With Christmas nearly upon us and the new year beckoning, it’s tempting to consider buying and selling job lots to earn a little extra money. After all, the festive season can be expensive. Numerous videos on YouTube show people unboxing job lots, Amazon returns, undelivered mail, and lost luggage. But are job lots worth the investment?
Firstly, don’t fall for the hype. All these allegedly unopened packages and lost suitcases have been opened. Don’t believe what the sellers may tell you. All lost luggage and undelivered mail is opened before it gets sold to these so-called job-lot companies in case the owner or sender can be identified. So if you see an advert promising unopened packages, it is likely to be true.
Think about it—some of those packages might contain really expensive or even dangerous items. If you were the seller, would you miss out on the chance that something really valuable is inside? Or risk a lawsuit by selling something dangerous or illegal? Of course, you wouldn’t. Those packages have all been opened, and you can guarantee that anything of value or resaleable has been removed long before the lot gets listed.
Most Job Lots Are Unsaleable
That means that what is actually in those unopened return parcels or undelivered mail is basically just unsaleable rubbish. The seller may occasionally slip in a decent item just to keep their feedback high. Most of the time, the items will be stuff that the vendors cannot sell anywhere else.
Job lots differ from unopened packages in that you generally know what you are going to receive before you buy. You may not know what the individual items are, but the seller usually lets you know the type of items in the lot and often the recommended retail price (RRP) of the lot.
You may think you are snapping up a bargain, but there is a huge difference between RRP and what you can realistically sell an item for. A power cord for an obsolete video recorder may have an RRP of, say, £10, but if no one is buying it, it isn’t worth anything.
Another thing to avoid is mystery parcels, commonly sold on Ebay or TikTok. These are almost always unsaleable, random items that the seller cannot shift on their own. The idea of getting a bargain is appealing, but most customers are left disappointed. Check out some of the feedback left for sellers of mystery bags if you don’t believe me.
The exception to buying mystery bags is when well-known brands offer mystery deals, often during Black Friday or other sale periods. These deals are designed to shift end-of-line and other slow-moving stock, and sometimes, bargains can be found. But generally, these sales occur so infrequently that it would not be possible to make a living from buying and selling them.
Mixed Job Lots
Mixed job lots are almost always not worth it. Unless you have an established shop selling random items, you will need to find customers for these items, and some of the things can be diverse. Electronics often have an RRP that is many times what you can realistically expect to sell them for. If you are a certified repairer of such items, then buying broken electronics can be lucrative. Otherwise, however tempting the offer sounds, stay away from mixed lots if you want to profit.
Buying and selling as a side hustle is most lucrative when you specialise in one area and have a steady stock of items people want. Being a wheeler-dealer or a jack of all trades will probably leave you with a lot of unsold stock, which you end up selling at below-cost prices just to get rid of it!
So, be wise if you are thinking of buying and selling for a living. Choose stock wisely and avoid mixed job lots or mystery packages. Unopened items will have been opened, and the good items removed. Catalogue or customer returns are a gamble. Many will be broken, untested, or missing pieces. Unless you can repair AND certify these items, they are best left alone. Don’t fall for the scammers, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Leave a Reply