Flip Successes and Flip Flops

[quote name='phear3d']best flips

  • metal gear solid 1 (bought for $2.50 used). then i had it signed by kojima last summer. listed it at $499. i just sold it for $425
  • before MGS4 launch, i sold a bunch of sealed MGS games on ebay as a bundle.. cost: 100+, sold for $500+
  • ps3 at launch. 36 hours at the launch line at the sony style store in nyc.. worse experience ever. but i sold the ps3 for $1500
  • tales of the abyss guide for a penny from gamestop. sold for $79 on ebay.
  • DDR mario last year, bought for $22, sold for $280.
  • Advance Wars: Dual Strike for $5 at target, sold for $55.
  • nocturne for the ps2, bought for $30, sold for $120 used before the reprint.
  • Halo 3 LE, bought for $5 at kmart, sold for $55 recently.
  • rockband drums ps3, CC in-store pick up for $32, sold for $100
quick flips (most recent ones i could remember):

  • recently i bought cabookii for the wii. i was upset that i paid $29 new for it, and only $5 new at kmart. so i flipped it on ebay, sold within hours for $22. bought more and sold more. quick money.
  • full auto 2 bought for $4, sold for $14, 20 minutes after listing.
  • singstar 80s. bought at target for $20, flipped for $54 on ebay. sold alot of it.
worst flips (ones i'd like to forget):

  • a wii last year before christmas. lined up for it for 2 hours and i pretty much earned a little less than $50.
  • wii fit. bought last summer, recently sold it for $149 free s/h (i paid $16 shipping). waste of time.
worth mentioning flips

i have a ton more stories.. ebay is like my second job.[/QUOTE]

Wii fits were a waste of time. I ended up just selling them at cost to friends.
Wii's were a quick $200 profit the first christmas they were out, but last year i bought one 2-3 weeks before black friday and they were a pain in the ass to sell so I ended up selling it for around cost. Once black friday came around they were a easy $100 profit. Totally regret selling the one I had and totally regreted not pickin more up since they were wildly available before black friday. I remember seeing at least 2-3 at each gamecrazy I hit up.
 
I dont know if some of your remember this but at one point because of a system glicth or something FYE was giving out free helio phones (was supposed to come with service but they were ringing in at 0 even without it). I got five of them and resold for 60+ each on ebay.
 
[quote name='ninja dog']--Found like 14 new copies of RE:Code Veronica for the Gamecube at ShopKo for $9 each clearanced a few summers ago. [/QUOTE]

Same here but at my local shopko it ended up having 12 copies and they were 3.xx (don't remember exact change) when I bought them.
 
2 words -- Perfect Storm.

I have enough credit now that i should be able to feed my gaming addiction through only minor flipping for the next several years.

Prior to that I only flipped for purpose. My 3 consoles were entirely paid via flipping and less than $100 invested.
 
My best flip. I purchased 40 copies of Monopoly Party for the PS2 in a week period for 20 (average price). Then sold them one by one on ebay for 40. I was the only one selling at the time. Nice profit. Then people paid attention and drove the market down to 25, but I only had two copies by that time.
 
$1.98 for SingStar Amped, just sold it for $30.

A bad one was buying 4 launch copies of MGS4 and getting them signed by Kojima...apparently a lot of them were up on eBay at the time and they weren't getting enough over retail to make them worth selling for all the time and agony involved. I traded one here, have one for myself, and two extra still.
 
My friend does this a lot. I was in State looking for the Reservoir Dogs Ten Years edition, Mr. Pink one for my birthday. I found a nice selection of Mr. Brown ones and my friend had been wanting them. I let him know and he was apparently on his way, so he bought them out and made some nice profit and cut me in with $10 for a finder's fee.

I happened to be crashing at his place during the 360 launch. We woke up at like 5 and went to K-Mart as Wal-Mart had a huge line. We got in and were just out of line for the HD version, but he used me to buy a second core and he sold them both with some accessories he bought, then waited a few weeks and got the HD for under $100 after e-baying them.

