Resell Tickets: How, Why, & The Best Platforms To Try

Everyone knows the hassle of trying to resell tickets. Whether you wanted to attend an event and were looking for a seller or had to cancel plans at the last minute and struggled to find a buyer.

However, you shouldn’t fret about it, as there are plenty of ways to do it safely and efficiently. You don’t have to lose the value—at least not entirely—of your ticket.

In this article, we’ll discuss how you can resell tickets without the worries that come with it.

Is It Possible to Resell Tickets?

Yes, reselling a ticket is common, as there will be people changing plans—whether they’re flaking, or deciding to go at the last minute.

Of course, the tickets that sell best are those for huge events. Think of the premier of a Box Office movie, Beyonce concert, or tickets for a huge sporting event like the Super Bowl—those would be among the best items to resell.

Tickets are easy to resell as there aren’t plenty of legal issues related to them. However, with other items, a resale license might be necessary.

What Kind of Tickets Sell Well?

Naturally, the more desirable an event ticket is, and the more there’s a shortage of its tickets, the easier it would be to resell its ticket. However, if you have tickets to a small stand-up comedy show in your hometown, it might be more difficult.

What Is the Value of Tickets?

Naturally, the value of a ticket can vary depending on many factors, some of which are subjective.

A good way to understand your ticket’s value is to check the market to gauge its demand and whether you can push up the resale value. Many websites can help, including TicketMaster, StubHub, and SeatGeek.

Some variables, like seat locations and ticket tiers, can come into play as well as whether or not delivery is on you or the buyer.

Taking up a recent example, some merchants offered tickets for Taylor Swift’s concert in Australia—as part of the Eras tour—for double the original price. There’s a ticket that was sold for $3,114—140% to about 250% higher than the initial price.

So, it’s apparent that there’s a great deal of monopolizing, and that the final price of a resold ticket can vary.

Do Tickets Lose Value Over Time?

It’s not that tickets lose value over time, per se, but more that the waning demand forces the pricing to go down to become more desirable and end up selling.

That’s how it works with ticket sellers; the ticket stays at a price, but the closer they get to the event’s date, resellers lower the price and put the ticket on sale. After all, making a smaller profit is better than losing it.

Things to Consider When Reselling Tickets

If want to resell your ticket, there are a couple of concepts to keep in mind. The following will help you ensure your safety and benefit without compromising integrity when selling the ticket:

Recurrence: Whether you’re planning on making this a recurrent act to make some passive income or if it’s a one-time thing makes a difference. If it’s the former, you’re going to have to think about building a proper seller’s portfolio.
Pricing: Pricing the ticket has got to be one of the trickiest parts about reselling your ticket. You don’t want to make it too high that it doesn’t sell or too low that you end up losing value.
Safety: If you’re going to sell your ticket personally without relying on an intermediary service, you’ll have to look out for your safety. Make sure you meet with the buyer in a public place like a food court or a mall.
Money Collection: How you’ll collect your money is another layer you’ll have to think about if you’re selling your ticket personally. Typically, you’ll have to agree with the buyer. It can be a 50% deposit and 50% upon the ticket resale, 100% upfront, or 100% upon receiving the ticket. However, steer clear of the last option unless you trust the other person or know you can easily retrieve your money with legal action.

Where to Resell Tickets

If you’re wondering where to resell your tickets, here’s a list of the most popular and surefire ways to do it.

1. Ticketmaster

a screenshot of the ticketmaster homepage

Ticketmaster is one of the most popular and successful websites in ticket resale. With about 80 million visitors per month—about 2.5 million per day—you know that your offer will reach plenty of potential buyers and become up for grabs.

So, if you’re looking to sell tickets on Ticketmaster, here are the basics you should know about the website:

Fees/Commission: If you’re selling tickets on Ticketmaster, you’ll have to pay a service fee that constitutes 19% of the ticket price, around 15% of which is imposed on the seller upon the ticket sale. Moreover, you’ll pay $2.95 for the processing and fulfillment fees. Typically, Ticketmaster doesn’t impose a delivery charge.
Payment Methods: Ticketmaster gives you several payment options, including credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Venmo, gift cards, and AMEX benefits for other preferred methods.

2. StubHub

You can rest assured about your safety when reselling on StubHub. It’s another popular choice, although it doesn’t get as much traffic as Ticketmaster.

Although it’s a smooth and effective way to sell your tickets, the fees it charges as a % of the ticket price may reduce profits of ticket sale.

Fees/Commission: StubHub has a service fee that goes up to 28% of the price of the ticket—15% on the seller—as well as $8 for processing and fulfillment, which includes delivery.
Payment Methods: Like Ticketmaster, StubHub offers payment through credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and gift cards. However, there’s no option to pay with Venmo or other methods.

3. Vivid Seats

Reselling on Vivid Seats is a safe choice as it gets a lot of traffic monthly, especially in the U.S. and Canada.

Apart from its functionality, the resale site offers excellent customer service and a massive pool of options. However, its high fee, whether on the buyer or the seller, puts it a little low on the list of possible options for reselling concert tickets.

