One of the best and most fun ways to make extra income in 2022 is by flipping products online. The concept is simple: you buy up used products from thrift stores, garage sales, flea markets, or online, and then you resell them for more than you paid on sites like Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Craigslist, OfferUp, or one of the many other sites out there.
And, yes, a lot of you out there have probably used these sites to clear out your garage and get paid for your unused clutter, but you can actually make a living by buying and reselling things online. You just have to know the right way to do it.
I just read an article about a couple that made over $130,000 in their first year of flipping. And they’ve made some very livable wages in the years after. And, while I’ve never made that much off of flipping, I made some good dough from reselling video game console parts on eBay. So, it’s definitely possible to make a lot of extra money from flipping things online.
But, a huge part of that is knowing what kind of items to look for as you’re scouring those yard sales and thrift stores. So, in this article, I’m going to tell you about the 8 best items that you can flip online for profit. These are items that are fairly easy to find and have great profit margins. Some of them might require a little maintenance but, for the most part, you can just buy them, snap a picture, list them, and sell them.
These are the 8 best used items you can flip online for profit in 2022. Let’s go!
#1: Records and Record Players
In case you haven’t noticed, old record players and vinyl records have made a comeback in recent years and are now super trendy. And record players in good condition can now sell for hundreds of dollars. Of course, the price you get is going to depend heavily on the type of record player that it is, whether it’s been restored, and, of course, if it still works. But, if you find the right one, you can make a bunch of money very quickly because these things sell like hotcakes.
The same goes for the vinyl records that you put on them. If you’re lucky, you might be able to pick up a valuable album at a garage sale and then flip it for like 10 times what you bought it for. I’ve found that a great place to pick up vinyl record players and records for cheap is at antique malls.
If you pore through the massive record collections that people are selling at those people, you can usually find a couple gems that are selling for only a couple bucks.
However, before you go getting into reselling record players and records, you should probably do some research about which bands’ records sell for the most, the different kinds of records (from LPs to EPs to 7-inches), and all of the other things that will affect how you should price your products.
#2: Power Tools
To understand why there’s such a high demand for used power tools, all you have to do is go on the Home Depot website and look at the prices of new power tools. I found a drill kit on their site for $270! So, the prices of brand new tools are just ridiculous and, most of the time, used tools will work just as well for a fraction of the price.
And that means that power tools are one of the most sought-after items on sites like eBay or Craigslist. The other side of this coin is that power tools take up a lot of space in people’s homes or garages. So, there are plenty of people trying to get rid of their power tools to free up space, particularly old people who don’t have any use for them anymore. How many 80-year-olds do you know that are willing to handle a 40-pound power saw?
This means you can find tools in good condition for dirt cheap. And then you can resell them for great profits. I found a power saw selling for nearly $90 on eBay. I bet you could easily find a similar saw at a garage sale for around $20. That’s $70 profit right there. And you can easily find even larger profits by reselling used power tools.
#3: Fitness Equipment
Right now is the perfect time to flip fitness equipment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, tons of gyms closed down for as long as a year, forcing fitness enthusiasts to find somewhere else to get their pump on. And a lot of people ended up just building home gyms. Now, more and more people are realizing the convenience and cost-effectiveness of home gyms and are looking for fitness equipment to fill those gyms at secondhand prices. That’s where you come in.
You can scoop up old fitness equipment and sell it for a nice profit. I found a set of four dumbbells that someone was selling on eBay for like $45. I bet someone would sell those to you for like $5 at a yard sale! And you can probably find fitness equipment out there for even cheaper because, a lot of the time, fitness equipment is bulky and heavy and people will give you a low price just to get it out of their house for them.
Head out to garage sales in your area or check on sites like LetGo or Facebook Marketplace and you might even be able to find fitness equipment that people are giving away for free. I found an elliptical that someone was just giving away on Facebook. Now, it was somewhat broken. However, if you’re a handyman, you might be able to get the thing back in perfect working condition and then resell it online for a whole bunch of money.
#4: Furniture
Yes, one of the most common things that people flip online is furniture: couches, chairs, wardrobes, bed frames, and much more! And the reason that these items are so popular among flippers is that you can usually find them absolutely free. When people are moving out of their homes or redecorating to sell their house, they have so many other things to think about other than listing their furniture for sale online, so they’ll just leave decent furniture sitting on the curb to go to the junkyard.
If you have a pickup truck or some roof straps to fasten things to the top of your car, you can ride around and pick up this furniture and then list it online and sell it. Sometimes these pieces of furniture may need a powerwash or a new coat of varnish or paint but, after that, you can sell them for hundreds of dollars after picking them up completely free.
And, if you really get your furniture-flipping business going, you might want to consider buying up pieces as well because you can still turn them for a profit. Just make sure to check out what that particular kind of furniture is going for in your neighborhood before you buy it. Try to estimate what you’re going to be able to sell it for and then factor in the amount of work, supplies, and time you’ll need to put into restoring it and assess whether you’re going to be able to make a profit.
If you’re out at a garage sale and you see something similar for $10 that can be fixed up with a little sanding and a coat of paint that you can probably flip it for a decent profit, it’s probably worth buying. On the other hand, if you see a similar nightstand selling for $40 and it looks like it needs a ton of work, then it’s probably not worth buying because it’s going to cost you a lot of time and effort for little to no profit.
