How feasible is this side hustle?

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I was browsing eBay for a PC component when I came across a listing for a baseboard/CPU/Cooler/RAM/SSD bundle. No case, no power supply, not fully built, just those parts assembled on the baseboard. I costed up the parts, and s/he is making a £200 profit for around 20 minutes of work.

The kink in my new side hustle is that I don't have a spare £500 lying around that I can risk on buying these parts if it doesn't sell. However, this seller doesn't have a picture of the PC; they have an AI-generated screenshot of the parts, which makes me think they don't actually have the bundle yet, or at least they don't have it assembled and ready to ship.

What would go wrong if I advertised a bundle I could get on Amazon Prime next-day delivery but didn't actually purchase the parts until I sold the bundle on eBay and received the money?

I feel like there must be a massive flaw in my plan; otherwise, why isn't everyone doing it?

Just because they are listed at that price doesn't mean anyone will pay it

The flaw is that you have no idea people are prepared to pay that price?!

Hence, not buying the parts until people do pay that price. The seller's profile reckons they've sold 1200 items, but I don't use eBay. Is this 1200 of that item or all their items combined?

Look into drop shipping. No up front overlay.

I've heard of dropshipping but haven't looked into it. It never really appealed to me, and isn't it against Amazon/eBay's terms and conditions?

If you sell as a private seller account, until you’re an established seller with credible rating, eBay holds the buyer’s payment until after successful delivery is confirmed, when they release it to you - which wouldn’t work for you if you’re entirely reliant on receiving the buyer’s money to buy the product you’ve sold them.

You can set up as a business seller, but it involves more onerous conditions (you have to comply with distance selling and consumer protection regs) and comes with additional fees and tax requirements.

eBay sellers’ ratings relate to all their sales - so 1,200 reviews just means that they’ve been reviewed for that number of sales, not that they’ve sold 1,200 of one particular item. There could be hundreds of low-value items in there, and relatively few sales of their high-priced listings.

I can afford to buy the parts as long as I know they've been sold, and I will recoup the money.

When I was thinking of things that would go wrong, I was thinking more along the lines of it being against eBay's terms and conditions, people not being able to set it up, i.e not connecting the PSU cables properly and then blaming me when the thing doesn't post, or people buying a system with a 5000 series processor and returning it for their money back with a 3000 series processor, or eBay taking huge fees and making it unprofitable.

There has to be a catch, or why aren't thousands of people doing it?

There are thousands of people / companies doing it, eBay is flooded with these sorts of sellers, despite it being against Ts&Cs. Sometimes they get found and shut down, and then set up new profiles.

You’ve identified the main problems: consumer rights; scammers; how you manage customers saying an item isn’t as described or is damaged, or didn’t arrive and being auto-refunded by eBay. It’s not really a “side hustle” for an ordinary person who just wants to make some extra money with little hassle.

If you look closely at ratings, you often see that some sellers have sold hundreds of products but most of these are e.g. cheap phone screen protectors or charging cables etc on which they make little profit but strategically use to build their ratings, rather than many of the high-value items they advertise. The algorithms also work against people like you just starting out: listings from high-volume, high-rated sellers are boosted above listings from sellers who don’t have any status, so you won’t get a lot of visibility.

The more I look at it, the more I think this is some kind of money laundering scheme.

There are people posting pictures of systems with AMD baseboards whilst only offering Intel processors. I think I'll stick to amusing myself by upgrading/rebuilding my own system.

I think anyone that knows enough about computers to know what all those bits were and how to fit it into the case etc would just do it themselves.
I am clueless and would just buy a PC if I ever needed one. My husband builds one from scratch.

Some people know enough to put the parts together but aren't confident about choosing compatible parts or flashing baseboards. I've been asked to do this a few times for my kid's friends when they've wanted to build their own systems.

I spoke to the bloke from the local PC parts shop this morning (I never did find the part I was looking for on eBay; I got too distracted). He builds and sells refurbished PCs and said it is a thing; people do make a living from it, but it's not worth doing unless you're prepared to do it as a full-time job because you're often expected to provide round-the-clock, remote IT support and will get bad reviews if you don't.

He thinks if I enjoy building PCs, I should still do it, but advertise on Marketplace and local sites and offer free local delivery and in-house installation, which would reduce the need for constant remote support. He reckons I could make between £50 and £150 per build depending on the specs, with refurbished, high-spec systems earning more.

I'm thinking about it; I have a drawer full of old parts. I might buy the extra bits I need to build a full system, stick it on FB, and see what happens.