Attention K-Mart shoppers ...

I’ve written before about the value of connections in this business.  You just can’t have too many friends with benefits, so to speak.  Of course, you also can’t forget about family when it comes to sourcing inventory.

Case in point, Ella is still in Ohio, and is staying with relatives, one of which, her cousin, just happens to be the manager of the local K-Mart. She told Ella on Saturday that K-Mart was putting many of their clearance toys on sale for $1.99 and $4.99 on Sunday.  Of course, Ella immediately called me.

So, bright and early on Sunday morning, I took off for K-Mart, arriving at 8:30 a.m.  Since I source inventory regularly, I knew where the clearance toys were, and beat a path the furthest reaches of the store.  To my chagrin, while the sign over the toys did say 50 percent off clearance price, there was no sign of any $1.99 or $4.99 toys.  Bummer.

Determined, though, I picked up a Barbie, which was marked $9.99, and would be $4.99 at 50 percent off.  While still a bargain for a casual shopper, my scan of Amazon prices showed not quite enough profit for me.  On a hunch, I took the Barbie over to the price scanner …  $1.99.  Ka-ching!

I proceeded to scan the toys on the shelf, filling my buggy with items that would be profitable at either the $1.99 or $4.99 price point.  I then rolled the buggy to the price scanner, and separated the on-sale toys from the misfit toys.  I then put the misfit toys back on the shelf, and repeated the process.

As I was working, two K-Mart associates began separating the $1.99 toys from the $4.99 toys, which made my job a little easier.

After all was said in done, I had accumulated close to $150 worth of clearance toys, including this home run for $4.99:

It had been reduced to $75, but was on sale for $4.99.

I also got several of these creepy dolls for $1.99:

The dolls are cute, but tend to randomly make baby noises, and bounce up and down for no apparent reason.  They startled me and the dogs several times yesterday.  You laugh, but hearing a baby giggle at 2 a.m. in the morning can be quite disturbing to a guy who is home alone.

Later Sunday, I drove up to Macon to visit their K-Mart, and came away with other assorted clearance toys.

My goal is to ship all the near perfect condition toys to Amazon to sell via their FBA program, and to list the toys in less than perfect condition on eBay.

I told my brother in Roswell about the toys, but his store didn’t have any on clearance.  You might want to check your local K-Mart, though.

Backtracking a bit to Saturday, it was a mixed-bag day.  There were no big sales, only lots of little sales, although I did manage to find quite a bit of media (books and CDs), which is still my biggest seller, although eBay is coming on strong lately. 

I also found this remote-control robot:

I paid a whopping $5 for him at a church sale.  He works perfectly, and even shoots little Nerf darts.  I’m not sure if I want to sell him, or keep him to play with.

On a totally unrelated subject, I have short story about poetic justice.

Friday morning, I walked out to my truck on the way to work, and noticed that the right front tire was almost flat.  I had three choices at that point … change the tire, called the auto service to change the tire, or limp to the nearest gas station and put some air in the tire.

The first two options would have made me late for work, so I chose No. 3. 

I drove slowly to the end of my road, and waited to pull out onto the busy main street.  Since it was about 6:30 a.m., the traffic was light, but steady, and I waited to pull out.  When the coast was mainly clear, I pulled out, and rolled slowly up the road.  Soon, a car came up behind me, almost touching my bumper, obviously agitated that I was going so slowly.  I also noticed another car behind him.  Apparently, I was leading a parade.

After a minute or so, the car immediately behind me passed me on a double yellow line, pulled in front of me, then slammed on his brakes (in retaliation for making him go so slowly) … making me slam on my brakes … and making the second car behind me slam on his brakes.  The car in front of me then sped off.

What I hadn’t noticed, and obviously the impatient driver hadn’t noticed was that the third car in the parade was a police officer, who saw what transpired, and, with full siren and lights flashing, passed me, and pulled the first car over well up the road from me. 

As I slowly passed the officer and the impatient, and now ticketed driver, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of satisfaction.

How was your weekend?