Find the cash cows

Cash cow

from wikipedia:

In business, a cash cow is a product or a business unit that generates unusually high profit margins: so high that it is responsible for a large amount of a company's operating profit. This profit far exceeds the amount necessary to maintain the cash cow business, and the excess is used by the business for other purposes.


What does this mean in the kijiji world?  Find the items that have a very high resale value even if used.  Everyone knows that certain car companies retain their value more than others - but only slight less well known is that some brands of furniture, baby equipment, clothing, etc. have similar reputations.  These reputations can translate into mondo cash in your pocket if you buy low and sell high.


One such cash cow for the reseller is any Chariot brand child carrier.. these are stroller and bike trailer combinations which also happen to be the most useful/practical/awesome product if you have children - FYI.  It is because of the durability of the product and the deserved brand reputation that these things retain their value for many many many years.

I was lucky enough to find someone selling their double Cabriolet CTS Chariot stroller for $50!  It was insane.. insane I tell you.. I knew these things sell for hundreds.. minimum.  This also happened to be the same make/model as my own Chariot for which I happened to have extra parts (bought a stroller kit with an extra handle, parking brake that I didn't need)  I feared the worst at $50 actually... but it was in near perfect condition except for a bit of mildew.  It also had no cover (or so they said).. oh well, still worth it I thought.. and brought it home.  I opened up the back of it -> and found, the rain cover!  BONUS!


SO - I kitted it out with my extra handle, parking brake and wheel and voila








I took loads of pictures.. under priced it slightly at $285 for a quick sale (since these things aren't small) and sold it within 2 days to a lovely woman... hope they have many years of use out of it. Interestingly enough, she was already a Chariot owner and was going to post up her older model Chariot for sale on kijiji... ah, the circle of life.

Summary


Purchased: $50
Modifications: $46.67 (the portion of the stroller kit that went toward this)
Sold: $280 (okay - so I didn't have change, she would have paid full price though - my bad)

Profit: $183.33


(best score so far - hope to do more like this!)

Assemble it and they will come.

Here is an easy one... this lesson fits in with

• Marketing your item appropriately
• Having enough time set aside to sell 
• Selling stuff once you move

Okay - so this guy is selling a table and six chairs for $200... It's actually a fair price if I was intending to keep the set, but I know that this guy has already failed the first three items mentioned above.. his pictures were crap (good for me - bad for him), he was moving (good for me - bad for him) and actually moved out of country while in the middle of the transaction (bad for both of us).  Also unfortunate for me was that he had completely disassembled the set.. nice to fit it in the car but not great since I was intending to re-market this set.

So - I assembled them (with the help of my father-in-law AND my hubby), filled holes/scrapes with putty, polished with beeswax and voila!  They looked REALLY good in the end.

Summary


Purchased: $120
Modifications: $0
Sold: $210

Profit: $90

Multi-item - Multi-money!

If you've read my earlier posts, you would know that buying multi-items is the way to go.  Not only do you save yourself time and gas to pickup from one location, you can make a killer deal on the purchase.  You can also make your own multi-item out of a single sale.

Case in point, I bought this - thinking I was getting a table and chair set.

but I when they got home, I saw this: (one of these things just doesn't belong here...)

I decided to just try and get rid of the chairs on their own, that same afternoon..  I listed them for $15 a piece or all for $50 and sold in one afternoon.  A neat $30 profit off the top.  This covered almost my entire cost of the table and chairs (purchased for $60 total)  Note - putting a "per item" cost as your ad cost is a GREAT way to get views/interest.. Seeing a picture of four chairs with a cost of $15 will draw people in like Boxing Day - then you hit them with the fine print.. $15 each.. but by then, they are probably have the adrenaline pumping and are hooked.

Unfortunately for me, the table was kind of in poor condition.. in retrospect, I should have not touched it and re-sold it for $50 or something but no.. I decided to refinish the top completely...

Here are some gratuitous pictures taken by my father in law of me refinishing the table.. stripped it, sanded it and stained it.. this is just mainly proof that

a) I exist

b) I do this stuff myself

Final product was a really nice dining table - pretty flawless top.  The lady who bought it seemed really happy... unfortunately I forgot to put a second coat of touch up paint on the bottom with the right sheen of paint (sorry lady wherever you are!)

Summary


Purchased: $60
Modifications: $3 (stripper) 
Sold: $190 ($50 for chairs and $140 for table)

Profit: $130

Don't spray paint furniture - it's not worth it.

 So - I bought this daybed thinking... oh - I totally like the way it looks and I can spray paint this and have it look fabulous.

WRONG

I bought about three cans of black spray paint, spent an entire afternoon covering every inch of this bed - probably three coats to get proper coverage and it came out looking like this:

Okay  - not bad in the end but it was a PAIN in the butt and cost me more to modify than I could reasonably ask for a piece of spray painted furniture.

