How To Make Money Flipping Items

Want to learn how to make money flipping items? In a lot of cases, the hardest thing to do is to get started, but once you get past the initial hurdle of self-doubt, there’s actually a fairly simple path toward earning money off items you buy and flip. Are you interested in flipping vintage dresses or vintage shoes? Are you a flea market picker? Or perhaps you love antiques or even vintage vinyl records. There is money to be made on all this and more.

How To Make Money Flipping Items

There are two important keys to making money from flipping. One is your personal interest in the things you are flipping. If you don’t like wearing vintage clothes, for example, flipping them will soon turn into a chore you do NOT enjoy. But if you are a vintage enthusiast, your passion for the culture will inform your work.

The other key to making money flipping items? Demand. Your personal interest in vinyl records, for example, might give you a very good idea as to whether selling vinyl on the secondary market is something worth your time. If you and all your friends are really into a certain kind of vintage or vinyl, you likely have a very good idea as to how sustainable your business might be.

Find The Right Marketplace

Here’s some specific advice–if you are thinking of selling your flipped items on eBay, you should definitely have a chat with other sellers who have experience there to learn why you should or should NOT consider eBay as a market. Some marketplaces have run their course and are no longer as useful to sellers or buyers alike.

If your marketplace is overcrowded (Etsy is sadly a prime example) you may have trouble finding visibility among the competition. It’s a good idea to diversify your online sales options but you should also NOT rely only on digital sales–those who make the most money flipping items do a combination of local or regional shows or fairs and sell online, too.

Specific Advice About Selling Online

Those who sell online successfully all say the same thing. If you do not list consistently, and if you do not list new items for sale every day, you won’t be as visible as you want to be in order to land online sales. And that is REGARDLESS of the sales platform you use. It does not matter if you are reselling Vera Wang or if you are a reseller dealer only interested in taxidermy, choosing the right marketplaces is key but listing predictably is just as crucial.

List every day, and make sure you have a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee policy to avoid disputes. Doing this may occasionally cost you some money, but the defense of your online reputation is worth that expense.

Don’t Invest A Lot All At Once On Inventory

Why? Because unless you KNOW what your future customers will gravitate toward, you simply don’t know if your investment in stock is going to pay off. Don’t over-invest in one type of vinyl record, for example, unless you have a good idea there’s a market for it.

For example, if you love movie soundtracks you might be tempted to spend a lot of money investing in them to resell. But if you can’t connect with movie soundtrack lovers and most of your potential buyers are into post-punk or electronic dance music, you may find yourself with stock you just can’t get rid of.

Editors note: by way of a follow up, Vital Dollar has an excellent article on Hobbies That Make Money.  If you’re reading this becuase you’re looking to make some extra money, give it a read.