How to Sell Sony PSP Consoles for a Profit

Contents:

Introduction
Know Your Product
Firmware
The Importance of Accessories
Determining Your Suppliers
Brand New Goods for Less
Disclaimer

Introduction:

Buying the right goods at the right price is always going to be an uphill struggle until you discover the right way to do it; this is not to say that you have not already established a sound system for acquiring your Sony PSP systems at a very low price but also you need to understand the methods to incorporate in order to leverage the most profit from your stock, and to insure that each system returns the maximum profit possible.

The methods that I use have been tried, tested, trained and tweaked to success through a very aggressive market requirement for Sony PSP systems, needless to say that 90% of these techniques could possibly be used with almost every consumer product, but the scope of this document will cover Sony PSP systems only.

Outlined in this document is a sound strategy for success and profit, that has been developed by myself; it is by no means the de-facto and probably does not adhere to your usual methods, but this system will make you money and after all the babble in the world that is the point of the exercise. I think its time to work the magic…

Know Your Product:

The aim of this article is to allow you to get the most profit from your PSP, but how are you going to do this if you have no idea about the PSP system, as the methods that can be employed to instantly increase its value depend on knowing a bit about it, a little knowledge goes a long way, and this is the first step.

Firmware:

The firmware or system software is the core of the Sony PSP, its what controls the functionality of the unit, in Sony’s quest to disable some of the unsigned (by Sony) applications that can be used on the earlier versions of the firmware, they periodically released firmware updates that hide behind the guise of adding extra functionality. These updates in fact serve to lock down unsigned code execution, which prevents your unsigned code (or more commonly homebrew) from executing.

Lets look at it from Sony’s point of view, some homebrew applications allow the user to rip a UMD to the memory card, and others allow you to play them, so Sony is loosing millions of dollars to piracy (so make your games affordable to start with!!!), obviously Sony is going to want to prevent this so you pay above the odds for UMD games.

The flip side of this coin is that some applications are very useful, and open up the system and its functionality to endless possibilities, turning the PSP into a true portable system, allowing you to read e-books and business documents on the move, watch movies (in any format) from your memory stick, emulate bygone console systems and much more… but as is so often the case these applications detract the PSP owner from splashing their hard earned cash on Sony PSP UMD games, and movies, Sony does not want this!!!

Updates to the firmware detracts from the value of the Sony PSP to the everyday user, so knowing how to get your PSP back to a state (firmware) where it can run unsigned code (software versions 1.00, 1.50) will increase its value no end. Although there are applications out there that can successfully downgrade your firmware to an earlier version, these do not come without risk and can kill your PSP (Sony warranty does not cover this situation either), and if you are a beginner you do not want to be losing money at the first hurdle, so I would recommend getting 1.00/1.50 firmware systems from someone who already has them, that way any loss is picked up by them not you.

Lets look at it another way, most of the downgrading software works 90% of the time which means that one in ten of your PSP systems will result in failure and loss. So if you are selling the other nine you are immediately at a loss as you have to cover the cost of the one you bricked, this is not ideal, and had you bought ten systems that are already running the desired firmware you have ten to sell on a turn maximum profit. I know this and learned the hard way as I sold most of my PSP’s at an instant loss due to bricking one every now and again, although you will pay that little bit more for the system to start with your not loosing £150 on the one you bricked so this does not have to be made up by your remaining stock, plus you now have 10 systems to make a profit on not 9!!!

The Importance of Accessories:

As with every consumer product available today there are an abundance of accessories that accompany the Sony PSP; charging stands, docks, speakers, earphones, cases, carry bags, car adapters, chargers, batteries, memory stick duo, not to mention UMD games and films, with this in mind I will reveal the next tip, and my take on how part of the human brain works.

Lets face it if your buying in bulk you expect a profit and that is the same if you are buying 10 Sony PSP systems or one PSP with 8 UMD games, and 6 UMD films, a car charger, 2 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, a protective case. The point here is that there is a cumulative loss; the more that is added to the bargain the more it becomes a bargain because as a human you would expect to get the whole lot cheaper.

Again you are getting more for your money and in order to turn a profit the obvious thing to do for a start is to sell off all of the items separately. In my experience the PSP alone if downgraded to 1.00 or 1.50 firmware will sell for the price you pay for the whole package mentioned above, so then your profit is based on all the separate items you have left, UMD games if complete and undamaged sell for approximately 70% of its retail value and UMD films approximately 40%, so the tip here is to get as much as you can with a bundle and try for a high percentage of UMD games, as although you are making 100% profit on the additional items you will make more money overall if you sell more games.

Another benefit to all you ebayer’s is your shipping costs, you will make more from shipping twenty individual items than you will from shipping one package, for one the shipping would look too high if it were on one item so you would maybe have to reduce this and so loose profit. You can afford to reduce the shipping on the twenty items which will make the transaction more appealing, yet your cumulative profit will be higher overall. If we take the example above we can break down the profit you are likely to make.

I would have expected to pay around £200 + £10 shipping for the lot so £210, I would then sell each item individually, so for the system shipping = £15 (so you made your money back on the shipping you paid, plus covered the cost of the listing) , to ship each UMD game or movie would be £3.95 so 14 x 3.95 = 55.30 (minus shipping and fees = £27.30 profit) , Pro Duo shipping = £3.95 (minus shipping and fees = £2.45 profit) obviously these figures do not take into account the packaging cost as this varies quite a bit.

