This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
In today's episode, Gabriella from Miami has an opportunity to turn her passion for vintage fashion into a profitable venture. Lots of fancy way of saying she wants to sell some clothes. She wants to sell some clothes from her old wardrobe, perhaps some other people's wardrobes. Not sure about that part, but she's got this collection and she wants to figure out what's the best marketplace. Of course, there are different options and I think she mentioned Etsy, maybe eBay, maybe a couple of others.
I'm going to throw another one into the mix in my answer. And so if you also want to sell some clothes or some old stuff around your house, it could be something else. We'll talk about that in the answer as well. How do you decide on the best platform and do you do it via a platform that's selling either globally or within your country, or do you just kind of go super local and say, okay, I'm going to use something like Gumtree offer up Facebook marketplace and try to sell to people in my area pros and cons, of course. So let's talk about it.
Let's explore the options to help Gabriella and some of our other listeners as well, perhaps make an informed decision. Stay tuned. It's all coming up. Hello there. I'm Gabriella from Miami, Florida.
My passion for vintage fashion has led me to accumulate an eclectic collection of clothings and accessories over the years. I've decided it's time to share my collection with the world and hopefully make a bit of profit along the way. Where do you think I should sell these items? I'm considering Etsy, eBay and Shopify, but I'm not sure which will be the best fit for vintage fashion, or do you think it's better to sell locally, like through Facebook marketplace? Is there a certain platform where these items might sell better?
How should I go about making this decision? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. All right, I think the biggest decision to make here and what will inform the decision about the platform is, are you just trying to do this and get rid of some stuff and then move on, or are you trying to grow a side hustle/small business that you might continue to sell on? Either way, you could arrive at the same answer, but I do think that distinction is helpful because I think our caller mentioned Shopify. Shopify is great.
Shopify is great for building a business and having a website that people come to over time and it's not so much for offloading stuff, so there's a lot more work involved in setting up a Shopify site, even though it is relatively simple. It's not nearly as simple as listing something for sale on eBay, Etsy, or some other website. So if you're not planning on doing this long term, I would steer you away from something like Shopify in this case. As for the others, well, as I said, there are pros and cons. I try to give concise answers here and not spend 20 minutes talking about why Etsy versus eBay.
I want to respect our audience. Ultimately, either one will work, any of them will work, but you do want to think where are the best possible buyers, like how can I sell this quickly and for the best price? So I think in terms of fashion, Poshmark is something that our caller did not mention, and Poshmark is great for fashion specific sales, especially anything that might be higher end or vintage. All these platforms are going to charge a commission or a fee. I think you just kind of accept that going into it.
That's the price you pay to be able to sell. So that's not a huge deal to me. So if I was trying to sell to people across the country, I would use Poshmark or eBay. And then I think she mentioned also selling locally. Nothing wrong with that either, Facebook Marketplace or other local apps, networks and such.
I think the problem there, if there is a problem, the benefit is you don't have to ship it. But the problem is like there's a lot more back and forth communication with people. There tends to be, and then also you have to meet somebody, you have to have them come to your home or maybe you meet them in a neutral area. But still, that's a lot of work and time and such. Some people are into it.
Others are not. I do think you'll probably get a better price if you're using one of these platforms like Etsy or Poshmark or eBay as mentioned. So if you're not doing something long term, stay away from Shopify. I would go towards Poshmark and maybe one of the others. Choose that, see how it goes.
You can get going on this very quickly. Like within a week, you could be selling these items. Listeners, within a week, you can be selling something if you're not doing it already. So I encourage you to take action, check it out. Just try it out.
What could go wrong? Nothing. Not really anyway. Well, famous last words, but I'm just saying the costs and the stakes are pretty low. Give it a try.
Let me know what you think. If you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. New episodes every single day. I'm excited for all that's to come and I thank you so much for being out there. I make this show for you every day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
