My wife graduated college several years ago. As I pondered how to help pay off her student loans, I looked at her towering stack of accumulated textbooks. Knowing we'd receive an unacceptably low price, we chose not to sell them back to the campus bookstore. I also investigated some websites to sell used college textbooks for cash, and while the payouts seemed decent, I felt that I could get more.
Eventually, I opened a seller's account on Amazon.com. The textbooks sold quickly and for more money than I would have made otherwise. I used paper grocery shopping bags to wrap the books, and sealed them with Scotch tape.
Little did I know, I had just started my own small business.
After this success, I looked around the house and found more items that I thought might sell. I listed a used digital camera and a digital photo frame and hoped for the best. I knew the textbooks would be in high demand, but I wasn't sure about the more frivolous items. To my surprise, both sold within the first few weeks.
A friend of mine suggested I check out daily deal websites to see if I could find other products to sell. It was a puzzling concept -- it had never occurred to me you could buy items online and then resell them at a profit. But I looked into it, and to my surprise, I was able to find many products that I could sell at a profit. I looked at the purchase price, researched what the particular item was selling for on Amazon, and if it appeared I could make a profit, I bought the item.
For the most part, I bought and sold products with which I was familiar. Due to a retail position I once held, I am pretty knowledgeable regarding small electronics, so that's where I focused my efforts. And it soon paid off: In 2010, I grossed $40,000 in sales and netted nearly $6,000.
Starting a small business is not as daunting as it sounds. I'll admit, in my case, there was a little luck involved. But by partnering my knowledge of small electronics with enthusiasm and a keen business sense, I launched a venture with nothing more than a paper bag and a roll of Scotch tape. Today, that side business generates solid, steady streams of income.
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David Bakke continues to run an online reselling side business. He also blogs about personal finance topics like smart spending, budgeting, and entrepreneurship on Money Crashers.
