eBay Niche Product – Company Logo Clothing and Giveaways

by: Skip McGrath

I got this idea from one of my customers who lives in Silicon Valley. Over the years going to trade shows, parties and events she found she had a collection of T-shirts, polo shirts, hats, pens and other things with company logos on them. They were mostly from companies such as IBM, Apple, Oracle, and Netscape and so on. One day she was cleaning out her closet and decided since she never wore them she would put them on eBay.

She was hoping to get a few dollars each, but was astounded when some of them sold for $30 and higher. She raised several hundred dollars just from the stuff around her house. Next she reasoned that people probably give these sorts of things away, so she started checking the thrift shops in her area. They were loaded with t-shirts, polo shirts and jackets from all sorts of companies. She managed to raise over $3000 that she used to start her eBay business by selling these items.

I did some searching on eBay and was astounded to find all types of logo merchandise selling at very high prices and with very good sell through rates. Here is one example of a search for Apple T-shirts for a 7 day period. This shows 6 listings. There were actually 7, but my screenshot program couldn’t pick up the bottom one. It was a listing for a polo shirt with the Apple Logo and it sold for $48. So out of 6 listings over a 7 day period (one of the listings below is not an Apple Computer product) all of them sold except one and the prices ranged from $48 to $74.52.

I also looked for other high-priced t-shirts and logo goods. You don’t have to live in silicon valley. I saw T-shirts selling from insurance companies, airlines, railroads, trucking companies, movies, drug companies and almost every type of company you could think of. Not all of them commanded prices over $40 or $50, but lots of them were selling in the $10 to $25 range. When you consider that most people get them for free, or that you can buy them at a thrift shop for under $1.00, that is a pretty good markup.

It is not just T-shirts. I also saw company logo ball caps, pens, coffee mug, watches and all sorts of other things selling very well. The lady who told me about this niche related one interesting story. Occasionally she would find a uniform shirt or cap from FedEx. Every time she put it up on eBay, someone at FedEx whose job it was to do this would immediately Buy it now at what ever price she was asking. It seems that FedEx doesn’t want people out there wearing their clothes or uniform items as they fear they might impersonate a real FedEx driver.

Although not company logos, the other T-shirts that sell for insanely high prices are concert T-Shirts. Look at this list of completed auctions for a four-day period on eBay. All of the listed shirts sold for prices ranging from $129 to $160. These are a little harder to find, but they do turn up at thrift shops and used clothing stores, so you might want to keep your eyes open for them too.

There is a large chain of used clothing stores located around the US called Value Village in the West and Midwest and Savers in the East. You can find a store locator here. The last time I was there I found three concert T-shirts, two from ZZ Top and one from an Elton John concert. I sold the Elton John T-Shirt for $49 and the ZZ Top T-shirts went for $27 and $23. They cost me 50-cents each. That is a pretty good markup. I also found an eBay Live T-Shirt from New Orleans that I hadn’t worn. I put in on eBay and it sold for the BIN price of $29 the first day. I think I paid $9.99 for it.

So bottom line this is a really profitable niche market that anyone can do. If you can source the products easily it could even make enough to be a real full-time eBay business.