This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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How can you start a reselling business with limited storage? What if you've got a really small apartment or otherwise a small living space or just no room to put stuff and you're like, I wanna buy and sell things but I can't really scale this business. Can't really resell refrigerators or dryers, for example. Well, most people can't do that. I mean, some do, you definitely need a lot of space for that.
But whatever you want to do, there's this question of inventory. How can you start a reselling business when you have limited storage space? We're gonna hear this question from Lisa in New Jersey. What types of products or strategies work best within this constraint? And by the way, let me say I love constraints.
Constraints are actually very helpful because when it comes to starting your next side hustle, there's so many different things you can do. So it's actually a really good thing if you're like, I cannot do this, I cannot do that. I only have X amount of time or I otherwise have this limitation. Well, that just helps you narrow things down, right? So in this case, we have a constraint.
What can we do to help Lisa and anybody else out there in this situation or just anybody exploring different side hustle ideas? That's what it's all about. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Thanks for tuning in. Detailed question and my answer coming right up.
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Hi team, this is Lisa from New Jersey. I'm interested in starting a reselling business but I don't have much storage space in my apartment so I can't keep much inventory on hand. What would you suggest in this situation? Are there specific types of products or strategies that work best? I'd love to hear your advice on how to make this work or if you think I should just try something different.
Thanks a lot. - Okay, as I said, constraints can be your friend. Starting a reselling business with limited storage space can be tricky but definitely doable. A couple of big tips here. Focus on small, high value items.
So if your space is limited, as I said, you can't sell refrigerators but you also probably can't stack up a whole bunch of computers or stereo equipment or so on, whatever else takes space, clothes even. But what about jewelry? Rings, necklaces, watches, for example, those are small but can be quite valuable. With reselling, you always wanna try to have a higher average sales price anyway 'cause if you're reselling a whole bunch of stuff for $5 and it costs you $2, you're like great, great profit margin but it's gonna take a long time to actually make real money. Whereas if you're reselling stuff that's hundreds of dollars per item, then typically even if the profit margin is lower, you're going to be making more real dollars.
So could also be electronics, like smaller electronics, smartphones, tablets, maybe even cameras, although that can end up taking space. But an option, collectibles as well. Collectibles, trading cards, stamps, coins, anything else that's collectible. So basically that's the first thing is focus on small high value items. If you don't have a lot of room, you don't have an extra huge walk-in closet, well, don't sell shoes, don't sell stuff that takes up a lot of space, sell smaller high value items and both of those factors are key, small and high value.
Another idea though is to utilize drop shipping. So drop shipping is a great way to run a reselling business. You don't have to keep any inventory on hand at all. So you just need to find suppliers or work with suppliers who ship products directly to your customers. You take the orders, suppliers handle fulfillment and you just don't deal with it.
Now that's typically, drop shipping is typically more common for newer products than it is for buying used products and then reselling, but it is an option. You might also consider consignment selling where you're selling items on behalf of others and there's a couple of different ways to do this, but in this option, you do not own the inventory. You just earn a commission on sales. You still handle everything online in terms of the listing and the communication with the buyer and so on, but you don't actually keep the items. So in this case, it could be anything because you are not the one who's holding the inventory.
You're earning 20% typically, sometimes higher for consignment. Those are a few ideas for you. We could talk about more, but I think if you start there, you're gonna be in a good place focusing on small high value items, perhaps considering drop shipping to avoid holding inventory altogether, perhaps, and consider consignment selling where, again, you probably will not hold inventory, at least not very much or for very long. That can help you build that reselling business without needing a lot of physical storage. Lisa, good luck.
Listeners, good luck. Cheering you on, as always, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll continue to feature stories, ideas, questions, and such from listeners, along with updates from other listeners as they launch and grow their projects. That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
