When my wife and I were newly married, she committed a serious relationship faux pas...she talked to me about one of her past loves all the time! About all the time they had spent together, the wonderful gifts she still had (she even got her favorite jacket from this past love of hers), and how much her family supported her relationship. Eventually she introduced us...and that's how my own personal love affair with thrift stores was started! I was wandering down the aisles a few weeks later and found a beautiful fleece jacket from The North Face.  I had been in the market for the exact same jacket for months, but they were just out of my price range - and here was one in my hands for the sweet price of only $6!! But of course, it was 2 sizes too small! It was such a good deal, however, that I just couldn't put it back. I had the wild idea that maybe I could just find someone who happened to have one two sizes too big and trade them...obviously that wasn't the best plan...but what did happen was that I discovered the wonders of eBay! The jacket sold for $40 plus shipping a week later, but, instead of heading out and buying myself a jacket in my size - with my newfound money-making power, I headed right back to the the thrift store to see what else I could find! Since then, selling used clothes on eBay has become not only a fun hobby for us, but an extremely lucrative one. Used clothing puts around $1500 in the bank every month and accounts for almost half of our eBay sales!  

We always advise new sellers to start with what they have around their own house and then move on to clothes! This is because there are so many clothing items available to source, and the start up cost is minimal.  For example, there are many eBay sellers who turn $3 shirts into $20 sales by the dozen. Sounds impossible? Well it's a lot easier than you think! So let's break down our experience to help you hit the ground running with the best side-hustle there is!

Judging by the number questions we get on the subject (and the questions clogging up every eBay seller Facebook page) returns are one of the scariest and most difficult things for a new seller to deal with.  We ourselves have had several "oh crap"moments with returns, including a return for a $300 item after we had already spent the money.  Along with honest buyers simply wanting their money back, we have been the victims of several scam attempts.  These difficult returns and scam attempts are on top of the half dozen returns we deal with a month which go off without a hitch.  A typical return rate on eBay is about 2%.  As we are totally average in that regard and have had several thousand eBay sales we have become something of experts on the subjects of returns and, trust us, it isn't hard.  All of our returns fall into 3 different categories and, once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to handle returns in your sleep.  

Sometimes we don't want to thrift.  For as much fun as the hunt can be, grubbin through another rack of clothes or elbowing my way past some neck beards to look at some crappy electronics does get old.  At time like this, we do what every reseller should do, we source product on eBay!  If you're an eBay seller, finding products to resell on eBay can be both a challenging and fun way of diversifying your sourcing. Sourcing on eBay however is something that requires patience and a bit of technique.  Here's what we do: we follow several searches on eBay to alert us when people post an item for sale under a certain price. That's it!  Then eBay does the searching for us 24/7 and lets us know when something to our liking is listed.  One of the searches that we follow is for "Wesco Boots" under $60.  Wesco is a valuable brand of firefighting/logging boots that resells very well.  Because we're more patient than many sellers we can snap them up for a low price, put a little bit of elbow grease into them, and let them sit while we wait for them to sell again.  In this case however they didn't have to sit long!  3 days and they were on their way to their new home!

When we first started selling on eBay, we had things stashed in cupboards...then sneaking across the floor, then creeping out of our small extra bedroom.  eBay quickly took over our house and left us having nightmares.  Things were impossible to find when they sold and new inventory had no spot in our house.  Our fire and pride of starting our own business slowly faded away as we started to look more like hoarders than anything.  We finally hit the point where if we wanted to continue to grow our business (and stay sane), we needed a reliable method to store eBay inventory.  While it may not be for everyone, this is what we've found to keep our eBay inventory organized!  Let's break it down into steps so we can better see the journey we have taken thus far: