Who knew that online flea markets were a thing?
You don’t even have to leave your house to get flea market deals anymore!
You’re still able to buy and sell to your heart’s content and may even find larger selections with online marketplaces.
Flea markets are great because it’s so fun to browse through things for sale and find some rare gems, vintage clothing, handmade goodies or simply find unique items that are out of this world.
It’s eco-friendly to buy second-hand items, but online flea markets have great deals on unused or lightly used items that would otherwise end up in the trash or just lay around someone’s home.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the best online flea market sites and why we think they can offer the goods you can’t find anywhere else- at least in person these days!
Turn your passion for visiting thrift stores, yard sales & flea markets into a profitable Reselling Business!
Virtual Flea Markets: A New Way to Shop Online
The internet is truly the world’s largest wonder, where you can find sites for just about all your wants and needs!
For me, online shopping is usually about buying gifts for the family- clothing, jewelry, even art pieces- and you can’t beat the prices from a flea market!
As a savvy mom that loves to make money or find amazing deals, these online flea markets were game-changing.
You probably know all about normal flea markets like we do, but have you browsed any online flea markets before? Have you ever tried using one to find antiques or collectibles?
Because wow, the listings are endless and unique items are right there waiting for you!
There are all kinds of items and categories to search through to purchase antiques, handmade goods, and more!
You can search by category, put in your price range, and all sorts of filters- something you can’t do at any old garage sale!
That’s great news if you are looking for something specific, want to find the best price, or just want to browse from an array of options.
What’s even better is that most online flea markets are free to use and even have free stuff up for grabs too!
Plus joining an online flea market as a seller isn’t a bad option either- if you make your own art, jewelry, or clothing, you could join any of these sites as a side hustle to make money!
If you want to get into flipping items for profit and sell on online flea markets, check out the Flea Market Flipping course.
10 Online Flea Markets
Let’s look at some of the best online flea markets that will make you a lot of money:
1. eBay
Best For: Branded items, unusual/rare items
When you are looking for places to buy or sell, it’s impossible not to mention eBay! It’s free to use, has plenty of sellers, and you’ll be amazed at what you can find on this website.
We love this online flea market and eBay is definitely one of the sites we recommend the most.
It’s a vastly popular auction site, so you’re able to find deals and stuff from art, antiques, and collectibles to jewelry, clothing, and toys.
This is also a good site to resell your unused items, even jewelry.
eBay has nearly 200 million users, which means there will always be a multitude of things to buy and there will be a lot of people looking to buy from you.
eBay is an incredibly successful platform and a household name, which is why people continue to flock to it when they are looking for an online flea market.
When you browse, you can find all sorts of items and prices, even free stuff, so you can
The two ways that you can sell (or buy) on eBay are auction or “buy it now”.
An auction is where an item will be listed with a minimum price, and potential buyers can bid on the item and compete against each other for who can win the item at the best price for you.
The Buy It Now option is where the seller will list the item for a fixed price, where you can buy the item straight away for an immediate sale instead of waiting for the auction to end.
A great thing about eBay is the buyer and seller protection that they offer – they are there to give people a good experience and their customer support is awesome.
How to Sign up for eBay
You can sign up for eBay using your Facebook, Google, or Apple account, or just with your normal email.
2. Facebook
Best For: Big, bulky items that people can come and collect from you
Facebook may not be a platform that you think about when you think about online flea markets, but it’s one of the best places to sell your things and make some money on Facebook.
It’s a lot more casual than many of the other options, but you can get a lot of success there as lots of people will be looking.
You can easily browse by category and filter for the best results, which makes their app better to use for buyers, and more similar to actual stores.
You can list free stuff, collectibles, vintage goods- whatever you want! You can even decide to do local sales or sell around the world.
An added benefit of selling locally is you can save on shipping costs and make an immediate sale if you offer to meet up.
There are often separate Facebook groups for local buying and selling, which can be found by searching your local area + buying/selling and some should pop up.
Online flea market Facebook – there’s also a marketplace (called Facebook Marketplace!) where you can list items or shop for yourself.
If you are buying, you can search for specific items or browse by category e.g. Electronics, Entertainment, Pet Supplies, and more.
If you want to learn how to make more money from Facebook, we recommend checking out the Facebook Side Hustle course.
How to Sign up for Facebook
To sign up for Facebook Marketplace, you’ll need to have a Facebook account.
To sign up for a Facebook profile, you’ll need to go to the site and select sign up.
Then you will need to enter your details – your name, date of birth, gender, mobile number or email address, password and you’re good to go!
3. Etsy
Best For: Handmade, unique items
Etsy is an online marketplace that specializes in handmade goods and is widely known as one of the best online flea markets you can join to buy and sell.
You can sell both physical and digital items on Etsy, which makes it a popular place to sell for those in the craft industry.
If you sell on Etsy, you’ll have to research how to get your listings higher up on search results. When you’re on the top page, people are more likely to purchase from you!
A lot of people who are successful on Etsy market their business on social media channels to direct people to their Etsy store.
