This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Let's buy some stuff at flea markets and resell it. This is something everyone can do. It truly is one of the easiest ways to get started making money apart from your job. I talk about reselling from time to time because it is, in fact, one of the easiest ways to get started making money apart from your job. And it doesn't have to be a flea market, by the way.
It could also be a yard sale, garage sale, thrift store, charity shop, swap meet, whatever they call it where you live. So if you wanna get into this, as I said, easy side hustle category, if you wanna get some experience perhaps before trying something else, how do you do it? Like what are some tips to get started? How can you find items to buy and sell? It's funny 'cause yesterday we had this question about fake luxury goods.
Can you sell information for where people can find fake luxury goods? And I said in my answer, that may not be the greatest idea. Like there's probably something better you can do. Well, guess what? Today's episode, something better you can do, perhaps.
Here's how you can buy and resell items completely legally without any sort of gray area and so on. Detailed question from our caller and my answer coming right up. I'll do my best to give you some helpful tips. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is Alison from Kansas City and I've been listening to the show for a couple of years. Thanks to you and the side hustle team for all the inspiration you've provided.
I'm thinking about starting a side hustle, reselling items I find at flea markets. You said that reselling is the easiest way to get started making money apart from your job and that flea markets or yard sales can be good places to find inventory. What tips or advice do you have to make sure I don't get stuck with something no one wants and to make the most efficient use of my time? Can't wait to hear from you. [Music]
- All right, so I'm not saying that everybody out there should go and spend their time doing this.
If you are further along in your side hustle journey, if you have very limited time and you're like, I wanna do something that's gonna provide passive income and so on, then maybe there's something else that's better. But if you're just kind of like, you've got some time and you're throwing your hands up in the air, you're not sure what you should do for your first side hustle, why not try this for a while? Because it is pretty simple. You will get some experience. You will experience the euphoria.
Do I say that? Yeah, I think that's the right word, the joy, the euphoria, just the satisfaction, the self-confidence that comes from having people on the internet or wherever you do it, but let's say online, send you money and buy something that you are selling. Even if you're not making a ton of money, it feels good. And it might give you some motivation to develop something that makes even more money. So I would say first thing is, if you're listening to the podcast, go through some of the archives, you can go on the website and search reselling, or there's a category reselling.
There are many, many different episodes looking at specific items, from people selling college textbooks, someone selling bicycles, someone selling refrigerators even, which is a complicated item to resell, but somebody did it and made a lot of money, people selling all kinds of fashion, vintage clothing, et cetera, new clothing on Poshmark. There's a lot of different ways to do it. I would say as a general tip, try to not get stuck with something that nobody wants. So the way you do that is by first making sure there are people buying it. So before you acquire any inventory, search for completed listings on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.
Even if you're not gonna sell on those platforms, those are really big platforms, so it can be helpful information. And then in the long term, to make the most efficient use of your time, whether it is reselling or something else, you're probably gonna want to specialize somewhat. When I got started doing this many, many years ago, 25 years, I think at this point, I would buy and sell anything. It was just fun. I was like, okay, I'm learning how to do this.
But as I went along, I kind of gravitated toward a few specific markets. So most people who start making, let's say real money, over time, they also tend to be like, okay, I'm gonna be the person who's reselling laptops or doesn't always have to be a high priced item. It could be something lower priced, but they tend to specialize in it. They tend to move a lot of listings. And that's also helpful if you end up having repeat buyers because those buyers are buying from the same category.
But even if not, the specialization will be good for you simply because there are so many things you could sell that it could become overwhelming with no filters to narrow it down. But as long as there are buyers, you're not gonna get stuck. So that's the most important thing. Make sure there are buyers. And the worst case scenario is you don't make a ton of profit, but you still end up learning something.
I think a pretty realistic scenario is you do make some money and you also learn. So that seems pretty good to me. Let me know what you think and let me know how your experience goes so we can help other members of the community as well. sidehustleschool.com, check out those archival episodes. It's always free.
There's no upsell, by the way. But I encourage you to stream the older episodes. There's no hidden incentive there. It's just there's free information. It might be helpful to you.
That's all for now, but of course new episodes drop every day as well. Seven days a week, subscribe or follow, wherever you listen. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
