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Stuff About Business |
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Jas0n United States. Apr 26 2011 23:19. Posts 1866 | | |
So I haven't made a blog post in quite some time now and just figured I write a little something here on LP. It's been so long I feel like I have to reintroduce myself.
So whenever I visit LP, I spend most of my time lurking in the ROFL thread. If you haven't checked the thread out before, you should take a look. it's usually on the first page of the General section here on LP. I've made a pretty decent amount of contributions to it and have been referred to as the ROFL Thread guy from members here on LP.
I'm roommates with acckerman and edzwoo. I'm president of the poker club at University of Illinois at UC although I do mostly the administrative work, edzwoo is the one who deals with most of the poker related issues.
I started playing FR on fulltilt about two years ago, made it up to nl100 before I quit six months ago.
I realize this might not be the best time to post something like this since Black Friday is still on everyone's mind but the majority of this post will be related to the business I run with edzwoo. If you guys have any questions regarding e-commerce or online retail in general, I can try my best to answer whatever you want to know.
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edzwoo and I have been doing e-commerce since freshman year of college. We started off selling SD cards and flash drives on eBay. By sophomore year edzwoo was playing poker pretty frequently and was talking about playing poker professionally. I played poker from time to time but was a lot more focused on eBay.
After the SD cards and flash drives, I began selling Kohl's coupons (a clothing department store). When you sign up for the Kohl's newsletter, Kohl's emails you a $5 off $5 coupon 7-10 days after you sign up (you can read more about it here). I first found out about this promotion after stumbling across some sellers who sold these coupons on eBay. I naturally wanted to sell these coupons myself as well. So after an hour or two of research, I set up a very basic system where I would sign up for the newsletter, harvest the coupons a week later, and then sell them in batches of five for $4 per batch. It took approximately 10 minutes from start to finish to obtain the five coupons and email them out. Soon after, I knew there was some serious money involved with this with very little work and almost zero investment involved.
As time passed, I started buying gmail accounts off blackhatworld 100k at a time. I then hired a programmer from Spain who created programs for me that would automatically sign up for the coupons using the gmail accounts I purchased, harvest the coupons and format them, then send them out to eBay buyers through a business gmail account. I eventually became the largest Kohl's coupon seller on eBay, at my peak I was making $300 a day. This did not go unnoticed though, a large number of new sellers entered the market driving prices down a considerable amount. My biggest competitor was a woman named Michelle. She never replied to any of my correspondences and the only time I ever had any form of communication with her was when Kohl's stopped sending out coupons for three weeks or so. I got an email from her asking if I was having the same problems she had, this is how I found out her name was Michelle.
Michelle eventually stopped selling the coupons, I didn't know why. But in her vacancy a bunch of new sellers arose who formed a sort of "coupon cartel". They wanted to limit the number of coupons supplied onto the eBay market in hopes of keeping prices high. Some of the members in this group were from the old days who were selling coupons long before I even knew about its existence. They were talking about how a batch of five coupons sold for $10-$15 back when the promotion first began.
I never ended up joining the group mainly because for a cartel to function, they must control resources that were not readily available. Since Kohl's coupons could be obtained by anyone with an email account and an internet connection, it was extremely easy to enter the market. I also ran some regressions with the numbers the group members proposed and I didn't think there was any point in reducing the supply when I was by far the largest supplier.
Naturally, the other sellers were displeased with my decision. I got several emails that were less than pleasant to read, some were threats from the group stating that they would sell their coupons at a loss just to undercut me and force me into joining. One seller actually started purchasing coupons from me just to leave me negative feedback. I would block his accounts but he would just make new ones. Eventually, the negatives stopped coming. I never found out why.
Towards the end of my coupon run prices had dropped to $0.99 for a batch of 20 coupons. I was also contacted by Kohl's department of claims and loss twice to stop what I was doing, although neither time was done officially through Kohls.com itself, always through eBay. Gmail implemented a ton of new security features and I couldn't buy any more of them. The ones I did manage to buy were deleted by Google in a few days. I ended up using a catchall email address for a while but that just didn't work as well.
Eventually, eBay suspended my account, although not just for the Kohl's coupons. I had a lot of policy violations that were very vague and not even shown on the eBay website (eBay is actually a terrible place for sellers, if you ever go on the eBay forums it's just always full of people complaining about their policies). eBay said if I sent in my driver's license along with some other information there was a chance I could get my account reinstated. After I sent the required documents in, I became permanently suspended.
In addition to the Kohl's coupons, I was also selling Proactiv coupons, JCPenney coupons, Lowe's coupons and Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons. I always wanted to sell Staples coupons but I could never figure out how to get my hands on them. I was also selling a lot of random goods I purchased off Slickdeals at low costs and then would resell at a little below retail price. I was selling everything from Oakley sunglasses to designer purses to DVDs to PS3s. The money I got from that, in addition to the money I made from the Kohl's coupons was how I was able to fund the business venture I started with edzwoo in April 2010.
Wow, sorry guys, I didn't know this post would be so long, I was actually planning on talking about the business I'm running right now but I ended up writing a lot about the history of how I started off. To keep it short, I'll cut if off here and write more about the current business next time.
Too long, didn't read?
