She found some items and sold them for a profit of about $200. “Her first few months of selling her own products, she probably sold one product a week,” says Riegel, 23.
Hooked, she scoured thrift stores around Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Within a few weeks, she was selling used clothing for about $50 per day, primarily her T-shirts, which she bought for $1 apiece and up to $10 apiece. Sold.
Riegel graduated from Duke University last year with a degree in psychology, and her side hustle earned her nearly $123,800 a month on online marketplaces like eBay, Mercari and Poshmark, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. It is said to have generated sales of over $10,300.
Do not miss it: A 28-year-old's side hustle earns up to $113,500 a year and costs just $50 to start
Riegel has earned a total of more than $192,000 in net profits since launching his venture, including platform fees and cost of goods. According to her, the total is slightly higher due to in-person sales and other income for which she has no documentation.
Currently, Riegel sells about 10 items a day and averages $400 to $500 in daily revenue. She says she spends up to 25 hours a week on her side hustle in addition to her day job as a professional writer, speaker, and mental health coach.
“I'm doing [my side hustle] I haven’t done anything else for about three and a half years now,” Riegel says. I'm very happy about that. ”
Riegel's full-time career is the kind of work that takes time to develop and build a steady stream of customers. That makes her side hustle money especially valuable.
“It gave me so much freedom to do what I really wanted to do,” she says. “It's not just financial freedom…I can take coaching calls anytime, I can give speaking engagements anytime, because I'm not tied down to anything.” It's a 9-to-5 job. . ”
This achievement is no coincidence. Riegel did a lot of research when she first started her side hustle. “I followed a lot of other resellers [on YouTube]”I spent hours learning the brand and learning how to use all the platforms. And in my first year, I had about $70,000 in sales.”
I followed lots of other resellers [on YouTube]. I spent hours learning the brand and learning how to use all the platforms.
Sophie Riegel
Riegel looked at bestsellers in multiple markets, such as Lululemon leggings and Hoka sneakers, to see which items and brands were likely to sell quickly or at a high price. Items that were once expensive tend to have a high resale value, no matter how cheaply they can be recycled, she says. A J.Crew or Carhartt jacket might cost her $10 to $20 if bought in person, but online she sells for $50 to $150.
She also knew the local thrift store's restock schedule, so she could get new items early instead of having to shop around for the same items over and over again. Once, she bought a vintage Chanel purse for $2, and a few months later she sold it on eBay for $1,000. “It was incredible,” she says.
Riegel's side job accounted for about 70% of his income in 2023, he said. This year, she expects it to be even more 50/50 as she has more coaching clients and speaking opportunities.
The side hustle comes with its challenges, including keeping track of the roughly 1,300 items she typically stocks. Riegel spends a lot of time researching clothing, photographing items, editing photos, listing items online, and cataloging them so they can be easily found in the warehouse after they are sold.
You may end up hiring employees to help with aspects of resale that can feel daunting, rather than the actual shopping, she says.
“Technically, frugality takes the most time,” Riegel says. “But it doesn’t feel like work to me.”
As her dual career trajectories evolve, Riegel sees no reason to slow down or quit her side hustle. Her frugality makes her happy, something she says she “can't put a price on.” She is growing that part of her business by posting her own instructional videos on her YouTube and selling her services as a resale coach.
“I'm going to do it for as long as I can. It's both.” [careers] “They both make me happy. They both make me independent, so I don't have to choose one over the other,” Riegel says.
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