My Top 5 Thrifted Treasures + A lesson in succession from a seasoned reseller

Hey, ladies and gents! I have to tell you that thrifting has been my therapy for a long, long time now! To be able to snag a great brand or rare find for a super low price literally gives me the same kind of butterflies you often hear are synonymous with falling in love. I can’t explain exactly why I feel this way about thrifting; but, the why doesn’t really matter as long as it’s something that makes you happy and is helping you and others!

Well, the one thing I truly love ethically and ecologically about thrifting is that I am doing my part to keep clothes and accessories out of landfills. I started thrifting for myself with this purpose, the way a vegan stops eating meat! I felt it was the right thing to do. I didn’t realize that I would soon become “hooked on the feeling”, like BJ Thomas once said, or that eventually, I would turn it into a lucrative business! I am dying to share what I have learned over the years with y’all regarding the art of thrifting and reselling but first, let me show you my top 5 best finds of all time and what I got and flipped them for!

First, let me tell you about this beautiful and in absolutely amazing conditionPrada saffiano double zip bought for $35 at a high-end only item consignment store which benefited charity, and sold for $975, which I used to help pay for a semester of my college tuition at the time.

Next, this trendy pair of Hunter Wellington rain boots that I bought at my local Goodwill as soon as they went on the floor 1/2 off Saturday, for $12 and sold for $85. This wasn’t a huge profit but it was definitely an item I felt like as meant to be mine and it gave me that feeling I was talking to you about earlier. Sometimes it’s the experience, guys!

Another amazing find was this stunning Givenchy Authentic Pandora handbag bought for $23 at an estate sale, and sold for $850 the SAME DAY!

One truly stellar find that I actually found ridiculously difficult to part with is this Chanel GST bought for $64 at a garage sale sold for $2800 in about a week on my old eBay account around 7 years ago.

Finally, the last of my ultimate best finds is this Tory Burch wallet on a chain bought for $11 online thrifting which sold for $65 online as well once I took better photos of it and looked up the exact style of the bag.

HOW TO: TIPS & TRICKS

In today's world, it seems like everyone is trying to find that perfect side-hustle. The one that makes passive or semi-passive income, while working their separate full-time job, finding a hobby they love with the extra bonus of a paycheck, or to ensure that they are optimizing every money-making avenue available. This became me,for all of the aforementioned reasons, but it comes with a story and it didn't happen overnight. Yet, it absolutely CAN! With the tips and tricks I am about to share with you, that took me months to learn and years to perfect, you will find a wealth of helpful tools you can use to ensure you have a profitable business starting TODAY!

If you are anything like me, fashion was always my passion. I felt especially excited when I had a package I had ordered coming in the mail or purchased that cute new dress from the store. However, once it got to me and I wore the item once or twice, the initial "high" of the purchase did not rationalize the money spent EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. However, it was like a strange addiction that I had. A secret I tried to keep to myself that ultimately became a point of contention in my relationship as well as creating a dissonance for me personally. What made me feel great always wound up making me feel worse after. The cycle of shopping to spend and spending to shop was hurting me and certainly not helping my bank account. So, I decided to do something, which started out as a hobby and grew quickly into a business. In fact, it is one of my main sources of side-hustle income and I love every second of it. From being able to shop guilt free, getting to try on items for photo purposes, or because I now have the outlook of as long "as long as I list it, it's mine until I sell it" (and make sure to gently use the thrifted items I source, except for those that are considered new with tags still on), I am able to profit as well as scratch the itch that I and a lot of people get from the shopping bug bites.

When I first began this endeavor, I knew absolutely nothing and began by listing my children's outgrown clothing and things I had in my own closet that I no longer wanted or needed, primarily on the platform that I was most familiar with at the time, Ebay. I found immediate success on this site as it was pretty user-friendly. However, this was before I began taking reselling seriously and have since expanded my platforms, learned from some of the top sellers in the reselling industry, taken classes, been involved in challenges, and have absolutely reaped the rewards by taking my hobby and turning it into a lucrative business endeavor and I want to show you how you can too!

