Making money with Craigslist

This is my first post on craigslist. You might have heard stories about it on the news, more than likely only bad stories. craigslist is a free classifieds board on the internet. It's free to post and view, and it covers a wide range of subjects. This makes for a great business opportunity if you are up to the task, for it is not easy. First of all I have used craigslist for years, I got great deals and have never had a bad deal, that's not to say that you will have the same experience, but I will try to help you. I urge everyone to pick a product that you are very familiar with and STICK TO IT!!! I can't stress that enough, if you know cars, don't mess with electronics or houses. Next keep on your feet, craigslist is very competitive and like anything if you want to make money you have to get there first. I dealt with electronics so my method might not work the best for everyone, but I'm going to teach it since its the only one I know.

1. Check craigslist as often as possible, even if you don't feel like buying anything, you never know when a good deal is posted. A smart thing to do is have a phone that has internet access, and if you can find them specialized apps. i.e. iPhone.
   
2. Know your product, the more you know about the item in the deal the better. If you can fix it you will be in heaven on craigslist, its a gold mine of people trying to sell broken things. If you can't fix things don't worry you can still make money, you just need to work harder.
3. Be ready to roll at any time, don't think you can set a time to meet hours latter and expect the deal to still be valid. The whole reason craigslist is used is so you can get it now, no shipping. I can tell you many a stories about how I snatched a deal away with these simple words, " I can meet you RIGHT NOW!" Don't be scared to meet at odd hours, but if it's really late, try to bring someone with you, or worst case take to someone on the phone during the drive, meeting, and return home.
   
4. Cash is the only currency, have cash ready on hand and never accept anything other than cash. With that said there are extreme cases where you just can't bring all the cash and might have to make other arrangements, these should be done in front of the seller and should be verifiable immediately. NEVER bring the cash with you unless done in a public setting with many people, go to the meet verify the goods then go to an ATM and withdraw.
   
5. ALWAYS HAGGLE, don't ever just go into the deal and pay the price that is asked for, remember the worst they can say is NO. If you don't know how to negotiate, stay tuned at a latter date and I will teach you. There are keywords that people use to let you know the will settle for a lower amount that posted these are; Must sell, OBO, moving soon, etc. Anything that projects a since of time in the post means they are looking to move it fast.
6. Beware of stolen products, people do steal and they do sell stolen things. You can never be 100% sure if what you are buying is stolen, but one way to minimize the risk is to ask for the box, or receipts, also if they can't provide everything it comes with from purchase, it might be stolen.
   

I feel I have covered much of the risk and need to knows, I'm a little sleepy from work. I will now go into how you make money. As with anything there is a formula that can be applied to demonstrate the principle.

If price is greater than purchase and effort, you have made a profit, congrats. If its equal to then you have broke even, and if you do less you have a deficit. We don't want those last two at all. Lets have some examples

1. You drive 50 miles to buy a $2000 tv for $800
2. You drive 10 miles to buy a $1500 tv for $800
3. You drive 5 miles to buy a $30 tv for free

In each of these examples there is a profit to be made, or not made. How do you decide? Well it all comes down to what you are comfortable with and the numbers. In number 1 you could make a $1200 profit if you sell at it's store price, but what was the cost of gas, physical and mental effort, and not to mention how long are you holding on to the product. These among others make it unappealing for some and ok for others. What about number 2, the price of purchase is the same but the profit is less, but so is the effort it takes to get it. In the number 3 scenario, you stand to make a 100% profit, but come on who does that type of deal, its very odd. Remember if a deal is too good to be true, it more than likely is, spammers know about craigslist too.

up and running

I woke up today, and wiped the sleep out of my eyes, brushed my teeth, and sat down and turned on my xbox. That was five hours ago, I realized that I was wasting my off day, even thought all I wanna do is rest. So I got my lazy ass up and made a twitter, gmail, and this blog. Let the project begin.