This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, what's up? Welcome to a new month. What a month April was. I mean, what can you say about April? I don't know, you tell me, but here we are in May.
So that's good at least. May 1st, episode 12, 17. So glad you're out there today, by the way. Thank you so much. I make this show for people like you who are busy, but yet trying to figure out what they can do to get ahead.
To get ahead, to protect themselves, to build security, make extra money, pay off debt, all that good stuff. And everything we do here really is for our listeners. So again, thank you. I've got two episodes for you. One today and tomorrow from listeners who are considering different ideas.
And today's is somebody thinking about buying and reselling unused gift cards. It sounds like an interesting idea, but he's wondering if he's missing something obvious. By the way, something you can do to support small businesses during a difficult time is to purchase gift cards. This helps them out with cash flow. One of the main reasons why some of them go out of business.
So just a little tip that can be good for you and good for them. Just don't be like me and buy gift cards, but then forget to use them. I think a lot of people do that. But if you're gonna buy a gift card, make sure you have a use for it. Or maybe you just need to sell them to this guy.
Who knows? Maybe that's what I need to do. All right, is reselling gift cards a viable idea? [Music]
Hey, Chris, this is Nick from St. Louis.
I recently found your show on Spotify. I have an idea to go door to door buying unused gift cards and then reselling them. At first I was thinking of making this as a school fundraiser for my son, but now I'm thinking that it could be more. What do you think? Am I missing something obvious?
Thanks and keep up the great work. [Music]
Hey, Nick, what's up? Thank you for listening in St. Louis. Okay, so is reselling gift cards a viable idea?
Are you missing something obvious? First question I think it is at least potentially a viable idea. And you also don't have to do it door to door. If you think about going door to door virtually or even in your own neighborhood, but using the Nextdoor app or something similar, you could probably find a lot of people with gift cards that are just sitting around in a drawer. Like I said, I'm guilty of that.
If somebody wanted to buy them for, I don't know, 80% of the value or something, it would probably be a good idea for me to sell them. So I think the main thing you need to consider here is both the supply side and the demand side, since this is basically an arbitrage play. Like are you buying locally to sell online? Are you buying online to sell locally? Do you feel confident that you can find enough sellers and buyers to make it worthwhile?
And I don't know the answer to that offhand, but whatever it is, I think it is a clue to whether this is a viable project or not. Even so, the cost of trying this out is very low. So in these situations, if the cost of trying it out is low, you don't have a lot of other ideas right now, why not try it? And if it doesn't work out, then worst case scenario, you have some extra gift cards. That's what I think, let us know how it goes.
Listeners, if you've got a question, sodusleschool.com/questions. We are featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners all across the planet who are launching projects. I'm so excited to see what people are doing, getting really creative, doing all kinds of interesting things. Let me know what you're up to so I can pass it on. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Sidusleschool." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
