Beginner's Guide To WhatNot: How To Buy & Sell On The Live Auction Reselling App

INTRODUCTION

Growing up, I never imagined I would be a reseller. After all, the term reseller didn’t even exist. There were antique dealers, of course, and there was the term picker . But until eBay launched in 1995, all reselling activity occurred locally, either in antique malls or auction houses. No one, including myself, could have imagined the online reselling industry that would explode onto the scene in the 2000s.

I had taken the traditional career path after college by seeking employment locally. I took a job at the local Chamber of Commerce and worked myself into exhaustion and eventually a deep depression for nearly eight years. To say I hated my job was an understatement.

Finally, in 2005, I quit my office job to start a home-based gift basket business. I was burned out and desperate to be my own boss. The biggest lesson I learned working at a non-profit organization was that I hated working for someone else. And after a third panic attack landed me in the emergency room, my doctor told me I had to quit my job to save my life.

I’d originally wanted to open a brick-and-mortar gift shop that I could fill with collectibles and gifts for all occasions. However, my family discouraged this endeavor. After all, only 1% of all gift shops make it past the first year of operation. I instead settled on a home-based gift basket business.

A gift basket business seemed like a good compromise as it allowed me to essentially have my own store but one that was run from home. I wouldn’t have to worry about rent or a massive amount of inventory. I had a spare room in my townhome that was large enough for me to run my business out of. And I had corporate connections from my time working at the Chamber of Commerce who were eager to buy gift baskets for their clients.

And for the first several months, business was good. I had a small list of suppliers that I ordered from online, and I developed a line of food-based baskets for all the major holidays and occasions. I was getting bulk orders from businesses around town, and I could see the growth potential in the gift basket business model.

But then came the summer months, and business came to a screeching halt. With kids out of school, families on vacations, and no big gift giving holidays to celebrate, I was left staring at a wall of gift baskets and basket fillers, most of it food that had expiration dates. I needed a way to move some inventory out, and fast.

While I was able to sell some of the food items at a discount locally, I was still stuck with some other giftable products that hadn’t been selling well in my baskets. People wanted food in their gift baskets, not collectibles or décor. And while these items didn’t have expiration dates, they were taken up space in my office that I was eager to reclaim.

So, I looked at eBay as a way to sell off some of these excess products. I began listing a few giftable items, such as coffee mugs and ornaments, at auction, and sales were almost instant. I couldn’t believe how many people were bidding on my items and how quickly things were selling. These sales made me curious about finding other non-food items to sell on eBay, and I started looking at my gift basket suppliers to see if they had anything else I could sell.

I began ordering small items, everything from Garfield Christmas ornaments to guided journals. Sales exploded, and by the end of the year, I was done with gift baskets and turned my attention exclusively to selling new, wholesale gifts. This was a profitable turn of events for me as the gift items, unlike food, didn’t have expiration dates. And while the gift items weren’t of interest locally, there was a huge demand for them on eBay.

Within a couple of years, I expanded my business to Amazon. Before this, Amazon had only been selling books, so eBay was the only other site where you could sell products. However, when Amazon opened its site up to the sale of things other than books, the entire online selling space changed drastically. Now there were two large, established websites where you could purchase anything and everything. While shoppers turned to eBay for secondhand and vintage items, customers on Amazon wanted brand-new products. And my brand-new gift items sold quickly, overtaking my eBay sales ten to one almost overnight.  

However, all good things come to an end. About six years after I started selling online, the competition caught up. Not only were more people selling on eBay and Amazon, but more online shopping sites were coming online every day. Just as quickly as my gift business had grown, it seemed to come to a screeching halt.

I knew I could no longer compete in the gift category on eBay or Amazon, especially when the same wholesale companies I purchased from also started selling online. They offered better pricing and free shipping, and my sales plummeted. I needed a completely new business model, something different I could sell.

And that’s how I stumbled onto reselling secondhand items on eBay.

