My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
Outside is where i might find something. different people setting up thier random shit for sale. diging through giant plastic totes (i always get a lil chub when i see one with sone wires or toys).
You and me both. Maybe it's just me but I get excited seeing tangled messes of cords and random plastic crap.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
A few years back, I decided to visit the flee market 20 minutes from where I live. I haven't been to a flee markets since I was still in high school and people used to already talk about how flee markets were filled with resellers or dried up. There used to be this guy who I remember seen selling video games everytime I visited before, as I passed by his booth I decided to look around expecting to see the games marked up which they mostly were. John Elway's quaterback loose for 40 (his excuse was that he is a legend), Mario bros 2 loose for 25 and some other ridiculous prices. He asked if I was looking for anything in specific which I replied with yea I am looking for nintendo games but in the box. He looked at me and told me " hold up I think I have some in the van." He went and grabbed like 2 of those banana boxes and came back. I was expecting some of the worst but was I wrong.
First thing he pulls out of the box is an open case with 5 sealed Zelda II gold cartridge, sealed super mario bros 2, then a splatterhouse 2 cib, and a few others. He started telling me that I was the first one to ask him for new stuff, which i didnt I just asked in the box. He then tells me look through the box and when you done bring them up to me and I give you a price. I put aside most of the titles people will obviously want in their collection or wouldnt leave for someone else to take. I take them up to the guy wondering if he was gonna give me the ol' "sells for this much on ebay" He just says ill just charge you 20 dollars above what i will sell them for just the loose game. I said no problem, i took them all home and most of them they are still part of my collection today. After that i never found anything else at flee markets and i heard from the guy one last time but I leave that story for another time since this one got a little long.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
I was at the flea market a couple years ago and I asked the vendor how much a certain game was and he said $110. Before I could say anything some ding dong behind me goes I'll give you $125. I said hey I was here first. Then the ding dong blurts $135. I just shook my head and walked away. I should have stayed a bit longer so he could keep bidding against himself.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
That's been my strategy for the past year. Last year I picked up an amazing lot from a guy- $2 each for everything, $30 for CIB consoles. Selling and trading from that haul has grown my collection enormously, let me make back what I spent, and enabled me to enjoy more success working with smaller lots.
I love the flea market. I generally find a couple common nes games from one of the resellers that show up. Nothing crazy but it's something. I rely more on the flea market for other things, toys, tapes and beer signs specifically
When I was younger, a man old enough to make dirt look fresh had one of the small permanent lockers at our local flea market, and he had it loaded from floor to ceiling with games. A lot was trashy atari stuff, but he had tons of NES and SNES games as well, it's where I got Mega Man 6 and Yoshi's Island, and while I don't often worry about having missed out on rare titles when I could have maybe gotten them for cheap, his shop is the one exception - I'm sure my blind search for Mega Man and Earthbound obscured titles that would have made excellent bargaining pieces here in the future.
Eventually they closed up shop, and I assume it's because the old guy finally gave up the ghost. I really wish I knew what happened to their unsold stock, the dreamer in me wants to believe it's in a storage cube somewhere waiting to be bid on as unclaimed property, but I doubt it. After they closed up, video games have been more and more scarce at our flea market. I later found Super Metroid and Rainbow Islands, but now it's all sports PS2 and 360 games, if anything. What makes it worse is when there are classic games, they're overpriced and kept out in the sun so long they're bleached and the labels are peeling off.
Contrary to most people in this thread, though, I still go out there every once in a great while. Half of collecting is the adventure, and I'm actually happy to not save much money (if any) for the convenience of being able to see first hand what I'm about to buy.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
Thats awesome but it doesnt seem like you value your time very highly.
The whole point i was trying to make is about how "flipping" isnt lucrative for me (which is actually off topic and IRRELEVANT) But if thats how you fund your collection then great.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
Thats awesome but it doesnt seem like you value your time very highly.
The whole point i was trying to make is about how "flipping" isnt lucrative for me (which is actually off topic and IRRELEVANT) But if thats how you fund your collection then great.
