Home Improvement Sales

Home Improvement Sales. I was in this business for 10 years. Home Improvement sales is a good business for anyone with some sales training, and if you can picture a projects out come in your head. Cost to start the business is very low, and profit margins can be quite good. If you stick with exterior home improvements, you will find the jobs get done quickly, and you avoid most of the problems associated with working on homes when the customer lives there.

This business has a low start up cost. You will need a home improvement contractor's license. Check with your city, most have very few requirements for home improvement contractors. It is best to start with the simple jobs such as carports, patio covers and screen rooms. As your experience grows you might tackle the larger more complicated work. You can learn what to look for when measuring a home for a carport, or patio cover, and what is needed for installation by one of the following methods. Work for a company as a salesperson for three months. Have your installers instruct you on how to measure a job, or work with them on a few jobs, and lastly, your suppliers can help advice you if you ask them. When I started twenty years ago I went to the suppliers, and picked up installation instructions, I then worked with the installers that my supplier recommended for a week. By selling the jobs, and helping the installers you learn what to do, and what not to do.

 You need very little money to start this business. Your customer's deposits can cover most, or all of the material cost, and the installers have their own tools and equipment. You will need a sales book to use in the home, made up of the brochures and pictures you get from your suppliers. As you complete jobs, add you own job photos to your sales photo book. If you run ads to get sales leads, you will need money to pay for the first couple of months advertising. If you are going to advertise by putting fliers on doors, you maybe a little less money. You can also find jobs by setting up a booth at the flea market to get leads. You could start this business with a little as $1,000. A pick up truck is helpful, although your installers will pick up and deliver materials for the jobs.

Suppliers: Every major city has wholesale suppliers for vinyl siding, aluminum carport materials, patio cover kits, replacement windows, and other home improvement materials. Check the yellow pages, and look for wholesalers under the home improvement heading. The suppliers can help with product brochures, installer recommendations, samples of their product,s and installation instructions. Also ask the wholesale house's manager what the going rates are for labor, and what retail prices their products are being sold at. If you have no suppliers look to the next large city chances are they deliver to your area.

Installers: Installers are the key to your success. When you find a good installers take care of them, and they will take care of you. Most installers have standard rates that they charge for the different types of jobs, sit down with your installer and make a list of their labor rates. Installers are sub-contractors, and as independent businessmen they pay their own taxes. Be sure you have a signed sub-contract agreements on each and every job.

Products To Sell: Start with patio covers, screen rooms, carport covers, and decks. There are many style choices, and combinations with in these product categories. See www.homeimprovementkits.com to get an idea of what is available. That web site sells kits to consumers and is not where you want to shop if you plan to be a home improvement contractor, but it has a lot of information that will be of help to you.

Most home improvements sales are made (sold) as installed sales, by a home improvement sales person, taking the order in the home and arranging for installation. Depending on where you live some products will be more popular than others. In Florida screen rooms are very popular, in Texas carports are popular because of the heat. Your suppliers will tell you what sells best in your area. Advertise only what sells best in your area.

Advertising: We found that the best place to advertise was in the TV guide. The best ads read, "20% off carports, screen rooms and patio covers, free estimates call xxx-xxxx". The next best way to advertise was to put up full size carport displays at busy highway intersections with signs saying CAR PORTS & PATIO COVERS CALL XXX-XXXX.

Pricing: Different contractors use different pricing formulas. The most common are.

1. Material cost, times three, equals the sales price.
2. Material plus labor, times two, equals sales price.
3. Material plus labor, times 1.67, equals sales price.

There are some H.I. Contractors who use much higher prices, and some who sell so cheap that they cannot afford to advertise, or grow their businesses past the start up stage, Charge a fair price, and stand behind every job you do. If you do that your business will grow. There is a lot more to this than what is given here, and you will need to learn as you go.

Our how-to-manual goes into detail on what to do, including list of suppliers, advertising samples, plans, photos, ad copy and the manual covers all areas of the business. How To Run A Home Improvement Business Manual $59: (call 1-888-814-7531 ext 1382) it includes how to design and sell steel patio covers, and carport covers. Information that cannot be purchased from the local home improvement contractor sources. If you want to save thousands of dollars in trial and error learning, as well as jump-start your Home Improvement business, order the manual. You can be successful with out the manual, I was. Even if you order the manual it will not help, if you do not get out there and get started. So however you do it, the key is, DO IT! (paid adv.)