In total you would make £29.75 from the shipping alone, which is roughly 33%, so your initial purchase only really cost £170.25. On a good day you can sell your 1.00 or 1.50 PSP for around £140 – 180, this is great news as we have not yet accounted for our UMD games, movies and 2GB Pro Duo. If we average £15 for each UMD game and £6 for each UMD movie and around £20 for the Memory Stick Pro Duo we will make on a good day 8 x 15 = (£120) + 6 x 6 (£36) + 1 x 20 (£20) = £176 just from the extras.

In summation our profit is (140 + 176)/170.25 x 100 = 185.6% on a bad day or (180 + 176)/170.25 x 100 = 209.1% on a good day, so on average (197.35%) we will just about double our money. Had you not have had so many accessories and extras you probably would break even on a good day and make a loss, due to fees on a bad day.

Determining Your Suppliers:

Short of going directly to the manufacturer (as this would require huge sums of money and probably VAT registration), I have probably dealt with every other supplier of Sony PSP systems, UMD games, UMD Movies, Memory Stick Pro Duo and other accessories.

Initially my suppliers were the public, through ebay, and this is where I found most of my bargains, these really turn a very high profit if you can be bothered and have the time to search tirelessly, bid endlessly, get scammed on the ever increasing occasion and wait for weeks for your items to arrive, then this method is for you… It’s not for me, although the profits can be very high, once you factor in the amount of time you spend just trying to source and secure your stock, sort out issues with deliveries, lost and damaged items you will quickly learn that this is a bad idea and your reward for the effort you are putting in is not so good, so I would suggest skipping this step altogether.

Another method to overlook is free ads and paper adverts, again you can find some real bargains and turn a large profit, but you will spend hours of your time looking for them, waste hours phoning sellers, spend lots of time driving to obscure locations, oh and you will waste lots a fuel and become very frustrated with the directions your partner is giving you leading you to a dead end. This method is not worth the hassle in the end, and does cost you which will in turn affect your margin.

By far the method that I find to be true, that works every time and turns a reasonable profit is the retail store, take your typical town for instance, you have a whole host of stores that sell electrical goods and also your Sony PSP, UMD games, movies and accessories. The benefit of which is your power to barter, buy in bulk and get an unlimited supply of goods that you can touch, test and inspect before you buy, oh and you get a receipt which covers your item for twelve months with a manufacturer warranty, I will cover the methods which will help you get your brand new goods at the lowest prices in the next section.

Brand New Goods for Less:

I think by far the best methods to get goods cheap from a retail store is ask for some extras free, like a game or memory card, at the least you should expect to get an accessories pack, these extras can be negated from the initial cost of your Sony PSP making it that little bit cheaper so making you more profit.

Bare faced cheek goes a long way, if you don’t ask you don’t get, I learned this early on and found that you can gain a whole host of knowledge on how a store works and ultimately how it makes its money by asking questions, I’m at the point now where I can go into most retail stores in my home town and know how much margin they make on certain items, this is has no end of benefits, but the main one is knowing which items to pair together and which items to ask for free, this may not seem obvious but you will see it makes sense when I tell you that a store looses money on a console when it sells a console as part of a bundle, this loss can be anything from 4 to 10% this is because the margin on the console itself is very low.

Profit comes from selling the games as these carry a very high margin, which also explains why some game stores will only pay £10-15 for a brand new game on trade, is because they pay around that for a brand new copy. The store will then resell your traded in game at close to the retail price for new, which means they are cashing in again as they probably sold you the game in the first place, what I derive from this is that game stores and retailers are responsible for keeping the prices of games up and not piracy.

So by selling a console with some games they manage to still make profit as the loss on the console is made up by the extortionate mark up they make on the games. To us the bundle makes sense as we are getting discount on each game and discount on the console itself, but to the store it makes even more sense as they can sell you games as part of a bundle that you may not necessarily want, even though it still seems like a bargain in fact we have just bought a game we would not normally have bought so the store wins.

Unless you do it my way, I have noticed that the selection of games you can get with your console is normally made up of a new game and some older games these are to bulk the package out, and make the most money out of the customer while at the same time getting rid of old stock. I look for packages and bundles that say something like Sony PSP with ANY three UMD games from this selection, and when I go to the sales desk and they ask me which games I would like, I say “um, it’s a bit of a no brainer really, I’ll take GTA, GTA, and GTA please, as it does say any three games from the selection!”, ha I win, as they make least margin on the new games so by me having three of the same their profit is being eaten away, which gives me more room to make money, when I resell. You could even go one step further and ask them what the trade in value is for your three new games and if the price is right, you can sell them back to the store.

Then the same rules can be applied to this bundle as the one purchased of ebay, only this time all your items are brand new and sealed, with a receipt and you are likely to have a whole load of the newest game on the market, which will give the most return, especially if said game happens to contain an exploit for running unsigned code. By using this method you can get a PSP for around £70 brand new, and sealed in its original box, you do the math.

This is the point where you can really start making some serious money, if you downgrade your brand new Sony PSP to 1.00 or 1.50 firmware, it will cover the cost of the package you bought when you sell it, plus you still have three brand new games to sell, which is a profit of around 144% in total, not bad for the amount of work you didn’t have to do, I would gladly reduce the profit I am making by half as the time and effort involved is at least ten times less, which will allow you to sell in higher volumes and ultimately turn a larger profit.

Once you find a supplier that is willing to give you free extras, and even extras on top of your bundles, take that price and the content of the bundle you get to a competing store and ask if they can match or better the price, also ask if they can add more extras, UMD games of UMD films if you buy more than one, by the time you are buying ten at a time you will need a suit case to carry all your extras to the car.