Here are 3 recent episodes:

I had one recent situation regarding a high end touring bike. The buyer wanted new tires added. I suggested a token deposit, which we agreed upon was $25, which would cover the out of pocket cost of 1 tire. Anyway, the buyer flaked, apologized, and I got to keep the $25.

Recently, a neighbor's inlaw came by with a newer Cannondale Quick 4 and wanted to lean forward less to reach the bars, as he was approaching 70. I suggested $50 in a stem extender and adjustable stem, and $30 to install. Transaction went off without a hitch.

I now have a buyer who needs a 60cm frame converted to Northroads bar setup. It's a hard to find size, but something I feel is minimal risk, as the spouse just bought a bike from me.

I would not risk my capital on a build to order unless the bike is fungible in case the buyer flakes. Also, I would not order specialty parts unless paid for in advance. Moving forward, I would agree on a budget in advance for bike acquisition + parts + labor/entrepreneurial profit. The buyer should have no problem with a 50% deposit if they're honorable.

I keep in touch with a couple of local swap/flip people and we contact each other as to what's available in the inventory. Otherwise, it becomes too time consuming to do all the footwork.

Around where I live, the way to make money flipping bikes seems to be thus:

1) Buy used bike with good components

2) Strip components, and turn into a sort of fixed-gear bike. Sell de-contented bike for more than you paid for the complete bike.

3) Sell components on EBay.

I have built several bikes to customer's specifications, however; the bikes built were ones that I had on hand, at the time. I have never gone looking for something special for someone else.

Bill's Torpado...

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...lSideRight.jpg

Jenny's Miele...

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...ull_Side_1.jpg

Somebody's Gitane GT...

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...ull_Side_2.jpg

Chuck's Peugeot...

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...ull_Side_2.jpg

Abbey's Steve Bauer...

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...Full_TQF_3.jpg

What I have found, when building to a customer's specification, is that I get a lot more money than if I were to build the bike and then hope to find a customer.

The one thing that worries me is legal issues. If you build for someone else, and they get hurt on your build, are you responsible? My guess would be yes, unless you can prove Due Dilligence regarding build and test procedures. Something we have always been concerned about at Bicycles for Humanity, where we have a triple check of each bicycle we build.

Referrals - Selling Offline is More Satisfying
 

With summer about half over :(, I am experiencing my best sales week in a while, all without the aid of craigslist.

• Thanks to a referral here from @mstateglfr, I sold a Trek hybrid. Now, the woman's husband wants a road bike with a Northroads bar conversion.
• Thanks to a just retired friend who referred me to his nephew, I sold the nephew a Trek 311 and his friend a Miyata mixte. Additionally there are two pending deals awaiting completion from more of nephews friends, both bikes out of my personal stable.
• Thanks to my next door neighbor, I sold his expecting sister-in-law a tall Miyata urban MTB. Also my neighbor's parents need a pair of bikes to leave at their vacation home. Ideally they want cruisers, but the home is in a hilly region and they're tall for a cruiser, so hopefully they'll be happy with MTBs.

So, four sales completed and five in process. It's nice to know one's work is appreciated and worthy of referral and also to make progress towards having an accessible garage!

Go-oddjob!

In my opinion, once you begin to build bikes 'to order' you become a dealer not a hobbyist.

I've never, not one time, built a bike to order, Not a single person who's bought a bike from me knew I 'flipped'. As far as they were concerned I was selling a privately owned bike. No different than if it were a garage sale.

Once you start offering warranties, or doing repair work or partaking in similar activities you better have the insurance and required city permits to a operate business. And be prepared to file income taxes on you business.

What is the best way to sell complete bikes when you have to ship them? I am aware of bikeflights and whatnot but what is the best way to get a bike ready for shipping, to pack it up yourself or to have a bike shop do it for you, and obviosuly have to pay for it. Any feedback is welcome, thanks guys!

I've yet to box one up but that's what I will do when I have to ship my first one. My LBS wants $50 which felt pricey to me. They'll give me a box for free.

I've had several shipped to me and you'll want to wrap everything well and put spacers between the fork and frame drops. I've seen these spacers range from actual plastic pieces made for shipping bikes to paper towel rolls cut to size and stuffed with cardboard.

You'll also want to wrap covering around axles, cranks, bar ends and anything else that might end up poking through the box during handling.

