Once you are sure you can sell a lot of product X, why not skip the middleman and go straigth to the source the store bought it from?
Well, stores aren’t really willing to tell you who their suppliers are. Plus, chain stores get discounts for buying huge quantities of stuff all at once. I have neither the storage nor the cash flow to buy huge quantities at this point (I might get there in a couple of years; for now, I’ve been doing this about six months).
Mangetout, I’ve done a “Completed Listings” search, which is how I found out that the one item I’m thinking of trying sells for about double what the store charges, when it sells. But only sells about 50% of the time.
4.66, you make some excellent points. As a matter of fact, I was going to tell the employee what my plans are when checking the store’s return policy. I doubt if some drone behind the customer service desk would know the store’s policy on such an esoteric thing, but would probably call the manager over. If anyone gives me a hint that this would be contrary to the store’s policy, I either won’t buy questionable items, or I will buy them with the same attitude I buy everything else I re-sell: it’s a gamble. I’ll probably make some money, I may not make any money, I might possibly lose some money. Such is the nature of running a business.
[quote=bathsheba]
Take a digicam into the store and photograph the items. Put them on ebay then only buy what sells.
[quote]
Well, others have pointed out the obvious flaws in that plan. Thanks for the thought, though. 
Which might mean that either:
-You need to price it a bit lower than that
-You need to relist it if unsold.
-Either of which could of course make it a non-profit venture, so yes, you could try to return it, but as I said, I don’t think the store will tolerate it as an ongoing thing.
Also… (if you haven’t already thought of this - I appreciate you’re an experienced seller so I might be teaching the sucking of eggs here) - dig a bit deeper - is there anything about the photographs or descriptions in the 50% of unsold items that is different from the 50% that did sell?