I sold stuff on eBay
edited in some pics to induce interest
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| | Last edit: 26/04/2011 23:45 |
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tooker . Apr 26 2011 23:31. Posts 470 | | |
Im really interested in both what your currently doing and how to get into ecommerce, i need something to do with poker money now that i cant play poker  . Cant wait for next post |
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Arirang Canada. Apr 26 2011 23:39. Posts 1673 | | |
I don't know what else to say but "wow". |
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vlseph United States. Apr 26 2011 23:44. Posts 3026 | | |
at first i thought you meant you bought gmail accounts for $100,000
I'M DUMBBBBB |
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| The only hands a nit balances in his range are the nuts, the second nuts, and the third nuts. | |
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| Im only good at poker when I run good | |
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| | On April 26 2011 22:44 vlseph wrote:
at first i thought you meant you bought gmail accounts for $100,000
I'M TIRED |
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| how can u shove the river, he cant possibly call with worse -TalentedTom | |
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Sanai United States. Apr 26 2011 23:53. Posts 643 | | |
Thoroughly interesting read! |
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penguini United States. Apr 26 2011 23:53. Posts 7 | | | |
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Good read gl with the business u and Ed run |
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| my karma is done, now time to enjoy life, peace is the way karma is a way Jesus is a way | |
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whamm! Albania. Apr 26 2011 23:56. Posts 11625 | | |
Wow awesome business acumen, i miss being young and creative. lol
age has pretty much made me dumber i think |
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exalted United States. Apr 27 2011 02:02. Posts 2918 | | |
Very interesting work! As a fellow Slickdealer (and previous purchaser of staples coupons on ebay), I applaud your business sense. I knew there was profit through flipping items, etc. but didn't realize that the whole process could be streamlined to maximize profit/time.
I also convinced myself that the time would be better spent just playing poker but obviously passive income is the nuts. Especially with the current poker situation it's very important to look for potential money outside of poker.
That said, it seems like you and edzwoo are doing very well and would be interested in hearing exactly what you guys do.
Oh and finally, a big F U to ebay - they really rape sellers, huh. I thought about selling Magic cards on Ebay but balked at the prospect of giving 8% up. I guess the mentality for casual sellers is that any profit they make is essentially gold as the item is worthless to them. It bears a striking resemblance to poker sites, fish and the rake...(where fish don't care about the rake when they're shipping big pots!) |
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| exalted from teamliquid :o | |
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hneaz United States. Apr 27 2011 02:06. Posts 79 | | |
Great post Jason! I like the Opec picture. I lol'ed. |
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joLin United States. Apr 27 2011 02:16. Posts 3818 | | | |
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Interesting stuff, I didn't know you were always such a baller. |
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Jubert69 United States. Apr 27 2011 02:41. Posts 3191 | | |
"eBay said if I sent in my driver's license along with some other information there was a chance I could get my account reinstated. After I sent the required documents in, I became permanently suspended."
As crazy as it sounds, you may be able to file a lawsuit for this. If what I quoted is 100% true, I believe it can violate a privacy policy. |
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Jas0n United States. Apr 27 2011 03:46. Posts 1866 | | |
| | On April 26 2011 22:31 tooker wrote:
Im really interested in both what your currently doing and how to get into ecommerce, i need something to do with poker money now that i cant play poker . Cant wait for next post |
I would recommend you do a little research on e-commerce, as long as you're dedicated to what you do it's actually not hard at all to start up an online retail store.
| | On April 26 2011 22:44 vlseph wrote:
at first i thought you meant you bought gmail accounts for $100,000
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lol, I probably should have written out the 100k gmail accounts part more clearly
| | On April 27 2011 01:02 exalted wrote:
Oh and finally, a big F U to ebay - they really rape sellers, huh. I thought about selling Magic cards on Ebay but balked at the prospect of giving 8% up. I guess the mentality for casual sellers is that any profit they make is essentially gold as the item is worthless to them. It bears a striking resemblance to poker sites, fish and the rake...(where fish don't care about the rake when they're shipping big pots!) |
Lol, spot on with the poker analogy. eBay's gotten worse over the years. Some really nasty policies are coming out this July and August. We got hit especially hard on a policy that came out in March just a few weeks ago.
| | On April 27 2011 01:23 TilICollapse wrote:
Interesting stuff, I didn't know you were always such a baller. |
you'll always be the poker baller
| | On April 27 2011 01:41 Jubert69 wrote:
As crazy as it sounds, you may be able to file a lawsuit for this. If what I quoted is 100% true, I believe it can violate a privacy policy. |
I don't have the email they sent me anymore so I can't give you the exact wording, but what I wrote was pretty much the gist of it. I think technically my eBay account is eBay property so they can pretty much do whatever they want with it. |
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Silver_nz New Zealand. Apr 27 2011 04:45. Posts 5647 | | |
Great blog post, well written, love the details and illustrations.
Eagerly awaiting next instalment! |
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| | Last edit: 27/04/2011 04:48 |
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very interesting, look forward to your next business blog |
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chris United States. Apr 27 2011 09:31. Posts 5503 | | |
write moar! teach me how to sell free coupons! |
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| 5 minute showers are my 8 minute abs. - Neilly | |
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Funktion Australia. Apr 27 2011 10:18. Posts 1638 | | |
Damn, I was engrossed and then BAM, cya next time guys. You dirty tease. |
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