Making money flipping items through technology
I created this tool that finds inefficiencies in market and utilizes that information to give you URLs for an item (like a college textbook) that you can buy cheaper and sell to a buy back service for a small profit. I charge 50% of the profit. You can rinse and repeat this as many times as you want.
Do you think this is neat? Check it out at http://flippiness.com/
15 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 49.5 ms ] threadEven after reading your FAQ I don't think I fully understand the service as a user. I pay a dollar to get the links of the item for sale and the place to sell it. How do you verify and charge me for a percentage of the profit at that point?
But if you don't want to go through the hassle of buying and selling the book yourself for that amount of profit, what makes you think other people will? Why not just make all these deals yourself and take 100% of the profit?
Edit: I guess you answer my question in the FAQ. I'm just not sure I believe you're making this service because you are "nice like that". Not that I'm against what you made; I actually think it's really cool. I just genuinely think you would able to make a lot more money for less work than you think if you scaled up the buying and selling yourself. I think it would scale, quite well in fact.
Some notes:
- The "Buy" and "Sell" locations were the same website. Immediately raised some concerns (why would the same entity want to screw itself over by buying the same book it's selling for more money?)
- Upon inspection, it's because to be eligible for the Buyback price of $37, the book must not have tears, highlighting, or missing pages.
- The books at the Buy price of $23 or less have all been noted as just "Acceptable" condition with missing pages and highlighting. The books at better conditions are all $50+.
- Wasted $3.
That was a common issue and requires a technological solution. This is why the links are now free for all. You can see all of the links for free and buy where you see the value.