Post Bicycle Swap Meet eBay Selling.

This is nobody's business but mine, but let me chirp about it anyway. On eBay I go by the handle "Good_Machine_Hunt_Bargain." I sell mostly bicycle parts.

I made fewer purchases than usual at the last swap meet. I focused on hot deals, and left the warm deals on the table. I had a limited budget, and I needed a quick return on investment.

I photographed 95% of the items the day after the swap meet. Within two days, I started to see my first sales. As a departure from past norms, most of my listings this time are Buy It Now with free shipping. This allows people to make impulse buys, while also not doing math. I think it's working.

All of my sales have been for a premium "hopeful" asking price. The first round of listings always starts with the highest prices. Interest in individual listings can be gauged by how many people are "watching" an item. When a listing ends with no sale, you will still know if your price is in the right ballpark. No watchers? Lower the price. There is one more factor to consider: some obscure items only have a small niche demand, and will take longer to sell. Don't slash the price. Just relist until somebody needs it. If you have the only one available, then you will get the sale... but it might be next year.

I spent just shy of my $1200 allotment. In the week following the sale, I've made back about $900 after fees. I've only sold a small portion of the haul, so things are looking great. After 90% of the sales are complete, I should have at least doubled my money. The percentage of money netted beyond 2x investment is a good measure of purchasing acumen.

Buying better quality in smaller quantity is saving me a huge amount of work. With Amazon selling to fill the space between swap meets, I didn't feel pressure to maximize profits at the cost of a lot of scroungy work. (Extensive fixing and cleaning of parts.)

Early sales report:
I have many examples of tripling my investment. A portion of the "bread and butter" are small items I buy for $1-$5 and sell for many times that. These deals are abundant and low-risk. Even when people know what the item is worth on the eBay marketplace, they don't want to go to the trouble of taking a photo, writing a description, and then shipping it out. I don't mind. I've made a big effort to streamline those tasks. So when I buy a pair of Campagnolo crank bolts for $1, and sell them for $24.95 - it doesn't take much effort. Items under 13oz can ship First Class, which is a bargain. Knowing these details means I can buy a Ritchey headset cable hanger for $2, and I know that when I sell it for $24.95, I will only have to pay $1.93 to ship. (And $0.28 for the packaging.)

Dura Ace downtube shifters? $5 makes $64.95. (This is a case where some people have no clue what the demand is.)

My best sale this round (so far) isn't a bicycle part. A guy was selling a jointer plane, new in the box. How much? $5. I sold it in under 24hrs for $99.95. Making the sale felt good, but it is becoming almost typical. This is America. Somebody bought a gun book from me for $99.95. I paid a dollar.

The goal now is to stay awake and keep hunting.

- Good Machine

Money For A Goal; Aspirations All-Told.

What does it take to make a thousand bucks on Amazon? I get earnings deposited into my bank account every two weeks. As a fairly meaningless measure, I set a personal goal of making one of those payments include four digits before the decimal point.

I have a lot riding on my Amazon business. Selling with Amazon's FBA program (fulfillment by Amazon) is the best way I've found to make money while still being a smelly fuck. All I have to do is buy cheap books and sell them for more on Amazon. If I'm buying books faster than I'm selling them, then my inventory is growing. If I have a growing inventory of good books (I do), my payments will get bigger. If my payments are getting bigger, then at some point I'll see a thousand-dollar deposit. That's what I'm waiting for.

This is getting pretty close.

Nope. I won't be rich soon. This is a measure which fails to factor in many variables. It doesn't factor in what I paid for inventory. It doesn't factor in any expenses. But it's a number that's getting bigger, and pretty soon - if I don't lay down across the tracks - it's going to hit $1000.

Today is the 10th, and it happens to be a payday. My hopeful goal was $860 to reach a personal best. But I sold an owner's guide for the M1911 pistol for a hundred bucks, and the payout tally shot past $900. Only chance will determine if I reach the 4-digit payout. The sales period will soon end - some time tonight, or maybe early tomorrow. They'll wave the checkered flag. Then we will see.

What does this mean?

