If you’ve always fancied making some side income as an online reseller, now is the best time to do it. The new tax year starts in April – so you’ve got until then to turn over up to £1000 tax free when the clock resets for the next tax year!

What is Reselling?

How is the £1000 Tax Free?

How to Find Bargains for Selling Online

Tips for Turning a Profit

Setting Yourself Up with HMRC

What Is Reselling?

Reselling is exactly what it sounds like: you find buy some bargains and then sell on for additional profit.

You can do this on a small scale – such as searching thrift shops and car boots for quirky finds now and then – or as a regular business that buys through wholesalers for big discounts before selling the products individually.

You’ll need somewhere to store your inventory, so make sure you know what you can afford to store before you get too excited looking up bargains from AliExpress online…!

How is the £1000 Tax Free?

This article is explicitly about reselling as a side business as a sole trader, let’s be clear about that. If you are selling your old clutter to make room in your home for extra cash, you don’t need to declare that to HMRC as a business. (But it helps to be able to prove that is what you’ve been selling online, if you make a regular habit of it or turn a large profit on a few items).

Let’s look at how the £1000 works if you want to run a small side business as a reseller. There is something called the Trading Allowance. And when we say small business, we mean small. The Trading Allowance is for ‘casual or miscellaneous income up to £1000 per tax year’, for self-employment income or casual services (like babysitting or gardening).

But you could earn £2000 tax free in 2025 if you’re quick. That’s because the Trading Allowance resets at the new tax year on 6th April – so if you haven’t earned anything yet, you’ve still got time in March to turn a profit. And after 6th April, you’ve got another year and another £1000 allowance.

There is one important thing to note, here. The Trading Allowance ONLY counts if you don’t want to offset your expenses. As a reseller, that means you can’t offset the expense of purchasing inventory items for resale. That’s why it’s important to find the lowest-cost bargains with the highest profit margin if you want to take advantage of the Trading Allowance.

If you earn more than £1000 in a tax year, you must register with HMRC.

How to Find Bargains for Your Reselling Side Hustle

In-person bargains can be a steal (not literally!). Take a look on websites like Freecycle and NextDoor to find things people are giving away for free – you’d be surprised what people will give you if they just want rid of it. Furniture is always available, for example, and if you’ve got a creative streak it can be easy to upcycle free furniture to flip for hundreds of pounds.

Your next in-person port of call would be car boot sales and charity shops. Avoid ‘vintage thrift’ shops, as these are likely to already have a high markup on items. But if you’ve got a good nose for a bargain, or have the time to make trips to charity shops in more affluent areas, you could nab some fantastic items to resell. If you’ve got the gift of the gab, visit car boot sales and be prepared to haggle on some star items, too.

Finally, go online. Trawl eBay and other sites like Gumtree to look for listings in the wrong category or that have spelling mistakes in the product title. These often have bargain prices – but it can take some time to find some good ones.

Scouring auctions ending soon is another great tactic. But it can be quite hard to find things in categories that you want, which are ending soon and still don’t have big bids on for last-minute bargains.

Enter: Lastminute Auction.

Lastminute Auction is an easy-to-use website that collates all eBay auctions that start at £1 that have an hour or less left on the timer. You can search by category, too, making it super easy to spot bargains that nobody has noticed! Even better, you can choose to opt in to email alerts for your favourite searches to make sure you don’t miss out when a fantastic item is listed with that magic £1 top bid remaining.

Tips for Turning a Profit

There are a few ways you can make sure you’re maximising your Trading Allowance for the biggest profit:

Set yourself a maximum price limit or achievable profit margin on an item – say £5 or 20% – to avoid overspending (remember you can’t offset your purchase cost on expenses)

Choose small things that can be easily posted at a low cost

Or, opt for one or two large items like furniture and focus on maximum profit

Take great photos and write accurate and engaging descriptions for your sales of the items

Lean into trends for a fast turnaround profit – remember things like fidget spinners? Find the hottest thing on the market right now to take advantage of the trend

Alternatively, choose a specialism like collectible cards or vinyl records so people get to know what you always like to sell.

Setting Yourself Up with HMRC

Remember, you get the £1000 Trading Allowance every tax year. Once you turn over more than £1000 in a tax year, you need to register with HMRC.

While that sounds like a bit of a faff, there is one big advantage: you can then offset the cost of your inventory against your profit instead of using the Trading Allowance. So, if your small side hustle takes off, you could take advantage of other ways to buy such as through wholesalers for big discounts. Remember you need to keep accurate accounts and submit a Self Assessment for your taxes by January 31st every year that you turn over more than £1000.

The post Start Your Resale Business Now and Get £1000 Tax Free Before April appeared first on MoneyMagpie.