13 Reasons to Become a Ticket Broker
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Many of my recent visitors have started asking me to write about selling tickets in addition to buying tickets. I will do my best to balance the posts each week to cover both perspectives: buying and selling.
13 Reasons to become a Ticket Broker
- All you need is access to an Internet connection, access to a mailbox, and a credit card with $200 available. Obviously the more you have to start with, the more profit you will make – but $200 is more than enough to get started.
- No website, telephone, or storefront needed. You can sell your product on eBay, Stubhub, and Craigslist.
- No marketing expense – these sites have millions of visitors who are looking for your product.
- No need to talk to customers unless you want to. You can easily sell over $200,000 worth of tickets a year, and speak with no customers. By the way - I have 100% positive feedback on eBay and do about 2000 sales per year. You can deliver world class service via email.
- You can run your business from any time zone, and work any hours that are good for you. If you are a night owl, list your tickets at night, and answer questions at night. Soccer Moms can do it after they drop the kids off in the morning. If you have a few spare minutes at work every day – stop playing fantasy football and process a few sales.
- You can easily put your business on hold when on vacation or traveling (by not listing or buying tickets when on vacation.) Or, bring the tickets with you and ship them from the road if someone makes a purchase.
- No real knowledge needed. Everything you need to know about what is going on sale and when it is going on sale is free on the web. Or subscribe to ticket broker information sites for up to date information on what is going on sale and predictions on the profit potential for each event.
- While strangers may like you a little less, everyone who matters in your life will like you more. Friends, children, parents, siblings, co-workers, neighbors, your mechanic, your barber, your babysitter, your cleaning lady, on and on.
- Contrary to popular belief, it is legal in almost every state. Most states have repealed laws against selling tickets for profit because those laws were, well, un-American. In the states that have laws against selling tickets for profit, there are numerous ways to remain legal.
- You can attend any event, and sit wherever you please.
- You never have to buy from a Broker again.
- You are helping people. I know, many people would argue that buying tickets for the purpose of reselling them can’t possibly be helping them. That’s simply untrue. If only fans bought tickets. And an event sold out before a fan got a seat. Where would they go for tickets? Ticket Brokers ensure there is liquidity in the market - allowing people to buy and sell at any point, and at market price. I have 1000’s of positive feedback ratings on eBay, and tons of repeat customers.
- One good sale can make your mortgage payment.
Why would I go out there and recruit more Brokers? I guess its the same reason I have my blog. I want to help people save money when they buy tickets. But I also want to help people make some extra cash. So many businesses are hard to start up or are just plain scams.
The absolute truth is that there are more tickets for sale for any event than I can personally buy - so sharing this won’t hurt my business at all. And helping people learn how to buy tickets at the best possible price doesn’t hurt my business either. The 11 people who read my blog are probably not going to put me out of business!
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Selling tickets online can be a great source of income, if one puts the work into it. Great post!
I have a comment and a question. I own a business and I agree with everything you said. What I don’t understand is how you as a broker get 100’s or even 1000’s of tickets to the Hannah Montana concert when I can’t get 2 and they sell out in 3 minutes. I have to get a code to buy a max of 4 meanwhile you have 100’s. It feels like a monopoly. Now, suppose I want to become a broker in my sparetime. I meet all your requirements but what do I do next and how do I get the opportunity to buy the front row tix like you do
She doesn’t own 100’s of Hannah Montana, she’s listing tickets from other brokers as well as her own and making a cut of the sales if she sells the others.
She might not even have any, just like you.
Excellent point Aaron! Most Brokers sell a good bit of other Broker’s tickets. So if you call me and I don’t have it in stock, I call another Broker, and complete the sale. Sometimes this results in an additional mark up on the tickets - other times, the Broker you called just gets a commission from the Broker who actually has the tickets.
Jessica
PS…thanks for the email about the bug on my site!
Rick:
Thanks for your comment.
As far as your question how Brokers get 100’s or 1000’s of tickets for a show - the answer is that no single Broker buys that many tickets. The same 4 ticket rule applies for us on shows. The difference is - big brokers may have a staff of 10 people buying tickets at once. Small time brokers like me use 2-3 credit cards and have friends and family call buying tickets.
The other thing most people don’t know is that most ticket sites on the web are a combination of multiple sites. So the same tickets posted for sale on site A are also on B and C. So what looks like 10 sites with 100 tickets each is suall just 100 tickets relisted.
Hannah Montana did not sell out due to brokers. Most Brokers had no idea until after it was too late what a hot tickets this was. The simple truth is that Hannah Montana has more fans than they sold tickets. I really beleive she is a bigger hot than even Disney or her management group knew - otherwise they would have had more shows.
The only true Monopoly is Ticketmaster. They are the only groups that made money on every ticket.
As for getting started, subscribe to my newsletter and be the first to know each week what is going on sale. Read the other posts to learn strategy and technique. If you are serious - join one of the sites that published event info and also has expert predictions on what to to buy for each event.
If you have specific questions - let me know! Thanks! Jessica
is it customary to tip a broker, and if so, how much?