Do you need to begin reselling merchandise on-line, however aren’t positive the place to supply objects? This record of distinctive sourcing concepts will preserve your reselling enterprise stocked with merchandise!
Whether or not you’re a full-time reseller or simply seeking to make some additional money as a part-time facet hustle, sourcing objects in individual to resell on-line can devour giant chunks of your day when you don’t know the place to look.
Lots of people begin out going to thrift outlets and native property gross sales to search out objects they’ll purchase for low costs and resell at greater ones. Whereas these sourcing strategies are each strong choices for smaller resellers, they possible received’t get you the place you want to be if you wish to scale your small enterprise and have it develop right into a gig that brings in a full-time revenue.
And make no mistake. There’s cash to be made – and the potential for much more development – in sure sectors of the resale market, together with reselling used clothes. “The U.S. secondhand attire market is anticipated to achieve $74 billion by 2029, rising 9% yearly on common,” based on the ThredUp 2025 Resale Report. In actual fact, between 2023 and 2024, the worldwide resale market grew by 15%, knowledge from the report reveals.
For many who need to make an actual go of reselling, seasoned entrepreneurs say that your sourcing course of ought to embrace being looking out for brand new product suppliers and different wholesalers and distributors as you proceed to diversify the place you discover your individual merchandise regularly.
We’re right here to assist together with your sourcing technique. Think about these sources, platforms, and potential suppliers when in search of giant portions of things to inventory your reselling enterprise.
1. Authorities Auctions and Gross sales
Whether or not you’re seeking to supply bookshelves, laptop screens, and even lawnmowers at rock-bottom costs, authorities auctions could be a nice supply in your reselling enterprise. Many municipalities throughout america and places in Canada now use GovDeals.com to record their surplus objects.
You’ll be able to bid on objects and wait to see which purchaser affords the very best value, or you possibly can merely choose the ‘purchase now’ value to snag the merchandise you need. The web site additionally affords a location search web page, permitting you to slender down the world the place you buy objects.
2. Property Gross sales
An alternative choice for sourcing objects in a single setting goes to property gross sales in your neighborhood and the encompassing cities the place you reside. To seek out property gross sales, you possibly can scour social media marketplaces and take a look at native information web sites that publicize occasions on neighborhood calendars. Some higher-end property gross sales are additionally marketed on EstateSales.com, a listing of upcoming gross sales that features photographs of a number of the objects that can be accessible. There are additionally choices for making purchases on-line when you can’t journey to the location of the sale. The corporate additionally affords a publication, the place you possibly can signal as much as be notified when new gross sales are added.
3. Helpsy Supply
With a mission to assist preserve thousands and thousands of kilos of garments out of landfills, Helpsy Supply is a female-led enterprise that could be a licensed B Corp and public profit company primarily based in New Jersey. The corporate ships and delivers pallets and smaller reseller packs of used and unused clothes, amongst different issues. This may occasionally sound good to those that don’t need to spend their time standing within the aisles of retail shops and different thrift companies. You’ll be able to go to their web site to see what they provide in your space.
4. Group and Neighborhood Yard Gross sales
Whereas particular person yard gross sales and storage gross sales are nice locations for sourcing objects at low costs, you possibly can doubtlessly get rather more bang in your buck once you strategically plan your day round attending a neighborhood or neighborhood yard sale. Why is that? Multi-family yard gross sales and people held by church buildings and different neighborhood teams are inclined to deliver collectively dozens of individuals and the issues they’re hoping to promote from their households. Spring, summer time, and fall are all nice seasons to get out and treasure hunt at a majority of these gross sales, so be sure to plan accordingly. Craigslist and Fb Market are each good locations to begin your seek for local people yard gross sales in your space.
5. The 127 Yard Sale
Prepared for the granddaddy of all out of doors gross sales? Mark your calendar for the primary weekend in August 2025. That’s when The 127 Yard Sale – often known as The World’s Longest Yard Sale – takes place on the primary Thursday by Sunday in August. In its thirty ninth yr, the route spans 690 miles throughout six states: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. Judging from previous occasions, there’s a bit little bit of all the pieces at this sale, from flea market finds to previous automobiles to buying and selling playing cards, classic furnishings, and antiques. This annual occasion has been recognized to draw a whole bunch of hundreds of cut price hunters from throughout america and the world every year. Study extra concerning the distributors, routes, and places of the sale at 127YardSale.com.
