Does anyone here invest in Lego for a living or make great money per year?

[emes]

There are going to be some odd numbers in this post (I welcome people checking my math, etc.. because that's not really my strong suit), but here are some thing that you might consider. The total LEGO listings on eBay at the moment is 2,761,179, and the value of those listings is $85,468,385.00. Now ignore for a moment that a "listing" could be something selling for a very low amount, a dollar or less, or a very high amount, potentially several thousand dollar. If you do simple math and divide the value of listings by the number of listings, you get an average listing value of ~30.95. Please anyone feel free to verify my math. For the purposes of this discussion, let's just look at the market as defined by eBay, and not worry about Amazon, Craig's List, etc.. If you were going to make a living off of solely selling LEGO, how much of that market would you need to capture? at 1/1000th of the market, would require the "value" of your listings to be $85,468.39. At 1/500th of the market that value is $170,936.77. These are very small percentages of the market, and "value" doesn't take into account your expenses to acquire and store the sets. Potential profit is only one component of value. I'd venture a guess that no one here controls 1/1000th or even 1/500th of the eBay LEGO market. While these numbers might be a little dubious...the point here is to be more illustrative than exact or precise. At 1/1000th of the market, if I divide by the average value of a listing, then I have 2761 "things". That is about 231 "things" that you're selling per month. At 1/500th of the market, then it's 5522 things, or about ~460 "things that must be sold per month. Let's say that somehow you manage to make a 30% profit annually from the total value you have. At 1/1000th of the market this is (maybe) $25,640.52, and at 1/500th this is (again, maybe) $51,281.03. At both values the number of "sets" you have to store, inventory, maintain, and list makes this really difficult. 230 or 460 sales per month is cooking at a pretty good clip, and you'd be doing all that work for $25k or $50k. Definitely not enough for most of us to live on. I know the numbers here can be easily challenged, but that's not really the point. The point is to be more illustrative than anything else. Illustrative of the fact that if you were to make a living solely by selling LEGO, you'd need to be moving a lot of volume, you'd need to have a significant amount of capital to invest, and you'd need a lot of room for storage. Imagine what something small like 2761 polybags would look like and how you'd catalog, inventory, keep track it, and sell them at opportune times. My wife makes more selling things on eBay than most people make at their jobs. Way more, and she does it part time. It wasn't an overnight success story...it took many years to build it up, and lots of mistakes were made along the way. She still makes mistakes, and one of the challenges we've always had is managing inventory and storage. eBay sales are a secondary thing to us...I make much more from my business. That's not to diminish her work, rather, it's not our primary source of income so we can take some significant risks in that area that I won't take with my business. Only about 10% of what she sells is LEGO. I really don't see that changing. LEGO is a good product and it's not that hard to make money off of it, but it requires a lot of storage space, and honestly, it's not the best thing out there for secondary market profits. There are other things out there that are more profitable and easier to store. In fact, in order to make significant money on eBay you want to be dealing in various product lines and you need to do a high enough volume that it's worthwhile. Another point to this long-winded reply is that while it's possible to make a living off of eBay, in fact there are many Powersellers that do exactly that, in order to make a living you have to find a reliable source of things you can sell for a profit on eBay. It's somewhat difficult to do this with just LEGO because it's nearly impossible for 1 person to hit every clearance available, and buying LEGO at retail prices means that you'll have to wait longer for your "investment" to mature.

[JoshTX]

In order to do it full time you need to have some serious capital, like $200k+ from the start capital if you want to dive in and make enough money in order live comfortably. Also you'd have to wait on the sets your buying to go EOL before you could start making nice returns. I build, collect, and sell Lego on the side simply because I love Lego and its fun, plus good returns keep me happy. As far as doing it full time, well it takes more capital than most people realize, and most people that have hundreds of thousands of dollars laying around probably already have a full time job that pays really well. Also I think starting to sell Lego full time, right now (2013) is really, really hard due to the amount of Lego investors/resellers in existence. Most of the people selling Lego full time started years ago before the market was flooded with resellers, when competition was low. Those that got into the Lego reselling game 5-10 years ago are the ones who are making a killing right now! Unfortunately things have changed and making big returns on Lego is harder than ever, but is still possible when choosing the right sets

This is what I was thinking exactly...+1. You'll be looking at massive startup capital to live entirely off investing.

[tigereyes5811]

There are going to be some odd numbers in this post (I welcome people checking my math, etc.. because that's not really my strong suit), but here are some thing that you might consider.

The total LEGO listings on eBay at the moment is 2,761,179, and the value of those listings is $85,468,385.00. Now ignore for a moment that a "listing" could be something selling for a very low amount, a dollar or less, or a very high amount, potentially several thousand dollar. If you do simple math and divide the value of listings by the number of listings, you get an average listing value of ~30.95. Please anyone feel free to verify my math. For the purposes of this discussion, let's just look at the market as defined by eBay, and not worry about Amazon, Craig's List, etc..

