Bike Flipping 101

[javaride]

Saw the "Hopalong" on ebay, assuming (hate to use that word!), thats where you saw it? What a cool old ride!! Definetly something to add to the collection if you have one . . . and can afford it?! As for your suggestion on "flipping instructions and guidelines", great idea! In other words, a guide to know when to say when!

[noglider]

I can't believe it took me this long to discover this thread. Well, better late than never.

I'm still scared to buy high end bikes to flip them. The profit may be higher, but so is the risk.

And I have no idea how many buyers there are around here. I have people asking me about bikes for errands and fitness. Fitness, as in, I haven't ridden in a long time and want to get back to it (and they cruise at 10mph).

[wrk101]

I can't believe it took me this long to discover this thread. Well, better late than never.

I'm still scared to buy high end bikes to flip them. The profit may be higher, but so is the risk.

And I have no idea how many buyers there are around here. I have people asking me about bikes for errands and fitness. Fitness, as in, I haven't ridden in a long time and want to get back to it (and they cruise at 10mph).

In my market, most buyers out there are looking for what I would call a recreational bike: a road bike for fitness. About half of the bikes I have sold have gone to beginning triathletes. They tend to look for something decent in the $150 to $250 range.

Once you get over about the $350 mark, local buyers get really scarce.

The thing I really like about a higher end bike is the opportunity to part it out. Sometimes you can make a lot more on a $250 part out, than you can the $25 diamond in the rough. But at least in my area, it is hard to find the better bikes. Pretty much everything I find is mid level or lower. I usually avoid MTBs and hybrids, there just isn't much interest in them. Road/racing bikes tend to sell year round in this area, MTBs don't sell til riding season is going strong (they tend to sell to the budget minded recreational rider). For a bike to ride on a budget, IMHO, you can't beat a good rigid frame mountain bike.

I also occasionally pick up modern bikes if the price is right.

+1 One thing I like about lower cost bikes is that the risk is much lower. I have a lot less tied up in a lower end bike. The upside is also limited.

And the best single flip I had last year was not a bike, it was a set of triathlon wheels that I picked up at a garage sale.

[Gthoro]

Many of the flipper bikes I bring in have crusty, shredded saddles. Therefore, I need to stock up on saddles. Local thrift stores usually give an ample supply of saddles, but most of them are printed with "Next," "Huffy," or some other undesirable generic brand. Instead of passing these up, buy them! Using a dab of the product "Goof Off" on a paper towel, will wipe off that generic brand name and give you a cheap saddle to use on a flip.

[miamijim]

Many of the flipper bikes I bring in have crusty, shredded saddles. Therefore, I need to stock up on saddles. Local thrift stores usually give an ample supply of saddles, but most of them are printed with "Next," "Huffy," or some other undesirable generic brand. Instead of passing these up, buy them! Using a dab of the product "Goof Off" on a paper towel, will wipe off that generic brand name and give you a cheap saddle to use on a flip.

Yep. I use permanent black markers.

[noglider]

I got a seat cover from Niagara for $2. It looks good! I plan to buy more. It hides the chips ripped out of the edge of the seats.

[wrk101]

I pick up good seats at thrift stores and garage sales. The most I have paid is $2. Its funny that usually the thrift store bikes have torn up seats, but then they have good seats for sale elsewhere in the store. I also occasionally buy a crappy donor: Roadmaster or Huffy for example, super cheap. I bought a Huffy yesterday for $2.75. Had a nice yellow platform seat, yellow grips, and a few other parts worth saving.

[TonyS]

Thought I'd ask a question about this... I've just started flipping Walmart bikes (flipped my first two this weekend! $65 profit!) because I want to get more people out and riding. So I check CL for walmart bikes for $15 or less (which means the tires are flat, the seat might possibly be torn, and they want it gone) and I air up the tires (usually the tubes are still good!) and adjust everything, install new cables as necessary, a new seat if tears, and I haven't repacked bearings yet because if the bearings seem bad I don't buy the bike. There's a booth at a local flea market that has all kinds of parts for Walmart bikes, so I get parts there on occasion, and it keeps the cost down. So far new tubes and cables have come from Walmart. How appropriate...

Anyway, right now I have 4 in the garage that all would be great bikes except the wheels are shot. I'm not that great at truing wheels, but if I get better at it, these bikes could live again... and help get some family out on the greenways that otherwise wouldn't have been. I've got two ladies lined up right now waiting for bikes as soon as I can get 'em built... more call every week or so.

