amazon sellers general

[Anonymous No.599177]

I just listed some old video games on Amazon yesterday. About 20 titles, and I've already sold four in under 24 hours and made about $50 after amazon fees and shipping. They're old NES cartridges.

I'm honestly shocked vintage games are selling like this, and now am considering dumping every dollar I have into used video game lots on Craigslist, busting them down and listing individually on Amazon.

Does anyone here do this, or sell books etc? I can only imagine if I had an inventory of a few hundred titles, I'd be making over a hundred dollars a day easily. If I could get to $200 a day profit, I could quit my shitty job and maybe have a chance at being happy for once.

[Anonymous No.599182]

>>599177
The problem is you most likely won't be able to find enough quality titles to sell them at a decent rate. If you want to keep steadily selling, you'll need to invest a huge amount of money in tons of inventory with no guarantee you can offload them in a timely manner.

[Anonymous No.599187]

>>599182
Coworker makes about $20,000 per year selling Star Wars stuff on ebay that he buys off Craigslist.

[Anonymous No.599194]

start doing research into the market and use ebay as well. start going to yard sales that's where you'll find the best stuff. craigslist is usually overpriced but still check it. check thrift stores too and expand your market into other things. use ebay completed listings to look up values, most game lots are overpriced on craigslist. i used to make a living off selling games but found a better business.

[Anonymous No.599200]

>>599182

I live in a pretty large metro area, and looking right now I'm seeing several lots of SNES, NES, N64, PS3, Xbox 360, etc etc listed, all in the last few days. For right now at least, it looks like supply could keep up with my investment capital.

Some of the listings are overpriced, but I see a few that could easily double my investment once sold, which of course could take some time. But the time investment on my part is small: I can research potential purchases while at my job and pick them up on my way home. Listing only takes a minute or two per title and I could have the items fulfilled by amazon, meaning I could package them and bulk ship to an Amazon warehouse...

Anyway. My inner fedora has always loved the idea of running a used video game store, but until now I always thought of it as destined to fail.

>>599194

Thrift stores in my area *never* have vintage games, does Goodwill not sell them, or maybe the workers or a picker are getting to them first? Also with the weather there won't be garage sales for a few months.. Maybe pawn shops?

[Anonymous No.599261]

>>599177
>>599200
I owned a retail store for many years doing this but with much more than old titles. It is very very lucrative but you have to put so much effort into going out and finding the games. Goodwill does get them in and are usually in bags with the cables on the wall, its very rare to get a good haul from day to day shopping around your city. You need to be able to buy out a failing stores inventory or people who are done collecting in bulk. You will have many days of 200$ profit the way you are doing it but many days where you will lose money in gas alone.

[Anonymous No.599351]

Somebody's editor got a photoshop hard on and never stopped

[Anonymous No.599358]

I applaud you OP. I have sold on CL and Ebay for years.

I was always able to make a little cash on the side, but never a steady flow of good money. The problem I always encountered (including in video games) was that there is just so so much inventory and the pricing is so competitive that it's hard to make more than like $10 a game. And i couldn't figure out a way to make it profitable on a large scale.

[Anonymous No.599381]

Don't do videogames. Phones are the way to go.

[Anonymous No.599395]

>>599358

I'm cool with $5/game profit if I'm buying them in 30-50 game lots at $5/title. Doubling my money is fine

>>599381

Do used phones really sell on amazon? I flipped a few phones on craigslist and it took forever. For some reason amazon wouldn't let me resell newer phones, probably to avoid scams

[Anonymous No.599415]

someone recently posted on this.

Smash bros usually goes for $60-70. so finding one in a bundle might be easy.

how long does it take it sell?

is ebay better?

any sites showing rarity on vidya?

[Anonymous No.599420]

>>599177
There is actually a book on amazon about selling old vintage games. It's an ebook. Can't remember the exact name just search for video game marketing in the kindle store.

That might help you some. I think you might get it free if you have kindle unlimited.

[Anonymous No.599434]

>>599415

http://videogames.pricecharting.com

Amazon seems to make listing items much easier.

Fulfillment by Amazon is also a huge advantage. You can shrink wrap and tag your inventory and then bulk mail it to an Amazon warehouse, and they'll ship the items out for you when they sell. They store your items for a penny a month each. The items are eligible for two day Prime shipping, so you can jack the price up a bit because that's a huge draw over the other sellers.

It's been 24 hours, I only have about 20 items listed, pic is where I'm at. Imagine if I spent a few hundred bucks on a couple hundred titles...

