Resale

A reseller is a company or individual (merchant) that purchases goods or services with the intention of selling them rather than consuming or using them. Individual resellers are often referred to as middle men. This is usually done for profit (but can be done at a loss). One example can be found in the industry of telecommunications, where companies buy excess amounts of transmission capacity or call time from other carriers and resell it to smaller carriers. Resale can be seen in everyday life from yard sales to selling used cars.

According to the Institute for Partner Education & Development, a reseller's product fulfillment–based business model includes a corporate reseller, retail seller, direct market reseller (DMR), and an internet retailer (eTailer); less than 10 percent of its revenue comes from services.

Internet

Resellers are known to conduct operations on the Internet through sites on the web.

Another common example of this is in the web hosting area, where a reseller will purchase bulk hosting from a supplier with the intention of reselling it to a number of consumers at a profit.

Software and ebooks

Software and ebooks are two products that are very easy to obtain by resellers. Their digital format makes them ideal for internet distribution. In many cases, such as brandable software, the reseller can obtain even the right to change the name of the software and claim it as one's own and resell it on an ebook shop hosting platform.

A software reseller is a consultant who sells the software from large companies under a licence. They have no legal employment status with the parent company and generally operate on a freelance basis.

Business model

The companies visited to and pitched to by software resellers are often small and medium enterprises (SMEs), local businesses and niche operators. This benefits the software house as they may not hold the resources for the legwork needed to spread their network on a lower scale. While it benefits the reseller because they can build up networks of smaller clients and become a single point of contact for them for every aspect concerned with the software, be it advice, training or updating.

Sustainability

Reselling creates a circulation of products, whether that be clothes, technology, books, etc. This circulation extends the lifespan of products and reduces the amount of waste in landfills. A used product purchased over a new one, such as clothing, is capable of saving about 1 kilograms of waste, 22 kilograms of CO2, and 3,040 liters of water.

The rise of resale

$175 billion is the amount that Global Data predicted for the total resale market of 2023 in the United States. But in fact, Global Data confirms that this value was exceeded and in 2023 the total resale market reached approximately $193.7 billion.

History

Dating back to the Middle Ages, trading of secondhand clothing was common for impoverished communities. Although the concept of "thrifting" sprouted long before, it wasn't until the formation of official organizations such as The Salvation Army and Goodwill that secondhand clothing/items flourished. Even though the popularity of resale/secondhand items fluctuates, it remains familiar in the 21st century.

Artificial intelligence

AI is being used in the works of resale, allowing resellers to automatically purchase high-demand products without actively being present. With such technology, resellers can focus on other important tasks all while getting their inventory at the best possible price with the help of AI. This doesn't mean that people should disregard their involvement with business purchases, as it remains essential for resellers to monitor expenses and participate in decision-making.

See also

* Value-added reseller
* Price discrimination
* First-sale doctrine
* Recommerce
* Ticket resale

References

External links

{{Wiktionary

Business terms
Sales