This has been a long awaited blog post for me. It’s one I’ve been most excited about and that I’ve worked really hard on. It’s different than what I usually post but I wanted to take what I learned and share with you! I’ll go ahead and preface, just like everyone does, I am not an expert by any means but I do know what works for me and what I enjoy doing.
For starters, there are many, many ways to resell. There’s retail arbitrage, ebay, Amazon, Etsy, Instagram, your own website, the list could go on and on. There is no one right way or one way that’s better than any other. Some people make money selling in volume – they don’t mind making a $5 profit because they are selling 200 of those items. Others might mark their items up triple or more and be okay with waiting until it sells. Neither is better than the other but there are some things that might work better for you. And, that’s what you should stick to. It’s really all trial and error because there are sooooo many factors in reselling anything. Especially if you are only selling local which is what I’ll be focusing on in this post.
I really want to focus on selling on Facebook Marketplace. Marketplace is a tricky little monster. It really depends on the area you’re in and the deals you can find in the first place. It all starts with what you’re going to sell. I like selling mostly furniture-type items. Something just big enough but not too big…and not too small. So specific, right? I want to walk you through the process of what I like to sell, why, and also give you some examples of items and profit margin (that will come in part 2).
Let’s start with how/why I choose what I sell. Although I have sold large furniture items, I don’t really like doing that unless it is just a phenomenal deal. I find that larger items take longer to sell because not everyone has the means to transport that item back home. There may be a lot of people that want it but no one gets it because they don’t have a truck or SUV large enough to get it home. On larger items I’ve sold, I have had many people ask me to deliver and, the unfortunate fact is, we don’t have a vehicle large enough either. If it’s a good enough find, we borrow my parents’ truck and transport it that way (they live about 45 minutes away so it doesn’t make sense to go get the truck and deliver it to someone and take it back).
So, we have (and sometimes still do) sold larger items like couches or desks, but we try to stay away from them if we can. The biggest factor in why we stay away is because it takes up precious space in our home. But smaller items just aren’t worth the hassle. I don’t like smaller items because they don’t bring enough money. It’s not worth it to me to buy something for $5 and sell it for $10. Yes, that’s doubling my money, but I don’t want to take the risk, store the item, photograph, and list it for a $5 profit.
Now, I will lower my price to move an item if it just will. not. sell. And then, I’m happy with doubling my money but if I don’t think I can get more than that to begin with, I won’t buy it in the first place. You have to decide what you want to invest in. I can look at something, look at the price, and decide within 30 seconds if I think I can sell it and for how much. After I buy it, I may decide to sell it for more than I originally thought, but never less.
There are several things you need to considering if you decide to sell physical goods locally. You have to remember that your audience will be much smaller than if you were selling online and you have to store whatever item you’re listing.
Let’s go over a few very important factors if you’re thinking about reselling. We need to discuss the area you live in, following trends, and what buying strategy you’re going to use.
Area
The area you’re selling in is so, so, so important! You have to know your market. For example, I am in Oklahoma and do pretty good at reselling on the Marketplace (when I actually put in the work) but my brother lived in Pittsburg for a while and tried to sell on Marketplace and actually lost money. It’s not about having “good” or “bad” items but it’s about your audience. You see, in Pittsburg, they had to meet people to deliver the items. People are flaky; people don’t communicate. So, he would take time out of his day to meet people and then they wouldn’t show up and that would be a waste of time and a lost sale. It’s important to mention that Pittsburgh is very different from the town we live in and they did not feel safe inviting people to their home to pickup items. Where we live, we feel pretty safe, so we have most people come to our home to pick up their item. We have a small “vetting” process that we do but it is mostly good faith and trust. You cannot do that everywhere. But, in our case, we don’t have to waste our time/gas to meet people. The area also affects prices when you’re looking for items to resell. I know in larger cities in California, prices are SO. CHEAP. on Craigslist & Facebook Marketplace. You can find beautiful antiques for $25 dollars. Here, if you found the same thing, it would be $300. A lot of times, people here think they have something rare and magical and that people will pay for it. I don’t know the thinking in other cities but in Oklahoma, if something is popular, people will raise the price astronomically. So, truly, learning your area is so important.
Trends
Let’s talk a little about trends. When my husband and I first moved into our house, we started selling headboards. I’m serious, we probably sold 20 – 30 headboards in a few months on Marketplace. But then, we noticed that the sales slowed. It was tough to sell our last few, but we finally did it and we decided not to buy anymore unless they were super unique/desirable. Don’t even ask me why we decided to sell headboards in the first place – I have no idea! We just found some cheap ones at the thrift and thought it was worth it…and we were right (for a while)!
I guess what I’m saying is, be careful of trends and not to get caught up in them too deep. It’s great to ride the wave and make money off of a trend but don’t get so deep into it that the trend is over, and you’re stuck with a lot of inventory.
Strategy
That actually leads me to my next point…my strategy is this: I’m not a storage unit. I would rather double my money than sit on an item for too long. I purchased the item for cheap, I’m (at least) doubling my money, my customer is getting a good deal, everyone wins and I don’t have to store it in my garage forever. I know, a few paragraphs up I just said I didn’t want to spend $5 to make $5. And that is true, I won’t initially purchase an item if it is that small of a return, but I will spend $20 to make $20 or $40 to make $40. I will always happily double my money, but it has to be worth it in the very beginning for me to even consider purchasing up front.
You have to think about it like this: you are tying up your money. Period. So, how long do you want to do that? Do you want to buy something for $100 and try to sell it for $200 and put in all the work of sourcing it, photographing it, etc for it to sit around for 3 months? Your time is money and you have to be wise on what you decide to invest in. Like I said, I like to move things fast and I put a good price on things so they will move fast but I still benefit in the long run as well.
I have so many examples that I want to show you and walk you through. This is a two-part series so stay tuned next week where I show you the items I purchase, how much I bought them for, what I sold them for and the turnaround time.
I usually only post every other week but since this turned into such a long post, I will post the good stuff (and the stuff I know you’re waiting for) next week so you won’t have to wait as long.
I know this was a long one but I hope it provided you with some insight into how I buy and sell locally. Really, anyone can do it! And, it’s fast cash. I would love to hear your thoughts on reselling – have you done it? Do you want to start? What is your goal?
Always keep thrifting,
admin
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