Profitability of Reselling?
The entire retail industry is built on up-selling goods to the public for a profit. Most retail outlets act as a middle man. Before you are aware of an item it is first made in a factory, then sold wholesale at a low price to retailers, and finally marketed and sold at higher price to you. When you are done with the item, and hopefully donate it, it continues its lifecycle in the secondhand market. Secondhand resale corporations also up-sell their inventory to the public for a profit.
Acquiring items secondhand, sourcing vintage fashion online via hubs like eBay, depop, Etsy, thrifting, DIYing, dominated the TikTok quarantine content market. Resale corporations and online resellers benefited like never before. Along with this worldwide secondhand takeover, also emerged an army of “Karens” ready to condemn resellers for buying low from thrift stores and selling high online.
Is Goodwill, a nonprofit resale corporation, morally corrupt? Of course not. Their effective marketing and reputation techniques have convinced us they are “putting people to work” and “there are items you throw away and items you donate.” Goodwill is a dominating cornerstone within the resale market. Unfortunately though, even after clothes are cycled back into the secondhand market, thrift stores are left with thousands of pounds of unsold clothing that inevitably ends up in landfills.
Do resellers steal from the poor to appease the rich? I believe resellers purchase valuable goods at a low price and redistribute them back into the market. The advent of cellular phone shopping apps and the viral speed of social media certainly has changed the resale market. Thrifting, reselling, and crafting handmade goods suddenly became cool again by way of technology. Smart phones and digital currency made entrepreneurship accessible to the everyman. Resellers are not only selling goods to the elite, they are selling goods on the internet to everyone. Reselling may now be a foreign concept to some, but it is a millenniums long practice and industry.
Are resellers corrupt? I’m not. I do not hoard and price gouge items, especially if they were given away freely by the original owner. I cannot speak for every reseller but I create all my pricing based on current market trends, the intrinsic value of each item, and the cost of my time as an entrepreneur. If a customer really wants an item and I can double my initial investment, I will most times accept less than what the market demands. My true desire is to connect these goods to real people in real time.
No consumers have the same motivations and buying behavior when shopping secondhand online. Some customers don’t mind paying more than retail price, especially for an in demand, unique, or out of production item. Other customers practice frugality and sustainability, but may not have access to quality thrift stores. My goal when shopping secondhand online is to find exactly what I am looking for — at a great price. Not only is there more than enough secondhand clothing for everyone, there is sadly way too much.