He repaid me last year by giving me a core 360 he picked up for $60 as it had two controllers and his was RROD'ing a little, but he kept toweling it and finally modded it and got it fixed. The 360 he gave me is working great.
 
My best so far is buying 7 copies of Wii Sports. Bought 6 online with EDGE credit. Cost me ~$50 and then bought one in store for ~$9.

They cost me about $60, give or take a bit. I put them on ebay on a Friday night and no one bought them. Saturday came and went. Nothing. Sunday came and went. Nothing. Then Monday afternoon, all 7 of them were bought within 3 hours of each other. I was surprised I got them all sold in one day.

Sold them for $29.99+$3 shipping. Made $120 in profit after shipping costs, ebay fees, paypal fees and the actual cost of the games. I'm just pissed that I didn't order anymore>_
 
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[quote name='DarkRider23']My best so far is buying 7 copies of Wii Sports. Bought 6 online with EDGE credit. Cost me ~$50 and then bought one in store for ~$9.

They cost me about $60, give or take a bit. I put them on ebay on a Friday night and no one bought them. Saturday came and went. Nothing. Sunday came and went. Nothing. Then Monday afternoon, all 7 of them were bought within 3 hours of each other. I was surprised I got them all sold in one day.

Sold them for $29.99+$3 shipping. Made $120 in profit after shipping costs, ebay fees, paypal fees and the actual cost of the games. I'm just pissed that I didn't order anymore>_
 
[quote name='zkitaN']can't you sell em on amazon or amazon charges more then the ebay fees[/quote]

Amazon's commission is 15% if I am not mistaken and so is eBay's. They are both about the same. I prefer using eBay because I'm more familiar with it.

And speaking of Wii Sports. I remember the first two Wii Sports I ever sold on eBay. I was looking around GS one day and found 2 Wii SPorts. Bought them for $9.99 - 10%(EDGE only, forgot the 20% off coupon at home >_
 
[quote name='daminion']2 words -- Perfect Storm.

I have enough credit now that i should be able to feed my gaming addiction through only minor flipping for the next several years.

Prior to that I only flipped for purpose. My 3 consoles were entirely paid via flipping and less than $100 invested.[/QUOTE]

You haven't been around long enough to see all the perfect storms that most of us that have been here for 4 years or more have been witness to. We have had so many it is hard to count especially way back when Blockbuster/Gamerush use to have the trade 3 for $10 deals or trade 2 for $10 (which is trade in 3 games get any new game for $10 or trade 2 games for a new one for $10). You essentially could trade in games you got for a buck or two and get new releases the week they came out plus they let you keep the credit you got from the games you use towards the deal.
 
[quote name='zkitaN']can't you sell em on amazon or amazon charges more then the ebay fees[/QUOTE]

Another advantage is on ebay at least you can specify a no returns policy. With amazon you HAVE to take returns, so if you get someone with buyer's remorse you are forced to take the return then you lose your profit. You can have problems with paypal but IMO that is rare and I have never had a problem with buyer's remorse while using paypal.

Amazon's fees are also much higher IMO, they also charge .99 to list each item unless you pay 40$ per month to subscribe to their listing service. I doubt I spend that much listing things on ebay in several months. I tried selling a couple things on amazon and if I would have sold them I would have made NOTHING after fees, that is if my item even sold and someone else didn't try to undercut me on the price. If you stay away from doing BIN's in the video game category on ebay the fees are not that bad when you compare to amazon.

A lot of the items that I sell on ebay are unique and not in Amazon's product catalog as well. I also sell probably 90% of my items in lots on ebay, which nets me more per transaction instead of listing every game individually which as we all know is a huge pain if you are trying to sell off a lot of stuff. It also reduces listing fees and the number of buyers I have to keep track of.
 
For everyone that ordered Wii Sports from Gamestop, were they in good condition? I bought 5 for $9.xx each after shipping a year ago just to try it out and all 5 were horribly scratched in bad shape. I only sold them for $12.xx plus shipping.
 
