This article was co-authored by Andrew Lokenauth. Andrew Lokenauth is a Finance Executive who has over 15 years of experience working on Wall St. and in Tech & Start-ups. Andrew helps management teams translate their financials into actionable business decisions. He has held positions at Goldman Sachs, Citi, and JPMorgan Asset Management. He is the founder of Fluent in Finance, a firm that provides resources to help others learn to build wealth, understand the importance of investing, create a healthy budget, strategize debt pay-off, develop a retirement roadmap, and create a personalized investing plan. His insights have been quoted in Forbes, TIME, Business Insider, Nasdaq, Yahoo Finance, BankRate, and U.S. News. Andrew has a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree (BBA), Accounting and Finance from Pace University.
There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.
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Whether it’s cutting-edge NFTs or old school products like clothes, there’s always an opportunity somewhere. Buying and selling is an art, and anyone can make money buying and selling depending on how much time and energy you’re willing to put into it. If you want to turn a profit selling things, we’ll walk you through the basics.
Steps
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1Decide what you want to buy and sell. You can sell a variety of things, but it is best to become an expert in one market.[1]
- You can buy and sell anything. Even broken cell phones. You can buy and sell physical things, like orange juice or newspaper, or non-physical things, like a service provided discreetly.
- Remember a couple principles. The rarer something is, the more people will usually pay for it if they want/need it. This is called supply and demand.[2] So a natural diamond costs more than an artificial diamond because natural diamonds are much rarer.
- The more labor or expertise goes into a product or service, the more it will cost. Something that takes a very long time to make, or something that can only be offered with many specialized degrees or long training, is going to cost much more than something that can be made on the spot by any old person.
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2Research the market.[3] You absolutely need to know the average price your product gets when it is either bought or sold to someone who knows its value.[4]
- The markets you can look at could be retail locations, wholesale locations, internet, or other appraisers. If you can, watch what the product buys and sells for on open markets like eBay.
- The market value of your product or service will sometimes fluctuate depending on a number of circumstances. While the price of milk has changed little over the past ten years, the price of gold and the price of crude oil have changed considerably.[5]
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3Find a supplier to supply your merchandise. Make sure that he/she is trustworthy and that they will sell you the things for lower a price than you will sell them for.[6]
- These suppliers will usually be wholesalers. A wholesaler is a middleman who buys a good and sells it back to a retailer (without changing its value), who eventually sells it to a customer.
- If you can buy products straight from the manufacturer, you cut out the middleman and can usually make more money off of your product. Wherever possible, try to buy your product straight from the manufacturer so that you don't have to pay the middleman a cut.
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4Sell your items. Watch the market so you know just when to sell. You must find a supportive market that you can rely on.[7]
- As a general rule, you want to buy low and sell higher. This means buy your product at the lowest price possible and sell it for the highest price possible. This lets you make the most money.
- There are some wrinkles to this rule. Generally, when you buy a product for a lower price, the quality of the product isn't as high. So, for example, you could buy an umbrella for $1 and sell it to someone for $3, and this means that you bought low and sold high. But, quality of your umbrella isn't going to be high. You could, however, buy a higher-quality umbrella for $5 and sell it to someone for $10. You'd probably make fewer individual sales this way, but the profit from your total sales may be higher.
Warnings
- It's best to have done your research well so that you know you are receiving the best deal and not being cheated.⧼thumbs_response⧽
- If you're meeting people face to face, make sure they are trustworthy and will not steal anything of yours.⧼thumbs_response⧽
References
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/74316
- ↑ https://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3.asp
- ↑ https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/market-research-buyers-journey-guide
- ↑ https://www.inc.com/guides/price-your-products.html
- ↑ https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketvalue.asp
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/66028
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/179084
About This Article
To make money buying and selling things, start by choosing a product to sell that you can buy straight from the manufacturer, which will be cheaper. Then, do research online through websites like eBay to determine what the market value of that product is so you know around how much you can sell it for. Make sure that you sell the product for more than you paid for it so you make a profit, and remember to factor in other costs, like shipping. To learn how to choose what kind of product to sell, keep reading!