I do understand how the value of one's time can vary from person to person. Personally I actually enjoy the time I spend testing, cleaning, and listing games for resale on Ebay and other online selling apps, and I kind of take pride in the game preservation side of it and passing them on to new owners.
Time wise for me it doesn't take up a lot of my personal time. I'd say on average in a good week I maybe make 1-2 decent pick ups and spend maybe a couple hours total in that week dealing with the reselling side of things. But yeah YMMV. I can totally see how some people might hate the thought of spending any time doing this.
Also I never do any of this for lucrative reasons. I do at times turn a small profit some weeks, but the main purpose is always simply to further my collection without really spending any of my own money. For that reason alone its worth it to me.
Anyways sorry to drag the thread so far off topic. I will be hitting a couple recently opened seasonal flea markets this weekend for the first time this spring and am interested to see how things have changed from last year if at all.
I only go to the flea market closest to me about once or twice a year, usually after birthdays and tax time. There's occasionally good deals to be found but of the regular vendors, there's only one guy worth bothering with because he actually prices things slightly below Ebay prices and is willing to cut deals if you buy a bunch of stuff at a time. Everyone else is at or above Ebay prices. I did get some nice NES manuals including a Mega Man 2 and Zelda 2 once for $4 once, and got 4 Master System games including Shinobi and Quartet off of a new seller for $10 total one time because even though the booth was dedicated to retro games, they obviously had no idea how to price Master System carts.
We only have one flea market in my area and it's crawling with resellers. The thing that always bothered me is the resellers go there, set up shop and then before any customers come they hunt for games, paying people pennies for their games and then hiking up the price back at their stall...oh and all they leave us is the shitty kids and sports games no one wants.
There's no winning at a flea market...all the resellers beat you to any deals. The only stuff left is from sellers who know what they have and won't budge on their price so the resellers don't bother with them. And then no one wants to buy the game since they're priced at eBay pricing.
VERY rarely you might luck out by digging in the boxes/bins of a storage cleaner. Then again sometimes they want insane prices for their shitty condition items. Yeah I just dug out this filthy game and you want eBay prices for it...haha...oh fuck them.
The idea of a flea market appeals to me...lots of people and crap...it's like a large community sale but compacted into a smaller space so it's easier to go through stuff faster. Community sales are great since again lots of people...there's bound to be at least one person with games. But the distance between sales kills it. Not everyone in a community will do a sale so you might have to drive for a few minutes before you find something. That's what's great about flea markets...EVERYONE is selling stuff and it's just a matter of walking. So if I could beat the resellers...it would be perfect.
Please tell me this isn't Tulalip flea market you are talking about? I havent ever been but was thinking of it. Just wondering if I should even bother
I stopped going to flea markets/car boot sales/auctions/garage sales a few years ago and now stick to online and the odd op shops, pawn brokers and thrift stores near my work. Reason being a combination of convenience, being busy with real life and also the chances of finding good stuff at reasonable prices daily aren't as good as 6 years ago. You've gotta do more legwork and have connections now. Not going to waste half a day sorting through rubbish to find a diamond in the rough.
Nothing unique really stands out. Went to a flea market in Melbourne a few years ago and the guy wanted $100 bucks for a DK64 cart. The guy said it "sells for $120 online, but for you my friend I do $80". Yeah nah. these types are everywhere though!
I'm about to go to the flea market tomorrow, and I've been doing this for over 15 years. I still find stuff all the time even with it crawling with resellers who get there at 3am and just wait for stuff to hit the pavement. Heck, I don't even always show up early at all. I do it for the enjoyment first. You have to really enjoy hunting for stuff, and maxing your knowledge on what's rare. (Variants, etc)
You need to make sure everyone there knows who you are, and you're the guy who's looking for games and always has cash waiting for those who bring them. (You can always mention what you prefer as well, NES boxes, etc.) Not only that but you will evaluate what they bring and offer them MUCH more for rare stuff even if they are completely unaware what's actually rare. They will quicky stop selling to those people who show up at 3am looking to pay 5$ for certain games. Once you land that spicy lot of rare games, and pay the vendor well word will get around about what you do. The next thing you know vendors will be holding games back for you to look through first, and hope they bring something that will make your day and theirs.
