This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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How I sold curated pop culture packs from thrifted merch. Welcome Side Hustle School listeners. My name's Chris Guillebeau, so glad to have you here today. Welcome as well to Throwback Thursday. Our weekly segment comes out every Thursday.
That's why we named it Throwback Thursday. We take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. Last week in this segment, we heard how one side hustler created a shop selling $2 digital products. And if you think, well, $2 digital products, that's not very exciting. They scaled it to $185,000 in revenue, almost all profit, I think 90% profit margin by mastering SEO volume and a few smart upsells.
So that was pretty cool. $2 products, $185,000 in revenue. Today in our latest feature, we'll hear from somebody else. This person created themed bundles of thrifted pop culture items. Basically they took $10 Goodwill Halls.
They spent small amounts of money and they bundled some items together and sold them for $60 plus. So you buy for 10, you sell for 60, also a pretty good profit margin, selling nostalgia packs for super fans. Let's hear a little bit about this. This side hustler's name is Mallory. I'm gonna pass the microphone to Mallory and I'll be back at the end with a quick wrap-up.
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I've always loved thrifting. Not reselling or anything businessy, just the thrill of the hunt. And one day at Goodwill, I found this random mix, a little mermaid mug, a VHS copy of "The Parent Trap" and a faded Disney World tee from the early 2000s. I had no idea what to do with them individually, but grouped together, they felt like a mood. It was basically someone's childhood in the box.
And that's when I had the idea. What if I stopped thinking about these as like single items and started bundling them by vibe? I went home and like staged the items together. I added a few like Lisa Frank stickers I had lying around and listed the whole thing on the Mercari platform as 90s Disney nostalgia pack. I priced it at $59 and it sold under 24 hours.
So I did it again with almost the exact same items. And then I started thinking about how maybe I could repeat this bundle practice even more. Prick was to build bundles that felt themed but casual. Like someone had lovingly collected this stuff over time. In the past year, I've sold packs like true crime girl vibes, a black hoodie, serial killer trading cards.
Yeah, that's a thing. A mine hunter paperback and a stay sexy, don't get murdered mug. And I've also done like a Y2K slumber party. So it had like pink fuzzy socks, a bring it on DVD, 17 magazine from 2004 and an unopened tube of lip smackers. I sourced almost everything from Goodwill, other thrift stores and local estate sales.
My rule was no single item over $5 and the total bundle cost had to stay under 15. Presentation I think mattered a lot. I use tissue paper, color coded stickers and wrote quick goofy thank you notes and glitter pen. My photos always showed like the whole set laid out like a flat lay on a blanket or a bedspread. At my peak, I was selling up to 10 bundles per week, averaging somewhere between 60 and 80 per pack.
My cost of goods was usually $12 and after platform fees and shipping, I cleared about 35 to 40 net per order. Not like life-changing money, but definitely rent supporting. Depop brought in the younger crowd, people looking for aesthetic gifts or for dorm decor. Mercari skewed more towards like nostalgic moms buying a starter pack of childhood memories for themselves or like their sisters. The bundles took longer to source than prepped than a single sale, but the emotional payoff I think was higher.
People left wild reviews. One buyer said opening this felt like opening a care package from 2003. I think what made it work wasn't just the stuff, it was the feeling. I wasn't selling a hoodie or a mug, I was selling a vibe, a mini experience. That's what made people hit buy now without overthinking it.
I'm not sure what I'll sell next and maybe I won't keep this up for much longer, but it's been a fun experience that honestly exceeded my expectations. [Music]
Awesome, thank you so much for sharing that story. Listeners, thank you for listening as well. Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of thousands of episodes. We are coming to the end of a month here.
New month is coming up tomorrow. This was episode 3,134. Of course, you can listen to the show in whatever order and sequence you prefer. It's all on the website, completely available for free for your download. You can go there and access every single episode.
It's also on Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you get your podcasts for new daily episodes. Subscribe or follow. If you have a question, you have an update, you know where to find me. I'll be back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
