How to Make It on Craigslist

The greatest part of this story is what Ryan accomplished personally. From reading, he went from someone who consistently had great trouble professionally, to someone who is successfully able to support himself and his family financially.<p>Ryan, if you're reading this, congratulations! This appears to be a major personal accomplishment and milestone for you. Best of luck as you grow into your next level of success.

I didn't see any discussion about the cost of driving around town all the time to pick stuff up. Still, depending on his average distance, if he averages three items per day he might not be much worse than a lot of people's average commutes.

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet, but roseburg, have you considered packaging up this wisdom you shared on this blog post as a class and make some money teaching? I'd think you could get a bunch of students to take at least a one session 2 hour class or something learning this stuff from you. Or even some class online. You could video some of the interactions you have on the phone and in person when doing the deals etc...

It makes sense intuitively that heavy appliances would be the most profitable. People don't say, "sure you can have my iPod for $20" but I could see them being willing to part with a washing machine for that price if someone would carry it out of their third story apartment.

A nice story. This guy found his inner "hustler" - hustler in the positive sense.<p>I sell a lot of items on craigslist, and I have no problem with the idea that someone bought it from me to resell it because I underpriced it. Hell, if someone threw what I gave them in the garbage, they can do that too. I no longer want the item, I got what $ I asked for it, and I'm out of the equation.<p>The only thing I'd have a problem with is if someone contacted me with a sad story about being broke, student, unemployed, sick child, or something, and asking for a discount. And I find out later they lied. That's where the ethical line is for me.

This sounds like a mess to keep proper tax records for. Assuming nobody's giving receipts on either side of the transaction, how do you keep proof of what price you paid and what price you sold for? Audits aren't that rare.

I don't see why some consider this unethical and abusive to the CL community. It's just arbitrage; same as in Foreign Exchange markets. It tends to pop up because values are just opinions and to forget that leads to misdirection.

This is a cool article; it will be interesting to see how it scales up going forward.<p>I also spend a lot of time on craigslist, and this extension has saved me hours and made browsing much more efficient:<p><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aikbdokcmcbbeaadpdbhlcdcgghdkhja" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aikbdokcmcbbeaadpd...</a><p>Chrome only though :(

Interesting story, it's fascinating to see what people are doing to make ends meet in the new economy.<p>Similarly, I know someone who makes well over $100,000 a year buying, fixing, and reselling things on Craigslist and eBay. They found a very specific (and obvious) niche that is highly profitable to be in, I imagine if this guy specialized more he will see greater returns as well.

I always wondered how much one can make by buying AC units on Craigslist in December and selling them off in June, in a place like NYC where weather gets very hot/cold :)

I built a free webapp that may be useful for such Craigslist arbitrage. It constantly crawls Craigslist for search terms in your price range and emails you the results (instantly or in a daily digest):<p><a href="http://lootlook.com" rel="nofollow">http://lootlook.com</a>

I really dig his attitude and sense of accomplishment. Who'd a known a pawn shop with free pickup would be so successful.

He's got the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid. I love stories like this of people doing not ground breaking jobs and just hustling and making it happen.<p>I work in a high skilled tech job that requires lots of thinking and analysis, and sometimes I over think and over analyze everything I'm doing, which is why I think I admire a job that requires pure hustle. Not saying that's my cup of tea to do full time, just something that I could apply to my everyday job to make me more productive and focus more on doing than analyzing!

Here, you're gonna want this: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&#38;hl=en&#38;source=hp&#38;q=cache%3Ablog.priceonomics.com%2Fpost%2F16529584021%2Fhow-to-make-it-on-craigslist&#38;pbx=1&#38;oq=cache%3Ablog.priceonomics.com%2Fpost%2F16529584021%2Fhow-to-make-it-on-craigslist&#38;aq=f&#38;aqi=&#38;aql=&#38;gs_sm=e&#38;gs_upl=19016l19774l0l20051l6l5l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&...</a>

People also used to do this with eBay. I also sometimes sell on Craigslist but I work full time so it has to be larger scale. Sometimes I buy event tickets and sell them on Craigslist for a profit if I know there will be high demand. The profit margin is typically at least 50%. And I make at least $100/ticket for simply printing a piece of paper and meeting someone at Starbucks.

I admire this guy's work ethic, but I am a little uncomfortable with the fact that this post is pretty much viral marketing for Priceonomics.

