Rob and Melissa Stephenson, from Flea Market Flipper, share five tips for growing your reselling business in 2025.
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PE305- 5 Tips To Grow Your Reselling Business In 2025
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about five tips to grow your reselling business in 2025. All right, guys, on today's episode, we're going to talk about some tips that you can use in 2025, this year, to grow and scale your reselling business.
Melissa: We love helping people to grow their flipping business. That's what we are. We put content out there, do the podcast, do videos, and we want to help you to really grow your business this year.
If that is what, when you're listening to this, so obviously that's probably something that you're trying to think about, and how you can be more efficient and grow your business. So.
Rob: That's it. So we will jump in and talk about these five tips I want you guys to use, utilize so you can really, really get to the next level in your business.
Melissa: All right. Number one.
Rob: Tip number one.
Melissa: If you aren't using eBay yet, you should be, is number one.
Rob: So this is the biggest thing. So 90, 95 percent of our sales come through eBay. eBay is the biggest used platform out there selling used items. So that's why we use it as our number one source to resell items because they reach all over the country and all over the world.
Like I said, it's the biggest platform out there for the used item market. If you're not using them yet, I know there is a lot of people who are terrified of eBay. They have been around since 1996. Wow. They're coming up on, what is that? 30 years. Yeah. Coming up on 30 years that they have been in business. But a very, very safe place to, to go and to be able to sell or buy items on that or their platform. So if you're not utilizing them yet, that is the first tip is get into eBay and start your business.
Melissa: And we've cross posted on a lot of different platforms and we will still, you know, as new ones come out, we try them out a little bit, but we always go back to eBay and we do some on marketplace, like you said, but eBay's always been our bread and butter. And so we don't really even cross post on other platforms anymore. It's mostly just eBay and Facebook marketplace. So if you're not using it yet, try it out. Maybe it could help you grow some more sales this year.
Rob: Absolutely. And you have to start before you can start running. So you have to get started. You have to learn the platform, learn how everything works on the platform, and then the, the sky's the limit for whatever you want to do with it, but that's how we've scaled our business. You can do the same thing.
It is a great, great platform out there. So tip number two.
Melissa: Be consistent. So this is something that I feel like most people struggle with. I know even you struggle with this, sometimes is being consistent, in all aspects of your business. But like being consistent with your listings is one of the biggest ones so that you can keep growing your sales.
Rob: Absolutely and consistency is a lot of people want a consistent paycheck in their side hustle. The problem is they won't put the consistent hours that it takes to build that paycheck up to where you're at, to where you can, if it is your side hustle, you can build that paycheck up to where you can leave your full time job, but you're not willing to put the consistent hours.
And that word, the reason it's like that, you probably have a nine to five, if you're here and you're a part time flipper right now, or you're exploring being a part time flipper. You might have a nine to five and you come home and you're tired and you can't do it. If you build this business in a couple hours a day, at nighttime, it will work miracles in your finances.
If you just get consistent with the time that you're throwing into it, it will start consistently throwing money back at you. So, that is our tip for number two is get consistent with what you're doing and work towards building this amazing side hustle or full time career, whatever you're working towards.
Melissa: Yeah. And I wanted to add too that even platforms like eBay likes consistency, but they they even value that higher than like say I'm going to list 10 items. If I sit down for an hour and I go I take pictures and I list 10 items in one block and then I don't open the app again for a week, like they don't like that as much as if you were to list those 10 items once a day every day for a couple minutes. And you don't have to, we've talked about this before, you don't have to, you can still go and do all your pictures get all your listings done and then just release them each day. So that you're just, time on platform is a smaller amount over a longer period of time.
And eBay likes that better. So.
Rob: That's it. The algorithms will love you if you start doing that. And Melissa hit the nail on the head, they want to see you there daily. If you're willing to do it, they want to see you there daily. Whether that's buying, selling, whatever it is, it's time on platform. And that's how the algorithms really, really love your stuff.
Melissa: We don't have any insider information that that eBay officially says that that is the case, but just from experience from ourselves, from our members, it helps. It definitely helps. Something that somebody said just recently I saw a Facebook post the other day because you were talking about making a habit of like at night, you know doing an hour or whatever it is that works for your schedule.
Somebody said they built a habit. I think she was starting to exercise into something she was already doing. So she attached one habit that she wanted to do to something she was already doing. And it helped her to be able to do that, that thing and be more consistent with, I think it was her workout.
So it was pretty, I thought that was interesting. So like attaching a habit to another habit you're already doing.
