I just make sure that I will net $20 before I commit to purchasing an item from the thrift shop. This is:
final eBay sale price
- eBay fees
- shipping // unless you have the buyer pay actual shipping
costs
- the cost I paid for the item
--------------------------------------
my net profit (hopefully more than $20 for my time and effort)
last week this happened:
two refrigerator filters new in package ($3.99 each) - selling on eBay for about $40 each - retail for about $50 each.
My total sale price was $69.95 for both (I undercut the lowest listing by a dollar or so and offered 'free' shipping)
My shipping cost was about $5. My eBay fees were about $10 - they take quite a chunk.
$70 - 25 = $45 profit
I probably could have held onto them longer, charging a higher price and not offering 'free' shipping, but sales have been slow because I haven't been buying much so I made them too good to pass up.
$45 for about 20 minutes of hustle isn't terrible. It took me all of 3 minutes to list them on eBay. I plopped them on my kitchen table, snapped a picture of them, searched for the same item in the 'sold' section of eBay. Clicked 'sell one like this' link, filled in a price, selected a shipping option and clicked 'post'.
Looks like 2021 and earlier, there's a cap of $20,000 before you need to report to IRS using Form 1099-K. Assuming the author is from the US, they may have stayed below this limit and not needed to report. However, beginning in January 2022 the limit is dropping down to $600 before needing to be reported using Form 1099-K.
Yep, I haven’t exceeded the reporting amount yet. Hopefully my tax situation doesn’t get overly complicated. If it does, I may need a new side project.