I'm trying to get out of some sneaky recent debt. When I come up for air, I'd like to see that I have a semblance of a job and a method of making money. Finding books that I can sell for a profit is fun. It's the easiest job I've ever had, but it's not a passion. I want to make enough money to invest in some of the ideas that have been keeping me awake for years. As I advance my situation incrementally, I feel that I am edging toward the opportunity to create something that I am proud of. A business; a product; a community.

I am proud of my erstwhile travel, and I am proud of this little house that I built. Both have helped me grow as a human, but both have wreaked murder on my solvency.

It's the daydreams of product ideas that I want to see light. I have begun to recognize that I am capable of pushing a new idea into existence, and it is this itch under my skin that makes me fill big heavy boxes full of books.

A thousand bucks is a number. I roll my eyes that my mileposts have dollar signs, but the freedom to create and travel keeps me filling up boxes and clicking refresh.

Cash Flow

I've been floating by for nearly one year with no job. This has been made possible by several factors.

1) I haven't been paying rent. I started out staying at my parents' house, and now I'm migrating to the tiny house that I made.

2) I had a pile of bicycle parts to sell on eBay. Two swap meets worth; thousands of dollars in severely under-priced parts and ephemera.

3) I don't spend much. I have an inexpensive lifestyle.

I had two goals when leaving my job as a bicycle mechanic. The first and most important goal was to build a tiny house. The house needs finishing work, but the construction is done. I did it. Boom.

The second goal was to find a way to maintain a job-free existence. I want to set my own hours and make a comfortable income with room for savings and time for new projects and adventures.

I feel like I've made progress on the second goal, but I don't know if it's enough. I have the beginning framework for a sustainable situation selling on Amazon with their FBA program. I have the framework, and the methods and hardware are becoming familiar. The fundamental theory is simple - buy low; sell high. The challenge is in establishing an algorithm for exactly when to buy an item. If you spend too much on inventory, then it might not come back fast enough to cover your needs. Everything might sell, and the profits might be very good, but the speed at which the investments show a return needs to be fast enough to cover monthly expenses. That's cash flow.

If I had a reasonable amount of money in the first place, I wouldn't be as panicked about cash flow at such an early stage. As it is - I am. I look forward to honing my skills and algorithms. I look forward to understanding the math and economics which apply to this emerging market of niche interests, abundance, and the dirt cheap distribution which makes profit possible. But I've burned up some money trying to find my footing and get the equipment, software and hardware that I need in order to operate.

I've pulled a rabbit out of a hat many times over the last year. I've run low on cash and put building on hold while I photograph and list a new round of bicycle components. I've pulled myself out of a hole, and emerged victorious to begin building again. I've pinched pennies and stretched dollars far beyond where most people would assume a breaking point must exist.

Once again, the worry is setting in. Worry comes easy when I feel the threat of a traditional job breathing down my neck. I have some bicycle parts and other items to sell, but I've been getting closer and closer to the bottom of the barrel. The $100+ bicycle parts are long gone. The $40 bicycle parts are possibly all gone as well. I need to nickel and dime my way back to solvency.

I feel like I'm going to make it past this point. I don't know how it's going to happen, but I need it and I want it.

Woes and dough; threats and bets.

I don't have as much money as I think I should. In my skool days, I learned about double-entry accounting. I passed that class, and I passed Accounting II, too. But now that I'm a real man living an adult reality, I use the "feel" method of accounting. I don't know where all my money went, but I feel like there should be more.

I've sold thousands of dollars of stuff. After fees, shipping, subscription accounts... battery banks, building materials, life... the margin is thinner than I feel like it should be. So I blew the dust off my book scanning equipment and cast my line into the water. There was a book sale close to home, and I scanned ISBNs for several hours. I didn't win any big scores, but I got scores of little wins.

I will say one more thing - an unbelievable reality: the IRS hunted me down for $18.92 from 2011. Government-owned robotic tracking machines - it is to you this warning is being issued. Read my keystrokes: brimstone will rain precipitously upon those who seek my soft-earned money. My participation in this charade is a mirage. Under this skin and smile, my bones are being whittled to knife points. Test the water. Test the water with the very tip of whichever pinky toe you like the least.