Key Takeaways
- Alexander invested $500 to learn the ins and outs of being a verified reseller online.
- He saw $10,000 in sales in month one, then $150,000 within 10 months.
- Now, he’s focusing on school, with plans to pursue business or psychology in college.
Last year, Ethan Alexander, then 16 years old, had some spare time to fill after he stopped playing lacrosse. Starting a side hustle seemed like a solid option. The Kansas City, Missouri-based teen had seen people online who were verified resellers on Amazon and Walmart — third parties selling products on the platforms — and wanted to learn the business.
So the high school student invested $500 (a sum he receives annually from his great-grandfather’s will) to have a reseller teach him how to make money reselling items online.
“I feel like everyone always tries to find the perfect side hustle,” Alexander says. “What’s the best thing to do right now? But I saw it and went for it. I didn’t try to look for a perfect opportunity. I just took what was in front of me and made it mine.”
Walmart laundry detergent launches a side hustle: $10k in one month
In the beginning, Alexander used the software program SellerAmp, which shows seller metrics like price point, quantity in stock and who’s owning the sought-after “buy box,” to zero in on which products to sell. The “buy box” refers to the section on a product page featuring “add to cart” and “buy now” options. SellerAmp also provided information on processing costs and fees, along with what price to set to see a certain profit percentage.
Alexander’s analysis led him to his first product: laundry detergent from Walmart. He officially launched the side hustle, primarily selling on Amazon, in May 2025.
“I was driving to every single Walmart in the entire Kansas City metro,” Alexander recalls. “Literally for hours a day, just driving, 30, 40 minutes to each of the big Walmarts and buying out everything that they had to try and send stock.”
Alexander packed and labeled the boxes, then took them to the post office to ship.
He hit $10,000 in sales in that first month, then $150,000 total by March 2026.
“Rinse and repeat” sales with Amazon and ChatGPT
After the success of his first product, Alexander ran the side hustle with a “rinse and repeat” approach, focusing on different trending items.
Ultimately, he integrated AI into his product-selection process. He trained ChatGPT on Python coding to filter out products he knew he couldn’t move based on various metrics, which saved a lot of time. Additionally, he used the AI to track inventory and stay organized.
Several months into the growing side hustle, summer began, which meant Alexander had more time on his hands to devote to the business. He added more retailers to his rotation, including Menards, Target and Home Depot.
What’s more, Alexander designed his summer schedule to maximize productivity: packaging items until 5 a.m. or 6 a.m., going to sleep, then waking up to make post-office drop-offs and purchase more products at stores, often getting home around 11 p.m.
“ With Amazon, you have to keep your delivery speeds up because that’s how you get more sales,” Alexander explains. “Amazon is known for being fast, so you have to be fast and efficient with your business.”
Keep metrics up to win the “buy box”
As a reseller, setting a good price and maintaining the best metrics are key to winning the “buy box” over competitors.
Many resellers source from other sellers’ stores, so Alexander experimented with that sourcing strategy too. “ I would just open to everyone that’s selling a profitable product,” he recalls. “I would go through all of their stores, then go through all their products and see if there’s any good ones. And just keep doing that. My computer would crash from how many tabs I had open.”
There’s hardly a product Alexander hasn’t tried to sell, he says. But the business never relied on high-ticket items to make money; small-dollar, large-volume sales were always key.
$6,000 in sales and $2,000 profit in a single day
Over time, Alexander moved away from sourcing from retailers and sellers piecemeal and bought in bulk from Home Depot, Lowe’s and a pallet store. He would pick up those pallets and store them in his parents’ garage.
Sometimes third-party wholesalers would even connect Alexander with products coming right off the boat. “Then a truck comes into our very small street, suburban neighborhood, and is unloading this pallet,” he says. “Every day I’m out there, just throwing packages around and into my car. Neighbors probably think I’m crazy.”
On his biggest revenue day, Alexander did about $6,000 in sales, with roughly $2,000 profit, he notes.
The challenges of being a teen with a reselling side hustle
As one might expect, plenty of unique challenges come up for a teenager running this type of side hustle. “ There’s a lot of very small things that are easy to mess up that you don’t realize you don’t know how to do when you’re 16, and you haven’t even done taxes before,” Alexander says.
Alexander has had to navigate credit card holds and packaging hiccups, like leaky spray bottles wiping ink off labels and requiring a total recount, and the complexity of balancing a business with being a full-time high school student. He’s hired several virtual assistants to help him manage it all.
Alexander intends to put some of his side hustle earnings toward college, where he plans to study a business-related subject or psychology, which he notes would also be an advantage in any future entrepreneurial pursuits.
“ I don’t know how much more you can learn [about business] in a classroom than you can by actually doing it,” Alexander says. “Failing and learning from your failures and trying not to repeat them, and actually having the hands-on experience of a real business. So that’s something that I’ve thought about, and I’m interested to see if that’s true.”
What comes after a $150,000 sales milestone
After reaching his $150,000 sales milestone a few months ago, Alexander paused his reselling side hustle to focus on school and other projects. Although the business was lucrative and taught him a lot, he doesn’t necessarily see himself continuing it down the line, especially as a college student.
The side hustle is a bit too hands-on, requiring a significant amount of space and labor, Alexander explains.
One of the biggest lessons Alexander took away from the business? Don’t waste time waiting for the perfect opportunity to come your way.
“People think that there’s a treasure map that’s just going to fall out of the sky and have the X that marks the spot on it,” Alexander says. “But people don’t make opportunities for themselves as much as they should. There’s an opportunity in every single second of life that you can either get something out of, or you can have a negative mindset and not pay attention to what you could be benefiting from.”
This article is part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of being a young business owner.
Key Takeaways
- Alexander invested $500 to learn the ins and outs of being a verified reseller online.
- He saw $10,000 in sales in month one, then $150,000 within 10 months.
- Now, he’s focusing on school, with plans to pursue business or psychology in college.
Last year, Ethan Alexander, then 16 years old, had some spare time to fill after he stopped playing lacrosse. Starting a side hustle seemed like a solid option. The Kansas City, Missouri-based teen had seen people online who were verified resellers on Amazon and Walmart — third parties selling products on the platforms — and wanted to learn the business.
So the high school student invested $500 (a sum he receives annually from his great-grandfather’s will) to have a reseller teach him how to make money reselling items online.
“I feel like everyone always tries to find the perfect side hustle,” Alexander says. “What’s the best thing to do right now? But I saw it and went for it. I didn’t try to look for a perfect opportunity. I just took what was in front of me and made it mine.”
