Reselling on Amazon and Ebay is one of the easiest businesses to start.
You will need hardly anything to begin with – something to sell, a device to take photos, a device with internet connection, and a box or a bag to send your item in when it sells.
That really is it if you want to just test the water to see if this could be the business for you.
If you do decide to carry on and take reselling seriously though, you’re going to want to tool up.
You may want to consider investing some of your profits to increase your productivity and speed up your business growth.
Let’s take a look at which useful physical and digital tools successful resellers have in their arsenal.
Physical Tools
We’re not going to go into too much detail regarding the most obvious things which you probably already have lying around your house:
- Stationery – such as scissors, pens, paper, glue
- Cleaning supplies – a cloth or a sponge, detergent, old toothbrush, wet wipes, soft clean paint brush for dusting
- Storage – plastic tubs, hangers, drawers, shelves
- Packaging supplies – plastic bags, cardboard boxes, parcel tape
The types of items you’re going to be selling will dictate which additional tools you’re going to be using.
Let’s look at tools you may not necessarily have at home but would really make a difference to your reselling business.
Cleaning and prepping tools
As your business grows, your time will become more precious. The last thing you’re going to want to do is to spend any unnecessary time cleaning and prepping. Here are some of the most useful tools to get your items ready for sale quickly:
- Magic Eraser – use wet or dry, great for cleaning scuff marks off shoes, pen marks, anything off plastic
- The Pink Stuff – a miracle paste that gets rid of grime and stains from pretty much anything
- Laundry Stain Stick – if you’re selling clothes or anything fabric
- Fabric shaver – transforms worn-looking garments into almost new again
- Clothes steamer – a bit of a luxury but if all you’re selling are clothes, worth the investment
- Scotty Peeler – easily removes stickers and labels
Photography tools
A photo can make or break a sale.
You really don’t need any extra accessories to take great photos these days though – most smart phones have cameras that are more than adequate for the job.
You want to make sure you have a nice background behind your item and plenty of natural light.
To make your photos more professional-looking, you could invest in:
- Lighting – box lights or ring lights
- Good camera – for better images
- Tripod – for stability
Listing tools
There are several useful tools you’ll want to use as you list your items for sale:
- Scales – mechanical or digital, you’ll need to know how much your item weighs to determine the shipping cost
- Measuring tape – soft tape or retractable, both have their advantages, measure your items for the listing description
- Barcode scanner – this may seem extravagant but it’s a real time-saver when listing fair quantities of barcoded items plus no more mistakes typing the numbers in!
Storage tools
As you acquire more stock, you will want to keep it out of harm’s way, organized, and easily and quickly accessible. Depending on what you’re going to be selling, you may want to get some:
- Clear stackable plastic tubs – super useful for storing anything at all
- Clear resealable bags – store prepped clothes ready for posting, delicate items, items in bits
- Clothing rails – best way to store dresses, coats, shirts etc
- Clear plastic mini drawers – great for spare board game pieces, jewellery, badges etc
- Racking/shelving units – put all labelled storage boxes safely and neatly out of the way
Packaging and Posting tools
You can easily get by with spending very little – I have yet to pay for a cardboard box!!!
Packaging is given out for free everywhere – supermarkets, offices, businesses, Facebook, ask your neighbours, friends and family…
Be resourceful, as long as your sold item is packaged safely, does it really matter what in? My favourite repurposed packaging buddies are:
- Wallpaper – you can get a full roll for literally pennies at any carboot sale or a charity shop. It’s strong enough to wrap pretty much anything and great for padding out empty spaces in boxes.
- Cardboard – specifically large flat cardboard sheets separating layers of egg boxes in crates of a certain supermarket. Strong yet pliable, great for books, board games, and anything that needs to be rolled.
What you might want to invest in when packaging and posting a lot of items:
- Good strong tape – there is tape and there is good tape. You’ll never go back to the cheap flimsy tape that either tears or doesn’t stick ever again. Buy in bulk to save.
- Printer – a must, really, so you can take advantage of lower courier/post office shipping prices. When you’re making decent money, buying a label printer such as Dymo or Zebra will speed up your process further.
- Plastic mailing bags – very useful for sending all sorts of unbreakable items. Again, buy in bulk to save.
Digital Tools
In this day and age, it would be foolish to ignore what technology offers us, and this, of course, also applies to reselling.
There are several digital tools that can give you advantage over your fellow resellers, especially when you’re out there sourcing.
Barcode scanning apps
If you only invest in one thing for your reselling business, invest in a scanning app. It will repay you handsomely. No more buying items ‘blind’ or on a hunch, these apps will help you find profitable products fast.
After scanning a product barcode, the app will show you how many sellers are selling it on Amazon, how much for, in what condition and much more so you only pick up items you can stand to make decent profit on.
There are several good ones out there:
- Scoutly by ASellerTool – from $9.99/month + with free trial
- ScoutIQ – from $14.00/month + with free trial
- Profit Bandit by SellerEngine – from $9.99/month + with free trial
Read on: Scanning apps for beginner resellers
Listing software
Not necessary when starting out but could be a real time-saver some time down the line when you’re listing loads of products and reselling across several platforms.
- List Perfectly – from $29.00/month
- Inkfrog – from $11.00/month + with free trial
- Sellbrite – free to try + free, limited plan
- AccelerList – $34.00/month
- InventoryLab – $49.00/month
Accounting software
You can absolutely make do with just Excel sheets to log your profit and loss and your expenses.
Or you could use an accounting software to categorize everything and see at a glance where you’re at with your sales for the day, per month, for the year etc.
You can also produce various helpful reports at a click of a button with:
- Quickbooks – from £1.00/month for 6 months
- Xero – from £7.00/month for 6 months
- My Reseller Genie – from $9.99/month
To conclude…
Considering how lucrative reselling can be and how little it costs to start up, unsurprisingly, it’s a business of choice for many.
You don’t need anything fancy to start with – make do with what you have around the house.
If you’ve decided to take the plunge and are ready to commit to growing a profitable reselling business, treat it like a business.
Invest in the scanning app, decent printer, organized storage as these tools will help you hit your targets much faster.
Happy reselling!
Read on: How to Find Low-Competition Products to Sell on Etsy
