MY SIDE HUSTLE
Im going to outline a side hustle that worked really well for me in the covid slowdown of a couple years ago:
I was selling VHS tapes online. Your side hustle doesn’t have to be VHS obviously, but I’d definitely recommend something you are interested in and know a lot about. I like to run around looking at junk shops and I have a decent eye for things I can resell. I also like watching movies so this worked out perfectly me for me. I’d also pick up things like CDs, DVDs etc.
STEP 1
What are you interested in? Car parts? Musical Instruments? Antiques? Art? Craft? Any answer is legit as long as its something YOU are interested in. You already have the knowledge in your head and know what you’ll be able to move or flip without too much effort.
STEP 2 – GET SOME STOCK
I acquired the goods really cheaply from thrift stores stores so virtually no setup costs (which is great). I also moved a few from my own collection. Once I found this was working I’d start buying bulk lots I’d see online as well. I found the VHS tapes either free or very cheap (usually $1 each or less) with the aim to sell them for $5 upwards (Maybe less per tape if they bought a few). Some rarer gems would fetch even $20, $30 or more for each tape. For some folk it would be a hassle having all these VHS tapes hanging around the house but I like movies, so it didn’t bother me too much.
One time I found a fully signed early CD from the band “Green Day” for $1! That was an easy one to move on 😀 .
On another occasion a friend said he had a few VHS tapes he wanted to dispose of so he’d give them to me. I assumed he meant a bag or two of them. I came home to find he left me 2000 ish tapes for free (I had to dispose of 1300 of them due to lack of storage space) and sold off a fair few from that pile. 😀 . You never know what will happen if you put it out there 😀 .
STEP 3 – WEB PRESENCE
I got a few of these together and set up a really simple website. This is easier than it sounds as you don’t need to program or code these days there’s a lot of sites where you can just click, click click and get started. I’ll post some links on this later on. Also join as many buy sell swap groups in your nieche that you can on facebook. I then joined a few facebook groups where people of like minds would be discussing VHS tapes (I mostly dealt in horror movies) and people would actually ask if anyone had certain tapes for sale. This also meant I’d get some warm contacts.CLOSING A SALE
I’d message people who’d expressed interest in certain movies and see if they wanted what I had. While discussing what they wanted I’d sneak in a mention that I had a website with more stock listed and quite often i’d get some bonus sales through that. Many sales would result in bulk sales of $50 upwards. The old “Would you like fries” upsell technique if you will. Then obviously I’d get a paypal payment off them and mail them out the goods.
I have to admit I didn’t take this too seriously. Even with that, I could usually pull around $20 or more per week doing this without putting in too much effort. Even better my movie collection came along really well due to all this.
The only real cost in this venture would be the website I set up. maybe around $50 per year (but even this can be done for free). I found that with this I was basically taking and sending the same pictures to different people to only sell a couple of tapes so it was easier to put them on a website. I’d then send them a link to look at it. Basically its $20 per year for a domain name and whatever hosting you want to use or better yet set up a Facebook group or Discogs or something for free.
The advantage of setting up a website is that you can repost in groups / classified sites / emails even text messages for free as well. I prefer the website as it also makes it look more professional. If you feel fired up maybe set up an Ebay shop (I didn’t even bother with this), you might need to pay for photo’s with these as well. I’ve never really used Ebay to sell so I don’t know a heap about it. Usually the cost is negligible for items if they sell for more than $5.
THE END RESULT
I had a lot of fun doing this and truth be known I still do it from time to time. But you have to be realistic, it’s probably never going to be anything substantial. Still $20 a week coming in is still an extra $20 no matter how you look at it and it can be a good stepping stone to the next idea.
Over time I ended up expanding the racket to include things like music gear and other things like that where I could easily pull in a quick $50 per transaction.
With things like this it’s really important you stick to an area where you have a reasonable knowledge base. Otherwise, you could just end up getting stuck with a pile of junk you can’t get rid of or can only get rid of for much less than you paid for it.
There you have it! How I set up a little side hustle that got me through some rough times!
Again if you’re looking for more great side hustle or income building ideas keep checking back on The Income Site on a regular basis!