[Anonymous No.599439]

man i made like 30k in 2 months selling replica fitness programs and equipment that i sourced from china before they shut me down

[Anonymous No.599441]

>>599439

Like p90x? How'd they catch you?

[Anonymous No.599444]

>>599434

so basically

>hit up goodwill / online sales
>package them
>send to amazon store
>sell online
>profit

how long does it take to sell shit?

[Anonymous No.599451]

>>599444

Depends. I've been doing this for 24 hours, so who knows if everything I've listed will sell at all. But yeah, you've got the idea. I think it's $40/MO for a full fledged sellers account, which I believe you need to do FBA. right now I'm just mailing shit myself, which could actually be slowing sales down (people are more likely to buy prime eligible).

I'll keep this experiment going, once I've got a couple hundred in sales and reinvest it into a large game lot I'll go all in and start doing FBA, see how that goes.

[Anonymous No.599456]

Also I've decided to set up a web store for my full inventory, might be able to pull in more sales just from web searches. Also I'll get some business cards made and stick them in with each sale, maybe get some brand loyalty going. I took all these carts apart and cleaned them with aluminum polish so they play perfectly. Plan to do the same with future purchases

[Anonymous No.599458]

>>599456

n64 the most profit ?

the inventory isn't much. like 1 box. I live in Canada and shipping might be expensive

[Anonymous No.599470]

>>599458

From what I've read, n64 has the fastest turnover. Nintendo games in general price higher than sega. I priced out a bunch of Atari shit I have laying around, and it's all pretty worthless... Looks like NES/SNES/n64/DS are where the money's at. Maybe Xbox 360 and ps3 also.

[Anonymous No.599476]

>>599441
checking amazon it looks like they caught everyone. only seller of p90x is beachbody.

[Anonymous No.599478]

>>599470

you go for rares, or just known titles that flip fast?

I could so do this.


I remember buying a camera kit from a guy on ebay. settled it through email and just paid with paypal to save money. he called me on the phone and talked to me trying to buddy me up for repeat business.
The guy was actually not pushy and just wanted to form a relationship. the guy just bought of cameras and lenses and sold in packs. he prob made a big profit.

never really go into selling on ebay. but might give this all a try.

[Anonymous No.599480]

>>599476

Can't even sell used copies. What a load of shit.

[Anonymous No.599486]

>>599480
amazon is absolute shit now. a year ago, my brother and i planned on selling a bunch of minecraft lego right before christmas. amazon disabled all sales of that set except for prime eligible sellers, i.e. only the sets being shipped by amazon were allowed to be sold.

[Anonymous No.599490]

>>599478

Individual titles is a waste of time when you're burning gas and man hours to pick them up. Best to go after big lots of cartridges. It takes about a minute to list a title on Amazon, and if you're already going to the post office anyway, or if you're shipping them to the warehouse and won't have to deal with it once it's inventoried, it's worth it to list the cheap titles too and make a couple bucks per sale on them

My strategy is just going to be moving weight, taking every dollar of profit and using it to re-up on craigslist, and doing it over and over until I have enough to start the business I really want.

[Anonymous No.599491]

>>599486

If you're just trying to sell a few items, use eBay. Otherwise get an amazon seller account and get all your stuff prime eligible

[Anonymous No.599495]

>>599490
>My strategy is just going to be moving weight

nice.

any other resource websites you using besides http://videogames.pricecharting.com?

I wanna make a program to look at video game price charts like stocks.

anyways to make this process more automated

[Anonymous No.599503]

>>599495

Not that I've found. Their lot calculator tool is really helpful for estimating craigslist listings

https://videogames.pricecharting.com/cart

As for automating, you can use a program like IFTTT to find interesting listings. I've used it to find phones with cracked screens in the past, same idea here, punch in a few keywords and get potential buys sent to your email

[Anonymous No.599505]

>>599491
you almost always get more selling on amazon than ebay. ebay has the same stigma as pawn shops while amazon is a trendy retailer like mall outlets. the only time using ebay is a better idea is if you're selling something unique.

[Anonymous No.599508]

>>599503

I want to build a program that can sort from videogames.pricecharting by price. automatically search buy/sell sites like ebay,amazon to give me daily updates for quickly calculate any profits / search for cheap shit.
also update me on new posts for video game lots on craigs list / kijiji.

so then I'm constantly updated with the market.
is this possible?

[Anonymous No.599512]

>>599505
What else could we sell on amazon for quick cash? What turns over like vintage games?

>>599508
You could probably build it, or someone could... I'm not a programmer myself. Only thing is, I don't think games really flux in price that much.