This is my go to reference for packing. Now with bikeflights.com if I ship a bike to myself when I travel I might put the wheels in a separate wheel box. It makes my packing the frame and parts simpler and quicker and end up only paying a little more for less hassle.

$50 is cheap for packing and likely means it won't be very well packed. Never assume someone who knows how to fix a bike knows how to pack one. And if it gets damaged in transit, the claim will be against YOU, not the bike shop. Oh yeah, and as far as Fed Ex and UPS insurance, nearly worthless as their position on any damage is always the same "poorly packed". And most of the time, they are right!

Secondly, part of the art of packing is cutting down the box. Most standard bike boxes are just over the limit where Fed Ex, UPS and USPS all double their rates. Go figure! So the box needs to be made smaller. For just a frame set, it needs to be made A LOT smaller. No $50 bike shop packing job is going to include optimizing and reducing box size.

I packed and shipped a complete 57cm bike two weeks ago. Got the box down to 111 inches. Cost me $32 to ship to NYC including signature on delivery and delivery to a residence (additional charges). Box from the bike shop measured out to be 135 inches. Limit where stuff gets crazy expensive? 132 inches (girth plus length). Somewhat interesting with bike flights, intermediate measurements cost more. So a 120 inch box costs more than 110, even though both are over the 108 limit and well under the 132 inch limit. Getting the box smaller than 111 inches would have taken removing the chain rings.

BTW, sell something on eBay where the total is $250 or more without signature required = eBay rules in favor of the buyer if they claim they did not get the item. Delivery confirmation isn't enough! Isn't eBay wonderful....

Took me 3 hours to pack, almost half of that time was spent cutting and refolding the box. Shops around here charge $75 an hour for labor. So lets see, 3 hours at $75 per hour = $ 225. $50 pack =~ 40 minute packing job. If you can carefully pack a bike in 40 minutes, my hat's off to you!!! And then you have the issue of supplies. I used $10 in supplies to pack the bike as well.

I have noted the best way to do this buy a bike at a very good price. Strip it completely down and sell the components.

For some reason, and I'm not quite sure why, you can almost double/triple your money doing this. Buying and fixing up bikes seems to be much harder with less margin.

I personally will not strip a bike down. It just isn't in me to take a perfectly good old vintage bike and turn it into a pile of sales receipts. :foo:

While this is admirable, next time you are looking for that one part to complete a restoration, without someone stripping a bike down, those parts would not exist (except the NOS ones, that tend to sell for a lot of money). Every used part for sale out there came off a bike.......

For every happy person with proceeds from a part sale, there is another happy person out there that just bought that one part they needed, putting a bike back on the road.

Much different than cars, parts from one brand bike can be completely suitable and original equipment, for another bike. None of the parts I used to finish my 1974 Paramount came off Paramounts. They came off of other bikes I found.

this is a good thread

Thinking about entering the "Business"
 

Now that I'm retired, I'm playing around with different ways to keep me busy. The idea of flipping a bike here and there has caught my attention. Being retired, my time is not money. I can spend a week prepping a bike and not feel that I'm taking too long to get it ready for sale. I am not doing it for the money either. If I was to make a couple of bucks or break even, I would be satisfied.

Although my repair experience isn't probably as extensive as some of you... I do have enough practical experience to feel qualified to jump in without feeling over my head. I am able to determine if a bike is salvageable, evaluate the components and check for any structural flaws. And, since I'm doing this as a "hobby" in retirement, I have the time to wait for the next "deal" rather than purchasing a "close enough" project. I won't be jumping in to anything that doesn't meet my criteria. Everything I do will be sourced and sold locally (Los Angles / Orange County) through CL.

Although I will put some time aside to read through all 19 pages of this thread... I do have a couple of up front questions regarding the sourcing of various parts. It seems to me that a majority of what I currently see are going to require new tubes, tires and cabling. Are you re-purposing these parts? Are you buying in bulk somewhere? With that said, what do you do when you need something like tires no matter what? It seems like even the lowest cost new tire options are going to kick up the repair bill considerably.

I know there is more to flipping than what I just covered. I understand the market I'm selling in etc. I'm just wondering how you make it work for you?