Those antique dealers I’d grown up knowing about were now selling on eBay. And rather than referring to themselves as pickers, they now called themselves resellers. The term reselling replaced picking, and people weren’t just selling antiques. Secondhand clothing, gently used toys and even overstocked new products were selling on eBay. And this new crop of resellers wasn’t scouring antique stores to find items to resell; they were sourcing at garage sales and thrift stores.

I stumbled upon a small community of resellers on YouTube who were sharing their secondhand finds that they were selling on EBay. I couldn’t believe the businesses these folks built from selling coffee mugs, used clothing, and vintage items online, all of which they picked up for pennies on the dollar at garage sales and thrift stores. Not only were their sales fantastic, but their cost of goods was also so low compared to mine, meaning their profit margins were amazing.

I dove into this YouTube reselling community and soaked up all the information I could. I stopped purchasing new items at wholesale and began venturing out to estate sales in search of vintage collectibles, as that was where my interest was. Slowly I experimented with listing my finds on EBay. The first items I listed were duds, but I kept at it. As I learned more about what sold, my sourcing improved. And the sales improved along with it.

Eventually, I completely rebranded my business from selling new gifts on EBay and Amazon to only reselling vintage items on EBay. I canceled my wholesale accounts and spent my Saturday mornings scouring estate sales. Over the next several years, I branched out from only selling hard goods and added secondhand clothing and liquidation clothing to my inventory. I began cross posting my inventory to other reselling platforms, adding clothing to Poshmark and vintage items to Etsy. I even experimented selling books on Amazon FBA, sending in heavy boxes of used books and CDs that I often got for free at estate sales. I thought I’d learned everything and done everything in the reselling space. I thought I'd seen it all.

But then along came WhatNot. And WhatNot changed everything.

WhatNot is a live auction platform that launched in 2019. Rather than listing items for sale in the Buy It Now style of EBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Amazon, and Mercari, on WhatNot, sellers run shows, which are live auction events. Just as buyers bid on items at an in-person auction house event, on WhatNot, buyers bid live on WhatNot. Unlike traditional EBay auctions, which can last as long as 10 days, WhatNot auction items are only available during the time the show is live and the item is up for bid.

Live auctions mean sellers can sell out of their inventory within an hour or two. For full-time resellers who are sourcing large amounts of inventory, it’s a great way to move items quickly. A WhatNot seller can source, sell, and ship their entire haul of inventory within a couple of days if they work quickly enough. And for volume sellers, that beats having inventory sitting for weeks, months, and sometimes years.

But WhatNot is more than just a reselling platform. Buying and selling on WhatNot is fun. It’s entertainment. A well-run show can be just as entertaining as a good television show or movie. And for high-energy sellers, selling live meets their needs to be social. When the right buyers find the right sellers, magic can happen on WhatNot.

However, selling on WhatNot isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work and stamina to start selling on WhatNot and to grow your business there. However, if you are determined to add WhatNot into your reselling business or make it the only platform of your business, this is the book for you.

But if you aren’t a reseller or you are but have no interest in selling on WhatNot, you can still shop or hang out on the app. WhatNot is like a live YouTube stream; you can interact with the host and those in the chat, even if you don’t purchase anything for sale.

I will break down everything you need to start and grow a WhatNot business in this book. This book covers everything from the application process and setting up your first show to shipping out orders and growing your following.

And I’ll also be teaching new WhatNot users how to shop on the app. Buying on WhatNot is different from buying on any other reselling platform. And while it can be intimidating to even think about shopping in a live auction stream, it’s easier – and more fun – than you can imagine.

So, whether you want to sell on WhatNot, buy on WhatNot, or do a bit of both, this book is for you!

CHAPTER ONE:

WHAT IS WHATNOT

As I mentioned in the Introduction , WhatNot launched in 2019. While they have a desktop version, they mainly operate as an app.