How to Sign up for Etsy
To sign up for Etsy they ask that you first read through their Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
After doing that, you can click on Register at the top of the site to get started.
Fill out the form that comes up, then head over to your email inbox to find the confirmation email to begin.
After that, go back to Etsy and sign in, and click Open a Shop, if that’s what you’re planning on doing on Etsy!
You can also take a course like Printables by Number to learn how to sell digital printables.
4. Poshmark
Best For: Clothes, particularly branded/expensive items
Poshmark is an online social marketplace where you can buy and sell new or second-hand items, best known for its wide selection of clothing and fashion accessories.
There are 70 million users, with over 200 million items listed by sellers across the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
To be an active seller of Poshmark, you simply have to take a photo of your item, fill in a description of it, and upload it at your desired price.
The shipping and sale of Poshmark items are really easy too- they handle it all for you so you can focus on selling.
When you sell your item on Poshmark, they will give you a prepaid, pre-addressed label to put on your box, which you can then drop off at a USPS mailbox or have it picked up.
The website is very easy to use and user-friendly, which must be why the popularity of this online flea market has shot up so quickly!
How to Sign up for Poshmark
It’s really easy to sign up for Poshmark – you just need to fill in some of your information (name, email, username, password, gender, and country).
You need to make sure that your country is listed as the one where you will ship items from.
5. vFlea
Best For: Antiques, collectibles, or rare/unusual items
vFlea is an online virtual flea market that is free to list on and you can have your own shop on the site which is pretty cool if you want more control over your stuff.
You can haggle for the best price on items that you want to buy, and something that’s unique to vFlea (out of this list) is that you can barter (trade) your items.
If an item is listed as Barter, the sellers can accept a haggle offer (cash only) or a Barter offer. It’s worth noting that they don’t have to accept the highest Barter offer.
You can also submit a Wanted item if there is something that you want to buy but cannot find listed.
You have to pay a commission on sold items on vFlea and also a flat fee. This is how it looks:
- $50 sold: 3% commission, $1.50 flat fee
- $300 sold: 3% commission, $9 fee
- $2000 sold: 3% commission, $60 fee
- $4000 sold: flat fee commission, $60 fee
How to Sign up for vFlea
It’s free to sign up for vFlea and really easy to do. You just need to add a site name, email/username (for when you will log in), password, and your name.
6. Bonanza
Best For: Anything and everything!
Bonanza was started by entrepreneurs specifically for other entrepreneurs, which means that they’ve tried hard to make it easy to use and accessible for all.
Bonanza is a very unique online flea market, and similar to eBay in how you browse and navigate it, and the website has a few more capabilities than some of its market competitors.
They have various tools that they use to make selling on there easier, such as automatic eBay, Amazon, and Shopify inventory syncing!
They have no listing fees, no monthly store fees, or any hidden fees. The fees that you do have to pay are based on the Final Offer Value:
- FOV under $500: 3.5% of FOV for standard booths
- FOV over $500: 3.5% of FOV for standard booths + a flat fee of 1.5% of the amount over $500
How to Sign up for Bonanza
Creating a Bonanza profile is easy – you just need to click on ‘Register’ at the top of the screen and then fill in your information (username, email, password, postal code, and country).
7. Amazon
Best For: Anything sells on Amazon! Home goods, toys, gym equipment, books, and more
If you haven’t heard of Amazon right now then you must have been living under a rock!
Amazon is the biggest online marketplace out there, which means that there are a lot of people looking to potentially buy your item – but this also means that there is a lot of competition in this space.
It’s really easy to buy on Amazon, with a few different options for selling. You can list as you would on any of the other sites, or you could choose to use Amazon FBA to flip items for sale.
Amazon FBA stands for fulfillment by Amazon. What usually happens is, you make a sale and then post the item out. Amazon FBA is different because you will ship the item directly to Amazon, which handles shipping for you once it’s sold.
A lot of people who want to make easy money on Amazon do this, because it means that you don’t have to worry about shipping, and you don’t have to hold all of the inventory.
How to Sign up for Amazon
Selling on Amazon is a bit more complicated than having a shop or profile on other sites, as when you sell on Amazon you usually will be taking things a bit more seriously.
Before you start, select which plan you want to use – Individual or Professional. If you sell more than 40 items a month then you will need to go for the Professional plan.
The fees change based on what seller type you’ll be: for the Individual plan it’s $0.99 per item sale and for the Professional plan, it’s $39.99 per month.
In addition, either plan can have added fees on stuff
To complete the registration you will need to provide a business mail address, credit card information, valid passport or I.D., and company registration details.
8. Thredup
Best For: Branded items, Fashion
Thredup is an online consignment and thrift store, which has a mission to create a more sustainable fashion-forward future.
Did you know that 1 in 2 people throw their clothes straight into the trash? Not only that but 73% is sent to landfill when 95% of it could be reused or recycled.
The categories of top-sellers are women’s, kid’s and fashion accessories e.g. handbags, shoes.
