This week, we explore where resellers on TikTok Shop and Whatnot are getting their inventory. As independent selling platforms grow, brands are starting to surreptitiously source resellers under NDAs, and new companies are looking to legitimize what can be a shady business.
In recent years, a vast network of independent sellers has become a huge part of the fashion retail industry. On platforms like StockX, Goat, Whatnot, TikTok Shop and more, independent sellers are doing millions of dollars of business, often as one-person businesses.
But where is all that inventory coming from? Until now, an even more fragmented network of gray market suppliers, excess stock from brands and retailers, and drop-shipped items from factories have made up the bulk of the inventory one finds on platforms like TikTok Shop and Whanot. Driven by drop culture and sneaker hype, resellers bought up limited supply of highly-hyped products to quickly flip for high margins.
As drop culture and the associated demand have cooled off, resellers have instead shifted to high-volume sales of discounted regular products, as opposed to high-priced limited products, through platforms like Whatnot and TikTok Shop. As the revenue opportunity for these marketplaces increases, new players are looking to formalize the sourcing of inventory for independent sellers.
One notable and rapidly growing supplier in this space is OS Group. The 24-year-old founder Oscar Rachmansky describes the company as focusing on “the new wholesale economy.” Essentially, independent sellers sign up with OS Group and, much like wholesale marketplaces like Faire offer for retailers, OS lets those sellers browse a wide variety of inventory sources to stock their virtual shelves.
“We are trying to build the B2B infrastructure behind those channels,” Rachmansky said. “With the explosion of new operators selling B2C on platforms like StockX and Goat, there’s this whole messy disorganized world that feeds the supply.”
There’s evidence that the business model has legs. Only five years into its existence, OS Group is already approaching $200 million in annual revenue, a 50% increase this year. The company will sell around $65 million in inventory this year and is on track to do $100 million next year.
For sellers, such centralization could be a big benefit. Sisters Nicole Buzo and Heather Green, who run a successful Whatnot fashion and footwear shop called Mama’s Sweet Repeats, said that as a seller’s business grows, the risks in sourcing inventory compound.
“We get hundreds of emails daily with people offering to sell us inventory,” Buzo said. The sisters sell a wide variety of fashion items on their Whatnot shop, including denim from Good American, footwear from Target and designer and ready-to-wear goods from high-end brands. “I have to do in-depth research on each of our suppliers to make sure they’re legit, that they’re not being sued. And if we can’t physically see the goods beforehand, we don’t buy it. We have to use a lot more caution now that we’ve grown.”
Mama’s Sweet Repeats sells over $1 million worth of inventory every year, and the two sisters have sold over 145,000 items in the last year alone. They now have their own 10,000-square-foot warehouse, leased from a winery, to house the pallets of product they get.
Like many independent sellers, the sisters source their goods from a wide variety of suppliers. Much of it comes from retail returns and overstock that retailers are getting rid of, while others come from sample sales, closing sales when stores are going out of business or sample pieces that never made it to retail shelves. Often, this inventory is coming from personal relationships sellers have formed with independent retailers and importers.
Sellers can also get goods directly from brands, but these relationships are often kept under wraps. Heather and Nicole confirmed that multiple brands supply them with product directly, but said these relationships are under NDA and the brands don’t advertise that they offer this channel. Some of these deals come with stipulations that the product will only be sold on live-shopping platforms like Whatnot and not in traditional stores.
Buzo said that a centralized marketplace like the one OS Group is building would be fantastic for sellers — legitimizing what can sometimes be a shady and risk-prone process — but not so appealing for brands.
“A one-stop shop would be great, but a lot of brands wouldn’t be so fond of being on a master list,” she said. “It’s more exposure that this is something they’re doing. The brands want everything to sell at full price.”
She said that one brand her company had sourced inventory from directly pulled back from selling straight to resellers after it became more widely known in the community that it was something they offered.
Eric Shemtoz, vp of category management for Whatnot, told Glossy that a few brands are starting to more openly embrace marketplaces like Whatnot.
“There are a handful,” he said. “It’s mostly in the jewelry space. Invicta is one that has been using us to tap into a larger community and doing some unique things that they couldn’t do through their own channel. Brands are dipping their toes into it in a way that feels comfortable for them.”
For Rachmansky and OS Group, live shopping is the next frontier in the booming resale space. This week, OS Group is officially rolling out live shopping support, with a specialized platform that helps manage sourcing and sales for live shopping channels like Whatnot, TikTok Shop and eBay Live.
“We’ve been slowly building momentum on the live shopping front since the beginning of the year,” Rachmansky said. “We’ve onboarded about 200 sellers already, and we just see a ton of opportunity on that front. We want to position ourselves as the infrastructure layer between these channels.”
Sales from small businesses on TikTok Shop increased 66% last year, according to Glossy’s sister publication Modern Retail. Meanwhile, total merchandise value on Whatnot more than doubled from $3 billion in 2024 to $8 billion in 2025.
As the sourcing power of independent sellers on these channels grows, they’re starting to rival that of the more traditional destination for excess inventory from store closings, sample sales, retail returns and unsold collections: off-price retailers.
“There’s a huge broad ecosystem that people might know about but don’t know how to tap into,” Green said. “It’s because it’s very capital intensive. You can only get these truckloads of inventory if you’re going to buy 10,000 units. We have made inventory purchases for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Live sellers are slowly starting to tap into the same ecosystems used by TJ Maxx and Michaels.”
News to know
- The British Fashion Council is introducing a new program later this year meant to expand the U.K. fashion industry beyond London. The program, Fashion Britain, will include events and pop-ups in other U.K. cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle.
- Frasers Group has amassed 15 million shares in the British luxury brand Burberry, giving it a nearly 5% stake in the company and making it one of the brand’s biggest investors. This comes amid Frasers Group’s attempted takeover of Hugo Boss last month.
- Shein is being probed by the FTC and could potentially have to pay significant fines. The fines may eat into the excitement around the Chinese fast fashion company’s upcoming IPO.
