Join over 5, people who are subscribed to receive a once daily email with all of our posts. Click here to subscribe. Today he is going to talk about ticket reselling for both a profit and as a method to manufacture spend. You can follow him on Twitter and look for the latest deals on his website. This is part 1 of 2. You can find the second part here. Article by PDX Deals Guy Cover photo by Amy Meredith. Let me be right up front. Ticket reselling is not for everyone.

There is a risk of losing money and the potential for wasted time and frustration. Also, you will find that some people maybe even you! The focus of this article is to point out some of the lowest-risk opportunities, along with some important things to do and others to avoid. Like most things in this hobby, you will learn by trial and error. The goal of reselling any product is maximizing profit.

Side Hustle: How to Make Money by Selling Tickets Online

Thus, you want to buy the product as inexpensively as possible, and be as certain as you can that a market exists for that product at a reasonable profit margin. The nice thing about sports and some theater tickets is that season ticket holders usually get a nice discount off of face value. The amount of the discount can vary significantly, so this requires some research. Besides season tickets, the other common reselling opportunity is for big events, most notably music concerts, comedians, and shows.

These are obviously less consistent in nature than season tickets, but are also potentially more lucrative, given that many events are for one night only and sometimes in very high demand. Selling tickets for individual shows is also obviously less of a time and financial commitment. The simplest way to sell tickets is also not surprisingly the most expensive. You are probably familiar with StubHub.

Much like its parent company, eBay, it has become the de facto market leader in its space. This is both good and bad. But selling via StubHub is very easy, safe, and efficient. So if you have enough profit potential in your tickets, you can still do well selling at StubHub despite the fees.

You will then be able to see both sold and unsold listings for that ticket. The other primary option for selling tickets is Craigslist. It is an amazing place for buyers and sellers to meet, but also a world fraught with potential scams and frustrations. Of course, the biggest benefit of selling via Craigslist is that there are no fees. The downside is that you must interact with people. And those people are always looking for a deal and usually horrible at communicating.

I never give out my phone number in a Craigslist ad for selling tickets and always try to strike up a conversation via email with a potential buyer.

Broncos take season tickets from those who sold theirs in | ProFootballTalk

When you finally make a deal with someone to sell them tickets, I prefer to make the transaction electronically if possible they pay via PayPal, you send the tickets via email. If they can come to your place of business, that will often give them comfort, and make it even easier for you. While there are many other third-party ticket resale websites, the other most common place you can sometimes sell is via the place where you bought the tickets.

The best example is Ticketmaster, which allows for reselling tickets to some but not all events for which it is the primary ticket seller. While this is not a widespread issue yet , you should be aware of some issues between Ticketmaster and StubHub, as noted in this recent article.

In my experience, the easiest tickets to buy and resell are in your local market. You probably have some local knowledge of what is in demand in your city. In fact, the VERY best tickets to resell are for shows you plan to attend yourself buy 4 tickets and sell 2 — and you will often times pay for your own 2 tickets that you use!

It is also easiest to sell via Craigslist if you are selling in your local market. Always make sure you are aware of any local laws regarding ticket reselling to ensure you comply with the law. Nobody likes junk mail, but getting on email lists for your local teams and venues or in other markets with which you have good familiarity is the best way to find out about hot new concert presale events and discounts.

I sell tickets for a living. This is such a bad idea. People who have no idea on the risk factor here should not MS this way. This is not the way to MS. I do agree though, that there are more safe ways to MS. But I find it interesting that the biggest objections have come from other ticket resellers. Certainly there are risks, as I start off the entire discussion by pointing out. I say overall, because anyone who does this WILL have occasional losses.

John is correct in assessing that this blog post is a terrible idea. There are a lot of other factors. Good luck selling those on stubhub at a profit once they take their cut. Louis Cardinals Season tickets. I might break even or take a small loss.

I buy them to be able to give out some games as a promotion through my business and to have access to postseason tickets. You make all your money on the postseason, at least with the Cardinals.

Your money is tied up for months and months. I sell tickets because I enjoy it. That sounds like a terrible investment strategy to me.

Thanks for your reply, Mike. You make some very fair points. To be fair to me, I think I at least alluded to a number of them.

And this is not intended to be a deep dive on ticket reselling although recall that there is a Part 2 coming Saturday.

Of course, overall profit margin is the more important factor. When I first got started doing this, it was tough to get over the losses and they will happen — as I highlight more in Part 2. Not all season tickets are great. More expensive tickets are almost never the sweet spot, especially from a risk and percentage margin perspective. Whether sports or events, a key factor is buying tickets that stand out or are different in some way. You also make a very good and fair point about having capital tied up in inventory.

I agree that ticket reselling is probably not the most efficient form of MS. But it can be a profitable reselling endeavor, not unlike other reselling approaches.

As with any business venture or MS strategy, clearly one needs to become educated and decide what works best for them. And as Shawn always advocates on this blog, start small. If it works for you, do more. PDXdealsguy, which DOs or FTUs do you go to? I actually wish this topic would be spoken more at those events so I can exchange strategies with folks but overall this is a good primer for beginners. Thanks, Joey, for sharing your perspective and experience. As I state in my very first paragraph of this blog, I know that some people are simply philosophically opposed to the entire concept of ticket reselling I think I also mention the risk there too!!

I find it interesting that you sell somewhat intentionally to break-even. If you are VERY careful about only buying tickets that you have reason to believe are very safe for and extreme example — front row seats to a clearly under-priced event, with no threat of a second show being added!

But the faster and bigger you go, the more likely you are to make mistakes. Again, I really appreciate your comment. Just too far away! You make a good point about putting a bit of profit there to offset losses. For that reason I have covered gift card reselling, traditional MS and PDX Deals Guy even wrote about ticket reselling.

You can follow him on Twitter […]. Just as with regular reselling, ticket reselling is […]. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email.

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