6. Going out of Enterprise Gross sales & Liquidation Gross sales
When small companies and different brick-and-mortar shops shut down or shut a location, they’ll generally supply nice offers to customers on their remaining merchandise in order that they don’t must pay for space for storing or transfer it to a different location. And when bigger firms, together with a number of the massive field chains, resolve they should purge stock or shut down, they generally rent liquidation companies to do the heavy lifting for them. These websites can supply a chance to snag nice offers on high-quality merchandise.
One of many largest of those firms is B Inventory, an internet retailer that resells returned and overstock objects from massive labels and firms, together with Amazon, Wayfair, and Goal. Product classes embrace clothes and accessories, cell telephones, electronics, pets, toys, furnishings, and extra.
7. Walmart Liquidation Auctions
Whilst you could not consider Walmart as a spot to select up pallets of returned objects in your reselling enterprise, they’re completely a participant within the billion-dollar resale trade. Walmart Liquidation Auctions is one other supply for on-line offers for your corporation or your self. This Walmart-backed enterprise permits resellers to bid on extra stock, refurbished bulk tons, and even retailer returns straight from the favored retailer.
How a lot can you purchase? In line with its web site, tons vary in dimension from single pallets all the best way as much as truckloads of stock, so make sure you test particular person listings to grasp their minimal order portions. Widespread product classes on the location embrace bikes, furnishings, electronics, home equipment, garments, and extra. In different phrases, almost something you could possibly purchase at a Walmart might be accessible by the Walmart Liquidation Public sale website.
8. Fb Market
Since its launch in 2016, Fb Market has develop into an more and more fashionable on-line platform the place customers meet nearly to purchase and promote thousands and thousands of things. And whereas Fb Market is an efficient spot to promote, it can be an ideal place to purchase low-priced objects, particularly if you’re keen to journey and decide one thing up or pay for delivery.
The actual fact is that the web market has been logging multiple billion month-to-month customers worldwide since 2021, based on e-commerce knowledge from Statista.com. And people customers have been busy. On common, as much as 1.2 billion internet buyers purchase one thing on Fb Market every month, based on Capital One Procuring.
9. Goodwill
Whilst you could also be acquainted with your native Goodwill thrift retailer, you might not know concerning the bigger on-line choices from Goodwill Industries, resembling Goodwill.com and the public sale website ShopGoodwill.com, each of that are nice locations to snag beforehand used objects. As a result of they’ve an in depth listing with hundreds of things accessible, you might spend as a lot time shopping the location as you’ll your favourite resale retailer location. Talking of places, you should use the web site location tab to find different Goodwill shops in surrounding states.
Professional tip: Search for thrift shops which are situated in resort areas or different upscale communities. These shops have a tendency to hold higher-end merchandise that may doubtlessly fetch a better value when it’s bought once more.
10. eBay
When looking for choose area of interest merchandise, the web public sale website eBay could be a nice procurement supply in your on-line retailer or different reselling enterprise. To maintain your revenue margins the place they should be, be sure you purchase objects on eBay at a value low sufficient to permit for long-term profitability when reselling.
Inventive Concepts for Sourcing Objects for Your Reselling Enterprise: Conclusion
Because the resale market continues to develop, there are alternatives for these seeking to create a worthwhile facet hustle or full-time revenue by reselling objects by an e-commerce enterprise. As a result of sourcing objects will be difficult, it’s vital to be frequently looking out for brand new producers that provide beforehand used or returned merchandise at a deep low cost. Whereas on-line buy-in-bulk companies will be nice for sourcing objects, don’t neglect about native distributors and different sellers who use commerce reveals and different neighborhood gross sales to search out new consumers and sellers.
Undecided what app it’s best to use for reselling your objects on-line? Try this record of fashionable reselling apps, which can be used for sourcing objects!
