A Big Win... and More Updates Coming this Week!

Thursday, 6:18 am. I know it was then because that’s when I hopped in the shower before work. That was the first time since Sunday that I noticed my back not hurting from carrying all of the heavy auction items, landing me squarely in the wimpy/whiny category! I guess entrepreneurs should be a little tougher, I’ll need to work on that…

The reward, however, was worth it. Customers have been difficult to get committed this week, I’ve had multiple initial offers on small things when the would-be buyers stopped communications when it was time to setup a meeting. I’ve also had a couple low offers for some of the items, so I’ll hold off on a better price. The huge victory, though, was of course the boat motor.

After purchasing the motor (and lugging it home), I looked for similar ones online to try and come up with a value/price. It seemed that purely parts motors (motors that won’t run) were priced around $100, and running motors were closer to $400-500. Since I didn’t know much about this motor (besides what I could see), and didn’t really have a way to hook it up and get it running, I decided to price it conservatively at $200 on Sunday night to see If anyone would be interested at that price…

I might have overdone the "conservatively" part, Monday brought a string of no less than 8 people calling/texting/emailing throughout the day, trying to be the first to get the motor. I ended up selling it Monday night for $200 (the guy bought another small thing while he was here!), for a $195 profit and in just one day.  The customer ended up getting it running within 48 hours, so he got a great deal on it. I couldn’t help feeling like I missed an opportunity to make even more if I had listed it higher, but not knowing the quality of the motor and wanting to move it quick, I think I did ok. Plus, it’s our biggest sale/profit to-date, so that’s awesome!

At this point, we’ve officially passed the “double-up” point, and are well above $500 in less than 1 month (checkout our Progress Breakdown Page for some details!). I’ll need to keep doing bigger ticket items if I want to keep a good pace, we add to the stack much faster $50-100 at a time than $10-20, and it takes a lot less of my time to find a couple customers as opposed to 10-20. I think maybe I’ll start focusing on items I can sell for $50+ dollars unless it’s a really great deal.

More updates coming this week, including a First Month Summary and a look into some future ideas I’ve been exploring. Here's a hint: I'm getting quotes from manufacturers!

Stay tuned!