Thrift RoutesNotes from the racks

After the haul

Was the thrift run worth it?

4 min read

A good find and a good trip are different stories. The jacket is the story you tell. The trip is whether the day paid.

Ask how the morning went and you will hear about the jacket. Four dollars. Looks like ninety. Ask what the morning cost and the room gets quiet. People remember the register. They forget the miles, the listing night, and the six things that will never leave the maybe pile.

Four numbers. Three of them are the ones people skip.

The four numbers I write down

  1. Cash spent. What left your wallet at the register. Everyone has this one.
  2. Miles driven. Converted to money. Not fuel only. Tires, brakes, the repair you will pay for later. Vehicles wear out by the mile.
  3. Hours spent. Driving, shopping, and listing. An unlisted haul is a pile of clothes on a table.
  4. Realistic resale. Not the sum of the best sold comps. What you expect to net after fees and shipping, times the share you expect to sell.

Why fuel-only mileage flatters every route

Gas is the cost you can see at the pump, so it is the cost people count. The honest cost of a mile is higher. The IRS publishes a standard mileage rate each year for that reason, and if you treat this as a business, that rate is generally what you would deduct. Look up the current-year figure on the IRS standard mileage rates page and use it as your per-mile input. Do not copy last year's number into a notebook and leave it there.

Cost per item is your real buy price

Add cash to mileage. Divide by the number of items you will list. Not the number you bought. The number that survives the kitchen-table condition check, under the real lights, when you are no longer in the store. That figure is your cost basis. It is always higher than the tag.

Same haul, counted two ways. Worked example, not a target.
LineTag-price viewAll-in view
Cash spent$68$68
Mileage (54 miles)not countedmiles × your per-mile rate
Items bought2222
Items that survive the home check2217
Cost per listable item$3.09cash plus miles, divided by 17

Those $68 / 54 miles / 22 bought / 17 kept figures are the defaults in the sourcing trip calculator. Plug yours. The gap between tag-price and all-in is the point. Your buy ceiling at the rack should sit against the all-in number.

Break-even sell-through

You will not sell everything. Some of it sits. Some of it was nicer under store lighting. So the question is not 'is my haul worth more than I paid.' It is: what fraction do I need to sell to get the trip back.

Break-even sell-through = total trip cost ÷ (expected net per sold item × items listed).

Worked example with those same defaults. Trip costs $105 all-in, 17 listed, you net $22 on a typical sale: 105 ÷ (22 × 17) = 28%. About five of the seventeen get you even. Above that is profit. If that percentage climbs past about 60%, the trip is thin. Normal attrition will eat it. Sixty is a rule of thumb I use, not a law.

Profit per hour is what changes Saturday

Cost per item tells you what to pay. Profit per hour tells you whether to leave the house. Count every hour the trip ate: drive, shop, wash, photograph, list, pack. For a lot of us the listing tail is longer than the sourcing. That is why how fast you can list quietly caps how far you can drive.

Run it for a couple of months. One or two stores carry the route. A couple of stops are nostalgia.

How do I calculate profit per hour on a sourcing trip?
Take expected net proceeds (resale minus platform fees and shipping, times your realistic sell-through), subtract cash and mileage, then divide by every hour including cleaning, photos, and listing. Listing is the block people drop. It is often the largest one.
What mileage rate should a reseller use?
Use the current IRS standard mileage rate for business use, not a fuel-only guess. It folds in depreciation, maintenance, and tires. The rate changes. Check the IRS page in January.
What is a good sell-through rate for thrifted inventory?
There is no universal figure. Category and pricing decide it. Work out the sell-through a trip needs to break even, then compare that to what your last few hauls did. If a trip needs more than about 60% to break even, I treat it as thin.
Should I count my own time as a cost?
Count the hours, always. Putting a dollar wage on them is your call. You cannot compare two routes, or decide to stay home and list, without knowing what each hour returned.

Disclosure Thrift Routes is published by the team behind FlowLister, which turns item photos into a complete eBay listing: title, item specifics, sold-comp pricing, shipping, and publishing. We built it, so treat this as a disclosure, not a review. The guides and calculator work the same if you never open it.

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