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/biz/ - Business & Finance

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4952831 No.4952831 [Reply] [Original]

Does anyone on here buy things at thrift stores/yard sales/flea markets and resell them on ebay? Im thinking about doing that and wondering how profitable it is

>> No.4953011

>>4952831
man, it used to be my bread and butter. we have good thrift stores in my town, and about 6 years ago id go daily, and buy shoes and clothes (like high end stuff that id find for like 5 or 6 bucks) and sell on ebay for anywhere between 50-100 dollars. was making an easy 2 grand a month profit.

then, fast forward to today. the market is super oversaturated, buyers are more dickish than ever, ebays and paypal fees screw you to death. i now make maybe 500 dollars a month. it sure was great in its heyday, though, but now its not really worth the hassle

>> No.4953042

>>4953011
Im not really looking to make a career out of it just maybe spend an hour or 2 a day doin this to supplement my income while going through college..dat BAH isnt enough

>> No.4953045

>>4952831
This is a slide thread, the pajeets don't want you to know bitcoin mooning!

>> No.4953086
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4953086

>>4952831

Have done so with mild success.

Keep in mind your margins will have to be large. Ebay charges 10% in fees and another 2% for Paypal.
Gas

Also need to factor in other losses. As always when dealing with people in large numbers you will have problems. For example, retard customers not updating their address and reporting you when id doesn't arrive to their current address, customers claiming items were broken when nothing is wrong with them for reimbursements...etc. USPS fucktards crushing packages. (i cam currently dealing with a broken printer I resold which will be wiping out my profits for the entire month)

TLDR; if you can consistently find items to mark up at least 25% consistently you might be able to make a small profit.

>> No.4953088

>>4953045
wut

>> No.4953163

>>4952831
bump for no crypto thread I've seen in a while

>> No.4953213

Don't discount the Etsy Vintage Types who will pay more than eBay value hunters. Just take nice millennial-friendly fuzzy pix and you're in.

>> No.4953379

>>4953163
I take it /biz/ is all about them crypto threads?

i dont come here that often, mostly an /o/ guy

>> No.4954329

>>4953086
>mark up at least 25%

There's your problem. I won't even bother unless I can mark an item up 300% at the very minimum. And only buy things that are easy to ship and unlikely to be damaged. Like shirts and books.

>> No.4954351

>>4953045
seriously kys

>> No.4954419

>>4952831
Yes but only games and toys that I have a general knowledge of. Not enough to make a living on and eBay fees can fuck you. I only do it to make a little extra on the side. It’s not that profitable desu. Plus it’s dependent on if you even find anything at all. I’ll go weeks without finding anything at thrift stores and I frequent a ton of them.

>> No.4954449

>>4954419
>desu
How the fuck did that get in there?

>> No.4954579

I have considered going to estate sales and checking out some of the jewelry for flipping. Love me some gems and gold. Also considered looking for "reals" among fakes at thrift shops. Might try BL/SH locally with assorted things to avoid ebay and paypal fees

>>4954449
word filters

>> No.4954601
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4954601

>>4953379
It's about whatever makes the fastest shekel with the least effort

>> No.4954613

>>4952831
I'm /sci/ and /lit/ and I have a pretty good catalogue of book prices in my head (for patrician titles). I enjoy finding cheap books at thrift stores, and have made some chump change of this hobby. One of my recent finds was Landau's Classical Mechanics for $3 at Goodwill (a $130 book) and Kenneth Rosen's Discrete Mathematics for $6, which is worth around $80-120.

>> No.4954620

My dad in his previous years spent his fortune on designer clothes he'd hoard from Nordstroms. The past 2 years he's been selling those clothes on Ebay. His profits for both years were 160,000$.

>> No.4954628

My mom's friend buys things in bulk on QVC when there are good prices on stupid shit people eat up (think: American Girl doll, Marvel stuff) and flips it on ebay for huge profit.

>> No.4954655

>>4953045
first non coin thread in a month

>> No.4954717

>>4954655
holy shit i just noticed while looking at the catalog just now like every single thread besides this one in the top 3 rows is about some cryptocoin shit

>> No.4954732

Someone told the normies that old video games are valuable so now every swap meet is full of $30 loose copies of Sonic 2

it's not worth scraping out 5% returns

>> No.4954741

>>4954613
Also, I enjoy having physical copies at a cheap price, so it's a double whammy as a hobby. I just keep the ones I actually want (Edith Hamilton's Mythology, Nissam Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, etc).

>> No.4954787

>>4954655
This
>>4952831
If you really want to make some cash, get a part time job in a retail environment that allows employee purchasing at wholesale, buy product "for personal use" and flip it immediately. Works best in a high margin industry with strict MaP pricing

>> No.4954811

>>4954787
(Examples would be camping gear, car parts, sunglasses, high end clothing, etc)

>> No.4954843

>>4954787
Be careful with that, many places will fire you for that. If you buy huge mounts of stuff you will get noticed.

