Reselling at Trader Joe’s with Discover Apple Pay

IMG_0190

Introduction

My wife loves Trader Joe’s.  She doesn’t love everything in the store.  She just loves their cucumbers and tomatos.  That’s basically it.  I keep telling her the time and gas spent going there for 2 items just isn’t worth it, but you know how it goes.   Anyway, I tagged along with her one day and found out that Trader Joe’s took Apple Pay.  That got me very excited about Trader Joe’s too!

 

What to buy?

When I got home, I checked eBay sold listings for “Trader Joe” and found a handful of items like tshirts, bags, some kind of pills called ubiquinol, some coconut oil, etc.  I made a list of the 5 most common sold items on eBay as well as their price.  I then went back there the following week (you know, for our cucumber and tomato run, which btw reminds me of how much I love Greek salads.)  Some items I couldn’t find like the tshirts and bags, and the ubiquinol was more expensive in store than on eBay, which I found odd.  Anyway, I settled on the shampoo and conditioner above.  Price – $3.99 each, so a total of $8.74 with tax.

Ebay

It seems the people on eBay are smart enough to collude and have all agreed to price the set for $18.99.  It took me nearly 2 weeks to sell a set since I had to start back over with eBay.  Paypal and eBay fees were $2.50.  Shipping in a legal flat rate envelope was $5.25.  Thus, my net was $2.44, a margin of 13%, NOT COUNTING the Apple Pay discount.  Now who would buy this from eBay?  Maybe it’s from someone who doesn’t have a Trader Joe’s near their house.

 

Conclusion

Do I plan on ramping up?  No way.  While 13% margins aren’t bad, the actual profit is just too low for my time and effort.  Now, if I did like this guy, then it might be worth it.  The point of this post is – you can resell everywhere and anything.  Don’t just look at your usual suspects.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *