Thrift. Flip. Repeat.
Here’s a BOLO that you or someone you know may have in your home. This edition of the New York Times Magazine about the 1619 Project was published in August of 2019. It sold out quickly and copies are still highly sought after. Check out completeds here.
Of course I sold a bunch of loveys. All of those shown above sold for $24.95.
The three listed above sold for $29.95.
This Juicy blanket got a lot of attention on PM, but finally sold via GSP on eBay.
Paid: $2 @ VV, Sold: $26.95
(listed since Oct, 2019)
I thought this phone was really fun, but it took forever to sell!
Paid: $1 @ ys, Sold: $29.95
(listed since Aug, 2015)
2015!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, I pretty much keep things listed until they sell. Thankfully it is rare for it to take that long.
Littlefoot Gund Plush
Paid: $2 @ rummage sale
Sold: $29.95
(listed since July, 2019)
Some Land Before Time plush sell better than Gund brand. Keep an eye out!
Disney Pooh Butterflies Blanket
Paid: $1 @ ys, Sold: $34.95
(listed since July, 2019)
‘Tis the season for selling coats. All of those above sold in the $30-$40 range, plus shipping.
Every year at Christmas my boys’ BABW plush get new outfits. I purchased the lot on the left on eBay for $16.99. I kept all of the super hero outfits, and sold the Disney outfits on the right for $17.95.
Not huge flips, but I have had good luck selling NWT Bark Box dog toys. I bought a box of them at a ys over the summer and they all sold quickly. This one is Vincent Van Squirrel.
Paid: $2 @ VV, Sold: $17.95
(listed since Nov, 2019)
How has your Q4 been? I can’t believe the new year is right around the corner!! Where oh where does the time go?
I am still plugging away at Poshmark. Things are busy with the upcoming holidays, so I have been trying to aim for consistency over quantity when it comes to listing on eBay, Poshmark and (now even) Mercari. My current magic number is 4 ~ that is how many new PM listings I try and put up each day.
At the beginning of the month I tried sending out offers to likers on Every.Single.One of my listings. I did this at the beginning of November and sold nine things in one day, which I thought was a decent result. This time around I only sold four things. Two were really old listings that I was super excited to see go … but overall, the four sales didn’t necessarily seem worth all the time I spent sending out the offers. I am not sure I will be repeating the experience in January.
Last month was the first month I averaged more than one sale per day on PM! Not sure yet if I will make it to that goal this month.
November – 44 Poshmark sales
December – 21 Poshmark sales (SO FAR…)
I have a continuous 3/$25 sale I run on PM for many of my listings. I heard a recommendation somewhere to pick an emoji to put at the beginning of the listing to clue buyers in to what is included in the sale. So, hundreds of my listings start with a tulip icon, and I have sporadic signs throughout my closet with the details of the sale. I have sold a few bundles this way, but not many. So over the next month I have plans to slowly add “3/$25” to the beginning of every listing included in the sale to make it super obvious there is some kind of a sale going on. I am hoping that will lure more buyers in to peruse my store.
If you have any tricks up your sleeves about getting sales, specifically bundle sales, I would love to hear them!
This BOLO is coming courtesy of a friend of mine. She posted about it on FB and OF COURSE I had to look it up on eBay to see what it is selling for. Check out the completeds!
Also, below you can read her post on FB and her mom’s response (shared with her permission, of course). It made me laugh!
I had fairly steady sales throughout November. Here are a few of my favorite flips.
I sold a lot of loveys in November. These all sold for $24.95:
All of these sold for $29.95:
These sold for $34.95:
This gingerbread plush sold last month. I was watching a new Netflix (Hallmark-esque) Christmas movie not long after and saw the exact same plush! Made me wonder if it caught the eye of someone else watching the movie and motivated them to look it up on eBay?
Paid: $1 @ ys
Sold: $18.66 (on sale)
Listed since July, 2019
Someone bought Kermit at the end of October. He was packaged up and ready to go when I got a cancellation request stating that her son accidentally ordered it. I was skeptical and a bit annoyed since I had it all ready to go and had to void the label, etc, but since I hadn’t mailed it I did as she requested. About a week later I was running a sale and it sold again for a few dollars less. Kermit was still packaged in the box so I grabbed it, removed the old label, printed the new label only to discover … the exact same person bought it again. (Insert eye roll here.)
Paid: $0.50 @ ys, Sold $21.21 (on sale)
Listed since August, 2019
You can sell anything on eBay! These were still new, factory sealed. I picked them up out of a free box at a yard sale over the summer.
Paid: $0, Sold: $14.95 + shipping
Listed since Sept, 2019
I knew I wanted this when I saw it at a GW, but it took me awhile to figure out what it even was.
Coleman oversized dog toy
Paid: $2.99 @ GW, Sold: $34.95
(21 days after listed)
This was the only Ugly Christmas Sweater I picked up to flip this year, and I was glad it sold relatively early.
Paid: $0.50 @ ys, Sold: $24.95
(15 days after listed)
Little Miracles is found at Costco, and is definitely one of my favorite lovey brands to pick up. This was a set of a blanket and mat.
Paid: $5 @ consignment sale
Sold: $44.95
(17 days after listed)
Tis the holiday season. My sales aren’t amazing, but they are pretty steady. How are things shaping up for you? I’d love to hear about it!
This is what I have been up to this last month … times five. Yes, I bought five carts full of Halloween costumes on clearance. I wait until the price drops to 90% off. I think I did my biggest haul yet, split among four different stores. I spent a grand total of $812.41(!) earlier this month. (Which means that the initial retail price of the costumes was $8124.10.) My best guess is that I paid an average price of $2 per costume, which equals about 400 new items. The great thing is that I bought duplicates of quite a few, some in different sizes, meaning I can list it once and sell it again and again.