The best thing about Thredup is that they will do all of the hard work for you – which is perfect if you are in a rush to get rid of your old clothes and don’t want the hassle of listing them all individually.
They will send you a clean-up kit, which you can put the items that you want to sell in, and then send it off to them to sell for you.
How to Sign up for ThredUp
If you are going to be selling on ThredUp then you will need to apply for a clean-out kit.
You can do this either with your email, Facebook, or Amazon account details and then set a password.
They will send a kit out to you, which you will send back with the items that you are selling.
9. Fleabay
Best For: Quirky or unusual items that you would typically find at a flea market
Fleabay is a very laid-back website that started in 2011 as a way to offer people a place to sell things as you would at a flea market.
The potential buyers will ask you questions about the things that you have for sale on your table and negotiate a price with you. We love this, as it’s a way of making a real flea market into an online flea market. Fun!
There are quite a few prohibited items, so make sure that you have a read-through of the rules of what you can and cannot sell on Fleabay.
How to Sign up for Fleabay
To join Fleabay you just need to enter some of your information, such as your username, email, password, city, state, zip/postal code, and country.
10. 5miles
Best For: Anything! Sell vintage items, collectibles, art, and much more
5miles was launched in 2014 and was made to create the best experience for buying and selling online.
It has become a top online flea market for the good prices, user-friendly experience, and vast categories of stuff you can buy and sell!
To get started with selling on the site, all that you need to do is take a photo of the item, add a description (the more detailed the better), and upload it!
5miles works by sending your phone’s location to buyers and sellers in your area, so it deals with local sales- making easier shipping for you and a nice way for you to shop too.
How to Sign up for 5miles
It’s easy to sign up for 5miles – you just need to log in using your Facebook login.
Tips & Tricks to Sell Online
Turn your passion for visiting thrift stores, yard sales & flea markets into a profitable Reselling Business!
1. Trash to Treasure- Stuff that You Should Sell
When you are new to selling online, you’ll probably look round at things you could sell and declare that no one would be interested in them – in which case, we’d tell you to stop right there!
There are so many things that people are looking for or are interested in buying, and we recommend listing them all and seeing what stuff can make money.
2. Which Website to Use
When it comes to which website you should use out of all those we listed, there’s no one best one for everything. It comes down to where your potential buyers will be (and sellers – it goes both ways).
If you aren’t sure which ones to sell on, do some searching on each to see if people are selling and buying the same items as you.
You can find sites like Craigslist that have easy listings- and even free listings!
3. Check Similar Listings
As well as checking if people are selling similar things as you, you can also check out what kind of photos they have put on, and what they have put in their description.
4. Describe it All
As much as you may think that people can get a good idea of the item that you are selling through the photos, it’s always best to put lots of information on it, especially if it is second-hand.
If there are any kinds of marks or damage on the item, make sure that you list this in detail in the description.
Take measurements of your item, you could also put an object next to it to show the size difference.
5. Take Good Pictures
When you are selling online, the most important thing is to take good pictures of the objects you want to sell.
That doesn’t mean that you have to suddenly become a professional photographer or buy lots of fancy camera equipment – you just need a decent enough camera (your phone will probably do) and natural lighting.
If you want to sell online flea market clothes then a mannequin would be great – but alternatively, you could hang it up against a neutral background.
This is where it’s a good idea to check out the listings of sellers who are doing well on the platform. Do their photos have something in common?
Bonus: Let’s Find You Great Deals
Sites like these will check for coupons, deals, market prices, and more to make sure you can shop smart and find the best options for your purchase.
1. Honey
One of our favorite hacks for saving money is to use Honey, which is a Chrome extension.
All that you need to do is add Honey as an extension, then it will do the hard work for you.
You know when you go to check out when buying something, and either forget to look for a coupon/discount code, or waste a bit of time trying to find one?
This is where Honey comes in, as it will automatically search for discount codes when you go to check out from particular shops. It can save you so much money!
2. Capital One Shopping
Capital One Shopping is an online shopping tool extension that you can add to your browser.
When you go to check out on specific sites, it will run through any potential discount codes for you – much like Honey as mentioned above.
You can also search for products within the extension and see if there are any available discounts.
For more money-saving apps, we recommend Rakuten and Ibotta, to save even more money on your purchases.
3. Srchie
Srchie is the self-proclaimed world’s largest online flea market.
There are so many things that you can buy and sell through this flea market, but it’s most known for antiques, vintage, and collectible items.
Therefore if you have things to sell which you think are of a higher value, Srchie may be the best place to get the highest price. And as a buyer, this is a great site to find some rare pieces!
Final Thoughts
Buying and selling online has never been more fun, or easier! If you are a big fan of flea markets but haven’t been able to get out to them, an online flea market could be perfect for you.
We definitely recommend signing up to the different sites and giving them a go! We think this is the perfect side hustle for you.
Turn your passion for visiting thrift stores, yard sales & flea markets into a profitable Reselling Business!