[quote name='SaraAB']ebay vs amazon stuff[/quote]


There are pros and cons to both. I sell mostly on Amazon.

-Amazon you can list something with no effort and let it sit until it sells
-Amazon buyers usually pay more than eBay buyers, which cancels out the $2-3 extra in fees compared to ebay. And now that ebay is 15% + paypal's fee on top - it closes the gap even more
-Amazon does require returns , but you are also allowed to charge a restock fee. Both times I accepted a return, i charged 20%(since it was buyer remorse)

-eBay has the edge on flexibility of a listing
-eBay works out better on items that are only selling for a few bucks , since the $2-3 fee would hurt too much there.
 
[quote name='Slim Gatsby']$1.98 for SingStar Amped, just sold it for $30.

A bad one was buying 4 launch copies of MGS4 and getting them signed by Kojima...apparently a lot of them were up on eBay at the time and they weren't getting enough over retail to make them worth selling for all the time and agony involved. I traded one here, have one for myself, and two extra still.[/quote]

PM'ed
 
I've only been flipping since May of this year, so The Perfect Storm and the HWV deal have been the best opportunities for me. Best title flipped has been Fantastic Four Wii $4.32 -> $30 at BBV. I was able to flip 6 copies in total. I've never gotten into selling stuff on eBay, CL and Amazon. I'm sure that if I was single I would go crazy, as I have 10 BBV near me but I only trade at 5 of them. I'm satisfied with what I have so it doesn't really matter to me.

Not sure if it has been mentioned but Amercan Idol:Encore? 360 at Target was also a good flip. I was able buy AI for $9.98+tax (after coupons) and would trade the game into BBV for $36 and the microphone into GS for $4. So $10.8x -> $40. I was able to trade 5 of those.
 
- PS3 Metal Gear Bundle sold for $650 = $110 profit
- 64MB Memory Unit for 360 sold for $15 = $7 profit each (x5)
- Nintendo Wii when it came out sold for $400 on ebay (and the person lived down the street from me, making my Wii 1/2 off)

not as good as some of you guys but I don't really look for things to flip unless they are in front of my face
I'm amazed at how much Wii Sports goes for though
 
I remembered when K mart got a stack of Mario Sunshine guide for $2-3 each and I was able to sell them for $25 at amazon.
 
this may be a stupid comment, but what exactly is "The Perfect Storm" and MWV? I remember seeing a thread about it a while ago.

anyway it'd be great if some CAG could throw together a "The Art of Flipping" guide or something. I've also been meaning to sell a bunch of my old gaming stuff (and stuff in general) on ebay or something.
 
[quote name='Gamer SDP']this may be a stupid comment, but what exactly is "The Perfect Storm" and MWV? I remember seeing a thread about it a while ago.

anyway it'd be great if some CAG could throw together a "The Art of Flipping" guide or something. I've also been meaning to sell a bunch of my old gaming stuff (and stuff in general) on ebay or something.[/quote]

Just spend some time looking at the blockbuster deals thread here and you will know what you need to know about flipping.
 
I just had a rather succesful flipping endeavor. I dunno why(or if this is common), but my local goodwill has PC games in spades. Not only that, but they always seem to be restocking, you go there once every two or so weeks and there's a whole different rack of games. I picked up a few to flip, and I'm more than pleased with the results:

Quest for Glory Anthology Paid 4 - Sold $55
X-Com Collector's Edition Paid $6 - Sold $30
Star Wars Jedi Knight Academy and GTA Vice City Paid $8 - Sold $38

There were alot more(particuarily this week, yesterday marked the end of my flipping career so I had to dump everything off), but these took me the most by surprise
 
The sad thing is that Wii Sports is clearly the best game existing on the Wii. If for some odd reason I didn't have one, I would buy it for $40 easy. Does Gamestop not include it with the used Wii Systems? How the fuck are they getting so many copies?
 
