I’ve been selling stuff online for about 3 years now. I am not a professional. Nor do I think I’m terribly successful at it, though you get out what you put in (and I don’t have a lot of time on my hands).

This is going to be a long article because I want to be as thorough as possible. I’m going to tell you what I do, so you can start there & develop your own systems. Ready? Let’s get into it…

Inventory

First things first, you need stuff to sell. You don’t even need to spend money on inventory – you can find free stuff on the side of the road, in dumpsters, or around your house to start with! (Please check legalities of “trash picking” & “dumpster diving” in your area before rummaging, & always leave a junk heap cleaner than when you found it – It’s illegal in some areas, & it’s rude to leave a mess!) Other places to find inventory include thrift stores, abandoned storage unit auctions, liquidation pallets (sold locally or online), garage sales, estate sales, subscription boxes… There are lots of options! I try to aim for spending no more than $4 per item, because there isn’t much profit to be made even at $4. Another option is an app called Freebie Alerts, which pulls together local free listings from Facebook, OfferUp, and more.

Once you have things to sell, you need to prepare it for listing online. I use : a white sheet for a backdrop, phone camera, kitchen scale, fabric tape measure, & a spreadsheet on Google Sheets. Take good pictures. Give an overall view of your item, then detail photos (graphics, copyrights, whatever is on the item), point out any flaws (damage to the item), and then measurements with your tape measure in the photos. In my spreadsheet, I note what the item is in detailed words (an example from my own spreadsheet is “Trish Stratus Headlocked Comic”) and then how much it weighs. So the next step is to weigh your item in ounces if it’s less than a pound, & note that down.

I should mention the concept of Vero terms, though. There are certain copyrighted trademarks that can’t be resold, such as “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (learned that the hard way), “Smiley Face” (they’re not so smiley if you use their term without their permission), & “Velcro”. eBay has a huge list if you’d like to reference it. On the flip side of that, “in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled on this issue stating once a company sells an item it no longer holds jurisdiction over it. People that have purchased can resell.” That doesn’t always hold up, though, so tread carefully.

Selling

There are lots of websites you can use to sell your items online. Personally I use eBay, Mercari, Poshmark, and occasionally Facebook Marketplace; other popular options include Whatnot & Etsy. I’m only going to talk about what I know best though, so let’s talk about listing!

Getting started for your first time isn’t as daunting as it seems. Most sites will just ask you a bunch of questions, & they need a picture of your photo ID for tax purposes. At the time of this post, a website will only send you a tax form for your earnings if you exceed $5000 in sales on their platform, but they want the information up front to verify that you’re not scamming anyone.

I always start with eBay. First step is to search for a listing similar to the item you’re selling. The purpose of this is to see how much similar items are selling for so you know how many of these types of items are on the market. You can also filter results to show how much items have actually sold for, and then pick one that sold recently for the highest amount; click on that listing, & then on “Sell one like this” (this will save you some steps in your own listing). Now you add your photos; crop & adjust them as needed. Edit the title if needed, and copy it. Check your category to make sure it sounds right to you. Input the condition of your item. Look over the specifics to make sure it sounds right for your item. Then comes the description – Push the “Use AI description” button & let it generate a starting point for you. Make sure to add detailed information about any flaws, because saying “item not as described” or “INAD” is an easy way for a buyer to return an item. I always add the title to the beginning of the description, review & edit AI’s suggestion, then add at the bottom the following: “Condition is (new/pre owned); Ships (shipping platform, ie ‘USPS Ground Advantage’, & what the item will ship in, ie ‘in a bubble mailer’); Check out my shop for more awesome goodies! Message me if you’d like to bundle items; (Shop name); (Tags, ie ‘vintage 80s 90s classic’ etc)”. Copy this whole description if you’ll be listing the same item on another platform. Next comes pricing. I’ve done auctions before with collectible items with some success, but I usually use the “Buy It Now” option, & push the “More options” link to add a minimum offer price. Here you can also mention if you have more than one of that item available for purchase. Next is shipping – the package dimensions generally don’t matter but the weight does! Anything under one pound is usually best shipped USPS Ground Advantage; their price increases every 4 ounces, so anything 4 ounces or less is one amount, 8 ounces another, 12 ounces another, and up to 16 ounces. You need to consider the weight of your packaging when you enter this information! I have a cheat sheet of the individual weights of my typical packaging so I can keep that in mind. eBay will tell you the prices of each shipping service so you can choose what you think would be best. I always have the buyer pay shipping, because it can vary widely based on location. And that’s about it for eBay.

Mercari is super simple to use, & (at the time of writing this) has no selling fees! They do charge you to deposit your money into your bank account ($2-3) each time. I’ve always been quite a fan of Mercari, but we’ll see how these new changes affect the marketplace. Anyway, you can search for your item, as well as sold listings, just like on eBay if you like. The only advantage to this is seeing how much the item has sold for. You upload your photos, paste your title from the description you used on eBay, & paste the description. You answer a few details (category, brand, condition, & color). Again, I have the buyer pay for shipping, & Mercari’s shipping rates have been better than eBay’s recently. The fun things about pricing on Mercari is that you can set your price high, and then use “Smart Pricing” to bring it down to an acceptable price; doing this promotes your listing daily until it reaches the bottom line price you entered. Then, once a month I “promote” each listing individually so that my old listings get refreshed for new eyes to see & to remind “likers” that they liked it & it’s on sale!

