The Resale Side Hustle Paying Gen Z in 2026

The resale side hustle just got its strongest evidence yet, and it explains why so many twenty-somethings are treating their closets like inventory. According to ThredUp's annual Resale Report, which analyzed payment data from Bank of America, the number of bank customers earning money from secondhand retailers grew 16 percent year over year in March, while the average monthly payout per seller climbed 13 percent over the same stretch. The same data shows that Gen Z now accounts for 41 percent of secondhand sellers so far this year, up from 37 percent in 2024.

That surge sits on top of a market quietly eating traditional retail's lunch. GlobalData, the analytics firm behind the report's market sizing, pegged the American secondhand clothing market at thirty billion dollars in 2025, growing nearly four times faster than new apparel sales. The study concludes resale is now taking a measurable share from new retail, with more than a third of clothing budgets flowing to preowned goods, according to Retail Brew's coverage of the findings. The timeline stacks up, too: the consumer survey was fielded in January and February, the bank's payment data runs through March, and fresh marketplace reports have kept landing through the fall.

How the resale side hustle pays right now

The reason selling works so well at the moment is that the customer base keeps refreshing itself. In the report's survey of 3,268 American adults, 57 percent said they resell items for income, more than double the previous year's share, and 52 percent of younger shoppers said they attempt to resell more than half of their wardrobes. Roughly two-thirds of young shoppers now weigh an item's future resale value before buying it, the survey found — a habit the company calls the resale flywheel, where every purchase gets evaluated like a small asset.

Why it matters: price pressure is the engine. The report found 72 percent of consumers say rising prices are directly changing how much they spend on clothes. For sellers, that pain is opportunity — every shopper hunting for deals is a potential buyer of your cast-offs. If you are weighing which extra-income route to try, our side-hustles hub tracks how different second gigs compare, and one recent piece explored why young workers now treat extra income as career insurance.

It is bigger than clothes

One of the biggest misconceptions about flipping is that it is a fashion-only game. OfferUp's 2026 recommerce report found that apparel makes up only 25 percent of the resale market; furniture and sporting goods are major categories too. The local marketplace reported that 54 percent of Gen Z consumers now choose secondhand goods over new ones most of the time, and that 22 percent of all respondents sold a preowned item for the first time in the past year, according to the write-up of the report. "Our mission is to build the most trusted platform to buy, sell, and connect locally," OfferUp CEO Todd Dunlap wrote in the report's introduction, adding that resale's move from the margins to the mainstream makes connecting local buyers and sellers more relevant than ever.

Resale side hustle reality check: fees, fakes, and competition

The glossy income screenshots leave out the costs. Poshmark takes a flat twenty percent on each sale, while eBay's take in fashion categories lands around thirteen percent depending on the seller's store level, according to a 2026 cross-listing guide published on Medium — a gap that can decide whether a flip is worth the effort. Competition is also thickening: analysts cited in a recent LinkedIn market breakdown now call supply, not demand, the industry's binding constraint, and retail-wide return rates sit near 17 percent. Scams are another drag — OfferUp found that 49 percent of its respondents feel meeting a buyer in person reduces the risk of getting scammed.

If you are starting from zero, the veterans' playbook is boring on purpose. Sell your own closet first — it is free inventory, and it teaches you pricing, photos, and shipping before you spend a cent. List items that hold value: the survey data shows shoppers increasingly skip low-quality fast fashion because it cannot be resold, so aim for brands with staying power. Cross-list the same item on two platforms rather than betting on one, and price with fees in mind, since a profitable-looking listing shrinks fast once the platform takes its share.

The bottom line is that this side hustle has crossed from hobby to habit — and the numbers suggest it still has room to run. With both the seller count and average payouts climbing through this year, the resale side hustle looks less like a trend and more like a permanent feature of how young people earn.