The maths I'd been getting wrong for six months. Volume of low-value items isn't the same business as a smaller number of higher-value items. The coat: ten minutes to list, one trip to the post office, one polite chat with the buyer, £42 in.
The ten t-shirts: roughly ninety minutes spread over a week, ten parcels to drop off, ten conversations about size, returns risk on every one — and net I made less than the coat. Ever since I've sourced differently. Charity shop runs target outerwear, leather, knitwear, branded denim — anything that holds £25-plus retail.
The £4 t-shirts go to the actual fabric recycler. VintSnap pays for itself faster on higher-value items because each listing earns more, but the real shift was upstream — what I bothered to source in the first place.
The ten t-shirts: roughly ninety minutes spread over a week, ten parcels to drop off, ten conversations about size, returns risk on every one — and net I made less than the coat.
Part of our Reseller economics series — field notes from building VintSnap.