[Closed] Is it possible to make money buying and selling second hand bits?

What would you be adding to the second hand bits to justify your profiteering?
What type of guarantee would you be offering on the stripped down new bike bits?

I've stripped down one of my bikes and sold the bits on, i got more for it than I was offered for the complete bike. Bit of a pain at times re advertising certain parts again and again.

Had a few parts left over that I've either given away or binned. If you are selling on here you could be classed as a trader. I you do it on eBay you have to factor the fees etc..and of course there maybe tax issues depending how much money is involved.

I would do it again as a one off, doubt I could do it to " make" money tho.

Blimey, is don simon possessed by TJ?

I expect that if you buy a whole bike off here, there's a very good chance of the parts being worth more than the whole.

I wouldn't bother trying to buy individual bits to sell on unless they're very cheap.

You can make money out of it. There is a seller on eBay who seems to buy complete bikes, strips them and sells for parts.

I know that classifieds on here have some good deals quite often but buying cheap and then banging it on eBay is against the spirit of the classifieds as sometimes people here just want to help other bikers out. Some tried to sell on stuff on STW for more than they bought it earlier for from the forum but the pitchfork community here is quite efficient and spots it 🙂

Some will say that if the seller got the asking price then it's nobody's business what the buyer then does with it.

Consider that You would need to invest some cash first to buy either a full bike or something expensive as getting £3 extra on a set of shifters or something similar is not very profitable. Plus you might not sell everything etc etc. I just would not bother if I were You as the time taken off work to look after your kid will be spent on stripping parts, listing it, taking photos etc etc.

If you can always buy low and sell high it will work!

I reckon you'd be hard pushed to make a living out of it though, you'd need a very large throughput I reckon

There will be some times you make money, but I'd not rely on it as a source of income. There's always people selling bikes for a good price, but it's up to you to find them. I did it once with an Ellsworth Truth we part exchanged. Bought it for £800, sold it in bits for about £2000. Just got lucky that the guy wanted rid and sold it v cheap in the first place

Blimey, is don simon possessed by TJ?

What you're thinking about is do able, however it will be a steep learning curve, unless you already know a lot about bikes and bits.

I did it on feebay for 6 years and used all of the stuff I sold to learn how to check and also service different bike bits. Built up my tooling and experience.

If in the long term you're looking to be good at servicing and make some extra cash, it can be done, adrenalfuel and tingmax, both who I know from ebay, started out about 3 years after me.

They wanted to buy and sell good quantities of used parts and where new to the game, over their first winters, both where having problems with parts not shifting and losing out on money.

So I told them exactly what was happening and gave them some pointers on how to avoid it, still keep in touch with tingy, Niall was back then and still is a good guy. So is adrenalfuel but I haven't had much contact for a while.

There is a lot of hassle involved in doing it, but it will give you something to do in your spare time and you will have a ready supply of spare parts.

Good luck ❗

Logical questions, no?

Seems fairly obvious to me - it's basic arbitrage. If you see that as "profiteering" then you've got a problem with 90% of the businesses in existence.

I've broken motorcycles before and it is a pain in the arse listing loads and loads of items, answering questions, packing and posting. But it does make money, its more a question of how much and at what rate for your time.

I've a mate who scours fleabay for badly presented / photographed / described / unclean items and flogs them on at much higher prices just through being savy.

I bought a frame on here quite cheap, changed my mind and flooged it on ebay at a loss! Alan Sugar I am not!

kaesae - Member
I did it on feebay for 6 years and used all of the stuff I sold to learn how to check and also service different bike bits. [b]Built up my tooling[/b] and experience.

You certainly did that 🙂

Hell yes! Of course it's possible, you just need a source of cheap parts you can add value to to make money. That's the hard bit, a reliable source.

Some things I've made money on:
RS domains- bought for £75, serviced and sold for £155
85mm RS Recons - bought for £40, serviced and extended to 130mm sold £95
1993 Kona frameset - bought for £40, sold for £85
Mavic Crossland wheels -, bought for £30 with tyres, discs and XT cassette, sold for £70 and kept the cassette. Missed out on £15 because the tyres were perished.
(that's £220 profit right there)

Stuff like that....

I once just missed out on a full Inbred (legit) for £20!!!
I know people who make a lot more than me too.

FWIW it's more of a challenge and a game than the need to make profit. 🙁

Ohh, you won't do it unless you're a good mechanic either. Kaesae will tell you that too. You buy stuff that people just want rid of because they can't/won't/too rich to fix it for buttons...... Then you can add value to it. That's how it's done.

someone who now appears to be banned from here (freeform5spot?) was an obvious semi pro breaker despite his and his mates denials. I have no problem with it on ebay where its a more business-like environment snd there is PP protection, but it is against the spirit of a forum classifieds section and more of an abuse of the PP gift system. We all know gifting for payment is against their terms, but if youre approaching it as a business youre trying to avoid offering any form of warranty as well as cost.