Fees/Commission: Vivid Seats imposes a service fee of 32% of the ticket price, 10% imposed on the seller once the ticket sells. Yet, there are no processing fees and only a $2.5 delivery fee for mobile delivery.
Payment Methods: Vivid Seats allows credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and gift cards. However, there’s no option to pay with Venmo or other methods.

4. SeatGeek

SeatGeek is an excellent destination for sellers to make money selling tickets they won’t use.

However, it might be harder to compete with other services as it imposes 34% to 44% of the ticket price on the buyer. This means only desperate buyers who didn’t find tickets on other websites will resort to it—even with high concert ticket availability.

Fees/Commission: If you’re selling a ticket on SeatGeek, you’ll only have to pay 10% of the ticket price as a seller fee.
Payment Methods: Credit cards, debit cards, and PayPal.

What You’ll Need to Resell Tickets

Now that you know where to resell your tickets, let’s look at what you’ll need to prepare to ensure the smoothest process.

A Resale Account: You’ll need an account on a resale portal like Ticketmaster or StubHub to list your ticket online.
Money Collection Method: Whether you’ll be receiving your money directly from a bank account, through Venmo, or PayPal, you’ll need to prepare the money collection method that the buyer will send you money through.
Promotion: To effectively sell your ticket, you’ll have to ensure it has reached enough of your target audience. While you may not need to do this for one-time ticket reselling, it could be a necessity if you’re reselling in bulk.

How to Resell Tickets: Step-By-Step Instructions

In this section, we’ll go through reselling tickets from the moment you decide to do so until the buyer makes the purchase.

Step 1: Research the Reselling Portal

As we’ve listed before, there are a couple of good options where you can resell your ticket. Before deciding on what, see which would make the most sense when you take into consideration the seller fees, the delivery charge, and the payment methods available.

Step 2: Price Your Ticket

Once you decide on the portal you’ll be listing your ticket on, start thinking of how to price your ticket.

Comparing the prices of similar tickets is a smooth way to gauge the price at which you can list your ticket. On the other hand, if you’re looking for the safest bet, you can go with the minimum rate gain percentage you’ll add on the face value price of a ticket.

For example, a 20% minimum rate gain means you’ll sell a $100 ticket for $120. This way, you’ll gain a stable profit while keeping your price below the market average—selling your ticket relatively faster.

However, that suits ticket brokering, in which the profits will compile. However, if you’re reselling tickets as a one-time thing, it won’t be profitable. But then again, that’s probably not the reason you were selling it in the first place.

Step 3: List Your Ticket

When listing your ticket, ensure transparency with all the details. This includes the location of the seats, the tier of the ticket—if exists—, and whether there are any restrictions on it.

Step 4: Filter Potential Buyers

Look through the potential buyers to see who is the most convenient. While two buyers may offer the same money to buy your ticket, one of them might be closer to you, which will reduce or even eliminate delivery and/or fulfillment fees.

Step 5: Deliver the Ticket and Receive Your Money

Finally, make sure that the delivery and money reception processes are figured out. Not to mention, if you’re reselling tickets in bulk, you’ll have to deliver the tickets in a secure and timely manner to build a good reputation as well as receive good reviews that bring in more customers.

Can You Make Money Flipping Tickets?

With all the information about ticket resale, some questions pop into mind.

What’s a ticket resale business? How easy is it to start? Is reselling tickets a good way to make a profit?

What Is a Tickets Resale Business?

Plenty of people have taken up ticket resale as a business to make some money on the side. It’s a solid idea, especially since websites for reselling like Ticketmaster and StubHub are adopting it on the largest scale possible.

While starting a website to compete with them wouldn’t be an easy task, starting a ticket resale business through these websites is feasible. However, make sure to avoid ticket scalping, as it could tarnish your reputation as a ticket reseller and you’ll end up with no customers at all.

Apart from that, being a ticket broker and leveraging the secondary market of ticket buyers can boost your income considerably.

Is Reselling Tickets a Good Way to Make Money?

Reselling tickets in the secondary ticket market is a good way to make money if you’re looking for a flexible way to start a business from home.

There’s little to no money required to start the business and its work is rewarding. Not to mention, you can play on economies of scale. Putting a small markup on a huge number of tickets will gain you a big profit playing on the margin.

However, reselling tickets in the first place can be a little challenging. The marketplace is crowded and highly competitive.

Moreover, there could be some security issues, especially related to data loss. A self-employment role puts the responsibility of taxes and insurance—medical and life—on your shoulder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Ticketmaster Buy and Sell?

Yes. You can both buy and sell tickets through Ticketmaster.

How Do I Trust a Ticket Seller?

The best route is to check the ticket’s authenticity, avoid offers that are “too good to be true,” and avoid sending money through third-party services. Finally, steer clear of sharing any personal information.

Wrapping Up

With all the hassle around buying and reselling tickets and the urgency of the matter, there was no way around this article.

We hope it’s been a helpful read. Let us know whether you think there’s anything else you still have questions about, and leave a comment telling us what you think.

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Resell Tickets: How to Make Profit From a Ticket You Don’t Need