Where Can You Actually Get Fishing Gear Cheap Enough to Sell Online?
By Edmund Winston | Published June 5, 2025 | Gear & DIY
If you've ever thought about starting an online fishing tackle store, you've probably discovered something pretty quickly: Finding fishing gear to sell isn't the hard part. Finding fishing gear cheap enough to actually make money selling it is.
There are seemingly endless fishing tackle wholesalers, importers, manufacturers and marketplaces out there. You can find thousands of lures, rods, reels, hooks, weights and other fishing gear for sale.
The problem is that a lot of it isn't actually cheap enough.
Once you add shipping, payment processing, marketplace fees, packaging, returns, advertising and all the other costs of running an online business, the difference between your wholesale price and the retail price can disappear very quickly.
And that's before you run into the biggest problem of all:
Your customers can probably find the same thing somewhere else for less money.
I've been looking into this because I've considered what it would take to actually build an online fishing store that could make money, and I dabble in online auctions and run Throw Away Baits. Along the way, I've looked at traditional wholesale suppliers, Whatnot, Temu, Alibaba, buying directly from manufacturers, and even making the fishing gear yourself.
There are opportunities in all of them.
There are also some pretty big traps.
The Biggest Problem: Everybody Is Selling Cheap Fishing Gear
The internet has completely changed fishing tackle.
It used to be relatively difficult for a small tackle shop to compete with the big retailers. Today, anybody can find manufacturers and suppliers all over the world.
That's great for consumers.
It's not always great for retailers.
You might find a lure for $3 and think:
"I can sell this for $7.99 and make almost $5."
But then you discover that Walmart sells it for $5.99.
Amazon sells it for $5.49.
Someone on Whatnot is selling them for $2.
And somebody on another website is selling them for $3.99 with free shipping.
Suddenly, your $3 lure isn't a great business opportunity.
This is why the most important question isn't: "Where can I find cheap fishing gear?"
It's: "Where can I find fishing gear that is cheap enough for me to sell profitably?"
Those aren't the same thing.
Whatnot: Great for Buying Inventory, Dangerous for Selling It
One of the more interesting options for fishing tackle is Whatnot.
If you're not familiar with it, Whatnot is a live shopping platform where sellers run live auctions and sell products directly to viewers.
There is a lot of fishing gear being sold there.
And if you're looking for inventory, you can sometimes find some incredible deals.
That's also the problem.
Whatnot has the potential to completely destroy your margins. The auction format encourages sellers to compete with each other on price. Some sellers are trying to move enormous quantities of inventory. Some are liquidating products. Some are simply trying to get rid of stuff they can't sell. And it seems like some are selling more than others, at higher prices, because the stream-style content can garner fanbases large enough that fans will compete with each other just to get anything they can from the person they’re watching. I’ve literally seen the exact same items in my inventory sell for hundreds of dollars, then on my live-stream, they don’t sell at all and I’m stuck sitting on a pile of crankbaits no one wants. And some appear willing to sell products for prices that make me wonder how they could possibly be making money after fees.
For someone buying inventory, this can be fantastic.
You might find a deal on a bunch of lures that's cheaper than traditional wholesale. And with some combined shipping costs, your profit margin seems to increase dramatically.
But there's a catch.
They just sold that item insanely cheap, and if you try to sell it on Whatnot as well, chances are it will sell for the same price, or less. That creates a vicious cycle.
The more sellers compete by lowering prices, the more customers expect those prices. Eventually, everybody is selling fishing gear for prices that make it nearly impossible to make a legitimate profit. I worry that this could have a long-term effect on, not just the fishing tackle industry, but almost all industries on Whatnot. I started off selling sports cards on Whatnot, and while I was profiting at first, I seem to be digging a bigger hole for myself with every stream lately, as inventory prices skyrocket from the buyer’s side, but profits plummet from the seller’s side.
Whatnot is allowing consumers to expect extremely low prices, particularly during live auctions. That may be great for the person buying a $20 lure for $8. It's not nearly as great for the manufacturer, distributor or retailer who needs to make enough money to stay in business.
That doesn't mean you should avoid Whatnot.
Quite the opposite.
It can be a fantastic place to find inventory.
But I would be very careful about building an entire business around products that are routinely being dumped on Whatnot at prices below normal retail. And if you're planning to sell on Whatnot, understand that you're entering a volatile marketplace where price competition can be absolutely brutal.
