This year has thrown most of us for a loop in every aspect. But one of the biggest impacts this year and COVID-19 have had are on our finances. So, if you are anything like us, you have also been looking for ways to diversify your income recently. Of course, how you choose to diversify your income with a side gig can depend on a whole lot of factors. But one of the easiest ways we have found to start diversifying our income is with Amazon.
Selling New Items
Selling new items on Amazon has been one of my new favorite finds this year. I heard through the grapevine that there are quite a few people who do this already and are profitable. This sort of selling works well if you are really good at finding deals. Which I just happen to be!
I have been a bargain hunter for as long as I remember, so putting that skill to use here was simple. Basically, you have to find items on sale or clearance in physical stores that may be harder to find items on Amazon.
Where to Find Deals
The first places I thought of were Target and Best Buy. But, I soon realized that they may not be the best places for really great deals.
So then I switched to looking through the Staples and Office Depot clearance sections. Both of these stores have a wide variety of items in these sections at all times, so you just never know what you are going to get. A few other good places I have found to find the best deals are Marshalls and TJ Maxx.
No matter where you choose to look for your bargains, you will need to know exactly what you could sell the item for on Amazon before you ever consider a purchase. There are a few different ways you can go about finding this information out. But, I have found the quickest and easiest way is with an app.
Best App for Determining a Good Deal
The Price Compare for Amazon and eBay app was designed just for this purpose. And I love it! In order to use it the most efficiently, you will need a barcode on the product you are looking at. However, even if you don’t have a barcode, you can still potentially find what you are looking for. You can use the keyword search or put in more in-depth information, such as:
- Manufacturer
- Product description
- Category
- Color
- Style
- Size
The more information you put in, if you don’t have a barcode, the easier it will be to find the exact product you are looking for. What I have found is that if the item you are looking at isn’t widely available on Amazon and there are few to no other sellers, you have found a good deal.
But, you also need to keep in mind how much the shipping will cost you. I have found that Amazon determines how much the shipping is for me, even if that is not what it really costs. Sometimes, they are close and I end up actually gaining a few cents, but there have been a few times where they have been massively off. The larger and heavier the product, the more expensive the shipping. So this is something to keep in mind when you are considering the purchase of new inventory. After all, diversifying our income is the ultimate goal, not losing money on shipping products.
Reselling Old Stuff
Reselling your old stuff is another great way to sell on Amazon. Whenever you, or your kids, start to outgrow things but they are still in good to great condition, then you may be in luck. Some products Amazon won’t let you sell, like toys, unless you are a wholesaler. We have found this out the hard way a couple of times now.
We ended up purchasing some things for kids birthday’s and holidays many years ago and forgot about them where we had hidden them. Yes, this is bad! But, they were in the original packaging and had never even been opened. So we figured we would try to sell them on Amazon, since they were brand new. Amazon wouldn’t let us do that unless we had purchased a lot of them over a certain amount and had an invoice from the manufacturer stating as much. We thought that was ridiculous! So, we ended up selling those items on eBay instead.
But, other items we have been able to successfully resell on Amazon are things such as:
- Video Games
- Video Game Controllers
- Cameras
- Cell Phone Cases
- Electronics Charging Cables
- Shoes
- Dishes
- Cookware
- Picture Frames
- Backpacks
- Lunchboxes
- Disc Golf Discs
Most of these items were new and had never been used. But, if the original tags and packaging are missing, you will need to make sure you put your item in the correct category noting as such.
Custom Products
Besides the other two aforementioned categories, sometimes you might even be able to go a bit further outside the box with what you sell on Amazon. We actually just stumbled across this most recent way of diversifying our income on Amazon. Which was a really happy accident!
My spouse is a huge disc golf player and has started creating custom dye jobs on discs as a hobby during COVID-19. He has studied the different processes and set up a whole workshop area in part of my office. That’s how much he has fallen in love with this!
And because of how good he has become at this, in such a short period of time, people have started paying him for his work. Since we were already selling disc golf discs on Amazon anyway, we figured we would add in some of the custom dye jobs also. This was pretty easy for us to do, since most of the discs we have are already listed on Amazon. But, if you are a private seller, you can add pictures and custom descriptions to your item so you might be able to fetch a higher price. Which is exactly what we have done, and it’s been working.
People seem to really love the custom dye jobs and are willing to pay more for the discs. So, it’s a win-win for us! Therefore, if you have created a twist on some product like we have, then Amazon might just be a great platform to showcase your work and create some buzz. Plus, it can help diversify your income at the same time.
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