Collectible Ronald Reagan Ad
Here’s an idea that works well as a small part-time business because it’s so incredibly simple a concept. I’m talking about selling old magazines online at places like eBay and Amazon.
Let me explain. There has been a continual cycle of interest in nostalgia. It was music and clothing, vehicles and most anything you can think of that allows us to either relive our youth or pretend to have lived in a different decade.
Old magazines, newspapers and other periodicals published in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are becoming huge collector items. It’s not uncommon to find a specific newspaper copy with a significant world event headline framed and hanging on a wall somewhere. I like to call it ‘affordable nostalgia’ and this is why: old magazines, in good condition, are everywhere.
Garage sales and moving sales often feature boxes of them at bargain basement prices. Museums sometimes sell archives to make room for other things and usually one of the first things they sell off are magazines, newspapers and books that take up too much valuable space.
Imagine buying a box of old magazines that are destined for the dump if no one takes them for $20. Say the box contains 40 magazines. That means each one cost you fifty-cents. You could turn around and sell them individually at $20 each which gives you a 4-thousand percent markup.
Sure, not all magazines will sell at that price, but if you find yourself with a collection of out-of-print wrestling magazines you can bet you can flip those into a pretty good profit.
Another niche is selling individual pages – vintage ads for example – for a profit. These can bring $10 to $25 per page or article. This is why I think selling ‘classic’ or ‘gently used’ magazines and newspapers online would make a perfect part-time job for a senior who is about to retire or has already done so.
When you consider there is no shortage of stock out there, you just have to find it; you could do this for quite some time and do well at it. An added bonus is that with selling online you’ll have to ship the item somewhere but magazines or newspapers are very easy to package for shipment, as they are not fragile like a set of collectible dishes.
Depending on what form of delivery you use you can get a reduced rate for printed material, which cuts your cost and increases your profit even more! For example, if you are using ‘snail mail’ you may be able to send the items third class or whatever the bulk paper rate may be at the time.
One of the keys to succeeding in selling used magazines and newspapers online is to identify a niche that can be filled with the product you already have. The example I gave above of out-of-print wrestling magazines wasn’t meant as a joke. In fact, pretty much any magazine that is no longer in regular publication will bring a higher price due to the rare natural of the item.
Other items, such as newspapers with headlines about, for example, the Mount St. Helens volcano blast or the Challenger disaster bring value to relatively recent historic world events. Once you identify a niche or series of them, try to fill them whenever you go to a yard sale or estate sale or anyplace where used magazines and papers are offered for sale. If you target those niches, you’ll have better success online at places like eBay and Amazon as there are people out there looking for those very same things for whatever the reason.
To find out more on how you can profit by buying and selling old magazines and newspapers online visit UsedBookBusiness.com for great tips and ideas.