Users need to create an account to shop on WhatNot. If you don’t already have an account to shop, you can use my referral link to sign up for free at whatnot.com/invite/anneckhart..

This link will give you $10 to shop on the site. Note that this is a referral link, meaning I am given $10 in credit when anyone signs up through my link. However, once you create an account on WhatNot, you will be given a referral link to share that can earn you free spending credits.

If you are familiar with Poshmark, then you already know of their Give $10, Get $10 referral program. WhatNot’s referral program functions the same.

As with all shopping websites, you will need to enter a form of payment to bid on items. You can link a credit card, bank account, or PayPal account. After successfully creating your account, you will be given your own give $10 get $10 referral link to share with your friends and family via email and social media. This is a great way to add spending money to your account. But note that the WhatNot referral credits only cover the cost of any items you buy, not the shipping charges.

If you are interested in applying to sell on WhatNot, there is a link at the top of their page titled Apply To Sell. We’ll discuss the steps needed to apply to sell on WhatNot in Chapter Three of this book, along with a different link you can use to be accepted as a seller faster potentially.

When WhatNot originally launched in 2019, it focused entirely on the resale of Funko Pop collectible figures. WhatNot soon expanded into trading cards, followed by comic books and LEGO. Within a couple of years, they opened up to multiple categories and currently have the following main and subcategories for buying and selling:

Trading Card Games: Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh!, My Hero Academia, Weib Schwarz. Naruto, Digimon, Marvel, DC, Flesh & Blood, MetaZoo, Akara, Garbage Pail Kids, TCG Accessories

Sports: Football Cards, Basketball Cards, Baseball Cards, Soccer Cards, UFC Cards, Wrestling Cards, F1 Cards, Hockey Cards, Sports Memorabilia

Toys: Funko, LEGO, Diecast Cars, Plush, Dolls, Designer Toys, D&D & Role-playing Games, Warhammer 40K & Wargames, Board Games, FigPin

Action Figures: Marvel Figures, TMNT Figures, Wrestling Figures, Star Wars Figures, G.I. Joe Figures, Transformers Figures, MOTU Figures, Anime Figures, Hot Toys, Simpsons Figures, Power Rangers

Comics & Magna: Modern Age Comics, Bronze Age Comics, Silver Age Comics, Golden Age Comics, Comic Art, Anime & Mango, Graphic Novels

Sneakers & Streetwear: Sneakers, Streetwear

Vintage & Thrift Clothing: Vintage Clothing, Women’s Modern & Thrift, Men’s Modern & Thrift, Kid’s Clothing

Bags & Accessories: Luxury Bags & Accessories, Fashion & Thrift Bags, Other Accessories

Jewelry: Fine & Precious Metals, Vintage Costume, Contemporary Costume

Watches

Video Games: Retro Games, Modern Games, Consoles & Accessories, Strategy Guides, Manual, Replacement Cases

NFTs

Coins & Money: Coins and Bullion, Paper Money and Currency

Music: Vinyl Records, CDs and Cassettes, Music Memorabilia, Instruments, and Accessories

Electronics: Cameras, Mechanical Keyboards

Arts & Crafts: Arts & Prints, Crafts, Supplies

Estate Sales and Vintage Décor: Estate Sales, Ephemera and Postcards, Vintage Décor

Disneyana: Pins, Loungefly, Clothing, Accessories, Original & Animation Art

And Whatnot: Movies, Crystals & Gems, Stamps, Health & Beauty, Food & Drink, Home & Garden, Sports Equipment, Return Pallets, Breweriana, Kawaii, Books, Pop Culture Memorabilia

As you can see, almost anything and everything is now being sold on WhatNot. However, while there are a lot of sellers on WhatNot, the buyer base is still being built. And while sellers are buying from other sellers, items aren’t typically getting bid up as high as they would sell for on other, established websites such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Poshmark.

Why? Well, resellers are bargain shoppers. They spend a lot