How the Internet assists this business: The Internet gives you a way to find suppliers of products to sell. It also allows you the use of smaller display ads because you can direct people to a web site for more information. The web allows you access to all manner of business forms and contracts to use in operating your business as well as business how to information from bank and other web sites.

Importing Products to Sell

Import Products For Sale.

Importing products from countries with a low cost of production, and reselling in the United States, is becoming more popular as the Internet has made it easy to locate suppliers overseas. You will need to decide what items to import, and how you are going to sell the items once you get them. Your method to sell the products might include, flea market sales, road side stands, show sales, gift and antique mall space rental, in-home party sales, a web site, e-bay, or catalog sales to name a few. The cost of inventory and storage space is the big drawback to being an importer.

Suppliers:

You locate overseas manufactures by search the web for merchandise India, or china etc. Or search for trade directories by country. You can find product by visiting the foreign trade sections of trade shows such as the National Hardware Show, or the Builders Show. Every major industry has a trade show annually.

Container Quantities:

The overseas manufactures sell in container loads. Containers are sized as 20', 40', or 48' long (each Box is 8' x 8' x length or larger). Manufactures practices vary as to what can be mixed in a container. Some manufactures want only one item, (stock keeping unit, sku), per container, and others let you mix sku's of anything they make. Keep in mind that the manufactures produce to order, and will want large quantity orders.

For example, a typical order for swimming pools might consist of 400 pools, in three different sizes, at a cost of $32,000 plus shipping fees. Shipping fees will add another $5,000 plus by the time the load is delivered to you. The cost of shipping a 20' container is only about 15% less than shipping a 40' container.

L/C's:

Most overseas suppliers manufacture to order. Allow up to 6 months lead time to get a shipment. Orders are pre-paid by a letter of credit issued by a bank. The bank's fees vary. Expect to pay about $600 for the LC, and the money to cover the LC face amount will need to be on deposit at the bank. The manufacture will get payment from the bank when your order is shipped from the country of origin, it is then yours. Be sure to request insurance while in transit.

Warehousing:
You could rent a warehouse, mini storage space, or use your garage for storage. The freight company will drop the loaded container at your designated address, and come back for it after you have unloaded it. You could also use a bonded public warehouse service that will store the products for you. Some warehouse operations will even do your shipping for you. Public warehouses operate on a "fee for services rendered" basis. Be sure you know what your cost will be. You will find these companies in the phone book under warehousing and shipping.

Profits:

You should expect a profit margin of 100% to 300% on imported items. Any item that will not allow you to double, or triple your landed cost, is not worth importing. Keep in mind that you are the warranty company, and the product liability company, for your imported items. Carry the necessary insurance coverage.

marked up 40%, is figured like this - $60 your cost x 1.67 (40% factor) = $100. You check this by dividing the difference by the selling price, $100 (retail) minus $60 (the cost) = $40 (the margin) divided by $100 (retail) = 40% (the mark-up percentage).

How the Internet assist this business:

The Internet gives you a way to find manufactures of products from overseas . When selling, you can use a web site, rather than an expensive catalog, for sending to potential retail re-sellers. You also use the web to locate Internet retail stores who might sell your products.

You can also operate a retail web site and thus quickly test the market for the products you plan to offer. The web allows you access to all manner of businesses and contracts to use in operating your business, as well as business how-to information from banks and other web sites. Most importantly, a retail sales web site can give you a way of testing the market for items you want to import.

For example: you find items you want to import and find what companies import them currently, or who has similar products that you can buy from a US based importer. You buy from the domestic sources and try selling the items from your own web store. The items that sell well become the items that you import directly from the manufacture. This is the method we use to test new items before making a large dollar commitment to them.

Import & Wholesale Sales.

Wholesaling of imports can be a good business. The problems are that it can take a long time to accumulate enough retail accounts to become a profitable wholesaler. You find products that are made overseas that you think will sell and you import them for resale to retail stores. The retailers may want you to handle all the merchandising details such as displays, signs, packaging, pricing with bar codes, etc... They will also want credit terms from 30 to 120 days.

The bad news is, it can take several years, and be expensive to acquire enough good retail stores to reach your sales goals. The good news is, that you will be selling to the same customer base repeatedly. The retailers need products to sell in order to make a profit and, if you have the correct items, they will keep reordering from you.

Locating Retailers:

You will need to use some, or all, of the following methods of reaching the retailers.
Display at trade shows, advertising in the trade magazines, hiring manufactures representatives to show your products to their retail clients, mail out post cards to the retailers, send out product brochures to enquiries from your ads, buy mailing list of stores to send information to, E-mail to retailers, get listings in wholesale directories, and search the web for possible E-retailers.

