Reselling and small trading
Buying goods and selling them on - through WhatsApp and Instagram, on a reselling platform, or from a stall or small shop. The lowest barrier to trading there is, and the easiest place to lose money quietly.
- Work setting
- From home through messaging apps and platforms, or a stall or small shop
- Hours
- Flexible, but customer messages arrive at all hours
- Remote
- Possible
- Travel
- Local, for stock and delivery
- Qualification
- None
- Read
- 2 min
What this is
Understand the role
Buying goods and selling them on for more — clothes and household items through WhatsApp and Instagram, a reselling platform, or a stall. It has the lowest barrier of anything on this site, which is both why it is worth knowing about and why it is where people most often lose money without noticing.
What the work is
Day to day
Finding stock, photographing and listing it, answering messages, arranging delivery, and handling returns. The selling is a small part; the messaging is most of it, and it does not keep office hours.
Who it suits
Fit
People who are already good at persuading a small circle and who can keep records. It fits around other work, needs no premises, and can be tested for very little — which makes it a reasonable thing to try while looking for something else.
What you need
Capability
A phone, a way to take payment, and a notebook or sheet recording every purchase, sale and return. That last one is not optional — without it you cannot tell whether you are making money, and most people who fail here never knew until the money ran out.
How to start
Preparation
Start with goods you can sell on order rather than stock you buy in advance, so nothing is tied up. Sell to people you know first and note honestly what they actually pay for. Only buy inventory once something has sold repeatedly. Count a return as a full loss when pricing, because it usually is.
What people get wrong
Read this one
The margin. What looks like a healthy mark-up is eaten by returns, delivery, unsold stock and the discount you gave to close the sale. Track those four and the real figure is often a fraction of the headline.
And this space is thick with MLM schemes dressed as reselling. The test is simple: if you are asked to pay to join, to buy a starter kit, or if you earn from recruiting other sellers rather than from selling goods, it is not a reselling business and you will lose money. Real reselling has no joining fee.
How it fails
Read this one
Quietly, through stock that did not sell and returns that were never counted, so the loss is discovered all at once. Or through borrowing to buy inventory on the strength of one good month. Or by joining a scheme that took a fee upfront. Keep the records, buy on demand, and never pay to be allowed to sell.