On the other foot I've bought stuff from even the most overpriced resellers (People who have Sonic 2 CIB for 35$) when they have a random game you want that sits for too long that no one else wants I make an offer. You have to understand it's pretty unlikely they are actually getting a lot of those prices, and if you see the same games week after week at the same prices you can make an offer. Worst they could say is no, but best you get a decent deal on something rare and perhaps make a connection. The whole idea of asking online top dollar at a flea market is a flawed idea in the first place. (It's a flea market!)
Also make sure to visit as many game stores as possible in your hunt. I once asked this totally random game store which was very small, and had almost nothing if they had anything unusual in the back. They whipped out an E3 Starfox 64 controller and a Nintendo Power 100 controller out of the back. If I had never asked, I would have never found it! Make sure to ask every person at the flea market for games, even if they only are selling freshly baked muffins. You never know until you ask!
Back when flea markets and thrift stores weren't aware of these games value it was pretty good picking. Now every game is "rare" and the prices are all jacked. It's the way it goes I guess. I keep an eye out but I don't really go out of my way anymore since most of the shops that did offer games at great prices are long gone. Same goes with some websites I used to love visiting. They jacked all their prices up that it is hardly worth it anymore... it's a shame.
Flea markets used to be a great place for games but now everyone knows what they're worth and is either running an online store and just setting up for extra cash or just wants to make money for junk. I saw some possibly salvageable consoles last year but they were 60.00 each and that's a lot of cash to pay a random person for something his kid beat the hell out of. Usually it's overpriced controllers and such, last year I got some sealed gba and ps1 games cheap but missed out on more games as the lady wouldn't give me a good bulk price when i was willing to buy the entire collection. My folks are going to be doing fleamarkets as they're retired so I may use them to help me shop since they're going to be there all day.
Back when flea markets and thrift stores weren't aware of these games value it was pretty good picking. Now every game is "rare" and the prices are all jacked. It's the way it goes I guess. I keep an eye out but I don't really go out of my way anymore since most of the shops that did offer games at great prices are long gone. Same goes with some websites I used to love visiting. They jacked all their prices up that it is hardly worth it anymore... it's a shame.
Honestly I haven't even seen that many of those. Now that nobody makes VCRs those guys have all gone out of business, though the guy i bought the sealed games of had a box of magazines. We had one flea market on sundays out here that the one building was comics, trading cards and porn that was it lol.
Comments
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
If you let every little thing bother you, you'll talk yourself out of going next time and some other guy will get the score of a lifetime instead.
If even brick and mortar stores can be 'caught slippin', you can bet that fleamarketers will sometimes misprice their stuff too.
Stuff thrown around/mishandled? You're rescuing these games from their abusive past.
You know how to get out that smoke smell, you know how to clean the carts and make them look like new.
Inna nutshell, gotta play to win.
You and me both. Maybe it's just me but I get excited seeing tangled messes of cords and random plastic crap.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First thing he pulls out of the box is an open case with 5 sealed Zelda II gold cartridge, sealed super mario bros 2, then a splatterhouse 2 cib, and a few others. He started telling me that I was the first one to ask him for new stuff, which i didnt I just asked in the box. He then tells me look through the box and when you done bring them up to me and I give you a price. I put aside most of the titles people will obviously want in their collection or wouldnt leave for someone else to take. I take them up to the guy wondering if he was gonna give me the ol' "sells for this much on ebay" He just says ill just charge you 20 dollars above what i will sell them for just the loose game. I said no problem, i took them all home and most of them they are still part of my collection today. After that i never found anything else at flee markets and i heard from the guy one last time but I leave that story for another time since this one got a little long.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
That's been my strategy for the past year. Last year I picked up an amazing lot from a guy- $2 each for everything, $30 for CIB consoles. Selling and trading from that haul has grown my collection enormously, let me make back what I spent, and enabled me to enjoy more success working with smaller lots.
