Money is at the front of everyone’s mind these days. Managing it, visualizing it, planning ahead with it. We can pay, save and invest in many different, innovative ways, however the basic rules always apply. Income versus outgoings. Maximizing our income doesn’t have to be negotiating for a raise with your boss every quarter either. The rise of the side hustle has become a chief way for many Americans to super-charge their earnings without impacting their day job. According to a recent Zapier study, a staggering one in three Americans, approximately 34 percent, have an active side hustle.
In addition, a further 24% (61.1 million Americans) are planning to start one in the next year. The study also found that many of those ‘hustles’ are quite new, and it’s largely thanks to a booming gig economy that we can throw some of our spare time into all manner of part-time work. One of the biggest slices of that part-time work pie has been re-selling clothing. While certainly not a ‘new’ phenomenon, the rise of digital platforms and free services dedicated to clothing specifically – with quality assurance measures built-in – have given real validity to the practice. It’s easier, safer, and more secure than ever to buy and sell used clothes, and can be potentially lucrative if done right.
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Getting Started
You’ll be pleased to know you’ll be spoilt for choice when it comes to places to sell preloved garments. eBay is maybe the best known, and its brand presence is enormous. However, it’s a marketplace for a lot more than clothes. If you want familiarity, look no further. If you’re looking for a community that’s engaged with fashion specifically, you’ve got plenty more options. Vinted, Depop, Verstaire Collective, and Regain are just some of the best known. All host a unique crowd of fashion-lovers, some angled towards younger markets, others best suited to sell haute couture. A good place to start is deciding what kind of crowd you sit and selling to those of similar persuasion. From there, setting up an account and listing some new items will be relatively easy.
Make savings elsewhere
Looking at your own wardrobe is an obvious place to start. What don’t you wear? What have you grown out of? However, if you want to start generating some real influxes of income, the quantity of clothing you want to resell will likely need to be higher than simply the odds and ends in the closet. What’s more, you’re going to go through those quite fast too. To really boost the funds you have to purchase bargains and sell them on, a great place to start is looking at your monthly utility and living costs.
Everyone is acquainted with utility comparison services that can save you money by sourcing the cheapest home or car insurance deals, or finding which is the best energy provider for your circumstances. But you can take it a step further. An online mortgage broker such as Trussle could allow you to shave potentially hundreds of pounds off your monthly bills. That’s because these services employ experts who do the hard investigation work for you – although there’s plenty of information on such sites about mortgage rates and what they mean, so you won’t be left in the dark. Any money saved by these means can be pumped directly back into your side business.
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Keep Calm and Carry on Selling
With those extra funds in place, you can start building a brand identity and shaping the sort of clothing you sell to meet what’s in-demand. One of the best aspects of apps like Vinted or Depop is the community within them. Meeting like-minded and passionate buyers and sellers with whom you can build personal relationships with means a side hustle doesn’t have to be all about work.
After all, the key element of these businesses is you’re able to manage the workload alongside everything else in your life. Balancing it all out is essential, and so, try to plan carefully ahead and not over face yourself just to maximize income. You’ll have plenty of time to think about that in the future, and if a day comes where that side hustle could become your only job, you’ll be ready to make it grasp the opportunity with both hands.