PP's approach is commendable as he is adding value and effectively trading his time and knowledge, but I deliberately never bought from FF5S and his ilk as they have no knowledge on the usage and service history of the part so cant answer the sort of questions a buyer will want answering.

Theres a guy trading motorcycle parts on ebay who has been rumbled slightly and sounds like a right scumbag- apparently he buys parts and takes out a "not as described dispute" in order to get a partial refund to help his profit margin when he turns around and re-sells the part on ebay. Slowly burning his own market as ebay have done nothing, I'd hate to see something similar with cycle parts.

Kaesae realised it was easier to sell re-greased bearings than stolen frames*

(*Joke; his introduction to STW was in response to a "isnt this suspicious" thread as someone had seen him listing several at once)

There are folk on STW classifieds already doing this and they're not listing themselves as "Trade" either.

of course you can play folk at their own game

i once sold a frame to a known trader

it appeared on ebay with a bin of double what he paid - minus shock ....

shock appeared also for double what he paid on a bin

both eventually sold for significantly less than what he paid

i laughed smugly - i just wanted the space

Theres usually something out there that people don't know how to fix.
Brakes with new goodridge hoses that have just needed bleeding.

druidh - Member
There are folk on STW classifieds already doing this and they're not listing themselves as "Trade" either.

Food for thought people, thankyou for your honesty.

I hadn't even considered the morals of making money on the classified, I'd just assumed that things have a value and that's what they are worth on the day to the right person.

There is another reason for this idea too. I am hopelessly addicted to scouring the classifieds. Recently I have been buying parts for friends (with their cash) to help get them out riding again. It beats spending my own money.

Maybe buying and selling would help scratch that itch....

I hadn't even considered the morals of making money on the classified, I'd just assumed that things have a value and that's what they are worth on the day to the right person.

I rarely buy for profit off the classifieds, if ever. Nothing I mentioned above came off there and only 2 of those were sold on there. Why? The average STW user knows EXACTLY what stuff is worth, so big bargains are rare. And selling on eBay always makesore money, but can be more hassle. And then there's always the charges which are silly these days. I certainly have bought stuff off here recently I could make money on, but I bought it to USE!!! 🙂

There's quite a strong seasonality to the bike market in the UK so a tired looking bike bought in the wet autumn or somebody's post christmas clearout will be worth more in nice cleaned up parts on a warm spring day. If you have the space to do this it might work out for you.

And if you make money trading in bits, you will be declaring it for tax, won't you?

....and let the useless tossers that run the country piss even more money up the wall? **** that!

In a word no.
STW is a source of cheapish bits - rarely a bargain.
and I can second the post christmas bargain theory as best time to buy.

There's also the old adage 'if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it..' 🙂

I've had one bargain on the STW forums and it's not going anywhere. Usually I just treat it as a source for reliably described second hand parts rather than the coin toss you get elsewhere.

sounds like you'll be doing more work than if you continued with your extra hours.

You could probably make a bit of money but not enough to make it worth while, especially with all the faff involved with splitting up a bike, cleaning all the parts and then posting them all out individually.

A better money maker would be to buy knackered high end bike parts like frames and forks. Clean them up a bit and sell them on "as new". Obviously theres the moral side to this, but if your desperate for cash....

There's also the old adage 'if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it..'

A lad i know does this, resprays frames, fixes broken mechs etc then sells them on ebay. makes a bit of money, but its definitely a hobby more than a living in his eyes

mugboo I am a compulsive classified scourer (helped by being off sick with broken arm 🙄 ) but to get the real bargains on here you have to be on it constantly. Look at Scud's clearout thread, lots of decent priced stuff (Joplin for £40?!) and most of it sold or at least had dibs within minutes. I think theres less seasonality on here as regulars know the price/value of an item, and are reading classifieds in the depths of winter with a view to a spring build, an example would be Hope XC hubbed wheels which have a default price of £100. Occasionally someone will list some at significantly more and possibly even get some interest but be it december or july they seem to go for ~£100. Same goes for 456 frames, I sold one in january for £100 which is the going rate.

I spat out my coffee when someone was selling some KCNC X7 brakes for £150, there £395 new and have only been out on the market 6 months or so, instantly snapped up. Like MC says, you'd have to be scouring the ads constantly to get the real bargains.
One of my climbing pals does it on ebay with outdoors gear, buying badly advertised stuff and re-advertising it properly. It's just a side hobby tho and he doesn't make that much on it overall.

Demand & Supply ... 🙄