>> No.4954925

>>4954843
True. Or you could run discounts on every cash sale, charge the customer the full amount, and pocket the difference. That would be illegal thiugh

>> No.4954940

>>4954925
Yeah this is an extremely dangerous and bad idea lol

>> No.4954988

>>4954940
At that point you'd just be better off stealing the merch directly.

Or, what if you found your own supplier, ordered and paid for the goods and got a business license and founded a customer base to sell products to for double what you paid? You'd be skipping to the bank hahahaha!

>> No.4955087

My mom is retired and does this with kid's clothes. Makes sense since kids grow fast as fuck so the clothes are often still in decent condition and the people selling them just want to get rid of it quickly for a small buck.

People on eBay are willing to put down a shit-load of money for good brands so her margins are fucking insane, it's not uncommon for her to flip stuff for 10x value.

>> No.4955131

>>4954741
Great stuff, theirs something satisfying about being able to turn your hobby into an income, hopefully I can develop a patrician eye like yourself someday.

>> No.4955269

Bump
Anyone here written ebooks before?

>> No.4955388
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4955388

>>4955131
It's pretty easy, desu. There's a lot of memefographics like pic related, and a collection of renowned titles in /sci/. Thanks though, I think it's kinda a cool hobby even if it only nets $40 / month (manually shopping for books takes awhile).

>> No.4955402

>>4952831
This is the memecoin board retard

>> No.4955406

>>4954741
Trying to do that with vintage cameras at the moment. Started out collecting and testing different models for fun but now I'm kinda just using the same ones so I plan on trying to sell some off.

Gonna take some product photos tomorrow with good daylight and probably list them on depop before fuckin with eBay.

>> No.4955461

>>4955402
yeah nah mate.

>> No.4955546

>>4955406
I think this line of thought we share is a great way to make genuinely fun money, even if it's small. If you learn a market, there's no sense in not taking advantage. If you don't already know, RSS feeds to give you notifications if a new listing on CL/eBay matches your criteria (e.i "Les Paul guitars under $200"). it's pretty helpful and lets you expand to a few diff markets pretty passively

>> No.4955585

do computer parts actually sell on ebay?
is it even worth it? with shipping costs and all

>> No.4955625

>>4955585
I've made a lil bit rbuying, using and eselling old thinkpads, but it was by no means lucrative and took a lot patience and researching model numbers.

>> No.4955640

>>4955585
Search whatever you are going to sell and then select the "sold listings" option. That will show you an approximate value.

>> No.4955665

>>4955585
If you're in a big city craigslist can be pretty good.

>> No.4955710

>>4955388
great stuff man, you must have a ubermensch book collection, I'm sure if profit was your only concern you could expand your scope ezpz.

>> No.4955748

Like others have said, the only way to make it worthwhile is to give yourself big margins. Fees are going to screw you so only sell things you can easily 3x or 4x your money on. Otherwise it's a waste of time

>> No.4955777

>>4955546
Didn't know about this. I've never really sold anything online, just via Craigslist. I'll look into the RSS feeds, thanks.

>> No.4955824

I flip retro and import video games on ebay to make a few bucks. You have to factor in the time it takes to search for deals, going to the post office, pack envelopes, respond to customers, fees, etc. I make about minimum wage when compared to the hourly wage I make at my day job. However, it's a more productive use of my free time.

>> No.4956048

>>4952831
I sell whatever I can on EBAY. I love it. But, it's a hobby for me. I dump all my useless stuff that I have on it. I feel better knowing it's not going to go into a landfill. I sell friends/family stuff and keep 50% of total profit. I've made a couple grand in the last 2 yrs. The fees are bullshit, but it's money that I wouldn't have had anyways so I don't really care. Whenever I know friends/family are clearing out junk I'll go and see if there is anything of value. I'm using my profits now to invest in Crypots

>> No.4956091

>>4955824
>search for deals
set up RSS feeds nigger, no reason not to imo

>> No.4956116
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4956116

yeah man, I do it with music gear. Stick to what you know, and have some idea about how the markets moving. Watch sold listings and the prices theyre going for.

See so many people fall for the trap of "WELL ITS 400 NEW SO ILL SELL IT FOR 250 AND MAKE MAD PROFIT" but then realise market price is maybe 120-150 for example.

Also if you catch onto a craze you can make money in shit you dont know. When nintendo amiibos came out i made about 1000 bucks off the first three releases going around to all the Targets and Big W's and buying them all on launch day. Only had a tip off from a friend but it worked. Went scuba diving and sky diving, was sick!

>> No.4956157

>>4955710
thanks anon, and yeah it's quite patrician tbqh but something tells me only myself and these Taiwanese basket weaving forum frequenters will ever appreciate it, and that's ok

>> No.4956197

>>4956116
What sort of music gear?

I've been w8ing to get my hands on a Moog Mother-32 that I can potentially flip, nigger

>> No.4957037

is ebay worth it for non americans?
what about shipping fees to america?
is ebay popular just because of cheap shipping inside of america?

>> No.4957222

>>4956116
Same here it's a bit rough trying to find something to sell but it's nice when it happens. I sell on reverb as the fees are cheaper.

>> No.4957303

>>4957037
Look into eBay's international shipping program