Eventually they closed up shop, and I assume it's because the old guy finally gave up the ghost. I really wish I knew what happened to their unsold stock, the dreamer in me wants to believe it's in a storage cube somewhere waiting to be bid on as unclaimed property, but I doubt it. After they closed up, video games have been more and more scarce at our flea market. I later found Super Metroid and Rainbow Islands, but now it's all sports PS2 and 360 games, if anything. What makes it worse is when there are classic games, they're overpriced and kept out in the sun so long they're bleached and the labels are peeling off.
Contrary to most people in this thread, though, I still go out there every once in a great while. Half of collecting is the adventure, and I'm actually happy to not save much money (if any) for the convenience of being able to see first hand what I'm about to buy.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
Thats awesome but it doesnt seem like you value your time very highly.
The whole point i was trying to make is about how "flipping" isnt lucrative for me (which is actually off topic and IRRELEVANT) But if thats how you fund your collection then great.
My favorite thing would be asking the same douche bag re-seller-
"You still got that huh? Its been sitting here for 6 months. Maybe your price is too high."
But I stopped going to flea markets/ garage sales 5 years ago because there are waaaaayyyy too many "Try hard" re-sellers in my area.
Please, spend 4 hours garage-sailing so you can get that n64 lot with mario kart 64 and 4 garbage sports games for 20$. Maybe you can spend another 3 hours taking pics, parting out, listing and selling on ebay for about 60$. 40$ whole profit and it only took you 8 hours worth of work! But that 1 in a 1000 80$ rare game you found for a few bucks is sure worth it
It takes you 3 hours to list a few items on Ebay?
Hmm, just last night I put up a 17 game lot of Genesis games and including cleaning them, taking the pics, and researching value it took a grand total of half an hour.
Your point may be valid for newcomers to reselling but for people who have done it for years it does not take long at all.
I call bullshit, but whatever you completely missed my point. I wasnt refering to "lots", I was referring to parting things out so you can make maximum value. Sure some ebay selling super pros can do it fast, my point is the amount of time it takes flipping garbage lots isnt worth my time.
First off, no bullshit, and I did it between teaching my son to ride his bike and taking care of my 7 month old.
I got your point though, but even when I am parting items out for indivdual listings it does not take long. For people who regularly do it they tend to already have listing templates that at most might need a slight tweak. Most individual game listings take me under 10 minutes total to do everything, even including packing. Its really not a big deal.
As for it being worth it, well, I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game with money not 100% funded from reselling games. Doing this has supported my hobby for years and years and I must have saved THOUSANDS. Its worth it.
Thats awesome but it doesnt seem like you value your time very highly.
The whole point i was trying to make is about how "flipping" isnt lucrative for me (which is actually off topic and IRRELEVANT) But if thats how you fund your collection then great.
I do understand how the value of one's time can vary from person to person. Personally I actually enjoy the time I spend testing, cleaning, and listing games for resale on Ebay and other online selling apps, and I kind of take pride in the game preservation side of it and passing them on to new owners.
Time wise for me it doesn't take up a lot of my personal time. I'd say on average in a good week I maybe make 1-2 decent pick ups and spend maybe a couple hours total in that week dealing with the reselling side of things. But yeah YMMV. I can totally see how some people might hate the thought of spending any time doing this.
Also I never do any of this for lucrative reasons. I do at times turn a small profit some weeks, but the main purpose is always simply to further my collection without really spending any of my own money. For that reason alone its worth it to me.
Anyways sorry to drag the thread so far off topic. I will be hitting a couple recently opened seasonal flea markets this weekend for the first time this spring and am interested to see how things have changed from last year if at all.
We only have one flea market in my area and it's crawling with resellers. The thing that always bothered me is the resellers go there, set up shop and then before any customers come they hunt for games, paying people pennies for their games and then hiking up the price back at their stall...oh and all they leave us is the shitty kids and sports games no one wants.
