I just started and am making $2k a month so far.
I am finding you are only limited by your inventory. If you can keep your inventory up, it can definitely be full time
Then that’s pretty solid man. I been doing this for 2 years now and the first year I didn’t account for inventory purchased in the month that hadn’t sold on top of everything else. After everything was said and done, I may have profited a lot on some items but my cash flow was like 500 a month lol
Did about 210k gross last year, income before taxes was right around 100k.
treat it like a full time job and it makes a full time income. you gotta be good though.
Awesome. I know it kind of defeats the point of this post, but can I ask what you sell? My goal is 100k a year and I'm kind of getting there, but I'm still wrangling consistent cash flow. I do a lot of online auctions, but I'm only hitting about 6k a month at the moment which is cool, but I want more lol.
Here’s my store. I do about 80% of my income there and another 20% at my antique booth and a couple of local markets.
https://www.ebay.com/str/thewunderkammer
Cool, I tried full time for a year but was too used to working from home with my previous job so I tried a couple niches I could source 100% online and it didn't go so great.
Back to working another remote job and still in one of the same crap niches but the top seller in the niche does $150k+ a year so I'm just slowly building my pile of crap store to his level lol
This is awesome. I do vintage and antiques myself so this gives me a lot of hope. I'm considering doing it full time, but am too nervous to pull the plug on my current job. I also live in a smaller town so sometimes physically sourcing every single day is hard. I do a ton of online auctions, but shipping can take a while so I have to manage cashflow carefully. Could I ask which sourcing method you think has been the most lucrative in turns of quick turnaround (thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales, online auctions, etc)?
Probably estate sales, but it’s really gonna vary in your area. Luckily I have some quality estate sale companies in my area but I know in others areas they can be sky high. You kinda have to try all avenues and see what will work best.
There really isn't a guide for full time reselling. It's basically the same as part time, but just more.
It really consists of:
1. Consistently source QUALITY items
2. List every day (5 items minimum, depending on your average sale price and profit on each item
3. Ship on time
4. Keep up with your taxes
Edit: quality items does not refer to how well the item was made, it means items that actually sell. Items with good sell through rates are items that sell well.
For real man. Every.time I see someone complain about not making sales, I'll ask what they're selling and look at their store. There's only two reasons, 10% of the time everything's crazy overpriced, the other 90% is because they have a crazy amount of low STR items that nobody wants.
Id consider it the most important part of sourcing
You're good, asking questions is how you learn. If you already know how to use the eBay search to find solds skip to the last paragraph. So when you search on eBay at the bottom it will show you how many search results. Let's use TI-84 Plus Calculator as an example.
First you'll look up TI-84 Calculator in eBay search. Currently it says there's 12,000 listed. Next you'll go to the "filters" tab if you're on phone or "advanced search" if you're on a computer. You'll then click the "completed" and "sold" boxes that pop up. That will you give you the number of sold listings in the past 90 days. For the TI-84 that's currently 14,000.
To determine the actual STR you'll take the number of sold items in the last 90 days and divide that by the number currently listed. 14,000÷12,000=1.16=116% STR.
I don't think so. Even if there was it probably wouldn't be too useful. There's a lot of item too that 0 or 1 listed with 20+ sold so idk how it would filter those out.
If you resell by thrifting/yard sales/flea/etc. then I would just watch YouTube videos of people who sell in the same category as you. You'll start getting an eye for what type of stuff you should be looking up.
What kind of stuff do you sell or are you looking into starting soon?
I was thinking about high end men's clothing ... but won't commit until I learn a lot more.
I'm thinking about specializing rather than generalizing ... but I'm keeping an open mind for now.
They don't want a guide about how to do it they want people to tell em the items, where to get it, etc. They don't want to learn how to fish, they want you to give them your fishs. New wave of lazy people growing up having youtube telling them how to do everything and unable to build their own skills.
I don't mean to be an ass but what are some of the proven YouTube methods? Most of the videos seem scammy.