Temu: Cheap Doesn't Always Mean Cheap Enough
Then there's Temu.
Temu is another interesting source for fishing gear because you can find an enormous amount of inexpensive fishing equipment.
And here's something important:
Some of it is perfectly fine.
Cheap doesn't necessarily mean unusable.
There are absolutely fishing lures, hooks, tools and other products on Temu that will catch fish just fine. The problem is that Temu's prices are exactly what you would be able to sell it for on another platform.
You might find a lure on Temu for $1.50.
That sounds cheap.
But if the average consumer can simply buy that same lure from Temu for $1.50, why would they pay you $4.99 for it?
You could argue that you're providing better customer service, faster shipping or a better shopping experience. And that's true.
But there are limits to how much people will pay for a generic product when they know where it came from.
Temu is therefore potentially useful for researching products, testing ideas and finding inexpensive gear for yourself.
It might also be possible to sell through Temu, although I haven't personally researched the requirements and economics of becoming a Temu seller enough to recommend it.
I'd be particularly cautious about buying inventory from Temu with the intention of simply marking it up.
I highly recommend researching products as much as possible. Temu isn't neccesarily a scam, as long as you know exactly what you're buying. I also suggest using Temu on a desktop or laptop computer through a normal browser.
The Temu App kinda reminds me of a carnival, and it comes off scammy. They force you to sit through all these unnecessary animations of wheel spins and roulette style games, for absolutely no reason. The outcome of all those games is pre-determined and EVERYONE gets the same deal. It’s a bunch of non-sense. But, the worst part about it, the part that really makes me think of some creepy carny running a rigged game and emptying your wallet while you try to impress your date, is that they make a lot of promises for free items and major discounts (I recently got a discount of 99%) and they pull the rug out from under you with the fine print, only AFTER you already spent the money. I still paid full price for that item that was supposed to be 99% off, Luckily, it was only $3.
They force you to pick 6 free items, and make you think you’re actually getting those 6 free items, and tell you to spend a minimum amount of $15 to get those items, only to wait until after you’ve paid, to tell you that you only get one item. To get the others, you have to make several minimum amount purchases, and not every purchase includes one of the items.
BUT, this is where you might stand a chance as a reseller. Those “features” and “games” are the exact scammy things that drive some people away from using Temu, and those people can be your potential customers. So many people don’t trust Temu and think the whole thing is a scam, and they are justified in feeling that way, even if it's not entirely accurate.
You may be able to reach those people and gain their business.
The desktop browser version doesn’t seem to have all of that non-sense, and can be a pleasant experience. I highly recommend not using the app on your phone.
Alibaba: Probably the Best Place I've Found for Cheap Chinese Gear
If you're looking for low-cost Chinese fishing gear, Alibaba is probably the most interesting option I've found.
There are manufacturers selling literally everything, from motorcycles to adult novelties. Some of the ads I get on Instagram and Facebook show the most bizarre looking items.
I tend to focus on the fishing gear:
Hard baits
Soft Plastics
Spinnerbaits
Jigs
Hooks
Terminal tackle
Fishing tools
Rod components
Fishing accessories
Custom packaging
Private-label products
Customizable Items
And the prices can be incredibly low. Some crankbaits are listed at $0.30 each. 30 FREAKING CENTS.
But there's a very important catch.
You usually have to buy a lot of it.
The price you see advertised may be based on a relatively large quantity. Most items have a minimum quantity for each order, and the more you buy, the lower the cost per-item gets. But you can find some items you can buy one by one.
You might find a lure for $0.50 each, but only if you order 1,000 of them.
Suddenly your $0.50 lure is a $500 inventory purchase.
And that's before shipping.
Then you have to consider:
International Shipping
Import duties
Customs
Packaging
Payment fees
Potential defective products
Storage
A product that looks like a 50-cent lure on Alibaba might not actually cost 50 cents by the time it's sitting on your shelf.
Alibaba Can Still Be Extremely Profitable
That doesn't mean Alibaba isn't worthwhile. In fact, I think it may be one of the best options for a small fishing tackle company that is willing to commit to inventory.
The problem is cash flow.
Let's say ordering 100 lures costs you $1 each.
That's $100.
But ordering 1,000 might bring the price down to $0.50 each.
