News

Dec 11, 2023

My Costco side hustle made me $6K in one trip

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission. He turned Scrabble

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He turned Scrabble into "Monopoly."

Not only can people save money at Costco, they apparently can earn a ton as well. A California TikTok influencer claims he makes $6,000 in a single trip to the store by buying and reselling a vintage Scrabble game.

A video detailing his system-"gaming" side hustle currently boasts thousands of views on TikTok.

"This is how I made $6,000 at Costco," reads the caption to the clip, which was posted by WeFlipItAll, a retail arbitrage firm that teaches people how to make oodles of cash reselling items on Amazon. Accompanying footage shows We Flip It All's founder in the Costco parking lot "waiting for the store to open," so he can enact his retail-to-riches scheme.

According to the tutorial, the enterprising fellow bought the Monopoly Scrabble Deluxe Vintage Wood Game Set With Lazy Susan in bulk for $29.99 each. He then resold the unopened games on Amazon for $100 to $120 each, making more than $6,000 in profit, per the clip.

This hustle is REAL! Crazy money to be made by anyone that is willing to put in the work! #costco #costcofinds #amazon #amazonfba #sidehustle #foryou

And while it's unclear how exactly the reseller achieved game and fortune — he smartly saves that for his Los Angeles-based company's online courses — he explained in other videos how he uses Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). This service allows business owners to ship their "products to Amazon fulfillment centers and when a customer makes a purchase," they "pick, pack and ship the order," per the site.

"We can also provide customer service and process returns for those orders," the e-commerce giant explains.

Using FBA, aspiring entrepreneurs are able to buy cheap items on other sites, rebrand them and sell them on Amazon for a much higher price, effectively earning thousands of dollars from home with minimal effort.

Of course, as with all get-rich-quick schemes, there are a few caveats to the Costco side hustle. For one, it requires a store membership, with the lowest tier costing users $60 per year.

In addition, the individual Amazon seller plan costs 99 cents per unit sold while the professional plan runs users $39.99 every month, regardless of how many items they sell, per Amazon. Therefore, it probably only makes sense if people are selling 40 or more items per month.

Also, while Amazon does the legwork with regard to packaging and transport, additional selling, shipping and FBA fees may apply.

Despite the potential obstacles, many people are scrambling to find side hustles in light of the current inflation crisis, which saw consumer prices jump by a wallet-sapping 8.2% year-over-year last month.

Last week, a TikTok went viral after detailing how people can make $180,000 per year donating their poop to science — literally turning crap into gold.