Velvet hangers look professional, and clothing won’t slip off while you’re trying to get some high-quality photos. As the first of the 5 affordable reselling tools, I suggest buying a light color so that the hangers blend in with a light background, recommended for reselling. The hangers pictured here, are currently $8.50. You will also need some clips for hanging pants and skirts.

Perhaps the simplest and least expensive of the 5 affordable reselling tools is an over-the-door hook. For the best SEO on your items you should use a white background. In my house, that was easy to find since all of my doors are painted white. Thus, rather than purchase an expensive garment hanger or display items on the floor (not recommended), I use an over-the-door hook to hang up most apparel for photographs. If your doors are not white, you can hang a white sheet over the door and still use the door hook in a similar fashion.

The door hook pictured here is currently $3.49. If you’re not sure of your door width or you might need to hang a sheet, this multi-pack is only $4.98 and will accommodate various door widths. Plus, if you have the right lighting, to save time, you could stage more than one item on each side of the door or on different doors.

I want to minimize my time spent with shipping and handling. Using a tape dispenser saves the time of needing scissors and having to search for the beginning of the tape every time you cut a new piece. I don’t recommend the hand-held dispensers. I’ve never found one that worked properly, and I would just end up in a tangled web of tape before giving up and grabbing a pair of scissors. That’s why I recommend this desk-top packaging tape dispenser. By the way, you don’t need to buy packaging materials just yet. You can reuse Amazon packaging or order free Priority Mail packaging from USPS.

Buyers want their clothing to look new, even if it’s pre-loved. Thus, to make clothing look as new as possible, getting the wrinkles out is essential. Rather than break out an ironing board every time I list clothing, I use a steamer. That way the clothes are already hanging and ready to photograph once the wrinkles are gone. The Conair Turbo Steamer works very well. With a free Amazon Business account, you can buy one for $59. See this 2-in-1 turbo steamer in action here.

Not all clothing looks good on a hanger, sometimes items, especially pants, look better when they are laying flat. Some buyers also want measurements, so including photos with a measuring tape along important dimensions (e.g., waist, pit to pit, inseam) can help your items to sell faster. Thus, I purchased a small white folding table to display items that need to be laid flat. The table pictured here is on sale for $39.88 right now!

Label Printer. Full disclosure, I received a label printer as a promotional deal for free before I ramped up my reselling hustle, so I was happy to put it to good use. I use a POLONO label printer, available on Amazon for about $80. I’ve printed dozens of labels with no issues.

The thermal labels are pretty affordable too. Here are 500 for $9.99. While you don’t NEED a label printer when you first start your business, this should be on your wish list for reselling. Most reselling platforms provide QR codes that you can scan at the post office so that you don’t need to print your own labels. Using the QR code requires a self-serve kiosk, not available at all post offices or standing in line to wait for an agent. I prefer not to wait in line, so I love having a label printer.

Luckily, I have a kitchen scale to weigh smaller items, but there have been times that I’ve over-estimated the weight of an item. Thankfully, I was refunded the balance, but my buyers paid a dollar more than they should have. I don’t feel too bad about that because my prices are already reasonable, and I rarely sell anything for the listing price, so the buyers still got a great deal.

When the kitchen scale seems inaccurate, or I don’t have time to weigh something, I will Google the shipping weight (e.g., weight of t-shirt). Sometimes I check Amazon for similar products because they often list the weight of the item. Once I’ve gotten an estimated weight, I add 3 ounces for packaging. Padded envelopes are about 1 ounce, but I usually over-estimate the weight just a little bit so that my shipping labels are never short.

Here are three shipping scales for under $40.

• $24.68 ShipPro Up to 110 pounds
• $33.18 Digital Scale with Foldable LCD Screen weights up to 110 pounds.
• $39.90 (with Amazon Business) MAXUS Shipping Scale 440lb, Digital Postal Scale with Hold and Tare Function

If you ship heavier packages, this digital floor scale is only $65.99.

Since I’ve never really had a problem with getting the price for shipping labels about right, and shipping scales can be expensive, I don’t consider a scale as one of the necessary 5 affordable reselling tools, but I would like to get one so that I can always charge an accurate shipping fee.

I didn’t mention packaging materials in the 5 affordable reselling tools because I mostly re-use packaging. My rebate items from Amazon not only provide free items and cashback rewards, but I reuse the packaging. Thus, I haven’t paid for packaging materials, other than packing tape, since I started reselling.

However, some resellers like to use custom or pretty packaging as a customer service incentive. Thus, you can buy packaging materials in bulk to reduce your out-of-pocket expenses. This pack of 100 self-seal poly bubble mailers for $30.10 is the best price I could find on the most common size envelope that I use for shipping apparel.

You’ll also need some tape. I recommend reinforcing self-seal envelopes with one piece of tape to be sure the package stays closed and your item arrives dry and undamaged. Here’s a 6-pack of tape for $17.39 from Staples. If you have an Amazon Business account, you can get a pack of six rolls for the same price.

As I noted above, not all clothing looks good on a hanger. Not all clothing looks good flat either. Ideally clothing would look like it will when it’s on an actual body. Buyers appreciate being able to imagine themselves in apparel before they buy it online. Thus, once I’ve earned enough, I want to reinvest that profit to buy fitting mannequins so that all of my apparel looks sharp.

You can purchase a camera for photographing inventory, but most cell phones have pretty awesome cameras. Plus, you can use your phone to display QR codes until you buy a label printer, and you can manage your business on the various reselling apps. Having a good phone is critical to optimizing your time spent while running a reselling business. I currently use a Samsung Galaxy Fold5 to snap photos and manage my reselling inventory, but I’ll always want to have the latest camera technology. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy Series, iPhone 15, and the Google Pixel have the best phone cameras on the market.