Profits:

You should expect a profit margin of 20% to 100% on imported items sold at wholesale. Keep in mind that the retailer will take your wholesale price and add any shipping cost needed to get the items to the store, and then they will mark up that number by X 1.67 (40%) to X 2 (50%) or more.

The items you offer for sale will need to be a good value to a consumer with both your mark up added and the retailers mark up added. Also remember that you are the warranty company, and the product liability company for your imported items. Carry the necessary insurance coverage

Disadvantages:

This business takes a lot of cash to start, both for inventory and marketing. The sales build up slowly and can take two or three years to get up to a respectable sales volume.

Advantages:

High cost of entry limits competition. The Internet makes finding suppliers and information easier than in the past. You can test market products online before making a large commitment. You can use the web to get rid of your mistakes. Once you build up your customer base, you will sell to them repeatedly. Profit margins can be very good.

"A personal financial statement is a mile marker on the road towards wealth"
Jim Glasgow

Mobile Home Rentals:

Mobile Home Rentals: Earn 20% + Returns Per Year A series of events has caused a large amount of mobile home foreclosure. Anyone living in, or near a state where manufactured houses have a high foreclosure rate can make great returns from the situation. This idea is based on you having cash, I am sure some creative financing can be done that would enhance the rate of return.

In Texas a law was passed changing the way these homes are financed which hurt the industries sales. Plus low interest rates, which make traditional homes more financially attractive when compared to manufactured homes. The result is that you have more re-possessed mobile homes on the market then the market can absorb. Then Finance companies have to auction the homes off at a loss. Eventually this situation will correct it's self; in the mean time there is money to be made.

The situation of available Mobile homes is similar in many states. You can buy (for cash) single wide mobile homes for as little as $6000 up to $12,000 and double wide units from $9,000 to $20,000. You can locate the homes for sale by running ads, putting up signs, driving around the mobile home parks, talking with the park managers so they know you are buying and can pass the word along.

What you can do is: Locate lots (property) where mobile homes are allowed and purchase a used home and set it up on the lot. You can rent the home out, or sell it and carry the note, (depending on your situation). Lots are available in mobile home sub divisions and parks, and some towns allow mobile homes on residential lots. Check and be certain that what you propose to do is allowed before you rent or buy either the lots, or before you buy the homes. Look for lots were the utilities are in place and were you will have the least amount of set up expense. Keep lot rental cost to $150 per month or less or buy them for between $6,000 and $10,000. Buy a mobile home and place it on the lot, your total cost needs to be under $30,000.

The numbers: If you rent the home out at a monthly rental of $700 and your taxes and maintenance cost you $200 to $300 per month, you will net $400 to $500 per month. If at the high end you spent $30,000 and get net $500 per month, the unit will pay for its self in five years. After five years, the rent is all profit. If you raise the rent to $750 after one year and to $800 after two years you get all your money back in four years. Then it is all profit. Or you could sell the home and carry the note. Say you sold it for $50,000 and carried the note at 10% interest for fifteen years, that would be $537.00 per month principal and interest. Your $30,000 would bring you $96,660 over the next fifteen years.

What I have heard: I have located one mobile home park owner who is buying used mobile and renting them out, he is averaging a three year pay back because he has the land already. I have seen some people accumulating the units in a storage field. They are either holding them for re-sale, or holding them while they locate property to put the units on.

 I met a man (a car salesmen) who bought the use mobile homes and left them on the land where they were located at when he purchased them until he could get them sold, he said he had to get a state mobile home dealers license but he was making a few thousand extra every month from his part time sales business. He used a credit card to buy the houses and classified ads to sell them. I asked why he used a credit card check to buy the units? His answer; There is nothing like a big bill coming in to motivate you to get it sold quick.

I have afriend in San Antonio, Texas who had twenty two rental mobile home units and he said he had a two year pay back. because he rented the lots rather then owning them and he bought only smaller single wide units. (less exspensive to move and repair) His average rental was $600 per month. His net income was at $8,800 per month, he said he started part time, started with only $3,000 seven years earlier. He had not had a real (normal) job in four years.

More: Making money with mobile homes.

Selling At Shows

Selling At Shows
Flea Markets and Home Shows,Fairs etc.

Selling at home shows, flea markets, roadsides, fairs, and mall kiosks, is a low cost way of starting a retail sales business. Visit any home show or market place for ideas of what products to offer for sale.

