IKEA - the universal donor

DAY WHO KNOWS?

So one thing I've discovered is that you don't necessarily need to sell anything unique or awesome (in fact - kijiji isn't the place to sell something like that - try an auction to get the most bang for your buck that way) and that IKEA furniture goes like hot-cakes.. here are my theories why:

1. Everyone in the city has been to an IKEA show room at least once in their lives
2. People have already seen/touched/smelled the item you are trying to sell
3. Probably more than a few have thought about purchasing the item you are currently selling at one point in time and now they can re-live that experience from the comfort of their own homes while looking at your ad on their screens
4. Buying an item that is currently for sale at 1/2 price is a nice alternative if you don't mind a few nicks here or there
5. It's easy to see if you are getting a good deal or not (the ability to lookup prices online)
6. Sometimes people are looking for a discontinued item or color of item to match whatever it is that they have in their house (use IKEA's success without having anything to do with the associated overhead costs) :)
7. Their furniture is just so darn practical

Honestly, whenever I sell IKEA furniture - I have trouble keeping it long - it turns over fast and if you bought using my aforementioned methods to get a deal in the first place... you can make a few dollars lickety-split.

Case in point:  Noresund tables.

I've wanted these tables for a very long time now (reference to number 3 above) so when I saw them come up in a listing for $10 - immediately I was interested.  They retail for $20 a piece so I figured they would want $10 a piece (using the standard 1/2 retail value equation) but NO... apparently this buyer (and fortunately for me - many like them) don't know about the equation so they said they would give me both for $10!  Excellent - knowing that I could sell for $20 for sure - done deal.

Now - here's where I push the envelope... 1/2 retail price is a fair price.. so I should have listed for $20 for the pair.  I was feeling particularly cheeky this night and decided to test the waters with a $25 list price.  Risky, I know - but to tell you the truth - I was kind of hoping they wouldn't sell and I could keep them around a little longer.

Okay - so I cleaned it, and staged it a little bit with some Lunaria and a mini Eiffel Tower (who doesn't like Paris?)

Alas - for probably a lot of the reasons above - I had a buyer almost instantly.. boo.  

$25 full price offer... how could I refuse?

Summary

Purchased: $10

Sold: $25

Profit: $15

Turn a pile of boards into cash

DAY 8

Okay - so I had a rough couple of days in there where a bunch of buyers gave me the run around.. saying they would show up, then not, then offering half price after the fact.. what a pain.  Hopefully I'll learn to weed out the serious buyers from the riff-raff and then let you know how to avoid said problems.  That said, not all buyers online are sharks looking for a super deal - some are genuinely interested in purchasing your item for the price you are asking.

Finally sold my second last item this morning to a lovely girl.. this was part deux of my $30 total purchase from a few days ago.

This one was a simple one... from dissembled pile of boards to posting a stock photo online to sell for profit.  Magic.

Summary

Purchased: $15
Sold: $60
Profit: $45

Classifieds listings without photos - bad for buyer = good for me!

DAY 5

I'm not sure what happened to day 4 - but let's just say it was a day of rest.

So a great score here came from another multi-item listing - the title of which was "TV unit, 2 cabinets, 2 shelves" .. by digging a little deeper I determined what the make and model of the IKEA furniture was (by the way, I'm not exclusively buying IKEA furniture but a) it's easy to price since they are common and b) lots of people own IKEA furniture and want to match existing items they have or c) they've seen said item in the store or at a friend's house and liked THEIR item)

This purchase was a bit of a risk since it was disassembled.. but the payoff was worth it in the end.

So bought a IKEA MARKOR TV stand and a Leksvik coffee table for $30 TOTAL.. that's right - TOTAL! This guy just wanted this stuff cleared out (did I mention anything about targeting people in apartments who don't have basements and garages to store stuff? note to self - write about this later)

Anyway - so lovely guy sells us his furniture for next to nothing. Here comes the interesting part.. we re-assemble one of the items to take pictures.. set it up in our living room and.. decide that we like it more than our existing TV stand! The is one of the great dangers of this project - the keeping of the things you buy. We took a quick vote on which one we prefer (sorry Luke) we decided to swap out the stands and sell the OLD one.

