Posted August 17, 201113 yr Hi I was wondering if any AFOL are making a living off buying and selling Lego? I have always wondered I it could be possable to have the dream job of buying and selling Lego for a living. I would love to quit my job and start traiding Lego, starting a blicklink store and living and braething Lego. I can only see a majority of Brickling store owners running a store on the side as a hobby but not making a living off it. If there anre anyone doing this I would like to hear your stoires on how you make my dream a reallity. Sorry if this should be in the genral discussion topic, if so can someone please move it for me, thanks. Edited August 17, 201113 yr by wokajablocka
August 17, 201113 yr Yes. TBB did an interview of four major BL sellers, three of which sold LEGO on BL as a full-time job and hired help.
August 17, 201113 yr Hi I was wondering if any AFOL are making a living off buying and selling Lego? I have always wondered I it could be possable to have the dream job of buying and selling Lego for a living. I would love to quit my job and start traiding Lego, starting a blicklink store and living and braething Lego. I can only see a majority of Brickling store owners running a store on the side as a hobby but not making a living off it. If there anre anyone doing this I would like to hear your stoires on how you make my dream a reallity. Sorry if this should be in the genral discussion topic, if so can someone please move it for me, thanks. don't quit your job, out of every 2 thousand LEGO sellers maybe 1 might be able to make a living from it, but they also put alot more money into it to do so. The odds of new comers now a days making a living from selling LEGO like my Husband says are Slim and none and Slim left town.
August 17, 201113 yr Author At the moment Im trying to organise my parts and I might eventually start a BL store to also fund my hobby at the moment. If succesfull I will try to keep it going but from reading the interviews it will be a while until I could survive on it. It looks like it takes alot of time and effort to get it going and keep it going, O well I can only dream. Thanks for the input and im sure others will find this topic intersting.
August 17, 201113 yr Hi I was wondering if any AFOL are making a living off buying and selling Lego? I have always wondered I it could be possable to have the dream job of buying and selling Lego for a living. I would love to quit my job and start traiding Lego, starting a blicklink store and living and braething Lego. I can only see a majority of Brickling store owners running a store on the side as a hobby but not making a living off it. If there anre anyone doing this I would like to hear your stoires on how you make my dream a reallity. Sorry if this should be in the genral discussion topic, if so can someone please move it for me, thanks. Doubt it. If you even want to come close to earning a living trading Lego, then you're talking about a large operation with a tonne of stock so you can minimise overhead with an economy of scale. You'd need a very large investment to even get start up and even then you'd need a good opportunity to buy low, to sell high later. Throw in the fact that plenty are pinching their wallets due to the recession, and it's not very good time to get into it. My advise is to not even bother, it'll just be a lot of headaches (and heartache). Keep your current job, there's a reason why people (even AFOLs) engage in Lego as hobbyists and amateurs.
August 17, 201113 yr My opinion is that it is very hard. There are mostly two reasons for it: one is time and the other is money. If you want to make money from LEGO you have to either sell rare and unique sets or very old sets. For first it's very time consuming finding and getting a lot of rare sets and then waiting for things to settle down and find people who are willing to buy them. I have the feeling that all the hardcore AFOLs have their own sources of getting the rarities and therefor there's only a few of them that missed the time and want to buy it from you - also depends on price. Selling older sets is another problem. Buying a bunch of them today maybe even taking a loan, and then waiting for their price to go high. Sometimes it's 5 years and more and even then the prices are not as high as your loan costs will be. Also there's only a couple of people that will pay a very high price for older sets. But as of selling current sets it's always easier for one to go for a trip or to a local store and buy what they want without any extra costs of stupidly expensive postage ... The third option is of course buying a lot of any sets and then disassembling them and sell parts separately. But that sure eats enormous amount of time and even if selling parts for a higher price according to price/piece in a set, there's always some uninteresting parts in every set that you will find laying around.
August 17, 201113 yr The effect is compounded here in Australia too due to the price we pay for Lego. As long as it can fund purchases every now and then would be the ideal mindset, at least initially
August 17, 201113 yr I know a few who do, one even has a couple of storefronts in my state buying, trading and selling Lego. It is very easy to make a living doing this in the USA but a much bigger challenge to make a "good" living, and impossible to do overseas. Ultimately you will spend 18 hours a day working for not much money. The new reporting rules for Paypal also mean you are going to be paying taxes on any significant ebay/bricklink operation as well which certainly does not help things. For me buying, selling and investing in Lego sets is a fun hobby that will pick up more steam if TLG is still around when I retire. If you are interested and reside in the USA and therefore have access to very cheap prices and deals I would start with a small scale operation on ebay and go from there.
August 17, 201113 yr I know a few who do, one even has a couple of storefronts in my state buying, trading and selling Lego. It is very easy to make a living doing this in the USA but a much bigger challenge to make a "good" living, and impossible to do overseas. Ultimately you will spend 18 hours a day working for not much money. The new reporting rules for Paypal also mean you are going to be paying taxes on any significant ebay/bricklink operation as well which certainly does not help things. For me buying, selling and investing in Lego sets is a fun hobby that will pick up more steam if TLG is still around when I retire. If you are interested and reside in the USA and therefore have access to very cheap prices and deals I would start with a small scale operation on ebay and go from there. If anyone is considering making a living on it, they should consider paying Uncle Sam into their plan. The IRS will find away to get their money. Better sooner rather than later with back taxes and interest build ups. Anyways, there is a local guy who is involved in 3 different storefronts in 3 different suburbs in the Portland, OR area. His website can be seen here: http://bricksandminifigs.com/ All of the stores are pretty cool and unique. I honestly think with the right strategy it can be done. The toughest part is to acquire the inventory at prices where it allows you to cover your margins. I do think having a storefront helps because it helps you take advantage of the uninformed buyer. Brick Link generally has a lot of informed buyers who will look for the cheapest prices.
August 18, 201113 yr A quote I once heard regarding comic shops I think applies here: "There's only one way to make a small fortune selling LEGO... ...Start with a large fortune." Clanure
August 18, 201113 yr Mark Twain said "They didn't know it was impossible so they did it". The only way you have to know is to try ! But personally I would keep my job and see if the shop is profit-making. Of course the question is to know if you will be able to spend your whole days to get Lego parts in your hands. It will no longer be a hobby, but a full-time job. Of course you'll need some money to start, a good knownledge of the shipping costs, and determinate what you want to sell : sets, parts, minifigs, or rare old boxes. But you must also know that a lot of people will not believe in your project, just because you have a project, regardless of its feasability. Do not care or worry about them ; just do your business and see. If you can live selling Lego, you will, and if you finally can't, no regret. Stay careful and positive !