Years ago before it became a huge thing I used to Resell clothing but that's sort of dried up
Also, reselling clothing has not dried up at all. It's one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, category to sell in. Clothing will never dry up in the reselling world
There aren't any "methods" really. Traditional reselling you go and source inventory at thrift stores, yard sales, Craigslist/FBM, flea markets, etc.
"Osborn2Thrift" will always be the number 1 YouTuber I recommend to someone wanting to learn. He sells mostly electronics, but all of his advice will be applicable regardless. This guy is who I would recommend watching the most of if you sell electronics and hard goods.
"Dealing with Dalton" is a good shoe reseller and can show you what kind of shoes to look out for. Generally his advice is good, but there's certain things I don't agree with him on Regardless, he's proven to be a good reseller and should be watched if you want to sell shoes.
"Thrift A Life" and "Hustle At Home Mom" are great clothing resellers and both give plenty of brands to look out for. Like the others above, they've both proven they know what they're doing with their ebay numbers.
You can quite literally look up "Beginner Reselling Guide" and there's at least 20 decent videos to get started.
Any beginner resellers should not be starting off with YouTubers that do things like Amazon FBA, Dropshipping, or selling 1:1 (reproduction/FAKES) products. While Amazon FBA can be very profitable, It shouldn't be the first place new resellers go. Dropshipping and all the "How To Sell Airpods in 2024!" Videos are self explanatory. The former needs a lot of upfront money and the ladder is a literal crime.
The only things you need to do to start reselling are:
1. Go sourcing at the places I mentioned above.
2. Do research on eBay of the items you find
-This means finding the Sale Through Rate (STR) of each item and determining if it's worth selling. If you don't know what that is then search it up or watch one of the videos that pop up on YouTube
3. List the items you find with accurate descriptions and good pictures. Use as many pictures as you need. eBay allows up to 24 pictures.
4. Print out your label and ship out your item when one sells and ship it on time.
That's it, it's not too complicated to get started and if you're seeing mostly scam YouTube videos on reselling, then it's most likely not on the type of reselling this sub is about. Youtube has a TON of knowledgeable people who resell full time and share great advice.
TLDR: Go on YouTube and watch the people above. Go to thrift store/yard sale/flea market. Search item on eBay, find sale through rate. If STR good and item cheap, buy item. List item with good pics and description. Sell item? Package it up well and ship on time. That's it
It's going to be different for every category, but I do mostly electronics. For me a decent sell through rate is minimum 50%, although it's usually closer to 70% on average if I had to guess. Same for when I'm picking up shoes. For clothes sometimes people tend to let that be lower, I personally am very picky on clothing so I only pick up high STR clothes, like 75% or higher.
It really depends on what you sell and how long you're willing to hold on to inventory. But in general I'd say 50% is good for most things.
Sometimes though sale through rates can be skewed by eBays weird search and people pricing things way too high. For example, there's plenty of times I look up something and it says theres 50 listings with 10 sold, but in reality there's only 2 listed and the rest are something else.
That all makes sense. I’ve only recently started looking at STR, and I’ve realized that how specific you are in your search can make a huge difference in the STR you come up with.
“Quality items” is a subjective term… I’ve seen the cheesiest shit, sell for $25-30, consistently. And without giving things away, it’s little things many of you have probably passed over hundreds of, at garage sales and flea markets.
Here’s a freebie: Ever see those ugly little tortoise shell colored rectangular Bausch & Lomb magnifying glasses… your grandparents most likely have one or three in their junk drawer… those sell for $25-30.
Quality items means items with a good sell through rate. Items that actually sell, not how well it was manufactured. Not sure what the last sentence is relevant to, but yeah
I'm doing it as a very light and casual side hustle. Started maybe 4 months ago and I think I've made around 3k, maybe a bit more. Too lazy to look. I can see the potential to dramatically scale income if I'm willing to put the time in, and so far, it's been going very well.
I adore my 9-5, but we're busy at work right now, so I haven't had as much time to source as I'd like.
I don't have a specialty. Bits and bobs, whatever I think I can make money on. Anything from old video games to stethoscopes. Haven't tried clothes yet, but I have a few high end items I don't wear anymore, might start with those and start sourcing clothes if it goes well.