TOP TIPS & TRICKS

1. CROSS-LISTING: Cross listing is simply expanding your platforms to ensure that you get the most eyes on your items. So, instead of only listing on one or two sites, try to branch out and use multiple sites to sell your item on. When your item sells, simply de-list it from the other sites or mark as "sold". Once you begin, this may seem daunting, however, by using a virtual cross-listing assistant, like Vendoo, you can easily list once and transfer each listing easily to as many other platforms as you desire! More eyes on your items equals more sales, equals more profit. My personal favorite is Vendoo. See how easy it is to use?

2. INVEST IN GREAT PHOTOS: To begin, a clean white background with great natural light will certainly suffice to get you started. An easy way to make your backdrop pop is to simply get a piece of white wooden board and add a Command Strip hook to support your clothing or accessory hangers.

Here are a few examples of what I have used in my business that were easily and quickly shipped to me right from Amazon.

3. USING THE TOOLS ALREADY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS:

The next reselling golden nugget that I came across that truly upped my game as far as converting listings into sales, was using the tools that your Google search engine already provides you with, to find the exact names of items and stock photos that you can use. Make sure to note that the photo is not your own and was pulled from the stock site, if you decide to go this route to ensure professional photographic imagery of your product as your main photo. The tool I most readily use to do this is Google Lens. By simply taking a picture from phone and inputting it into the Google Lens feature, I am able to find not only gorgeous stock photos of my item but the exact name of an item someone might search for.

For example: If someone is searching for the Free People Hometown Cardigan and you have merely listed your item as "Cute brown Cardigan", you are far less likely to pop up in their search than someone who has the correct keywords: In this case the brand and exact item name.

4. SOURCING MADE SIMPLE:

So, you finally decided that you enjoy reselling, now that you have made your first few sales from your no-longer-needed goods, but what now? Well, it takes a little money to make a lot, right? So, lets talk about how to take your proceeds and invest them back into your business. You can do this with as little as $25, which I learned quickly can be flipped into hundreds, with the correct items sourced. First, use your listing platforms to see what brands are trending, identify your niche(s), and now let's go shopping!!!

Some places that I love to shop both from home and out in the world include:

MY LISTING PLATFORMS! That's right, I use Ebay, for example to often search trending brand names and select "low to high" in my settings to see if I can snag great brands for next to nothing. Typically, I ensure that what I am choosing to purchase is not over-saturated on the platforms that I intend to list the item on at a higher price point.

THRIFT STORES! Thrift stores, like Goodwill, are where many online resellers find their diamonds in the rough. I once found an authentic Chanel Bag at my local Goodwill for $45 and wound up flipping it online for close to $2000. Now, this does not happen often, I'll admit, but when it does it is oh-so-sweet!

RETAIL ARBITRAGE! Buying low and selling high! That's business 101 in a nutshell, right? Well, in order to successfully find quality, new items to be able to flip for close to original MSRP or higher, while paying next to nothing is by being expansive with your sourcing. Stores like TJ Maxx, Ross, and Marshall's are great places that you can spend some time in to find great brands for way less and then list for close to the original tag price (again make sure your choices are trending and your item is not over-saturated on your selling platforms before purchasing anything).

AMAZON! I recently noticed a huge upswing in the sales of vegan leather totes in the color Cognac. So, I simply logged onto Amazon and purchased 5 of them for a very reasonable price and wound up selling them for 4 times what I paid because the followers on my platform chose to search for a Cognac Tote there instead of Amazon that day. However, this was a win-win for both myself and Amazon. This is a great way to use big business to support your small business (Now, who would've thought, right?)

5. DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR PLATFORM!

Finally, one of the best tips I can provide to you with to enhance your online reselling business is to ensure that you are able to drive traffic to your own store platforms. There are many ways to do this. A few examples are creating a blog that matches your niche. A good reseller friend of mine blogs about being a mom and tends to sell products that reflect her lifestyle. She often will drive traffic directly to ensure her sales from her blog site by being her own affiliate and linking helpful items to her followers that she believes in (and happens to be selling). Or, writing on a site that you publish on, like Vocal and creating back links that actually make sense for your audience to click on to gain information and examples from.

So, all in all, I personally love my job(s) for the first time in my life! I have turned my favorite passed-time hobby into a profitable business and I no longer have shopper's guilt.

Feel free to check out my favorite online platforms below and how I have set my stores for success!