Kohl’s may be an over-used example for reselling, but I haven’t really seen a whole lot on it of late, so I thought I’d stoke the proverbial fire. Its not nearly as valuable as it used to be, but, there is still a lot of value to be had here. Especially relevant is that Kohl’s is offering a 30% off coupon with Kohl’s Credit Card and Kohl’s Cash right now. The 30% off code is Toast30, courtesy of Are We There Yet.
Disclaimer
Reselling in general involves certain risk. You may buy something and find that the price that it was going for on Amazon has dropped. Worse, you might find that Amazon itself is selling it (which makes it more challenging to get the buy box). You might lose money. Maybe you’re okay with that? Maybe you’re not. The conversion time from when the purchase hits your credit card to when Amazon transfers the revenue in may very well be more than a single credit card billing cycle. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. One worse piece – I have heard of folks being shut down by Kohl’s, being pegged as a re-seller. I haven’t heard of many folks, but none-the-less, it is an important data point.
The Math
In order to provide a good picture of the opportunity, I thought I’d use an example of product that used to work really well for me.
Nutribullet 12-Piece High-Speed Blender/Mixer System
Kohl’s sells it for the same price. You might say — well, if Kohl’s is selling it at the same price, then why bother? Ah, but you aren’t including discounts and Kohl’s Cash.
First we start with what shopping portal to go through:
Kohls Shopping Portal bonuses via Cashbackmonitor.com
I know – we’ve come a long way from Chase Ultimate Rewards’ Portal offering 10x (and being able to double dip with gift cards). But, for the sake of argument, let’s go with 5% cash back via the Shop Discover Portal.
Next we proceed through the purchase at Kohl’s. For the sake of avoiding shipping costs, I’ve got 2 Nutribullets in my shopping cart.
Kohls Order Summary for 2 Nutribullet 12 piece units.
So here we have a total of $133.54. Lets add in the 5% cash back through Shop Discover, and account for the $20 Kohl’s Cash (which I conservatively value at ~70% of face value).
Math for Kohls Nutribullet 12 piece.
If divide that by 2, you get $56.43 per unit. If you were to sell that at $89.99 (the going price on Amazon), you would net $70.03, essentially a 24% margin less shipping (which, in my experience, can be in the range of $4-7).
For extra credit
If you want to further bolster your margin, you could purchase Kohl’s Gift cards, at anywhere between 5% (Chase Freedom/Chase Ink), all the way up to 16-30% off via GiftCardGranny.
Wrapping Up
This is just a quick case study, but hopefully this is useful for your consideration when reselling. There are lots of great opportunities out there. I’ll cover some other resources to ensure profitability in a follow-up post.
The problem with reselling is it’s difficult to scale and slow. On the other hand, I can use my 5% card at grocery/drug and buy thousands at a time. So in a matter of minutes I can put hundreds in my pocket without ever having to search for product to sell, or take the risk (and time and hassle) to resell for some unknown profit at an unknown time.
@Paul – Reselling does take time and effort. But, I like to think that the benefits are potentially very good. When the shopping portal multipliers are especially high is when it makes a difference. That, I can do 95-100% of reselling from home, without having to deal with unhappy WM clerks, or non-working machines… That’s not to say that I don’t MS, I just like to mix it up.
You run the risk of shutdown overdoing it on the 5% of course which isn’t a risk with resale. I have the old Blue Cash, you may have something else. I try to keep it around $2,000 in spend per month which pulls in $100 not incl fees. Are you hitting it harder?
@Kent – I haven’t used my old Blue Cash to that extent… But I know others do much more than I. Perhaps Paul can weigh in?
Ah, the golden days of the Nutribullet and the 10pt UR mall double-dip…I remember them well. The moment the portals started showing the disclaimer “no points earned for Nutribullets” and enforced it, I gave up on them. I can usually find 1-4 items per 30% sale cycle that let me break even or make a tiny bit – but not including Kohl’s Cash in the calculations (I often use it for personal purchases, since $ profits aren’t my goal). Once I find a low-return item, I’m all over it.
@MoneyMateKate — Thanks for your comment! Yes they were the golden days. Even better for the half of the year that you could stack another 5x with the Freedom (up to $1.5k per card). I think not including the Kohls Cash is smarter.. I find though that I don’t buy stuff there for myself, so even a low return (off of free money) is good enough for me.
I know this is never mentioned but unless you are selling these things on your front lawn, you typically are paying 15-20% in commission to Amazon or ebay. I guess if you have your own site and get enough traffic, that’s another way but then you have other fees of course to run your site.
@Kent – you are completely right. Before I buy a product, I run its ASIN through the FBA Calculator (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/fba/revenue-calculator/index.html/ref=ag_xx_cont_xx?ie=UTF8&lang=en_US). As MoneyMateKate mentioned – you can usually find a few items that will make you some money.
Good tip. Thanks!
But how are you getting Discover cash back is you are not using the Discover card? They haven’t credited me with cash since January when not using DC.
@Karen – Just double checked, and I’ve received cashback from Kohls as recently as last statement. It may very well be a YMMV, but, I’m assuming you’re going through incognito to get to the portal, or wiping cookies, etc?
Now, the magic question is, “Does ShopDiscover really not give cashback for Nutribullet purchases?”
@Zac – That’s a great question. I don’t know. The last nutribullets I bought through a different portal, and honestly, with the way that Amazon is competing on them, I’m not sure that I’ll buy any more. That’s kind’ve why I used that example, because I think that product has run its course (so hopefully I wasn’t ruining it for anyone).
True. The Pro version was good for awhile, but now the numbers don’t work for it either.
Exactly… Amazon was down to $116.99 last I checked.
NutriBullets sounds SO like something you would find on Adam & Eve!