When I was a kid growing up, I used to play a lot of video games, namely Street Fighter. One of my other favorite games was Killer Instinct. I’ll pause to let you fan-boys reminisce for a second. Okay, you back? Well, one of the cool things about the game was that it let you string hits together into “combos,” and they would have nicknames for the combos based on the number of hits – a 5 hit combo is a “hyper combo” and a 10 hit combo is a “monster combo.” The best would be a 20+ hit combo called the “ULTRA COMBO!” I know. Just the name sounds awesome. So where am I going with this? Well today, I’m going to show you the ULTRA COMBO of shopping portals to maximize your reselling profits and to show you why I’m going to beat those GC churners (smack talk laid down.)
Step 1 – Buy an AGC with the highest un-bonused spend card
Since there is no bonus spend on buying AGC, most people use their SPG card since they value it at around 2%. Some people use Arrival at 2.2%. Some people use the card where they have to meet minimum spend (ala AMEX Biz Plat 150K). Besides trying to meet MSR (min spend requirement), the 2nd best card in my opinion is a 3% cashback card that is not the Discover Miles card. Don’t know what the card is? Well, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. 😉 So let’s say you buy this AGC at a 2.25% cb portal using a 3% card. The $3.95 fee / $2000 = 0.2% fee, thus your profit is 5.05% when you take this first step.
Step 2 – Buy discounted merchant gift card
Let’s assume the item you want to sell is from Macy’s. Well, don’t use your AGC directly on Macy’s. Let’s go buy a discounted Macy’s gift card from a site like Raise. Raise usually has these flash discounts on some gift cards. Last year, they had 30% off Macy’s that lasted much longer than I expected. Let’s assume you bide your time and wait for 30% off again. Step 2 now gets you 30% off the Macy’s gift card.
Step 3 Triple Combo – Go through shopping portal to buy the merchant gift card
Well now that you know you want to buy your GC from Raise, don’t buy direct from Raise. Try shopping at Raise through a shopping portal. Raise pays out the first $1,000 on Topcashback, but let’s assume you somehow found a way to get around that limit by using a different shopping portal. I need to do further experiments on this, and I feel someone knows this trick already, but they’re not telling.) If successful, this step would net you another 1% profit.
Step 4 Super Combo – Go through shopping portal to shop at merchant
This is an important step. You have to have patience with this one because right now you have a stash of Macy’s gift card but the portal is only 2%. You can either buy the item then or wait when the portal increases. Last week, Shopathome had Macy’s.com at 16%, and that’s usually on the subtotal, pre-discount amount. So if the item is $100, but you paid with $100 gift card, they’ll pay out 16% based on $100 and not what you paid ($0) (some sites differ though). So let’s say you bought at a good time and got 16% off with this step.
Step 5 Hyper Combo – Item is on a deep sale
When I spend hours searching for what to buy from a merchant, my eyes gravitate towards ‘sales’ because sometimes the sale price = the going price on Amazon. You’d never make money when the item is regular price. However, this step is important because Kohl’s will sometimes have sales when they run 30% and sometimes they won’t. I can’t give an extra discount for this step because you never would have bought the item when it’s not on sale. However, if an item is on “clearance,” my mouth waters, but even so, I won’t count that extra discount in this step.
Step 6 Brutal Combo – Additional x% off entire order
This would be like the Kohl’s 30% off coupon for card members whereas non-card members get 20%. Macy’s will also sometimes run an additional 10% off for card members. I will give you an extra 10% off during this step because a) you’d still buy the item irregardless of the extra 10% and b) it’s an additional discount that you would not have gotten if you weren’t a card member, which gives you a slight advantage over other power sellers.
Step 7 Killer Combo – Loyalty Points
This is the Kohl’s Yes2You rewards, Best Buy Rewards Zone, Staples Rewards, etc. You get the picture. Macy’s has Plenti rewards in certain departments. I’ll be lenient here and add an extra 1% for this step.
Step 8 ULTRA COMBO – Live in a non-tax state
I don’t think you guys realize how much I’ve thought about moving to Portland just to be tax-free. This step is usually the “combo-breaker” for most people since you can’t get past here, but man oh man, this could be a savings of 6-9% depending on which state you live in. This also works if the merchant store you are shopping at has no physical location in your state and so you’re tax free. Or maybe you are incorporated as a reselling business and don’t pay tax on goods. Droool.
The Math: (let’s exclude the 1% portal for Raise)
| Discount | Savings | |||
| Item Price | $100 | |||
| Total order discount | 10% | $10.00 | ||
| Item Subtotal | $90 | |||
| Portal discount on $90 | 16% | $14.40 | ||
| 30% off $90 gift card | 30% | $27.00 | ||
| Portal Rebate on $63 AGC | 2.05% | $1.29 | ||
| AGC Purchase on 3% cc | 3% | $1.89 | ||
| Loyalty Reward | 1% | $0.90 | ||
| Total w/o tax | $55.48 | 55.5% | ||
| 9.5% Tax | 9.5% | $8.55 | ||
| Total w/ tax | $46.93 | 46.9% |
Conclusion
So there you have it – the 8 step ULTRA COMBO of online shopping. The best case scenario (assuming tax-free state and excluding Raise shopping portal) – a whopping 55.5% discount off the price of an item. If you’re like me and have to pay 9.5% tax, you’re savings is reduced to 46.9%. If you assume a 30% Amazon FBA fee, you’re making a profit margin of ~15%-20%. While not as salable as GC churning or buying MO’s, you’re not going to see those kinds of margins with other MS methods.