potential business model - reselling students' stuff

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I probably missed out on it for the lack of adequate pre-investment, but I could probably making thousands of dollars by buying (or even taking for free) inventory that college students dump (sell for cheap / free) at the end of summer, and then resell them at elevated (but still competitive) prices to first-years (or even upperclassmen) with the start of school. </p>

<p>Take box fans for free or buy them for 5 dollars / 10 dollars each, and then sell them for 15-20 dollars on the hottest move-in days ... and with a cheaper initial purchase, it'd be easy to undercut the retail competition.</p>

<p>Did I mention that people throw away whole refrigerators? </p>

<p>I could get someone's truck and probably the biggest issue is adequately finding a cheap way to secure inventory. The basement of someone who was willing to split profits I guess.</p>

2

<p>Why don’t you just shack up with some older gentlemen for some start-up cash?</p>

3

<p>Or, you could make more money doing less work by having a sugar daddy.</p>

4

<p>

</p>

<p>Cuz people my age make better business partners?</p>

5

<p>After storage and transportation costs are factored in, along with (in my guess) lack of demand (freshman parents almost always buy too much for their freshman children), especially for used items, you would be lucky to break even.</p>

6

<p>Yes, but a lot of purchasing occurs on-site … perfect place to set up shop.</p>

7

<p>How is that a “business model,” OP? You sound like a tool throwing around words like that, btw.</p>

8

<p>It’s worth a try, but I personally don’t think parents are going to be comfortable with buying used stuff sold from the back of a truck. </p>

<p>Besides, my school takes “trash” from the end of one year and just gives them to freshman free in the next year.</p>

9

<p>You still have to find a place to store all the garbage for a few months before you can sell it. And a lot of the stuff that you will be able to buy will be that, garbage.</p>

10

<p>PureAdvisory: cuz it’s a theoretical, generalised plan?</p>

11

<p>I wouldn’t be so quick to ridicule OP. The same thing occurred to me, particularly after I discovered that my Junior son sold off his microwave, refrigerator, and bike (all of which we purchased for him); and I am now going to have to buy those same items for my Freshman daughter. I even called our son and asked him to be on the lookout for students selling the above items. </p>

<p>At our son’s college, there is a fellow doing a good business in renting out used refrigerators. He sends out a mailing to incoming students and has a truck filled with them on moving day. Granted, this is not his full-time occupation - he runs the local liquor store and appears to make most of his money selling kegs of beer to college students.</p>

12

<p>Ebay, Craigslist, and in particular, the facebook marketplace will ruin this business plan.</p>

13

<p>In the fall? I think not.</p>

14

<p>You can get some good stuff by dumpster diving at the end of the year (most of the kids at my school were rich so they just threw away ridiculous amounts of stuff). One of my friends went dumpster diving and got about 10 of those plastic drawer sets, a bunch of different organizing things, a chair, a floor lamp, a regular lamp, a working Chi salon-quality hair straightener which she now uses (after sterilizing it of course), and a working PS2 (!).</p>

<p>I think the problem is finding a place to store all that stuff over the summer.</p>