This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
So I often talk about how reselling is one of the easiest side hustles you can get started with. It is a timeless category. I was gonna say a trend, but it's not a trend. Reselling has been around probably since the beginning of commerce. And certainly since the beginning of side hustle school nine plus years ago, it's not that complicated to start buying things and then selling them on various platforms to make extra money.
You might not get rich doing it, but then again, you might. We've had some stories of people doing multiple six figures, sometimes seven figures a year from reselling. But here's an interesting way to think about it. Because so many people are exploring the world of reselling, today's caller is wondering, what are the reseller's needs? And what can he sell to them?
So this could be smart. And if you think about like way back in the California gold rush, there was this whole thing about how some of the people who got rich were the ones who sold the shovels. Like they were serving prospectors. There was this huge wave of arriving prospectors. People were seeking their fortune.
So the thought was, why don't you serve those people rather than trying to be the one to strike gold? Because that's a little bit random and relies on luck and chance. And then more and more people are trying. But meanwhile, the market of more and more people means that you can serve them, right? Plus you get to live in San Francisco instead of going inland.
Much better saloons, baseball games, et cetera. How does this apply to the modern world of reselling? That's what we're talking about today. What are the reseller's needs? How can you sell to them?
How can you get paid to help resellers? Detailed question from our caller and my answer coming right up. Stay tuned. [Music]
Hey, this is Joe from Atlanta and I've been listening to your show since episode one. Thanks to you and the Side Hustle School Team for all the helpful content you all provide.
My question is, how can I help resellers? I've heard you talk more about reselling recently and I know a lot of people are experimenting with selling items on platforms like Nextdoor and OfferUp. What if I don't wanna resell my stuff? At least not right now, but find some way I can help resellers source products. I'm thinking I could scout for popular items and then offer them to the resellers while taking a percentage for myself.
Am I crazy? How would you suggest I do this? Looking forward to hearing from you. [Music]
I love this question and I was thinking a little bit more about the gold rush analogy that I kind of led with. And I don't think that analogy is perfect because reselling itself isn't a huge risk.
Like that's why I still think it's such a great way to experiment. Whereas in the gold rush analogy, you could end up buying a bunch of shovels and then not being able to like turn them around for whatever reason. Whereas the kind of reselling that we look at on the show often has very, very little risk. Like the worst risk is often, oh, maybe you won't make a huge amount of money. Maybe you'll have a little bit more inventory.
Maybe it takes longer to get rid of that inventory than you expect. But you know, again, very low stakes at least. Still, I think the question of how can you serve resellers is a good one. So to answer that question, you should think about what do resellers need, okay? So resellers need sources of goods to sell.
That's probably the number one thing. They need markets or populations of potential customers. That's where lots of platforms like Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp and Gumtree and many others have been able to be so successful. And then tools to make that process easier. So we've had some stories over the years of tools and resources specifically to serve resellers.
So for Joe's specific idea, scouting for items, offering them to the reseller, it might be possible. And I'm sure it is possible in lots of different ways. Just keep in mind that these days with platforms like Alibaba and Teemu and others, consumers can now go direct to order all kinds of things, consumers and resellers as well. So you really have to think like, what is my competitive advantage here? And maybe I'm gonna have a bunch of stuff in a warehouse somewhere, but why do resellers in the United States or another developed country, why do they want to order from me as opposed to just ordering directly from China or somewhere else?
There probably is some way to do it. I just think that is the hurdle to overcome because these days information is so transparent and it's very different from when I was reselling stuff more than 25 years ago. Like it wasn't easy to find bulk sources of items. And so that itself was a competitive advantage. Of course, things are always changing.
They're always new markets. So just focusing on that question of how can you serve resellers? What do resellers need? How can I answer that? That very well could be a good market.
So Joe, I think it's pretty cool that you're thinking that way. Good luck. He's also been listening since episode one, which is 3,000 episodes ago, 3,300 plus. So that's pretty cool. Thank you, Joe.
Thank you anybody out there who's listening right now. Thank you for being part of the community. Much more is coming up. The best is yet to come. Everything is always free, of course.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