Anyway, so far I've bought in the neighborhood of FREE - $10, and sold for about $45 each (going price for a Walmart bike around here). I tell everyone to come back to me if they need work done, but that it's a walmart bike so it will quit working eventually... but for $45, they'll just buy a new one when that happens.

I'm curious if anyone else in here specializes in the "It has 2 wheels, 2 brakes, a chain, and it rolls." dirt cheap end of things? If so, I'd love some tips...

[noglider]

I don't like those bikes, and I can't recommend them for anyone. Most of the time, they work so poorly and resist proper repair and setup. However, I do specialize in bikes slightly higher than those. I like the bottom of the line bike-shop bikes. Bike-shop bikes are made to last a lifetime. I'm talking about things like Peugeot UO-8's and the like. Actually, I prefer bikes with aluminum rims, but I'm not above selling a bike with steel rims.

You can make a lot more money selling my type of bike.

And as miamijim says, he prefers much higher end bikes than that. I will probably end up moving to that type of bike, but I'm not knowledgeable enough yet. I was out of the marketplace for several years and need to learn more before I go there.

I sell my bikes for between $125 and $260. That range represents a range in quality. My profit margin ranges from $50 to about $240. I try to keep it above $100 per bike. And I honestly feel that these are good, utilitarian bikes that give the maximum number of miles per dollar. Walmart bikes cost much less but provide fewer trouble free miles.

[TonyS]

Well, see that was my opinion too, until I got stuck riding a walmart bike for 3 years... and never had a single problem with it (despite riding it in the rain, leaving it outdoors 24/7, and never doing a single bit of maintenance to it except for changing tubes) until I was riding the Katy Trail, and the cable snapped to the FD. We took it to the bike shop, and he replaced the cable, but in doing so the shifter for the FD stopped working as well. I finished out the last two days of the trip on what was then effectively a 7 speed bicycle, and finally retired the beast after 3 years of service to me, and who knows how many to the person who sold it to me at the garage sale.

The thing that separates that type of bike from bike shop bikes is that for every bike shop bike on CL, there are 40 walmart bikes. This means that there's plenty of opportunity to flip things QUICKLY, and I like that. So for right now, I'm happy selling these things if I can get them into a condition that I would ride them in if my Trek were to be stolen.

You're probably right that I could make a lot more money moving up the food chain, but so far I've sold 2, made about $30 profit on each one, and was given two yesterday, so now I have 4 sitting in the hopper waiting to be fixed. The benefit here is that if I wanted to, I could with very little extra effort buy one and sell one per day (assuming an hour per night spent fixing one and it's ready to go). And $30 per day isn't so bad. I'm not gonna put that much time into it because my time is more valuable elsewhere, but it seems like a decent way to make a little extra dough, given that I have VERY little money to work with.

I'll probably upgrade to your league once I get $1000 together from my league (and I can finally make Dave Ramsey proud).

[noglider]

I don't mean to discourage you! Go right ahead. Perhaps my standards are too high. I have tried for long times getting the brakes to work as I want. Some wheels can't be trued well enough -- for me. And so on. Maybe you haven't seen the trashed bikes I've seen. There's no doubt that getting them to work properly takes more time than getting bike-shop bikes to work as well. And the end result is certainly no better.

But if you can move several quickly, and if you're really sending out bikes that are road-worth and safe, then you're serving yourself and your customers well.

[curbtender]

Hey Tony, exactly right. The time to fix them and sell them will burn you out. They are great learning tools, though. I've donated them in the past and keep a pile for donor parts. The good thing is that once you've got a reputation as the bike guy, better bikes start finding thier way to you. Good luck.

[redxj]

The only thing the dept. store bikes are good for is scrap metal. I will pull a few parts off one if needed, but I have never bought one or ever plan to even for parts. Rule #1 of bike flipping is make at least $100 profit. If you don't you should not have bought it in the first place.

