Guide
How to find second-hand items worth reselling for profit
Most reselling is not about finding one lucky bargain. It is about knowing a small set of items well enough to recognise a good price quickly, and being early enough to act on it. This guide sets out a simple way to choose what to buy and how to keep watching for it.
What makes an item worth reselling?
An item is worth reselling when you can buy it for clearly less than you can sell it for, after everything that sits between the two: marketplace fees, postage or delivery, any repair or cleaning, and your time. A big price gap on paper is not enough if those costs absorb it.
It also helps if the item sells reliably. A rare piece with a high price can sit for months, and money tied up in stock you cannot sell is a cost too.
Why is a narrow category easier than buying everything?
The fewer kinds of item you deal in, the faster you learn what each one is worth, which versions matter and which faults are cheap or expensive to fix. That knowledge is what lets you spot a good listing in a few seconds rather than a few minutes.
Starting with one or two categories you already understand, such as a type of electronics, tools or a particular hobby, is usually more productive than trying to judge unfamiliar items across the whole of a marketplace.
How do you learn what an item really sells for?
Look at prices that items have actually sold for where the marketplace shows them, and treat asking prices as weaker evidence because sellers overprice. Compare the same model and specification in similar condition, and take the middle of several results rather than one figure.
Our guide on judging whether a listing is under market value covers this method in more detail. Prices move, so a figure you noted months ago may no longer be right.
Which costs should you subtract before deciding to buy?
Work from the price you expect to resell at and take away the purchase price, the selling fees on the marketplace you will use, the cost of postage or delivery or of getting to the buyer, and any repair, cleaning or replacement parts. What is left is your margin.
- Fees differ between marketplaces and change over time, so check the current ones where you plan to sell.
- Allow for items that take longer to sell than you hoped, or need to be relisted at a lower price.
- Count your own time, especially for collection, testing and photographing.
- Be cautious with items you cannot test before buying.
Why does speed matter when you find a good listing?
Items priced well below the usual price tend to attract several interested buyers, and sellers usually deal with whoever gets in touch first and seems serious. Seeing a listing minutes earlier can be the difference between buying it and missing it.
Checking marketplaces by hand across several products does not keep up. Saved searches and alerts on each marketplace help, and a tool that watches several marketplaces at once saves you managing the same search in several places.
How can Snaffla help with this?
Snaffla watches eBay UK, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree for new listings that match your saved searches, compares each asking price with comparable listings and sends a push notification when one looks under market. You set the keywords, the place and radius, an optional price range and how often you want checks, up to the number of searches your plan allows.
It labels a listing No Valuation when it does not have enough comparable listings to be reliable, rather than guessing. The valuation is a starting point: read the description and look at the photos before you buy, because it cannot see the condition of the item.
More guides
- How to tell if a second-hand listing is under market value
- How to get alerts for new second-hand listings in the UK
- How to spot a risky second-hand listing before you buy
- How to get alerts for new Gumtree listings in the UK
- How to get alerts for new eBay UK listings
- What is a category search, and when should you use one?
Let the alerts find them for you
Save a search once and get notified when a matching listing appears, with its price compared against similar ones.