This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Well, it is a big day over here, episode 24, 25 of Side Hustle School, but also coincides with the 22nd of August, 2023 and the publication date of Gonzo Capitalism. This is my brand new book, "How to Make Money in an Economy That Hates You." Of course, you'll hear more about it on other episodes and perhaps online if we're connected online somewhere or maybe on somebody else's podcast. I just wanna say for now, I wrote this book for you and I hope you enjoy it. I hope you pick up a copy, of course, wherever books are sold, whatever's good for you. We've got digital versions, audio version.
And one of the best things you can do to support an author is to actually buy the book. So yeah, if that works for you, that'd be awesome. And of course the podcast continues, which we're gonna focus on here, more of the podcast than the book. The podcast today, can I resell only Apple products? Okay, I love to look at your ideas, your business ideas, your small businesses, your side hustles, whatever you're trying to build.
Have you ever wondered if narrowing your focus in the reselling game could actually be a key to success? So in today's episode, we're gonna hear from a reseller who wants to sell only Apple products. His name is Leo. He wants to know, is this a good idea? Or perhaps, is it the right idea?
That is in fact, an even better question because there are lots of good ideas out there. You don't have a lot of time. You wanna find the right idea for you right now. That is far more important. So let's kind of look into it a little bit.
What do I think about focusing on selling only Apple products as a reseller? His detailed question, my detailed answer, but all in a short action packed episode, it's coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hello there, I'm Leo from Corvallis, Oregon. I've been dabbling in the buy and sell game for a while, frequenting local flea markets and even some online platforms. However, I'm thinking of narrowing down my focus to just Apple products.
I've noticed they hold value pretty well and there's a consistent demand for them, whether they're brand new, gently used, or even refurbished. Can I make a viable side hustle out of reselling only Apple products like phones and laptops? What are the downsides to this approach? [Music]
Hey Leo, thanks for being out there. Let's look at this question.
Now I'm gonna do it in kind of a pros and cons format. I don't always like making a pros and cons list. I think sometimes you can do better than that. Sometimes you can make a list of the pros and cons and still not really know what to do with any particular decision. So there's some other analytical tools that I've tried to teach from time to time.
But that said, for a question like this, it can be helpful to say, okay, what's good about this idea? What's bad about it? At least potentially. And then that might kind of lead to the best decision. And the short version is here, I think it can definitely work.
You just wanna be aware of a couple of things. So what works well? Well, Apple products have a pretty high resell value. They tend to hold their value well. There's also a passionate user base.
There's a huge user base, right? Plenty of people wanting to buy iPhones and MacBooks and iPads and such. So that's good. It's also a higher end market. I mean, if you're buying iPhones from several versions ago, a little bit less so.
But still, the average iPhone, even an older iPhone, is gonna be a lot more expensive than an average Android phone. And that's important when you're reselling product because you're gonna need to move a lot of products to make a good profit. If you have like a $5 item, even if your profit margin is like 300%, well, then you have a high margin, but your bottom line is not so great. So those are the good things. What could be the challenges?
Well, one potential downside is the high upfront cost associated with purchasing products. Like you need to build your inventory. So, I don't know what kind of investment you wanna make in the inventory, but you probably cannot stock 50 MacBooks like all of a sudden, or maybe even 50 phones, maybe even 10. That could be a big outlay. Also, the market is pretty competitive.
There are a lot of people who are reselling Apple products for this very reason because there's demand, because they're higher end and so on. So, you've got a lot of other resellers out there. It's definitely not going to be a niche market in the sense of like, you're one of only a few people doing it. Not only that, you also wanna think about Apple's product cycle. Like when new stuff gets announced, kind of rapidly shifts the market value of the older stuff, the older models, right?
Of phones, laptops, iPads, whatever else Apple happens to be making in the years to come. And this can also work in your favor if you're able to predict demand, but that's a little bit tricky. It's also risky in terms of that initial investment, like we mentioned. So, all these factors mean that you need to understand the market pretty well. I think it's good to experiment a bit.
Definitely buy a couple of laptops or a couple of phones, try reselling them, see what you like about it, see what's challenging, try to streamline the process, identify the models that you're looking for. Like over time, if you resell the same thing, you're gonna have a good idea of how quickly it will take to resell it, what kind of profit margin you can experience. And then you'll be able to decide, okay, is this the right thing or not? So in conclusion, it is definitely feasible to do this and specialize, and it could have some advantages as well, but it's gonna require some initial investment, and you do want to stay on top of it just to make sure you understand this market 'cause it's changing so quickly, and it's a little bit higher risk because of the cost. I think that covers it.
Leo, I wish you the best. Listeners, I wish you the best. I'm excited to see many of you starting tonight in Phoenix and going for 16 cities at least, hopefully some more as we add on throughout the tour. You can always follow me at chrisguillebeau.com/tour. I'll be posting on social media as well, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
That's for the podcast. And of course, new episode coming out tomorrow. Every single day, no days off. Thanks for listening. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