If you were going to make a living off of solely selling LEGO, how much of that market would you need to capture? at 1/1000th of the market, would require the "value" of your listings to be $85,468.39. At 1/500th of the market that value is $170,936.77. These are very small percentages of the market, and "value" doesn't take into account your expenses to acquire and store the sets. Potential profit is only one component of value. I'd venture a guess that no one here controls 1/1000th or even 1/500th of the eBay LEGO market.

While these numbers might be a little dubious...the point here is to be more illustrative than exact or precise. At 1/1000th of the market, if I divide by the average value of a listing, then I have 2761 "things". That is about 231 "things" that you're selling per month. At 1/500th of the market, then it's 5522 things, or about ~460 "things that must be sold per month.

Let's say that somehow you manage to make a 30% profit annually from the total value you have. At 1/1000th of the market this is (maybe) $25,640.52, and at 1/500th this is (again, maybe) $51,281.03. At both values the number of "sets" you have to store, inventory, maintain, and list makes this really difficult. 230 or 460 sales per month is cooking at a pretty good clip, and you'd be doing all that work for $25k or $50k. Definitely not enough for most of us to live on.

I know the numbers here can be easily challenged, but that's not really the point. The point is to be more illustrative than anything else. Illustrative of the fact that if you were to make a living solely by selling LEGO, you'd need to be moving a lot of volume, you'd need to have a significant amount of capital to invest, and you'd need a lot of room for storage. Imagine what something small like 2761 polybags would look like and how you'd catalog, inventory, keep track it, and sell them at opportune times.

My wife makes more selling things on eBay than most people make at their jobs. Way more, and she does it part time. It wasn't an overnight success story...it took many years to build it up, and lots of mistakes were made along the way. She still makes mistakes, and one of the challenges we've always had is managing inventory and storage. eBay sales are a secondary thing to us...I make much more from my business. That's not to diminish her work, rather, it's not our primary source of income so we can take some significant risks in that area that I won't take with my business. Only about 10% of what she sells is LEGO. I really don't see that changing. LEGO is a good product and it's not that hard to make money off of it, but it requires a lot of storage space, and honestly, it's not the best thing out there for secondary market profits. There are other things out there that are more profitable and easier to store. In fact, in order to make significant money on eBay you want to be dealing in various product lines and you need to do a high enough volume that it's worthwhile.

Another point to this long-winded reply is that while it's possible to make a living off of eBay, in fact there are many Powersellers that do exactly that, in order to make a living you have to find a reliable source of things you can sell for a profit on eBay. It's somewhat difficult to do this with just LEGO because it's nearly impossible for 1 person to hit every clearance available, and buying LEGO at retail prices means that you'll have to wait longer for your "investment" to mature.

Thanks Emes, You always give great insight about Ebay. Im fairly new to Ebay compared to you and your wife and your right its all about high volume. As a matter of fact I am trying to venture into other things that my wife can sell on Ebay and I'm just doing a lot of research, homework on other products besides LEGO. LEGO is more my thing. My wife and I have been trying to find small little items she can sell to make a little extra cash. Looking at some make up for my wife to sell like what your wife sells. Again thanks for the numbers on Ebay. Hopefully we can be a Power Seller!

[Jeff Mack]

The total LEGO listings on eBay at the moment is 2,761,179, and the value of those listings is $85,468,385.00.

If this is the number you are getting from our home page, that is not the number of listings on ebay. That is then number of sold listings that we are using for our data in the price guide since we started.

[emes]

If this is the number you are getting from our home page, that is not the number of listings on ebay. That is then number of sold listings that we are using for our data in the price guide since we started.

Yes, that is where I got the numbers. I misunderstood "# of eBay Listings" to mean the current number of active listings. I felt like that was a pretty big number, but didn't follow up with a search on eBay. Apologies for my misunderstanding.

Anyone know how many listing for LEGO on eBay? When I just did a search I saw 231,094 active listings. Obviously this changes the numbers I've used in my example, but the point remains the same. You'd have to be doing a significant amount of volume to control even a tiny amount of that market. With LEGO secondary sales at volume comes many other complications, like inventory, storage, and even acquiring enough things at favorable prices to sell.

[Ed Mack]

If this is the number you are getting from our home page, that is not the number of listings on ebay. That is then number of sold listings that we are using for our data in the price guide since we started.

Yes, that is where I got the numbers. I misunderstood "# of eBay Listings" to mean the current number of active listings. I felt like that was a pretty big number, but didn't follow up with a search on eBay. Apologies for my misunderstanding.

Anyone know how many listing for LEGO on eBay? When I just did a search I saw 231,094 active listings. Obviously this changes the numbers I've used in my example, but the point remains the same. You'd have to be doing a significant amount of volume to control even a tiny amount of that market. With LEGO secondary sales at volume comes many other complications, like inventory, storage, and even acquiring enough things at favorable prices to sell.

That's correct. It fluctuates in the 100,000-300,000 range at any given time, which makes LEGO one of the Top eBay categories.

