thrift store ebay

Items to Sell on eBay from Big Lots and Thrift Stores

It’s been a busy week for online sales for me, it seems like people are starting to do some of their holiday shopping.  It has definitely been showing as I have had more sales in the past few days than many prior weeks! Other new things I have been working on include buying 2 pallet of liquidation items and working on building up the FBA inventory.  I will report on how these items go for me, so stay tuned!

I wanted to share a few ebay sales that I have made mostly within the past week, that will hopefully give you some additional ideas for items to look for in terms of inventory to sell online.  May of these items come from thrift stores, so for those of you interested in reselling thrift store items on eBay, this should help! I also sourced some of these products from Big Lots.

Reselling Items on eBay

We’ll start with talking about reselling thrift store items on eBay — three items in particular.  The first item is a set of USA Boxing Gloves.  I picked these up at a thrift store for $2.99 about a month ago because I had a hunch someone might want these for a costume and they looked interesting.  They sold after Halloween, so it probably wasn’t a costume, either way I am happy to have them sell for $39.99.  This left me with a profit of $19.75 after shipping and fees.

Screenshot_2013-11-22-00-05-48

Next up, is a Polo Ralph Lauren button up shirt.  I have had good luck selling this brand on eBay in the past, and here’s an example of a shirt I paid $5.99 for and sold for $24.99.  After shipping and fees I made a profit of $12.64.  Here’s the item:

Screenshot_2013-11-22-00-06-13

The last of the thrift store finds I will show you today are some Florsheim Imperial wingtip dress shoes.  I picked these up because they were in very nice condition, and they had decent results in the completed listings.  You’ll notice that there are shipping and import charges showing up for this item.  That is because this item sold through eBay’s Global Shipping Program.  This allows you to ship your item to a Kentucky address and then this center takes care of the international end of the shipment.  The shipping and import charges are paid by the buyer.  They are aware of these charges when they buy the items.  I have not had any problems with this program, and I would estimate that around 1 in 10 of my sales is now through the global shipping program.  If you haven’t tried it yet, I would recommend giving it a shot, it’s free after all! Without further rambling, here’s the item: Screenshot_2013-11-22-00-06-00

Now, I will show you a few items that I sold from Big Lots.  Big Lots is a store that sells a large variety of closeout items, and it will have different inventory just about every time you go in the store.  I enjoy shopping there and using it as a source for inventory.  The first item that I sold is 2 32oz cans of Monster Energy drink.  This is a unique size for the can, and the completed listings had decent results when I purchased these.  I bought these for $1.50 a piece and after shipping and fees made a profit of $5.01. Take a look: Screenshot_2013-11-22-00-07-00

The last item for today that I will share is a lot of Old Spice Swagger Deodorant.  This scent of Old Spice is hard to find in stores, and some individuals are looking on eBay to find it.  I paid 25 cents each for these for a total of $3.75 and ended up with a profit of $7.92 after shipping and fees.  Here’s the sold listing:Screenshot_2013-11-22-00-07-48

These are just a handful of the sales that I made recently.  They are a random assortment of items to try to get the ideas of possible eBay inventory flowing.  Let me know what’s selling for you in the comments as well as any questions!

Also, I will be putting out a post or video on how to get started with amazon fba from square one (from a reader’s request – if you have request for posts, let me know!), so keep an eye out for that!

10 thoughts on “Items to Sell on eBay from Big Lots and Thrift Stores”

  1. Hi Ryan,
    Appreciate all the value and I am a subscriber to your mails.
    Super long message here – though others may have the same issue.

    Basically I am suspended from listing and have no metrics what the limit is to list items. Anyone else run into this and have more info?

    Finally started taking action and started selling items on Amazon and eBay.
    1. The stuff I am gated on for Amazon – I am trying to sell on eBay – but need to get better understanding on how to move that stuff. I am sure there are a lot of things I can do to move those items – many of them used or gated new products.
    we are talking toys and stuff here – not guns or anything 🙂

    2. Amazon has restricted the number of listings I can create.
    After creating 200+ listings in my first 6 weeks – i am ‘temporarily’ suspended from creating new listings. Until i increase sales it will not lift. This of course makes no sense because – adding new better products is the key to me getting more sales – I am reselling – not creating products – yet.

    I am told there is an algorithm (By Amazon support) to the number of items I can list. But no-body can tell me how many that is – I am an individual seller.
    I offered to upgrade but that will not help according to seller support.

    Thanks for any insight.

    1. Unfortunately, the only thing to do here is wait for sales to come in. Amazon put this policy in place due to the surplus of spammers and scammers. As soon as sales start coming in, your limits will go up.

  2. The UPC codes on a lot of products from stores must not be original codes because they won’t let you use them on Amazon. I purchased clothes from Babies R Us and none of the UPC codes are excepted by Amazon. Is there a way around that? The same with Costco.

    1. Hi Laurie,

      Thanks for the comment, can you elaborate on the UPC code issue you are seeing? Does that mean the item isn’t found on the scanning app? or are you running into an issue when you are listing the item for sale on Amazon? Let me know and I will do my best to advise.

      Best Regards,
      Ryan

      1. This is the error message I typically get.

        “You may not create ASINs for this brand. Please review our ASIN Creation Policy here: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/201844590 . If your product is not listed in the Amazon catalog and should be listed as a new ASIN, contact Seller Support at https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/contact-us and mention error code 5461.”

        Even though I am able to add new products for this brand for other items. It just seems completely random. I’ve been able to contact customer service and get products with this error message added eventually, but it is a very time consuming process and they have never been able to give me a reason why this is happening or how I can fix it myself.

        1. Hi Laurie,

          That is odd. I’m not exactly sure why that would be, but if you do want to sell those products it sounds like submitting the error code to support is the way to go. If I find a fix in the future, I will be sure to share on this site.

          Best Regards,
          Ryan

  3. I am just starting out with Anazon FBA and have a question regarding Big Lots Purchases. Many of their products have Big Lots bar code that is part of the tag, therefore, not removable. Does Amazon accept items with this in place? I understay it would be covered up, but as soon as the label is removed, the original price will be visible which is likely cheaper than what they paid. Any help on the would be appreciated.

    1. Hello Ragen,

      Personally I would not buy any item for resale that you cannot cover up the price tag on. While it’s not against Amazon’s rules to my knowledge, it’s unlikely the customer would be very happy about it.

      Best Regards,
      Ryan

  4. Great sales. I’ve never tried to go to big lots to get inventory, thanks for the suggestion.

    I would like to see how to do Amazon FBA step by step. Could you also include the printer and paper you use for the labels/SKU’s?

    Thanks

    1. Thank you, and no problem on the suggestion. I will be sure to include the printer and paper that I use in the FBA step by step post.

      -Ryan

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