When Rick Senko started reselling used items on eBay, he was “penniless.” A single father who had recently lost his job and was struggling to earn enough money to support his five-year-old son.
It was 2008, and the first item he sold — a cell phone he bought on Craigslist for $35 and then on eBay for $75 — felt like discovering “a flaw in the matrix,” says Senco, now 41 and based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
When he realized he could make a tidy profit by distributing used goods online, he gave it his all. He took advantage of market inefficiencies to study brands and sales trends, and sometimes worked 20 hours a day, “going to flea markets, going to thrift stores, building relationships, researching my craft, learning, and just listing (products) every day.”
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What started as a way to make a living slowly grew into a resale empire, bringing in millions of dollars in sales annually as one of eBay’s top sellers. In 2023, Senko started a wholesale business called Technsports that sells up to 5,000 items of used clothing per day to other professional resellers. Technsports brought in more than $6.5 million in revenue in 2024, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Senko said Technsports is profitable overall, with a profit margin of about 50% per item sold.
“I have never taken a day off in almost 20 years,” says Senko. “There is no doubt in my mind how lucky I am, but it has also taken a tremendous amount of work, a tremendous amount of dedication, and a tremendous amount of sacrifice to go from where I came from to where I am today, selling millions of dollars a year and living a very fortunate life.”
“You don’t need a lot of money to get started.”
After becoming a father at age 18, Cenko worked as a CVS photo lab supervisor for five years to support himself and his son. He went to trade school to get a computer repair certification and took a higher-paying job at Circuit City in the fall of 2008.
Two weeks later, Circuit City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Senko lost his job during the Great Recession and found himself unable to find a new job. Then his cell phone broke. “I didn’t have much money, so I got a second-hand (mobile phone) on eBay,” Senko said.
He found it listed on eBay for $75, then found the same model phone listed on Craigslist for $35. It was an incredible “lightbulb moment,” he says. “Double your money. You’ll get a free cell phone and you’ll get your original $35 back.”
Senko bought a Craigslist cell phone and sold it on eBay for $70, he said. He used the profits to buy another cell phone on Craigslist, which he bought on eBay, doubling his funds again. “I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years ever since. Rinse and repeat,” Senko said, adding, “You don’t need a lot of money to get started. You don’t need a lot of knowledge to get started. You just need to get started.”
Initially, he says, he focused on electronics, from cell phones to video games, any low-cost item that could be resold within days, whether broken or working. As he learned which products sold better than others and where to find in-demand inventory, his revenue increased significantly, topping $100,000 in 2010, he says.
Around that time, he began to shift his focus to used clothing, which required far less “customer support,” he says. “T-shirts don’t get into the mail.” Clothing required a level of research that Senko was willing to do, he notes. While most people understand that electronics have value, “not everyone knows that certain Polo Ralph Lauren shirts are worth more[than gaming consoles]…They[clothing]are often thrown away in piles on the floor of flea markets.”
Senko started leaving the house before dawn and spent most of her days rummaging through piles of old clothes at thrift stores, consignment shops, flea markets and garage sales in South Florida. He added that reselling gave him more control over his schedule and also helped him develop a competitive spirit that wanted to win at all costs.
“I chase it every day.”
Over time, Senko developed relationships with sellers at flea markets and thrift stores, ensuring that they were able to select items from new inventory. He listed and sold about 250 items a day, or tens of thousands of items a year, and hired up to five contract workers at a time to help photograph the items, list them online, and handle shipping.
Documents show more than $2.5 million in sales on eBay in 2023, up from $500,000 in 2017. But he says he felt like he might hit a limit on the number of items he could list and sell in a day.
So that same year, Senko decided to change its business model. Rather than buying select items and selling them individually online, he began buying clothes in bulk and selling them wholesale to other resellers who were willing to spend the time carefully selecting each batch. He says customers sometimes buy up to 1,000 items a week.
“They process it, fulfill it, and sell it one at a time on eBay,” Senko explains, adding, “The most valuable asset for my business has become inventory. It’s more profitable to sell more items with less margin.”
He says the reduction in detention time also helped Cenco fulfill a promise to his wife, whom he met during his short time at Circuit City. “I plan to work as hard as I can until my son graduates from high school, and then aim to retire early.” “(We) wanted to be able to take a 50-year vacation,” Senko said.
He and his wife finally took a break last year, traveling across the United States and visiting New York, California, Las Vegas and more. “We are starting to reap the fruits of our labor,” he says. But he is reluctant to actually retire, saying, “Mentally, I’m on a 50-year break? Not even close.”
Senko says it’s hard to stop being competitive, especially when you know there’s a lucrative potential and you have the means and expertise to do it. And if he continues to work on Technsports, he says, he will be able to work to ensure his current level of financial security lasts for the rest of his life.
“I chase it every day because when you unlock (that) ability to grow your money and you get $5 and you put it on eBay and sell something and get $25 back, how on earth can you rest?” he says. “Did I work a lot? Of course…I needed to grow the business. And ultimately, I needed to be the best.”
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