Since I graduated college six months ago, I have undergone a major downsizing. I had three garage sales over the summer and anything I hadn’t used recently or didn’t intend to use in the future was out for sale. Of the stuff that didn’t sell, most went to Goodwill. A few things I kept to try to sell on Craigslist because I knew I could get a decent bit of money for them.
Most of that stuff is gone now. As of taking inventory Sunday, I had a 1971 Super 8 camera, some video games, two mechanical keyboards, and two Nintendo 64 controllers. Monday afternoon I decided I’m sick of seeing the stuff and list the N64 controllers on Amazon. Knowing that the low price for a controller is $9.25, I list one for $10.49 and the other for $10.99 (one was in slightly better condition than the other). There were five or six controllers priced below mine.
I come back to my computer three hour later and both controllers have sold.
This is a problem because it means I am not maximizing my profit. When selling an item, I typically price it fairly higher than the lowest cost. If the item doesn’t sell after two weeks, I’ll lower the price. I’ll keep lowering it until it sells or it’s the lowest priced item. This way I am, at least hopefully, selling right at the buyer’s maximum price.
In this case, I didn’t do my research. Since selling N64 controllers on Amazon is a new market for me, I should have followed sales of N64 controllers over the course of a few days so I could see that the lowest priced controllers sell very quickly. I forgot the most important rule of reselling: always know your market.
I can’t complain too much, really. These were spare controllers — in rather poor condition — I bought bundled with consoles at garage sales quite a while ago. I had since resold the consoles without the controllers for a fair profit and I made more than $15 after shipping on the controllers. Still, the shame burns.
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