I staged the bed with some pillows and a mattress I got for free (before you say ick - it was in really good shape - no worries)

I sold this to a nice gentlemen looking for a guest bed - he seemed happy with it but my $10 profit was my worst mistake yet.. it didn't cover the gas to pick it up nor certainly my many many hours of labor.  Alas, it could have been worse.. I could have lost $40, right?

Haven't lost money yet - knock on ... veneer? :)






Summary

Purchased: $30 (probably too much)
Modifications: $10
Sold: $50

Profit: $10

Week 5 - It's a hard way to make a livin'

 Week 5

Number of purchases: 2
Purchases: $60
Modifications: $0
Sales: $140

Profit: $80


Boo hiss... not a lot of money in week 5.  Granted, I only sold two items but still... it made me question whether or not this was worth while.. The following week, I kicked it into high gear to see exactly how profitable this thing could be.  I think you will be surprised at the results.. stay tuned!

Week 4 - Recap

Week 4

Number of purchases: 3
Purchases: $85
Modifications: $3.39
Sales: $245

Profit: $156.61


Another slow-ish week but had my biggest score/profit to that time.. making $110 on one piece had me starting to think bigger.. maybe doing $20 jobs isn't the way to make it in this business?

Have I created a monster?

Showing (and knowing) what your furniture is used for...

I just realized I forgot to blog about a little table/bench thingie I bought .. this includes some lessons learned about knowing how in the heck to market a potentially versatile piece of furniture.


I bought this .. something ... for $15.


I liked it.


I thought I'd made a good purchase but boy in the weeks to come did I ever not think it was a good purchase..  


So.. what is it?  


Truth is - I thought I knew.. but apparently whatever I thought it was - was not marketable. :)






I took the left over knobs from my dresser makeover - drilled some holes for these drawers .. and voila!

Now - I'm cooking with gas!  I'm ready to sell this (I think to myself).. I list it as a hallway bench - you know, a place where you sit and put on your shoes, etc.  I even take a crappy picture with a mirror over it to illustrate..


Okay so it's not a great photo - I hear ya on that.


Apparently no one wants hallway benches... like, nobody!


Poor listing sat, and sat, and sat.  Nothing.




I re-market it as a TV stand and remove my crappy photo... now we're getting somewhere!  I got some e-mails of interest, a little back and forth.. but alas.. still nothing.

Finally, I take another picture - steal Geordie's computer monitor and make it look like an LCD TV to stage my piece as a TV stand and...


it sold the next day.


Moral of this story - if you don't SHOW people how to use your item... they aren't going to figure it out on their own.

Summary


Purchased: $15
Modifications: $3.39 
Sold: $55

Profit: $36.61

Quickie coffee

So - the one item that I found seems to be always in high demand is the Leksvik coffee table.. you know - the one with all the cubby-holes.  If you can snap this up for under $40 - you have at least a $20 profit on your hands.

This one was a no-brainer... I probably should have haggled more up front - but oh well...

OH - and if you can stage this piece with some baskets in each cubby - even better (regardless of if you are actually selling the baskets or not)

Summary


Purchased: $40
Modifications: $0 
Sold: $60

Profit: $20

What to do when a bear attacks your furniture....

So - this next project had me cursing and stomping my feet.. I figured that I'd spent WAY too much time and effort into one restoration - and I was probably right.. but I was very happy with the end result.

I bought this coffee table because I liked the lines of the furniture - not necessarily my style but I new I could do something with it - paint the legs or something.  Only problem is.. when we got it home it looked like a small bear had clawed/ripped into the top of it..

Not to be deterred - I promptly took it apart and started it's transformation...

Step 1- remove the top from the base

Step 2 - paint the base.  In this case, I did a brown undercoat - then put beeswax - then a top coat in matte coal black paint.  The top coat will not stick to the waxed areas so it gives you an instant antique look.  Great.

Step 3 - Strip or sand the top.  Unfortunately for me, my sander had JUST bitten the dust (or so I thought at the time) so I borrowed my friend Stephanie's mouse sander (I will give it back soon Steph - I promise) It wasn't a heavy duty sander so I suffered a little bit to get it to a point where all the existing finish and deep scratches were sanded out.

Step 4 - Stain and varathane to your color of choice.  I chose a dark walnut stain - it looked stunning - yay me!

Step 5 - Put all the pieces back together again and sell for big money! :)  Seriously though I would have kept this in my home, I liked it that much.

Summary


Purchased: $20
Modifications: $0 (I had all the paint, etc. on hand)
Sold: $80

Profit: $60

Other kijiji bloggers...

I will add to this post later, but Geordie found a funny blog detailing some funny/outrageous/crazy kijiji ads.. check it out:

http://www.yousuckatkijiji.com/