I am at least 2/3 of the way through listing them all. I have sold 14 of the newly listed costumes so far, and am approaching $300 in sales. I am keeping track of my gross sales from the haul, and am hoping to hit the $1000 mark by the end of December. When I hit that I will feel like I am close to making back my initial investment.
Here are some of the costumes I have already sold from my new listings – and I have sold multiples of the PJ Masks, Fancy Nancy and Puffer Fish costumes.
I will say that buying and selling costumes in this kind of quantity is not for everyone. There is, of course, the initial financial investment, not to mention the physical space all of the costumes will take up. You definitely need to take the long view because most won’t sell right away. But, I do sell costumes every single week. The sales come in slow and steady most of the year, and then mid-August to mid-October I sell costumes like crazy. The past few years September has been my highest sales month of the year.
Because the prices are so low, I do almost no research before purchasing. If I like it, into the cart it goes. The research starts when I get them all home. For some costumes the market is so saturated that they end up selling below retail price. Most sell right around retail price. And there are always a handful of costumes that are actually quite rare and sell well above the initial retail price. It’s a mixed bag for sure, but I enjoy it. And so I will continue to buy and sell costumes.
A couple years back I used to sporadically watch reseller videos on Youtube, but that stopped completely when I was trying to juggle my own reselling with working outside the home 5 days per week. Since my job situation changed and I am spending the next year focusing on my reselling full-time, I have started watching Youtube videos again. And I am looking for recommendations! Who are your favorite Youtubers?
Bonus points if they are from the PNW (it’s fun to see what people are doing in my general area).
Bonus points if they sell things other than just clothing (it seems like all the resellers I watch focus almost exclusively on clothing, which I still like watching, but I personally source many other things).
Double bonus points if you are reading this and have your own Youtube channel. Definitely share that info!
But even if they don’t fit the criteria above, I would love to hear any recommendations you have for resellers you enjoy. Thanks in advance!
I had a question recently about how things are going on Poshmark. I guess my answer would be … slow but steady? But, yeah, slow. Here are how my sales have played out for the last several months:
July – 4 Poshmark sales
August – 15 Poshmark sales
September – 26 Poshmark sales
October – 24 Poshmark sales
November – 34 Poshmark sales (SO FAR…)
Up until this point my goal has been to average at least one sale per day. This is the first month I have actually hit that goal (and I still have a week and a half left to go in the month). The biggest reason I finally hit my goal is that at the beginning of the month I sent out offers to likers on every! single! item! in my closet that had any likes on it. It took a couple hours of my time, and resulted in 9 sales that day, which was definitely my highest sales day yet.
My daily PM routine is to:
~ crosspost at least 5 items from eBay
~share to parties as appropriate
~send offers to likers on any newly liked listings
~try to share my closet a bit at a time as time allows
I am able to do all of the above quite consistently, it is rare I miss a day. I have pretty much stopped making a specific effort to follow new people and share other people’s closets. From what I read and hear it seems like sharing my own closet should be the priority. Sharing my own closet often results in new likes on my items, which prompts me to send an offer to the liker, which occasionally results in a sale.
Who else is selling on Poshmark? How have things been going recently for you? Do you have other tasks you focus on that bring in the sales? What are your monthly sales goals? I would love to hear about them!
Today was a bit of a sad day. For years Value Village has been my favorite thrift, and most Thursday mornings I can be found at their $2 tag sale, looking for clothes to flip. In fact, Value Village is the only thrift store I visit regularly, and other than a rare yard sale find, the only place I buy clothes to resell. A couple weeks ago I found out that our local Value Village location is closing. I was surprised by how sad I felt. I have literally spent hundreds of hours there. It’s hard to believe by the end of the weekend it will be no more.
It’s not that it wasn’t making money. It was. The issue is the location, which until a couple years ago it shared with a K-Mart. Since K-Mart went out of business the other part of the building has sat empty. Word on the street is that our local hospital has bought the location and is going to use it as satellite parking. So, poof. Farewell Value Village. And at this point they aren’t looking at finding a new location, although I have already gone to their website imploring them to do just that. VV will certainly be missed in our community.
This morning I stopped in for my normal VV Thursday morning shopping. The entire store is 50% off, but there isn’t much left. Over half the store is already empty. What’s left is fairly picked over, and to be honest not that great of a deal anyway, at least for flipping. I really loved their $2 tag day, and could often fill a cart with NWT items I found throughout the store.
And so it goes.
Speaking of Value Village (and probably Savers too, for those of you that live in Savers territory) – if you are a Swagbucks user, you should think about linking your credit card for local rewards if you haven’t already. Every week after shopping at VV I would get an e-mail about points I had earned, which equaled 7% of my purchase price.
Each Swagbuck loosely equals a penny, which means I have earned at least $1778.42. (This estimate is actually low because I often redeem gift cards that are on sale, which cost fewer SB.) I have kinda fallen off the Swagbucks bandwagon lately so I haven’t been earning them as quickly, but my husband still regularly earns $50+/mo, which he usually uses as his movie money. (He most often redeems for Regal gift cards.)
If you are not yet on Swagbucks but are thinking about joining, please consider using my referral link HERE. If you use my link when signing up we will both get a bonus 300 SB (roughly equivalent to $3). There are dozens upon dozens of ways to earn SB in addition to shopping at places like Value Village – which I would be doing with or without the SB reward! (My husband got 800 SB a couple days ago for signing us up for Disney+.) Gotta love free money.
