Rob and Melissa Stephenson, of Flea Market Flipper, share some tips they used to find $5,000 of inventory on their last road trip.
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$5,000 found on our last road trip!!
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about what we found last week worth $5,000 while we were on a road trip.
Melissa: And with only two finds, two items.
Rob: All right, so we're talking about some cool finds that we found on the road last week while we were out of town. I want to tell you guys about them tell you, that yeah, like we said $5,000 is what they are worth how we found them and kind of yeah. A little bit more about each item.
Melissa: Yeah, and we were actually on a road trip to our friend's event. He was hosting this event. It was a two-day event, conference kind of, for kids. But it was geared towards kid entrepreneurs, which is really cool. Yeah, kid entrepreneurs. But then it was, it was teaching them that there was more things than just being an entrepreneur.
Absolutely. It was really about money, talking about like money management, investing and all this other stuff. So it was really a cool, I learned a lot. And so I'm sure, I wish we had this stuff growing up.
Rob: Yeah, we're very passionate about being entrepreneurs ourselves and we want to show our kids exactly what's possible. So we love going to those events. Two weeks ago, we were actually at another one that was in Mexico and it was geared towards the kids the same way, talking about some kids speakers were on stage about their businesses that they built.
So we're very passionate about that. We love showing our kids the different ways to be able to make money and do stuff. So we had fun. It was not all about that either. While we're on the road, anywhere we go, whether it's a vacation, whether it's a conference, what it's an event, we love to look for items because I'm addicted to it.
For one thing. I love doing it, but at the same time, we love to be able to pay for what we're doing. So in this, these two finds that we found, while we were in Tennessee last week will pay for well, well over what we spent on the trip to go up there and show our kids more about this entrepreneurial world.
Melissa: Yeah. So the items we found, we'll dive into it in just a second. I just wanted to add one thing. Our friend that put on this event, it's called teenage tycoon, which is his mastermind that he created for these kids. And the second day of the event the kids he gave them a game to do so the kids had to pick a profession. So they could pick entrepreneur they could pick a high, what is it high business? Like a doctor, lawyer, you could be a content creator was one of them, or you could be a tradesman. And so you came out of school with a certain amount of debt and a certain amount of income levels and it was really cool just to see. You started there and then each year you had to invest and take on a debt and have living expenses and just to see like how, I don't know, you're thinking about this stuff and at the end, what was your net worth?
And the goal was to get, create the highest net worth. And I was like, man, I wish, I I just wish we had that stuff when we were growing up. That's so cool. And I just, I would just put things into perspective, which was really cool.
Rob: Our kids had such a blast doing that. Learned a lot about the different type of debt that you inquire or inquire, acquire, while you're in school.
And if that's the only way to go versus going to a trade school, a vo-tech school. So it was really, really fun to be able to strike up conversations with our kids, talking more about this, but we didn't initialize it. It was at the event. So it was fun to have those followup conversations. Really, really cool to be able to do that.
Melissa: Yeah. So to the items that we found. So one of Rob's favorite things to do is to scroll on marketplace, see what he can find because then also the trip, well, this was already kind of a work trip. So, but part of the trip is a write off. If we're working on the trip. So. What did you find?
Rob: The first one that I found that I was disappointed in is I found a, a scammer up in Tennessee and I'm not used to scammers.
I see them usually a mile away and I figured in Tennessee I would not do, I would not get hit up by a scammer. I don't know. I just figured most of the time, most of the time. Yeah. You see scammers in big, big towns. And this one wasn't anything big. The guy just wanted my phone number. I'm sure he's going to sell the phone number too.
He's got a data, a database that he sells it to somebody. I'm sure that's all it was about, but it was an a range. A, a really cool range, actually a 40 inch range. Most ranges are like 30 inches. So it was a little bit bigger range. I found it, it looked real, had all the pictures, all the right things, and finally he said, hey, I want to, send me your number so I can send you the address and you can come see it.
When I sent him the number, he goes, well, let me, I want to send you a confirmation to your number to confirm that you're not a scammer. And right there, I was like, all right, he's trying to do something where he's trying to confirm me, to be able to give my number, sell my number, which after that point, I wouldn't do it.
