Want to start flipping items to make money? Here are the easiest items to flip for profit, including the best platforms to use to resell.
If you are looking for a great side hustle or some extra side income, then flipping things for profit is one of the best things you can do.
Flipping is becoming pretty popular among those who are looking to make some extra money.
In fact, plenty of people are making a great income selling items they find at lower prices. Today there are more platforms to sell on, more money-making apps to use to price and sell your items, and more places to purchase items to flip.
Use Personal Capital to track your cash flow and income completely free. This is a great way to monitor your net worth and ensure you are investing your cash flow for growth.
Keep reading & I’ll show you the 10 easiest things to flip for profit which might surprise you and 10 easiest ways to flip for profit you didn’t know before.
Before we start, here’s a quick comparison between other online businesses & flipping business.
Table of Contents
10 Easiest Things to Flip for Profit
So whether you have little money or no money, it’s the easiest business to start. But like any business, you have to sell products that are valuable to your customers as well as products that provide a good profit margin. Selling products for profit is one of the best ways to make money on the side.
Below are 10 product listed that are recommended to sell by top flippers as well as the products are one of the easiest products to sell day-to-day.
So let’s dive in..
#1. Books
Books are one of the most common & easiest things to flip. It’s pretty much how sellers on Amazon got started in the e-Commerce business.
You can find used books at many different places, including library sales, garage sales, thrift stores, and clearance sections at department stores.
If you can find vintage novels or first edition books, you stand to make a bigger profit. And if you can manage to put together book sets, you can make even more money. (Like Harry Potter and other popular sets).
You can buy books for free by signing up for Rakuten. They will give you a free $10 gift card simply by signing up, which you can use to buy a book. Then, you can either store that first edition book or resell it for instant cash.
Here are several other ways to get free money right away.
Want more free gift cards? Here are some others that will pay you to sign up:
- Opinion Outpost: Get $5 free for signing up
- Swagbucks: Get a $5 free bonus and earn money playing games or searching the web
- Inbox Dollars: Get $5 free simply by signing up
See Related: How to Get Free Books by Mail
#2. Bicycles
Have you ever sold your bike? Chances are you have. Because I personally have sold 3 of my own, which I purchased brand new & sold it for very low only because it was sitting and collecting dust.
Bikes can be great for buying and reselling. There are a lot of them available at yard sales. Name brands and vintage bikes are the best options, but it’s possible to make money with others as well. In some cases, you’ll need to clean it up and maybe do some minor repair to get it to sell for top dollar.
You can find bargains on Craigslist, garage sales, or Facebook Marketplace and turn and flip them at pretty nice profits. See this guide on How to Make Money with Your Bike.
#3. Furniture
Furniture can be a great item to resale for a few reasons.
Many of the pieces that are sold in furniture stores these days are either hollow or are made with sub-par wood material.
Any items made of solid wood carry a much higher price tag. Quality wood furniture can last for decades, so even if it needs to be re-finished, there is a lot of potential for profit and a market willing to buy it.
You can find used furniture for re-selling at many places like the Facebook marketplace, Yard sales, etc. You can even find people who are willing to sell it for free, you just need to pick it up.
If you know what you’re looking for it’s not that hard to find wood furniture that you can flip for a profit.
#4. Vintage Electronics
Aside from video game consoles, other electronics are usually quite popular in the resale realm.
Smartphones have largely replaced stand-alone music players today, but lots of people still want to use an old iPod or Zune.
Some vintage electronics like Walkmans, cassette players, and VCRs have high market value. You can find these items on yard sales or mint places like eBay & flip them for a profit.
If you can charge and test the item before listing it for sale, you’ll get a better price but even old music players with cracked screens are worth something, especially if they contain a large library of songs.
See Related: How to Make Money Doing Nothing
#5. Power Tools
Power Tools can be often found when the owner is moving out or is buying a newer version & this is where you come in.
You might think they’re worthless, but you’d be surprised at how many people would be interested. There is a great demand, and availability, for used power tools.
People look to buy used power tools when they need one for a specific job, or when they just want to save some money compared to buying new.
