Your Retail Arbitrage Experiences?

[back-spin]

To those who use retail arbitrage as a source what's been your experiences with it? Do you have any tips for others that you've learned from doing this?

Most people doing RA tend to focus on looking for items in a store's clearance section. But in the video below the video maker said that many of his items come from regular retail price items. Anyone had any profitable results with regular retail price items? If so,how do you identify them without having to scan every product in a store?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGKXa8haSRs

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I really hate that term. When I was in business school arbitrage was about buying in one market while simultaneously selling in another for profit. No money changed hands.

What the term seems to mean now is buying low and selling high. That's just investment. Everyone does that if they know what they're doing.

Keep in mind that many buyers hate what sellers like this do. There have been a lot of stories over the years of sellers who dropship from Walmart or buy up all the hot toys getting nasty negatives. It's not a popular way to do business, taking advantage of people being too naive to shop around.

[emerald40]

taking advantage of people being too naive to shop around.
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You mean when stores have limits on how many you can buy and reshippers storm in with all their family members, grab every sale item, then they all fan out to different registers pretending they do not know each other.

[lookng2015]

Yes, yea. We know it's one of your pain points.

[whatmodernwas]

I suppose you could call shoplifting and then selling on eBay “retail arbitrage.”

[emerald40]

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@lookng2015 wrote:
Yes, yea. We know it's one of your pain points.

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If you know, why the need to comment?

[lookng2015]

You commented, I just responded.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I don't have a problem with people giving you tips. I'm just saying this new term is a completely destroyed meaning of the word arbitrage.

If you have to lay out money, it increases the risk and takes away the value of it being arbitrage.

I don't think anyone is going to give you their secret source of inventory for reselling. I'm hoping you didn't just pick up on some gimmick and decide this "RA" is a fountain of money. Selling on Ebay is hard. There are a lot of rules and it's easy to slip below standard if you don't understand the rules.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

When I made the naive comment I was talking about all the people who get dropshipped items that are clearly available on other sites for less like Amazon.

People who buy up all the hot stuff and break the rules to do it are scalpers. I still haven't bought anything else from Disney or Dooney and Bourke since my horrendous experience trying to buy a Disney Dogs purse with my Disney Dollars.

[orangehound]

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@back-spin wrote:

Most people doing RA tend to focus on looking for items in a store's clearance section. But in the video below the video maker said that many of his items come from regular retail price items. Anyone had any profitable results with regular retail price items? If so,how do you identify them without having to scan every product in a store?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGKXa8haSRs

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Just some perspective ... that video is 2014.  The on-line retailing world has changed dramatically in the last 4 years.  Back in 2014, a lot of products were only available at Brick and Morter stores  (whether at full price or clearanced price), and an on-line seller could list them to reach an untapped market of customers who didn't have access to those B&M locations.  Today, most every store is on-line and the customers can shop directly ... even getting clearance prices.  What's more, Google shopping can do the price comparison and direct a shopper to those stores and prices.

So, today, you are competing directly with that on-line store ... and your customer base will be those naive customers that don't know how to search or use Google.  Much, much, much smaller market.

In other words, what worked in 2014 doesn't typically work in 2018.

[tiramisu41]

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@orangehound wrote:

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@back-spin wrote:

Most people doing RA tend to focus on looking for items in a store's clearance section. But in the video below the video maker said that many of his items come from regular retail price items. Anyone had any profitable results with regular retail price items? If so,how do you identify them without having to scan every product in a store?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGKXa8haSRs

---

Just some perspective ... that video is 2014.  The on-line retailing world has changed dramatically in the last 4 years.  Back in 2014, a lot of products were only available at Brick and Morter stores  (whether at full price or clearanced price), and an on-line seller could list them to reach an untapped market of customers who didn't have access to those B&M locations.  Today, most every store is on-line and the customers can shop directly ... even getting clearance prices.  What's more, Google shopping can do the price comparison and direct a shopper to those stores and prices.

So, today, you are competing directly with that on-line store ... and your customer base will be those naive customers that don't know how to search or use Google.  Much, much, much smaller market.

In other words, what worked in 2014 doesn't typically work in 2018.

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Glad you said this @orangehound, as when I saw the title of OP's thread I thought:  "Wow, that's a rather passe' buzzword/concept" even though I know there are plenty of people out there still trying to sell people memberships/subscriptions to their "How-to Secrets for Retail Arbitrage Success" workshops/newsletters in spite of the fact the marketplace itself has evolved and moved on.

[luckythewinner]

"Retail arbitrage" is a fancy way of saying that seller buys something because he sees potential profit. Fundamentally, it really no different than:

• consignment shop arbitrage
• yard sale arbitrage
• flea market arbitrage
• pawn shop
• eBay arbitrage
• your own basement arbitrage
• picking up something for free arbitrage

Most eBay seller sources his inventory with an eye toward making a profit. IMHO it matters very little where he sources that inventory or what fancy label someone puts on it.

For a while I could buy sealed original Rodriguez albums from an online music seller for $50 and re-sell them here for $350 - until I bought them all. For a while I could buy a $5 CD from a band's own website and sell it here for $25 - until I bought them all.

But generally speaking, I focus on $10 -$20 items that I can get for pennies (or for free) rather than invest money in inventory. I see people drop-shipping from Amazon who seem to be making a couple dollars per item and don't see the point. The risk outweighs the reward from my perspective.

[lookng2015]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

When I made the naive comment I was talking about all the people who get dropshipped items that are clearly available on other sites for less like Amazon.

People who buy up all the hot stuff and break the rules to do it are scalpers. I still haven't bought anything else from Disney or Dooney and Bourke since my horrendous experience trying to buy a Disney Dogs purse with my Disney Dollars.

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What rules would those be?

[lookng2015]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

I don't have a problem with people giving you tips. I'm just saying this new term is a completely destroyed meaning of the word arbitrage.

If you have to lay out money, it increases the risk and takes away the value of it being arbitrage.

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I agree with it's the wrong use of the term. My ex future SIL (don't ask lol) does true arbitrage all the time. He buys stuff and has a buyer for it before he has to pay for it, basically using HIS buyer's money to pay HIS seller.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

The rules like only five to a customer or when someone who works there hides items in the back so they never get put out for customers.