When the new harry potter book came out my wife asked me to get her all the previous books. So I went to eBay of course and looked for sets. I found this one for 159 + 9$ shipping
I was ready to bid on this until I got it and was talking with Dillsmack about it and he sent me this url on Amazon which has the same thing brand new for only 100$ shipping included.
If you look here on July 24 you can see a set of the same books sold for 290$ !!
And there are tons more around the same time that sold for 150-250.
This of course is all about timing. This is the stuff I love. People often ask me if I won or loss everytime I goto vegas…. the truth is I hate to gamble in Las Vegas. I mean I will sit down and play some poker with friends or blackjack but if I am going to gamble my goal is to be able to drink enough free booze to cover my losses. The way I look at it any money I win I will reinvest in our entertainment by booze or whatever.
I would much rather bet money that I can arbitrage goods online then sit down at any table in vegas 
BTW right now might be a good time to buy or sell barry bonds stuff
August 19, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I’ve done this a couple of times, more accidentally than anything else. Like buying something on special, not wanting it, and managing to sell it for more.
Never saw the potential!
August 12, 2007 at 8:07 am
Yep, great post. I think buying and selling is a great way to make quick cash as long as you time it right and buy the right things… easier said than done!
August 10, 2007 at 4:13 pm
amazing as ever. You are really good in marketing.
August 9, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Shoe,
I do this type of thing semi-regularly with event tickets but thanks for the advice and plug for slickdeals.net. Just today I took advantage of their 1.5 TB NAS deal at Dell and bought 5 for $353 apiece (After also buying a 10% off Accessories coupon on eBay). Dell seems to have fixed their pricing and adjusted back up to $549 which is still the cheapest found on the web.
I figure I will make $500 easily…only wish I had bought more.
Thanks again!!
August 9, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Heh, good idea. Should’ve been selling bonds stuff
August 9, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Id say so. Bonds is just about as hot as it gets after banging out number 756!
August 9, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I dont.. LOL
August 9, 2007 at 11:30 am
Very good… and it looks like there is many people willing to buy Harry for more than $100, unfortunately that Amazon deal is not for EU or the postage want be free.
August 9, 2007 at 10:38 am
Sell barry Bonds stuff? Like bobble heads? Everyone loves bobble heads lol
August 9, 2007 at 8:37 am
Let me play the neophite and ask what are each of your definitions of arbitrage?
Sounds as if they may be different.
Finding a wholesale price for a product and selling higher, or to a lazy shopper?
Or sending a lower cost traffic source & sending the visitors to a more profitable location?
August 9, 2007 at 7:07 am
You are correct about the $290 set being First Editions (actually first american editions) according to the seller (he may not know what he is doing). I was going to mention that myself. None of the american editions are rare but the earlier ones are harder to find.
So shoemoney won’t be able to triple his money on this.
August 8, 2007 at 10:57 pm
There is a whole subsect of book sellers that arbitrage books from one site to another. The biggest have spiders that crawl book sites to see where opportunities to buy low and sell high are. I know a person who makes millions selling books and never touches the inventory, just has the original owner ship directly to the buyer.
August 8, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I would hold Barry Bonds stuff. Dont sell short.
August 8, 2007 at 9:16 pm
It’d sure be a great time to sell his baseball… if you had one :p There’s always going to be different values for various products… actually all this barry bonds talk reminds me of when I was young and collecting baseball cards…
I looked up the “value” of a few cards in one of my card ranking books I bought with my own money.. and was happy to realize one of my cards was “worth” $5!!
I ran up to my parents and said “look here, I’ve got a $5 card! I’m rich!” to which they said “sure aint worth $5 to me”… and that was that :p
Kindof a blunt example for a child I know.. but it shows you can only expect to get what the buyer is willing to pay.. find more buyers (higher traffic) and get away with higher prices
August 8, 2007 at 7:05 pm
looks like i won’t be cashing in on barry bonds. my 87 donruss rookie card is going for $6.49 on ebay today.
August 8, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Hairy Potter is huge these days
August 8, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Yeah, I know I did.
August 8, 2007 at 5:28 pm
It happens in sports cards too. Just this year with the “error” card of Derek Jeter issued by Topps. When the card was first discovered people paid over $100 for it. As more packs were opened and the cards on the market increased the prices dropped. Slower than I thought. I didn’t get any of them until they were down to the $20 and $30 mark. I ended up selling six of them before the price dropped below $10. I ended up with a profit of about $55 after Ebay fees.
August 8, 2007 at 5:09 pm
thats the beauty of arbritrage… it can happen anywhere any time.
August 8, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I’ve done a bunch of online aribitrage. I’ve never found anything that was reproducable though. Most are one time things.
August 8, 2007 at 4:57 pm
The set on ebay that sold for $290 were all first editions…not so rare for the later books, but very rare for the earlier ones. The stuff on Amazon is all later editions, which may explain the price difference.
That’s not to say that the average uninformed eBay bidder might not notice…
August 8, 2007 at 4:35 pm
thats what its all about!
August 8, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I remember going to a school sponsored garage sale a couple years ago and I saw a woman selling two pair of size 14 Dr. Martens shoes in excellent condition. Since they were about 6 sizes too big, I walked by. A gentleman came up to her and asked how much for the shoes. She said 50 cents a pair. That immediately got my attention…but the gentleman bought them and I lost my opportunity to flip them on Ebay for $25+ each.
Had the guy not been built like a football player, I’d have probably fought him for the purchase:.)
I’m still irked that I missed that opportunity…
August 8, 2007 at 2:57 pm
It’s about researching and Googleing. But in the end, everyone tries to sell their products for whatever sums of money they want, and if they are to sell them, even though overpriced, good for them.
If someone’s that lazy to buy the first thing he bears his eyes upon, so be it!
August 8, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I am sure there were plenty of people making even more than that when the PS3 came out.
August 8, 2007 at 2:46 pm
They are not hard cover you can get those all day for 20$
August 8, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Awww crap delete that last message coz I’m a fool, that was paperback.
August 8, 2007 at 2:34 pm
I wonder how this guy is making any money then:
There has ot be some other source or this guy missed a 1 in front of the $24.99 and missed it a LOT of times…
August 8, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Buying limited items with proper timing it’s speculation like when the wii launched but this is pure arbitrage!
This shows that eBay is still a gold mine for some people even when there’s so much competition for top items.
August 8, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Well said Jeremy! With goods like the Wii and the PS3 – you can still make a nice healthy profit… I know alot of guys who cashed in ‘BIG’ when the Wii launched, in particular.
August 8, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Yep…it’s pretty easy to make money off of the impatience ingrained in our fellow human beings
Lots of research is the key, unless it’s the hot item of the year.