Moms, kids, hustlers: Miami-area residents flood seller apps — and are making bank

Like many in South Florida, Millye Ramirez, 49, dreams of starting her own business.

The Hollywood resident currently works as a manager at an auto parts retailer. But the pay, $18 an hour, is barely enough to get by.

So to build toward her dream, Ramirez is making what she sees as the ultimate sacrifice: selling her cherished collection of Betty Boop dolls.

“I am sad [to be selling them] — very much so,” she said. As a young girl, she says, she saw the classic cartoon and was captivated by the character’s timeless sense of style.

“She’s a sensual symbol for a woman,” she said. “She’s not a pretty woman but very sexy. She’s old school. She doesn’t go out of fashion.”

As incomes across the nation stagnate — and as the cost of living in South Florida continues to climb — Ramirez is part of a growing cohort of locals turning to selling whatever they can, for as much as they can, using smartphone-based apps.

Whereas a decade ago, Ramirez may have turned to websites like eBay or craigslist to sell the collection — which includes Betty Boop-themed jewelry boxes, picture frames and snow globes — she now primarily uses an app that allows for seamless scrolling and instant communication with potential buyers.

“Secondhand e-commerce is growing extremely quickly in the U.S., and South Florida’s a big part of that trend,” said Jonathan Lowe, head of communications for letgo, one of the apps.

Alex Wilhelm, editor-in-chief of Crunchbase.com, said the amount of venture capital that the companies behind these apps have raised over the past several years “indicates that they have at least as much traction as hype.”

“That’s not to say that one or three of the new players won’t die along the way, but consumers seem to be more willing than ever to resell their clothing and other items in digital markets,” Wilhelm said in an email.

One app recently announced it is taking a physical leap into the Miami market.

OfferUp, which opened its digital marketplace in South Florida in 2014, has announced plans to open an engineering office in the city in the coming months. A company representative said the South Florida market now has approximately 300,000 users; he declined to state how many transactions it has processed here, but put the figure in the “millions.”

Ameesh Paleja, OfferUp’s chief technology officer, is leading the local hiring effort. In an interview, he said Miami fit the criteria of being a booming market for the app, as well as one having “amazing engineering talent” that may also be bilingual.

“The question is, where can we tap into a [jobs] market that hasn’t seen its full potential being utilized,” he said.

Bulldozers and Watches

Both OfferUp and letgo have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital from investors capitalizing on the trend, which others have called “recommerce.” Both remain privately held companies. Letgo is based out of New York and Barcelona.

The apps are free to download and use; they make money by selling promoted listings, which increase their prominence in search results, on the apps. Listings for homes from real estate agents and cars from dealers sit next to offers for tchotchkes and hand-me-downs.

Nat Levy, a correspondent for GeekWire.com, said there is plenty of room for both apps to exist alongside traditional seller marketplaces like craigslist and eBay. OfferUp has approximately 2.7 million ratings in the Apple store, and its user base is likely many times that multiple, Levy said; letgo has more than 578,000 ratings. Ebay counts approximately 182 million active users worldwide, he said; craigslist has approximately 60 million.

He said he did not know how many users Facebook Marketplace, the tech giant’s version of craigslist, has at the moment, but observed Facebook itself has 1 billion users with access to the service.

And yet, he said, it is OfferUp that seems to be leaping ahead in the mobile-phone space.

“Everything else is a mixture of desktop, and smartphone,” he said. “They see themselves as being the one where you only need a smartphone.”

Cash Thies, a moderator on the “r/flipping” subreddit on the website reddit.com, said there is plenty of overlap between letgo and OfferUp and users of Facebook Marketplace and craigslist.

One major difference: verification.

“The apps are largely the same, but OfferUp tries using [a] verification service called TruYou,” he said. “You submit your name, address, and a copy of your driver’s license to prove you’re you, for peace of mind on the buyer’s side when they see you’re verified.”

Some local users, like Patricia Verlino, 45, have made all of the apps part of her business, in addition to using them for personal use. She sells heavy equipment like bulldozers and generators on letgo and Facebook Marketplace, though she says she has found more success on the latter.

And still, OfferUp seems to prevail. A local user named Ramon, 62, is currently listing his extensive watch collection, alongside some other objects.

“I have my hobbies, clowns, watches, and simply I have a bad time, and I need money,” he said.

