How I Make $26K+ a Month Selling Onions | Hacker News Reader

How I Make $26K+ a Month Selling Onions

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17 pointsdthakur17 comments

Archived version: http://archive.is/5vpqW

Well it's a nice story, but as he stated, living in his country is cheap.

And, if I'm not mistaken, gas is really cheap in Saudi Arabia.

So it's not adaptable in another country where you have to pay big money for routing goods. He would have spent his whole benefits in gas.

He mentioned 2K business costs. So 10.000 onions cover the cost of fuel, rent, vehicle payments and an employee. It seems there is an onion bubble in Saudi Arabia.

> So it's not adaptable in another country

Not entirely true. Maybe not onions, but I see this business model -- buying very cheap in bulk and selling at a slightly lower price than the lowest supplier price (while still making a profit) -- everyday on amazon on all kind of products.

People buy items in bulk from Ali Express (Alibaba's business unit ) and sell on amazon using the same business model the OP has implemented.

I even tried it a while back and it was fairly successful / profitable.

ex: Stawberry Corer / Huller : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3...

A bunch of "brands" are selling it for 7$ to 8$. I found the same on Ali Express for 79 cents a piece, bought a 100 and sold them off to for 4$ a piece (with free shipping, it's just a few ounces in weight) a few months back...

So basically drop shipping? It is true that it is not adaptable to another country, especially developing ones. In India we have tons and tons of drop shippers who will cut into your margins very fast.

I mean, good for that guy, but it's not like he found some secret to selling onions, he's just selling them at a lower price than his competition.

Sometimes thats all you need.

Maybe this guy deleted his post because he didn't want anybody cutting in on his business. The tl;dr summary:

- Saudi Arabian resident spotted an arbitrage opportunity buying onions cheaply and selling them to small and mid-sized outlets (large outlets already had suppliers) - reinvested profits to grow the business (more onions, truck to move them, expanded to another province)

Don't even want to know how many regulations you'd need to keep in mind doing that here in Germany :P I also doubt you could keep up with Lidl's etc prices. Also, the lack of "small shops" where you can even get hold of someone who is allowed to do any buying.

Could sell even more onions on the dark web.

Tor loads of onions

Onion network

Is there any way to find the post?

http://archive.is/5vpqW

He deleted it, most likely because -- like @ flashman has stated somewhere here -- that other's might cut in on his business in Saudi Arabia.

Also @flashman's TL;DR is on point. I guess it's a matter of finding the arbitrage, and can be applied to almost any "not so sexy" product in any country, the key is to find it, and keep it to yourself :)

The post is deleted, it appears.

http://archive.is/5vpqW

But can he buy eggs for 7 cents, sell them for 5, and still profit?

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