Last week I picked up a pair of Ronson Rosewood Veraflame gas candles at a yard sale. They were sitting in their original 1964 boxes, dusty, tucked behind a pile of old magazines. The seller wanted $20 for the pair.
They sold on eBay for $1,148.
That's not a typo. Twenty dollars turned into over a thousand. One find, one listing, maybe 15 minutes of actual work.
So is reselling worth it? Here's the honest answer from someone who does it full time.
The Real Numbers
I run roughly 3,000 to 4,000 active listings across eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, and Poshmark. On an average month, that brings in $5,000 to $6,000 net. After fees, shipping, and cost of goods, the take-home is solid — especially for something I can do around my schedule as a stay-at-home dad of four.
But here's what nobody tells you: most of that isn't home runs. Most of it is $15 here, $30 there, a $60 pair of shoes, a $45 kitchen gadget. The Ronson candles are the exception, not the rule. The bulk of the money comes from consistent volume — listing every day, sourcing every week, keeping the pipeline moving.
The Big Finds Are Real Though
The Ronson candles aren't my first rodeo. Over the years I've hit some wild ones:
- A signed Hemingway book buried in a box lot at an estate sale — sold for over $2,000
- A Hohner accordion I picked up for almost nothing that sold for $1,800
- A Mimaki commercial printer I flipped for $2,000
- Gold bullion sitting in the bottom of a storage unit I won at auction — worth over $1,000 at the time
When you're new, these feel like lottery wins. When you've been doing this for years, they stop being luck. You start recognizing value that other people walk past. You know what's worth picking up and what's not. That pattern recognition is the real skill, and it only comes from reps.
The Honest Downsides
I'm not going to pretend it's all $1,000 flips and easy money. Here's what sucks about reselling:
Dead inventory is real. You will buy things that don't sell. They'll sit for months. You'll eventually relist them at a loss or donate them. It happens to everyone, and it never fully stops — you just get better at avoiding it.
It takes time. Sourcing, cleaning, photographing, listing, packaging, shipping, customer service. If you're doing 20+ listings a week, that's a part-time job. If you're doing 50+, that's full time.
Fees eat into everything. eBay takes 13.25%. Poshmark takes 20%. Shipping costs keep climbing. A $50 sale might net you $25 after everything. You have to know your numbers or you'll work for free.
Storage becomes a problem. Right now I've got inventory in my garage, my basement, and a spare room. At some point, every reseller has the "I need more space" moment.
So Is It Worth It?
Yes — if you go in with realistic expectations.
If you're expecting to quit your job next month and make six figures flipping thrift store finds, you're going to be disappointed. If you're looking for a flexible side hustle that can genuinely scale into a real income over time, there's nothing else like it.
The barrier to entry is almost zero. You probably have stuff sitting around your house right now that's worth money — old electronics, clothes you don't wear, stuff collecting dust in the garage. Sell that first, build some cashflow, and reinvest it into sourcing. You can start with a phone and whatever's already in your closet. The knowledge compounds — every item you research, every listing you write, every negotiation you do makes you better. And unlike most side hustles, there's no ceiling. You can do this at $500 a month or $50,000 a month depending on how hard you want to push.
The people who fail at reselling aren't the ones who pick bad items. They're the ones who stop listing. Consistency beats everything.
How to Start
If you're thinking about getting into reselling, here's what I'd actually tell a beginner:
Start with what you know. If you're into sneakers, flip sneakers. If you know tools, hit estate sales for power tools. Your existing knowledge is your first advantage.
Source cheap, learn fast. Don't spend $200 at a thrift store on your first run. Spend $20 on a few items, list them, and see what happens. The education is worth more than the profit at first.
List every single day. Even if it's one item. The algorithm rewards consistency, and so does your bank account.
Track everything. Know what you paid, what you sold for, what the fees were, and what you actually made. If you're not tracking, you're guessing.
Stay in the game. The big finds come to the people who show up. That $1,148 Ronson candle sale happened because I was at a yard sale on a random Saturday morning. You can't win if you're not playing.
Want Some Help Getting Started?
I built GrindGuideAI because I wished something like it existed when I started. It's a free app with an AI coach that answers your questions, a flip scanner that tells you if something's worth buying before you buy it, inventory tracking to keep your numbers straight, and step-by-step challenges to build your skills and confidence.
You don't need it to start reselling. But it'll get you there faster.
Good luck out there.