Reselling Jargon and Terminology Explained

Reselling jargon explains more than the letters in a listing. It tells buyers what they are getting, sellers how to price it, and both sides how a deal works. Learning that language protects your money and makes your first listing more credible. The goal is to stop guessing when a guess could cost you money.

Why reselling has its own language and why not knowing it costs beginners real money

A listing says “NOS,” a reseller group says “BOLO,” and someone tells you to check “comps.” None of that helps if the words might as well be a network password. Experienced sellers use this shorthand to compress information about condition, demand, and price. Beginners get the code before anyone hands them the decoder.

That gap has financial consequences. Without comps, a seller prices by gut and leaves money on the table. Confusing condition grades can mean overpaying for stock or underselling a better item. Missing transaction terms can also leave a seller unprepared for negotiations or buyer disputes. These are not failures of effort or business instinct, but gaps in knowledge that can be closed before the first sale.

Condition codes and what they actually commit a seller to disclose

Condition codes are promises. The standard scale runs from Brand New with Tag through Brand New Without Tag, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor. Moving down that scale changes what a buyer can reasonably expect and which prices make useful comparisons. A generous grade may flatter the item, but it also creates room for a dispute.

NWT means New With Tags, which describes clothing that has never been worn and still has its original tags attached. It commands the highest price in its category. NWOT means New Without Tags, which still means never worn, but with the tags removed. It carries a premium below NWT. NIB means New In Box, for an unused item in its original, unopened packaging, while BNWT and BNIB add “Brand” to the same claims.

Below new condition, EUC means Excellent Used Condition and has a high bar, namely no flaws. It is not a rounding option for something that looks good from across the room. VGC means Very Good Condition, while NM means Near Mint, terms common in collectibles, books, and media for items slightly below perfect but above normal used condition. GUC means Good Used Condition, for an item that has normal wear and plenty of life left. A GUC listing must name every flaw, and listings with lower grades must do the same.

VTG means Vintage, or at least 20 years old, but says nothing by itself about condition. NOS means New Old Stock, a vintage item never sold or used and still in its original packaging, so age is part of its value claim. CIB means Complete In Box, with all the parts that originally came with it. For games, toys, and electronics, a missing manual or accessory means the item is not CIB, however tidy the box looks.

Buying and selling shorthand that controls how a transaction actually works

Transaction shorthand is the fine print of a resale listing. OBO means Or Best Offer and tells buyers they are welcome to offer less than the listed price. Without it, negotiation may still be possible, but the signal is less flexible. Firm means the opposite, with a fixed price and no negotiation. A lowball is an offer far below the asking price, which sellers often see as rude and a poor way to start a deal.

The sale format adds another layer. BIN means Buy It Now, which lets a buyer purchase immediately at a stated price. A Reserve Price is the hidden minimum a seller will accept at auction. Buyers bid without knowing that threshold, and the item does not sell if bidding fails to reach it.

Other terms describe how buyers and sellers find a workable deal. A bundle groups several items into one sale, usually at a discount, helping move inventory and reduce shipping overhead. OTL means Offers to Likers, Poshmark’s private discounted offer to people who have liked a listing. ISO means In Search Of, a buyer’s request for a particular item that can reveal demand in community groups.

Rarity claims need just as much care as condition claims. HTF means Hard to Find, while OOP means Out of Print, and sellers should use either term only when they have proof. Unsupported claims inflate expectations and risk an item-not-as-described dispute. By contrast, a stale listing has simply been active for a long time without selling. That usually points to an above-market price or photos that are not converting.

Sourcing vocabulary and the community terms experienced resellers use every day

Sourcing means acquiring inventory from places including thrift stores, estate sales, liquidators, retail clearance, and other sellers. A BOLO, or Be On the Lookout, is an item or brand worth watching because it reliably sells well at a strong margin. Reseller communities share BOLOs as practical intelligence. A grail is rarer and more sought-after, the find everyone hopes will turn up.

A haul is a large collection bought at once, usually on one sourcing trip. The Bins are pay-by-the-pound outlets where shoppers search large, unsorted bins, a low-cost option that rewards speed and knowledge. A picked-over location has already lost its desirable items to other shoppers. Deadstock is vintage stock that has never been sold or worn and is still in its original packaging. Like NOS, it can command a premium by combining rarity with pristine condition.

Inventory is the current stock available for sale, while a death pile is purchased stock not yet cleaned, photographed, or listed. Many beginners have one before they know its name, often disguised as a perfectly reasonable corner of the room. The money in a death pile sits idle. Consignment offers a different selling arrangement, with a store displaying and selling goods on the seller’s behalf, then paying out only after a sale and after taking its cut.

