Your second-hand margin: the number that tells you whether your business holds up (2026)

You sold 1,400 euros' worth last month. That is the figure you quote when someone asks how it is going, and the one that makes you feel the business is taking off. Yet at the end of the month, your bank balance has not moved the way you hoped, and you cannot quite say why.

The reason is almost always the same: you are tracking your revenue, not your margin. These are two different numbers, and only one of them tells you whether your second-hand reselling business stands up. Here is how to calculate the right one, item by item then across the whole month, and which thresholds to watch when deciding whether to scale up or fix things.

Why revenue tells you nothing

Revenue measures what comes in, not what stays. Two sellers who both take 1,400 euros in a month can be in completely opposite situations: one bought her stock for 300 euros and clears more than 800 euros net, the other paid 900 euros for hers and barely breaks even once the costs are deducted.

The trap is all the more insidious because revenue often rises just as margin falls. You buy more expensively to push volume, you sell more, your numbers look impressive, and your profitability collapses. Many sellers give up after a year, convinced the job does not pay, when it was really their cost of goods that had never been worked out.

Margin, on the other hand, answers a single question: out of every 100 euros you take, how much is genuinely left once everything that sale cost you is paid for?

The five lines of your cost of goods

For each item, five items come off the sale price. The first three are obvious; it is the last two that tip the calculations.

The purchase price. What the item cost you, bundle included. On a bundle of twenty items bought for 60 euros, each item enters at 3 euros, including the ones you will never sell. Do not make the mistake of loading the cost onto the sold items only: unsold pieces are part of the bundle's cost.

The platform fees. Commission, service fees, a promotion boost when you take one. They are predictable and easy to build in.

Unbilled shipping. Postage is normally the buyer's responsibility, but the moment you offer free delivery to close a deal or pay for a return, the line appears.

Consumables. Mailers, boxes, tissue paper, labels, storage bags, cleaning products, garment covers. Count between 0.40 and 0.80 euros per item shipped. Over 60 monthly sales, that is already 30 to 50 euros nobody ever counts.

Your time. This is the line almost every seller forgets, and it is the most important. An item takes 12 to 18 minutes on average from start to finish: sorting, cleaning up, photos, listing, answering questions, packing, shipping. Across 60 items, you are looking at 12 to 18 hours of work in the month.

The calculation on a single item

Take a jacket bought for 8 euros in a bundle, resold for 45 euros.

Sale price: 45 euros. Purchase price: 8 euros. Platform fees: around 2 euros. Consumables: 0.60 euros. Gross margin: 34.40 euros, or 76 per cent of the sale price.

Now add the time. That jacket took you 15 minutes. At 34.40 euros for a quarter of an hour, you are at 137 euros an hour on this item. Excellent, and exactly what makes you want to keep going.

Run the same calculation on a t-shirt bought for 2 euros and resold for 7 euros: 7 minus 2, minus 0.60 in fees, minus 0.60 in consumables, and 3.80 euros are left for the same 15 minutes of work. That is 15 euros an hour. The item is profitable as a percentage; it is not in absolute terms.

Margin in consignment: the reasoning in reverse

In consignment, you do not set your purchase cost: you do not own the item, you sell it for someone else and take a commission. Your margin is therefore known in advance, which makes the calculation far easier to read.

The scales used in the trade work in price bands. On items up to 19 euros, the seller's commission runs around 60 per cent. Between 20 and 99 euros, around 50 per cent. Between 100 and 499 euros, around 40 per cent. Above 500 euros, around 20 per cent.

What feels counter-intuitive at first: your percentage falls as the item moves upmarket, but your margin in euros explodes. 60 per cent of 15 euros is 9 euros. 40 per cent of 200 euros is 80 euros. For an almost identical handling time.

Consignment has another advantage for cash flow: no capital tied up in stock, and therefore no risk of unsold items on your side. The trade-off is that you have to find consignors and keep them loyal, which is a job in itself.

Sell-through rate, the blind spot of the calculation

A per-item margin means nothing until you know what proportion of your stock actually moves.

On a typical batch, the observed sell-through follows a steady curve: about 50 per cent of items go in the first month, 30 per cent in the second, 20 per cent in the third. After three months, whatever is left calls for a decision: renegotiating the price, bundling, or clearing it out of stock.

