> She became friendly with the customer service repos at the stroller manufacturers and could usually get replacement parts for free [...] The real secret sauce to her side-hustle was the relationship she had with the lady who managed the warehouse where she bought the baby stuff.
I think both of these could be OK. Such as if it was within the manager's/rep's authority to do this, and it was aligned with the business.
(For example, the appropriate level of decision-making might have decided that the business gets better rates, or has lower headaches, from letting certain good buyers cherry-pick. And a quality brand of baby stroller might prefer not to see the brand associated with "broken" strollers on the used market, and has an interest in someone repairing them, even if that cannibalized some new sales.)
> and I think she sold the warehouse lady a house.
Where I'd guess this might be a problem is if some question came up over whether the warehouse manager was supposed to be letting cherry-picking happen, and then there's this big-ticket transaction, in which the manager, hypothetically, could've gotten a quid pro quo deal (e.g., preferential access, or a discount on fees, or even discounted pricing).