[quote name='Zing']The sad thing is that Wii Sports is clearly the best game existing on the Wii. If for some odd reason I didn't have one, I would buy it for $40 easy. Does Gamestop not include it with the used Wii Systems? How the fuck are they getting so many copies?[/QUOTE]

I agree that its the best game on the Wii, which is sad however I bet its a lot of kids trading theirs in because they figure a pack in game has no value and they are bored with it. I don't think I could get bored with Wii Sports and I would definitely not trade mine in or even sell it since I play it at least once a week and most of the time more than that.
 
[quote name='RandyTsai']here are the results from my latest wii sports binge. Took about a week but all of them are gone. I started them at $34.95 and noticed they were selling too fast, so I raised the price to $37.95 and finally $39.95. I should have just started at $39.95. I'm sure they all would have sold at that price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESOX:IT&item=260335533423[/QUOTE]

Wow, that was great flipping there. How did you get so many copies?
 
NUmber one flip on here, bought a powerline networking kit at sound advice while they were going out of business, traded it on craigslsit for a new PSP slim Daxter bundle.
 
Sept. 2007:

This pawn shop near me had a ton of PS3/GCN/XBOX games for 3 dollars a piece. I saw a few copies of Halo, Mario titles, Zelda, GTA, etc. I took about 30 of them off his hands for the discounted rate of $2.00 each.

Brought them into Gamestop and took advantage of the tiered trade. An extra 40% inc. EDGE brought my store credit total to somewhere near $300.00.

Same pawn shop is now (still) cleaned out from me. lol.
 
[quote name='Zing']The sad thing is that Wii Sports is clearly the best game existing on the Wii. If for some odd reason I didn't have one, I would buy it for $40 easy. Does Gamestop not include it with the used Wii Systems? How the fuck are they getting so many copies?[/QUOTE]

You really think Wii Sports is better than Mario Galaxy, Brawl, RE: UC, etc.? That's funny, but I'm (and RandyTsai) are thankful for people like you. :lol:
 
ordered another 120 copies through 4 orders. 40 has shipped. 40 were canceled, and 40 are verifying. I'm wondering if the canceled one has anything to do with my credit card.
 
I just saw on GS.com that Wii Sports is now limited to two per household. Was that there before they all got hoarded? If it really is going to be 2 at a time only, the shipping is going to kill it...
 
[quote name='ninja dog']You really think Wii Sports is better than Mario Galaxy, Brawl, RE: UC, etc.? That's funny, but I'm (and RandyTsai) are thankful for people like you. :lol:[/quote]

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I figured I'd respond anyway.

I don't think Wii sports is better than Galaxy, Brawl, etc., but of course I'm not everybody. I know for the fact the majority of my family, my girlfriend, and other people I know really enjoy Wii sports. I would say that for a lot of people, if they could only have one game to play only for a hour or so each day, would most likely choose Wii Sports.

On Topic:
I've been selling my Wii Sports for around $40 +/- $5
 
[quote name='DarkRider23']I just saw on GS.com that Wii Sports is now limited to two per household. Was that there before they all got hoarded? If it really is going to be 2 at a time only, the shipping is going to kill it...[/QUOTE]


i just noticed that right now as well. i thought it was pretty funny.
 
How do you guys get Wii sports on GS.com it is always not listed everytime I check. Is it delisted after everyone buys them all?
 
[quote name='muzras']How do you guys get Wii sports on GS.com it is always not listed everytime I check. Is it delisted after everyone buys them all?[/QUOTE]

click "show backordered used products" at the bottom of the page when you search for it
 
[quote name='addicted2games']Wow, that was great flipping there. How did you get so many copies?[/QUOTE]

gamestop.com

They recently had more up on the 24th for like 40 minutes, and i scored 8 copies :D
They now have a limit of 2 per household though :(
 
[quote name='DarkRider23']I just saw on GS.com that Wii Sports is now limited to two per household. Was that there before they all got hoarded? If it really is going to be 2 at a time only, the shipping is going to kill it...[/QUOTE]

You know you can user the code SAVER to get free shipping right
 
Oh man, one of my Wii Sports orders got cancelled because they retroactively applied the 2 per household limit. I guess it's a matter of time before my second is cancelled. I wish I had gotten on the Wii Sports bandwagon earlier, but now is the only time I had all the surplus credit to buy 25 of them.
 
