I scored today at an auction. I just need some suggestions on how to monetize it. 31 cases, each with 100 1gb flash drives in them. I'm an established eBayer, so I've already contemplated playing long game with them. Now I'm trying to figure out the best way to work a big sale and move volume.

The USB dongle is under a cap on the right end. The left end has the AUX jack to plug into your car. We opened one case just to see what was in there tonight when we got home and my jaw just about dropped. It was a complete blind auction. We were bidding on boxes that weighed a fair amount.

just out of curiosity, what's the retail of this item?

Get a ton of small boxes. Draw up an pretty ebay sale page and offer them for $8/pop with + $2.99 priority mail. Buy It Now Immediate Payment required. Returns accepted, buyer pays return shipping. Post about $11 mp3 player on Slickdeals. Profit. Maybe.

In truth I don't know there are to many people that would want a 1GB Mp3 player, but **** you've got $3,100 of those bitches.

Another option, get a table at a flea market.

how much did you pay for them ? contact a powerseller who sells a ton and see if they want to buy bulk for cheap .

most profitable is probably selling them yourself . but that can take forever .

It's going to take just about forever packaging and processing 3100 orders.... if you're lucky enough to get 3100 orders for 10 year old technology. Even in backwards countries that still sell Kodak film they are selling 2GB and 4GB mp3 players.

I would try to ditch this on Craigs List first. But maybe I'm underestimating the demand.

I have no clue. They aren't in their retail packaging yet. They come individually wrapped in bubble wrap in the cases of 100. I'm guessing they are manufactured overseas, and then the company that went under packages them here in the States. Yet I find zero reference to this product anywhere on the net, maybe marked under a different name I guess.

Retail for comparables seems to be right around $7.99 from what I can see. I think I'm going to hit the flea market scene, and see if I can sell a few cases to people whom are selling. Maybe bust out some 500 unit or 1000 unit lots.

You've just about pegged what I had come to the conclusion on eBay pricing and listing lineup.

Another thought that I had was to get some packaging made up, along with a barcode, and sell them to a local gas station chain. 12ish years ago I worked for their warehouse/wholesaling branch as the inventory control manager, maybe see if some old connections are still in play. I think if you package them like a lighter, sit them up by the counter, maybe they could sell for them for $9.99 a piece in their C-stores. In reality, I really don't care what they sell them for as long as I get paid lol.

Just find the boxes you need and have stickers printed up. Boom, "packaged."

That's pretty interesting marketing. "1gb flash drive with mp3 player built in".

If you buy a regular mp3 player, you can put whatever you want on it but that isn't special. That's standard on every mp3 player. If you were to search online just search for an mp3 player because that's what it is.

To put things into perspective you can buy a 2gb mp3 player that has a decently organized LCD to manage/use it and it comes with earbud headphones for $12 new in packaging from a retail store or a 4gb model for $15.

I've been up on and off all night long trying to work my way through this. I think I'm going to stick with what I know and go the eBay route with them. I found another person selling 50 lots of 1GB USB dongles for $130 + 12.95 shipping, and he's moving 4 a month. I can be cleared out in 16 months (faster if I can peddle some locally to the flea market vendors) and pocket $7,500 less the 12.5% in eBay/paypal juice still pays out $6,500ish. I think there are ways to make more off this lot, but this is still a safe $6,000 bones. Likely keep the box I've already opened for the back story.

Not bad for an initial investment of $23.00

Now the question becomes what is the buy out number? I.e. at what number do you sell the whole lot to someone and let them make a profit? $4,000?

----
edit: restrained myself from advising since I don't the industry and my comment is random noise, sry for that

Depends on how much work you think it will take you to sell them all and how you value your time.

Repeated sales of the same item on eBay is simple. It takes about 15-30 minutes to come up with a good listing, and you may tweak it once or twice, but after that, you simply keep hitting the "relist" button after you sell one. It's about a 3 click process. My wife handles the majority of our sales side of things for us on there, and LOVES it when I can buy wholesale lots of the same identical item.

The only other time spent is packaging and shipping. The Mrs. is a stay at home mom, she typically spends a few minutes a day packaging stuff while watching "Days of Our Lives", and then typically takes a walk with the kids to get out of the house and get some fresh air (or drives on rainy days) to the post office or FedEx drop box.