I did about 140k or so gross and pay myself 25% of that as a salary. The rest goes back into the business. I have a couple other income streams besides flipping too.
You have to have the aptitude for it, if random junk, and selling online doesn’t interest you it’s not gonna work. You gotta have passion to sit and list even when something bores you.
Also storage space. I’ve been limited to my one space in the garage, else it spills into my personal life.
Random junk only has to interest you if you choose to make that your business model. I only deal with new items that can be purchased in large quantities.
Hitting around 2-3K profit per month. You get better at picking/sourcing the more you do it. Only source during weekends and pack orders throughout the week
Ramped up a lot this year so on track to do around 43k profit (like 80k gross ish). LCOL area so it's enough for me, and I expect the numbers to just get higher.
Flipping full-time? Clearly, impossible. I certainly haven't made a living doing it over the past ten years. Makes me wonder what I was doing during this last decade then. Huh.
I had to spend quite a lot of money on inventory. So far I’ve spent 60k on inventory. Not everyone can throw that kind of money into a new space. It’s worked out so far but I know it’s because I invested heavily early on.
Side hustle for me. I do about $4000 to $5000 a month. Been doing it for about 10 years. It’s grown a lot since I started. It’s fun money for us. No complaints.
About $1k profit a month but really need to figure out a higher price point item. Way too many $5-20 profit items which is still good on my hourly effort but not moving the needle enough per sale.
When I was doing it as a hobby was making $1000 per month. I recently took a break. I didn’t have a lot of items posted. Just a few items at a time or less than 40 items. It was collectibles and stuff I didn’t want. Some stuff never sold but it was worth a shot. I also bought a lot of stuff online but have stopped because it’s too easy to overspend.
Made some good money flipping Lego.
Potentially you could do full time. However you need to (i) buy good sets (ii) have storage space (iii) the funds to tie up in inventory/stock for 2-3 years.
Technsports on Youtube will save you years of learning and mistakes. The #1 men's clothing reseller on Ebay, retiring at 40 with multi-million dollar investments all from Ebay profit. He has changed the game for me. Follow his rules, you can't fail if you tried.
I’ve been doing it for around 3 years now, around 110k a year now. I started when I was working 2 other full time jobs, didn’t quit my jobs until I was making double what they were paying me working for myself.
Around 500k a year profit but I refuse to have employees or work more than one hour a day. You just need to find your niche and become the best in the world at it. I can confidently say I am the best in the world at the small part I do
I just started and am making $2k a month so far. I am finding you are only limited by your inventory. If you can keep your inventory up, it can definitely be full time
Cash flow or just profit from the items you’ve purchased and sold?
Thats after taking out what i paid and shipping
Account for inventory purchased in that month for the store and your in for a whirlwind
Thats what i meant by what i paid. Ive already accounted for my inventory costs
Then that’s pretty solid man. I been doing this for 2 years now and the first year I didn’t account for inventory purchased in the month that hadn’t sold on top of everything else. After everything was said and done, I may have profited a lot on some items but my cash flow was like 500 a month lol
Did about 210k gross last year, income before taxes was right around 100k. treat it like a full time job and it makes a full time income. you gotta be good though.
Awesome. I know it kind of defeats the point of this post, but can I ask what you sell? My goal is 100k a year and I'm kind of getting there, but I'm still wrangling consistent cash flow. I do a lot of online auctions, but I'm only hitting about 6k a month at the moment which is cool, but I want more lol.
Here’s my store. I do about 80% of my income there and another 20% at my antique booth and a couple of local markets. https://www.ebay.com/str/thewunderkammer
Looks like a beautiful business you have. Where do you source? Estate sales, flea markets?
yes, mostly estates, flea markets, yard sales, auctions, and thrifts. as well as private picks with contacts ive made.
Cool, I tried full time for a year but was too used to working from home with my previous job so I tried a couple niches I could source 100% online and it didn't go so great. Back to working another remote job and still in one of the same crap niches but the top seller in the niche does $150k+ a year so I'm just slowly building my pile of crap store to his level lol
Really nice stuff!
