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Turn part-time hours into a full-time income via Amazon FBA

Turn Part-Time Hours into a Full-Time Income via Amazon FBA
Home Garage Sales Top 7 Garage Sale & Thrift Store Sourcing Mistakes for Amazon Sellers to Avoid

Top 7 Garage Sale & Thrift Store Sourcing Mistakes for Amazon Sellers to Avoid

April 25, 2022 By Stephen Smotherman 3 Comments

When sourcing for inventory at garage sales and thrift stores, most people make some seriously costly mistakes. Not only do they leave profits behind on items they skip over, but sometimes they also make some mistakes that leads to bad feedback, returns, and other time wasters that cost both time and money.

For over a decade, I’ve been going to garage sales and thrift stores looking for inventory to resell online. I really enjoy buying inventory at those sources because of the potential for huge ROI (return on investment). I mean, where else can you buy something to resell and turn $1 to $25 or $5 to $80?! In fact, it can get a little addicting if you let it.

With over 20 years of garage sale and thrift store sourcing experience, I’ve honestly made countless mistakes. In the video below, I’ll break down what I think are the top 7 mistakes that online resellers make at garage sales and thrift stores. I’ve learned from these mistakes, and it’s helped my profits to go up and my time to be better spent. The goal of this blog post is for you to learn from my mistakes and make much better use of your time and money. Now, press play and let’s get into it…

Like I said before, I really hope you can apply the lessons from the above video and not make the same mistakes that I did during my first few years of garage sale and thrift store sourcing. Not making these 7 mistakes will help you earn more money and also avoid negative feedback and returns.

Now, I’d love to hear from you! Have you made any sourcing mistakes at garage sales and/or thrift stores that you have learned from? Comment below and share your experiences and lessons learned. Together we can make this blog post a continual source of garage sale and thrift store sourcing tips.

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I find profitable board games at garage sales, thrift stores, retail stores, online stores, and so many other great places. I’ll honestly run out of money before I run out of board games to find and resell. It’s because of this abundance of opportunity that I decided to create The Reseller’s Guide to Board Games: How to Turn Play Money into Real Money. This course is a combination ebook and video course that walks you through everything you need to know about making big profits buying and reselling board games.

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Filed Under: Finding Inventory, Garage Sale Tips, Garage Sales, Inventory, Thrift Stores, Troubleshooting

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About Stephen Smotherman

Stephen loves helping people turn part-time hours into a full-time income via Amazon FBA. When not reselling or blogging, Stephen enjoys reading with his wife Rebecca, playing games with his kids, serving at his church, and watching baseball.

Comments

  1. brad miller says

    September 5, 2018 at 7:58 am

    You are so right Steven, after a couple good flips it gets addicting. My wife was skeptical at first, I have started so many things, looking to supplement my freelance writing work, and none have panned out for various reasons. I have started cautiously with books and added board games. My wife saw some promising success fairly quickly. We bought a $3 Sorry electronic game (she found) and it sold for $49 ebay in 16 hours. We also had two $2 textbooks sell for $139 and $149 on Amazon. She got excited and became a believer. 🙂 . Then, at her prodding at a garage sale a few weeks ago, I took a chance and paid $15 on an old Brother electronic Wordprocessor (In very good condition in box with manual). It sold in less than two days on ebay for $129 plus shipping. Needless to say, she is hooked now. I know everyone has flips like these and even better, but we are starting slowly and cautiously and getting some good ROI… even better, we are having a blast doing it together!
    As far as bad buys, I’ve purchased some dud books and board games before I had much experience of what to look for. I wish I could get my money back on about 30 of them. Turns out I was restricted on Amazon to sell them or I looked up the wrong variation of the game or listing, etc., and they won’t turn a profit on ebay either. But, even at that, my losses are about $100 vs.thousands for getting my feet wet in other types of businesses. It has been a learning process and I appreciate the information you have provided.

    Reply
  2. Bonnie Jansen says

    September 5, 2018 at 8:55 am

    Always love your tips and tricks. Thanks!

    Reply
  3. Amanda says

    September 8, 2018 at 2:32 pm

    I’ve already learned so much just from your video. Can’t wait until the webinar!
    Thank You

    Reply

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