"Reselling Won't Last" | Shut Them Up

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These are just a few words on why you shouldn’t give up on reselling, because I know there’s a lot of forces trying to drag resellers down.

I’ve been reselling with purpose since January 2013. I’ve been in this for a good while. It began on eBay and now I primary buy things to sell on Amazon. I’ve seen a few trends come and go. I’ve seen a few marketplaces come and go. I’ve seen the big marketplaces go through a lot of change. At every stage I’ve seen participants freak out that the end is near.

I’ve heard so many times that “reselling won’t last much longer”, and it’s just not true.

To be a successful reseller, you really have to be prepared to make adjustments. As with every business, you’re going to come across new challenges as the market conditions change. Just because it’s so easy to get started as a reseller, and you may not even feel like you’re running a business, you shouldn’t assume that it’s any different.

There have definitely been some game-changing alterations to the way that I sell on Amazon, thanks to their own rule changes and selling restrictions, but there was no way that I was going to quit as a result of them.

In the time that I’ve been reselling, I’ve seen charity shops and boot sale sellers get more hostile towards resellers (and increase prices have increased as a result) but it just means that you have to be smarter about the way that you get your goods. Get creative with it. For example, you could set up a service to buy unwanted things from students (particularly text books).

There are so many ways of getting towards the same goal. It’s not just a case of saying ‘X doesn’t work anymore, so I’m not going to do any of this anymore.’

The best way to cover yourself against any changes is to spread your risk. Sell on as many marketplaces as you can. Source from as many places, and in as many ways as you can. Sell as many different types of products as you can. You will acquire so many skills along the way and you will be unshakeable, if you make it a mission to be as strong as possible in every aspect of the game.

Reselling has been a thing since the beginning of time, and it’s not going anywhere. The way that you did reselling before may not work, but there are so many directions you can go in. Whether it’s trainer reselling, retail arbitrage, thrifting, online arbitrage, wholesale or long-term collectable reselling that you get your kicks out of, take a step back every few months and see if there’s a smarter or more profitable way to make money from reselling, rather than ploughing away at something that you think is sinking.