Soprano Uke - Sold! Flipped!

Well, it didn't take long at all before the Martin ukulele sold. Up on eBay with a Buy-It-Now price of $250 plus calculated shipping, ended up selling for $250 shipped.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301036994423?ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1561.l2649

So, that's my first flip after starting this website. Calculation time!

Buy Price: $80
Sell Price: $250
Less: $50 (shipping and eBay fees)

TOTAL NET: $120

Not bad for a single day of posting a sale on eBay!

Couple of take-home lessons from this for anyone interested in flipping guitars:

• Wait for the right price -- you should never buy a guitar if you think you'll only get lean profit back. I could have bought the ukulele for about $200 given the right circumstance but I would have had to wait longer for the right buyer, maybe too long for it to be profitable. It's better to let some deals go and avoid the paper-thin profits in favor of faster, bigger deals.
• Pawn shops are a great way to profit -- not as many people do what I do in terms of searching for deals at pawn shops. It's actually surprising, really. There's a lot of deals to be made. Get to know the pawn owners. You never know if they are looking to you for advice or whatever. I have a couple where they don't really know me by name but know when I come in they can ask me about guitars and I can give them my honest feedback.
• eBay is a great way to reach a limited market: I doubt this uke would have sold in my area on Craigslist. I'm glad eBay exists. It stinks that they charge so much in fees, and having to pay shipping makes it doubly tough, but in the end, I made over 100% profit by waiting for the right deal and putting it on the 'bay. It's better to sell those Gibsons and Fenders on Craigslist, where people tend to appreciate the value of those brands, but you need to reach a larger market. I will also toy with the idea of using Reverb, now that it is gaining steam. More on that later.

I've ended up using some of that profit to buy gifts, etc., so it's not all going to fund more music purchases, but I just made a big sale that I'll post in a couple days that will keep me in the black for searching some more for some deals.

Thanks for reading!