​During the time we have been selling on eBay we have seen at least a dozen platforms come and go.  Every time something new comes along everyone everyone that isn't doing so hot on eBay claims that the new platform is the savior of the reselling community and encourages others to jump ship.  Here's the truth though...if you can't make it on eBay, you probably can't make it as a reseller anywhere.  For all it's issues, eBay has the largest audience, the best support, and the lowest fees.  However, other platforms have a valuable place if you ..read more

​When we're out thrifting, we always meet people who want to talk to us.  If they were people who knew us from the blog (or even just smelled normal) we'd be totally fine with it...but they're not.  We were out sourcing about a year ago when a lady cornered us and started talking about her reselling business.  It turns out that she sold nothing but plush and baby blankets.  Her main customers were people who were trying to replace a lost blanket for their kids and she had OVER $70,000 IN SALES LAST YEAR! When I tried to match pace with her and tell her about a book we had recently sold ..read more

​Every time I go to Walmart, I see women wearing stained sweats, socks with sandals, and carrying a Louis Vuitton tote. Or a Chanel purse. Or Prada...take your pick.  At least, that's what they would have you think - but, if you are one of these people, let me tell you a secret...no one believes your bag is real!  The plastic-y, shiny fake leather, the fraying strings, etc.  You don't look high class, you are a poser. And, believe it or not, carrying a fake designer bag makes you look poorer than carrying a normal Walmart purse ..read more

Jeans are one of the items that new sellers get wrong almost every time.  Most brands don't hold their value, they're difficult to picture, and are more expensive that you'd think to ship.  Put all of these things together and, suddenly, the simple task of buying jeans becomes a money sink.  When we first started reselling, our local Savers had a "Member's Event" where all men's jeans, pants, and shorts were 75% off.  We went down the rack and pulled out almost 50 pair of jeans.  After all, you can't go wrong for $3 can you?!  Well...turns ..read more

​Last July I hit the wall...again.  This was the third business model I had tried on eBay and it was not working like I had hoped.  Sure, I was making money.  We were averaging $3-400 a day in sales, but wanted more.  Much more.  Like 10x that.  Digging through thrift stores all day, every day and then listing into the night had left me feeling like a grubby, burned-out bottom-feeder.  I was always hoping that the very next thing we tried would be the big break that we needed, and our reselling business would start spiraling upward and makin ..read more

Our first daughter has never slept well.  It has been a constant battle ever since she was born to get her to sleep for more than a two hour stretch during the night.  Now that she's almost 3, she takes melatonin every night and things are slightly better.  However, last week she found one of her chewable pills that somehow had been dropped and decided to eat it...at 4:00 in the afternoon.  We normally have about 15 minutes after she takes it to get her into bed before she turns into a uncontrollable little puddle.  We didn't really want to ..read more

When it comes to selling on eBay, very few things are actually necessary to make a business run smoothly.  Many people find "necessary" items which are actually destructive to their bottom line.  Personalized boxes, cute work area decorations, replacing working products, etc. are all examples of items that, while attractive, do nothing to increase your earning power.  A scale however, is one of the areas where the rubber meets the road.  Having a quality shipping scale for you home business allows you to get accurate weights so you can char ..read more

May was an absolute roller coaster of eBay sales.  At different times of the month, we were up 15% from last year or down 10%.  We had two $1,000 days and 1 day with absolutely no sales whatsoever.  Like, not a single one.  This hasn't happened to us in years!  A quick call to eBay confirmed that our account was in good standing and they didn't know what the issue was!  Our $0 day was sandwiched by two $400 days, so we'll just write it off as a fluke, I guess! Overall, we did just under $10,000 for the month.  Steady, but n ..read more

In addition to our normal sourcing, this month we decided to see if we could make $1,000 from online arbitrage.  While we (barely) failed, we did branch out a lot more that we normally do in our sourcing.  We have a pretty solid routine and get the majority of our inventory from 4 thrift stores and 3-4 websites.  We headed back to some of our old haunts at Ross and Nordstrom Rack as well as trying our hand at Mercari-to-eBay flips.  Check out how we did! READ MORE ..read more

If there is one thing that will assure the quick demise of your career on eBay, it will be getting stuck at thrift stores.  I get it, I love thrift stores too.  The thrill of the hunt, the occasional home-run, and the potential to find amazing stuff for yourself (that you desperately need, right?) all work together to keep people running around thrift stores for years trying to build their business.  I've said it so many times and I'll say it again: Hoping to find better items at thrift stores is not a business plan.  Unless you have a larg ..read more