You can buy cheap stuff to resell at several places like thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales, flea markets and more. Finding cheap stuff to resell online all depends on what’s available in your area.
For example, yard sales are more common only in the summer, but most thrift stores are open all year round. Resellers have to analyze the availability of these cheap places to source items that can be sold online for a profit.
There are ten places specifically where you can go to buy cheap stuff online. Every reseller needs to utilize these low-cost opportunities to source items for their side hustle.
Here are 10 places you can buy cheap stuff to resell
- Thrift stores
- Estate sales
- Yard sales
- Flea markets
- OfferUp
- Craigslist
- Facebook Marketplace
- Clearance items
- Nextdoor app
- Your own home
These ten places vary drastically depending on where you live and how much money you have to spend. The best resellers for this side gig are always looking to flip items they find at these ten places. See our list of unique pre-owned items to resell on eBay for more general information.
Most resellers buy cheap stuff to resell from thrift stores. Thrift stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army are the best places for resellers to find cheap stuff. It’s because the goal of a thrift store is to take donations, or cheap clothes, and sell them at a heavy discount for more people to afford.
This means the door is wide open for huge profit margins on some items. One great item many sellers focus on while reselling is sneakers. Sneakers, dress shoes and boots sell extremely well on aftermarket platforms like eBay.
In general, clothing is a great item to resell from thrift stores because there’s no testing it. Items like electronics are hard to resell from thrift stores because it’s hard to determine if they work before you buy them.
Also, big-name thrift stores like Goodwill recently started raising their prices. Don’t let this deter you as a reseller. Many resellers are going to smaller, community thrift stores that are hidden gems.
The next most popular place to buy cheap stuff and resell it is estate sales. Estate sales take place when someone dies and doesn’t have a will in place for their belongings. Or when the people who inherited a recently deceased person’s belongings do not want it.
At times like those, that recently deceased person’s items are put up for sale at a severely discounted price. Estate sales are great places to find fine jewelry, expensive coats, furniture, books and housewares for cheap.
You can research online to find out where the closest estate sale is happening near you. They take place more frequently than most people think. Sadly, if you don’t get to an estate sale during the first day it’s open then there’s a chance you’ll miss all the good cheap items.
Yard sales are another great place to buy cheap stuff and resell it. They are similar to estate sales except people at yard sales are trying to give away their items. It might be because they are moving or just don’t want it anymore.
You’ll run into a lot of bulk deals at yard sales because the sellers want to get rid of their products. They are a great place to practice your bargaining skills as a reseller. Most sellers are open to bargaining at yard sales. Sometimes they just throw extra items on top of your pile as you leave.
Yard sales are great places to look for cheap video games and gaming systems, coats, toys, and other oddly valuable items.
You can find a lot of great yard sales that sell cheap items by looking them up online.
Flea markets are great places to find a lot of cheap items. When groups of sellers want to sell their junk, they take it to flea markets and set cheap price tags for it. As a reseller, you can walk through multiple groups of sellers to source several items at once.
Many resellers agree flea markets are one of the ultimate places you can go to for cheap items. There are just so many different booths with things to choose from.
Expect to find anything under the sun at a flea market. You could find cowboy boots, baseball gloves or even golf equipment just to name a few.
OfferUp is a newer app that has a tab dedicated specifically for local pickup. The items sold on OfferUp are mostly used and cheap. It’s because sellers want buyers to swing buy, pay them and then leave with their old stuff.
If you want to start reselling or refurbishing iPhones then OfferUp is a great platform to do it. Most people list their old smartphones for cheap on OfferUp because they need to quickly get paid after getting a new phone.
Resellers need to be careful buying and selling cheap items on OfferUp. Always meet at a neutral, public location or a police station for transactions.
You can expect to find smartphones, dumbbells and other weights on OfferUp.
Craigslist is the home to many cheap items to resell. It can be hard to get in contact with sellers on Craigslist. It’s because the website is slowing down and being used very rarely these days.
Nonetheless, you can find a ton of cheap items on Craigslist and you can even get some free things there too.
But just like OfferUp, it’s best to be weary during transactions on Craigslist. You never want to meet up with someone you’ve never met before on their own property. Go to a neutral location.
Facebook Marketplace is another great place to find cheap stuff and it’s a trusted one. You can find anything from cars to skateboards and luxury purses on Facebook Marketplace.
Since Facebook has such a big user-base it makes a great place to have a marketplace. There is such a wide variety of items and prices on Facebook Marketplace. You can negotiate with sellers, be alerted to new items daily and use your own Facebook profile to access the marketplace.
Whether you want to start reselling cars or cans, you can find them both on Facebook Marketplace.
Clearance items
Stumbling onto the clearance items at a Walmart or Target is great for resellers who want to find cheap items. The clearance section at retailers sometimes has items listed as low as $0.50 for a range of resellable items.
You have to coordinate with store managers to find out when they are putting items on clearance at their stores. Usually, it happens at the end of a certain season. When summer is over and fall items come in, the summer items go straight to clearance because they are out of season.
Always look for clearance items as. reseller because they are great ways to get items for cheap.
Nextdoor app
The Nextdoor app was created as a place to connect with the people in your neighborhood. But the Nextdoor app can also be used as a great place to find cheap items. It’s because people in your community will post about everything on the app, including when they are throwing junk out.
You can create an account on the Nextdoor app to see all of the cheap items being posted. A lot of the stuff offered there is free because people just want to give it away to their neighbors.
The very best place you can go to buy cheap stuff to resell is your own home. The stuff there is the cheapest because you already own it. Anything you sell from your home will have a larger profit margin because your only other option would be to donate that item or throw it away.
Never pass up the opportunity to look around your own home for items to resell. You’ll quickly find old iPhones in the back of your drawers, unworn clothes and other resellable items. Your home needs to be the first place you turn to if you want to start reselling items.
It’s a gold mine of cheap stuff you can quickly make money from.
Start finding cheap items to resell with those 10 places
Use any of the previously mentioned places to find cheap items you can resell for profit. If you can’t find a cheap item to buy and resell from one of those 10 places then you need to maybe try a different side hustle.
Also, keep an eye on the reseller central page for additional information on how you can make money reselling.
Do you have to pay taxes as a reseller?
Yes, you have to pay taxes as a reseller. U.S. President Joe Biden declared that in 2022 all side hustles that profit more than $600 will be forced to pay taxes. This includes most resellers who make more than $600 from selling in a year.
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