Pic unrelated. This is probably a bad idea but hear my pitch:
I am able to get a really sweet deal on some new-ish laptops. Older models but still workable (better than what I use for work purposes). I can pull a shitton of these things every fall for a ridiculously low price--about 20% of the retail value for used similar items--for a max of about 7500 per year if I buy out my supplier completely.
I live in the vicinity of one of the top 10 public universities in the US. I know average public college kids are stupid, so I'm thinking of selling these things to them as quick replacements on Craigslist or something for when they break their shit. If I sell even a few dollars less than the lowest online retailer's price I can make almost 13k on an entire shipment, not including incidental expenses like transportation. I know a guy who did this when I was in college (different area entirely) and made bank off his old IT employer. I bought a laptop off him my freshman year and still use it (three years out of uni right now)
I know /biz/ is populated by college kids so I need to know what my target demographic thinks of this idea. Grill me hard.
This may be considered soliciting. Feel free to delete.
>>1071692
There's a lot of factors here, but generally you'd need to be able to sell for at least 200$ cheaper than the lowest retailer to reliably make money at it. Remember, these are college kids, not printing presses. It will take a lot of work if you want to sell them either way, so try it out with just 1 or 2 laptops first, see how quickly they sell.
>>1071738
I can undercut the cheapest retailer by $300 a piece. That figure was at the maximum of the margin.
>>1071692
Sounds like a fairly solid plan to me. I would undercut more than that though. Keep in mind there's a warranty and air of legitimacy when you buy from Amazon that your operation won't have. You have to undercut by enough that people want yours over Amazon's but not enough that it seems like they must be stolen. Maybe like 20% under.
>>1071849
Under by more than a few dollars is what I meant