What's kijiji?

[Anonymous No.599515]

>>599512

kijiji is another selling site. popular in canada.

>I don't think games really flux in price that much

no but it would help the automation process.

[Anonymous No.599522]

who is buying this stuff tho?

wouldn't it mainly be collectors that have some insight into gaming / prices?

I'd expect the buyer seeing a title for $50 and being interne savvy enough to looking for it when its like $10 on another site.

I'm concerned for the amount of time I will be sitting on this product. Before I know it I have 20 odd titles sitting in my room not moving anywhere.
or even sitting in some Amazon factory getting dust

[Anonymous No.599549]

>>599522

People who want specific games sent to their house in two days are the buyers. Probably not hardcore collectors. I'm looking at this more as an investment than business at the moment, so not too concerned about sitting on inventory for a month or two. Also worth mentioning storage at Amazon is only a penny per item per month

[Anonymous No.599583]

>>599549

so you pay $40 to amazon a month? how many sales you doing a month?

[Anonymous No.599585]

>>599583

I just started this and don't do FBA yet, so I don't pay the $40/MO yet. Once I have a couple hundred items in my inventory I'll make the switch

[Anonymous No.599588]

>>599585

you can do FBA as an individual ?

[Anonymous No.599598]

You can do it as a seller

[Anonymous No.599603]

so basically. you are just supplying your amazon store with video games at low prices and turning a profit every now and then.

doens't seem like a bad idea. mainly its find the product -> list it ->ship to amazon.

not bad as an investment.

[Anonymous No.600354]

Op here, up to $120 in sales on day 3. Going to ship everything Monday, so I still have a couple days before I have to go to the post office. Am now listing every piece of media I own, as it serves no purpose but cluttering my life- graphic novels, books, other games, DVDs, etc etc

Once I hit $500 in sales I will buy multiple large game lots off craigslist and sell them using FBA, which should result in a decent bump in both sales and profit per item

[Anonymous No.601005]

Bump

[Anonymous No.601014]

>>599177
I sold things on eBay for a while.

My skill set is very technical, so I was very able in setting up a (non-eBay related) web site, crawling eBay to see what sold etc.

One problem is I am competing from my home with existing big companies in the US. So profit margins are thin, and tend to shrink over time.

My biggest problem was success. I was shipping several items out every day, but they took space to store, took time to wrap and ship etc. It takes time to wrap and ship things, especially if you haven't sprung for a printer which specializes in labels or the like. International shipments I'd have to fill out a form etc.

I saw that to grow to 10, 15, 20 etc. items shipped a day I'd have to rent space to store it, and hire someone to do the packing and shipping, while I handled the technical side and everything else.

I would advise you to think of that. "Success" might be your problem. Where will you store your stuff? How many hours a day can you spend packing and shipping? At some point you need to hire someone to do that, and that's a whole rigmarole.

I improved my technical skills and started using them for other things, and that has been easier and more lucrative.

[Anonymous No.601053]

>>601014

Your issue with shipping is actually tidily handled by amazon: for next to nothing they'll store (and ship, Prime-eligible) anything you send to their warehouse. I'm already getting my first Fulfilment By Amazon shipment together: one big box with two dozen records and 50 or so games. You just bag each item individually and stick a printed label on each item, pack it all in one big shipment, and once Amazon inventories it they'll list all the items ready to sell. No worries about packing and shipping everything individually, everything is eligible for prime and international shipping, and as a bonus people are more likely to buy your item over one not fulfilled by Amazon, and because of that, you can charge a little more to recoup the slightly higher fees.

[Anonymous No.601067]

>>599177
Dude where the fuck have you been?

Since the invention of streaming services and video sites like Youtube, Justin.tv, U stream, and the inevitable Justin.tv rebrand as Twitch, classic games have become more valuable due to legitimate nostalgia and the speedrunning community.

This shit has been going on for more than 10 years.........I'd say since about early 2000

[Anonymous No.601073]

I'd also like to point out that not every video game you buy will be worth something. The cult classics, anything with Mario, and oddly enough the games listed as "The worst of their generation" will be the ones that hold the most monetary value, if any.

Games like Earthbound for the SNES is a good example of a valuable game.

[Anonymous No.601111]

>>601067

Nah man, I collected games back in 2000 and they could be had everywhere, including stores that only sold used games, for next to nothing. Yeah you could flip games on eBay then but the margin was really thin unless you were buying people out at garage sales. Craigslist existed but didn't get the traffic it does today.... Definitely late to the game though

[Anonymous No.601125]

>>599194
so you tellin me I can look for cheap shit on craigslist and if it's selling for more on ebay I can just buy it and flip it that easily? I have a military base near me and the soldiers are always selling their shit on craigslists for cheap because they are getting deployed and don't have the time.