[wrk101]

<<<SNIP>>>
The thing that separates that type of bike from bike shop bikes is that for every bike shop bike on CL, there are 40 walmart bikes. This means that there's plenty of opportunity to flip things QUICKLY, and I like that. <<SNIP>>>

You have the right piece of data, but the wrong conclusion IMHO. Craigs List is certainly full of cheap walmart bikes. Why? Because they are cheap, throw away bikes, no one wants them, and a lot of people are getting rid of them. If you want to serve a market, you need to provide what people want, not what they want to get rid of. And when you get can a brand new bike at Walmart for $60, there just isn't enough room to buy parts, rehab them and resell them at a profit, even when you get them for free. And in a low margin market, there is no room for mistakes. A lot of buyers look to Craigs List to find something better at an attractive price.

So if you focus on Walmart bikes, you will always have a lot of competition, at a 40/1 ratio as you have described (which is pretty close in my market too). But if you specialize on bike shop level bikes, then you will have very few competitors.

In my area, often, the only vintage bikes on C/L are mine.

The key is you have to find good flippable LBS bikes, and since there are so few on Craigs List, you have to look in a lot of places besides Craigs List to find them. The very first comment I hear from buyers is: "where do you find these bikes???" They often have been looking for a while, but are what I would call casual lookers. A flipper is going to look all the time, in a lot of places. Casual lookers tend to look occasionally, and usually in just the convenient places (like Craigs List).

By all means, you should not go into debt to fund flipping bikes. So starting small and working your way up is the way to go, and Dave Ramsey would be proud of that method. The Walmart bikes you have already flipped are going to go a long way to building that flipper starter fund. Look hard enough, and you will find that $15 thrift store gem that you can clean up, refurbish and resell for $200. My first flip was a $10 garage sale bike (an LBS bike by the way). The sale of that bike funded the next couple of flips, which funded several more. Repeat as necessary.

It takes just as much $$ in parts, and just as many hours in labor (and just as much $$ in tools) to work on Walmart stuff as the better stuff. But the margin is in the better stuff.

+1 to Tom's comments: I find the Roadmasters and similar Xmart bikes to be difficult to adjust, lots of plastic and pot metal parts. And people are less likely to take care of a $60 bike, than one they bought for $400. That's my experience anyway, over several years.

[TonyS]

Well, so far it's been a matter of convenience... for example, I'll just go with what I've got in the garage right now... 3 department store mountain bikes, one 80's Huffy DS road bike, and one AMF Roadmaster Scorcher that I picked up last night. When I went to pick up the Scorcher, the guy had like 2 more broken bikes and two DSB wheelsets that he gave me because he was just going to take them to the dump had I not arrived...

So far total cost for 7 bikes... $15. If between those seven bikes there's enough good parts to make one of them work (there are, minus the cables), I can without any parts cost (other than the aforementioned cables) double my money if I can even sell it for $35... and most of mine have sold for $40-$50. My margin comes from the fact that people give me stuff... because they want it gone.

I want to upgrade to 70's & 80's road bikes, but the reasons I haven't so far are as follows:

1: Anything that's not a DSB disappears on CL in less than 20 minutes here. If you're not sitting in the middle of town with cash in hand and a laptop to call as soon as it shows up, you're not getting that bike. There are a billion other college students around collecting low end LBS bikes to make into fixies and flip. They don't have full time jobs, and I do. So by 5:30 pm, it will be gone.

2: There are 3 markets for bikes in this town: roadies, hipsters, and moms/dads looking to ride with their kids. The roadies are going to buy from the LBS. Period. Their bikes usually never end up on CL, but even when they do, they're both too expensive for me to buy, and I'd never be able to get rid of it because anyone who wants to become a roadie will go to the LBS. Hipsters each have a stockpile of at least 10 old road frames which they are going to turn into fixies, and those compose maybe 5% of CL traffic. The hipsters are also the reason that anything good disappears in 20 minutes or less... The remaining 94% or so of buyers are broke moms and dads looking to ride with their kids, and rather than paying $75 plus tax (lowest priced adult Walmart bike) they want to pay $40 for the same bike off of CL. Whether that's a good idea safety-wise or not is a valid question, but they don't know anything about bikes, and although every one of them has heard the shpiel before about how they should buy from an LBS, not a one of them understands why they should pay 8x as much for a bike they're only going to ride once every couple months with the kids. They are the ones blowing up my phone wanting me to find a bike for them... so apparently there's some reason they don't want to go to walmart to get a bike, and they're as yet an untapped market. AFAIK there's me and one other guy in town selling these things in any condition other than "We left it out in the rain for 3 years and we want it gone."

Anyway, so has anybody else run into the same problems of stuff disappearing too quickly? If so, how did you get around them?

