My Real 6-Month Reselling Journey — How I Started, What Went Wrong, and the Truth

Reselling looks very simple when you see it from the outside.

You find a product at a low price, post it on Instagram, run some ads, get customers, place the orders with a supplier, and keep the difference as your profit.

At least, that is what we thought when we started.

Today, many people are trying clothing reselling through Instagram and other social media platforms. You can find thousands of pages selling women’s clothing, jewellery, accessories, beauty products, and other items.

Seeing all of this, it is easy to believe that starting a reselling business is a simple way to make money online.

I also thought the same.

A friend and I started working on reselling a few months ago. We were not completely new to the idea of online selling, but we were still learning how the actual business worked.

In the beginning, everything looked positive.

We thought we would find good products at low prices, promote them through Instagram, run advertisements, get customers, and slowly increase our sales.

We believed that once the sales started coming, the profit would automatically improve.

But after actually working on the business for around six months, we understood something very important.

Getting sales and building a profitable business are two different things.

Our experience was not a complete failure because we learned a lot from it. At the same time, it was not the easy-money opportunity we had imagined at the beginning.

We faced problems with profit, advertising, returns, repeat customers, suppliers, customer data, product selection, and branding.

This article is not about telling you that reselling is good or bad.

It is simply about sharing what happened with us.

If you are thinking about starting a reselling business, our experience may help you understand some of the problems before you face them yourself.

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How We Started Our Reselling Business

When we decided to start reselling, the first thing we had to decide was what type of products we wanted to sell.

There are many options available in online reselling.

You can sell:

• Women’s clothing
• Men’s clothing
• Jewellery
• Bags
• Beauty products
• Home products
• Accessories
• Footwear
• And many other products

We finally chose one niche:

Women’s clothing.

The reason was quite simple.

Women are very active on social media, especially on platforms like Instagram, and clothing is one of the most commonly promoted product categories online.

There are always new designs, new styles, new colours, and new trends.

This gave us a large number of products to choose from.

We thought this would give us enough opportunities to test different products and find something that customers liked.

But choosing the niche was only the first step.

The next challenge was finding a supplier.

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Finding the Right Supplier

For a reselling business, the supplier plays a very important role.

You may find customers and generate orders, but if the supplier does not provide good products or does not handle orders properly, your business can still suffer.

One thing that was especially important to us was COD, or Cash on Delivery.

We wanted suppliers who could provide COD because many customers are not comfortable making prepaid payments when they are buying from a seller they do not know well.

Think about it from the customer’s point of view.

If someone discovers a new Instagram page and sees a product they like, they may still hesitate before making an online payment.

They may have questions such as:

• Will I actually receive the product?
• Will the product look like the picture?
• What if the quality is poor?
• What if the seller disappears after taking payment?
• What if I receive the wrong product?

COD can reduce some of this hesitation because the customer gets the option to pay when the order is delivered.

So, we specifically searched for suppliers who offered COD.

After some searching, we found a few suppliers.

Some of their products looked good.

Some products had decent quality.

And the biggest thing for us was that COD was also available.

At that point, we thought we had found the right setup.

We had products.

We had suppliers.

We had COD.

We had Instagram.

And we could run advertisements.

So naturally, we thought the next step would be getting orders and scaling the business.

But this is where our real learning started.

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We Started Running Ads

Once we had products and suppliers, we needed customers.

Simply uploading product pictures on Instagram was not enough for us.

We wanted to reach more people, so we started running advertisements.

Our daily advertising budget was around:

₹300–₹500 per day.

The results were different on different days.

Some days were better than others.

On a good day, we could get around 20 leads.

Out of those leads, around 5–6 orders could be generated.

At that time, seeing those numbers felt encouraging.

Imagine spending money on advertising and getting people interested in your products.

Then some of those people actually place orders.

It feels like the business is working.

And in one sense, it was.

We were getting leads.

We were getting orders.

We were making sales.

Our average monthly sales were around:

₹20,000–₹30,000.

On paper, this looked like a decent start.

We were also making around:

₹8,000–₹10,000 profit.

But there were also months or situations where the profit could become zero.

This was something we slowly started understanding.

The sales number alone was not telling us the complete story.

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The Difference Between Sales and Profit

This was probably one of the most important lessons from our six-month journey.

When you are starting out, it is very easy to focus on sales.

You may think:

“Last month we sold ₹20,000.”

Then you may think:

“Next month we will sell ₹40,000.”

Then:

“After that, we will sell ₹1 lakh.”

But sales are not the same as profit.

There are many costs involved in reselling.

There is the cost of the product.

There is advertising.

There can be returns.

There can be COD-related issues.

There can be other expenses involved in handling orders.

And after all of that, the amount actually left in your hand may be much smaller than expected.

