While cruising through your VarageSale community, you may have heard some buzz about members earning hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars a month selling items on the app.
But unless you’re a recovering hoarder, it may feel like an overwhelming task to find enough inventory to keep your store filled with treasures for other members to buy (not to mention those rumored profits).
Well, you don’t have to scrounge for stock. Sourcing items to sell is far easier than you think. We chatted with a group of Supersellers who hustle hard to earn extra cash on VarageSale, and they offered up their hard-learned lessons on where they find bargains on resale items. Here are their top seven sources for items to sell:
Flea markets and swap meets
It seems like every city has its own iteration of these. Flea markets and swaps often bring together hundreds of vendors and sellers hawking new and used items at bargain-basement prices. Some of the specialties you’ll find at these events are antiques, housewares, indoor and outdoor decor, vintage items and collectibles. While you may have to do some digging to discover worthy treasures, you’ll likely score some serious deals.
Garage sales and estate sales
Who doesn’t love a great garage sale? Cruise your neighborhood on a sunny weekend and you’ll likely find some folks who have cleaned out their respective closets/garages/homes and are selling their unwanted goods out of their garage or in their yard. If you have patience and a good eye, you can often find great deals on new or gently used apparel, accessories, and appliances at these kinds of sales.
On the other hand, estate sales are often a potential Superseller’s best bet to find high-quality items. Usually far more expansive than a typical garage sale, an estate sale is a way to liquidate someone’s belongings, usually due to downsizing, bankruptcy, death or divorce. In short, they usually need to sell everything in their home and quickly — which means there are plenty of bargains. These are great sales for big-ticket items like home appliances (especially large ones like refrigerators, washers and dryers, etc.), furniture, decor and housewares.
Thrift store finds
A visit to your friendly neighborhood GoodWill, Savers or other favorite thrift shop can yield plenty of inventory to sell in your VarageSale feed. Local residents will drop off their unwanted items for donation, and these are resold in the aisles of the store. While there are certainly bargains to be found on a variety of treasures, the only drawback is that you can’t rely heavily on thrift shops to provide regular, high-quality inventory for your sales. But the stock changes weekly at many thrift stores, so sellers can set up a circuit to regularly hit up these shops to see what donations have come in that week.
Extreme couponing
We’ve all seen those TV shows demonstrating how much cash you can save when you “stack” coupons. While we aren’t advocating that you spend hours clipping coupons, you can make a quick buck off your stash if you resell those products you got a great deal on. Any freebies you score from couponing (like in buy-one-get-one-free promotions) can be resold — all at a profit for you.
Or, if you’ve already accumulated an impressive stash of goodies you’ve acquired through couponing, you can always liquidate some of those items by selling them in bundles, i.e. bundling multi-packs of paper goods like paper towels, toilet paper, etc.
Purge your closets and garage
Clearing your home of clutter is the quickest (and one of the easiest) ways to put a little extra cash in your wallet.
While you may not have reached hoarder status, you’d be surprised by the forgotten treasures you might find tucked away in closets or garage. Your home is often a seller’s goldmine. Make a conscious effort to rifle through your closets, attic and garage every six months to collect any unused goodies. Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you haven’t worn clothes or used an item in six months (save for seasonal tools, coats, snow boots, etc.), then it likely should be destined for your “sell” pile.
Collecting donations from friends and family
Make your selling aspirations known to your loved ones! Just like with your home, your loved ones likely have stashes of unused clothes, decor, accessories and other items that are ripe for selling.
Let your friends and family know that you’re collecting unwanted items to sell on VarageSale. If they have any clothes or homegoods they were planning to donate, call dibs and ask if you can sort through their donation pile.
Outlet stores
Branded outlet stores can sometimes be a bargain hunter’s paradise. Outlet stores (think Tanger Outlets or similar) offer name-brand merchandise (often the unsold or out-of-season collections) at a discounted price. And when these outlet stores offer sales and special promotions, you can score some serious deals on luxury goods. This is a particularly viable option if people don’t have access to these brands in your neck of the woods, especially popular items like Kate Spade and Michael Kors handbags, designer shoes, and high-end baby lines. While you may have to go on a road trip to shop one of these outlet malls in a neighboring city, the resale value on these items can make the trip worth it.
While these aren’t the only ways you can find quality goods to build up your selling stash, these are some solid tips to help you get started.
How do you find items to sell on VarageSale? Share your tips in the comments below.
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