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An Aussie couple have shared how they are turning over as much as $50,000 a month by selling pre-loved items, including clothes and collectables, online. The couple’s lucrative business started off as a side hustle but soon “snowballed” into them being able to quit their corporate jobs and replacing their full-time income.
Adelaide couple Brad Kain and Jaz Searle, who go by 2AussieThrifters, started reselling items online about seven years ago. The pair told Yahoo Finance it all started from Kain’s love of old video games.
“I was trying to relive the childhood of the 90s and get all the Nintendo 64 games back,” the 34-year-old.
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Kain, a former project manager, said the games were originally intended for his personal collection but they began taking up “quite a chunk of space” in the couple’s small two-bedroom unit.
“We essentially had one room for my collection and the other room to live in so it was starting to get a bit out of control and we needed to try and work out a way to clear some space and make some money,” he said.
The couple started listing the games on eBay and soon listed other items they weren’t using, including things from their wardrobe.
Once they had “maxed out” items around home, Searle said they started actively looking for items to flip at op shops and garage sales.
“We just wanted some extra cash and just to have ‘fun money’,” the 33-year-old former retail manager told Yahoo Finance.
“We had a bit of the collector’s bug and we liked going thrifting and going to garage sales so it made sense that we could make a little bit of pocket money on the side but it definitely snowballed.”
‘Gradual’ journey to going full-time
The couple soon began working with recycling warehouses, local op shops and deceased estate companies who needed help moving stock and keeping items out of landfill.
Eventually, the pair started reducing their working days to dedicate more time to their growing business.
When the pandemic hit, Searle was let go from her job and decided to go all-in on the business with Kain resigning from his job about eight months later.
“By the time my 9 to 5 job wrapped up, I was like now I’ve got to knuckle down and really focus on this. With me putting in that full-time effort, it got to a level where then Brad could join me as well,” Searle said.
The couple said it was a “gradual” process to get the business to a point where they could afford to focus on it full-time and they have since hired a warehouse space.
“It’s definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme. I think for the first couple of years, we were reinvesting pretty much all the income back into the business to kind of grow the stock level and understand brands better. But it’s definitely at a point now where we’re comfortable,” Kain said.
“We really treated it like a seven-day job. We’d list and post on weekdays and go out on weekends and try and find more stuff.”
The couple’s business had a $750,000 turnover last financial year, with a 28 per cent profit margin.
While they said they were paying themselves “crazy amounts of money” from this, they said they have been able to replace their incomes from their previous jobs.
They also employ one staff member.
Aussies cash in during cost-of-living crisis
Reselling items online is becoming more popular among Aussies, with many keen to make some extra cash in the current cost-of-living crisis.
New research from eBay found nearly a third of Aussies were selling their pre-loved clothes, with couples making an average of $2,549 in the last 12 months.
Kain and Searle said the great thing about selling pre-loved items was you could start at home, whether it be clothes, furniture, homewares, video games or DVDs you no longer use.
“You don’t have to go out and spend money to start. Have a look in your wardrobe, if you’ve got a pair of shoes you don’t wear anymore or a designer handbag that you don’t use,” Searle said.
“I think people would be surprised how much value they might have sitting around because they’ve bought something for a special occasion but then they only use it a couple of times.”
Kain said their best-selling items were from recognisable name brands like Levis, RM Williams and Wrangler.
“We sell so many things like toys, collectables and media, but probably our biggest categories are in that pre-owned fashion area,” Searle said.
The couple said they still get “so excited” by their secondhand finds, with Searle recently finding a brand new Aje blouse at the thrift store and Kain nabbing a Sydney 2000 Mamboo Walkout Jacket from the Olympics.
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