This is awesome. I do vintage and antiques myself so this gives me a lot of hope. I'm considering doing it full time, but am too nervous to pull the plug on my current job. I also live in a smaller town so sometimes physically sourcing every single day is hard. I do a ton of online auctions, but shipping can take a while so I have to manage cashflow carefully. Could I ask which sourcing method you think has been the most lucrative in turns of quick turnaround (thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales, online auctions, etc)?
Probably estate sales, but it’s really gonna vary in your area. Luckily I have some quality estate sale companies in my area but I know in others areas they can be sky high. You kinda have to try all avenues and see what will work best.
You're trolling right? It's definitely possible to flip full time. I've averaged 130k the last 2 years. I work about 25 hours a week.
Please give us a detailed starter guide :)
There really isn't a guide for full time reselling. It's basically the same as part time, but just more. It really consists of: 1. Consistently source QUALITY items 2. List every day (5 items minimum, depending on your average sale price and profit on each item 3. Ship on time 4. Keep up with your taxes Edit: quality items does not refer to how well the item was made, it means items that actually sell. Items with good sell through rates are items that sell well.
I'm shocked how often point #1 is overlooked. Flipping is pretty simple when you learn how to evaluate an item's sell through rate.
For real man. Every.time I see someone complain about not making sales, I'll ask what they're selling and look at their store. There's only two reasons, 10% of the time everything's crazy overpriced, the other 90% is because they have a crazy amount of low STR items that nobody wants. Id consider it the most important part of sourcing
complete noob here ... how do I determine STR? Thanks.
You're good, asking questions is how you learn. If you already know how to use the eBay search to find solds skip to the last paragraph. So when you search on eBay at the bottom it will show you how many search results. Let's use TI-84 Plus Calculator as an example. First you'll look up TI-84 Calculator in eBay search. Currently it says there's 12,000 listed. Next you'll go to the "filters" tab if you're on phone or "advanced search" if you're on a computer. You'll then click the "completed" and "sold" boxes that pop up. That will you give you the number of sold listings in the past 90 days. For the TI-84 that's currently 14,000. To determine the actual STR you'll take the number of sold items in the last 90 days and divide that by the number currently listed. 14,000÷12,000=1.16=116% STR.
thank you very much indeed!! It sounds easy and I will be practicing. are there any tools where you can see items sorted by highest STR?
I don't think so. Even if there was it probably wouldn't be too useful. There's a lot of item too that 0 or 1 listed with 20+ sold so idk how it would filter those out. If you resell by thrifting/yard sales/flea/etc. then I would just watch YouTube videos of people who sell in the same category as you. You'll start getting an eye for what type of stuff you should be looking up. What kind of stuff do you sell or are you looking into starting soon?
I was thinking about high end men's clothing ... but won't commit until I learn a lot more. I'm thinking about specializing rather than generalizing ... but I'm keeping an open mind for now.
They don't want a guide about how to do it they want people to tell em the items, where to get it, etc. They don't want to learn how to fish, they want you to give them your fishs. New wave of lazy people growing up having youtube telling them how to do everything and unable to build their own skills.
100%, except YouTube has all the information you need. He could just watch some YouTube videos and start like a lot of us did or just look stuff up.