[Anonymous No.601132]

>>599503
Does this stuff work? Can you only sell and flip games if they come with a case? My friend has a shit load of NES games at his house and i know he's always looking for money, but they're all loose and floating around one bin. Can someone give me any information?

[Anonymous No.601148]

>>601132

Loose is expected. Just make sure you say so in the item description

[Anonymous No.601150]

Always want to sell on amazon, But I'm just too intimidated with how to ship them. Can anyone explain how you do all the process?

[Anonymous No.601153]

>>601150

Either buy a bulk pack of bubble mailers on eBay or google Amazon FBA. If you ship the items yourself they give you a few days to go to the post office.

[Anonymous No.601160]

Are a majority of NES games hard to sell?

[Anonymous No.601163]

How much of a % does amazon take out per purchase? When include shipping price does it break even with the amount you pay to ship it?

[Anonymous No.601276]

Not sure how you can do this, OP. I just looked on Ebay at some game lots involving cartridge games. Then I looked at some of the game titles on Amazon. Some cartridge games, in used condition, but still working, are being sold at $0.01 + $3.99 shipping on Amazon. How can you profit at all? I would assume most people have already searched through the games their selling you to make sure none of them are worth major money.

[Anonymous No.601278]

>>601163
Fees are around 12% (10-15% I think.. it varies by category). Shipping is maybe $1.50 for a little video game. Anyway, you get fucked on fees and shipping with ebay or Amazon, though Amazon seems to be worse (but a better place to sell books).

[Anonymous No.601280]

>>601276
I saw a game in the collection I was about to buy going for $32

Anyone have any idea on how much I should offer on a box of NES games I'd say there's probably 35 in there. I offered 50 and didn't even get a response. I know one of the games is worth $30

[Anonymous No.601285]

>>599177
Holy shit, do you goddamn research before you venture into this buying shit games and selling them for scrap.

Look up games of the year titles for each console, look up best rated games and check what they are charged for on average on amazon and undercut them by 5$. Focus only on those major titles, not Ruggrats 64 or bullshit games like that. People want to buy vintage but popular games.

Do your homework instead of wasting cash on shit games with no replay or any value whatsoever.

I buy and sell MtG cards daily and I make ~5k$ a year (before anyone judges, I do this on the side, on fridays maybe 2 hours a week). But I never buy garbage in hopes of selling. I buy sleeper stocks, wait until they inflate and resell. Similarly, you should do such a homework and understand why The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for GameCube is worth upwards of 100$ while the Wii version is less than 20$. Or why Conker's Bad Fur Day and Pikmin 2 (GCN) are worth so damn much compared to other games like Robotron 64 or Pikmin (GCN)

[Anonymous No.601289]

>>601285
He said he was buying the games in boxes full of and just selling them all.

Can you talk more about that MtG card thing? Do you buy the cards in bulk/packages and just sell the rare ones and throw the shit ones away, or do you buy the rare ones and flip them? Specifics, please.

[Anonymous No.601295]

>>601289
Go on the typical websites like tcgplayer or magiccards. These websites list prices of many cards and even their price trends. With this you can predict easily if a card is undervalued, overvalued or if it will be stable. Buy in bulk from multiple stores and resell on amazon.

Next you have to understand how the game is played and how the formats work:
- People like to play low cost, high effect ratio cards.
- Standard format is slow, so you want bombs and high effect/cost
- Modern is fast, you need to check mainly low cost cards. Combo pieces are also a great buy since they tend to get banned and unbanned frequently.
- Legacy is where big money is at and where you have to constantly check on a daily basis the price of the top played cards in the top played decks.
- EDH is the wildcard format where shit cards can shine. You need experience to understand what cards can inflate from 1$ to 40$ overnight.
- Cards that can be played in all formats are costly and stabilized; don't invest in those unless you can trade bulk shit at variable prices you can predict will fall for one of these. Check Liliana of the Veil at 90$ or so. I traded so much shit to match her value and in 1 year she remained at the same price while those cards are now worth 0.10$ each.


Finally, you need to understand how some cards are always in demand:
- Always stock up on planeswalkers, legendaries and lands when they are low. They are rarely low and will rise in price. I guarantee you this.
- Always check prices on banned cards: when they get banned, they drop; when they get unbanned, their prices skyrocket.

