ShowerThoughts05 – How to Make Money from the Secondhand Market

Recently, because I'm moving to Seattle, I've been selling things online like crazy and have noticed some interesting phenomena.

First, I have to complain about Facebook. Every time someone posts something, they reply with "Is this available?" I guess it's an automated suggestion from the system when the buyer sees the item. I find it incredibly stupid, especially when many people post. You end up replying with a lot of "yes," and then the other person stops responding. It's like you know you need to contact someone and they're on WeChat, but you send a "Are you there?" One or two people sending it is one thing, but when everyone messages you with "Are you there?", it's incredibly frustrating.

As I continued, I discovered:

1. The items I'm selling this time are things I haven't used for long; most of them are brand new, but everyone assumes that secondhand items are used until they're very worn out.
2. The mismatch between demand and market demand means that when buying secondhand items, buyers are largely looking for something "cheap" and useful, which leads to them having low expectations for the products.
3. The truly wealthy don't choose to buy secondhand items, which further limits you to the types of customers mentioned above, preventing you from raising the prices of your goods.
4. Many people aren't genuine buyers; they're just looking for a bargain. They quote a low price and then disappear, or agree to a deal but never show up, wasting a lot of time. For example, I listed something for 0, and a lot of people offered or . Then I got angry and raised the price to 0, and then a lot of people offered 0 or 0…

In summary, it's basically impossible for someone like me who has good items and wants to sell them at a good price, because buyers are all looking to buy something cheap and passable, while the real demanders, the "rich people," don't buy secondhand items. This results in high-quality secondhand items only being sold at relatively low prices.

Perhaps, dedicating oneself to finding relatively low-priced, high-quality items in the market and then finding channels to sell them would be a good idea.