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My girlfriend goes to Goodwill and Salvation army and yard sales,buys Hollister, American Eagle and Harley-Davidson clothes and doubles and triples her money selling them on ebay.
Anything Harley is a big seller. She'll bought a pair of Harley sunglasses for $5 and sold them for $30. Harley boots...she bought a little 4 inch harley bike plastic cake topper and got $15 for it.
Also popular sports teams merchandise. Yankees, Cubs, Redsox etc. She bought a Derek Jeter xmas tree ornament for $2.88 and sold it for something like $15.
She also makes a killing on shoes and purses from Goodwill. The only brands I can remember are a shoe Brand called Born and purses by Kate Spade. There are others but I don't pay attention to the brand names other than the obvious brands like Coach and Gucci.
Edit: Plus size clothes (I'm not sure which brands) are a huge moneymaker.
Another thing that works is whatever the hot movie thats at the theatres is a big seller...Right now Transformers and Green Latern items will sell, next year batman is going to be the big deal, so buy stuff now, sit on it and sell it when it's hot. You have a smaller window tho'..As soon as something new comes out, people will forget all about the Transformers or whatever is hot.
My wife resells clothing on eBay and does very well with it. Good pictures on a mannequin and a good description really helps a lot. She also usually sets the clothing up as an outfit with the caveat that the other items are not included but are available at auction as well.
Stock sources are high end yard sales and flea markets.
I'm leaning toward doing the same thing. I have a niche market in mind and I think I'm ready to dive into this. Dport7674, are things still going well for you guys with your eBay store? Did your girlfriend purchase the monthly store subscription (Limited I'm guessing would be the most reasonable priced choice) or does she list items as an individual seller without a store?
Also, do you have to worry about sales taxes, Schedule C income, or anything like that? How do you handle the recordkeeping?
Things are going good. She does pay taxes but I'm not sure how it works. She doesn't mess with Goodwill as much as before, she has basically started buying 'Lots'. And keeping records is easier that way.
An example would be, she bought a box of 60 Hallmark ornamnets for $80 on ebay, is selling them individually on ebay and is able to print off paperwork for every sale she makes.
I don't know the website or dealership she orders from but she gets a Harley box delivered 4 times a week it seems. ANYTHING Harley sells. She bought a Harley cummberbund for a mans tuxedo, and immediately order more because people were bidding on it like crazy. (It's funny cuz she knows nothing about motorcycles and looks nothing like a biker mamma, she won't even watch Sons of Anarchy with me)
She's now able to weight her items at home and print her own postage stickers. This makes things much, much easier. She has a system. Fold the boxes, tape the bottom, put in the item, tape the top, write the buyers name on box..after doing all the boxing she then goes back, prints postage, postage sticker has the buyers name/address on it, look for name she wrote on box, put postage on it..Bada boom, bada bing.
She keeps track of how much she has spent on tape, printer ink, boxes, printable postage stickers etc. She buys boxes buy the ton it seems, lol.
I don'y think she has an ebay store, she's a top rated seller but I think she is considered an individual seller.
She no longer messes with purses because of knock offs.
I'll try to break it down for you simply. Selling on eBay is not a get-rich scheme and its lots of work. Yes, it's true that you can make a living going to thrift stores and reselling their merchandise, but bear in mind that this is already an over-saturated market. Not all Goodwill stores get the kind of merchandise that you need to be successful and the stores that do are generally full of people doing the same thing. For example, they already know the 'system' and know when the new racks of clothes come out and scoop up the best items right away. Let me tell you that there are lots of people who have been doing this for many years and they have their 'connections' set up already and that makes it difficult to get into. The things that Dport7674 says are true about the clothing that sells well, but the problem is getting your hands on those items. So if you are lucky enough to not live in an area with high unemployment, you may be able to find these items in your local store. If so, you have a gold mine on your hands and you can start an eBay store right away. Just follow what other successful sellers are doing.
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