What is Average Joe Arbitrage? And how can you profit from it?

Arbitrage is the art of finding of something of value and knowing that as one person is selling an item for X amount of dollars, you can buy it for that given price and then resell it for Y amount of dollars, thus making a profit of Z dollars*.

For example, in this add you see a merchant selling gift cards at a discount.  A very common practice among merchants in order to raise dollars in the present while hoping the customer spends the dollars somewhere in the future (if at all).

In this ad, the merchant was selling a $100.00 gift card, allowing the purchaser to receive a $10.00 discount, thus selling the gift card for $90.00, while the purchaser buys and spends a gift card that is worth $100.00. The profit here, (the Z dollars) is $10.00 for the end user or a 10% return on a quick and easy transaction.

This is Average Joe Arbitrage in its simplest form. But, how can we, the Average Joe’s, take this to the next level? And can we make money off of this?

* Here is a shoutout to my 8th grade math teacher, Mrs. Tucker, a saint of a women who struggled to get me to understand the basics of Algebra….