The purpose of this segment will be to highlight relatively obscure low initial costs methods to develop additional income.
Initial Cost: 100 and a smart phone
Profit Potential -100 - 1000 per month
Reliability: 7/10
Do you like fashion? Do you have patience? Do you love the idea of sustainability? Then this might be a side hustle for you. The concept of thrifting isn't new. All over the country there are various Thrift/Salvation Army/Goodwill store that sell a variety of repurposed items, mostly clothing and home goods for a fraction of the original value. Luckily for us because of the volume of donated clothes and often lack of attention to detail on whats being sold allows for thrift store arbitrage where you can purchase items of great value for relatively low cost and subsequently sell those item for profit
For years now Ive used my knowledge of fashion and access to my local thrift store to find hundreds of hidden gems that i have flipped. In fact in my travels one of my favorite things to do is hit the local thrift. You really get a deeper appreciation for the style of a region. Some of my favorite international thrifting cities have been Paris, Tokyo and Berlin. As i've gotten older the market for reselling items has become a lot more popular which might make you think it'll be harder to find items but in reality there are thousands of items to be discovered in every thrift store around the world.
Throughout my years i've developed my own rule or strategy for consistently generate profit. Luckily as the years have gone on the amount of market places for selling items over the internet has increased. It use to just be EBAY. Now you've got ETSY, POSHMARK, GRAILED, FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE, even certain social media platforms like INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER can be leveraged to sell products. Personally i only sell Mens Fashion Items just because its what i know the best but but feel free to use you expertise.
When i first hit a thrift store the first thing i like to check out are the shoes and coats. I start with these items simply because typically these are items that a man might spend a little extra on money on. The concept is to find the most expensive well made items for the lowest price. Now when its comes to identifying those items theres a few things to take into account. First obviously is the brand name. Fashion brands spend millions of dollars to distinguish themselves from others and each brand has characteristics in which they are famous. Having an offhand knowledge of the most popular brands will quickly help you identify hidden staples. Its easy to figure out what these brands are just go to a high fashion brand department store website like SAKS FIFTH AVENUE or BERGDORF GOODMAN and view some of the brands they carry to get a good idea of brands you should look for. The second thing i like to look or rather feel for is the quality of the item. Is it real leather or “vegan” leather? Are they using natural fibers like cotton or is it made from a synthetic material like rayon or polyester. Also what is the condition of the item? Are there any rips or holes? Does it smell funny? Sometimes if an item is well made but a little worn, (like a pair of handmade shoes from british shoe maker Edward Green) i would take the liberty of restoring them (replace sole, shoe shine etc) to get a better price for resell.
Say you found an item that you think might be worth something, how would you know? Well because of all the various marketplaces it's quite possible to check if the item you found is already being sold and or has been sold recently and what price it's going for. Now I personally use the marketplace's recently sold section to determine if the item I found can be sold for at least 100 dollars. Usually items in a thrift store can go from around 3 to 15 dollars. So I take 100 dollars to try to find around 10 items I can sell for at least 100 each and go about trying to sell those items using the various internet marketplaces. Beyond finding things to sell you end up coming upon some things you might wanna keep for yourself and because of the low initial cost it's usually a win-win situation. However there are a few things to consider. Sometimes items just dont sell. If you're just starting I suggest starting with 100 because you can gain a variety and get a good sense but if you want to do this longtime discernment in the items you purchase becomes important otherwise you'll end up with piles and piles of clothing.