This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Can you make money reselling airline amenity kits? Love this question because I used to collect airline amenity kits, a little bit less so these days. I still travel a bit internationally, but I used to travel internationally every month, multiple times a month typically. So I would collect these amenity kits that you can get. And I had like so many at my house, I used to give them away at book meetups and I had a travel hacking business for a while.
We'd use them for giveaways at conferences and events and such. And so I never really had a reselling business, but that's what this listener wants to know about. Well, actually I did have a reselling business at one point, but I didn't resell airline amenity kits. So Christian, that's what his idea is. So let's see, have you ever thought about turning your love for travel and unique finds into a side hustle?
And maybe it's not amenity kits for you, right? Could be something else, could be non-travel related. But for the Christian in particular, let's see if this idea actually has legs or if it's going to fail. What's the best, how do I say that? The best analogy.
What if it fails to take flight? Okay, all right, I know you're ready for the question. Let's move on to that. Quick shout out to our sponsor, Christian's question and then my answer. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is Christian from Seattle.
I'm curious about the idea of collecting and then reselling airline amenity kits. How viable is this as a side hustle and what steps should I take to get started? Are there specific platforms you recommend for selling these items effectively? I'm especially wondering about the market for these kits and how to attract buyers. Thanks for any feedback.
[Music]
Let me try to answer this question in the context of selling anything. Okay, when somebody has an idea, I might buy this and then resell this or it doesn't even have to be reselling necessarily. It could be my idea is to sell this. I might create this service. I might create this product and then sell it.
The fundamental question you need to ask or answer really is, is there a market for this or where is the market? Like who's going to buy them? And so people often have ideas that they're like, oh, this thing is kind of cool. Maybe I can sell it. Again, very important to think about who's going to buy it.
And so collecting and reselling airline amenity kits, it's a unique idea. Airline amenity kits are fun and interesting. If you don't know what these are, like if you fly first or business class, often on international airlines, on long haul flights, not so much for short haul, but if you're flying 14 hours to Singapore or to Frankfurt or Johannesburg or wherever, and you're in one of those nicer cabins, then they give you a little fun little pouch and it's often branded. And there's like toothpaste and moisturizer and some other fun stuff in it. Some of them are really fancy.
Some of them have like bottles of cologne or perfume and just some really nicer items. There's a lot of variants. So they are kind of cool, but the challenge here, like to bring it back to this question of like, where's the market is who's going to buy it? So, you know, most people who collect these things, they want to, they actually want to travel. They just want to, they don't want to just buy them necessarily from other people.
What they do, that's a pretty small market. And then if they're going to buy them, how much are they going to really pay for them? You know, they're not worth that much. I mean, collectibles are worth whatever people are willing to pay, of course, but I just can't imagine most of these selling for more than $50, let's say. So then the other challenge is supply.
Like where do you get all of these from? Like how do you buy these for less than whatever you're going to sell them for and sell them for enough profit to enough people to make this really a viable business? So I think it ultimately comes down to viability. And I mean, this could be a fun hobby, but I don't know that it's the best like money-making side hustle. That's what I think.
But do some more research, check out eBay. I would go to eBay and other sites like that and search for amenity kits and see what, what actually is being sold, who is buying or what are the average sales prices? Like you can always see the end of any auction price. And if it's on Poshmark or it could be another site, you can usually see, you know, completed sales. So do some research like that and then determine, you know, is this something I should do?
Or is it more just like I like amenity kits and that's cool too. I like them as well. But I don't think it's the right business idea, at least for me. That's my feedback. My notes, as always, take or leave what sits with you.
And listeners, most important of all is to move forward on your goals and to take small steps every day to get closer to something that is meaningful to you so you can spend more of your time on things that are meaningful to you. I think that's ultimately our goal for all of us. If you have a question or comment, sidehustleschool.com, much more is coming up. New episode every day, this was 2,786. I'll be back tomorrow.
My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
