Turn $5 into $103 Selling on eBay: The Art of the Part-Out

What is a "Part-Out" and Why Does it Work?

During your "treasure-hunting" (what we call sourcing), you will often find high-quality, name-brand small appliances that are untested or slightly incomplete, the right brands and/or models often are small gold mines.

A "part-out" involves taking a single item made of several components and selling those pieces individually. 

Customers often break just one part—like a plastic lid or a bowl—and they don’t want to spend $200 on a brand-new machine. They go to marketplaces like eBay, Poshmark, and Mercari to find a used replacement part.

By supplying these parts, you can achieve a staggering Return on Investment (ROI). In this example, we’re going to look at a Cuisinart DLC-2011 food processor that we picked up at a local church rummage sale for just $5.00.

Why Part-out this food model of processor? Why not test the entire set and sell it as one, whole unit?

Very few complete and working units, that is the electrical base motor with all attachments, sell; and the average price for everything in the picture above fetches anywhere from $70-$90, the few times per year a complete appliance sells in this combination.

• The base unit (the motorized piece) is fairly heavy (and has expensive shipping costs paid by the buyer), and has low demand (Cuisinart manufactures long-lasting products so they usually do not simply 'stop working').
• The attachments are made of plastic and break easily, or sometimes the blades become dull, break, or simply do not work as well as when they were new. These parts, sold separately, do not weigh more than a pound each, are easier to package, easier to ship and cost the buyer much less for shipping, and customers only spend money on the parts they need to replace versus having to buy a whole, complete food processor with all attachments.

This is a reseller's opportunity to match product with a buyer--customers search eBay and other marketplaces for their food processor's parts and we provide the replacements.

Below is a picture showing the five listings we've created from this one unit, totaling about $103.00 as listed.

See for yourself on eBay; you'll find the parts for Showtime Rotisserie ovens, George Foreman grills, Cuisinart ice cream makers, Ninja air-fryers, and so on all have the same type of decent sales.

You're not limited to only kitchen appliances--anything you find that has multiple parts, attachments or components can be parted-out. Happy Reselling!