“I feel like I bought $20,000 worth of inventory. Not as photographed. And I hope it’s as they described it.” That nervous line opens a haul by the crew at Da Hub Crew, a music shop that just won a mountain of CDs at auction.

The lot was roughly 18,000 CDs, about 3,300 records and a pile of books, and it still had to get home in a rented truck.

The shop’s owner explains how a message on Instagram turned into the biggest inventory buy of their year.

An Instagram Message Led Them Back To A Warehouse They Already Knew

Someone contacted the shop on Instagram about an upcoming auction for a huge archive of records and CDs, including a hardcore punk collection. The owner recognized the photos straight away.

A man who runs a retail shop buys overdue storage lockers and auctions, and this stock came from a locker that once belonged to a record label with a retail store in Sydney. The owner had bought from that shop before and picked up brand new CDs for around $10, and one sold almost immediately for $200.

A couple of years earlier, he had visited the warehouse itself. The sellers offered the whole lot for about $170,000, claiming a retail value of $600,000 to $700,000, which he calls “really, really optimistic.”

The Price Kept Moving Before The Auction Even Started

Later the sellers offered to deliver everything for about $17,000. The shop had no space and no budget then, so he countered at $6,000 with pickup. They never answered.

Then the Instagram message arrived with the auction link. This time the shop had room and money. The bidding opened at $7,000 and the auction house estimated it would sell between $7,000 and $12,000.

They won it for $15,000. With the buyer’s premium, the total came to $18,915, which he rounds to “best part of $19,000.”

A Hired Truck, A Four-Man Crew And Nine Hours

The price was only the start. They hired another truck for $280, paid for fuel and a worker’s wages, and added the running costs of their own truck. “All up realistically $20,000.”

The loading crew was the owner, his partner Mel, and their right-hand man Aaron, plus Rex, who was sent by the sellers. The owner slipped Rex some cash because he worked so hard. Loading took about two and a half hours, with roughly two and a half hours of driving each way.

Two pallets of books weighed about 600 kilos each, or roughly 1,200 pounds. Each box weighed about 13 kilos. As the crew packed cages with CDs, records and books, rain began to fall and towels went over the tops of the cages.

Crawling Up Mountains At 18 Km An Hour

The drive home was the scary part. Heavy cargo, a truck “getting on a bit,” and hills made for a slow trip.

The owner says that “at one point I was looking at the speed on the truck and we were going 18 km an hour,” about 10 miles an hour. His partner jokes she fell asleep and woke up convinced the truck was tipping over because one side was heavier than the other.

They were glad they had a support vehicle that was also loaded and heavy. A breakdown on a hill with that weight would have meant real trouble. The sellers even complimented them for doing the job with proper trucks instead of paying a courier.

What Was Actually In The Lot

Besides the 18,000 CDs and 3,300 records, there were books, including about a thousand copies of one brand new title. It used to retail in the mid-$40s. The shop listed it at $44 and has lowered it to $33.

The boxes also held paper shopping bags, promotional towels for a band, and empty vinyl covers. Many of the records are brand new and sealed, and the owner says a lot of the inventory is hard to find elsewhere.

One record from the lot has sold two copies in a week and a half for about $66 each. That is the kind of inventory he does not mind holding.

The Plan To Turn $20,000 Into $100,000

By the owner’s math, once staff time is added, the collection has cost about $25,000. His target is $100,000.

The strategy is speed. Staff members Shaz and Gabe are sorting everything into piles of the same title, keeping a set number in stock and moving the rest quickly. If there are 300 copies of one title, he says, “we need to start moving it out the door.”

Quality control sorts good stock from rougher copies, which will be sold with honest condition notes. The shop plans to sell through live auctions starting low, and to build bulk packs with one of each CD. For a metal special, they talked about starting items worth $300 at retail at a low opening price, which the owner admits is “scary.” Items that sell for $60 or $66 in the store could open at $10 online.

Lessons From An Auction Gamble

The owner admits it was a “bold” buy to make mostly sight unseen, though he had seen the warehouse years earlier. A few lessons apply to anyone buying at auction.

• Know the real market value before you bid. He knew from past sales that single CDs could fetch $200.
• Add every cost, from the buyer’s premium to truck hire, fuel and wages, before deciding if a lot pays off.
• Plan your cash flow. Twenty thousand dollars tied up in inventory is a lot to hold.
• Bring the right gear and enough people. Heavy lots can wear out a crew.

As his partner put it at the end, good luck recouping the costs. Go team.

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