[StarPod]

It's possible if you start young enough in life and you have a lot of disposable income. If you want to make a living and have a house payment a car payment and a family to support I don't find it possible unless you're taking in 200,000 a year

[emes]

For those of you that ask me questions like "what other items should I buy?" I realize to some extent I've invited these questions, but realistically, why exactly would I tell you that? No offense is meant by this, but there are two reasons why I'm not going to tell anyone exactly what to buy: 1) My wife puts a lot of time and effort into the research that she does to know which items to buy. Why on Earth would I give that away for free? 2) I could be wrong about buying and reselling any specific product. All advice, and especially advice available on the Internet should be suspect. From time to time I will discuss things that we've sold or drop hints, but mostly I'm interested in talking about broad markets of items. There is plenty of money to be made out there, and all of you have access to exactly the same information and products that I do.

[Jackson]

I sell full-time. LEGO sales are a small percentage of my total sales. What makes this possible for me is having low personal expenses, way under $50,000 annually.

[mikeur86]

For those of you that ask me questions like "what other items should I buy?" I realize to some extent I've invited these questions, but realistically, why exactly would I tell you that?

No offense is meant by this, but there are two reasons why I'm not going to tell anyone exactly what to buy:

1) My wife puts a lot of time and effort into the research that she does to know which items to buy. Why on Earth would I give that away for free?

2) I could be wrong about buying and reselling any specific product. All advice, and especially advice available on the Internet should be suspect.

From time to time I will discuss things that we've sold or drop hints, but mostly I'm interested in talking about broad markets of items. There is plenty of money to be made out there, and all of you have access to exactly the same information and products that I do.

lol I get a good laugh when people ask you these questions too. I sell movies and buy them in bulk from a specific vendor and people over on the blu-ray forums I visit always ask me where I get my movies..like I'm just going to hand out my golden ticket and create even more competition for my sales.

[StarPod]

lol I get a good laugh when people ask you these questions too. I sell movies and buy them in bulk from a specific vendor and people over on the blu-ray forums I visit always ask me where I get my movies..like I'm just going to hand out my golden ticket and create even more competition for my sales.

*cough cough* where I got 100 Orc forges for 27 each *cough*

[mikeur86]

^^ nice find ^^

[JoshTX]

This conversation is beginning to remind me of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand...should you be forced to share information that benefits you for the good of society as a whole? Or should you be allowed to bask in the glory of your own hard work, and reap the benefits of it by profiting from the desires of others...(capitalism?) In this situation of course, the first theory would not hold, because if all of you told everyone else how to get the deals you are hiding, it would oversaturate and ruin the market for that particular item. So I guess whether a doctor who found a cure for HIV shares that info freely with society could be an ethical debate, but if you guys share your investing deals, they'll be gone. EDIT: I just read my post and realized how little sense it actually makes, because I provided very little background to what I was talking about. I need to stop typing out exactly what I'm thinking. :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)

[Fcbarcelona101]

One of the best books of all time...IMO

[stephen_rockefeller]

It's possible if you start young enough in life and you have a lot of disposable income. If you want to make a living and have a house payment a car payment and a family to support I don't find it possible unless you're taking in 200,000 a year

This post is nonsense......

[kerrmando]

Stephen It makes sense... us young kids who have lots of money and not much to spend it on... do pretty well!

[emes]

Stephen you better get out your riot gear tonight...if a tornado hits Arlington there will be looting all over that city...

[stephen_rockefeller]

Stephen you better get out your riot gear tonight...if a tornado hits Arlington there will be looting all over that city...

ugggg I know, I just got called in!!

[emes]

ugggg I know, I just got called in!!

Supposedly a big one hit in Hood County just Southwest of us. Probably Granbury but supposedly there are people trapped in houses and stuff.

[LowestFormOfWit]

Seems like a lot of us are here in Texas...

[Darth_Raichu]

lol I get a good laugh when people ask you these questions too. I sell movies and buy them in bulk from a specific vendor and people over on the blu-ray forums I visit always ask me where I get my movies..like I'm just going to hand out my golden ticket and create even more competition for my sales.

In the olden days people would kill to protect (or to gain) these kinds of trade secrets...

[Diabolos80]

Seems like a lot of us are here in Texas...

How do you know when you're dealing with a Texan? Just wait, he'll tell you. It's like Volkswagens, there aren't really so many of them, it's just that the people who own them won't shut up about them. By the way, you guys from New Hampshire or whatever aren't allowed to tell that joke. That is OUR joke.

[IrishGuy66]

Who here actually buys and sells Lego as their primary source of income? I'm trying to find out who the real hardcore investors are on here. If selling Lego is your occupation, would you recommend others in doing it?

[stephen_rockefeller]

I swear we had a topic on the same exact question.......it was during your hiatus I think. If I find it I will merge them. Good question though.

[metsrock507]

i'm starting college soon and i was looking to save up money to spend while in college. so i took an office job... i quit after a month because in that month i made the same amount of money investing in lego, as my office salary, while doing about 1/5 as much work. so for me yes!