I’m all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for the special offer
Guaranteed personality
— Joe Strummer and Mick Jones
Made some good buys, some bad buys but should be able to break even after 3 days of estate sales, garage sales and thrift stores. It’s a lot harder than it appears on YouTube. I’m luckier than a lot of flippers that are starting out as I already have a huge collection of DVDs, CDs and Cassettes pretty much ready to sell so I can take my time as I learn and not feel pressured to buy.
With Google Lens and the eBay app. everything has changed, sellers are able to look up things by picture so they’re searching the listings and unfortunately pricing things by what people are asking for. They don’t realize or just don’t care that the items people are trying to sale are generally priced higher than the ones that have actually sold.
I also see a lot of buyers walking around with their phones and looking everything up, I’m one of them but it’s not as easy as it looks. Besides the “sold for” prices, you need to check for the sell through rate (how many sold over a specific period compared to how many are currently listed), and be really specific on the item you’re looking up (size, model number, color etc). It’s hard to do in a crowded area and even harder to do it quickly. It’s exciting to find something new in box for $2 that retails for $20. Then you get home and see only 1 has sold in the last 90 days. Not exactly a high demand item.
As I mentioned before, I’ve been scouring reddit for reselling information and watching a lot of YouTube videos. A lot of information conflicts – YouTube resellers are into clothing while the reddit posters are saying it’s oversaturated and has too much competition. And the reddit people still hate on all the people I follow on YouTube.
You do need to pick some categories and learn them. Learn them well. I was at an estate sale this weekend that had a table full of ties for $1 each and women’s clothing for 50¢. I had to pass on everything because I don’t know anything about clothing. While there’s a good chance everything good had been picked over already (and don’t discount the estate sale people involved in shenanigans) there’s also a decent chance that they missed something.
I’m finding I’m doing best on things that aren’t priced and having to ask “how much do you want for this”.
Similar to the table of ties and closet of clothes oftentimes books, DVDs, VHS etc. are priced the same instead of individually so if you know what you are doing you might be able get some good deals. I am finding the quality of a lot of these things are on the lower side though so even if it’s a good title it still might not be worth picking up.
I haven’t listed anything I bought yet on eBay, that’s the least fun and most important step.