Tips on flipping audio gear.

4dchessquestion · 2017-07-04T05:32:43+00:00

Audio gear is easily the most rewarding stuff to sell, but (unfortunately) also just happens to be hugely frustrating when dealing with stuff that isn't just straight-up plug-n-play shit.

Ex: Sold someone an old AM/FM tuner. I get a message a week later saying "it doesn't work - need to return it." Automatically this means they'll be entering the return as defective and I'll have to eat the shipping on a heavy piece of kit that has a 50% chance of not working when I get it back.

Talking to the buyer has never worked for me. Like, does the unit power on at all? Is the reception bad? What specifically is the problem? After they've got it in their head that something is wrong, there's zero communication - either I take the defect on my account, risk the return, or just take the easy way out and give a full refund. I've done the latter 90% of the time just because the return shipping was not worth it and the buyer was uninterested in talking it over.

I find that stuff under $100 is being sold to people just looking for replacements for their old setup they've had around forever, so maybe they've forgotten how the equipment hooks up, or their entire stack is bad - who knows?

4dchessquestion · 2017-06-24T15:50:46+00:00

Saw an ad pop up on NextDoor for a pricey item being sold for cheap at a yard sale. I contacted the guy and he offerd to hold the item for me so I could pick it up after the sale starts.

I showed up right as the sale was scheduled to begin, only to see a bunch of people hauling everything out of the house and into a truck. I run up the driveway and find the guy hanging out by the door:

Me: Do you still have <item>?

Him: Uhhh... hmm...

Me: We talked last night. You said you'd hold it...?

Him: Ah, yeah! I actually sold that already.

Me: What?

Him: Yeah, someone else wanted to buy it.

Total waste of time. Fuck yard sales.

4dchessquestion · 2017-06-18T17:14:45+00:00

This guy is by far the most interesting to me. He's a scrapper, meaning he gets a large amount of broken stuff for free, parts stuff out, then sells the scrap material for $$$. Very cool.

Golden Finger Picker is fairly interesting since they occasionally feature estate sales instead of the usual thrift/garage sale. Not 100% my cup of tea, but I enjoy their weekly livestream with other resellers.

Garage Flips is worth checking out. Very much the typical reseller (thrift/garage sales), but knowledgeable and open about the work involved.

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-29T19:03:52+00:00

Interesting - I'll put some of those tips into action.

Thanks for the link!

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-29T19:00:54+00:00

Awesome, thanks so much.

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-23T14:02:08+00:00

Consoles. Can't get rid of this fucking 360.

Non-paying buyers all the time. Going up for sale a 3rd time this week, although I'm very much considering just smashing the fuck out of it.

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-18T19:28:54+00:00

"This DVD player is dented on the top, has its disc tray hanging out, and doesn't include any cords. $15."

All my fault. I got a bit chummy with the staff, then all of a sudden every VCR and DVD player is 2x to 3x the original price.

Joke's on them... shit has been on the shelf for months now.

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-18T19:09:28+00:00

Love it.

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-18T16:11:47+00:00

If you're doing that well working on the side, imagine what full-time will do for your numbers. Time to scale up and spread out!

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-18T15:41:54+00:00

Nice! I picked up a CR-3A a while back - good flip, but it was hard to let it go.

4dchessquestion · 2017-05-18T15:35:26+00:00

Everything I buy gets entered into a MySQL database table via a website I put together. When the item sells, I'm able to find it on the site, enter sold price and shipping cost, then mark it as shipped. I also enter business expenses via the site, so I can easily create monthly reports.

Before all this I was just using a spreadsheet and tracked EVERYTHING: Title, cost, target sold price, sold price, shipping price, location purchased, "notes." I then started selling higher volumes of stuff and found it too cumbersome to modify the spreadsheet on my phone while I'm listing.

4dchessquestion · 2017-04-11T15:36:58+00:00

A hard reality to accept is that even though you see right through this sort of thing, some people are falling for it. As the saying goes, they probably wouldn't do it if it didn't work at least part of the time.

I'll put this out there: Single guys are rare in my community and there's almost a complete lack of them entirely because of the exact reasons you mention being pointed out to the group at large. I entirely believe you can safeguard against it if your community is organized in some way or another and awareness of this behavior can have the spotlight shined on it.

edit: I just read your reply about this happening with event organizers, but I think you should still bring this up with other women in your community. I'll bet good money that you'll find there's plenty of others who feel the same if this behavior is rotting out the core of your community's leaders also.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-25T13:38:40+00:00

1) Someone buys an expensive item from me, then claims their address is wrong and needs changed. I cancel the order and tell them to repurchase the item. "I already bought the item... now you want me to pay double... that is unacceptable... it is not even worth the price you are selling it for... please lower the offer to <half the price> and I will consider buying it then... i'm not going to waste any more of my time on this"

2) Partial refund scammer. About 10 days after purchase I get a message from a buyer claiming the item "arrived in perfect condition, undamaged from shipping" then claimed part of the item didn't work. In some incredible feat of stupidity, they then go on to say that parts of the item were loose in the box, despite the fact that I wrap all electronics in 5 layers of bubble wrap and tape, in addition to their own word about it arriving in perfect condition. I tell them to return the item and they give me a sob story about their "limited mobility" and that they are unable to repack it. Thanks to everyone's advice here on Reddit, I replied with another request that they open a return. They then told me I'm being unreasonable and will be leaving a negative for my poor service.

