For those who are not familiar, I started a series a while back called Turnover Tuesdays. Every Tuesday I like to highlight one item that I have resold. This will include profitable and non profitable sales. I hope that there is always something to learn.
Week 31 - Sometimes You Need to Stop, Refocus and Reprice
Week 32 - Target Cartwheel and other Coupons can have a Major Impact
Week 32 - Target Cartwheel and other Coupons can have a Major Impact
The Item - Microsoft Band
Best Buy was selling a Microsoft band for $80, $85.60 after tax. I got very excited. I put the model number in Amazon and the Microsoft band 2 came up. In fact, Microsoft uses the same model number for the original band and the new band. The difference in price was about $50 or $80. I can't remember.
I was a little bummed when I found out but the regular band was still going for about $110 so I decided to keep it anyways just because I would rather sell them than go through the hassle of returning them. Kind of weird but whatever. Anyways, it made for a good story in the end.
Credit Card Points
I earned 1% from Discover for the purchase or $.85 cents. Hopefully that gets doubled to $1.70
Shopping Portal
I used Discover Deals and earned 5% for the purchase or $4. Hopefully that is doubled as well to $8.
Loyalty Points
I earned 2.5% in Best Buy Rewards or $2 per band
Fulfillment by Amazon Fees
Fees on Amazon were about $18.50 for me. Shipping was about $1.50 a unit so fee. Let's call the fees $20.
The Haul
I bought quite a few of them and sold them for on average $111. After FBA and shipping fees it comes out to a profit of about $6 per band. Not great, about 7%.
Here is how the numbers work
Cash = ~$6
Credit Card Points = $.85
Portal Points = $4
Loyalty points = $2
The extras are equal to almost $7 so with the extras the take home is about 15%. Not as much as I want but that's what happens when you make a mistake in reading what the product is. One or two returns and all my profit could have gone away.
I got a return! I was really upset at first. There goes my profit, or does it?
I checked the current prices and the bands had actually significantly increased in price. I repriced the bands right away to $139.99. The return made it back into my inventory as sellable and was immediately sold for $139.99! I didn't know it would come back as sellable but it did.
There are a couple of takehomes:
One is that I should have been more patient. I could have sold all of them for $140. In fact if you look at the prices now, it is actually closer to $150! That would have been nice. Oh well, too late for that.
The second is that returns aren't always a bad thing. Let's rephrase that, returns are always bad. It's more work for something you already sold. However, an email about a return is your opportunity to reprice the item before it makes it back to Amazon. Who knows maybe you won't lose as much as you thought or maybe you will end up making money because of the return.
So now, we have 2 things to do once you get that email. Boomerang it for 46 days from then and check your price!
The extras are equal to almost $7 so with the extras the take home is about 15%. Not as much as I want but that's what happens when you make a mistake in reading what the product is. One or two returns and all my profit could have gone away.
A Return
I got a return! I was really upset at first. There goes my profit, or does it?
I checked the current prices and the bands had actually significantly increased in price. I repriced the bands right away to $139.99. The return made it back into my inventory as sellable and was immediately sold for $139.99! I didn't know it would come back as sellable but it did.
There are a couple of takehomes:
One is that I should have been more patient. I could have sold all of them for $140. In fact if you look at the prices now, it is actually closer to $150! That would have been nice. Oh well, too late for that.
The second is that returns aren't always a bad thing. Let's rephrase that, returns are always bad. It's more work for something you already sold. However, an email about a return is your opportunity to reprice the item before it makes it back to Amazon. Who knows maybe you won't lose as much as you thought or maybe you will end up making money because of the return.
So now, we have 2 things to do once you get that email. Boomerang it for 46 days from then and check your price!
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