Apply that curve to your calculation. If you buy a bundle of 30 items for 90 euros and only sell 22 of them, your real cost per item sold is not 3 euros but 4.09 euros. On tight margins, that gap is enough to turn a profitable deal into a break-even one.

That is also why sourcing weighs so heavily on the final margin. Our article on second-hand clothing sourcing explains how to pick a bundle to maximise the genuinely sellable share.

The three thresholds to know

Your average gross margin. The percentage left after the purchase price and direct costs, before your fixed costs. In reselling, a healthy business sits between 60 and 75 per cent. Below 50 per cent, you are buying too dear or selling too low.

Your hourly margin. Your monthly gross margin divided by the hours you actually worked. It is the most honest number in the trade, the one that tells you whether the activity is worth the time you put in. Below 20 euros an hour after six months, something has to change: the item selection, the average price, or the handling speed.

Your monthly break-even point. The amount of margin you need each month to cover your fixed costs: subscriptions, social contributions, equipment, any premises. Until you know that figure, you cannot tell whether a month at 900 euros of sales is good or bad. Our guide on the second-hand seller's business plan lays out this calculation step by step.

The three levers that really move the margin

Once the numbers are on the table, the order of priorities becomes obvious, and it is not the one you would expect.

The first lever is the average price of your items. Moving from an average basket of 12 euros to 22 euros almost doubles your hourly margin without a single extra minute of work. It is the most powerful lever, and it is decided entirely at the buying stage.

The second is the purchase price. A two-euro discount per item on a bundle of fifty is a hundred euros of extra margin, won in a single negotiation. Buying out of season falls under the same logic.

The third is handling time. Going from 18 to 12 minutes per item raises your hourly margin by a third. That comes from working in batches rather than item by item, a photo corner set up permanently, and reusable listing templates. Our article on a seller's weekly organisation details how this works.

What is not a lever, on the other hand: republishing your listings three times a day, or cutting your prices to speed up sales. The first creates no demand, the second destroys exactly what you are trying to measure.

The table to keep every month

Five lines are enough, and a spreadsheet does the job. Sales for the month in euros. Stock purchases for the month. Platform fees and consumables. Hours worked. Number of items sold.

From these five lines you derive the three numbers that steer the business: gross margin in euros and per cent, hourly margin, and average basket. Three months of tracking is enough to see a trend, six months to make solid decisions about your sourcing and your prices.

This table is also the basis of your tax return: the same figures feed your accounts, as explained in our guide on second-hand seller accounting. You may as well keep them once, cleanly.

As volume climbs, keeping it by hand quickly hits its limits: past two hundred items in stock, tracking cost of goods, margin and sell-through in a spreadsheet becomes a job in its own right. That is when professional sellers switch to tools dedicated to stock management and invoicing, like those featured on DressKare.

FAQ: calculating your second-hand margin

What margin should you aim for when selling second-hand?
In reselling, a healthy business clears between 60 and 75 per cent gross margin, meaning what is left after the purchase price and direct costs. Below 50 per cent, it is almost always the purchase price that is too high. In consignment, the margin is set by the commission scale, usually around 60 per cent on small items and 40 per cent on items above 100 euros.

Should you count your time in the margin calculation?
Yes, and it is the decisive figure. An item takes 12 to 18 minutes from start to finish, whatever its price. Your hourly margin, which is your monthly gross margin divided by your real hours, tells you whether the activity is worth the time you put in. Below 20 euros an hour after six months, you need to review your item selection or your average basket.

How do you split a bundle's price across the items?
Divide the bundle price by the total number of items, including the ones you will not sell. Then adjust for your real sell-through rate: on a bundle of 30 items bought for 90 euros of which 22 sell, the cost per item sold is 4.09 euros, not 3 euros. That gap is enough to tip a tight-margin deal.

What is the most effective lever to increase your margin?
The average price of the items you buy. Moving from an average basket of 12 to 22 euros almost doubles your hourly margin with no extra work, because the handling time is the same whatever the item's value. Next come negotiating the purchase price, then cutting the handling time by working in batches.

Revenue or margin: which should you track?
Margin, without hesitation. Revenue often rises at the exact moment profitability drops, because you buy more dearly to push volume. Track five lines every month: sales, stock purchases, costs, hours worked, items sold. They give the gross margin, the hourly margin and the average basket, which are the only three numbers that steer the business.