Hey all,


Welcome back to another blog post. I’m your host and thrift “expert” Grant. If you haven’t been following along, we are focusing on reselling platforms. There is a strong connection between reselling and thrift stores. There are people that make flipping items from the thrift store into a full-time job. Some even amass fan followings, where they post about their successes and failures. Since my “expertise” is in thrifter clothing that’s where I will be continuing to focus on that aspect of these reselling applications. This week I will be talking about eBay. Now, eBay was one of the first applications that were introduced to the world to sell items online. Of course, items from thrift stores are not the only items sold here. People are able to list a variety of items in this application.  It is one of the biggest and oldest applications as it was launched in 1995. The other ones I have discussed and will discuss were all launched in the mid-2010s. You would think this would give eBay a competition lift, but recently we have seen them falter a little bit. New applications have the flash and interface that eBay lacks. The important part to know about eBay is that there are categories that will seek better than some. Some common items found in thrift stores sell constantly on eBay. It is difficult to understand why they sell, but it just does. I point to the demographic for this. In terms of clothing, eBay is not great for selling clothes. Basic clothing and shoes are consistent, yet vintage items often struggle. That has been my experience though as some people on eBay have success with all categories. This could be in part to dedicating it as their full-time job, while I cannot. Below I will be showing the basic process for listing items. There are screenshots to help you visualize the process.

Grant’s tips:

  • The title is important: This is the first thing a potential buyer will see. You will want to have as much information about the products avoiding filler words. This way the buyer will know exactly what the product is.
  • Write detailed product descriptions: you will want to try to fill out all the boxes. The more boxes filled out the better.
  • Product identifies: upc, msn, etc. These are important because if a buyer searches that number it will pop up that exact product. Include this whenever possible.

In my experience, eBay is one of the applications that are harder to sell clothes on. I think this is because of a few reasons. The demographic of this website is a bit older. They are not looking for clothing or if they are they are most likely looking for basic and not anything special. You have to remember that eBay is almost 30 years old now. It is not exactly the first place people go to buy items because there are so many applications now. The other reason I think reselling clothing is harder on eBay is the interface. Other really applications have a user interface that is easy to use. You can interact with customers easy and photos are easier to see. In my opinion, the interface of eBay still looks like a website from the early days of the internet. People seek the option to interact with each other behind just giving them money. eBay is a great application, but you need to understand if it is the right application to sell your items. In regards to clothes, I would pass. Unless you are saying basic big brand (Nike, Adidas, Champion).