I'm retired and have been actively doing what you are describing for almost ten years now. I buy some stuff in bulk while on sale- cables, housing, tires and tubes- and other parts and pieces as I find them in good condition and at a good price. I also use only premium stuff and work on a narrow range of bikes with which I'm intimately familiar. So everything I sell has new premium Shimano stainless cables, Jagwire housing, mid level tires, tubes and chain, with a matching nice or new saddle and new bar tape (I happen to like the gel stuff sold by Nashbar and Abaxo on eBay). Many of them are repainted or powder coated. Finding the right frame and mating it with the right group can take a year. Or more.

It's not a money making thing. Even though I sell the end products for a price significantly higher than others who refurbish and flip, it's either break even or lose $50-100 per bike. But that's why they call it a hobby, not a business.

It helps if you have a relationship with a LBS or a co-op when it comes to parts. I'm on good terms with the LBS about 3 mi. away, a family run shop. I do nice things for them, often finding them used bikes that I don't deal with (exercisers, tandems and balloon tire bikes), and they do nice things for me, selling me new parts and consumables at a considerable discount. I'll buy most of my consumables online somewhere else, but if I have a specific need for a project, I'll go see what they have. I don't try to monopolize the relationship with the LBS and go nuts buying there, it's only an item or two at a time. Last week it was three take-off new bike saddles for $5 apiece, because buying new saddles online is generally too expensive for rebuilds.

I've been at this for awhile, and I have a fairly extensive store of parts that serves as a stockpile for rebuilds as well as rolling stock for bike swaps. I've come to find that parts sell much better at swaps than complete bikes. The only times bikes seem to sell well at swaps is when: 1. You're pricing them dirt cheap compared to FMV, or 2. They're rare, unusual or not typically seen elsewhere.

It is quite possible to make decent money doing this, but the learning curve never stops. Being able to do a quick assessment of any used bike is critical. If you don't, what happens is that something you thought would be a trivial issue turns out to be a multi-hour nightmare with no end in sight. Helps to know which drivetrain parts work together and which don't.

It also helps to really know your local market, what it will or won't support, and what FMV is for your area (as opposed to anywhere else), because unless you're shipping all your bikes, you've got to know what sells locally and why. Otherwise you wind up selling your bikes for pretty much what you have in them, and that doesn't further your cause unless you are a non-profit.

1. In general I budget ~$50 per flip for disposables. $100 bike + $50 disposables + $100 min mandatory profit = $250 selling price. You mileage may vary on the min mandatory profit.

1a. I've found its much more productive to shoot for higher minimum mandatory profits. 1 bike X $100 = $100 profit. 5 bikes X $20 = $100 profit = a big hassle.

1b. Pick a profit and work backwards. If your market dictates a particular style of bike will only sell for $200 and you'd like to clear $50 then $200 - $50 disposable - $50 profit = maximum buy price of $100

Of course all of this will depend on the quality of you flips...

2. Quick flip. Do nothing. Find a bargain and flip it without doing anything to it. I've seen guys literal do nothing...nothing. No cleaning, no adjusting no nothing.

2a. Minor cleanup. Invest the absolute minimum to get thing working. Flat tire? Fix the tire. Broken cable? Fix the cable. Bare minimum.

2b. Basic refresh. New tires, tubes, cables, bar tape as needed. Lube and adjust.

2c. Complete rebuild. Tear down to bare frame and fork, re-grease all bearings. Nothing is over looked.

What you choose to do with #2 depends on your market. 90% of people go care about 2c but if your bored or retired and have nothing else to do why not? What are going to do when you pull a fork out and the bottom race is brinneled? You going to leave it or replace it? Same with BB's and hubs. What if a cone is bad?


How do I make it work? Simple. Tampa's flip market sucks. It horrible. I've moved upscale. My minimum profit on a bike is $250, If I cant make $250 I don't buy it. That being said, the entire market, nationwide is very depressed as compared to 3 years ago. The last 3 or 4 bikes I've bought have been flipped for essentially $0 profit. These bikes were not low class....'83 Cannondale ST500 cost me $150, '95 Klein Pinnacle $350, '86 Paramount $200 so maybe $850 all in with parts.

Parts...
1. Order everything. Order in bulk.

2. Stick to one or 2 sizes. 700c, 27" 650J, 24.5, 20". How many different sizes of tires do you want to keep on hand? Stick to one or two.

3. Cables.. Jagwire black tends to be reasonable. Stainless steel inner wires only. Black bar tape only.

Every so often you'll buy a bike that doesn't work out. That's a 'parts' bike. Scavenge everything off it.

There's more....tired of typing.

