How I Made $1,500 on a Purse

Reselling

Apr 7

My phone rang and it was an estate liquidator whom I had worked with a few months prior.

“Hey Jennifer, I know you sell online. I was wondering if you would have any interest in a designer purse.”

I was intrigued but I also didn’t know much about the designer world. He shared more about the brand and how they had spent weeks trying to authenticate it with no luck.

I said I would stop by the estate sale and take a look.

The house was very unassuming and the wares didn’t necessarily point to the fact that the homeowner was a high-end fashion kind of lady. However, I decided to look into the purse and see what I could find.

I sat there for 30 minutes researching online and was fairly confident it was a real Chanel bag. I offered him $475 to take it off his hands. He accepted and I left.

Let’s take a sidebar here. I did NOT have $475 to spend (or waste for that matter). I charged the purse and needed to sell it before the credit card bill came.

Screen Shot 2023-04-07 at 10.20.39 AM.png

Screen Shot 2023-04-07 at 10.20.52 AM.png

Immediately I photographed the purse and listed it on eBay. I included AS MANY photos as I could because I really needed it to sell and I really needed it to be real.

I started the bid at $2,000 with no reserves. I had several inquires but as the days clicked on: no bids. During the final hours of the auction, a bid did come in and the purse sold for $2,000. I was ELATED but also extremely nervous.

“What would happen if the buyer received it and determined it to be fake?”

I packaged it up and shipped it off to NYC. The buyer LOVED it and I cashed in. The purses sold for roughly $10,000 at the Chanel store so $2,000 was a deal on a barely used winter white version that I found in Huntersville, NC.

The liquidator was watching the listing and he sent me a message shortly after it sold that said, “I cannot believe you sold that purse for $2k!”

He could have done the same. ;)

I had so many questions as to why I didn’t keep the purse myself. 1) I had zero needs for a high-end purse and 2) I really needed the money not the purse. ;)

The moral of the story is reselling online can be a great way to make money. It allows you to reach a broader range of customers and fetch a higher price than if you sold it locally. While it takes time to hunt down deals, once you refine your eye, it can be 1000% worth it!