Best Items to Resell on eBay
Whether you’re new to selling on eBay or you’ve been selling for a long time, we’re always looking for the best items to resell on eBay.
So how do you find the best items to resell on eBay? The best way to find items to resell is to look at the sold results on eBay in various categories. A few popular categories are clothing, electronics, books, and so forth. You can even sort the listings by highest price first to see what items in each category are selling for the most money.
Check out the following ideas of the best items to resell on eBay. The next time you go sourcing, keep these items in mind and know how to look up your item to see if it’s worth reselling.
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Best Thrift Store Items to Resell on eBay
One of the most common places to find items to resell is at thrift stores such as Salvation Army, Goodwill, Goodwill Outlet, local charity shops, and more.
In my experience, my best thrift store items to resell on eBay are clothing, electronics, and small appliances. Here are a few of my best tips for finding these thrift store items.
Clothing. I always look for new tag items first. New tag items are always going to sell better and faster than pre-owned. Even brands that you wouldn’t buy as pre-owned could be worth reselling if it has new tags. Some of my favorite brands are J.Crew, Ralph Lauren, and Eileen Fisher to name a few.
Electronics. There are usually a lot of electronics available at thrift stores from vintage electronics to newer brands and models. There is also a lot of junk, so make sure you have your eBay app installed on your phone to do your research. Dual cassette tape recorders, 5-disc CD changer players, VHS players, and more.
Small appliances. We have had a lot of great success with selling small appliances, both as a whole unit and by selling parts. From food processors to ice cream machines to coffee makers, there is room for making money with a lot of small appliances. Brands to look out for are Hamilton Beach Scovill, Senseo coffee makers, and Kitchen Aid to name a few.
Garage Sale Items to Resell on eBay
Garage sales are a lot of fun but they can also be time-consuming. It’s important to know what you’re looking for and stay focused. If you don’t you’ll get sucked into going from one sale to another without finding a single thing to resell. One way to save time is to stick with neighborhood sales, city-wide sales, church sales, and other sales that are close together.
I tend to say away from clothing because most people mark their brand name clothes to high. You can usually tell by looking at just a few pieces of clothing to see how they are pricing things. If the prices seem reasonable, I’ll keep looking. If not, I move on and that saves a lot of time! 🙂
Always keep an eye out for electronics and kitchen appliances. Look for anything that could be sold for parts too.
Feel free to share your favorite things to look for at garage sales.
How to Find Items to Resell on eBay
Finding items to resell on eBay can be really difficult for people depending on where they live and the types of items that get donated in their area. Thankfully, there are many options for finding items to resell both locally and online. Here are a few great places for how to find items to resell on eBay.
Local Thrift Stores. There are a lot of local charity shops and thrift stores where you can find great deals. We’ve had church thrift stores, pregnancy center thrift shops, Humane Society thrift stores and more. Also look for some of the chain stores such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, Arc thrift stores, St. Vincent de Paul, and more. You can find locations for many of these thrift stores here.
Goodwill Outlet. Goodwill Outlet stores are different from retail stores because merchandise is sold by the pound. If you’re looking to get bargain prices, the outlet store is the place to go. We’ve had many successful hauls by shopping at the outlet store and definitely think it’s worth the time. Our nearest location is 2-hours away, so we don’t get to visit one often, however, if you happen to have one near you live, definitely check it out. See all the locations at gwoutletstorelocator.com.
Garage and Estate Sales. Estate sales are a little uncomfortable for some people but it can be highly profitable. We’ve learned that prices are usually a lot higher when a company is running the estate sale so we like to look for ones that are being run by the family. However, you can find some great items, especially vintage and antique things. I’ve also noticed that you can find a lot of new items as well. Not sure why but it seems to be a trend in my experience 🙂
Local Auctions. We just discovered this about a year ago, but we have an auction house that also does online auctions. Basically how it works is the auction company comes into an estate (or any place for that matter) takes pictures and establishes starting bids on all the stuff, and posts them online for people to place their bids. Auctions usually last a week and if you’re the winning bidder, you pay for your lot online. The company sets a certain day and time for winners to pick up their lot and away you go. It was actually a very smooth transition and worked very nice. You can get a lot of great items to resell on eBay this way!
Liquidation.com. We’ve purchased quite a few wholesale lots from Liquidation and every time it hit or miss whether you get good items or not. We purchased a lot of Amazon returns from them and some lots were great and others we ended up throwing over 50% out because it was either broken or unsellable. It can be a gamble, but you might get something really great too!
Storage Auctions. We have bought two storage units in the time we’ve been selling on eBay, it was quite the experience. We actually won both of them at the same time so it was pretty overwhelming. But we made good money. We threw a lot of stuff out, some went in a garage sale, and quite a bit was sold on eBay. If you have the time and space to store and process storage unit finds, this is a great way to find items to resell on eBay.
Online & Local Wholesalers. You’ll have to do a little research, but you can actually find local and online wholesalers who will sell you shelf pulls from popular stores by the pallet. You’ll likely need to invest quite a bit up front (a couple of hundred dollars) but if you do your research well, you can make A LOT of money this way. There are many YouTubers who make money by selling shelf pull pallets.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways to find the best items to resell on eBay, it’s just a matter of doing your research, trial and error, and keeping an open mind. What are your best items to find and resell on eBay? Share your ideas in the comments below!