Finally, you can do the snail investment of buy booster boxes, keep them unopened and their value will slowly grow over time. New Phyrexia booster box started at 90$. Now it is around 200$ depending on where you can buy it. Older sets like Zendikar made it to the 300-500$ range (also started at 90$). This takes about 3-4 years.

[Anonymous No.601302]

>>601295
So you just buy card packs from the store and as is or do you buy in bulk for cheap directly from the company or something?

[Anonymous No.601309]

>>601302
I buy and sell/trade singles from shops to players (shops buy only 50% value). Since I play the game, sometimes I buy booster packs for 4$ and sometimes i get a cash cow. But the majority of the money i make is off singles trading.

[Anonymous No.601311]

>>601309
You guys are fucking animals when it comes to flipping shit. I feel like if I tried it i'd just lose money and put it on a long list of failed attempts to be of average intelligence.

[Anonymous No.601327]

>>601073
I emulate earhbound on my phone

[Anonymous No.601336]

You're going to run dry within a month, no doubt. I've done a lot of reselling garage sale and craigslist items for a while, not just including games but also books, CDs/Vinyl, and occasionally knick-knacks or silver.

It really seems like it could pay well at first but soon you'll be looking at every last corner of your city to find a garage sale that has decent stuff. Also keep in mind that garage sales are very seasonal because people never have garage sales in shitty weather. Also keep in mind people on craigslist usually look up the ebay price of their items before they sell them.

If you're just out to make a quick buck or just want to do it as a past-time, go for it. Do not quit your job. You will regret it within a few months.

[Anonymous No.601523]

>>601163
About 15%

>>601160
Two of the dozen I listed four days ago have not sold. Up to over $250 in sales

>>601276
EBay lots are shit for exactly the reason you said. I'll stick to craigslist

>>601280
$2-3 per cart seems reasonable

>>601285
> implying I'd waste my time driving around buying individual titles instead of crates of games

>>601336
Words of wisdom, definitely not quitting my job to sell vidya on the internet

[Anonymous No.601533]

I made money in 03 doing nes snes from flea markets and gamestop but I can't imagine there are still nuggets out there. I think every copy of chrono trigger is in the hands of a collector now

[Anonymous No.601600]

>>601533
There's a new collector every day and somewhere a cartridge is breaking in the hands of a collector

[Anonymous No.601806]

LP size poly bags are in the mail, shrink wrap machine and wrap on the way, registered for FBA and assembling a shipment now

[Anonymous No.601820]

I am starting FBA too.

I am listing a large amount of books (Roughly 500-600).

Is there anything I should be doing to gather inventory or ease my process along?

[Anonymous No.601831]

>>601820

Where did you acquire the initial 500 books? Personal collection?

[Anonymous No.601837]

>>601831
Various sources. Mainly closeouts of bookstore inventory or salvage piles.

Most of my books are on sale for roughly 7-8 dollars on Amazon and I am listing them either on par or slightly above lowest asking price.

I have some ways set up to collect more books as time goes on.

[Anonymous No.601880]

>>601837

You should check out the book scanners thread:

>>594264

[Anonymous No.601952]

Something I found that has been a good resource on my run up to selling on Amazon.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/comments/1m56l1/a_beginners_guide_to_earning_money_on_amazon/

[Anonymous No.601976]

So OP, what do you plan to do when you buy a bunch of games on Craigslist and they're defective? don't you absorb the liability?

[Anonymous No.602001]

>>601976
>they're defective
that should be listed in the ad
if not, then yeah, you just straight up got screwed over, could happen to anyone

[Anonymous No.602003]

>>601976

That can't really happen. Games become unplayable because of corrosion on the pins. I disassemble every cartridge and polish the pins with wheel polish and a dremel tool (once you get a rhythm going this takes just a couple minutes per cart). For discs, I can check for deep gouges or anything a skip doctor etc wouldn't be capable of fixing.

[Anonymous No.602004]

>>601976
but it is basically unheard of for cartridge games to be defective. dunk it in water, leave it in the snow, drop it from several stories up, it's probably still gonna work. basically, being completely decimated, filled to the brim with dust or gunky shit are the only ways for a cartridge to be defective, but op says he takes them apart and cleans them all >>599456 so there's no way that's a problem

[Anonymous No.602616]

Where can I find games or consoles with their original box and stuff included for collectors?

[Anonymous No.603767]

I've been looking through games and finding the most profitable ones to resell. And i think ive just found a niche that seems to trending upwards.

The problem is how do i find more of certain video games for cheap.

[Anonymous No.603905]

>>599187
Roughly how many hours does he put into it?