The information provided at the link below is a real offer from one of my companies (Glasgow Imports). See how to find merchandise below for other ways to locate goods. The same ideas will work for any item you choose to sell in a similar manner. This type of sales venue may be the way for you to start a retail sales business with low overhead, and low start up cost.

You will find two different price ranges of products being offered at shows, and markets. Low cost items, and high priced items. When selling low priced items, (under $50), the sales booth operator designs a sales pitch and product demonstration to attract crowds. They need lots of orders and the customer will want immediate delivery. A typical sales goal would be $2,000 to $4500 per day. With low price items, 100 plus individual sales will have to be made to reach the sales goal. Without the pitch and demo, the sales goals can not be reached.

With high priced items, ($100 up), the booth operator explains the features and benefits of the product to one person at a time. Both businesses have similar sales goals but the person selling the higher priced items will need fewer individual sales to reach a similar sales goal. Higher priced items are usually shipped to the customer.

Selling at shows is a good way to start a business with little overhead, or expand the sales of an existing business. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

Where To Find Merchandise.

Several times a year the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas hosts the ASD/AMD General Merchandise and Gift Show. Call 1-800-421-4511 for a list of show dates and locations. You might contact Summer Communications, (www.wholesalecentral.com), for a list of their publications. The list includes wholesale directories and trade shows directories. Also, you could buy an item at a show and get the address of the manufacture of the item.

The Internet is a good resource to locate wholesale vender and, if you can afford to import a container full of items from china or another overseas location, you will get lower cost, and more profits.

Booth Rental.

Show promoters rent booths based on a 10' x 10' area, or multiples thereof. For example a 10' x 10' booth might cost you $900 for the weekend. Expect extra charges for carpet and furniture rental. Corners locations may cost more. Always ask for a discount when taking more than one booth space. I always pay the least amount down that I can, and pay the balance 30 days before the show date.

Pricing.

Unless you are doing local shows, booth rent and travel expenses will be a large budget item. You will need a minimum mark-up on the items you are selling of double your cost. On small items, (items selling for $20 or less), you will need a mark-up of three to four times your cost. Visit shows and see what the other suppliers are charging. The more unique your item, and the fewer supliers offering it, the higher your prices can be.

What We Are Doing Now!

A new flea market opened up near our office. We rented a large booth, (15'x50'), at a cost of $900 per month. We are using it to get rid of customer returns and over stocks from our other businesses. We have the items from Glasgow imports and from our surplus web site in our booth. We are selling about $1,000 per week.

The best items at this time are our game tables and greenhouses. Other good sellers are miscellaneous items I buy at auction and sell cheap. It does not seem to matter what category the items fall into as long as it is a great bargain. For example, we have some optometrist eye glasses frames that you could buy off our surplus web site for $2, at the flea market we are getting $5. We had some ash trays that I picked up at auction for $0.15 each and we were selling for 3/$1. Some guy came in and bought all 40 dozen at 4/$1. (10-20-04)

Selling Carports & Garages

Selling and Building Carports & Garages.

I was in this business for many years

In some parts of the country, garages and carports are good sellers. You can create a nice business by specializing in these two items.

Some companies in this buiness operate like the home improvement sales people, and make their sales in the home using commissioned salesmen, selling from plans and photos. Others operate like the portable building people, and sell from a sales lot with actual garages on display. Both methods work. You might start with in home sales, generate your leads with small display ads, or use classified ads placed in the local TV guide. After you learn what to do, you can expand by opening a sales lot.

You need very little money to start this business. Your customer's deposits can cover most, or all of the material cost, and the installers have their own tools and equipment. You will need a sales book to use in the home, made up of the brochures and pictures you get from your suppliers.

If you run ads to get sales leads, you will need money to pay for the first couple of months advertising. If you are going to advertise by putting fliers on doors, you maybe a little less money. You can also find jobs by setting up a booth at the flea market to get leads. You could start this business with a little as $1,000.

As you complete jobs, add you own job photos to your sales book. People will buy from the pictures you show them so a ring binder sales photo book is money well invested.

A pick up truck is helpful, although your installers will pick up and deliver materials for the jobs. You may need to haul materials to your job sites from time to time.

Read the sections on home improvement sales, and the section on portable buildings, the general principals are the same.

Pricing:

Different contractors use different pricing formulas. The most common are.

1. Material cost, times three, equals the sales price.
2. Material plus labor, times two, equals sales price.
3. Material plus labor, times 1.67, equals sales price.