Pricing terms and why comps — not gut feeling — set the right price

Comps, short for Comparables, are recently sold listings of the same or similar item. They show what buyers have actually paid, making them the foundation of accurate pricing. An active listing shows what a seller hopes to receive, which is useful context but not proof of value. An asking price is a wish with a price tag attached. Sold data is the evidence.

To pull comps on eBay, filter to Sold Items and find the same item in matching condition. Find several recent results so that one unusually high sale does not set your hopes too high. Discard the outliers at the top and bottom, then price within the realistic middle range. Condition matching matters because a better grade can support a price your item cannot. For electronics especially, prices depreciate quickly enough to make comps from a few months ago misleading.

The next distinction is between a sale price and a worthwhile return. COGS means Cost of Goods Sold, or what the item cost to acquire, and must be subtracted before profit means anything. Margins are what an item sells for minus what it cost to buy, with platform fees and shipping reducing that amount. ROI means Return on Investment, which is net profit divided by the cost of the investment, multiplied by 100.

Those costs make it important to price at or just above the comp midpoint on eBay, because other sellers may undercut the highest comp, while the lowest leaves some margin behind. Sell-Through Rate then shows what percentage of the listed inventory has sold in a set time. A high rate supports the pricing approach, while a low rate can signal an above-market price or a listing that is not converting. AI-assisted tools that bring up sold-comp data save sellers from having to search for it by hand. That gives a first-time seller the same price data an experienced reseller turns to out of habit, while an asking price remains only what a seller hopes to get.

Platform-specific acronyms and terms that vary by marketplace

On eBay, BIN and Reserve Price are terms used for its fixed-price and auction formats. INAD means Item Not As Described, the informal shorthand for its buyer dispute mechanism, formally called SNAD, Significantly Not As Described, within eBay’s Money Back Guarantee. Inflated condition grades leave sellers particularly exposed to these disputes. SKU means Stock Keeping Unit, a seller’s own reference for an item that helps them keep track of stock across listings or platforms.

eBay also has a pricing wrinkle that matters when reading comps. Best Offer accepted amounts are hidden behind a strikethrough in standard search. Product Research is the primary built-in way to see the actual accepted figure. That distinction matters because the visible asking figure is not necessarily the amount the buyer paid.

On Poshmark, OTL turns a listing’s likes into a targeted offer audience. Its bundle feature lets buyers ask for several items from one seller, usually so they can ship together and the buyer can ask for a price for the group. Knowing the acronym is useful, but knowing what the marketplace lets someone do with it is the practical part.

Across marketplaces, cross-listing or cross-posting means listing the same item on more than one platform at once so more people see it. It also brings a double-sell risk if the item sells twice before the seller takes down the other listing. Auto-delist addresses that risk by automatically removing listings from the other platforms after a sale. Book listings add another shared vocabulary, including HCDJ for Hard Cover, Dust Jacket, PB for Paperback, and TPB for Trade Paperback. These formats affect condition expectations and shipping weight.

How condition grading, comps, and platform choice work together in a real listing

Consider a used electronic item with normal signs of wear and all its original components in the box. GUC describes its wear, while CIB describes its completeness, and the listing needs both claims to be accurate. The first step is to grade honestly and disclose its specific flaws. The next is to find recent sold listings for the same item in matching condition. An EUC comp is not a useful benchmark simply because its price is more appealing.

From the middle cluster of those comps, the seller can work out a realistic price. Subtracting platform fees and estimated shipping reveals take-home proceeds, while subtracting acquisition cost makes the profit calculation meaningful. The condition code, the comp search, and the cost vocabulary become one pricing decision.

Shippable niche items, collectibles, and electronics belong on eBay first for its national buyer pool and pricing power. Local, bulky items belong on Facebook Marketplace first, where buyers can pick them up and pay cash with no fees. Fashion belongs on Poshmark for its targeted audience and OTL feature. The right platform follows the item rather than the seller’s familiarity with a particular acronym.

Writing the listing is the next step, using the correct condition code, disclosing flaws, and adding OBO or Firm to state the negotiating position. This is also where beginners often stall, as titles, descriptions, and condition notes make listing feel slower than sourcing. AI-assisted listing tools can turn a photo into a draft and make writing easier, so the seller can make a first sale without having to master copywriting. Where cross-listing makes sense, turning on auto-delist lets more people see the item while helping to keep it from selling twice.