YOUR NEXT SHED

Now you have felt that rush of the first unit in front of you and you have escaped the wrath of bags of clothing and dirty old mattresses to live yet another day in the cut throat business of auctions. you have seen first hand there are tricks you need to learn.  First, you need to learn how to value things standing at the door. To do this you must spend hours upon hours simply walking local stores.  The best of course is the Walmart store.  They will be your biggest competition when tring to sell any item. Tour the camping area, auto, as well as electronics. Look at what items are selling for. I will give you some examples. The Coleman camp stove, a propane one that works off of the little propane tanks, retails for $55.00 so if you see one in a unit out of box and looks used you would figure that stove into your bid at $15.00 of value this gives you the room to up your price to a profit easy. I can get $20.00 for one that looks new and about $35.00 for a new one, so you want that room on your bid.  Next you need to know your stoves, a Coleman liquid gas stove sells for $99.00 and can bring you a fast $50.00 used and $75.00 new, so what would you factor this type of stove into your bid?  The answer in my book would be $25.00 value. U sing this equation allows you room for mistakes. You never want to over value something because it may be broken, missing parts, or not what you thought it was. Always remember to leave room!  The old addiage is, if you double you're OK if you triple your in, if you break even your gone. You have to remember you are not here to break even!  You have to make money on every unit you buy or you won't last. Now walk around your store and notice shapes and sizes. This may sound odd now, but if you come to a unit that is packed beyond packed you won't be able to value the unit unless you can see outside the box. You have to be able to look into cracks and holes and be able to identify items by the corner of the item the size color or shape. for example a roll around tool box with rounded corners and sheet metal appearance is most all of the time a homeowners box valued at below $500.00 new, but a box that has the heavy metal look with square blunt sides and corners with metal pull drawer handles most every time is a Snap On or Mac tool box and can be worth thousands empty and can be worth $10,000 if full of the tools. Shapes, colors and sizes are the thing you need to study when shopping. Heck you can learn a lot about this by looking in your own garage or shed. Now, let's look at the big picture so to say, the TV market, we have TVs out there worth $10.00 up to thousands, the best rule of thumb here is you're looking for LCD or plasmas but lookat it as a parts TV. Yes folks, many of those LCD and plasmas that come out of units might be broken and it is a minimum of $200.00 or more to fix them. I value mine at parts level a 52" LCD I value at $300.00 and if it all works I just made $700.00 ($400.00 profit). Again this all depends on your market and no one even myself can tell you what an item is worth in your area. That is another thing you will need to learn, your market. The other type of TV is the oldie but the fast selling 20" to 35" regular everyday TV. They sell super fast and I love to have 5 or 6 on the floor at all times for the folks that want TV but can't afford a $300.00 TV.  Never value a older TV for more than $15.00 into your bid since they have more of a chance of being broken. Let's review this now, you walk up to a shed it is a 5x10 and it has three old TVs, two propane stoves,and 15 boxes most marked garage and "Billy's stuff", plus you see what looks to be a home owners tool box buried under the boxes on wheels in the back and a used wheel barrow up front. what should your bid be? You always look at lowest and highest bids. let's break it down. The items on view are guys stuff the boxes have a man's name and say garage on them. What would you bid on this 5x10 shed high and low figure? Come back next week and I will break it down further and see if you match a pro's view. If this seems like a confusing math problem you're on the right track it is all about numbers that you have to have in your head in seconds. It all comes in time. Try to figure out what you would bid on the 5x10 and see if you match me.