Now you're spending $500 instead of $100.
You have a better per-unit cost, but you also have $500 tied up in inventory.
If the product doesn't sell quickly, you haven't really saved money.
You've just bought a lot more stuff.
And this is one of the biggest traps with wholesale inventory:
The cheapest price isn't necessarily the cheapest way to do business. Cash sitting on a shelf doesn't pay your bills.
Shipping Can Change Everything
This is particularly important when importing from overseas.
A product might cost $0.30.
You might think:
"I'm going to make a fortune!"
Then you get the shipping quote.
Suddenly your $0.30 lure costs $0.75.
Add import fees.
Now it's $0.90.
Add packaging.
Now it's $1.05.
Add payment processing.
Then shipping to your customer.
The numbers start looking very different.
This is why you need to calculate your landed cost, not just your factory price.
The price that matters is: What did this product actually cost me by the time I can sell it?
The "Free Inventory" Option: Make It Yourself
Then there's what appears to be the cheapest option of all:
Make your own fishing gear.
At first, it sounds like a brilliant idea.
If you make a lure for $1 in materials and sell it for $8, you've got a $7 margin.
If you make your own fishing rods, maybe you can make even more.
There is a ton of information online about becoming a rod builder, lure maker, bait maker and tackle manufacturer.
And making your own products can absolutely be a great business.
But there's a problem.
Making it yourself doesn't mean the inventory is free.
Far from it.
The Equipment Can Cost More Than the Inventory
If you're making soft plastics, you need molds.
If you're building rods, you need rod-building equipment.
If you’re making weights and jigheads, you need MORE molds.
You need tools.
You need work space.
You need materials.
You need packaging.
You need storage.
You need safety equipment.
And eventually, if you're producing enough to actually run a business, you need equipment that can handle production quantities.
That's where things get expensive.
Lure Molds Can Be Ridiculously Expensive
If you're making soft-plastic fishing lures, the mold can be one of your biggest expenses.
A production-quality aluminum mold can cost hundreds of dollars.
Some can cost thousands.
And you need a different mold for every lure design, so multiply that cost by the number of products you make.
That gets expensive very quickly.
You might think:
"I'll just buy a cheap mold."
There are inexpensive molds available.
You can also find used molds on eBay and other marketplaces.
Sometimes you can get lucky.
But there's an important distinction between a mold that can make a few fishing lures for yourself and a mold that's suitable for commercial production.
Those aren't necessarily the same thing.
Aluminum Molds Are Generally the Best Option
For serious production, aluminum molds are generally the way to go. They're durable. They're designed to withstand repeated use. They can produce consistent results. And they can be designed to make multiple lures at once.
That last part is extremely important.
If your aluminum mold only produces one lure at a time, you may spend a ridiculous amount of time producing inventory.
Imagine making 1,000 soft plastics one at a time.
That's a lot of pours.
A multi-cavity production mold can dramatically increase your output.
Of course, those molds are generally more expensive.
And that's the catch.
You need to spend more money up front to produce inventory efficiently enough to justify the investment.
Silicone Open-Pour Molds Can Be Great, For a While
If you're just experimenting with lure making, silicone open-pour molds can be a fantastic option.
They're relatively inexpensive.
They're easy to use.
You can find them in a variety of shapes and sizes.
And they can be a great way to learn how to make soft plastics without spending thousands of dollars.
But they're not designed for serious commercial production.
You can get a lot of use out of them, but they're a consumable tool.
Eventually they wear out. For a hobbyist or someone experimenting with lure designs, that's fine. For a business producing thousands of lures, it's a different story.
STAY AWAY FROM 3D-PRINTED MOLDS
This is one piece of advice I can give from personal experience.
STAY AWAY FROM 3D-PRINTED MOLDS.
I've personally tried several.
Only one actually worked properly.
The others had a problem where the lure plastic would stick to the mold, and I don't mean it was slightly difficult to remove. The plastic would stick badly enough that trying to remove the lure would destroy the lure you had just made. Some even had so much material stuck in the grooves of the mold, that the mold was no longer usable. One-Time-Use molds, that don't even produce a single completed lure, is the BIGGEST waste of money I came across while trying to launch my own brand.
I've tried mold-release sprays and oils.
I've tried different techniques.
And I still had the same problem.
Maybe there are 3D-printed mold materials and techniques that work.