Rob: It's cool. And I even think about this for us. If, if you're sitting down and you're watching TV, I relax by watching a movie at night. If you're sitting down and doing that, maybe you attach the habit of while you're sitting down and watching TV, you're actually on the app and you're sourcing if you need to be able to source more and find some more, more items to sell. Or maybe that is you're listing while you're watching and trying to relax a little bit. It's going to feel weird at first because that's how you relax.
Same for me. But then if you can build it,
Melissa: You relax by sourcing too.
Rob: I do. But if you can build it into that habit, maybe that will serve you very, very well to be able to do that and start building your business at the same time that you're doing something else that you've already been doing or that you have a habit built doing it.
So all right. Number three.
Melissa: Number three is focus.
Rob: Focus, follow one course until success, huge. JLD, one of the podcasters that Melissa and I listen to, listened to him for years, I don't know if he coined that phrase or not, but he said it, we've taken it from him. It's pretty, pretty important. Follow one course until success, whatever that course is, whoever has success that you deem success.
If you want to get that success, you got to follow that course until success. That's what you have to do. So, focusing on whatever you want, like, like we talked about before, and this side hustle, you want it to go into your full time gig. Make sure you are following that course, until you get that success and, and don't get sidetracked.
Don't get shiny object syndrome. A lot of entrepreneurs have shiny objects in the syndrome, myself included, stay focused on that one path that you know will work, but you just have to stay focused on it. So, that is tip number three is focus.
Melissa: I don't know how we didn't count exactly how many, but there was at least 20 some odd businesses that Rob has tried to start before me. And during our marriage, like he always has these ideas of different things that we can do. And it was your brother-in-law that roped you in and said, listen, you need to focus on one thing and you'll be successful, but you can't do 15 different things at one time.
And what won't work because you would do that. You'd be like, oh, I'm so excited about this. Go create the flyers, create the, the business. And then two weeks later, you're on to the next.
Rob: Not like something about it. And then you go on to the next one.
Melissa: Cause things get, things, every business, there's going to be something that might be hard, be difficult.
You might not like it. You might not enjoy doing a listing on eBay. You might not like, there's certain things about every business you might not enjoy, but is it worth it to get past those things and focus and really hit the ground running?
Rob: Absolutely. Absolutely. So number four.
Melissa: Number four is to surround yourself with like minded people.
Rob: This is huge, and this is something that Melissa and I have prided ourselves in with growing our business, with even growing our families and our relationships. Make sure your circle of friends around you are not, what's the right word? Pulling you down. Yeah, pulling you down or discouraging you for what you're doing.
If you're talking to your friends and you're like, man, I'm really excited about this side hustle, I'm going to start getting some stuff listed. And they're like, yeah, you can never do that, there's no success, you're going to have problems on eBay, you're going to have problems on Mercari. If you're surrounding yourself by those people, you will start to see yourself being dragged down.
And you do not, if these people are not where you want to be, do not take somebody's advice who is lower than you or who is not, does not have the success that you want. Don't take their advice and be careful surrounding yourself around those people because it is draining and you'll find yourself being pulled down to that level.
Melissa: Yeah, so it's and we're not out here saying, you know, go cut off all your friends, but it is important to evaluate how much time you're spending with certain people because sometimes, they can like they could completely derail you if, you know, they don't believe in what you're doing or they don't. You know you want to be around people who who think bigger I guess like who have, have goals and they want to accomplish things because those people will lift you up. Like we always try to strive to be around people who are either doing more, doing better than us and who are encouraging and usually who was it? What was the quote? I don't know if it's a quote. But it's usually the people who are further ahead than you who will never say anything negative you, negative to you. But the people behind you or who are the ones that want to like tear you down.
Rob: Yeah, discourage you.
Melissa: Discourage you. So just yeah.
Rob: Very, very important. Melissa and I have prided ourselves exactly for the last 10 years of really going out, seeking out masterminds, being in these rooms with people who are striving to be better, striving to get further along in their business. And they have goals and they're doing this stuff versus some of our friends, and it's not a bad thing, but they're, they're happy where they are or they'll complain about where they're at, but they won't go out over and beyond to get to that next level. So we have friends on both levels of it. And just be careful if your only circle of friends are the friends that are pulling you down, are there.
I'm happy where they're at complaining where they're at. And, that's all that they're accepting. They're not accepting that there is something more to where their life is. So, like I said, Melissa and I have, we have invested tons and tons of money into masterminds in being in these rooms with people who have gone further in there.
They're not satisfied with staying where they're at. They're always trying to achieve more. And that's what most of I want to do too. We always want to be achieving more. We want to stepping out and getting better and better at what we're doing, how we're helping people. All that's a part of being around, being in that circle of friends or having a circle of friends around you that can help you, just, just be a better person.