There's no winning at a flea market...all the resellers beat you to any deals. The only stuff left is from sellers who know what they have and won't budge on their price so the resellers don't bother with them. And then no one wants to buy the game since they're priced at eBay pricing.
VERY rarely you might luck out by digging in the boxes/bins of a storage cleaner. Then again sometimes they want insane prices for their shitty condition items. Yeah I just dug out this filthy game and you want eBay prices for it...haha...oh fuck them.
The idea of a flea market appeals to me...lots of people and crap...it's like a large community sale but compacted into a smaller space so it's easier to go through stuff faster. Community sales are great since again lots of people...there's bound to be at least one person with games. But the distance between sales kills it. Not everyone in a community will do a sale so you might have to drive for a few minutes before you find something. That's what's great about flea markets...EVERYONE is selling stuff and it's just a matter of walking. So if I could beat the resellers...it would be perfect.
Please tell me this isn't Tulalip flea market you are talking about? I havent ever been but was thinking of it. Just wondering if I should even bother
Please tell me this isn't Tulalip flea market you are talking about? I havent ever been but was thinking of it. Just wondering if I should even bother
Tacoma one actually.
Please tell me this isn't Tulalip flea market you are talking about? I havent ever been but was thinking of it. Just wondering if I should even bother
Tacoma one actually.
Ok good to know. Im gonna assume the Tulalip one is the same gig, but hopefully not as bad? Gaaahh IDK
Nothing unique really stands out. Went to a flea market in Melbourne a few years ago and the guy wanted $100 bucks for a DK64 cart. The guy said it "sells for $120 online, but for you my friend I do $80". Yeah nah. these types are everywhere though!
You need to make sure everyone there knows who you are, and you're the guy who's looking for games and always has cash waiting for those who bring them. (You can always mention what you prefer as well, NES boxes, etc.) Not only that but you will evaluate what they bring and offer them MUCH more for rare stuff even if they are completely unaware what's actually rare. They will quicky stop selling to those people who show up at 3am looking to pay 5$ for certain games. Once you land that spicy lot of rare games, and pay the vendor well word will get around about what you do. The next thing you know vendors will be holding games back for you to look through first, and hope they bring something that will make your day and theirs.
On the other foot I've bought stuff from even the most overpriced resellers (People who have Sonic 2 CIB for 35$) when they have a random game you want that sits for too long that no one else wants I make an offer. You have to understand it's pretty unlikely they are actually getting a lot of those prices, and if you see the same games week after week at the same prices you can make an offer. Worst they could say is no, but best you get a decent deal on something rare and perhaps make a connection. The whole idea of asking online top dollar at a flea market is a flawed idea in the first place. (It's a flea market!)
Also make sure to visit as many game stores as possible in your hunt. I once asked this totally random game store which was very small, and had almost nothing if they had anything unusual in the back. They whipped out an E3 Starfox 64 controller and a Nintendo Power 100 controller out of the back. If I had never asked, I would have never found it! Make sure to ask every person at the flea market for games, even if they only are selling freshly baked muffins. You never know until you ask!
but i only ever find a couple of loose GB games here, mostly cheap ones nobody cares about...
but i sometimes pick these up anyway..... 4 euros a piece for a GB game in great condition is a win to me...
NES games, i sometimes see CIB's with horrible boxes and sunfading issues and numbers written on the boxes and or carts themselfs,
but every now and then i DO find an actual loose NES cart in great condition for a good price.....
for example i picked up a copy of Star Wars and The Bugs Bunny Blowout in great condition for like 5 euros a piece at a flea market..
you almost never see NES games at flea markets anymore..... not over here at least....
SNES games, i do find these a lot more, but always sunfaded sports games....
Back when flea markets and thrift stores weren't aware of these games value it was pretty good picking. Now every game is "rare" and the prices are all jacked. It's the way it goes I guess. I keep an eye out but I don't really go out of my way anymore since most of the shops that did offer games at great prices are long gone. Same goes with some websites I used to love visiting. They jacked all their prices up that it is hardly worth it anymore... it's a shame.
Nice avatar!