The key is to make sure that you test the tool before reselling to make sure it still works. The best place to find power tools to flip is probably at yard sales.
See Related: 18+ Online Jobs to Consider
#6. Video Games & Consoles
People get reminded of their childhood by certain vintage video games & it has an emotional attachment with the buyer.
You may be surprised at the market for old video games and consoles.
Video games aren’t just for kids. In fact, you’ll probably find just as many adults enjoying their time spent playing video games as children.
Given this, video games are in high demand and are always being searched for by gaming enthusiasts.
You can find vintage video games in yard sale & thrift stores & if you buy a famous vintage game you can make a nice profit out of it selling on eBay, Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. You can buy video games for free by signing up for Rakuten.
Rakuten will give you a free $10 gift card simply by signing up, which you can use to buy a video game.
Then, you can save the video game or resell it for instant cash. Here are several other ways to get free Steam gift cards.
Pro tip: Monitor your side hustle income with Personal Capital for free.
#7. Yard Equipment
Lawn care tools or Yard equipment tools are easiest to find for low prices and sell for a profit. Many people sell their yard equipment when they buy a new version or it has some problems.
You can buy them for very cheap as low for $5 & sell them for $20+. Sometimes you may have to repair it, but after repairing it, you can sell the item for even a big profit.
Also, You can also make money with things like metal rakes and other non-motorized yard tools. I would recommend you clean the item to make it much more representable, and it won’t be that hard to sell.
See Related: Best Weekend Jobs to Make Extra Money
#8. Watches
There are a lot of watch collectors out there who collect vintage, branded & mechanical watches as well. Many people buy watches on how old they are & the working condition.
Finding used watches and fixing them up can be a great way to make some extra cash on the side.
All you need to do is polish them up and add a new battery if necessary to bring them back up to par. Just make sure that they still work before you buy anything.
#9. Websites
So, Many people don’t know about this. Website flipping is a huge market. You can easily buy websites from Flippa & resell them. But It’s not that easy.
I would recommend flipping website only if you are a blogger or you have at least some experience & knowledge about website flipping.
Website flipping can provide a huge profit with no shipping cost & very less work. Here is a full guide to website flipping to help you evaluate if it is right for you.
See Related: Best Blogging Platform to Make Money
#10. Services
Flipping business is not only limited to flipping products. I have seen many people flip services on the internet & I personally flip services sometimes.
Flipping services is basically – client give a project to you – you hire a freelancer from Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr to do it cheap for you.
Flipping services is only recommended only if you have some knowledge about the niche you are flipping services in.
See Related: Upwork vs Fiverr – What is Better?
Summary Best Things to Flip for Profit
Whether you sell an item that we listed above or you sell any item you like, it doesn’t matter when it comes to being successful in the flipping business. Any item you think is the best option for flipping, just keep in mind the following:
- You purchased the item for very cheap or got it for free
- If you are flipping a high ticked product, make sure you purchase it for a reasonable price & then re-sell it for profit
- Have a clear conversation with the buyer about the product, so you don’t have to deal with aftersales issues
- Flip what is under your budget. (Don’t buy something that is not under your budget & wait for it to sell)
- Just as other businesses, you have to put in work in flipping business too
Just don’t be a fool and don’t get scammed on products. Walkaway if you think it’s not worth it. Follow the above guidelines & do the right thing.
Hopefully, now you have an understanding of what products to sell, but now the question is “where to sell?”
Here are the 10 easiest ways to flip for profit.
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10 easiest ways to flip for profit (platforms to consider)
There are many ways you can flip a product online. But what we will list, are the best ways you can flip a product online or offline.
Let’s start…
#1. Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is a convenient destination for people to discover, buy and sell items. People can find what they’re looking for by filtering their results by location, category, and price.
As of October 2018, more than 800 million people globally use Marketplace each month to browse, buy, or sell items, giving retailers an opportunity to drive discovery and sales of key products in a place where their consumers are already shopping.
Do keep in mind that Facebook Marketplace is currently only available for US merchants.
#2. eBay
If you are just starting out as a flipper, you can use eBay for multiple reasons.
