How to Start Reselling in 2026

Everything I Would Want to Know if I Started Reselling Online Today

There is so much FREE information out there to start reselling today, and I truly think that reading and watching a lot of it is a good start. Let’s talk about what this article won’t do first; I am not going to sell you a course. I don’t have one, and as a mom of 3 four and under, Lord knows I don’t have the time to make one. I’m just a regular person trying to provide some good, free information and hopefully help others make money in a meaningful way the way I have been able to for my family.

This article will discuss how and what to start listing, how to fund your reselling business, what items you should buy to resell, how much you should spend on items, what supplies you need and more. I hope to keep this as almost a working document, updating it as I learn more. Make sure you’re subscribed to the blog to keep track of any updates I may make.

This blog contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate and affiliate, I will make a small commission on purchases made from links in this blog.

Why You Should Take My Advice

Kind of a weird thing for me to write. Why should you even listen to me? I’m a firm believer that you need to run your business in a way that works for YOU and YOUR LIFE. I’ll tell you what has worked for me, and you can take it and run with it or decide that my way is not for you. I totally get it. But let me show you my results, so that you can see where I’m coming from and how the way I’m doing it is working for me.

This is what my metrics look like for the last 4 weeks. I have made $1,600 and have almost a 50% sell through rate. This means that I sell half the amount I list each month. Take the previous periods with a grain of salt because I didn’t use Nifty the entire month before this, so the metrics are a little skewed in comparison.

Some of you may look at this and decide that’s not enough. Some of you may look at this and think wow, that’s a mortgage payment, that’s extra food on the table, that’s breathing room in our budget. It’s definitely the later for me.

I list roughly 3 to 5 items a day, sometimes more if I can get my kids occupied on something and sneak away, and those are my results. I have been reselling for almost 8 months now, and this is my second month hitting those numbers.

Reselling, in my opinion, is not a “get rich quick” scheme. I think it can take time to build a good and reliably selling inventory if you want to grow it in a way that doesn’t take on debt or waste your time listing things that won’t sell.

It’s not to say you won’t make mistakes buying things, or that there aren’t strategies to pick up things that will sell quickly, I just think it’s important to be realistic about how you achieve numbers like this.

What Items Should You Buy to Resell?

There are hundreds of categories of things you could pick up to resell. I think the most notable (and perhaps the one that gets the worst rap) is clothing. But you could do anything from home decor, to auto parts to furniture. In fact. I have a few post about furniture flipping, as I used to have a whole store dedicated to it. You can find those posts here (Make Money Flipping Furniture)

I had to put a lot of the furniture flipping on pause now that I have three kids 4 and under and especially while my husband was deployed for a year. But it is definitely doable for people who have older kids (or just ones that go to sleep at reasonable times SOS). It can definitely be a lucrative field, and you don’t even have to be skillful in restoring if you have a good eye for valuable pieces.

As of now, I currently flip 95% clothing with some home decor sprinkled in here and there for fun and to learn about other areas. I like to have options to pick up other things while I’m hunting for items to flip in case I don’t find much in the clothing sections.

At the end of the day, you can make money flipping almost anything if you can find the right sourcing and make the right profit. But, I recommend you pick something you’re already knowledgeable about and will enjoy listing.

What Items Are Worth Buying to Resell?

When you start buying things to resell, you sometimes need to retrain your brain a bit on what is “valuable”. High retail brands don’t always mean high resale value, especially mall and department store brands that can become oversaturated quickly (which increases competition and decreases price).

When I think about picking up an item I’m unsure about, I usually go to Ebay to check comps. This is still by far the largest selling platform out there, and has the best sold history to check against.

Let’s take a quick example of something I listed recently from a bulk buy I did a few months ago (more on that later). We’ll talk about sell through rate for this item, but since it was in a bulk buy, it was not something I took into consideration when sourcing it like I may have in the thrift store.

To look up this item, I would type the following into Ebay: “Lands End Chunky Knit Turtleneck”. You could filter more by size and color if you wanted, and that will give you more exact results. This can be key on more saturated items (think Target brand jeans, etc) where you can get really good results because there are so many listed.

Since Land’s End has been around awhile and has tons of similar styles, I’m okay with getting results that are similar to this sweater, but not the exact one.

When I scroll through what is listed, I can see that the items are listed anywhere between $20 and $35 on average. We also see that we have 209 results matching this search description. Then we can filter to solds and learn even more information.

When we look at the solds, we can see that only 7 have sold in the last 90 days and that they are selling typically between $20 and $30. That makes it have a 3% sell through rate, which is pretty bad. However, it’s important to note that I’m looking at this as it is approaching July, so I wouldn’t expect to see a high sell though on almost any sweater.

If I were at the thrift store picking this up, I would probably leave it behind if it was more than a few dollars. I don’t mind turning $3 into $25, but being summer and a low sell through and also not a high dollar item, it would likely be a pass. But come Fall, I might take that chance at the right price based on brand and material content (100% cotton).

With that said, I still believe this piece is still worth listing and that it /will/ sell. It will just take time.

An important thing to think about for your OWN reselling business is if you are willing to wait for things to sell and sit on inventory or if you want to only pick up things with a high sell through rate and quick turn.

For me, I like to be somewhere in the middle, and it definitely depends on how much I’m spending. If I am paying up for an item (and for me that’s more than $5), I want to pick up something that is hopefully going to flip in the next 90 days so that my cash is not tied up long.

However, if I’m at the bins or get a bulk buy at an auction, I’m okay sitting on a piece for a bit if I don’t have much money invested in it.

