This is a quick guide on my process of buying and selling iPhones for profit.
My first endeavor into the realm of flipping phones started in high school where i met a boy by the name of Pan-Pan who had earned a reputation of the schools tech guru after being suspended the second day of freshman year for displaying his "blueprints" for a nuclear reactor/bomb. needless to say i was intrigued and quickly jumped at the opportunity to become his friend and business partner. together we scoured the school looking for kids with cracked or broken phones (which there was no short supply) and offering to fix them for a small fee plus the price of whatever parts their device needed. This went on for a while and we made a good amount of money until it was shut down by the schools administration but never the less i had set the foundation for what would become a great source of supplemental income. Fast forward a couple years and i found myself looking for news ways to make money without getting a "normal" minimum wage job. One day after falling down a long rabbit hole of youtube suggested videos i stumbled across a video titled "how i make 10 grand a month selling iPhones". I had seen these types of videos before and knew them not to be true but i clicked and watched anyway. Anyway the basic idea of this video was that this guy bought iPhones for cheap off of eBay and resold them in his iPhone repair shop to customers that came in with already broken phones. After seeing this something clicked and all of those fond memories of business with Pan-Pan came rolling back. There was only one problem, i didn't have a store to re sell the phones. Later that day after doing some cleaning around my house i found my sisters old phone that had disheveled display along with a broken home button. at this point i said fuck it and decided to put it up on eBay. to my surprise after only 20 minutes i had multiple offers for over 150 dollars for a phone that i thought wouldn't have been worth more than 50 bucks. Then i decided to do more research into this eBay iPhone market. Below is a list of what i have learned and a step by step process of how i flip phones for a profit.
Phone Vocab:
IMEI number- The International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number is a unique identification or serial number that all mobile phones and smartphones have. It is normally 15 digits long and on iPhone can be found either on the back of the phone or in the SIM card tray.
iCloud Lock- This only pertains to iPhones. iCloud lock is when sold an iPhone and did not turn off find my iPhone before selling. If the buyer then tries to wipe the phone it will result in the phone becoming unusable without the email and password of the original owners iCloud account. Be very careful with iCloud locked phones because there is no way of unlocking them with illegal actions.
Bad ESN- A bad ESN means that the phone at hand has been reported stolen to the carrier that its currently on meaning that you will not be able to activate it on that network.
General Rules:
The number one rule of this process also applies to buying or selling anything on eBay. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE BUYERS RATING AND REVIEWS. After dealing with a buyer that decided that he didn't know that the phone i sold him wasn't functional and him making multiple attempts through eBay and PayPal to get his money back while still keeping the phone, i make sure to always double check the buyers rating. (btw he didn't win)
Rule number 2. DONT LIE. This one seems pretty straight forward but I have to admit in the beginning it can be tempting to skew the description of you item for sale to make it more appealing and to get more cash. Just don't. Remember eBay has a 30 day money back so if the item doesn't match your description the buyer can just return it resulting in you paying for the return shipping.
Rule number 3. CHECK THE IMEI. This is incredibly important when buying phone to resell off eBay. The IMEI number is a way for you to check the integrity and status of the phone your purchasing. The IMEI number can tell you whether or not the phone is stolen, iCloud Locked, make and model ect. If the seller will not give you the IMEI number DO NOT BUT IT.
My process:
Step One: I first start out by looking for potential phone purchases on eBay. This may mean that you will need to buy a phone out of pocket but a better option (and the one i started with) is finding a broken phone that you have on hand to sell first to get some start up capital. When looking for a potential buy make sure you abide by the three rules above and use good judgement. My recommendation is to looking in the auction section of eBay at a time when most people are busy or sleeping. The technique I use is called Auction Sniping which in short is waiting until the last 3 seconds of the auction and bidding at the max amount your willing to spend. This can be calculated by searching for similar item on eBay to the one your going to buy and then narrowing the search by item s that have already sold to get an idea of what that item could sell for. Remember you want to buy the phone at a lower price than what it can possibly sell for. Some of the things i search for are "cracked iPhones” or narrowing the search criteria in the side bar.
Step Two: My preferred type of phone to buy are cracked iPhone 7s or iPhone 7 plus's. This is because you can buy them at a way lower price than what you can sell them at once they're fixed. In order to fix them I use iCloud locked phones for parts. If the screen on your non locked phone is cracked what I do search for the same make and model on eBay but narrowing the search for iCloud locked devices. A lot of the time you can get these phones very cheap as people don't usually know what they are worth. After receiving the cloud locked phone i simply switch the display over from one phone to another and Bam you have a refurbished unlocked iPhone and a cracked locked iPhone.
Step Three- The third and final step is too sell both of the phones you've purchased. If you have don't this right you should be able to sell the fixed unbroken iPhone at a price that will completely cover the original price of the phone plus the price of the iCloud locked donor device and sometimes even make some profit. The real profit comes from selling the broken iCloud locked device. You will be surprised on how much money you will be able to get for these and in my experience i have been able to get 25% profit from following this process. Because you have already covered the cost of the donor device, whatever you sell it for will be COMPLETE PROFIT.
Than you guys for reading. Definitely comment if you have any experience with eBay selling or any tips and suggestions, id love to hear them. Feel free to follow me as well. I will be making future posts about currents projects and endeavors i'm working on!