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Comment by ikeboy | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't need to be Lego. Buy most popular items when discontinued, hold for a year, some people will be willing to pay more for it.

This is part of my e-commerce business. (I do some regular items as well but discontinued items are often lucrative).

See e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Motorola-H720-Bluetooth-Headset-Packa...

Two years ago this was going for $23.50 wholesale (I was offered by a large supplier) and $35 retail. Tens of thousands of units sold. Price went up over time and whoever still has units is making a killing now.

It's definitely possible to deploy millions into the business, but it's far more of an active part of a portfolio. You can't trade an index of discontinued products that appreciate.

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I'm confused. What moron would pay $270 for that cheesy bluetooth headset?

Someone who used the same one for years - this was one of the most popular bluetooth headset for years.

Sales went down as price goes up, but I estimate it was selling 100+ units/month when the price was $150 and got worse as price got higher

These must be the same boomers I see mindlessly walking around Best Buy looking for help with their phones.

Not necessarily.

The important thing is that the demand curve slopes down but doesn't go to 0 that quickly. With Amazon you have the entire US (and other countries) as potential buyers and for popular items there will often be some buyers.

Also, you don't need much appreciation to make money. If MSRP is $50 and you get $80, and paid $35 wholesale you still make a good return after fees.

I just picked this one out because it went up a ton, plenty of others go up less but are still good.

You may be heavily discounting the aversion some of us have to change. If I've been using one thing for several years, and have become accustomed to it's quirks, I may be very willing to pay a high premium to get the same thing again when it craps out. This is doubly true, if I found it difficult to settle on the thing originally.

Take this blue tooth headset as an example. If I spent $300 buying various headsets 5 years ago before finally settling on it, I might expect to spend a similar amount of money (or time) to find a new headset today, and may well be willing to pay $300 just to get the same headset. It's not necessarily a great example, since I expect the quality of headsets to be much improved today, but I was super tempted to scour ebay for an old microsoft itellimouse when my last one finally became unusable. I'd used this model for 2 decades, and no other mouse I've used feels the same. I'm likely to give this new mouse I found another few months, but I may end up deciding that it's worth it for me to pay whatever premium it's currently going for.

Yes that's something boomers and the old do. One of their most identifying characteristics is aversion to change. And they have more money than sense if they are buying a $270 old Motorola bluetooth headset that has been superseded in every way by a $30 headset today.

If anyone wants to chat about the business there's an email in my profile that still forwards to me

How do you differentiate discontinued product versus ones that are upgraded to a different model?

There's no difference. People will pay more for older model even if there's an upgrade.

I generally look for stuff where I make a small profit at current price and where total quantity isn't so much that I'm worried about getting stuck.

I was thinking that model upgrades have a smaller profit potential because there is a possibility of a consumer switching to the newer model. You think that effect, if it is present, is not worth thinking about?

I generally look at the data on the specific product. If it's been discontinued for a year already and new model has been out for a year and it's still selling, that tells me something.

I look at a lot of things, and like I said I don't just do discontinued items.

Right now I'm holding onto some Samsung Blu-ray players from 2015. Samsung stopped making them, so the 2017 models are the latest, but the 2015 are cheaper and still selling quite well. I expect the price to go up a bit as the other guys selling it sell out, and then I'll make maybe 30-40% on my money for holding it for 4 months or so, minus costs/returns.

Very doable if you have capital and are willing to be active and take some risks.

Thanks interesting, thanks for your feedback.

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