Black Friday Discounts for Resellers: How Much Can You Take Off?

Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November this year, and buyers will expect a discount. Before you take 20% or 30% off everything, work out the lowest price each item can sell for without losing money. That number is your break-even price, and the gap between it and your current price is the most you can give away.

The short answer

The most you can discount an item is its price minus its break-even price. Break-even is the price at which the platform's fees and what the item cost you add up to exactly what the buyer pays. Anything below it loses money on that sale.

For an item listed at £40 that breaks even at £20, the most you can take off is £20, or 50%. A 20% discount keeps most of your margin. A 50% discount leaves you with nothing.

Step 1: add up what the item really cost you

Start with everything you spent to get the item ready to sell, not just the buy price:

• the price you paid, including any delivery to you
• cleaning, repairs or authentication
• packaging for the parcel you'll send
• postage, if you pay it and the buyer doesn't

If you track your stock in a spreadsheet or an app, this is the cost you've already recorded against the item. If you don't, it's worth doing before the rush, because Black Friday orders arrive in bulk and it's easy to lose track of what you paid for what.

Step 2: work out the fees at a lower price

Most platform fees are a percentage of the sale price, so they shrink when you discount. Some have a fixed part or a minimum that doesn't. That's why you can't just subtract the discount from your profit: you need the fees at the new price.

Three examples with this year's UK fees:

Fees change, so check the current ones in our Vinted, Depop and StockX fee calculators before you set prices.

Step 3: find your break-even price

Break-even is the price where what the platform pays you equals what the item cost you. Here are three worked examples.

A jacket on Vinted

You paid £8 and listed it at £20. On Vinted in the UK the buyer pays Vinted's fee on top, so you keep the full £20 and make £12. Your break-even price is your cost, £8. A 25% discount (£15) still leaves £7 of profit.

A hoodie on Depop

You paid £18 and spent £0.50 on packaging, so it cost you £18.50. You list it at £40 and the buyer pays £4 postage. Depop's fee is 2.9% of £44 plus £0.30, which is £1.58, so you make £19.92.

• At 20% off (£32), the fee drops to £1.34 and you make £12.16.
• Break-even is £19.48, so the most you can take off is about 51%.

Trainers on StockX

You bought a pair at retail for £110 and ask £180. At seller level 1, StockX takes 12% in total, £21.60, so you make £48.40.

• At 15% off (£153), fees are £18.36 and you make £24.64.
• Break-even is £125, so the most you can take off is about 30%.

The reseller profit calculator does this for you. Enter what you paid, your price and the platform, and it shows your break-even price and the largest discount you can give.

Step 4: choose a discount for each item, not one for the whole shop

A flat 30% off everything sounds simple, but on the StockX pair above it turns a £48 profit into a loss. Some ways to keep it safe:

• Discount by margin. Items with a wide gap between price and break-even can take a bigger discount. Items close to break-even can sit this one out.
• Clear old stock first. An item that has been listed for months is tying up cash. Selling it near break-even frees that money to buy stock that sells.
• Use bundle discounts. A discount on two or more items from the same buyer raises the order value, and you pay postage and packaging once.
• Set a floor for offers. Buyers send more offers in Black Friday week. Know each item's break-even price so you can accept or decline quickly.

After Black Friday

Once the orders are out, compare what you planned with what happened: which items sold, at what discount, and what you actually made after fees. That tells you which discounts brought sales and which only cut your margin, and it's the starting point for next year.

If you price items one by one, our older guide to pricing strategy for resellers covers cost-plus and market-based pricing in more detail.