Considering expanding my hobby to include selling Motorcycle parts.

[Spimothy Leary]

As many of you may know that i've made a productive hobby out of buying old beater 2 strokes and selling off the parts, mostly on ebay but a few private sales as well.

Its been profitable and pays for my time/labor/investment, and I have creative control over the ski's I buy and can ramp up/down my purchases based on free time and cash flow.

I stumbled across an opportunity to buy the complete inventory from a guy that is doing the same thing, but with Motorcycles, about 30K in inventory that I can get in the 5-6K range, I can cover that with cash on hand.

I don't know CRAP about bikes, so i'd be walking in blind. His inventory is sorted,categorized so I could rather quickly get up to snuff on what is what and I can view his spreadsheet and compare how his prices stack up against what completed listings have sold for prior to reaching an agreement on price and find a way to make room in my garage (wife will FREAK !!)

I'll initially be in over my head but I dont' like to pass up on a good opportunity, everything is already taken apart and sorted so its not like i'll be picking up 20 half complete bikes and start left wrenching.

This could keep me busy for a solid 6 months of nights/weekends selling stuff but I think there is a good chance I can make an extra 15K this year so i'm at least interested in driving an hour to go take a look.

Anybody else selling bike parts, having success? Advice?

 

[Coastiejoe]

If you do it,, I bet you will learn QUICK,,,,

 

[Coastiejoe]

I bet you could buy and sell it all to someone that knows more than you and nearly double your money...

 

[Spimothy Leary]

i dunno, I got the inventory from the seller, sent it to my uncle up north that does resto work on old bikes... he spent 20 minutes going through the 18 page list and its missing all the good & easy stuff. no carbs/seats/cdi's/handlebars/gas tanks... or very few... and those are the items that I would want, seems like the guy cherry picked all the good stuff (much like I would if I was dumping my inventory)

in ski terms it means its a lot of parts but no mpems,carbs,raves if that makes sense, all the stuff that would sell quick for decent money.

uncle told me to pass on it, or offer about half what he's asking otherwise i'll be nickle and dime-ing 40 boxes for parts for the next 6 months just to break even and another year after that to turn 4-6K profit, I can do better buying old GTX's.

 

[Coastiejoe]

Based on the most resent info. I would agree. Half or not at all. He KNOWS what is there.

 

[Dr Honda]

Let me throw in my 2 cents......

As you know... I'm a motorcycle guy, and that's really what my shop was. (custom machine work, parts, and so on) I just personally like PWC, so I would work on them too.

To answer your question on "Quick Selling parts"..... In the +30 years of me riding, and working on bikes... I have only ever replaced one CDI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've bought early 70's dirt bikes... and the CDI's are fine, and are bullet proof. The one I replaced was in an '92 honda XR250L. It used a 12v CDI since it was a street legal bike, and had a full electrical system. But, it's "Dirt Only" counterpart used a standard high voltage CDI. (like every other dirtbike did)


So... take that info for what it's worth.

Next....

Unlike old PWC... there are 100 times more beater bikes out there, and if you wander around... there's always a super cheap, or free bike to be had. So, trying to sell a 1980's speedo for $100 is almost impossible, since you can find an entire free bike if you look around. Not to mention, guys aren't restoring old bikes like that. They are turning them into cafe' bikes... or bobbers. (so getting away from OE parts)

Yes.... there are some classic bikes out there, that people will try to restore/rebuild... but it's like trying to get into the "Mussle Car" industry... people know about them, and they bring a premium. (Honda CBRX, Yamaha RZ, Hondamatic, Suzuki GT, and so on) But even with these bikes, you don't get a lot of $$$ for the parts, unless they are perfect, since it's a restoration, and not a "Let's getting it running" thing.



OK.... if you get into modern bikes, then you can make some money. parting out late model bikes, that you can buy from insurance companies is the only real way to make any cash from bikes. But even then... you need to make sure there are a lot of good body parts. Also, you need bikes that are sought after, or wrecked more often. So, that's the "Beginer" bikes, or the supersports.



With all that said... if it was my money... I would not buy someone's old shop, if it's full of 90's and earlier bikes. If it's all modern (Fuel injected) types... then maybe.

FYI... I know of 2 motorcycle junk yards locally that shut down... and the owner of one is now working as a mechanic at the local Kawi shop. (just can't make $$)

That's my 2 cents... take it for what it's worth.

 

[Dr Honda]

Here's my last projet....

it's a 2008 Suzuki B-King. They only came to the USA for one year. it's a "nekid" Hayabusa, with a 1340cc, 183 HP engine. It was a wreck that I restored. Most of the parts are ebay.... and they were 50% or less than OEM. AND... there were some parts that were pennies on the dollar. (side stand switch, plugs, airbox,...)

In the last pic, there is a '66 BSA bobber. It was a $100 basketcase, and there is less than $1k in other parts.

That's the bike industry.

 

[Spimothy Leary]

thanks for the input, as stated above I decided not to jump both feet first into something unknown to me, but I have started poking around CL when doing my regular ski searches but haven't stumbled across anything that jumped out at me.

Much easier and safer to stay within my comfort zone for the time being.

 

[Frank_Hassa]

Hmm, $30,000 worth of inventory that someone else couldn't sell, being sold for $5,000 to a guy that has never sold motorcycle parts before. Assuming that the previous owner DID know how to sell motorcycle parts, but didn't sell these, what makes you think you can do what the presumably better-qualified motorcycle parts salesman didn't/couldn't?

I learned in the trades that the other guy's job always looks easy until you try to do it, or until something goes wrong, and then you find out why he makes so much money for doing something so "easy". After all, it's just motorcycle parts. What could go wrong?

The same thing that went wrong with the previous guy. They didn't sell.

I'm wondering if there are some parts that are more or less desireable, and how would a person know that this particular gear is in high-demand, and one that's slightly different is something that no one is ever going to want, and how much of each category of each part do you have in the $30,000 worth of parts. What if $28,000 of those parts are extremely low demand?

Not that I'm saying it's a bad idea. Maybe it's a good idea. But these are the things that I'd be thinking, if it were my $6,000 in jeapardy. In terms of "scale", what's the total number of parts in the $30,000 in inventory. The number I'm after is, what's the average value for each part. Example 1,000 parts worth $30,000 is an average value of $30 per part. Might be do-able. In contrast, 10,000 parts is an average value of $3.00. You'll be handling, packaging, shipping, accounting for, inventorying, 10,000 parts, each of which might earn you a whole $1.00 if and when you sell one.

So having an average "price per part" will give you some sense of what's in front of you, as the objective is to sell every single one of them. Also note that you'll have to sell the best $6,000 worth of parts, just to recover your investment capital (and not the value of your time, or your profit). Guess that's another question, too, which is how much of that $30,000 worth of parts do you feel you have to sell to walk away feeling "even" (compared to butthurt and feeling like you wasted your time and money). $15,000? Would you be happy to sell half of those parts and maybe not the other half?

Also where did this $30,000 figure come from. I have two 1997 Seadoos in my driveway, and they are worth $17,600. Each. At least, until I try to get someone to pay me that for them. Anyone can say anything is worth anything they want to; but (as Rush Limbaugh says) something is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it, and not a single penny more. So I'd put the anal probe into the question of where that $30,000 figure came from, before I dropped 6 large into someone else's trade, thinking that there's lots of easy money to be made. Usually, that's the last positive thing I think before my life turns into a total nightmare.