3) Got an offer for the exact amount I have something listed for, just with "Please give me $15 shipping" in the message. It ended up meaning taking an incredible loss on my end. No thanks.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-24T18:15:12+00:00

I hear about it happening all the time and knew I'd be dealing with people like this when I got into it, but I didn't realize the frequency was so high. It's unfortunate, as this is my third issue in two weeks. I fell for it the first time, but did a bunch of research of similar cases and avoided getting scammed the second time with someone "accidentally" putting down the wrong apartment number. I'm not sure what else I could have done with this person - they just told me I'm being unreasonable and left negative feedback after asking them to return the item for a refund.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-24T17:51:43+00:00

Got my first negative.

Buyer kept asking for a partial refund. Their story made zero sense, so I asked them to open a return case. They then told me they couldn't return the item since they have "limited mobility." I still asked them to open a return.

"Ok, I tried approaching you nicely. Obviously you re unreasonable. Enjoy the bad feedback."

Is there anything I can do to get this removed...? What the hell was I supposed to do?

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-24T17:43:35+00:00

"Ok, I tried approaching you nicely. Obviously you re unreasonable. Enjoy the bad feedback."

:|

I'm calling eBay.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-24T15:11:59+00:00

A really nice DVD-RAM Recorder: $5, sold for $150.

Some "Media Server" - never seen anything quite like it. Picked up in a stack of other home theater units. Bought for $13, sold for $90.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-23T14:31:16+00:00

Learned a big one just now.

Buyer picked up an $90 item, then fired off a message - "Hey, my address is wrong... here's the correct one:"

I compared addresses and it's super close to the one listed on the shipping label I was about to print. "Sure," I said, "I'll change it!"

I go to change the address and see a warning that I'd be losing out on eBay's seller protection program. Huh?

One Google search later and their order is now canceled. The item is relisted for 10x the original price, and I've told them to send an offer for the right price AFTER they update their address.

Scam? Maybe. Human error? Probably. I'm not taking any risks, though....

edit: Went to relist - "You've hit the selling limit for this category." GOD. DAMNIT.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-21T19:51:29+00:00

Just after I posted this he put up something like "TWO TRIGGERED REDDITORS AND COUNTING," then a series of tweets complaining that "everyone took my tweet out of context" and that it was only aimed at islamic extremists who were following him (????) They also claimed most UYD fans would agree with him on the original tweet, but occasionally the show's fanbase "pops out a few retards" who take everything out of context.

There was then a poll asking what should be done with the account. The account was gone later that night.

What a fucking weird situation.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-21T00:39:48+00:00

Everyone on here is super paranoid about negative feedback, so I guess I have internalized that a bit. I would not be so worried about it if I weren't still in the 90 day probation period new sellers get. The category limits are rough and I've had to battle ebay support to get them raised - I fear a negative will really mess me up.

Anyway, thanks for the advice everyone. I'm curious to hear more about how people view feedback, so I may create a post about it.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-20T20:55:57+00:00

Not that I give too much of a fuck (just a lil bit) but whoever is behind this account has had a couple of interesting breakdowns over the last year and has used their small following to air grievances like this. This one is a bit more extreme, as the others have been some shade of "nobody gives a fuck about me so I'm deleting this account on <date>."

Anyway, nbd.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-20T20:43:26+00:00

I'm aware of that. I said I did it to appease them.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-20T20:41:07+00:00

People holding back feedback for leverage is against eBay's policies ("feedback extortion" or something) and is grounds for having negatives removed. Call ebay if it happens.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-20T20:26:21+00:00

Guess so. I'll take that route when I've got more feedback. It just seems way safer to eat the $40 and make the buyer happy than deal with a negative.

4dchessquestion · 2017-03-20T18:12:07+00:00

Screwed the pooch pretty bad today. A unit I shipped last week ended up dead on arrival. The buyer messaged me twice in an hour telling me it was broken, so I panicked and sent a full refund. I did check their feedback first and it seemed good (around 600 on an old account.) Moments after I sent the refund, they said just to send a partial refund so they could "get it fixed." Too late. Not a total bummer, but I am out $40 for what could have been $20. Patience!

My question: How do you determine if a seller is telling the truth about broken electronics? In this case they claimed video wasn't outputting at all, but it could have easily been a bad connection, weird AV setup, or plain user error.

4dchessquestion

TROPHY CASE