I'm sure somebody has figured it out.
But after my own experiences, I wouldn't build a commercial lure-making operation around 3D-printed molds.
The time you spend fighting with a mold isn't worth the money you saved buying it.
But Making Your Own Gear May Still Be the Best Option
Despite all of those warnings, I think making your own products could ultimately be the best option for a small fishing tackle company.
And there's a simple reason:
You can make something different.
You're no longer competing with 100 other sellers selling the same Chinese lure.
You're creating your own product.
That's exactly the direction I've taken with my own lure company, Throw Away Baits. Sure, my lure designs and styles can be found in other places, but I emphasize re-using and re-cycling materials while helping to clean up our local parks and waterways, while also keeping the consumer price as low as possible. I do offer a few unique designs as well, and have started hand-carving wooden lures too (those are not part of the Throw Away Baits line, as they’re not 100% recycled, but they can be found in the shop).
Making your own lures gives you the opportunity to experiment with shapes, colors, actions, and designs that aren't already sitting in every tackle shop. Your logo may even be the only thing that sets your products apart from the rest, but the important thing is that THEY ARE ACTUALLY SET APART.
And that's where a small fishing company can compete.
Not necessarily by being cheaper.
By being different.
You Don't Have to Reinvent Fishing Lures.
"Different" doesn't necessarily mean inventing something nobody has ever seen before.
You might simply improve an existing concept.
Change the shape.
Change the action.
Create a better color combination.
Build something specifically for a particular fishing technique.
Make a lure designed for a particular type of fisherman.
Or combine several ideas into something new.
The important thing is that you give customers a reason to buy your product instead of searching for the cheapest version of somebody else's product.
Small Runs Can Be an Advantage.
One of the biggest advantages of making your own gear is that you don't necessarily need thousands of pieces.
You can make 25.
Sell them.
See what happens.
Make another 25.
Change the color.
Try a different design.
Make another small run.
That's very different from ordering 5,000 generic lures from a factory because that's the quantity required to get the best price.
You're trading manufacturing efficiency for flexibility.
For a small business, that can be a very good trade.
The Real Cost of Making Your Own Lures
If you're considering making your own fishing gear, don't make the mistake of calculating only the cost of the plastic or other raw materials.
Your actual cost includes:
Molds
Melting/pouring equipment
Plastisol or other materials
Colorants
Glitter
Scent
Hooks
Skirts
Hardware
Packaging
Labels
Failed pours
Defective products
Electricity
Your time
Workspace
Equipment maintenance
And most importantly: Your labor.
If it takes you 20 minutes to produce a $5 package of lures, you need to decide what that 20 minutes is worth.
Your time isn't free.
Don't Forget About Your Time
This is a mistake I see people make all the time when they start making products.
They say: "This lure only costs me $1.25 to make."
Maybe. When you're the one in control of your own time and what you charge, you can decide not to charge for your time. That might work out well when you're trying to get off the ground.
But if it takes you an hour to make ten of them, your labor isn't free.
If you're trying to build a real business, you need to eventually calculate labor into the cost.
Otherwise you haven't created a profitable business.
You've created a job that pays you poorly.
So What's the Best Option?
Unfortunately, there's no single answer.
It depends on what you're trying to build.
Traditional wholesale:
Best for: Established brands and customers who specifically want those brands.
Problem: Margins can be too thin for a small online retailer.
Whatnot:
Best for: Finding deals, liquidation, moving inventory and live selling.
Problem: Extreme price competition can destroy margins and train customers to expect unrealistically low prices.
Temu:
Best for: Finding cheap products, researching what's available and potentially testing inexpensive gear.
Problem: The retail price can be so low that you can't buy it from Temu and resell it profitably.
Alibaba:
Best for: Low-cost Chinese manufacturing, bulk inventory and private labeling.
Problem: Minimum orders, shipping, import costs and cash tied up in inventory.
Making Your Own Products:
Best for: Unique products, private brands and creating something competitors don't have.
Problem: Equipment, molds, materials and labor can be extremely expensive.
The Best Strategy May Be a Combination
You don't have to choose just one.
A small tackle company could potentially use all of these methods.
For example:
Wholesale: A handful of popular products customers expect.
Alibaba: Low-cost private-label products.
Small manufacturers: Unique American-made products.
Closeouts: Deals that can be sold at attractive prices.
