miamijim

I keep very diligent records of my flipping on an Excel spredasheet. Everything I spend is entered including gas money, spare parts and if I use a part from one bike on another. My shipping costs, both actual and charged are calculated as well. (I make a 'profit' on shipping which covers my ebay/paypal and packaging expences. I've spend over $50 on packaging tape since August!!!) Its setup with a variety of formulas so all I have to do is enter a value and a +/- number appears to tell me if I'm in the red or black.

To defray costs I order tires, cables and bearings in bulk. I was previously paying upwards of $20 for an entry level Michelin 700c tire whereas buying in bulk I'm getting them for ~$9.50ea.

While I'm not going to say what my pure profits have been since I started flipping in August I will say its mid 4 figures and I have still have a sizeable inventory on hand as I'm stocking up for the spring time.

Some basic guidelines:

1. Tires: Figure $12-20 each if your buying them local plus $5 each for inner tubes. I order mine from www.biketriresdirect.com and only buy the least expensive tire I can find.

2. Cables: Figures $4 each with lined housing. Surprisingly my LBS has a lined Pyramid brand for $5 which is reasonable. I've ordered 50ft. rolls of black lined and stainless steel housing from www.loosescrews.com for roughly the same cost as the LBS set albeit the loosescrewsstuff is higher quality.

3. Bar tape. $8-10. I'm still looking for a $5 source.

4. Seats. $15-20 easliy for a basic model.

One could easily drop $60 in the blink of an eye on basic 'wear' items.

As an example, in my market, Tampa, I can sell a basic lugged steel LBS brand bike for $150-$225 all day long. Knock $60 of the top of those prices and your looking at $90-$165 as maximum paying prices to break even. I try to make $100 on any complete bike I sell so factoring that in I'm looking to spend $50-75 max on a basic luged steel LBS bike.