I’m a bargain shopper at heart and have loved the art of finding a good deal for as long as I can remember. I’ve been Black Friday shopping since way before it was even a thing. I just remember that every “day after Thanksgiving” while my daddy stayed at home and worked on his business float for the Saturday Christmas parade, my mom would take my sisters and me shopping with our aunts and a few cousins. There was no early wake-up call, just a late breakfast followed by a day of shopping fun. Basically, I was born to shop.
When Daniel told me about his idea to buy and sell items, I was most excited about the shopping part. I want everything we purchase to sell, mostly because I love an opportunity to shopping. I was really excited to shop and told Daniel he had given me my dream job of being a buyer for a company. 🙂
So being the resident shopping expert for The Husstle, I wanted to share how we have acquired some of our inventory so far. We are still new at this game but I think we have a solid plan in place.
Our first source of clothing inventory was our own home. We have a little girl and little girls rack up a ton of clothes, especially when their mother and grandmothers love to shop for them. So naturally, the first thing I sold was outgrown clothes in good condition. This will continue to be a source of inventory each year as long as we feed the child and she continues to grow. 🙂
Next up is second-hand stores which can be a little trickier. We are selling used clothing so people will want a good deal, which means we need to do the legwork for them and hunt down the REALLY good deals. People love a good deal but do not always have time to go hunt down the items, so that is where we come in. So we hit up some thrift stores and found three good options.
First, regular thrift stores always have low prices on clothes, but we may not make a profit re-selling them. So we dig and hunt to find desired brands in excellent or even new condition that will be worth a selling price.
Second, we hit up thrift stores that run clearance specials. Some thrift stores receive so many donations that they cannot possibly keep all the items on the floor. One thrift store we frequent will keep items on the floor for 4 weeks. Once a week they put items that have not sold on clearance and whatever is not purchased is donated for fabric recycling where they make blankets for the homeless. These clearance racks are gold mines. We have found some beautiful clothing that we can sell someone else an awesome price on and still make a profit. Win-win.
Third, we hit up thrift stores that have outlets. Same concept as the thrift store clearances except these stores move unsold merchandise to regional outlet locations where they are sold by the pound. The savings here are huge but it is also a lot of work. These clothing items are not on hangers but thrown into huge bins along with random books, toys, housewares, you name it. It is a big pile of items and nothing is organized, but with some time and patience, we can find some great clothing items and maybe some other treasures.
Susan