Melissa: So that was really sad because you wanted to buy it.
Rob: I was excited about that one. Really, really good comps. We've sold one of these in the past. It was a 40 inch range. Yeah. So we sold one of these in the past solar really, really quickly and there were none active on eBay and the only ones that had I think were in the area of like three grand.
I negotiated the price down to a hundred bucks. He, I think he went to two hundred dollars for it. Negotiated it to a hundred dollars, which it was a fake item, anyways, so it didn't do me any good. But at the same time, yeah, I, I don't usually see that and get burned by that. No, I didn't really get burned, but you know what I mean.
I don't really typically, yeah. Well, if it is, it is. I mean, not a big deal. So, but anyways. That was the first item that we found that I was super excited about. I was really excited to go pick that up and make some money on that quickly. But I found like another range after that, which was a very unique range as well.
So I'm looking for ranges that are sell like the fast sell through rate, on eBay and that there's not a lot of competition. So I did find another range that was a double oven range, with like a pizza oven on top and then a normal size oven on the bottom without the storage drawer underneath it.
So really, really cool range that we were able to find.
Melissa: Great shape.
Rob: Amazing, amazing shape. It is actually white, which typically, white and black, I feel like they're coming back and more people are liking those.
One of our friends said
Melissa: that too, who does houses and stuff.
Rob: Versus stainless steel stuff. I feel like it's way, way overused.
So more people are going back to like a, a really clean white looking appliances and black. So, I was excited about it. I, like I said, no competition. Actually, there's one other competition on eBay, which they are not shipping. So they're limited to their local market, which we are not. We will ship it anywhere in the country.
So yeah, we ended up getting that for a hundred, a $100 and we have it listed for $2,000, which is a killer deal.
Melissa: To what something you said is that there was none listed on eBay and or not having a lot of competition that sometimes that keeps people from buying something if they don't see that there's anything listed or has sold.
But that's not always something that is a bad thing if it's not listed. So don't always keep that, you know, you can look and see if what the retail of that is. I don't know if you can tell the retail.
Rob: No, this one is definitely from the 90s, early 2000s.
It's old. So,
Melissa: but the quality, that's the reason these still sell.
And you should, you listed it for $2,000, right? $2,000, yep. So, and they, the quality is so good and people like the quality. The quality of appliances right now is so cheap and they break apart and people like the old stuff. So.
Rob: Yeah, and that's why it's worth the money will absolutely sell. I have it for $2,000 with $250 for shipping. So $2,250 all said and done we might end up taking a little bit less for it and then still including shipping in it. But roughly it's going to be between $1,500 and $2,000 for a hundred dollar investment So killer deal on that was very excited when I got that, and yeah, got it back.
Got it cleaned up. It's beautiful. A beautiful, clean, clean unit. Somebody is going to absolutely love to put it in their kitchen. So that was the first item. The second item was, I talked to my kids into this, and this we had to actually drive on our day before we came back, we had to drive an hour, was it an hour and a half?
An hour north before we ended up going back south to go head home. So, so it was really two hours out of the way because an hour north and an hour back down to where we were. But this one had really, really cool potential. Because I have, we have three kids and I'm getting them into flipping.
They absolutely love flipping. And this is something that's not huge. It's not going to go on a pallet. It will go in to a couple boxes, smaller boxes.
Melissa: If you're watching on YouTube, it's actually behind us.
Rob: Yep, you can see a quarter of it is behind us, but some of it's already put away. B ut yeah, we did the pictures the other day, got it listed, but it actually is a stamp of hot foil stamp.
Yes, and they had two different units two different stamping machines and then they had probably thousands of accessories that went with it. And that's what caught my eye was all the extras because those extras typically cost a lot of money when you're buying stuff piece by piece by piece. It's not cheap and I don't even know what that much about the hot foil stamp business. But this was some business that a lady and her husband had he passed away. And then their friends ran the estate sale for them. And then they were the ones who actually took it over.
