It turned out to be a whole truckload of Adidas and Taylormade golf clothing, shoes, hats and accessories. They were selling the stuff really cheap, and I was excited. I bought 40 Taylormade hats for a dollar each, knowing they'd sell for $8-10 on eBay. I bought an armful of shirts for $5 each and soon had spent my pocketful of cash (a few hundred dollars). I couldn't imagine they'd sell all of it, so I found a woman who seemed to be in control (partially). I found out she managed a local thrift store, got her card and headed home.First thing Monday morning I was waiting at the door. After they opened, I gave Margaret a few minutes to get settled and then approached her. My plan was to offer her maybe a few thousand dollars for whatever she had left. I knew I could sell it for much more. She recognized me and we began to chat. Turns out the thrift store was part of my Church and I didn't even know it. They fund a local soup kitchen and emergency services for our local community. She told me how she had 3 or 4 other buyers coming in that wanted to buy all of the golf stuff she had. They had offered her $5000 and another $7000 at the swap meet. I was surprised because although I knew there was value in it, I didn't see that much potential.
She must have read my face, because she then pointed out the two full truck container loads in the parking lot. The truck she brought to the swap meet was just a sampling! Now I saw the potential! It had to be actually probably $100,000 worth of stuff I estimated. Turns out all of
the goods were donated by Adidas/Taylormade to the Church to clean out a warehouse. All of the merchandise was prior year, or production samples, or salesman samples. Both men's and women's, hats, shoes, shirts, pants, shorts, skorts, jackets, sweaters...There were two issues for my new friend. One, she had no place to keep all this product. She told me she had to return the truck containers in two days. Second, although she knew they had value, she was in a very low income area of town and it would take forever to move the product piece by piece and in her neighborhood she would get very little money for the items that way. Second, although she knew she had to do something with the product, she knew the value and although the $7000 would have been a huge boost to the sales (over 2 months sales worth), she saw the bigger potential.
And then it clicked for me. I knew I didn't have the money to compete with the other buyers, but I did have something they didn't (as far as I knew). I had eBay. I told Margaret that I sold stuff on eBay for a living, and that the golf shoes she sold me the day before for $5 I would sell on eBay for $50. That the hat she sold me for $1 I would move for $10. She couldn't believe it. So I made my move. I told her, I would take all the product. I would help her store it, sort it, and I would sell it all. I would split the profit with her 50/50 on whatever was made. I told her it wouldn't be quick, but it would be a steady supply of money for the store for the next year or two.
She barely hesitated. She said "done deal" and shook my hand. Little did I know what I was in for. I just found two years income without putting out any money from my own pocket. She and her staff spent the next month sorting the product right there in the store. Boxes floor to ceiling absolutely everywhere. She was getting heat from every direction to get it out of the store. So we got a storage unit nearby. It was packed floor to ceiling front to back.
I started out one box at a time. Each box had maybe 40 shirts in them. I checked out the competition on eBay and picked a medium start price to feel out the market. Turns out they shirts sold pretty consistently for about $15 each. So we got $7.50 and the Church got $7.50. They were selling the shirts in the store for $2.00 so my new partner was elated. Once I got more and more product up we were making about $1000 a week, so $500 each. I was pleased and they were ecstatic. A great deal for everyone. It has been over two years now and we're still selling this product. We still have 200 or more auctions up per week. We have an eBay store and an outside website. This one project has taught me more than any other. The supply has definitely gotten thinner, but we're still making $500 a week or so, and giving them $250 of it. This was our first PowerSeller business and continues to keep us in Silver PowerSeller status. You can check it out HERE. To learn more about becoming a Trading Assistant read this post to my blog HERE .
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