There are some Home Improvement Contractors who use much higher mark-ups, and some who sell so cheap that they cannot afford to advertise, or grow their businesses past the start up stage, Charge a far price, and stand behind every job you do. If you do that your business will grow.

Advertising:

We found that the best place to advertise was in the TV guide. The best ads read, "20% off car-ports, screen rooms and patio covers, free estimates call xxx-xxxx". or "20% off Garages" The next best way to advertise was to put up full size carport displays at busy highway intersections with signs saying CAR PORTS & PATIO COVERS CALL XXX-XXXX.

Sub Contractors:

Sub Contractors are the key to your success. When you find a good carpenter and concrete man take care of them, and they will take care of you. Most subs have standard rates that they charge for the different types of jobs, sit down with your subs and make a list of their labor rates. Sub-contractors operate as independent business men and as independent businessmen they pay their own taxes. Be sure you have a signed sub-contract agreement on each and every job to avoid becoming liable to the IRS for taxes on subs or their employees.

Check the sub's insurance for workers comp and liability insurance.

How the Internet assist this business:

The Internet allows you place smaller display ads and direct people to your web site for more information. The web gives you access to garage construction plans. It allows you to get information quickly on specialty building products. Building permit information is online in most large cities. The web allows you access to all manner of business forms and contracts to use in operating your business, as well as business how to information from bank and other web sites.

There is a lot more to this than what is given here, and you will need to learn as you go. Our how-to-manual goes into detail on what to do, including list of suppliers, advertising samples, plans, photos and advertising copy. The manual covers all areas of the business.

The cost of this manual is $59.00 (call 1-888-814-7531 ext 1382) it includes how to design and sell steel patio covers, and carports covers. Information that cannot be purchased from the local home improvement contractor sources. If you want to save thousands of dollars in trial and error learning, as well as jump-start your Home Improvement business, order the manual. (paid adv.)

You can be successful with out the manual, I was.

Even if you order the manual it will not help, if you do not get out there and get started. So however you do it, the key is, DO IT!

"The real reason the rich get richer is because someone is working at it"
Jim Glasgow

Selling Used Portable Classrooms:

Many states are building new schools. Now that many of these schools are coming on line, the districts are beginning to auction off the old portable classrooms. These classrooms make great buildings for churches, day care centers, weekend cabins, small homes, offices etc.

What you can do is;

You buy the classrooms at auction and have them moved to a storage field. Advertise the units for sale or lease, depending on your financial situation. It is important to get a lowest possible cost of moving the units before you bid on them.

The Numbers:

Expect to pay from $2,500 to $6,500 per unit, and moving cost can be from $2,500 up. low moving cost is the key to controlling your overall investment. You sell the classroom ubilding using classified ads, on a to be moved basis, or set them up on some rural property and sell them as finish it your self homes. In areas where there is recreational land for sale people are looking for low cost alternatives to building conventionally.

Call local house movers to get a feel of what the used classrooms should sell for. My experience has been that you can get from $12.00 to $20.00 per square foot for them. Call the school district's purchasing department or call and ask who is in charge of new construction projects, they should be able to tell you were to call for auction information.

It does not have to be a classroom, I have sold houses, offices, barracks, and other structures this way for more then twenty years. The trick is buy cheap, and negotiate hard with the house mover to control cost. Moving cost is the biggest expense.

What I have seen:

I know of one person who is accumulating the classroom units in a storage field. They are either holding them for re-sale or holding them while they locate property to put the units on. I also saw two more classrooms units being set up along a highway to be used as office space.

Surplus Merchandise Dealer.

Surplus Sales

We are in this type of business now. You can visit our web site at www.halfpricesurplus.com

I like surplus sales because the mark-ups are very good. You do need money for inventory, as this is a cash business. You will also need storage space, a truck, and a trailer.

Start by going to industrial or commercial auction sales in your area of the country. Bidding on anything that is cheap. Move the items you buy to a storage facility, and then run classified ads in the local papers to sell the Items. It is that simple of a business. You can also sell your items on E-bay, from your own web site, at flea markets, and if the merchandise is new, at trade shows.

I run my surplus sales as a part time business business. My Surplus sales last year were $34,564.00 at a 75% profit margin.. I attended six auction sales last year and work at my surplus business about 1 hour a day. Maybe 12 hours a week. That comes to less than 50 days of work a year for a gross profit of $25,923.00. My expenses are about $700 a month, (mostly warehouse rent), That leaves me $17,523.00 profit, or $350.00 for everyday I worked at it.

