I know this is cars but I guess it would be the same for bikes. I have sold cars for 20 years both part time and full time, I have never known it so hard as it is now. Its hard to get the stock and even harder to sell it. The problem is garages used to just spunk out the PX's at trade price in to the trade but now they stick them on eBay themselves and get as good as retail money for them which is fair enough seeing as everyone is trying to maximise profits. I used to flip cars within a few days no problem and I used to earn decent money. Looking at the likes of auctions, once you factor in buyers fees which can be very expensive it can very easily become uneconomical not unless you have a large pitch and bags of money and you can afford to sit on them until someone come along who is happy to pay over the odds. When it comes to selling every man and his dog seems to know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Its far to easy to search for lets say a 2005 Golf TDI in black and you will find that people are attracted to price more than anything else. So you have to be competitive or be prepared to sit on stock. And lets not forget that when buying a car or a bike its fully expected that you knock a decent percentage off! I still do cars but I only buy via word of mouth and usually from private sellers who want a quick sale. I did try a few bikes back in the day and to be honest struggled. I also bought some damaged bikes which where way to time consuming. I think with bikes you really do have a limited market. I'm considering campervans. I fancy doing a self build Fiat Ducato
I think so, but ditch the recovery idea and focus on one thing. But the only way to get satisfaction from it I think you need to specialize and go high end. Flipping shagged out 2 grand gixxers would probably make rip your hair out and wish you never left your comfy job. I would want to be well funded, enough so I could operate for a couple of years without profit to establish myself. Source only the very best bikes, and provide the best service around. You don't want a single annoyed customer. I don't know what the bike market is like, but if you look at high end independent car dealers I don't think they have ever had it as good as now.
Run some realistic numbers on revenue and costs and see what you would have to do to make it work. Unexpected / unforseen costs are what kills many new businesses.
I think there is money to be made doing simple spannering jobs - I'm shocked at the lack of basic knowledge out there.
Breaking bikes can be profitable. Most bikes are worth more in parts but you'll get left with a lot of unwanted bits that you have to allow for. Time and effort tracking bikes down and packaging/posting. If you have a bit of spare garage space you could start it as a side line and see how it works out before quitting your day job. Its possibly less seasonal as during winter peeps are sorting their bikes for summer.
My latests hobby is forex trading in virtual currency, just dipping my toe in and trying to get my head around it. Only using a demo and a virtual £20k pot, on day one made £1127 on trading Bitcoin . Sadly short lived as it had a bit of a crash this morning, I did go short on one trade which was nice but I'm still down on the day so far! Its all very exciting and I am finding I'm sat looking at a chart all day lol