They didn't want to donate it after nobody bought it at the estate sale. So they were selling it on Marketplace. And it's worth way, way more. We paid $300 for it, which is really cool. $300. So I took $100 from each of our kids, to invest in this because they wanted to do this. They talked it out and they said, yes, absolutely.
And we have it listed for $3,500 on eBay as a business in a box. It has everything needed, to run this hot foil stamp business. So we'll probably take a little bit less. I wanted to mark it up a little bit more and then try to come down to $3,250 or $3,000, and have it all said and done. Hopefully we'll make between, $2,500 and $3,000 in profit on this is our goal to where the kids will be really, really excited. They'll help me box it up. They already helped me clean it up and set it up for pictures. So flip for them. I was very very excited to be able to find that.
Melissa: And after they learned how to do all their investing and all the stuff.
They're asking us a whole bunch of questions. Okay, so we can take a portion of it. How do we invest it? And so it's pretty cool to be thinking about that that young, but something you also said which I think is super important. That you've done a lot lately is you'll list stuff on the higher end of things. That gives you a little wiggle room to shoot an offer of $200 off or whatever it is to people that are watching because that does help move things a lot.
People see, okay, well, this offer, how long do offers last for?
Rob: 48, 48 hours.
Melissa: 48 hours. So the people have, they have a deadline that they have to decide if they're going to get it for this offer. So, I think that's pretty cool. It is. Cause you do that on Marketplace too. That's pretty obvious. Cause people always dicker on Marketplace.
So you always, you know, listed a little bit higher knowing that you're going to take a little bit less. But you didn't use to do that all the time on eBay, but now I think you more.
Rob: Well just recently they started letting you do it and that seems like the going, yeah, routine is to be able to do that and we just sold a cooktop two days ago by sending an offer out for $50 less.
I had it for $500, sent it out, offer out for $450 and the guy bought it within 24 hours. So, it works. We've done it many times. This is kind of our strategy. We list stuff a little bit higher, so we do have that wiggle room. Such a great point that Melissa said, when you're thinking about that, knowing that people want a better deal and when you just give them a little bit, like $50 off of a cooktop, that's not that much off, but that was what it took to pull the trigger.
Exactly. So, plus the other thing is a lot of people will be busy. A lot of people are busy. I should say they see an item, they put it as saved or watch and then they go and they forget about it. They get busy and don't think about it again until you send an offer. Once you send that offer back on top of mind, they see they can get it cheaper and they'll jump on and buy it a lot of times.
So that's such a great point. Yeah.
Melissa: So that's just something you can do if you're not utilizing that. And then instead of like lowering the price, cause some people, I feel like if it's not moving in a certain amount of time, they might lower the price, but maybe just try shooting out those offers to people that you are willing to take a little bit less. But before you lower the price, absolutely.
Rob: So guys, maybe you're listening to this right now and you're like, I don't know how to find those high profit items. Lucky for you, we just actually released a new service.
Melissa: This is something we've only done for our one on one members before, but we're going to go into your area, source for you, $2,000-$5,000 worth of items.
We're only taking 20 people because we want to get this done in a timely manner. We want to get it back to you, within 30 days. So we're going to make sure we're going to go in your area. Send you a couple items that are worth $2,000-$5,000 total so you can check that out the link below. If it still goes if it's still open, but there are 20 spots available You can check it out if you want some help looking for some of these higher value items in your area.
Rob: And this will be a personalized video for you.
We will go into your area. We will do a screen record of how we found that item, how we determined what it's going to sell for on eBay. We'll go over and do comps on eBay, and then we'll actually show you how to negotiate the sale. So all that stuff. There's no guesswork left for you guys. We'll show you exactly what you need to know, to find the item, to negotiate the item and then to list the item on eBay to make that money. So, like Melissa said, if the link is below, we still have a couple of spots available. Jump in there. Do not miss that spot and we will be excited to actually send you this video on these high profit items in your local area.
Melissa: Awesome. You guys rock. Thank you so much for listening.
Rob: You're amazing. We'll see you on the next episode.