He turned a side hustle into a video game resale business that’s brought in $4 million this year

Caleb Ashton’s journey into the resale business was, like many who start out in that industry, humble.

Ashton began flipping items — textbooks, action figures, golf clubs, sneakers, and more — while living with his wife in a one-bedroom apartment in 2019. He was eager to create an extra source of income while his wife attended law school.

In true millennial fashion, he learned how to buy and resell items from YouTube videos.

“I started with a budget of 500 bucks that I had cobbled together from birthday and Christmas money. That was my startup seed money,” Ashton, 31, told Business Insider.”I initially focused on really cheap items like books or things that I could get for $5 at yard sales.”

Ashton kept up the side hustle for about six months, but it turned into a full-time job after he was fired from a friend’s collectible coin business.

By that point, Ashton had learned that some items could lead to quick, reliable money. Specifically, physical video games.

Things grew quickly.

In 2024, he created QuickFlips, an online resale platform where people can sell their video game collections, consoles, and Pokémon trading cards. He also built the platform’s buyback software system.

On QuickFlips, users enter their item into the search bar to get an instant offer price. Once the QuickFlips team has inspected the incoming items, users ship them to the company and receive a payout within 24 hours. QuickFlips then resells the refurbished items on Amazon, eBay, and TCGPlayer to make a profit.

As of 2025, they’re also sold in Ashton’s brick-and-mortar store.

Ashton opened the storefront last September in Lexington, Kentucky. The overall business made about $4 million in revenue in 2026 and has paid over $5 million to customers since its inception.

Necessity becomes invention

Ashton’s decision to open a storefront came out of necessity. For a time, he operated QuickFlips from his spare bedroom. Then, his basement.

“My first hire was my friend Spencer, who came to help pack stuff up and list inventory,” Ashton said. “We ended up having about 10 employees in that basement.”

QuickFlips began purchasing dozens of video game collections each week. That meant storing the numerous collections, assessing the products, listing them for sale on sites like Amazon, and preparing them for shipping, all from the basement. At one point, there was so much inventory in the basement that Ashton struggled to find space for new hires.

“It was way too tight. My neighbors hated me, so I knew I had to get an actual office space. We landed on a retail complex,” Ashton said.

Now, QuickFlips has 33 employees across its online platform and retail space. Strategy-wide, Ashton said QuickFlip’s approach to payouts is what differentiates it from other sellers in the marketplace. They have a simple motto: “Pay well, Sell fast.”

“We offer a transparent offer upfront. We don’t say, ‘Hey, come to our store, and we’ll make you an offer after we look at everything,'” Ashton said. “We say, ‘As long as this is in good condition, we will give you this much for it.'”

Ashton said his business is focused on moving volume.

“We’re not necessarily focused on getting every penny for every item,” Ashton said. “We would prefer to get some of the money all the time, rather than all the money some of the time.”

Going analog

Selling physical video games and consoles may sound like a dead end in the AI age, but Ashton has learned otherwise. Nostalgia is a tried-and-true driver of sales.

“A big reason that people collect, in general, is to go back to a simpler time. There’s significant value for a lot of folks,” Ashton said. “Another thing is that a lot of folks we’ve found are getting fed up with digital media.”

The influx of digital media and products these days has led some consumers to seek out physical alternatives. Manufacturers and thrift shop owners have told Business Insider they’ve noticed items like the Nintendo DS become popular with younger generations.

In the gaming community, Sony inadvertently sparked calls for more physical games when it announced that production of PlayStation discs for new games would end in 2028.

“Every day, servers are getting shut down. Games are becoming inaccessible. People are realizing that we don’t actually own these digital games,” Ashton said. “Sometimes people will come in to trade their PS5 that has 50 games on it, and be crushed when they realize that doesn’t actually give the console any more value because we’re going to have to reset it.”

Living in a world with social media does have some perks, though. QuickFlips has amassed over 661,000 subscribers across its accounts, which also earn ad revenue.

“There are very few people in the space that have our social media following,” Ashton said. “There are hundreds of thousands of collectors and video game resellers that know who we are because of how much we invest into our YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook content.”

Ashton chronicles QuickFlips growth and his experience as an entrepreneur on his YouTube page, Phoenix Resale.

It’s our goal to provide a lot of value to people upfront on both the education and entertainment side,” Ashton said. “That’s a big part of why they choose to do business with us.”