School life is pretty hard by itself. Having a job takes time and can even get frustrating, but junior Mason Bosco has sailed smoothly through both.
Bosco started his reselling business two years ago. He buys clothing items from thrift stores such as Goodwill and proceeds to resell them on eBay.
“On the weekends, going to Goodwill isn’t that big of a deal, because it’s actually kind of fun,” Bosco said. “But listing is pretty hard, because sometimes I’ll buy $100 or 100 items of stuff. Then, listing takes a long time, so I’m not even done listing all the stuff that I’ve bought over the past month.”
Maintaining a side hustle can be difficult for high school students since they have to balance the job and their homework, but Bosco manages to keep both things under control.
“I do most of (my work) on the weekends, so when I’m not going out to Goodwill I’m just listing,” Bosco said. “It’s pretty much separated from my school life.”
To start his reselling business, Bosco had to adapt and learn from the market. This included using eBay’s special research feature which allows a user to check the average sell price for an object.
“When I first started it was pretty hard because I had to take out my phone and look up the brand for every single thing I bought because I didn’t know any of them,” Bosco said. “But now that I’ve done this for almost every brand, I kind of know what’s worth money, but I still have to research sometimes.”
Yet sometimes things won’t sell. The market is constantly changing and so are people’s interests, so there are times when what went up one day won’t be as high the next.
“There’s always things that aren’t going to sell, but because the stuff I’m buying is so cheap, usually the other things I do sell will make up for it,” Bosco said. “I’ve had to learn what’s not going to sell; right now, there’s stuff that I haven’t sold in the past three months.”
To maximize his profit, Bosco has implemented a method that allows him to keep making profit even if things don’t sell.
“You need to have a place to put everything,” Bosco said. “I would just buy a bunch of stuff and stop worrying if it’s not selling in the first two weeks, because the biggest thing is making your stock.”
But to have such a large stock, Bosco has had to work on a better storage system to fuel his business.
“I’ve got this pool room where I have a billiards table that we don’t really use anymore,” Bosco said. “And so I’ve just got a pretty big room with clothes racks and some shelves for my shoes. If you keep buying stuff you’ll make a profit eventually.”
Student side hustles are no new occurrence at the school. In 1998 Assistant Director of Admissions Korey Mack ‘00 started his first business, a DJ business that was inspired by his dad.
“One time I was playing with my dad’s turntables and he told me to go to the County Record Office and start a business,” Mack said. “He said if I did that he would buy me my first speakers and turntables, and that turned into Start the Party Entertainment, which I still run today.”
Mack has only grown his business from there, expanding to DJ different events and also creating a bounce house business that has taught him various lessons, including how to adapt and grow his business.
“During COVID I had to be more creative when renting out the bounce houses,” Mack said. “I had to shift from larger corporations like churches and school parties to personal parties since no one was having big parties.”
The ability to adapt and shift his business was a crucial part in Mack expanding his company. He quickly expanded his inventory from five bounce houses to over 20 inflatable structures. This expanded inventory, however, led to new challenges with distribution to customers.
“When you have more inventory you have to still be able to have high quality service, you can’t compromise quality just because you have more things to sell,” Mack said. “If you treat a customer well, then they tell their friends, which leads to more business.”
