Colton Rockwell started reselling on eBay after seeking other ways to earn money.
Courtesy of Colton Rockwell
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Colton Rockwell, an online reseller in his 30s who lives north of Seattle. The following has been edited for length and clarity.In 2022, I made a career change from a marketing job to a sales job because I was looking to make extra money.I thought going into sales and earning commissions was the right path to do that. I didn't realize how hard sales was until I was working in it, making $60,000 a year pre-tax.I owned my home, and I'd taken a pay cut to go into the sales role. I had over $10,000 in credit card debt and about $5,000 in my bank account.What I was making at my sales job wasn't enough. I needed to make a change and find a way to create additional income. I started researching different ways to make money and landed on selling on eBay. A few years later, I turned reselling on different platforms into my full-time job.My first full year reselling in 2023, I grossed about $50,000 on eBay. At this point, I'm $0 in credit card debt, but I still have student loans that I'm paying off. My goal this year is to gross around $100,000 to $120,000 among all the different platforms that I sell on — eBay, Depop, Poshmark, and Facebook Marketplace.Selling on eBay started as a side hustle to pay off debtI had some video games that were stored under the bed in my guest bedroom. I was like, "Why don't I throw those up and see what happens to kind of test it out?"