Re-selling or Flipping is very popular on eBay. Selling on eBay can give you a benefit of security, free traffic & great prices for your products.
Do keep in mind that eBay charges $0.35 per listing after 50 free listings per month & a final value fee of 5% to 12% depending on what kind of product is it. You can find all the fees details here.
#3. Yard Sale (Offline)
Yard sale or good old-fashioned garage sale often works best, especially when you have a lot of small things to sell.
There are many things you should consider before you start a Yard/Garage sale. You can find the full details of local yard sales by using Next Door or other localized apps.
See Related: How to Make Money in Your Neighborhood
#4. Craigslist
Craigslist is a great way to sell unwanted items. Rather than hosting a garage sale, where you need to amass a large number of items to attract interested buyers, Craigslist makes it easy to post single items for sale.
Here you can find a full detailed guide on “How to Sell on Craigslist “
#5. Local Facebook Groups
Local Facebook Groups are one of the most active groups where buying & selling is straightforward. Plus you get the benefit of selling the product to the people locally, instead of shipping somewhere else.
There is a Facebook Group for every city in every country, worldwide. So it doesn’t matter where you are, these groups are everywhere & you can make a profit out of them by engaging in that community.
#6. Amazon
You can easily flip vintage items, Books, etc on Amazon. It could be a hassle to set-it-up but Amazon can drive some serious traffic to your product & help you get some big bucks.
Pro Tip – Selling books on Amazon is an evergreen niche.
See Related: List of Untapped Niche Markets
#7. Etsy
Etsy is a great place to sell your vintage products. You can sell vintage video games, books, rings, any stuff that is vintage. (Not any, please refer to Etsy’s Terms & Conditions)
Etsy charges $0.15 Per listing & they also have inbound marketing. Which means you don’t have to market it yourself, Etsy can market it for you on your daily budget.
#8. Geebo
Like most of the classified websites, the layout and web design is very simple, however, it is more colorful and attractive as compared to Craigslist.
Their tagline is “safe community classifieds”, they claim to have a more personal connect as compared to other listing sites. Listing on the site is free, and the sellers can reach out to a wider audience at no cost at all.
They can host their products and sell them easily on Geebo.
See Related: Personal Financial Plan Example
#9. Letgo
Letgo is one of the fastest growing online marketplaces for buying and selling locally. List your products on Letgo at no cost, and quickly sell them to buyers in your locality. You can list items like electronics, clothes, cars, furniture, etc.
Letgo is a free website and does not charge the sellers for their listings. They do not charge commission or percentage of your sales as fees too.
They do have offers at minimal rates, for highlighting your products amongst the competition. It is one of the best websites to sell items online for free.
See Related: 20 Best Side Hustle Ideas
#10. Whatever works in your country
I could just go on & on about where to sell, but as not every reader is in the same country, there might be & there are different websites to buy & sell locally in many different countries.
You can use a platform of your choice to flip items online.
See Related: How to Make Passive Income with Laundromat Investing
Conclusion on Easiest Items to Flip for Profit
I hope you guys find the above listed 10 easiest things to flip for profit and 10 easiest ways to flip for profit helpful.
Flipping business is growing every year. People tend to buy products for cheap & of course, the vintage market is already hot where people like to collect & show-off what other people can’t buy.
With a little legwork and research on the resale value of different consumer products, you can make a nice little side cash – or maybe even a full-time income – buying discounted items and selling them at marked-up prices.
If you have any questions you can join communities like Flipping on Reddit which is one of the most active communities on Reddit for flippers with more than 145,000 members.
Related Resources
- Personal Capital Review
- Real Estate Crowdfunding Guide
- How to Make Money Online
- 70+ Ways to Make Extra Money
Pratik is a Digital Marketer & E-commerce expert for the last 3 years. He started iampratikpatel.com in order to help new eCommerce businesses & Individuals to achieve financial freedom. Even though iampratikpatel.com was founded in early 2019, Pratik Patel Digital's roots go back to 2015 when Pratik landed a job at a Digital firm at the age of 18. Feel free to contact or leave a message.