As usual, Jim is the master in this regard. I've taken a lot of his advice. Like Jim, I have moved from the $100 MJ rule to upscale with a higher minimum. Upscale bikes tend to cost more, so you need an adequate bike fund to cover initial purchase price. I would rather pay $400 for a bike I might be able to make $300 on, than $40 each for ten bikes that I might make $50 each on. It takes ten times as much time, ten times the consumables, ten times dealing with tire kickers, ten times the room, ten times as many surprises (problems), etc.

One challenge is I still have left over stuff from when my rules were more lax. Every week I walk through the mess, grab a bike or two, plus parts, and take them to the co op.

I wish I had stuck with two tire sizes. I have way too many, lots of sizes, piles of tires right now. I'll probably donate a lot of them to the co-op.

On bar tape, I go with several colors, as it can really make a bike "pop" and the cost if you order in bulk is low.

+10 On the bikes that are mistakes, I either part out to recoup my mistake or just donate to the co-op. I usually break even on those, but get zero for my time. I also part out bikes on purpose that were not mistakes, but came to me incomplete, or frankenbikes with a weird mix of mismatched components, and so on.

Anymore, a handful of high end bikes plus a ton of parts, thats what I am selling. I've come across some BMX stuff lately. Those parts garner incredible prices.


You really, really, really, need to know valuations on bikes in your market. When you see a deal, there is no time to post: "hey is this one a good deal?" You need to KNOW. A $50 bike may be a bust, and a $500 bike may be a great deal. Like any flipping: guitars, houses, cars, motorcycles, campers, and yes, bicycles; the person with the most knowledge wins. There is a flipper in my area that does not know a good bike from a dud. He gets all of his bikes cheap, most are dogs, some aren't. He sells everything for $75 a bike. I've seen him trying to get $75 for a $25 bike, and I've seen him sell a Chicago Paramount for $75. Why he hasn't spent the time to LEARN is beyond me. But he is wasting a lot of time on turds, and missing out on some awesome scores by selling the good stuff too cheap.

I am retired as well. Its a good hobby, and between volunteering at the co-op, chasing after a bike deal, working on bikes, and posting vintage bike stuff on Facebook, its been a nice activity. And I can turn it up and dial it back whenever I want.

I appreciate everyone's input.

From what I understand and have observed, despite it’s size, LA is a weak vintage bike market so be cautious.

My market must be different than Jim & Bill's. Right now, I have a stockpile of "nice" bikes (in my area, anything over $300 is a nice bike), and I'm almost sold out of bikes less than $200.

So for me, it's the opposite situation. I'm becoming leery of buying bikes that I sell for >$300 because in this area, that seems to be the price point where people think that buying a new bike is preferable to a $300 used one. Keep in mind that I don't sell on ebay or elsewhere online, so I'm pretty much confined to the dictates of my local market.

One area where I have made inroads is in vehicle racks. I live not too far from Saris, and they are quite popular here, especially the Bones model. I find them relatively cheap ($25-40) and resell for $85 on the 3-bike model with free installation included. That free installation really seems to do the trick as far as selling them, as I've sold at least a dozen this year.

Thank you for the input. I've been going through CL to try and find out exactly what the market here is like. I live on the border of Orange and Los Angeles counties so I have a fairly large local area to buy and sell in. I'm also trying to set some parameters as to what I'll actually do for a deal. One of them is to never drive more than 15 miles to look at and/or buy a bike.

I'm definitely not going to try and work within the vintage market. I'd like to try my hand in a market where the max price would be between $200 and $300 (sell). I'm always open you all of your opinions but for now I'm looking for the deals where someone is selling a Fitness or medium range road bike for <$100 and does not know what they have. Something that with a little elbow grease and a tire or two could be sold for $200 - $250. What appeals to me is to try and be the first person to contact and buy the bike before anyone else gets to it or the seller realizes they are really low-balling their ask price. I'm looking for that subset of sellers who may be in an affluent area and don't really care what they get for the bike, they just want it out of the garage.

What do you think about the above buy/sell model. Again, I'm not in this for the money as I am for the hobby. As long as I make some money I'll be happy.

I'm not looking to do 1,2 or 3 deals a week. I'd like to find the right bike, clean it up and put it up for sale.

Goodwill in Santa Ana has good deals/auctions. Several beginning bikers have been referred their and got bargains.

Also, ebay sales with local pickup only in your area can be a good source as well.