This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Yesterday was Google, today is Goodwill. That's what we're talking about, Goodwill Industries. Perhaps you know the Goodwill thrift shop, the Goodwill chain, more than just a chain. There are, I think, hundreds or thousands of Goodwill locations. And I was thinking it was just an American thing, but they're actually in 17 countries.
So depending on where you are, you may be familiar with Goodwill. If not, there are similar companies or organizations, charities, sometimes the line is a little bit blurred for these kinds of stores. There is a nonprofit component, but there's also a lot of money involved because they are buying and selling stuff. And you as a consumer can also buy and sell either directly to Goodwill or sometimes by buying and then reselling and such. Lots of different people have done that in different ways.
We're gonna talk about it today. How can I scale my Goodwill reselling biz? Got a listener question. We're turning hobbies into profits. That's the goal.
How can reselling go from side hustle to small business? She actually has been doing this for a while and wants to do it more, do it better, maybe ramp up a little bit. So I like that. And Goodwill specifically, when I saw that they were in 17 countries, I also saw that they generated $6 billion in revenue in a recent fiscal year. So as I said, this is not a small company or organization.
May technically be a nonprofit, but there's lots of money involved here. Let's look at this in more detail. Jasmine, our longtime listener has got the question and I'll have a detailed answer as well in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi, Side Hustle School team. I'm Jasmine, a longtime listener.
For the past few months, I've become quite the thrift store aficionado, particularly with my local Goodwill stores. I found some amazing deals in vintage clothing and unique home decor that I've been able to flip for a decent profit on platforms like eBay and Etsy. It started as a hobby, but now I'm considering taking it more seriously as a side hustle. My question is, how can I scale this venture effectively? Are there specific strategies for sourcing and selling that could help me turn this hobby into a sustainable side hustle?
Additionally, I'd love to know more about managing logistics, such as inventory and shipping, to keep my customers happy and streamline the process as I grow. Thanks for any advice you can share. [Music]
All right, let's talk about it. Jasmine, fantastic to hear about your initial success, your passion and flipping fines from thrift stores. So just a quick note on the word scale.
Normally the word scale in a business context, like scaling a business, scaling a venture, that's usually like, how can I increase it? 3X or 5X or however many X startup people like to use those terms. And I'm not really a startup person. So just to note, this kind of venture, this kind of small business side hustle is difficult to scale in those ways, right? Because you would need warehouses, you would need algorithmic software, you would need obviously a lot of people to go from what you're doing now to some sort of scale in the traditional sense.
But you can certainly increase your sales. You can certainly grow it from a side hustle to, or from a hobby to a side hustle or a side hustle to a small business, however you'd like to categorize it. We can definitely increase sales. And so from there, it's like mostly a question of volume, right? And you can either choose a niche and say, okay, these are the items I'm gonna focus on and I'm gonna go deep here.
Or you can say I am a seller of all kinds of stuff and people do it both ways. As I said, there is kind of a cap based on how much time you have essentially 'cause these things do take time and that's the limitation of scale. That's why it can't really be scaled in terms of a traditional startup. But you can definitely optimize listings. Maybe there's some tools that make that easier.
eBay and Etsy and all these different platforms over time, they have added tools to help sellers do things quicker. So that's the kind of thing you wanna do. You want to optimize, essentially optimize, make things more efficient, figure out where you can increase profit margins, all that kind of stuff. And it's really fun to do it. I don't think you're gonna go from if it's making $10,000 a year, it might be able to grow to $50,000 a year.
If it's making 50, it might be able to grow to 100 or maybe more. I just don't think it's gonna turn into millions of dollars, but that's not always the goal of our listeners. So I just offer you those comments without filter, obviously take and leave whatever you see fit. Thanks for listening. Listeners, thank you for listening.
This was episode 2,661. Tomorrow we're gonna talk about a T seller who finds sales and serenity. More on that. We've got, let's see what else is coming up, kids podcasting, writing workshops, and so much more. I'm so excited to make the podcast for you every single day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