And then there’s Poshmark. I’ll be straightforward – I don’t care much for Poshmark, but a lot of people have a lot of success with the platform. To me, it seems like a lot of work because it’s like a resale social media site, & I haven’t had many sales on that particular platform. You can search for your item & see how much others are listing it for (though I’m not sure if you can view sold listings). They do have a “sell one like this” option, but their descriptors aren’t as complicated as eBay’s, so I just fill it all in manually. You upload your photos, paste your title, & paste your description (but I omit the shipping method & bundling parts). Then choose your category, quantity, brand, colors, condition, & style tags. Set an “original” price (which just makes it appear as though your item is at a special deal), & then your listing price. Aim high on your listing price because Poshmark seems to encourage sending offers. They also encourage the use of making bundles of items to purchase from a single seller. Part of the reason for this is also the reason they don’t give you shipping options – they use USPS Priority Mail as their default shipping method, which covers up to 70 lbs.

On the topic of shipping, here’s a couple other notes :

• I typically use 2 sizes of bubble mailers, rigid mailers for autographs & comic books, and poly bags for clothing. All of which can be purchased on Amazon, but I’m sure you could find cheaper options if you sell a lot of stuff! You can reuse any boxes, so long as the address label won’t be confused with your own shipping label. And USPS offers free materials so long as they’re used for their intended purposes (for example, flat rate boxes need to be shipped with a flat rate label).
• USPS offers “media mail” for educational materials only. This is a cheaper shipping option, but shouldn’t be abused. They reserve the right to open & adjust the shipping charges of any package they deem fit.
• PirateShip is another company you can buy shipping labels from, if needed. I’ve only had to use it once or twice, but if you have to ship anything offsite from the platforms mentioned above, it’s worth checking out. (I’ve had to do this for certain mix ups & returns in the past). With that said, don’t sell things offsite completely, because that’s one way scammers can get you!

When your item sells, the platform provides you with a shipping label. You package your item, slap the label on it, & send it out! You can use a regular computer printer to print out your label, just make sure not to cover the barcode with packing tape when you attach it to the package (their scanners have a hard time scanning through the tape). You could also invest in a thermal label printer, which is what I did. USPS items can be dropped off in “blue boxes” in various locations, but sometimes it’s better to take it directly to the post office & have them scan the item in so you know it was sent out. Items shipped with FedEx can be dropped off at one of their stores, in one of their drop off locations, or even at certain Dollar General Stores! I rarely ship with UPS, but they do have stores & drop off locations as well.

One more thing to bear in mind : If you list an item on multiple platforms & it sells on one of them, make sure you delete it from the others!!! I tend to do it immediately. I’ve heard good things about Flyp, which is a paid crossposting service that can assist you in listing (& unlisting) across platforms. I’ll probably be checking them out once my business gets a bit busier.

Bookkeeping

There are two spreadsheets I maintain on Google Sheets : one for inventory & one for bookkeeping.

My inventory spreadsheet goes by year, so I know how long an item has been collecting dust in my shops. (However, my oldest item, after sitting there for about 3 years, just sold! So, you never know!) My top line goes as follows : a space to “X” when I list an item, source, item, weight, COG (cost of the item when I purchased it), sold date, sold price, & notes. As I prep my inventory (photos & weights), I add it to the spreadsheet. After I list it, I add the “X” in the appropriate box. After it sells, I fill out the rest of the information. Easy peasy!

My bookkeeping spreadsheet monitors my income & expenses for tax purposes. I maintain separate sheets within the same annual file for each month individually. The top line goes as follows : date, item sold, platform, sale total (price+shipping, etc), platform fee, shipping label, COG (cost of the item when I purchased it), profit, & notes. The second line is for my totals, and I fill it out from there. Then I have another section, which starts a couple columns over & includes other random expenses. The first line of this section is : date, expense, category, & cost. Then I skip a column and have a list of categories to add the totals from the random expenses (which are tax deductible, by the way!) These categories are : inventory, shipping labels, refunds, materials (things you use up, like mailers & labels), equipment (like a scale or label printer), training (courses or events), travel, store “dues” (if you have a special eBay “store”, for example), mileage, & services (a CPA to do your taxes, or an assistant to help you do anything with your store, for example).

Conclusion

It sounds a lot more difficult than it is, really! I just wanted to be as thorough as possible with what I’ve learned & do so that you have a good starting point to reference if you’d like to get into this adventure of online resale & develop your own systems & ways of doing things. If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comments below! And, for good measure, here’s a supplies list that covers everything I’ve mentioned above, though what you really need is up to you of course :

Supplies

• inventory
• smart phone and / or computer
  • platform apps (eBay, Mercari, Poshmark, etc)
  • camera
  • Google Sheets
• kitchen scale
• tape measure
• packaging (bubble mailers, poly bags, etc)
• thermal label printer (4×6) & labels, or a computer printer & clear shipping tape

I think that about covers it, but if you’re looking for more information, there are lots of resale Facebook Groups & YouTube videos that can help – some of my favorite YouTube channels are Lindey Glen, Rockstar Flipper, & Ready Set Resell. Happy selling!!