Reselling items online is a great way to earn extra cash or a full-time income.
In my last post, I shared with you all how began reselling on eBay. However, I forgot to mention that I actually got my first sale on Poshmark. My journey has been a learning curve, that’s for sure.
There are many reasons why I chose to try my hand at Poshmark first, but the main reason is that my mom gave me a bunch of her old Coach and Michael Kors purses. She knew I was wanting to start reselling and I needed inventory upfront so I could have money to begin purchasing items to flip on eBay.
I’ve sold on eBay in the past. Mostly old Coach purses I no longer wanted and I always sold them super fast. The last time I’d sold one was all the way back in 2013, so there was a five-year period where I hadn’t sold a thing on eBay.
As I started on the platform again, I failed to realize how oversaturated the eBay market was with used Coach and Michael Kors purses. After struggling to sell the first purse I listed, one of my old online bible study buddies pointed me to Poshmark.
I listed all the purses I had received from my mom back in February and that very first week on Poshmark, I’d sold all but a couple of those and earned $141! This was my seed money to start sourcing items to flip on eBay in March.
With all of that said, I’ve had to learn a lot of things quickly when it comes to navigating the game of reselling items on eBay and Poshmark. I’ve made mistakes and I actually lost $1.33 cent on my first eBay sale. However, if you ask me, that $1.33 mistake was a great lesson and I want to share this lesson and a few others about my first month of reselling.
Related Reading: Make Money From Home Using Amazon FBA
6 Lessons Learned My First Month Reselling on eBay and Poshmark
1. What everyone else is reselling on eBay or Poshmark is irrelevant (sort of).
Yes, it’s nice to look at posts on Instagram or haul videos on Youtube of what other eBay and Poshmark sellers. It’s hard not to drool over their high-ticket Goodwill finds, but you’ve gotta be realistic. It’s totally irrelevant to you.
What I mean by this is that just because someone else can find $300 pairs of jeans and $200 tops that sell on eBay and Poshmark for sometimes $70 a pop doesn’t mean you’ll find those items everytime you go thrifting. And even worst, let’s say you do find them — they might not sell for you.
Does that mean you’ll never find high-ticket items? Nope. I was browsing through GW the other week, just minding my business and happened upon a pair of jeans that felt like butter when I touched them.
I examined the label and they were Adriano Goldschmied jeans for $6 that retailed for around $168. They are reselling for $60 and up on eBay. I never go in expecting to find anything like that, but watching Youtube videos and following other sellers on Instagram helped me develop skills on what to look out for.
One tip that has helped me tremendously is to look up the type of items that are reselling at certain price points in my area. That means going on eBay and search for what other sellers near you are selling and at what price they are going for.
This makes it easier for you when you try to find items to sell on eBay or other platforms. You won’t be out looking for Lululemon when you live in an area where a lot of people wear and donate Athleta instead. It all depends on your area when it comes to clothing. This may not ring true for other things that are sold on eBay. Just don’t go in with any expectations when you’re sourcing things to sell.
2. You might screw up shipping while reselling on eBay.
One thing I love about reselling on Poshmark is that shipping is a flat rate and all items are mailed 2-day Priority. With eBay, I quickly learned that I knew nada about shipping.
The very first thing I sold on eBay was a lot of 12 video games that my husband wanted to unload. The entire lot sold for $10 but I grossly underestimated the cost of shipping. We charged $12ish for shipping but to send them to the west coast, it cost $22!
Needless to say, my miscalculation caused us to lose money on our first sale on eBay. Luckily it was only $1.33 and it was for a product we didn’t actually pay for. This leads me to my next point…
3. It makes sense to sell what you already have around your house before going to source for more things to sell on eBay.
If I’d paid money to pay for those video games, I would have been so upset to lose money on that first sale. My mistake didn’t hurt as much because I had less skin in the game.
I’m pretty sure all of us have some things around our house that would go for good money on any online reselling platform. Take those items and put them up for sale and learn more about the selling platform you want to use.
My first sales on both Poshmark and eBay were of items I didn’t pay for and it brought in plenty of money for me to then go out and buy more stuff to sell.
4. There aren’t a lot of Posh worthy finds in my local thrift stores and Goodwill outlets.
I follow plenty of people on Instagram who are able to go to their local thrift and find designer, name-brand clothes that are new with tags to sell on Poshmark. Well, where I’m from, I’m lucky if I can find clothes that are in this season.