Old TV stand went up on the market, had tons of interest and sold that same evening... the only thing is - we weren't expecting to sell it so quickly so Geordie had to rush to unload everything out of the unit! :)  Oh well, at least our cabling got all sorted and cleaned up back there!

Summary

Purchased: $15
Sold: $100 (replacement stand)
Profit $85

Behold - the power of putty

DAY 3

Since this venture has yet to pan out - I will reserve judgement on my selection abilities.

I found this damaged IKEA Markor coffee table for sale for $40... similar items have been selling for around $80 so I figured surely I could make a few dollars off this one.

Here is the before: note the bounteous scratches on the top, sides, corners, etc.


Have no fear though because I am in possession of a number of putty pencils!!

What is a putty pencil you might ask?

Well - I'll tell you!

You can buy these lifesavers at Home Depot for around $3 a piece - for this project, I used a dark walnut putty pencil which I happened to have because I have walnut floors which inevitably get scratched up by kids toys, moved furniture, and wii inspired exploding glass light fixtures (don't ask).  Anyway, I took my putty pencil and went to work on this piece.  I'll admit it is a bit of an art form to use these pencils - you have to get the shade just right (if you are mixing colors) and you should really smush the putty in by hand so you don't get big smears...

Behold - the power of putty:

 

It looks pretty darn good - too bad I paid too much for it in the first place - oh well, live and learn.  I'll update this post when I have a buyer - there's been quite a bit of interest but nothing finalized yet.

UPDATE - sold this for next to no profit.. the couple was happy to have it though - it really was a lovely piece.

Summary

Purchased: $40
Sold: $55
Profit: $15

Comparison of online classified websites

So quick post here - if you create a profile with an online classified website, you can track the progress of a bunch of items at once - very useful - it typically tells you how many views you've had on your ad or what page number your ad falls under (page 1 = good, page 10 = bad) :)

Anyway - just during this experiment - I've also posted my ads up on www.usedottawa.com as well as http://ottawa.kijiji.ca .. as a sample, here is a comparison of the number of views per site:

KIJIJI

	My Ads		Posted	Visits	On Page [?]
		IKEA Leksvik coffee table Category: coffee tables Location: Ottawa	18-Aug-11	142	2

USEDOTTAWA

Title	Category	Views Today	Total Views
IKEA Leksvik coffee table	Household >Furniture >Living	4	15

So - in a short amount of time, I've had 142 views on kijiji versus a 15 views on usedottawa... now, I have had buyers from both sites e-mail me but to me, hands down:


WINNER = KIJIJI

Women need a place to put on their makeup.. don't they?

DAY 2.5

This one is my absolute favorite so far... I kind of made an agreement with myself that I wouldn't buy/sell something that I wouldn't consider having in my own home.  I think that might have been a mistake though because I have ended up KEEPING some of the things I should be selling (that will be another post though)  Anyway, I found this vanity hidden deeply within a multiple item listing.

What's a multi-item listing?

It's where someone is clearing out an apartment/house/whatever and wants to basically get rid of a bunch of stuff.  Typically these people are in a time crunch and just want the stuff GONE - this is where YOU can swoop in and find great bargains.  I believe the heading of the listing was "cheap furniture" - so already I'm salivating.. okay - so usually it's junk - but sometimes it's not.  Case in point, under "cheap furniture" I found a metal vanity and matching bench for sale - really cute lines - very marketable.

So - I offer $15 (down from the original and very reasonable $20 they were asking)  I know - it's mean - do they need the money more than me?

Maybe.

Then again, would they make nothing if they had to leave it behind or throw it in a dumpster?

Who Knows.

I digress.  I sent my wonderful husband (who volunteered to do all pickups - bless him) to pick this up for me and even when the seller forgot to give him the matching bench, he went BACK a second time across the city to pick it up.  I still owe him for that one.

