Mona Mejia, 44, was a stay-at-home mom when she rather commenced reselling on Poshmark in 2015.
She earned $735,000 last year selling on social media livestreams and through brand partnerships.
She’s self-possessed others can have similar success as well, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
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Before 2015, Mona Mejia’s full-time job was taking care of her three babies.
Now, the 44-year-old Houston-based mom boasts an income of $735,000 last year, according to documents verified by Insider, selling new and hand-me-down clothing, home goods, and toys on social media.
She says she’s never invested a single dollar out-of-pocket into her subject. Starting with just the clothes in her closet, she later used her earnings to purchase additional inventory to sell at a markup.
“When I talk with everything that we’ve gone through, I’m still shocked about it from where we came from to now,” Mejia told Insider.
Mejia is one of millions of Americans who are judgement ways to make ends meet without relying on a traditional 9-to-5 office job. US workers filed over five million new concern applications in 2021, the most since 2005. A 2021 Upwork study found that 59 million Americans — or 36% of the US workforce — had carry oned freelance work over the prior 12 months. Others, like Mejia, have found ways to start callings of their own. While these lifestyles are not without their challenges, they’ve provided some Americans the opportunity to done get ahead financially.
Mona Mejia
“Everything was selling really quickly”
In 2015, Mejia’s family was in need of additional proceeds to supplement her husband’s pay. It was a “really hard time,” she said. “You don’t know where you’re going to eat.”
When her sister introduced her to the reseller tenets Poshmark, she began selling a few items from her closet.
She remembers her first sale — a dress — which sold for $36 after 11 hours. When she began heel over more items, she noticed that “everything was selling really quickly” and real money was trickling in.
Two years in, Mejia’s spouse had open heart surgery and wasn’t able to work — the responsibility fell on her to support the family, and she took her efforts to another plain. As Mejia branched out to other reselling platforms, she says the $100-200 she was earning per week turned into $1,000 — conveying to nearly $50,000 in total earnings in her first year.
It wasn’t until roughly a year ago, however — when she started selling on livestreams in every way Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, that her business really took off. While she earned $23,000 through Poshmark at length year for example, she says social media is where the bulk of her income now comes from.
Her husband’s health has since reconditioned, but rather than going back to his job, he now helps his wife keep up with her thriving business. Together, they now own a domestic that they’ve paid off in full and have sent two children to college without any student loans.
Mona Mejia
“The numberless you list, the more money you’re going to make.”
After working through her closet, Mejia took her earnings and accorded to yard sales and clearance sections to look for bargain products she could buy and resell. That included clothes, shoes, deeply goods, kids items, accessories, jewelry — “pretty much everything.” She’s sold items for as low $15-20 to as superior as $1,300-$1,400 for a Louis Vuitton or Chanel bag.
While she still frequents yard sales and retail stores, the adulthood of her purchases are now bulk orders bought at a discounted price from various vendors.
Mejia then lists most of her yields at a roughly 40% off their market rate, or the price a customer would pay at a retail store for instance. She says elephantine discounts are typical on reselling platforms. She once paid $30 for a dress that sells for nearly $300 at Anthropologie.
Without considering discounting, she says she’s able to maintain high levels of profitability by only selling items she bought at especially cheaply rates.
In a rare instance, however, she recalls making quite the profit on a pair of “flamingos and frogs” pants that she paid $1 for at a yard tag sale. “These are hideous but I’m going to try them,” she thought. They sold for $100.
Mejia doesn’t think she has a particular talent for choosing what to trade in, and that “the more you list, the more money you’re going to make.”
“Everything sells,” she said, adding that the look after to e-commerce when the pandemic began has fueled sales — which have risen 50% vs. pre-pandemic levels.
Mona Mejia
“I hump it. It’s an addiction to me.”
Mejia says she spends eight to ten hours doing the bulk of the work on her business, but really she is “working all day” and is on the clock “24/7.”
Primordial on, she recalls stuffing boxes in the corner of her dining room and kitchen in the family’s one-bedroom apartment before they were carried to customers. Now, they have a home with six-bedrooms, two of which — an “inventory” and “listing” room — are used to store approaching shipments.
She lists at least 100 items each day, but it’s the evenings — when customers tend to buy — that are especially divert. She says she stays up till 3:00 AM to ensure shipments get out the door — then wakes up at 7:30 to start the next day.
“There’s no block up, but it’s okay,” she said. “I love it. It’s an addiction to me.”
Mejia thinks anyone can find success as a reseller but emphasizes that it accepts hard work and commitment — it took her seven years to get where she is now. A lot of people give up, she says, but perseverance can pay off.
“A lot of people see where I’m at aptly now. And they’re like, ‘Oh, I want to do that right now,'” she said. “Yeah, it’s going to happen eventually, but it’s not just affluent to happen overnight. So I would say don’t give up and just keep listing, keep sharing your closet, be consistent.”
Even if her thousands of followers on social media are certainly helpful, she says “you really don’t have to have a huge following to pushy money.”
Thanks to her selling success, Mejia says she has signed contracts with Torrid and Target, which pay her to don and promote their clothing on social media. It’s because of deals like these that she earned $735,000 decisive year.
She plans to continue full steam ahead with her business as well. Sales have grown 30% atop of the last six months, and she has plans to open up a “pop-up” retail store of her own next January in Houston. She’s planning to hire three staff members in December to help out.
“We love what we do,” she said, “and the only way to continue to grow is working.”