This is exactly what happened with us.

We were selling clothes in the ₹150–₹199 range.

At first, the low selling price looked attractive.

We thought that affordable products would make it easier to get customers.

But after including advertising costs, returns, and other issues, the final profit was not always as good as we expected.

Sometimes the profit became very small.

And sometimes, we even had to put money from our own pocket.

That was frustrating.

You can spend time finding products.

You can spend money on ads.

You can answer customer messages.

You can manage orders.

You can coordinate with suppliers.

And after doing all of that, if there is very little money left, you naturally start asking yourself:

Is this business actually profitable?

That question became very important for us.

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The Real Problem Was Not Getting Orders

One thing we learned is that getting an order is not the final goal.

The real goal is to make the order profitable.

Suppose you spend money on an advertisement and receive leads.

Then some people place orders.

That sounds good.

But what happens after that?

What is your actual product cost?

How much did you spend to get the customer?

How many orders were cancelled?

How many were returned?

How much did you finally earn?

These questions matter much more than simply counting orders.

In our case, we slowly realised that we had been looking at the business mainly from the sales side.

We were happy when orders came.

But we were not paying enough attention to the complete economics of each order.

This was one of the biggest lessons from our experience.

A business should not only generate sales. It should leave enough profit after the major costs are considered.

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Customers Were Not Coming Back

Another major problem we faced was repeat customers.

We were getting customers, but they were not coming back regularly.

At first, we did not understand how important this problem was.

We were focused on getting new customers.

We thought:

“If we can keep getting new customers, the business will continue.”

But constantly finding new customers requires continuous effort and advertising.

And if a customer buys from you only once and never comes back, you have to keep spending money to find another customer.

This is where repeat customers become important.

Unfortunately, we had almost zero repeat customers.

There were several reasons for this.

We did not have our own website.

We did not have proper branding.

We did not have our own packaging.

And we did not have a proper trust-building system.

We were basically another reselling page.

A customer could buy a product from us today and then see a similar product from another seller tomorrow.

There was no strong identity that made our business memorable.

That was a weakness.

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Why Branding Matters

In the beginning, we thought branding was something that could be done later.

We were thinking more about products and sales.

But later, we understood that branding can play an important role in building a long-term business.

Imagine two businesses selling similar products.

One business simply sends the product in basic packaging.

The other business has:

• A brand name
• Proper packaging
• A simple thank-you card
• A clean website
• Clear policies
• A professional customer experience

The second business may feel more trustworthy to the customer.

This does not automatically guarantee repeat purchases, but it can help create a better overall experience.

We had not built that system.

So, our relationship with customers was weak.

This is one reason why our repeat customers were almost zero.

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The Supplier Was Getting Customer Data

This was one of the biggest concerns we had during our reselling journey.

Whenever we sent an order to the supplier, the customer’s details also went to the supplier.

These details included:

• Customer name
• Phone number
• Address

The supplier needed this information to process and deliver the order.

At first, we did not think deeply about it.

But later, we realised the business risk.

Think about what happens.

We spend money on advertising.

A person sees our advertisement.

The person becomes interested.

We communicate with the customer.

The customer finally places an order.

But the supplier receives the customer’s details as part of the order process.

That means the supplier also has access to information about the customer.

This was a major concern for us.

Because in the future, the same supplier could potentially sell directly to those customers.

The customer relationship that we had worked to create was not completely under our control.

This made us realise that building your own customer base and having more control over the customer relationship can be very important.

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Too Many Products, But No Hero Product

Another mistake we made was trying too many products.

Whenever we found a new design that looked good, we wanted to test it.

This sounds like a good strategy.

More products should mean more chances of getting sales, right?

But for us, it created another problem.

We were constantly moving from one product to another.

One day we would promote one design.

Then another product would be tested.

Then we would upload another new design.

Because of this, we did not have a clear picture of what was actually working best.

We had data, but we were not using it properly.

We needed to ask questions like:

• Which product received the most clicks?
• Which product generated the most leads?
• Which product converted the best?
• Which product sold with the lowest advertising cost?
• Which product had fewer returns?
• Which product generated better profit?

But because we were testing too many products, everything became random.

We were busy working, but we were not always learning from the work.

This is an important difference.

Working more does not always mean growing more.

Sometimes you need to stop, look at the numbers, and understand what they are telling you.

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Where Did We Get Stuck?

This was the point where we started looking at our original thinking again.

Our mindset in the beginning was:

“First, we will sell at a low price…
then later we will increase the profit.”

It sounded logical.

Get customers first.

Build sales.

Increase profit later.

But our actual experience showed us that this approach has a major problem.

If the business model does not have enough margin, increasing sales does not automatically solve the problem.