I do have $25,000 invested in inventory and it took me a few years to build up to that level. I now sell everything on line or at the flea market booth we currently operate. I could make a very good living on a full, or part time basis if I sold using every means possible. What if you started a part time surplus business, took the profits each year and used it as a down payment on a rent house. After five years, you would be well on your way to becoming wealthy.

Expertise:

You will learn as you go. The more auction sales you attend, the more you will learn. Talk to the other bidders, they all have knowledge to impart. If you only buy the low priced items, you will find it difficult to get hurt. Check our web site, www.halfpricesurplus.com, for an idea of what we buy and sell. We are not experts in all the different product areas, but we bid low enough that we can sell cheap. We are really sell low prices that products do not matter.

You can sell almost anything if you are selling at a low enough price. If you start with larger items, it will be easier to sell them using classified ads. At one sale I purchased seven glass display cases for $375.00 and sold them two weeks later for $1700.00 using a classified ad. Anther time I bought three kiddie coin rides for $350 each and sold them for $600 each. I only bought three rides because I was a little scared of getting stuck with them, only later did I find out that I could sell as many as I could get. Next time I will know.

Finding Auction sales:

I check for auction ads in large city Sunday newspapers. I pick cities within one day's drive of my home. After you start visiting auctions, you will be put on the auctioneer's mailing list. Also check the Internet for auctions.

Be polite, courteous, and always leave your business card with the auctioneer. You will find it will pay off in the long run. At some auctions I can write checks when they normally do not take business checks without a bank guarantee. I have been called by auctioneers after the auction to bid on lots that were not paid for by another bidder. I have also been offered sole bidder deals when the auctioneer needed to have a problem resolved for a client of his. It pays to be nice and helpful.

The Best and Worst Auctions:

There are auctions for every imaginable product line. The best auctions are industrial, IRS, closed businesses, or bankruptcy auctions.

The best auction sale days, from your point of view, are weekdays. The worst are Saturday and Sunday. On Saturdays you get local users rather than resellers, and prices tend to be higher. The worst auctions are schools, and police department auctions because the merchandise is most often in poor condition.

The best payment methods, from your point of view, is cash due the day of the auction. When the auction takes credit cards, prices are higher as bidders can bid more than the amount of cash they have on hand.

The best terms are no reserve, and no premium. The worst terms are reserved prices, (set opening bid prices, or set lowest acceptable bid), and terms of 10% buyers premium as people forget about the premium and that makes prices higher.

The best sized sales lots are large lots, (a lot of items sold all at once), as there will be fewer bidders. The worst is small lots. Small lots take longer to sell and more bidders can afford to bid.

The Best Items:

The best items are large items like, glass display cases, printing equipment, vehicles, tractors, etc... anything large. The reason is fewer bidders, and your sales price can be high enough to leave a good profit after advertising and moving cost.

Selling What You Buy:

I use classified ads and my Internet web site listed above. You can also sell at flea markets, garage sales, and by selling to businesses by sending out faxes. And you could always use E-bay.

When I get a lot of flea market merchandise, I print a flyer and drop them at every both in all the flea markets in my area. Flea market operators are always looking for items to sell. I recently purchased 270 cases of assorted Dollar Store goods, (from a closed bankrupt store), at an auction for $8.00 per case and sold most of it to flea market operators at $20 per case.

Pricing & Profits:

I price items at whatever I think is fair. I usually set my price at one half of what the retail price would be, or less. I check the web for selling price comparisons by searching for an item using the Google.com search engine. In order to sell at bargain prices, I try to buy items at 10% to 20% of what the retail price would be. I set the sales prices at double to four times my cost. By keeping my profit margins high, I can afford to hold the items in inventory as long as necessary and dump my mistakes by selling them at my cost.

Other Observations:

Having a large number of bidders at an auction sale does not mean much. Some people will not bid at all, and some people are there to bid on only one particular item. A clean, neat sale is a sign of high prices to come.

Hang around until the end of the sale. I have seen many bargains in the last half hour because people ran out of money, or left. Do not be afraid to bid, you can always quit when the price goes too high.

Never be afraid to walk away from an item. There will be another sale, another day. You only make a good profit by buying cheap and selling at a fair price.

If you do not make a few mistakes, you are being to conservative and missing deals.

How the Internet assist this business: The Internet allows you to use smaller classified ads, and direct people to a web site for more information. The Internet gives you a way to find out who is holding auctions in your area. With a web site, you can sell to the world at a very low cost.