managed to complete lucky Flip #3! It's a pretty big milestone in my opinion (even though it's only the 3rd deal). The reason why it's a big milestone is that I've surpassed the buying hurdle when it comes to finding books! I'll likely be flipping books until I hit $50 in the flipping pot. It's somewhat difficult finding books for $1 or $1.50 with potential for a good return but I was able to do it with some patience.

However, since this deal, you'll see that there is now more than just a couple bucks in the flipping pot :) For that reason, it will be easier to find a decent book to flip and I might even sell 2 books in this next deal to continue scaling the flipping model. Here are the nitty gritty details on this particular flip.

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What I Flipped: A book called The Case Against Sugar. I didn't end up reading this book. With school starting lately I've been too busy with homework to even skim the book. Plus it wasn't a finance book so it wasn't quite up my alley of interest ;)

Where I Bought it From: A local thrift store (like the first 2 deals)

Where I Sold It: eBay (also like the first 2 deals)

Finer Finance Details

Cost of Item: $1.50

Sell Price: $7.25

Net Profit : $7.25 - (eBay) - $0.51 (Paypal) - $3.17 (shipping) - $1.50 (cost) = $1.34

ROI = (Net Profit / Cost) x 100 = 89.3%

Money Currently in the Flipping Pot: $2.70 (from previous deal) + $1.34 (from this deal) = $4.04

What I Learned from this Flip:

1) It can take time to find a decent book to sell. I was looking for close to 45 minutes to find a good book to flip. When I found a potential book that I like, it was more than the amount of money I had to spend ($2.70). It felt like I went through almost all the books until I found this one. To be honest, I almost gave up looking and was going to come back another day. I told myself to just look for 5 more minutes, and then I found this book :)

2) Shipping can take a big dent out of your deal. Because this book was a hardcover, it weighed more which added more to shipping. While the shipping was only $0.51 more than Deal #2, I felt it when it came to my return of investment on this particular deal.

3) It will be better, in the long run, to post the book at the low end of the market in order to sell quickly. I began the book listed at $10.00. Over the course of 2 weeks, I slowly lowered the price of the book all the way to $7.25. I lowered it about $0.20 lower than the best competitor's price. It sold because it was simply the lowest price.

When it comes to knowing the "price to sell" point, you have to look for what the already lowest price is. Find that price and then undercut it just slightly. When I did that, it sold within a day. I will do that on my next deal in order to get it sold even faster.

Overall, I'm pleased with this flip even if it only had an 89% ROI. Anything above a 50% ROI with margins this small is considered a success in my opinion. Starting with such a small amount of money is difficult, but you learn much by doing it.

Now on to finding the goods for Deal #4!

Let me know if you have any questions about this flip in the comments below :)