Melissa: That's why we created the community too, because we wanted that for our members is to be a part of a group of people that encourage each other and and if people have like a question or a problem, like we all figure it out together, like there's always somebody to help you through it. So, and I think, I don't know, I love that we have that for our people.
So, it's such an amazing community.
Rob: Alright, number five!
Melissa: Number five! Do something this year that scares you.
Rob: This is a big one. If you can, think about something right now that you want to work, start working towards that scares you .Now I'm going to give you an example of what Melissa and I have done for the last couple years. It really really has scared us and terrified us and we've done it because I want to grow. It goes back to number four. I want to grow, I want to get better at everything that I possibly can so Melissa and I and I think I don't know statistics on this, but some people would rather die than have to speak on a stage. For us, that has been something that I've always been terrified is speaking in front of people. You wouldn't know it by listening to this podcast or watching a video that I do, but any of this stuff that you see, this is hundreds, if not thousands of hours of me spending a lot of video.
Melissa: You can be on video in front of a whole bunch of people, you don't care.
Rob: Doesn't bother me one bit.
But when it comes to actually standing up on stage and having people look back at me and I can see out to them, that terrifies me. So do something this year. Whatever that might be and that might be as simple as even getting an eBay account and listing on eBay, or another platform or whatever it is, do something.
Melissa: You got sidetracked from your story. Oh. Of speaking. You said that was something that scared you.
Rob: Well, do something that scares you, and that's something that Melissa and I have lived into for the last couple years. We've really sought out to try and get out of the comfort zone of not really going or wanting to be on stage, to speaking on multiple stages. Like, even just like a couple, when was that? A couple weeks ago. A couple weeks ago. I was gonna say a week ago, a week and a half ago.
Melissa: Yeah, we were at a conference, PodFest, and normally, I would have never applied to speak at a conference. Cause I like, we don't like to do it, but I got this feeling like, okay, I'm going to apply and see if we can speak.
And just for experience, like nothing else, just for experience to be on the stage, because even like what we were talking about with a short form video, that's not something like we teach. It's not something, anything that we, you know, do, but it's just something that we've gotten decent at. So I'm like, let's just practice our speaking skills.
So we did, and it was okay. It went pretty, I mean, it went decent. I would say, we we're all still improving, but.
Rob: But that's just something and a couple of years ago they asked us to speak on stage, with like a thousand people in the room.
Melissa: That was our first experience.
Rob: And that was our first experience.
So going from never speaking into anybody and to a room of a thousand people was terrifying, freaked me out. I thought I was going to get on stage and be like, oh my goodness, I don't know what I am talking about. I don't have any words that I wrote. So it was very, very scary. So. But we did it and we're trying to get better and better at it.
So that's something that we are trying to grow in. What does that look like for you? Like I said, is it, you know, yeah, getting on eBay and getting something listed on eBay, maybe you've sold on eBay, but you want to go to the next level and start listing a more expensive item. So maybe you've sold the highest thing you've sold is like 50 bucks and you want to go to a hundred or 200.
I want to encourage you guys to get, step out of your comfort zone, and it might not be something that happens this week, next week, the week after, but think about that for this year, what you can do to grow, in your business grow in. And it could even be something totally outside of eBay.
It could be something in your health, something that you want to do that scares you, but you want to do it. Maybe it's run a half a marathon or a marathon or something like that. I want to encourage you to set that goal for yourself in 2025 and do it. Take the steps to get to that point and do it because you will, it will be amazing once you accomplish it.
Melissa: Yeah. It'll just help you grow, set those things. What else did I write down for? Oh, some things that could be scary as far as the reselling business too. Even negotiating on apps could be intimidating for some people, maybe throw out more offers than you ever used to. Like that's something that is easy to do on apps, but it still can be intimidating too, cause you don't want people to reject you, but you just drop more offers, you can get more items for good deals.
Rob: Which is cool. I even remember, this brings back to a story, just, I think this was last month. I was helping one of our students negotiate an item and I told him what I would offer.
I think the item was listed for like. I'm, I might butcher it. I think maybe it was listed for like 300. And I told them to go and offer 150. And they came back and said, guess what? I got it for a hundred bucks. I offered him a hundred dollars and he's like, it was just exciting, but they had never done really an offer before that.
And they were terrified to do it and they did it. And then the offer was accepted for better than what I actually told him to offer it for. So really, really cool. But. Yeah. Like we said, just figure out that one thing that really tears it, terrifies you and try to work that into your schedule this year.
Try to do that. And you will be very, very happy at the end of the year that you did it.
Melissa: We are excited for 2025. We're excited to be back on here on the podcast and we're excited to hang out with you guys. So you're awesome. Go make some money flipping.
Rob: You guys are amazing. Have an amazing day and we'll talk to you soon.
See ya.