I realize this deal has ended, but it’s a fun little game nevertheless. Kohl’s currently has a sale on Dyson vacuums with an additional 20-25% off. If you’re a Kohl’s cardmember, you get another 30% off on top of the sale price. You’ll also get $10 of Kohl’s Cash for every $50 in spend. Then there’s the Discover 5% portal cashback. Oh, and you can also buy Kohl’s gift cards for about 11% off. Now do I have your attention?
The game
If you click on the banner, you will see the following 7 vacuums. Now the question is – which one do you think will provide you the highest profit margin after reselling on eBay? You have the 1st one – the Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Animal that is on sale for $220 off the regular price. Then you also have the cheapest one – the Dyson Ball Multifloor that is only $150 off. Or maybe it’s the smallest looking one – V6 Motorhead that is only $130 off. So which one would you guess?
I could do the math on all 7, but let’s just focus on the 3 I just stated. A couple of disclaimers first:
- I know that Kohl’s Cash is rounded to every $50 and isn’t worth 1:1 as real cash, but for this example, we’re using the methodology to compare the 3 options.
- Ebay prices are estimates based on latest sold fixed price listings.
- Shipping fees are estimates based on weight and distance [from WA].
| Item | Price | 30% off | 9.5% Tax | KC | Portal cashback | Portal Net | Gift card discount | After GC Discount | Total Net | Ebay price | Ebay fees | PP Fees | Shipping | Net | Profit | Margin |
| dyson v6 motorhead | $319.99 | $223.99 | $245.27 | $44.80 | 5% | $16.00 | 11% | $218.29 | $157.49 | 325 | 29.25 | 9.725 | 15 | 271.025 | $113.53 | 34.93% |
| dyson ball multi floor | $299.99 | $209.99 | $229.94 | $42.00 | 5% | $15.00 | 11% | $204.65 | $147.65 | 280 | 25.2 | 8.42 | 30 | 216.38 | $68.73 | 24.55% |
| dyson cinetic ball animal | $559.99 | $391.99 | $429.23 | $78.40 | 5% | $28.00 | 12% | $377.72 | $271.33 | 500 | 45 | 14.8 | 30 | 410.2 | $138.87 | 27.77% |
Conclusion
As you can see, while the Cinetic Ball had the highest discount, it was only 2nd best. The reason why the V6 Motorhead won was 1) it’s lighter to ship and 2) with Dysons, like expensive sports cars, the base model will have less depreciation than a “fully loaded” model. I failed to mention that the V6 Motorhead is actually not the base model V6. There is the regular “cordless V6” that I actually stocked up on the last sale from Kohl’s. It was $299.99 at the time, and it’s been hard for me to even resell at $265. Therefore, if you can get the next higher up model for just an extra $20, you do it! I tried to buy the V6 motorhead a couple of times this week, but I didn’t have any Kohl’s gift cards in stock (I should have bought some egcs from Staples to get Ink 5X). Plus, the V6 motorhead kept going out of stock (clearly I’m not the only one seeing this huge resale opportunity).