[macman58]

I love the hunt but I have a hard time parting with my children (the bikes I really like), but I am running out of room. I drive by pawn shops, garage sales, flea markets very slowly, always looking for a good child (old road bike) to adopt or find a home for.

[macman58]

By the way, My local Trek Dealer sells the new seats off of the bikes people upgrade for $15 to $20 and they are Bontrager Brand new. They were asking $20 each for these. and I bargained them down to 4 for $60. These seats come off of $800+ bikes how bad can they be.

[wrk101]

Anyway, so has anybody else run into the same problems of stuff disappearing too quickly? If so, how did you get around them?

You need to look well beyond Craigs List. The good bikes, particularly LBS branded ones, go fast, really fast. If you are available to pounce on these deals (like during the day), great. If not, someone else is probably scooping them up. I am semi-retired. So I often get bikes during the day, while my "competition" is working. Garage sales, neighborhood newsletters, thrift stores, word of mouth, etc., are all potential sources. I did pretty good on Craigs List this winter picking up bikes when the market was dead. But this takes a healthy bike fund, and an area to store bikes.

As far as your market analysis, how long have you been flipping bikes? I have been doing it for several years. I do not find your conclusions accurate for the overall market. Do you have any data? How many bikes have you sold? If you service the bottom feeders, your conclusions are pretty accurate. But there is another market out there I can assure you. Myself, I will leave the $50 bike market untapped. I typically serve the $200 to $400 road bike market, and the $125 to $175 MTB market. Bottom feeders are welcome to look elsewhere.

[TonyS]

Thank you for proving my point so beautifully! There are people just like you in my town (lots of them!), and since I have a day job and little capital to work with, I'm at an extreme disadvantage trying to compete with them. So rather than try to enter a market with such large barriers to entry, I'm carving a different niche for myself... My advantages are that I'll probably be given a lot more free parts (and bikes) than they will, my inventory is probably more liquid, and the capital and time requirements are a lot lower for me (those DSB will still be there at 5:30).

And I'm only 2 weeks and 4 sales deep into this, but my phone has been blowing up every day with broke folks eager to have someone who knows about bikes help them out, but without selling them a hunk of scrap metal like the other CL posters will, and without pressuring them to spend money they don't have like the LBS guys would.

That having been said, I'll poach the LBS market while I'm at it if I get the chance...

Picking up an 80's Motobecane tonight.

[curbtender]

Something like this?

[TonyS]

That'd be the one...

[noglider]

That looks like a Reynolds decal at the top of the seat tube!

[javaride]

Okay, I've searched this whole list, and I can't find any info on shipping, how to pack, best place to find boxes, best (cheapest) shipper to use etc. I am admittedly very new to flipping, but I do have 30+ years experience wrenching/riding bikes, and I have all the appropriate tools. I'm finding places to pick up some cheap rides, one for $5.94!, and I've been in sales for 20+ years, so I feel pretty confident about 90% of all this. I just don't know squat about the shipping, other than local pick up must rule!!! PLEASE HELP!!!!

[kingfish254]

Okay, I've searched this whole list, and I can't find any info on shipping, how to pack, best place to find boxes, best (cheapest) shipper to use etc. I am admittedly very new to flipping, but I do have 30+ years experience wrenching/riding bikes, and I have all the appropriate tools. I'm finding places to pick up some cheap rides, one for $5.94!, and I've been in sales for 20+ years, so I feel pretty confident about 90% of all this. I just don't know squat about the shipping, other than local pick up must rule!!! PLEASE HELP!!!!

You can get a boxes from just about any friendly LBS. You will also want to get some pipe insulation from you local hardware store. Go to YouTube and search for "how to pack a bicycle to ship" and you will see plenty of videos to help you out. I have used both FedEx and UPS. I think UPS is a little cheaper.



Here are some pics of a 64 Sting Ray I packed recently. (Paid $15 , Sold for $500)

I put all of the extra parts wrapped individually in a smaller box that I packed in with the frame. One big thing to do is reenforce any where you think might get punctured from an axle or fork or such. Good luck.

[TonyS]

That looks like a Reynolds decal at the top of the seat tube!

Indeed it is, good sir! I'm thinking I'm going to restore this beast as close as I can get it to its factory glory on my (extremely) limited budget.

How much do you think I can sell it for?
motobecane 001..jpg
motobecane 002..jpg