General Info – Change jar flip

In late 2004 one of my relatives told me they had sold a couple of books on Amazon. I didn't think much of it at the time, but that conversation would lead me into the world of flipping items online. From this small seed that was planted in my mind I thought about it and had seen a small store close to where I was working that had some books for sale. I did what I thought was the best thing before I bought a book to see how much it would cost me to sell it on Amazon. I went through and read what fees I would have to pay to sell on their marketplace. I also estimated what I thought it would cost me to mail the book. Then I went to the store and wrote down the names of some of the books which were for sale. The books ranged in price from $1- $3. I found one that looked like a winner to me based on the numbers when I ran it through the costs I had calculated. I bought "Golf for Dummies" for $1. "Golf for Dummies" Stock image. Not the same version I would have sold. I didn't keep good enough records back then to see how long it took to sell, but remember my first sale happened very fast. From what I remember it was in a matter of a few days. There was a lot less competition on Amazon in 2005 when I started out and I could sell items very quickly. I made $2.29 profit on the first book and immediately went back to the store and started buying more books. I was hooked quite quickly. I have kept records since January 2005 on which I still look back at sometimes and think how amazingly consisent flipping online has been with the effort I've put into it and the return on my money. In January 2005 I made $31.67 profit on $7 in books. I knew moving forward I would be flipping items for as long as I could think. The return on my money was so outsized for these small amounts compared to many other things I could think of. Pretty simple concept to start with a minimal amount of risk which offers a very low barrier to entry and the returns allowed for reinvestment in a fairly easy way to be able to flip into more. I continued to buy more books as 2005 went on and had made over $500 in gross profit by the end of the year. That was over 70 times the amount of money I started with. Sure, there are other things I could have did to make $500, but I didn't have to go work for someone else to do it and it taught me how to flip items online which I could use moving forward. The freedom of time and return is something I enjoyed back then and still to this day. I was buying books from $.50 to $3 during this period and did not have one month where I ever lost money. Making almost $50 extra dollars a month from $7 in that first month to start with is a phenomonal thing to be able to do. The $50 a month can help most people starting saving so they can have a rainy day fund in case they were to lose their full time job, or let them start saving for retirement, or anything they could think of.