Buying and Selling

 
 
 

Vocabulary

hustle	surprise	fulfillment
rack	side job	clearance (2)
secret	sale (2)	sound (2)
profit	factor in	straightforward
former	path (2)	accountant
realize	full-time	part-time
item	revenue	generate
list	compare	confident
repeat	staff (2)	warehouse
install	hopefully	sure enough
scan	deal (2)	for a while
fee	scale (3)	take into account
savvy	shipping	put in (2)
per	thing (2)	roughly (2)
guess	buck (2)	tire chain
phrase	barcode	make all the difference
bulk	turn (2)	Amazon Fulfillment
fire up

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

George: We have a surprising story now about a man who turned what he called his “side hustle” reselling items from clearance racks into a successful company.

Becky Worley has his secret. She’s going to tell now.

Becky Worley, Reporter: “Buy sale items and sell them at a profit. Sounds so simple. But one savvy shopper turned that straightforward idea into big business.

And he says: “You can too!”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Becky Worley, Journalist: “This is Ryan Grant. Former job: accountant.”

Ryan Grant: “I would say, about six months into that job, I realized this wasn’t the path for me.”

But he learned the basics of business: buy low; sell high. And with that idea started a part-time job that he says now generates almost four million dollars in revenue.

The twenty-eight year old, who lives in Minneapolis, found sale items in Walmart, Target, Toys-R-Us, then use the Amazon seller app to compare them to online prices.

He buys low, lists them on Amazon, sell high . . . and repeat.

Ryan Grant: “I was able to make a thousand dollars a month in profit working about ten hours a week.”

And that made him confident enough to quit his accounting job. Now he says he has a warehouse full of boxes, a staff of eleven people.

And he says, you can do it too!

Okay, let’s try it.

I’ve already installed the Amazon Seller app. It took me five minutes online. So now all I have to do is go in the store, find some clearance items, and then take them home and sell them online, hopefully for a profit.

Sure enough, I fire up the Amazon Seller app. And then it has this camera. Using that, I scan the barcode for this toy. It costs four dollars here in the store.

Online, it’s selling for nine-dollars and forty-nine cents. That’s a profit.

These pens? Buy it for ten dollars, sell it online and make over five dollars profit.

Finally, tire chains. Twenty-five dollars in store, but listed online for fifty-nine dollars.

Even after I take into account Amazon fees and shipping costs, I profit about fifteen dollars.

After a few months learning what sells and how to factor in those shipping costs, Ryan thinks you can make one to two thousand dollars doing this part-time.

Ryan Grant: “I do think this is something anyone can do, if you are willing to put in the work.”

Becky Worley, Reporter: “Ryan says he’s making about fifteen percent profit on sales of roughly four million dollars. He only pays himself $60,000 in salary.

But I see how you can make money in this; I’ve listed my items right from my phone — it took me sixty-seconds per thing I’m selling. I can make thirty bucks in profit from my small scale test. It’s not four million, but it’s a start.

George: No, it’s something now. And I guess this app makes all the difference because we’ve had Craigslist and eBay around for a while, but people didn’t seem to do it.”

Becky Worley: “No, it’s all about that phrase you’ve heard before when “buying fulfillment, buy Amazon”.

Ryan buys in bulk, he mails everything to an Amazon warehouse; they deal with all the shipping to customers. eBay and Craigslist don’t do that.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Questions

1. The underlying concept of Ryan Grant’s business is very simple. True or false? What is the basic idea?

2. Has Ryan always been doing this business? What did he do before? Why did he quit? Which does he like better?

3. Describe his basic procedure or operation.

4. Ryan has to work very hard, and put in a lot of time and effort. Is this right or wrong?

5. Can anyone do this? What did the reporter do? What did she buy?

6. Does Ryan have a large turnover?

7. Amazon has advantages over eBay and Craigslist. Is this correct or incorrect?

 
 

A. I know some people who trade online. Yes or no?

B. Would you or your friends like to do what Ryan is doing?

C. Can you think of items you can source locally and up-sell online?

D. Are there any disadvantages to this line of work?

E. Is everyone happy about online buying and selling?

F. What will happen in the future?