[quote name='assasin4hire']For some reason I highly doubt that...
1.I highly doubt the entire company has 88 used copys.
2. The game comes with the system, where you on Ebay Asia(is there even a Ebay Asia?)[/quote]

Climb out from under your rock and go over to Ebay and look at Wii Sports prices, kids break the game all the time, and people that buy used Wii's need copy's teh only question I have is how does GS keep getting them in stock? someone I konw bought over 100 copies last week!!
 
My best flip ever was back when BBV first started taking in trades and were giveing $6 per DVD for any DVD....well that was the same time walmart put out those crappy $1 DVD's...lets jsut say a week after they started my store quit taking them in. I felt bad about it though because I saw tons of my trades in the used DVD rack for years.
 
A definite flop:

Not long after it came out, I found a copy of Rock Band 1, game only, for 360 at the local pawn shop for $25. I asked the guy if they also had any of the isntruments for sale as well, and he said they just had the guitar, which he gave to me for free... quite an awesome deal. I flipped it on ebay for $45, plus I believe like $10 UPS shipping. Well, I definitely didn't think things through... the last time I shipped a guitar game(GHIII), I had a perfectly sized box and only ended up paying like $13 for UPS shipping. This time I didn't have a box, but figured I could find a decent one at the UPS store. Well, they had A box, but it was for golf clubs, and about 5 times the required size, but it was the only one that really seemed to fit. Well, the box was $15, there was a $4 charge for the guy to trim the box down with a razor blade, and the shipping was $25(due to the box still being quite large). I felt so stupid and gipped, I've worked with this guy for a while and I don't know why he didn't give me a heads-up that shipping my tiny plastic guitar would cost so much... who knows how much it would have been if I sprang for the packing peanuts like he suggested. If I knew it was going to cost that much I would've bailed.

So yeah, that's my story of a potentially great flip that totally flopped.

EDIT: I forgot one more part to this story. For whatever reason, the guy said my CC wasn't ringing up correctly, so he ran it through three different systems. Well, it charged my card 3 different times. Obviously, it eventually removed the additional charges, but for that whole weekend I was down a good $120 bucks. Salt on the wounds.
 
[quote name='phear3d']any good recent flips anyone wants to share?[/quote]

I got a couple of Spore Collector's Editions from a liquidating Circuit City. They were 75% off, so $20 each. I sold them on Amazon for $50 each. Nothing too exciting, but I actually didn't even plan on going to Circuit City, let alone to find flippables, and just stopped in to poke around while going next door to run some other errands.

I also got my 15 copies of Wii Sports delivered yesterday. I haven't flipped any of those before, but I'm excited to list those. I'll be testing them all on a friend's Wii this weekend, then listing afterward.
 
I've been buying copies of Wario Ware: Smooth Moves from Wal-Mart for $19.xx and selling them on ebay for $70. I imagine that price is extremely YMMV at other Wal-Marts.
 
[quote name='ananag112']I traded a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition (GCN) for $20 at GameStop towards Viewtiful Joe.[/quote]


:applause::applause::applause:
 
[quote name='pitfallharry219']I've been buying copies of Wario Ware: Smooth Moves from Wal-Mart for $19.xx and selling them on ebay for $70. I imagine that price is extremely YMMV at other Wal-Marts.[/QUOTE]

REminds me of about a year ago. My Walmart had about 20 Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP Pink systems for $49.99 each. Over the span of two months, I sold about 17 of them on ebay for $130 each. They sat in my Walmart for a couple years at various prices and even at the discounted price I bought them at, only 3 sold to others. So I dont feel bad flipping them. I think my local community is caught up in the DS and left these systems on the shelf even though they were $50 each.
 
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