Great post good for you for hustling to take care of your family. Lots can be said from various moral points of view however simply put he's taking care of his family and not drawing on struggling Federal and State governments (while actually paying his share).<p>A couple great points having grown up in the antique business the skill he's developed is the ability to know the local market (buy and sell-side) for a variety of local items.<p>Roseburg - a suggestion that may help you're right about a clean listing good pictures etc... However one interesting twist I've experimented successfully with is using Copywriting techniques to drive attention to your ads. Mainly I did it for practice but its seems to work well having helped sell the items far more quickly than previous CL sales I've done. I'm happy to share/email a few examples of ads I've written with you if they would help.<p>Not sure the best way to connect off the comments here (since I've just registered to leave this comment)

What about operating in bigger markets, like cars, trailers, RV's, etc. ?<p>Or are those markets too competitive? Having sold cars on Craigslist before, I know that there are people who are offering low values, fast sales, shortly after posting in hopes of finding a desperate seller, so maybe these people make profit much less likely for a trader.

I did this in college, however, since graduating and getting a full time job I've quit.<p>I mainly stuck with electronics, and even then it was mostly TVs. I found that I could very easily purchase TVs for $100-$200 less than what I could sell them for.<p>It was fun, and I've seriously considered doing it on weekends again, however now that I live in a large city (Atlanta) I feel like there is a lot more research that has to go into an item... Mostly because people from an hour a way from the city center will claim they are within the city and so on. In college I was in a city of 150k people, and could get to the outer "suburbs" in at most 30 minutes.<p>My current TV was one of the first 1080P 50" Plasmas... It still works perfectly and looks great. I bought it from a couple for $750. (Bought with the profits from selling buying and selling TVs)

I made a tool that does something a lot like this that uses machine learning algorithms. I gave up on it a while back, but give it a look. <a href="http://ec2-184-72-247-63.compute-1.amazonaws.com" rel="nofollow">http://ec2-184-72-247-63.compute-1.amazonaws.com</a><p>I called it Eds-list

I really like your story man, and I'm glad you're succeeding but I just wanted to voice my opinion on one of the things you said-- "Back at home I immediately found out the cards were worthless. I had paid the kid $100 for the cards, and eventually pestered him". Even if the kid knew, I think it's wrong for an adult to come back and reneg on a deal with a child. There's a big power imbalance there. You seem like a great guy, I just kind of found that a bit unethical.

This is much more common than everyone here thinks. I posted a car for sale two years ago. My first two replies were people offering half my price in cash. While I didn't actually check with them, I assume they were dealers (self employed or part of a business) trying to buy something below Blue Book so they could sell it at Blue Book. It seems unlikely there are many people sitting around looking to buy any car as long as it was a "deal".

It's very impressive that he's able to earn so much money and support his family via Craigslist, but I can't help but think about how useful (or not useful, really) his job is for the overall economy. Basically, he's another middleman - buying goods for a low price and selling them higher. Without him in the picture, buyers could have purchased their items for less and saved money. I just don't see how this job adds a service to society.

Shouldn't post stuff like this, it invites competition.

I love the blg post. It's very inspirational and I emailed it to a couple of friends that might benefit from it.<p>Question: What about buying on Craigslist and selling on eBay or other listings? I use both at times and noticed that each tailors certain genres better. Do you do that or have an opinion on that?

On a related note, I read this news article about "Craigslist robberies by appointment..."<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/01/craigslist-robberies-by-appointment-on-rise/" rel="nofollow">http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/01/craigslist-robb...</a>

&#62; I started the year with almost nothing and ended with a used van, a new utility trailer, less debt, fully paid bills and money left to take the family to Hawaii.<p>&#62; less debt &#62; family to hawaii<p>Something does not compute here.

This makes sense to me. I bought a house full of furniture when I moved to North Carolina, all from CraigsList. Two years later I sold those exact items for a $300 profit.

Now he just needs to scale it. Hire a few people to go out and get the items, use software to help filter new leads, branch out into related areas.

This encourages me to try it out in my area. I would like to see how much i can make if i try it part time if possible.

Is he reselling them on Craigslist or somewhere else? I seem to be missing that part.

Good work man I think it's awesome that you've found something that works for you.

Thats a really great story. Im glad you finally had success :)

Congrats Ryan. You rolled up your sleeves and made it happen.

Nicely done dude. Happy for you. Go Portlander!

Very, very inspiring!

I find it interesting that you start off the article with a sob story about having no money and end with a vacation to Hawaii a year later. Shouldn't you be saving some of this and investing rather than spewing what would assumably be quite a bit on vaca? I am definitely not stingy and blow my money as I please, by my debts are dropping, investments growing, and I haven't(by choice) brought any hellions into this world to support that will need college tuition soon.<p>Sorry to be a Debbie downer, but it irks ne to see people who have their long term priorities all out of whack(and they usually have way more kids than they can support)