Buy From Walmart and Sell Online! Here are 8 Categories to Watch
With many brick and mortar shops closing down, I was surprised to learn that dropshipping stuff is still a viable way to make money. Basically, dropshipping means buying something at a physical store and reselling it online, usually on eBay .
Don’t overlook your local discount department stores, like Walmart. There are still good (read: resellable) products to be found in physical stores. While it’s true more and more retailers are focusing on online selling, a lot of them haven’t made their entire inventory available yet. Which is why you’ll still find stuff in the shops that aren’t available online.
A store like Walmart likely has millions of SKUs, so it’s unlikely they’ll have 100% of their inventory up on the internet. With internet shopping now the default type of shopping for many people, you are actually doing them a favor. You’re taking all cool stuff only found in stores, and making them available online.
That was my thinking when I decided to give dropshipping a try. I bought stuff on Walmart and unloaded them on eBay. I often sold these items at a tidy profit, confirming my theory that people simply weren’t finding the things they needed on official online stores.
That doesn’t mean you can just load your cart with random stuff pulled from the shelves. The cold, hard fact is that not everything has resale value. Only select items are worth investing in. With that said, here’s a list of categories that I found contain the most resellable stuff. Check it out and be inspired!
1. Discontinued Products
Your local Walmart will be a goldmine for discontinued stuff. I’ve found that discontinued beauty and bath products are the most profitable. People are naturally vain, and there will always be a market for these products. I once bought a couple of Clinique Superblended Face Powders for around $20 and managed to sell it for twice the amount.
Please note that discontinued doesn’t mean expired or recalled. It just means the manufacturer has stopped making the product, and is letting the current inventory sell-out. It’s best to look at the expiry date to ensure that the product isn’t going bad soon. (Yes, cosmetics do go bad!)
2. Disney merchandise
Don’t let the ubiquity of Disney products fool you: not everything is easy to find online. When Frozen hit it big, I had a gut feeling that I could resell some items. So I went to Walmart and bought a bunch of blankets and pajamas. I sold them on my eBay store, and was astonished when most items sold for over three times the retail amount I paid for.
3. Official sports team merchandise
Walmart branches usually carry the official merch of local teams, but sometimes, fans of those teams will be located elsewhere. And fans can be pretty obsessive about their favorite teams, so there’s an opportunity there to resell caps, t-shirts, and replica jerseys to them. Peak season for these items is when a team makes it to the championship, or has a noteworthy year. So stay on top of the news, if you aren’t already.
4. Childrens’ Digital Cameras
My local Walmart had a Fisher Price camera designed especially for kids. When I checked the camera’s availability online, I learned it wasn’t readily available to residents of the United Kingdom. Bingo. That was my opportunity.
I bought up several of these for $48 and specifically sold them on eBay UK. UK residents were all over these cameras. Most cameras sold for upwards of $80, a pretty sweet profit. When other dropshippers got wind of my sales, more cameras popped-up on the site. I didn’t mind; by then I had moved on to the next big-ticket item.
5. Gadgets
Gadgets, and by that I mean everything from iPhones to gaming consoles, to laptops, are some of my best-selling products. All gadgets eventually become obsolete, so that means the demand will always be there.
I learned that the best tactic is to buy up product when they go on sale, usually around Black Friday, then resell immediately. Most buyers may not have had access to the sales, and are willing to pay slightly higher than the original sale price.
Right now, the most popular console is the Nintendo Switch. I was able to nab quite a few on the first Black Friday after it was released. It pays to do research and know what gadgets are hot, and when the best time is to snag as many of a particular item.
6. Snack food
American junk food, for better or worse, has a high global demand. I’ve been around the world, and was often surprised to see people buying Lays potato chips or Cheetos from gray market sellers. And certain countries like certain foods. Take the UK, for example. They absolutely adore Luck Charms cereal. I’ve sold dozens of boxes for over three times the sticker price. Lucky me!
Junk food also has an advantage: it doesn’t spoil, making it easy to store.
7. Toys
The easiest toys to resell are those based on popular movies, such as Frozen, Toy Story, or the Lego films. Learning toys, especially those from marquee brands like Fisher-Price, are also easy to resell.
Like gadgets, Black Friday is the best time to load up on merchandise. When you buy during Black Friday, you’re in the perfect position to satisfy the demand that the holiday season brings. You gotta have your items up online right away, though, because toys is a very competitive market.
8. Action Figures
Technically, action figures are toys. But the market for action figures is different from that of toys. Basically, adult collectors are driving the demand for these things. Walmart usually gets sweet exclusives that drive collectors crazy.
Way before the new Star Wars movies hit, Walmart was the exclusive seller of the Legacy Collection AT-ST. The AT-ST was one of the most exclusive vehicles in Star Wars, and I knew it was going to be a hit. I snapped up at least twenty of these, and managed to sell each at around 50% markup.
More recently, Funko Pops! have become the hottest-selling collectibles. Keep a lookout for popular characters and exclusives, like the Han Solo and Greedo two-pack.
The Verdict
This is a Legit way to make some money. I was even able to coast for a few months on my earnings. I could coast for longer, but I decided to roll the rest of my earnings back into my dropshipping sideline. It’s that profitable.
The important part is finding stuff that’s actually in-demand or rare elsewhere. Use the categories I listed as a launchpad for your own dropshipping business!
Your Turn
Now it’s your turn to share. Have you dropshipped before? What did you sell? And how profitable was the endeavor?
Let’s hear your stories!
