'I made £1million reselling mystery return pallets - and quit my full-time job'

A woman has quit her job at the council and has nearly made £1million from reselling pallets of returned goods.

Emma Hamilton, 33, earned £25,000-a-year in her former role, and began buying and selling return pallets as a hobby.

Retailers like Amazon bundle up and resell items returned to it by consumers – but then resell these to other businesses rather than relist them.

The items can be returned for being defective, not wanted by the customer, or any other reason.

Hamilton found her hobby was becoming so successful she quit her old role to focus on pallet sales full time.

Now she sells £50,000 of items a month on average, and makes £10,000 profit each time, according to the Irish Mirror .

Her new venture has been so successful she’s hired out a warehouse and staff to help out.

Have you been successful buying and selling returns pallets? Message mirror.money.saving@mirror.co.uk

Hamilton has also starred in the Channel 4 TV programme Bidding Wars, which sees teams of resellers battle to make the biggest profits.

She told the Irish Mirror: “After doing it for a year or so, I was able to cut back on my working hours and then eventually resell on Amazon full time.

“But when you buy a pallet you’re not quite sure what’s going to be there. In a pallet of games I bought for £700 was a returned PS4. We opened it up and tried it and it worked.

“It came along with mixed electrical components and some gaming items. We sold just the PS4 for around £450, so one article covered most of the platform.”

Hamilton said if she buys a pallet for around £700, she can earn up to five times that amount reselling the items.

In countries like the US it is pretty easy for individuals to buy return pallets.

In the UK it is slightly trickier, as most of these pallets have to be bought by businesses, not consumers.

There is as practical reason too – often retailers sell returned goods by the lorryload.

But the good news is that being a car boot salesperson or eBayer can count, as does being a shop, market trader or auctioneer.

Two pallet resellers are Mart Hill and Gem Wholesale, while Bstock just handles Amazon return pallets.

What can you find in a returns pallet?

These pallets lump together items into broad categories like ‘ electrical ‘, ‘clothing and footwear’ or, for a real lottery, ‘miscellaneous’.

An electrical pallet might contain a random assortment of toasters, kettles, microwaves and so on.

But there are some serious bargains on offer.

For example, a pallet of electrical items originally sold for £1,682.67 is on sale at Gem Wholesale for £370.19 – 22% of the original price.

A small pallet of toys sold to customers for £1,851.77 is on sale for £370.35, or 20% of what the goods first sold for.

What are the risks?

Firstly you can have little to no idea what’s in the pallet you buy – although some give a rough breakdown.

However, these breakdowns might not give the full picture.

For example, one ‘miscellaneous’ pallet lists one of the items as a ‘6 litre blue mini fridge’ – but not the manufacturer.

There is also little guarantee what condition everything in the pallet is, or if it is good enough to be resold.

If you do buy a pallet with a lot of duff items, you have no return rights.

How to get discounted Amazon items as a consumer

Amazon has a little-known part of its website where some of the biggest discounts can be found, and anyone can buy them – you don’t have to be a business.

There is an outlet page which lists thousands of discounted and clearance items, including electronics, clothing, toys and more.

Not many shoppers know about the page, but it is where some of the best deals can be found.