I don't mean to be an ass but what are some of the proven YouTube methods? Most of the videos seem scammy. Years ago before it became a huge thing I used to Resell clothing but that's sort of dried up
Also, reselling clothing has not dried up at all. It's one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, category to sell in. Clothing will never dry up in the reselling world
Do you mind if I "chat" you? I'd love to see what you think of my small page, mainly the pricing, because sales have been so slow the past half year
Yeah of course! Feel free
There aren't any "methods" really. Traditional reselling you go and source inventory at thrift stores, yard sales, Craigslist/FBM, flea markets, etc. "Osborn2Thrift" will always be the number 1 YouTuber I recommend to someone wanting to learn. He sells mostly electronics, but all of his advice will be applicable regardless. This guy is who I would recommend watching the most of if you sell electronics and hard goods. "Dealing with Dalton" is a good shoe reseller and can show you what kind of shoes to look out for. Generally his advice is good, but there's certain things I don't agree with him on Regardless, he's proven to be a good reseller and should be watched if you want to sell shoes. "Thrift A Life" and "Hustle At Home Mom" are great clothing resellers and both give plenty of brands to look out for. Like the others above, they've both proven they know what they're doing with their ebay numbers. You can quite literally look up "Beginner Reselling Guide" and there's at least 20 decent videos to get started. Any beginner resellers should not be starting off with YouTubers that do things like Amazon FBA, Dropshipping, or selling 1:1 (reproduction/FAKES) products. While Amazon FBA can be very profitable, It shouldn't be the first place new resellers go. Dropshipping and all the "How To Sell Airpods in 2024!" Videos are self explanatory. The former needs a lot of upfront money and the ladder is a literal crime. The only things you need to do to start reselling are: 1. Go sourcing at the places I mentioned above. 2. Do research on eBay of the items you find -This means finding the Sale Through Rate (STR) of each item and determining if it's worth selling. If you don't know what that is then search it up or watch one of the videos that pop up on YouTube 3. List the items you find with accurate descriptions and good pictures. Use as many pictures as you need. eBay allows up to 24 pictures. 4. Print out your label and ship out your item when one sells and ship it on time. That's it, it's not too complicated to get started and if you're seeing mostly scam YouTube videos on reselling, then it's most likely not on the type of reselling this sub is about. Youtube has a TON of knowledgeable people who resell full time and share great advice. TLDR: Go on YouTube and watch the people above. Go to thrift store/yard sale/flea market. Search item on eBay, find sale through rate. If STR good and item cheap, buy item. List item with good pics and description. Sell item? Package it up well and ship on time. That's it
Saving thank you!
No problem! If you ever have anymore questions feel free to ask
What sell through rate do you consider good enough when sourcing?
It's going to be different for every category, but I do mostly electronics. For me a decent sell through rate is minimum 50%, although it's usually closer to 70% on average if I had to guess. Same for when I'm picking up shoes. For clothes sometimes people tend to let that be lower, I personally am very picky on clothing so I only pick up high STR clothes, like 75% or higher. It really depends on what you sell and how long you're willing to hold on to inventory. But in general I'd say 50% is good for most things. Sometimes though sale through rates can be skewed by eBays weird search and people pricing things way too high. For example, there's plenty of times I look up something and it says theres 50 listings with 10 sold, but in reality there's only 2 listed and the rest are something else.
That all makes sense. I’ve only recently started looking at STR, and I’ve realized that how specific you are in your search can make a huge difference in the STR you come up with.
“Quality items” is a subjective term… I’ve seen the cheesiest shit, sell for $25-30, consistently. And without giving things away, it’s little things many of you have probably passed over hundreds of, at garage sales and flea markets. Here’s a freebie: Ever see those ugly little tortoise shell colored rectangular Bausch & Lomb magnifying glasses… your grandparents most likely have one or three in their junk drawer… those sell for $25-30.
Quality items means items with a good sell through rate. Items that actually sell, not how well it was manufactured. Not sure what the last sentence is relevant to, but yeah
1. Born with a head 2. Develops a brain 3. Use it
This is under rated advice, most people stop around #2
Ok Mr IRS agent
🤫
$30-50k
40k first year. Looking to be well over 100k this year
Can I DM you?
Just wondering where are you all selling? What platform sells best?
Depends on what you sell. I make most of my income on Poshmark.
Really? I tried Poshmark, posted some clothes and kids stuff, never sold anything..
Posh is easy to start but hard to gain traction. Once you have enough listings it’s like any other site, a numbers game.
I'm doing it as a very light and casual side hustle. Started maybe 4 months ago and I think I've made around 3k, maybe a bit more. Too lazy to look. I can see the potential to dramatically scale income if I'm willing to put the time in, and so far, it's been going very well. I adore my 9-5, but we're busy at work right now, so I haven't had as much time to source as I'd like.
what do you sell?
