My side hustle is buying and reselling secondhand merch. I sold over 470 items and made nearly $9,000 in my first year.

Business Insider

14-07-2025

The first time I dove into a Goodwill Outlet bin, I came out holding a broken belt, one flip flop, and a genuine Missoni shawl.
Around me, other resellers were elbows-deep — with gloves on, masks up — tossing clothes like someone buried a gold bar in there. There was no actual gold to dig up, just the chance to make money flipping this "trash."
Welcome to the Goodwill Outlet, aka "The Bins," as regulars call it. It's the final stop before auction, recycling, or the landfill.
Here, you buy by the pound, so the Missoni shawl, which originally retailed for $350, cost me less than $2.
I sold it for $62 on the resale app, Poshmark. It was not as much as I'd hoped, but the snags I overlooked before buying it lowered the value.
I've been exploring this part-time side hustle for a little over a year. I sold my first personal item in February 2024 and started taking reselling more seriously, including regular trips to The Bins, at the beginning of that summer.
Strategic finds like the Missoni shawl helped me earn nearly $9,000 in profit my first year. However, it wasn't just about the money. I've also decluttered my house and found an unexpected online community.
I was inspired by my best friend and the online community
My best friend had been thrifting for a long time, but once she discovered Poshmark, everything changed. Suddenly, her weekend hobby was making real money.
She was the one who got me curious, but it was the supportive Instagram community that pulled me in.
Before spending money on new inventory at thrift stores and The Bins, it's recommended by veteran resellers to start with items you already own. So, that's what I did.
I looked around my house at all the stuff we'd accumulated, especially after having kids, and made a pile of things I wasn't using but couldn't quite let go of, until that moment, when they finally had a new purpose.
There was the maternity dress I wore to a wedding, a pack of baby onesies with the tags still on, and a set of handmade ceramic mugs we'd made tea in once.
In that first purge, I filled three trash bags full of stuff and listed it on my Poshmark store, Forsythe Canyon.
I could tell I was just scratching the surface, so I started going deeper into the reseller community on Instagram, where I followed and interacted with top sellers who shared invaluable advice like how to research an item's sell-through rate and average sale price and where to find deals on live auction apps like Whatnot.
Out of everything, what surprised me most was how collaborative reselling is. I'd promote other resellers' Poshmark stores on Instagram, and they would support me back.
Everyone I meet has their own reason for starting. One friend put herself through college. Another uses her earnings to take her family on dream vacations, and one guy made it his full-time career after his ADD made traditional offices too challenging.
I learned the hard way
Resale is not competitive because the inventory is endless. Americans have way too much stuff. Spend even an hour at The Bins and that becomes obvious. The one I visit, staff roll out new blue carts brimming with unwanted items every 10 minutes, eight at a time, all day, every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Of course, all the support didn't stop me from learning the hard way. When I started sourcing outside my home, I overpaid for trendy items I didn't bother to "comp" (reseller speak for checking comparable sales), and ended up losing money on a few pieces I thought were "cute."
My bookkeeping was a disaster until I found the reseller-friendly software Vendoo, which organized my messy spreadsheets into top-selling categories and brands, average sale price, and revenue vs. profit.
When I look back at some of my early listing photos, I'm shocked that anything sold. There were too many shots with bad lighting, jeans half-out-of-frame, and wrinkled tops.
That Missoni shawl was a lucky flip. My average sale price per item lands closer to $30, but that adds up.
Within the first year of opening my reselling store, I've generated $14,000 in revenue, $8,700 after expenses, listed 784 items, and sold 474—all of which I photographed and wrote descriptions for with relevant keywords.
Shopping and listing take the most time. My dining table has become a photo studio, covered in a white sheet and flanked by two lamps I stole from the bedroom. Some days, I'll list until my back aches.
Reselling is my hobby, it's not a get-rich-quick scheme
Reselling's not glamorous. Remember me digging through The Bins? It's also definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme.
If I tracked my hours, I'm pretty sure I'm earning less than minimum wage.
However, the flexibility is worth it to me. While the kids are in school and I'm between work projects, I'll swing by the Outlets, drop $100, and turn it into $600 within a few weeks. Not bad for a mid-morning treasure hunt.
At night, while I have a show on in the background, I can crank out 20 listings and replenish my inventory.
I like the environmental aspect, too. A pair of vintage, 1950s suede kitten-heel pumps that might otherwise have found their way to the dump found a new home in Palm Springs, where the buyer would slip them on as the statement piece for her bachelorette night outfit. I made just $16 on the flip, but the real reward was keeping them out of the landfill and giving them a second life with someone who couldn't wait to wear them.
Reselling is an oddly satisfying mix of entrepreneurship, creativity, and connection. And yeah, there's the dopamine hit of finding a valuable flip.
What started for me as a decluttering spree became a reminder: what looks like trash might actually be treasure. Sometimes you find treasure. Sometimes you find people. If you're lucky, you find both.