Mom’s ‘Side Hustle’

If OfferUp’s hiring spree is good news for the local job market, the arrival of OfferUp has been even better news for user Colleen Guerrero. A mother of two living in Weston, Guerrero, 36, says she came across OfferUp about three years ago after looking for an alternative to Facebook Marketplace.

It has since become a “side hustle” for her, she said. She’s made approximately $3,000 since she started selling in 2016.

“It started when our house started to feel too cramped with all our excess baby stuff,” she said. “Things we no longer needed and my children didn’t use. I started with bulky baby items — a swing, an “exersaucer,” play mats.

“Then when I would switch out a stroller, I’d list the old one,” she said.

To this day, baby and kids items are her best sellers.

“They don’t usually stay up for long,” she said.

Eventually, she says, she ran out of existing items lying around the house, and began checking out local garage sales.

“Believe it or not, I have found amazing things in bulk trash,” she said. “Nothing stained or dirty, but furniture that I would take home, clean up and re-sell.

Her efforts have earned her a perfect 5-star rating from 73 reviewers. She has no plans to stop selling anytime soon.

“I don’t like a cramped house,” she said. “I prefer the more minimal look so when something isn’t getting used, I sell it.“

C.O.D. for EMT

Officially, Jeremy Diaz, 21, is an emergency medical technician.

Unofficially, he is a collector of sports and entertainment memorabilia. As of Thursday, his OfferUp page featured:

• A game-worn jersey of former Marlins closer Steve Cishek ($120)

• Four sets of Funko Pop bobble-head dolls, including a “Great Ape” Dragon Ball Z character ($70)
• A game-used hockey stick from former Florida Panthers captain Derek MacKenzie
• Bluetooth speakers ($75)

Diaz sees OfferUp as a side hustle for pocket money — he estimates he’s earned approximately $500 since he started selling about two years ago. He said he first tried craigslist, but quickly found OfferUp’s design to be more user friendly.

More importantly, he said, interested buyers and sellers are notified right away through their phones when they’re being contacted.

Though he knows of letgo, he said he has stayed away after his dad listed items that failed to sell.

Diaz is also a buyer. His most prized possession — perhaps surprising for someone so young — is a poster from the band Pearl Jam’s most recent show at Wrigley Field in Chicago. He was able to track it down in Miramar.

“It was a pretty wild find,” he said.

Sneaker Center

For local sneaker-heads, OfferUp is a gold mine — not to mention a shark tank: Many shoe sellers the Miami Herald contacted refused to comment unless their shoes were purchased first (the Herald declined these offers).

A snapshot of the site on a recent weekday showed the local dominance of footwear in this market, with a pair of Nike Air Jordan 1’s going for $250.

On a recent Wednesday, a verified user who identifies himself as “Phillip Ducker” on the site was selling his son’s Nike Air Max Invigor sneakers for $71.

“Selling sneakers has become like selling baseball cards,” he said. They’ve become collectors items, he said. They are often purchased, cleaned and refurbished, and re-sold for a profit.

In the case of Ducker, a 38-year-old who lives in Kendall, his son, size 12, had only worn them a few times. Ducker has only been on the site since May but has already made $2,000.

“My stepfather is a semi hoarder,” he said. “So I started with his stuff.”

He said he also posts on letgo, but said there is much more activity on OfferUp.

And as for craigslist?

“I can tell you it’s dead,” he said.

‘Most Loved’

For Millye Ramirez, car parts are a specialty. She takes pride in the fact that she can take a part and put together a car as good as anyone else she knows.

But it’s the Betty Boop collection that remains her passion. At an interview inside the small office she’s renting on a side street crowded with broken cars in Hollywood, she showed off a small fraction of what she’s collected. She notes the color inside the Boop-themed snow globes has faded, and the snow evaporated, suggesting a vintage stretching back decades.

She doesn’t know the exact value of the collection, which in addition to the figurines includes everything from car accessories to lunch boxes. But she said she’s received offers from as far away as Hawaii for some of them.

The apps make it easy to sell, she said. But that’s not the point. Though she has moved up swiftly in her job, she lives largely paycheck to paycheck. To part with the collection is like parting with her own self.

“We have to get rid of things we love most to get ahead,” she said.

OfferUp

No. of reviews in Apple store: 2.7 million

Investment raised: $261 million

Headquarters: Seattle, with second office opening in Miami

letgo

No. of ratings in Apple store: Approximately 578,000

Investment raised: $975 million

Headquarters: New York and Barcelona