 It arrived here and was in fabulous condition except that the glass on the lower shelf was broken.  I had figured it would be a simple task to cut a piece of wood and replace it.  After trying out a couple of options - nothing really gave it the look I was going for - more of a chic (chique?) style.  I ended up taking an old 12 x 24 inch floor tile (a gray/black tile) and putting it on top for fun... it looked awesome so I went out and bought another tile for $8 (since I wanted to keep my own spares for my bathroom)

The bench seat was actually in pretty good shape but the fabric was a little dingy.  I painstakingly took out all the staples on the seat - washed the fabric and .. still hated it.  I was trying to think of other fabrics I had around the house that would be durable enough to be a seat cover but attractive enough to suit the style of my vanity.  Then I thought of my husband's old dress shirts!  We had a bag of dress shirts he's outgrown so I rifled through that until I found the PERFECT one.. it was a gray/black pinstripe shirt..  I recovered the seat by stapling the shirt fabric all around it.  It looked darn sharp.

Anyway - in the end - there you have it - I think it took a day to find the right buyer.  She loved the vanity - although her husband did negotiate us down to $70 for it :P

Summary

Purchased: $15
Modifications: $8
Sold: $70
Profit: $47

Dog lovers will do anything for their pups...

DAY 2

Not sure if this really fits within the realm of this experiment, but I bought something with the intention of keeping it but later decided to sell it (buyer's remorse type thing) anyway - I was at value village scoping for deals (a Canadian used goods shop) and came across a NIB (new in box) pet stairs.. you know, the little steps that can allow your smaller and older dogs to have access to furniture or unreachable locations...

I bought the item for $10 at the store... and felt slightly sheepish when the cashier excitedly asked me what kind of dog I had (I had to confess that I was intending to use them for my daughter - long story - see other blog - yadda yadda) anyway .. she went on to tell me that she had a little Yorkie and that the pet stairs were awesome.

Okay.. so I take this home and my husband tells me I'm crazy and that we don't need it.. fine... in defiance I decide to post the item up for sale for $20 (did a bit of googling to find the going rate.. it was anywhere from $20-30 new so I figured what the heck) Anyway - had a buyer almost immediately for the full price - she came by that day and was very happy to obtain said pet stairs for her little Dachshund.

Moral of this story - pet owners will do anything for their pets (note to self - seek to exploit this fact more in the future :)

Summary

Purchased: $10
Sold: $20
Profit: $10

In the beginning... ANEBODA

DAY 1


So my first purchase was a three drawer dresser (with a broken leg) from IKEA...

I found someone selling this online for $10 and did a quick search on the IKEA website to find out the price for a new dresser was $59.99 


A good rule of thumb when figuring out how much profit you can earn second hand is about 1/2 retail value.  Sometimes you can do better if an item is rare or discontinued, but for the most part - assume 1/2 price.  SO - I knew in good condition that this would go for at least $30.  The key here is good condition - that broken leg would not do.  


So - in comes hubby and power tools to the rescue!  Geordie quickly took the leg off - repaired it and had the whole thing solid as can be.  We posted it up for sale the same day for $30 and had it sold and gone by that evening.  Not bad - $20 profit for a small amount of work.


Now - when I talk about profit from my sales, I won't mention the additional costs such as gas and time spent picking up the item.  I'm not that hardcore yet - but if something is really close to you - it's even better.  I would go a distance for a great deal. :)


Summary


Purchased: $10
Sold: $30
Profit: $20

Experiment by accident

So - I figured I would start a blog about my experiences buying and selling items on kijiji - here is the background:

We are lucky enough to be a two income household, but even with all that (and the additional expense of having a special needs child - see my other blog for that) and the cost of living expenses rising (taxes in my neighborhood jumped $4k in two years!) I decided that I need to take action sooner rather than later.

I'm a fairly industrious sort of gal - I like to fix/repair/beautify/decorate just about anything and I love surfing used goods sites like kijiji or craigslist for gems (I could spend hours just peering into the virtual living rooms around the city)  Anyway, it occurred to me that someone should be buying those items that are a really good deal - and heck - *I* could buy them at a crazy low price and resell it to someone else at a higher price (if the deal was good enough).  Thus, the kijiji experiment began.

Could someone make money doing this?  Is it worth it? How much could you make? How handy do you have to be to fix damaged items?  Just hold on and come with me on my journey - I'll walk you through each purchase decision, how to add value to the item, and how to make a profit.

Ready?

Let's go!