So, it’s important to be discerning about which pieces of furniture you buy. Even if you find free pieces of furniture, some of them may not be worth hauling back home and fixing for like $10 profit. Some of the best types of pieces to look for are end tables, dressers, buffets, and storage chests. These are the items that typically have the highest profit margins.
So, get your paintbrush out, hit some estate sales and garage sales, and you can start making serious cash by flipping furniture.
#5: Books
Yes, believe it or not, there are people out there that still read books, particularly, students who are in need of textbooks. And, if you’ve ever browsed a university library, new textbooks are anything but cheap. And that’s because the vast majority of textbooks are produced by the same five companies who all have a stranglehold on the industry and drive up prices at the expense of poor college students. Not cool.
But, you can help stick it to these corporate fat cats while making tons of profit by buying up used textbooks and selling them to students in need. Most public libraries have book sales a few times a year, which is a great time to find books. You can ask around and see if any of your friends have old textbooks sitting around. And you can also find books at garage sales or online.
One of the best things about selling books online is that you don’t really need to take any risks because you can find out how much a book is worth before you even buy it. Seriously, check out this app called Scout IQ. It lets you take your phone, scan the bar code on the back of the book, and instantly find out how much you’re going to be able to sell it for on Amazon. That way, you can decide whether a certain book is going to make you any money or not. You can even show your price quote to whoever is selling the book to you and they’ll probably drop their price.
So, all you have to do is go around, scan a bunch of books, find out which ones can make you money, and then start listing them on Amazon or eBay or Facebook and watch the profits start pouring in. Plus, you’ll be doing college kids a solid by helping them not pay full price for their textbooks. It’s a win-win!
#6: LEGO Sets
Let me just start off by saying that, if you didn’t play with LEGOs as a kid, then you missed out. It was literally like having the ability to create your own world! I spent countless hours playing with LEGOs when I was younger and, honestly, I bet I could still have a lot of fun playing with them now. So, it’s no wonder that LEGO has a huge fan community around it and LEGO bricks have held their value extremely well (with some of them even appreciating in value).
I found these two Star Wars-themed LEGO sets that were selling for $800 on Brick Economy, an entire website dedicated to tracking the prices of certain LEGOs. Crazy! And, while you probably won’t be able to find one of these rare sets, you can still make lots of money flipping LEGOs online.
Again, good places to look for LEGOs is at garage sales or by asking your family and friends if they have any extra ones lying around. I bet at least one of your friends still has a massive bucket of LEGOs sitting in their closet or something. Then, you can go through the pieces that you get and list them online for sale.
Some of the best places to do this are LEGO-specific online marketplaces like BrickOwl or BrickLink. You’ll probably want to split your LEGOs up and sell them piece by piece, in mystery bags, by color, or as lots. So, it’s important to do your research into what LEGO buyers are looking for.
However, there is a HUGE community of LEGO fanatics out there and some of them are willing to pay serious coin for the right pieces, which means that there’s great potential profit here for you. Plus, if you have any trouble selling, well, then you just have some awesome toys that you and your kids can play with!
#7: Musical Instruments
Just a word of caution before you start buying up every musical instrument you see and trying to sell them: flipping musical instruments is probably not for you unless you have a solid amount of knowledge about music. Certain brands and types of instruments are worth nothing and instruments in bad condition aren’t going to make you profit either.
But, if you know what to look for and you have a strong understanding of how musical instruments are supposed to function, then you can make a lot of dough buying and reselling instruments online. And that’s because the right types of instruments sell for a ton of money.
I found a Gibson Les Paul guitar that was going for over $1,300 on eBay. Now, that’s one of the most iconic guitars of all time and you’re probably not going to find one sitting on the side of the road. However, if you do some searching, you can find some valuable instruments out there selling at massive discounts.
One fantastic place to look is at pawn shops. For some reason, people tend to bring their instruments to pawn shops when they’ve given up on their dream of becoming a rock star. Just make absolutely sure that whatever instrument you’re buying is in good condition because it’s easy to get ripped off if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
But, if you buy smart, you could be looking at thousand-dollar profits for just one item. I saw a trombone with a “Buy It Now” price of over $1,800. And I bet you could probably find a similar item at a pawn shop or yard sale selling for under $800. And, with these kinds of professional-grade instruments selling for multiple thousands of dollars, there’s definitely room for you to make some nice profit.
#8: Baby Items
When people have a baby, particularly, when they have their first baby, they spend a ton of money buying all sorts of baby products: strollers, cribs, clothing, diaper bags, high chairs, and all sorts of stuff. Then, after a year or two, when their child grows out of all that stuff, they suddenly have no use for it anymore and it’s just taking up space in their house. That’s where you come in and buy up all that stuff to resell it.
Most people will sell you their baby items at a great price because they just want to free up space in their house as quickly as possible. And, you can also resell it for a good price because brand new baby items are often really expensive. Seriously. I found a new car seat selling on Amazon for $550! I guess people want the very best for their babies…
Even diaper bags sell for a lot of money. So, as you can see, baby items fetch big price tags online. And, with how desperate some people are to get rid of their old baby items, you’re looking at some serious opportunity here. Even if you’ve never had a baby of your own, it’s not too hard to tell which of these items are in good condition and which ones can be resold for a profit.
And, while people might think it’s weird that your whole house is full of baby items even though you don’t have a baby, they’ll start to understand when you show them how much money you’re making.
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