From $0 To $200,000 in Sales in the First Year: A Clothing Reseller Shares His Secrets
Written by
Marc Guberti
Edited by
Amen Oyiboke
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Clothing reselling has become a hot side hustle. It doesn’t require a college degree, and even high schoolers can take part in the action.
Trent is one of the many clothing resellers, but unlike most people, he sold $200,000 worth of clothing in his first year. He shared his entire process on The Flip Factory, which is his YouTube channel.
Trent shared which platforms he used and the work you have to do each day to make it as a reseller. He also mentioned that his 9-year-old son helps with some of the work, which shows parents can teach their kids about business and have them earn money at a young age.
You Have To List a Lot of Items
Like every business, clothing reselling is a numbers game. Trent lists items on eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, and Depop, and he said that adding more platforms has been a game-changer. However, creating new accounts on each platform isn’t enough to get a lot of sales. Trent emphasized the importance of being active on these sites to compound your results.
“All of these platforms reward consistency,” Trent said. “If you aren’t consistent, you won’t be rewarded.”
Trent lists roughly 30 items per day on various platforms and works on weekends. He intentionally pushes to work harder on weekdays so he doesn’t have to spend as much time on his clothing reselling business over the weekend.
Keeping Inventory in the Garage
Trent stores all of his clothing in 10 storage racks in his garage. He doesn’t have any employees or virtual assistants other than his family, who do some of the work, but he does almost all of it. Trent does the majority of the packaging and labeling. He also doesn’t invest in a storage facility, which would trim margins.
He can store up to 3,000 items in his garage, and his eBay store lists approximately 2,000 products. Trent targets products that sell quickly and yield profits. Before buying a product, he searches for it on eBay and filters to see items that recently sold.
Seeing more items in this category at attractive price points is a good sign that makes him more comfortable with buying an item. He knows that clothing and sneakers are his best items, but he has resold other products to boost his earnings. Finding items that sell quickly also helps him avoid inventory issues.
Trent said he prefers buying in bulk and earning smaller profits per item rather than hunting for a few high-end pieces with large margins.
You Have To Treat Reselling Like a Business
Trent said he often talks with resellers who treat the work like a hobby but expect business-level results. While he values the flexibility and says the work isn’t “super labor-intensive,” consistency is non-negotiable.
Listing items daily is a key trait of successful resellers, but you also have to learn more about the craft to thrive in the long run. Trent didn’t start with his current knowledge and had to learn through a lot of trial and error.
Some people do reselling on weekends as a good side hustle, but if you want to sell more than $200,000 in inventory in your first year, you have to treat it like a full-time job, like Trent.
Reselling can be fun and incredibly rewarding if you do it right, but you have to stick with it over a long period of time to maximize your revenue.
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