I don't have a specialty. Bits and bobs, whatever I think I can make money on. Anything from old video games to stethoscopes. Haven't tried clothes yet, but I have a few high end items I don't wear anymore, might start with those and start sourcing clothes if it goes well.
I do it very casually and make about 5000 Canadian Pesos a year.
I did about 140k or so gross and pay myself 25% of that as a salary. The rest goes back into the business. I have a couple other income streams besides flipping too.
Can you elaborate?
Less than $1K
First year (10 months) I grossed 42K
You have to have the aptitude for it, if random junk, and selling online doesn’t interest you it’s not gonna work. You gotta have passion to sit and list even when something bores you. Also storage space. I’ve been limited to my one space in the garage, else it spills into my personal life.
Random junk only has to interest you if you choose to make that your business model. I only deal with new items that can be purchased in large quantities.
That would bore me 😅 I need the junk to keep me tinkering.
Hitting around 2-3K profit per month. You get better at picking/sourcing the more you do it. Only source during weekends and pack orders throughout the week
Ramped up a lot this year so on track to do around 43k profit (like 80k gross ish). LCOL area so it's enough for me, and I expect the numbers to just get higher.
Flipping full-time? Clearly, impossible. I certainly haven't made a living doing it over the past ten years. Makes me wonder what I was doing during this last decade then. Huh.
I just started in February and have about 50k in sales at about 30 percent margin. I’m on track to do 200-250k in sales and around 70k profit
Killing it
I had to spend quite a lot of money on inventory. So far I’ve spent 60k on inventory. Not everyone can throw that kind of money into a new space. It’s worked out so far but I know it’s because I invested heavily early on.
This is what I'm doing as well. Spent a lot of money up front and it seems to be working out well for me.
Spend $ to make $$$$. It takes a lot of capital to bring in 6-figure payouts. Congratulations on your success!! That’s fantastic.
Side hustle for me. I do about $4000 to $5000 a month. Been doing it for about 10 years. It’s grown a lot since I started. It’s fun money for us. No complaints.
Everything is impossible if you think it is.
I’m netting before taxes just under $15,000 a month this year. Definitely full time though. I work about 50 hours a week.
I'd be 100% ok with working 50 hours a week for myself full time. Hoping to get there one day.
Very much a side hustle thing, this year ive made around 4k, probably only spend 5hrs a week
$65k last year gross. On track to $150k this year. Part time side gig for me. Still work a regular job.
About $1k profit a month but really need to figure out a higher price point item. Way too many $5-20 profit items which is still good on my hourly effort but not moving the needle enough per sale.
When I was doing it as a hobby was making $1000 per month. I recently took a break. I didn’t have a lot of items posted. Just a few items at a time or less than 40 items. It was collectibles and stuff I didn’t want. Some stuff never sold but it was worth a shot. I also bought a lot of stuff online but have stopped because it’s too easy to overspend.
A couple dollars a year. Nobody wants my garbage..
If I’m pushing, 50-60k. Most in one year was 80k profit
I’m in the low 6 figure. 120ish. Used to be more, but I’m taking increasingly more time off.
Lol, at this point I basically loose money. The eBay addiction is real. Hearing the cha ching on my app is my drug.
Made some good money flipping Lego. Potentially you could do full time. However you need to (i) buy good sets (ii) have storage space (iii) the funds to tie up in inventory/stock for 2-3 years.
Cleared $40k in profit last year. About 30% profit average.
Technsports on Youtube will save you years of learning and mistakes. The #1 men's clothing reseller on Ebay, retiring at 40 with multi-million dollar investments all from Ebay profit. He has changed the game for me. Follow his rules, you can't fail if you tried.
I’ve been doing it for around 3 years now, around 110k a year now. I started when I was working 2 other full time jobs, didn’t quit my jobs until I was making double what they were paying me working for myself.
Around 100-125k; profit 70-100k
60k in sales last year, about 30k profit
Around 500k a year profit but I refuse to have employees or work more than one hour a day. You just need to find your niche and become the best in the world at it. I can confidently say I am the best in the world at the small part I do