At the end of the day, you need to figure out what you value your time at.

I like to shoot for at least $15 profit after platform fees and cost of goods sold. I aim to make $1,000 a month so that means I need to sell 66 items a month. If I have a 50% sell through rate, that means I should be listing 132 items a month to hit that goal.

A lot of reselling is just math and leaning into what you can source in your area.

How Much Should You Spend on Items to Resell?

What you’re willing to spend per item is going to depend on your location and business model. If you are only doing designer goods, your cost of goods are going to be much higher, but hopefully your return will also be more per item.

If you’re in a high cost of living area, you may be paying more per piece, but you also might be seeing many more higher end brands that are worth the investment.

For me, I mostly thrift in a small rural area where I live. I don’t see a lot of high end brands, but I do see a lot of vintage and style based items. For my own personal business model, I’m willing to pick up something for $3-4 and sell it for $25, for $10 into $50 and after that I look at margins and sell through rate and decide on a case by case. It’s not a hard and fast rule for me, but I do try to stick to it so that I don’t pick up things I regret.

With that said, I usually try to keep my cost of goods even lower. I think the bins, estate sales and auctions are the best places to keep your costs low and you risk low too.

Especially when you are starting out, it is important to keep your investments low and to really look at sell through rate for items because you won’t have the experience under your belt that you will at 1, 3 and 5 years of doing this.

There are things I pick up now that might not have good sell through rates for the particular item, but I know that I can market it to the right buyer and still get it sold.

You will need to figure out how much profit per item you’re wanting to make (and often the time you have to invest in this will be key to that decision). Then you can work backwards on what you think you can make on an item after fees.

For example, if an item is $3, and I think I can list it for $25. I assume that it will be purchased at a 10% discount (I usually send out offers on all of my items). That means it sells for $22.50 and assuming a 20% fee (some platforms are less than this). That leaves me with $18 after fees, and if we subtract the $3 of the cost of the item, I am at my $15 profit I want to make.

What Supplies Do You Need?

I truly think you can start reselling with very little startup costs. Here’s what you absolutely need:

A place to take photos and something to take photos with. For me, this is a wall adjacent to a window with natural light. I just used a command strip hook to be able to hang my hanger to take photos. I use my phone for pictures.

If you don’t have anything with natural light, you can use flood lights or photo room lights like this. But I would personally try taking photos without buying anything special, at least in the beginning.

You will need something to ship with. I use these polymailers and leftover shipping boxes. You can absolutely bootstrap your shipping supplies with cheap or free shipping if you are scrapy.

Something that is nice, but not a necessity, is a label printer. I opted for this because my kids are young and it’s a 20 minute/15 mile drive both ways to the post office. I really did not want to spend the time and gas nor strap all my kids in and out of my car twice to take packages every day. The $40 I spent easily paid for itself in time and gas in the over 200 packages I’ve sent to far since USPS just picks them up from my doorstep.

If you live close to a post office and have the time, you can get QR labels from all major platforms and the post office will print your labels for you. This might be a good option when you’re just starting out and deciding whether this whole reselling thing is something you actually want to do before you invest more money into it.

What Platforms Should You Use to Resell Online?

There are a few major platforms that you can use to resell online. Ebay, Poshmark, Depop, Etsy, Mercari and Facebook Marketplace just to name a few of the big players.

I personally sell on Ebay, Poshmark and Depop and ocassionally Facebook Marketplace.

For me, these main three marketplaces are really easy to use with the crosslisting software I use Nifty. ‍ ‍

I love using a crosslisting tool, but I did not start using one until about 4 or 5 months in, once I started listing multiple a day consistently. I think I was on Ebay only for about 2 months, then depop and Ebay for 2 more months and then finally added Poshmark. Around this time I added Vendoo, another crosslisting platform, which I still think is a great tool, but not as good as Nifty. However, it is definitely more affordable. I talk all about why I love Nifty and whether it’s a good choice for your business here. ‍

With that said, I don’t think you need to have a cross listing tool off the bat UNLESS you are VERY short on time and have a lot to list right away. ‍

Vendoo it a good option if you’re looking for a more affordable cross listing tool to get your feet wet. For me, I quickly outgrew them for what I needed but it’s a great way to see if you can benefit from them.

Ebay is the biggest marketplace, and if you’re selling name brand items, I would definitely list there first. However, if you are more of a vintage clothing seller, Depop or Etsy might be a better start. Poshmark has the highest fees at 20%, and for a long time I was hesitant to use them because of it. However it has been neck in neck for me in sales compared to Depop and I’m happy to get items moving no matter where it is.

How To Fund Your Reselling Business

As with any business venture, I think it’s important to start with a plan and test the waters before going all in. I am definitely a “fail fast” kinda gal, so it’s hard for me not to take $200 and see what happens.

I took $30 and went to the bins, knowing absolutely nothing. I’m glad I didn’t spend too much, because I made a lot of mistakes. However, I also picked up a lot of things that eventually sold as well.

If your strapped for cash, I’d start selling your items from home and roll that into money you take to the thrift store. The cheaper you can get things the better, so look around for where you can get the best deals.

You can watch my $6,000 challenge on YouTube to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Can You Make Real Money Reselling?

Absolutely, but it takes work just like anything else. I took me about 6 months to start consistently making $1,000 a month or more, and I hope to get closer to $2K by the end of the year.

I think this is a great side income for a stay at home mom like myself or just someone looking to make a little extra cash!