This Reselling Hack Changed My Life

Years ago when I first started thrifting and reselling, I bought anything that I thought had resell value.

Keyword: thought

I would look for well established brands sold at malls and department stores. Ones like: White House Black Market, J.Crew, Abercrombie, Gap, Banana Republic, and the like.

My rationing went something like this: “if this is sold for $100 new, then surely it is worth $50 secondhand”.

Surely I was wrong.

I learned quickly that just because a brand carried a hefty price tag for new items did not necessarily mean it would carry a hefty price tag for used items.

Spending several hundreds of dollars at thrift stores (most with no return policies), I decided to change up my thinking.

The life saving hack that changed my life was researching comps BEFORE purchasing an item.

Novel I know. ;)

eBay is my preferred app to research sold values for brands and items of possible interest. Download the app to your phone and always filter for “SOLD”.

Now I research an item before buying, thus eliminating wasted time and money on items that will not meet my 1000% profit margin threshold.

Here are some examples of recent thrift finds:

Most of these examples are shown to drive home the 1000% profit margin. All of the items found had a resell value, but none met the threshold for a 1000% with the exception of a few items that were damaged.

1. The Haldon Group Striped Ribbon plate had a massive chip at the tip of the plate preventing me from buying it as damaged goods don’t sell very well. ;)

2. Vintage House of Hatten Stockings were complete with handwritten names on the black in permanent marker. SO sad but alas I left them.

I also want to note the striped ribbon pitcher; there are many replicas of the Haldon Group Striped Ribbon but without the hallmark stamp on the base, the item would not bring the same resell.

Pin for later

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