Whatnot: Occasional inventory purchases, inventory clear-out, and live sales. You may even gain followers.
DIY: Your own unique products.
That's a much more interesting business than simply buying 500 identical lures and putting them on a website.
What To Would Look For
If I were building a small online fishing store today, I'd concentrate on products with five characteristics:
1. Low landed cost
The product needs to be inexpensive enough that there's room for everything else.
2. Small and lightweight
Shipping can destroy your margin.
3. Consumable
Hooks get lost. Weights get lost. Soft plastics get torn up. That's good for repeat sales.
4. Difficult to comparison-shop
Your own colors, kits, bundles and designs are much better than generic products.
5. Something you can demonstrate
If you have a YouTube channel, Facebook page, TikTok account or other fishing audience, products that you can actually demonstrate have enormous value.
Your Content Could Be More Valuable Than Your Store
This is something I think a lot of people overlook.
If you start an online tackle store, you're not necessarily competing with Amazon.
You're competing for attention.
If you can create videos demonstrating your products, you have an advantage that a random tackle website may not.
Instead of running an advertisement saying: "Buy our new soft plastics!"
You can make a video saying: "I fished this $2 lure against a $10 lure. Here's what happened."
Now people are watching because they're interested in the fishing.
If the cheaper lure works, you've just demonstrated why they should buy it.
That's a much more powerful sales pitch.
Catch the fish, then catch the fisherman.
The Most Important Rule: Do the Math Before You Buy
Before you order anything, make a spreadsheet.
For every product, figure out:
Wholesale price
Minimum order
Shipping
Import fees
Landed cost
Packaging
Payment processing
Marketplace fees
Advertising
Expected selling price
Competitor prices
Customer shipping cost
Expected returns
Your labor
Then calculate your actual profit.
Don't calculate your profit using the supplier's advertised wholesale price. Calculate it using the amount the product actually costs you by the time you can put it in a package and send it to a customer.
Cheap Isn't the Goal
This may sound strange coming from Cheap Angler, but the goal isn't necessarily to find the cheapest fishing gear.
The goal is to find valuable fishing gear that you can acquire cheaply enough to make a profit.
Those are two completely different things.
A $1 lure that you can only sell for $1.50 isn't a good product.
A $3 lure that customers are willing to pay $10 for can be a fantastic product.
And a few $1 lures that you can turn into a unique $15 fishing kit might be even better.
The Best Inventory Is the Inventory Nobody Else Has
That's ultimately what makes making your own fishing gear so interesting.
You don't have to beat everybody else's price if nobody else has your product.
That's the reason I'm interested in making my own products through Throw Away Baits.
It's also why I think private labeling, custom colors, unique rigs and fishing kits can be such powerful options for small tackle companies.
The biggest advantage a small fishing business has isn't buying power.
It isn't warehouse space.
It isn't an advertising budget.
It's the ability to try something different without needing a committee meeting and a corporate purchasing department to approve it.
You can experiment.
You can make 25.
You can fish them.
You can change them.
You can listen to customers.
And if something works, you can make more.
Final Thoughts
There is absolutely an opportunity to make money selling fishing gear online.
But it's not as simple as finding something cheap and marking it up.
Whatnot has created incredible opportunities for finding deals, but its race-to-the-bottom auction environment can make it extremely difficult to maintain healthy retail prices.
Temu offers unbelievably cheap fishing gear, but that doesn't mean there's enough margin left for a reseller.
Alibaba can provide some of the lowest manufacturing prices available, but large orders, shipping, import fees and inventory costs can turn a seemingly cheap lure into a significant investment.
And making your own gear can appear to be the ultimate way to eliminate inventory costs, until you start adding up molds, tools, materials, equipment and your time.
But there's still a huge opportunity.
The trick is to stop thinking like a shopper and start thinking like a manufacturer and retailer.
Don't ask: "How cheap can I buy this?"
Ask: "What will this actually cost me, what can I realistically sell it for, and why would somebody buy it from me instead of Amazon, Walmart, Temu or Whatnot?"
If you can answer those three questions, you might have a product worth selling.
If you can't, it probably isn't worth putting your money into inventory.
And sometimes the best fishing gear to sell isn't the stuff you can buy the cheapest.
It's the stuff you can make, modify, package or present in a way that nobody else is offering.