More orders can also mean:

• More advertising
• More customer communication
• More returns
• More supplier coordination
• More problems to handle

If the margin is already very low, scaling the same model can simply increase the amount of work without creating enough additional profit.

This was one of our biggest realisations.

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We Were Not Different From Other Resellers

Another uncomfortable truth was that we were not offering anything unique.

We were selling products that many other resellers could also sell.

The same type of products were available elsewhere.

Customers had many options.

There was no strong reason for a customer to choose us over another reseller.

This made competition difficult.

If everyone is selling similar products at similar prices, then it becomes harder to build a strong business.

That is when we started understanding the importance of having something different.

It could be:

• A better product
• Better quality
• Better packaging
• Better customer experience
• Better branding
• Better pricing
• Better service

But simply finding a product and uploading it was not enough.

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What Next? The Real Way Forward

After facing these problems, we started thinking about what could actually make the business stronger.

Instead of continuously adding new products, we started looking at our own data.

This is where the idea of a hero product became important.

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Find a Hero Product From Your Own Data

If you have already been running ads and testing products for several months, you already have something valuable.

You have data.

Look at the last 4–6 months.

Check the products you promoted.

Check the ads you ran.

Check the leads.

Check the orders.

Then ask:

Which product performed better than the others?

Maybe one product received more clicks.

Maybe another product generated more orders.

Maybe one product had a lower advertising cost.

Maybe one product had fewer returns.

Maybe customers asked more questions about one particular product.

All of these signals can help you identify a product that deserves more attention.

From this data, choose one product.

Just one.

This becomes your hero product.

The idea is not to say that you should never sell anything else.

The idea is to stop treating every product equally.

If one product has already shown better results, it makes sense to understand it more deeply.

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Why One Product Can Be Better Than Too Many Products

When you have too many products, your attention gets divided.

You have to create different posts.

You have to test different advertisements.

You have to understand different customers.

You have to track different returns.

You have to manage different supplier requirements.

You may end up doing a lot of work without understanding which product is actually driving the business.

With one strong product, your focus becomes clearer.

You can improve the advertisement.

You can improve the product presentation.

You can improve the packaging.

You can understand the customer better.

You can study the competition.

You can work on pricing.

You can build your brand around that product.

This was the direction we started thinking about after our own experience.

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Remove the Supplier From the Middle

Once you identify your hero product, the next step is to look at sourcing.

If your current supplier is giving you the product at a certain price, research whether you can find the same product directly from a wholesaler.

For example, if your supplier is giving you a product for ₹130–₹150, the same product may sometimes be available in the market for:

• ₹60–₹80
• ₹70–₹100

But this is something that requires proper research.

You cannot simply assume that a cheaper supplier is automatically better.

You need to check:

• Product quality
• Actual product cost
• Minimum order requirements
• Availability
• Delivery
• Reliability
• Return-related issues

The purpose of this research is to improve your control over the business.

If you can source the product more efficiently, your margins may improve.

And better margins can give a business more room to handle advertising and other costs.

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Branding Can Change the Business

For us, branding became another important part of the future plan.

The idea is simple.

Instead of remaining just another reseller, build an identity around the product.

For the hero product, you can focus on:

• Your own packaging
• A simple brand name
• A small thank-you card
• A clean website
• A clear return policy

These things may look small individually.

But together, they can make the customer experience more professional.

A brand name helps customers remember you.

Packaging creates a better presentation.

A thank-you card can make the order feel more personal.

A clean website can help build trust.

A clear return policy tells customers what they can expect if there is a problem.

This is very different from simply sending a product from a supplier to a customer.

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Scale the Hero Product

Once you have identified the product that performs best, the next idea is to focus on it.

There are many startups in the market that have reached crores in monthly revenue with one main product.

Examples can include:

• One bracelet
• One serum
• One kurta
• One kada
• One bag
• One jewellery item

The idea behind these examples is simple.

A business does not always need hundreds of products to grow.

Sometimes, one product can become the main product around which the business is built.

A product that costs around ₹40–₹70 may sometimes sell for around ₹300–₹500.

But the actual selling price and profit will depend on the market, product quality, competition, advertising costs, and other factors.

The important lesson for us was not the exact price.

It was the idea of focus.

Instead of constantly searching for something new, find something that works and understand why it works.

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The Biggest Lessons From Our Six Months

Looking back at our experience, there are several lessons that stand out.

1. Sales Are Not Everything

₹20,000–₹30,000 in monthly sales may look good when you first start.

But what matters is how much profit remains after the important costs.

We learned this through experience.

2. Low Prices Do Not Automatically Create a Good Business

We believed that selling affordable products would make it easier to get customers.

But low prices also mean lower margins.

