9 Items You Should Be Flipping to Make a Profit

Want to make some extra cash without having to buckle down with backbreaking labor? Of course you do. Fortunately, it might be easier than you think. Flipping items and selling them for more than you spent on them could bolster your bank account in no time.

Flipping Items Can Make You Extra Money

We live in an era where inflation is rising and money is slowly but steadily becoming less valuable. Many people are unfortunately struggling to make ends meet.

Finding ways to make extra money can help cover expenses or pad an emergency fund. Flipping basic items is one way you can make a bit of additional profit, and it’s easier than it may sound.

9 Items You Should Be Flipping for Money

What exactly should you try to flip? Let’s take a look at nine items you should flip to make a profit. Who knows? You might have such a good time that you might try flipping these items regularly in the future.

Clearance Items 

Clearance items aren’t profitable, right? Not necessarily. To get started flipping items and making a profit, check out the clearance sections of local retail and clothes stores. Find goods that are very desirable and worth money, like popular brand clothing, seasonal items and limited editions of media products or trading cards.

Take them home, refurbish them and sell them to people in your social network or on eBay. Your buyers don’t have to know the price you paid for those clearance items!

Furniture

Furniture is a great item to flip to make a profit. For example, you can easily take a used chair that you purchased for $100 and sell it for $150 after polishing the arms, adding some new feet or floor pads, etc. Improving previously used furniture and selling it for less than what a comparable new item would go for in a furniture store is a stellar way to draw buyers to your side gigs business.

Don’t have any furniture to flip? Drive around town and look for businesses selling their office furniture. It may not be the best thought in the world, but many businesses closing their doors soon may have furniture they’re willing to let go of for a decent price. In this economy, odds are you’ll be able to find at least a few enterprises that are tragically going out of business that are trying to get rid of spare desks, chairs and other furniture you can flip.

Another tip? Drive around your town on the day garbage services take large items. You might come across something valuable on the curb.

Power Tools

High up on the list of items you should be flipping? Power tools. They are very valuable, particularly if they are in good condition. But if they have even one mark on them, they can’t be resold at market price. You can find good-condition power tools at yard and estate sales or in clearance sections, then sell them on Craigslist and other online marketplaces. A single power drill, for example, can be purchased for $100 at a yard sale and resold for $150 pretty easily.

Cars

If you can get a car on the cheap, or if you have a spare car you don’t need, you can easily flip it and pocket a few thousand dollars in no time. Just be sure to take excellent pictures of your vehicle before putting it on an online marketplace. The right pictures will help you sell your car for a few thousand dollars more; the better it looks, the more buyers will be willing to pay for it.

Exercise Equipment

You can’t put a price on fitness, but you certainly can on exercise equipment. Again, yard sales, Craigslist and other marketplaces are perfect places to find exercise equipment on the cheap. Then, flip it around and sell it for a slight profit (e.g., buy a set of weights for $200 and sell it for $220 a month later).

To make a profit consistently in this niche, be sure to advertise your wares on the right social networks and websites.

Vintage Clothing

Vintage clothing is another biggie on the list of the items you should be flipping. Go to vintage clothing stores, thrift stores, yard sales and similar places. Then find good quality leather jackets, vintage pants and old-school shirts.

In a lot of cases, you may not even need to touch up those clothing items before selling them online for a significant profit. People will spend a lot of money on clothing pieces that complete an outfit or aesthetic, so the older and rarer the item is, the better for your wallet.

Name-Brand Shoes

Name-brand shoes are highly popular and hugely profitable, even if they have a few scuffs. You should take a look at online markets and garage sales in your area and look for name-brand shoes. Even if they have some marks on them, you can polish those scuffs away and resell those shoes in almost brand-new condition for a serious profit.

Don’t just look for sneakers and sports shoes. Check out eBay and similar locations for dress shoes, Oxfords and Converse. These are very easy to order and don’t take up a lot of space to store. So even if you have to hold onto them for a while, they’re excellent reselling items.

Tech Devices

Then there are tech devices, which are prime profit-flipping targets. You can buy old phones or devices at wholesale prices or very low prices from people you know, refurbish those devices, then sell them for much more than you purchased them.

If you know anything about cleaning up old tech devices, this could be the best flipping strategy for your monetary goals.

Domain Names

Domain names are essentially Internet addresses. From time to time, businesses need new domain names that relate to their brands.

But whoever has the domain name first is to sell it to the buyer at whatever price they name. So, if you can snag some soon-to-be-valuable domain names before they become ultra-popular, you can sell them for a massive profit. There’s an art and science to this – you’ll want to research which domain names are likely to be popular in the near future before spending some cash to purchase them.

With the right research, you could sell domain names frequently enough that it could turn into a legit side business.

Ready to Start Flipping?

Any one of the above items can be flipped to make a little extra money, but don’t end your research here. Consider items you may already have around your house, like old dishes, collectibles, Legos and Barbie dolls.

Need even more ideas for making money fast? Check out The Penny Hoarder’s other side gig guides.

New York contributor Kiara Taylor specializes in financial literacy and financial technology subjects. She is a corporate financial analyst who also leads a group affiliated with University of Cincinnati that teaches financial literacy to Black students and helps them secure employment and internships.