Buying and reselling items for a profit is a great way to make extra money and for some people it is even a career. In this video I’m looking at reselling as a side hustle and where you can find inventory in order to get started.
Reselling As A Side Hustle
My mother-in-law spent the last year changing her business from in person sales with Avon to becoming a reseller using eBay and Facebook marketplace. It’s been fascinating to watch her grow an income as a reseller and I’ve learned so much about the different ways you can make money.
I also had multiple coworkers who started reselling businesses this past year with varying levels of success. One of them even left our company last month to do reselling full time because she was so successful.
Seeing all of this success with reselling around me got me super curious about the side hustle of reselling. So many people around me have been succeeding with reselling, but it also seemed overwhelming to many.
Where do you start? What do you sell first? How do you pick profitable products? Where do you resell things? In this post we will look at some of the details like where you can sell items online and where you can find those products to sell.
Where To Resell Items
Reselling can be done in many different ways and on many different websites. I’ve seen people have success selling items on eBay and I’ve seen people have success reselling on Instagram. There is not one way to handle it successfully and you can sell on any number of the following sites.
Where to resell:
Once you’ve decided on a place to sell, you then need to find products that you can buy at a low price and sell at a higher price.
What To Resell
I discovered the first obstacle to this side hustle is finding things to sell.
There are many different ways to source products that you can resell for a profit. These methods can get you started if you are interested in creating a reselling side hustle or online business.
Resell: Your own stuff
Clearing out your own stuff and selling things you no longer use is a common way many people start reselling and it is how my mother in law started.
Whenever you read lists of how to make money fast this is a highly recommended way to earn money. Many of us own more stuff than we know what to do with and can use the things we want to clear out of our homes to start a reselling venture. Personally I’ve done this and sold many things locally on Facebook marketplace.
My mother-in-law did the same and began with selling some items from her home when she was remodeling. Then she also sold things from a family member’s estate when she inherited all the belongings. Selling her own items on both Facebook and ebay was a great way to get started since it is something you can do at your own pace.
Sourcing things from your own home as well as family members can get you started and is a safe way to learn how to list items and capture buyers’ attention before you start investing money into inventory in the following sourcing methods.
In this video I’m going to show you how to open a free Alibaba.com account in order to source products and packaging you can sell in an online shop. My husband recently opened his custom leather goods store and we decided to use Alibaba.com to source packaging for his products.
Resell: Products from Alibaba.com
Many of my online mastermind friends who’ve started reselling online and are treating it like a business use Alibaba.com to source their products.
Alibaba.com is a site that connects you to manufacturers who produce products that you purchase and then can resell to your customers. It’s perfect for both large businesses and small business owners since there are over 100 thousand suppliers with loads of options available for products and quantities. It’s the world leading e-commerce marketplace so you can find exactly what you want to resell with over 40 categories of products.
When you use a site like Alibaba.com to source your products for reselling you have much more control over your inventory so you do not have to worry about the downsides to some of the other options on this list where your product inventory will be inconsistent and one of a kind.
Resell: Thrift stores finds
My coworkers who started reselling used thrift stores as one of their main sources of products to resell. In thrift stores they focused on finding vintage items that were trendy again today and then built social media accounts around the specific type of items they were buying and reselling.
Thrift stores are a great source of products to resell especially if you’ve built a following around a certain type of product like vintage mirrors or vintage glass cookware that you can find regularly. Thrift stores are also a great way to find and resell items that could be grouped together.
Resell: Garage & estate sale scores
Garage sales and estate sales are another way to find things that you can resell. With these you’ll have to put in more time and effort to find worthwhile items because there will not be the same consistency. You may find a goldmine or you may come up empty when you set out to find items to resell each weekend.
However the great things about using these sales to build a reselling business is that the financial rewards are often higher and for a lot of people the process is more of a fun hobby. You’ll often get a lower purchase price at garage sales since people just want to get rid of things so if you enjoy the hunt as much as the business side this is a great way to source items to resell.
Resell: Clearance section pickups
Clearance sections at your favorite stores are a popular method I’ve seen taught by reseller coaches online because it’s one of the most straightforward. You find products in your local store at a very deep discount and then you sell them online via sites like Amazon for a profit. This works well because things in your area on clearance may command a higher price elsewhere.
Clearance aisles at drug stores are a great low cost way to find new inventory to resell online. I’ve found really great products in those clearance areas and there are often discontinued items that will sell well online to people that want to get copies of those final products.
Reselling Success
Those are just a few of the ways you can find products to resell in order to create a profitable reselling side hustle business.
There are so many options and possibilities and ways to combine and change in order to grow this particular side hustle idea.
After seeing multiple people start from scratch and go full time it’s definitely one that is worth a look if you’re wanting to earn more income in the coming years!
Mary is the founder of Pennies Not Perfection where she shares her journey to build wealth through online income. She quit her day job in 2021 after she paid off her debt and doubled her 9-5 salary.
Mary's favorite free financial tool is Personal Capital. She uses their free tools to track net worth and work toward to financial freedom.
Her favorite investment platform is M1 Finance, where she built a custom portfolio for free with no fees. She shares her portfolio growth and savings progress every month on YouTube.