I’ve gone to PLENTY of thrift stores and what I’ve discovered is that if I want to sell on Poshmark, I need to pay up for clothes that are new with tags to sell on that particular platform. However, we all know that this is Life and a Budget and I’m not about to go out here and spend more than $10 on any particular piece of clothing (at this moment) just to sell on Poshmark.
I’ve contemplated doing it so many times, but I’m comfortable selling thrifted finds on eBay for now. In the future, I may venture to consignment shops or do a little more retail arbitrage (searching places like Marshalls, TJ Maxx, etc) to sell stuff on Poshmark, but for now, that’s a no for me. Nevertheless, it’s good to be able to get a feel for what I need to be doing and where I should be doing it.
5. You need to set realistic goals to sell on eBay or Poshmark.
When we first started selling on eBay, we had a goal in mind to make an extra $1,000 a month. I was in for a rude awakening.
I figured out what I needed to be doing and how many items I needed to be listing (considering that most of my items are clothing items) and found out that I was aiming too high as a newbie seller.
I study what other sellers stores look like who gross at least $5k and above (I figured their take-home would be a minimum of $1k at that rate unless they had high overhead costs) and many of these sellers have a high-volume store. With that high-volume store comes a lot of work. They are listing anywhere between 20 and 50 items PER DAY.
I’m just starting out and I really wanted to learn and I knew there was no way in heck I would be listing 20 to 50 items per day during my first (or heck, even my second) month, so I had to set a more realistic goal. My goal for March was to list three items per day.
Did I hit that goal? No, but at the end of March, I had around 55 items listed and I was making sales so I’m okay with that.
Also, another thing to keep in mind is that those people who are listing 20 and up listings per day are out sourcing A LOT of items. March was a tough month for me mentally and emotionally and I just didn’t have it in me to drive to all the multiple thrift stores in my area to obtain that much inventory.
Moving forward, I would like to increase the amount I list by certain increments so I can increase the volume of my sales. We shall see…
6. You don’t need everything to get started.
I’m not going to lie. I have the tendency to want all the things when I start out on a new venture. For example, when I was in college, despite the fact that college textbooks were high as crap, I was still excited to get ALL of my textbooks to prepare for class. And let that bookstore not have what I need! I would have a fit and anxiously scour Amazon searching for exactly what I needed to be prepared for class. (Yes, I know…I was such a nerd.)
Anywho, those same issues translate into my blogging life, business life, etc. When I started blogging I wanted all the things and now that I’m reselling on eBay, I want the lights so my pictures would be great. I want the clear cellophane bags so I could neatly store my inventory. I finally had to have a talk with myself.
I was letting the fact that I didn’t have the best lighting keep me from listing. And if you ain’t listing, you ain’t making any sales. So, I had to get over it. I try to use as much natural light as possible. My pictures aren’t professional or cute like these other eBay or Posh sellers, but guess what? I’m still making sales.
Sometimes we let the idea of having everything we “need” or being perfect keep us from getting started. Now, I did break down and get those clear cellophane bag so I could organize my inventory, but I’m definitely not going out and spending $100 and up on some lights right now. So, remember — you don’t need everything to do something. Just get started.
Related Reading: Free Courses That Teach You How to Make $1,000 or More Per Month
Wrapping Thangs Up
The greatest lesson that I can take away is to study and test reselling practices for yourself. Of course, you can follow a bunch of advice from Youtube vloggers, Instagram folks, and such. However, that doesn’t mean that their advice is going to work for you.
I’m so over blindly doing what I see others doing and I want to be successful reselling on eBay by testing things out for myself. With that said, I’m getting my hands dirty, starting slow, and investing without a lot of risks.
So far, my reselling experience has been positive and I’m excited to see where things go from here. And just to leave you with an idea of where I ended the month of March — on Poshmark I earned $28.41 after fees. Things slowed down over there as I sold out of all those purses my mom gave me.
On eBay, I earned $46.48 after fees. It’s a long way from an extra $1k, but I certainly can’t complain about making a profit my first month officially reselling on eBay. I owe major thanks to Poshmark for giving me a leg up on my reseller journey.