If advertising and returns take away most of the margin, the business can become difficult to sustain.

3. Repeat Customers Matter

If customers do not come back, you have to keep finding new customers.

That can increase your dependence on advertising.

Building trust and a good customer experience can therefore be important for long-term growth.

4. Your Customer Relationship Matters

When the supplier receives the customer’s name, phone number, and address, you need to think carefully about how much control you actually have over that customer relationship.

This was one of our biggest concerns.

5. Too Many Products Can Create Confusion

We thought more products would give us more opportunities.

Instead, it made our data less clear.

We did not know which product deserved the most attention.

6. Data Should Guide Your Decisions

The last 4–6 months of advertising and sales data can tell you a lot.

Instead of guessing which product is best, look at your actual results.

7. Branding Matters

Without a website, packaging, brand identity, and proper customer experience, it is difficult to make a reselling business feel different from hundreds of other pages.

8. One Strong Product Can Be Better Than Many Random Products

A hero product gives you something specific to focus on.

You can improve it, advertise it, brand it, and understand its customers better.

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What We Would Do Differently Now

If we were starting again with what we know today, we would not simply look for as many products as possible.

We would focus more on the numbers.

We would look carefully at:

• Product cost
• Advertising cost
• Leads
• Orders
• Returns
• Profit
• Customer response

We would also pay more attention to repeat customers.

Instead of thinking only about the first order, we would think about what happens after the customer receives the product.

Would they remember the brand?

Would they trust the business?

Would they want to buy again?

Would they recommend it to someone else?

These questions matter when you want to build something beyond simple reselling.

We would also focus more on finding one hero product instead of constantly testing random products.

And we would think about branding much earlier.

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Is Reselling Easy?

After doing this for around six months, our answer would be:

It may look easy, but doing it profitably is not necessarily easy.

The basic process is simple.

Find a product.

Post it.

Run an advertisement.

Get an order.

Send the order to the supplier.

But a real business involves much more.

You have to think about margins.

You have to deal with customers.

You have to manage returns.

You have to handle suppliers.

You have to spend money on advertising.

You have to understand which products work.

You have to think about repeat customers.

And eventually, you need to decide whether you are building a temporary income source or a real brand.

That is where the difference lies. If you want to explore more beginner-friendly online income ideas, check out our guide on [10 Amazing Ways to Make Money Online].

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Our Biggest Mistake

If we had to choose one major mistake from our journey, it would be this:

We focused too much on selling and not enough on building.

We wanted orders.

We wanted sales.

We wanted more leads.

But we did not build enough around those customers.

There was no strong brand.

There was no proper website.

There was no strong packaging.

There were almost no repeat customers.

And we were not focused enough on one hero product.

That is why the business remained limited.

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The Real Truth About Our Reselling Journey

Our six-month experience taught us that reselling is not simply about buying cheaply and selling at a higher price.

There is much more behind it.

You need to understand the product.

You need to understand the customer.

You need to understand your advertising.

You need to understand your numbers.

You need to understand your supplier.

And if you want to grow beyond basic reselling, you eventually need to think about branding.

We started with the simple idea that low prices, COD, Instagram, and advertisements would be enough.

They were enough to get us started.

But they were not enough to build the kind of business we wanted.

That is the difference we understand now.

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Conclusion — The Most Important Truth

If you keep adding new products every day and continue selling at low prices while expecting good profit, this model may never scale properly.

You may continue getting sales around the same ₹20,000–₹30,000 range, but your workload can keep increasing.

You may spend more time searching for products.

You may spend more money on advertisements.

You may deal with more customers.

You may handle more returns.

And still, the actual profit may not increase as much as you expected.

Your effort and time can be wasted if you do not understand what is actually working.

But…

If you focus on:

✔ One hero product

✔ The right pricing

✔ Your own branding

✔ The right supplier

✔ Repeat customers

then these five things can help turn your reselling business from simply an income source into a brand.

For us, this was the biggest lesson from six months of experience.

We started with the idea that reselling would be simple.

We found products.

We found suppliers.

We got COD.

We ran advertisements.

We got leads.

We got orders.

We made sales.

But along the way, we also discovered the problems that are not always visible when you only look at screenshots of sales or advertisements on social media.

The real challenge is not only getting someone to buy once. If you are exploring other practical ways to earn money online, you can also read our guide on [How to Earn ₹500 Per Day Online in India].

The real challenge is building a business where the numbers make sense, the customer trusts you, the product gives you enough margin, and people have a reason to come back.

That is where reselling can start becoming something bigger than simply selling someone else’s products.

It can start becoming a brand.

And that is the direction we would want to take from here.

Friends, what do you think about our idea? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Your opinion is very valuable to us.

Frequently Asked Questions About Reselling