What is sourcing in reselling?
Sourcing is the reseller process of finding inventory to resell: hunting thrift stores, garage and estate sales, clearance racks, wholesale lots, or online arbitrage for items to flip at a profit. It's the front of the pipeline before cataloging, grading, and listing. Sourcing well means buying quality and condition you can grade and sell.
How it's used in a listing
A reseller who says “I sourced 40 pieces at the bins this morning” means they bought 40 items to resell from a Goodwill Outlet.
How it maps to the grade scale
Sourcing isn't a condition grade, but condition is what you're sourcing for: assessing an item's grade (roughly, on the 1.0–10.0 scale) at the point of sourcing prevents buying low-grade stock that won't resell profitably.
See where every condition sits on the GradeThread condition grading scale.
Sourcing — frequently asked
- What does sourcing mean in reselling?
- Sourcing is finding and buying inventory to resell — from thrift stores, estate sales, clearance, or wholesale lots. It's the first step of the reseller pipeline, before items are cleaned, measured, graded, photographed, and listed.
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