Running a Second-Hand Merchandise Business

 

Running a Second-Hand Merchandise Business

So what is it like to run a second-hand reselling business? Let's take a quick look at the day-to-day routine of a typical second-hand resellerfrom finding stuff to sell to shipping it out after a successful sale.

Finding Merchandise to Resell

The biggest challengeand a big part of the workloadof a second-hand reseller is finding merchandise to resell. Where does a successful second-hand reseller find items that will sell on eBaywhile avoiding pure junk that nobody will want?

There are lots of places where you can find used merchandise for sale. Savvy resellers know to haunt local garage sales, yard sales, tag sales, rummage sales, and the like, to pick up the cream of what's available before it gets picked up by other buyers. Also good are estate sales and auctions, where you can purchase a lot of different merchandise all in one place. Depending on what type of item you want to sell, you can sometimes find merchandise at antique dealers and flea marketsalthough you might not always find good bargains there. Along the same lines, traditional used, second-hand, or vintage retailers can sometimes be good sources to fill your inventory. You can't forget thrift stores and dollar stores (including the ubiquitous Goodwill Stores), or even pawn shops, although you may need to sort through a lot of merchandise to find the best bargains. And eBay itself can sometimes be a source of goods for resaleif you can score a low-enough price from a seller.

Another approach is to actively solicit merchandise for resale. Some sellers have good luck placing small "wanted" ads in their local newspaper classifieds. If you go this route, offer to pay cash on the spot, and offer to buy in bulk. Make sure, of course, that you're well-versed in the type of items you're buyingso you can buy smartly, without investing in a lot of unsellable merchandise.

Notice the emphasis on finding used merchandise. By definition, the secondhand reseller specializes in selling second-hand items. That doesn't preclude you from picking up the occasional new item for resale, especially if you can get it for a bargain price. You want to be on the lookout for closeout and liquidated merchandise, factory seconds, returned items, and the like. Look for closeout sales at traditional retailers, bulk bargains at the wholesale clubs, and the ever-popular going-out-of-business sale.

Of course, one of the challenges of acquiring inventory is buying merchandise at as low a price as possible. Obviously, you want to avoid paying full price for anything, and negotiate as low a price as possible, if negotiating is part of the deal. You're looking for items that cost you a buck but can be resold for $5.00 or more. You don't want to pay $4.50 for that $5.00 item; you have to develop a talent for finding real bargains.

Sometimes you have to buy a bunch of junk to get a few treasures. This is especially the case when haunting estate sales, where you may be forced to bid on piles or boxes of merchandise. You purchase the entire lot in the hopes of finding a few items that have high resale potential. The rest of the stuff might end up in the trash.

As you can probably tell, this whole business of finding low-priced merchandise to resell is a lot of work. It's also a constant choreyou're always on the lookout for items that you can pick up for pennies and resell for dollars. For many second-sellers, this is the most fun of the whole process; it's kind of like an ongoing treasure hunt!

Managing the Auctions

Once you've acquired your inventory, you have to do something with it. For the second-hand reseller, organization is important. When you purchase a group of items, you have to identify and categorize them, clean them up or fix them up as necessary, and then put them someplace where it will be easy to find them when they're sold.

After the merchandise is cleaned up for sale, it's time to start the auction. You'll need to do a little research so that you can intelligently describe the item in the item description and judge an appropriate starting price (and estimate a probable final selling price). Then you'll have to photograph the item, create the item listing, and post it for auction on the eBay site.

Obviously, if you're running a high-volume business, you'll be posting more than one auction at a time. Most second-hand resellers try to have a dozen or more auctions running at any given time. You may want to start and end all your auctions on the same day, or you may want to stagger your auctions so that you have something closing on every day of the week. However you approach it, you'll need to be prepared to spend a lot of time at the computer getting things launched.

The period of time the auction is running is actually a bit of down time for you; there's not much to do over the course of the auction other than watch the bids come in. This time between launch and close is when most secondhand resellers do their inventory hunting. If you don't need to be at the computer, you might as well make good use of your time by finding more stuff to sell!

Packing and Shipping

Once the auction closes, you then have to contact the buyer and collect payment (typically in the form of a credit card payment to your PayPal account).

When the payment is in your hands, it's time to pack the item and ship it out. This is one of the more challenging parts of the process, especially if you sell a wide variety of merchandise. In fact, it's best if you work through the packing before you start the auction so that you know what type of box is required, and what other packing materials are necessary. It's also good to estimate the shipping cost ahead of time (so you can include the cost in your item listing), which means weighing the item (including the packaging) and choosing the appropriate shipping service.

Packing done, you now need to ship the item, which probably means a trip to the post office. If you run a lot of auctions, you might not want to make a separate trip for each item you sell; many sellers prefer to "gang" their shipping so that they travel to the post office only two or three days a week. Better to take several boxes at once than make lots of trips for single items.

And remember, you'll probably be dealing with lots of different sizes of boxesand, perhaps, several different shipping services. One of the things with selling second-hand merchandise is that no two items are alike; every sale you make is a new experience!