Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about 5 tools that helped turn $400 into $10,000 and you probably already have 4 of them!
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5 Tools That Have Helped Us Turn $400 Into $10,000 And You Probably Already Have 4 Of Them!
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about five tools we used to turn $400 into $10,000.
Melissa: And you probably already have four of them.
Rob: Alright guys, so today we are going over five tools that helped us turn one single flip from $400 into $10,000.
Melissa: And normally that's a little bit higher for our investment. We don't normally invest that much in the item, but we knew what the return was gonna be on it. So, you were willing to invest $400 to make $10,000.
Rob: So that's it. So let's dive in and see if you guys are using these tools, if you have access to these tools and if it's possible for you to do a similar flip.
Melissa: So the thing I love about all of these is they're really simple, which is exciting. So first off, what was the flip?
Rob: The flip was a TurboChef oven countertop.
Melissa: Super huge?
Rob: Nope. Countertop oven. Easily pick up, one person. A big person could lift it up by themselves. I took two people to do it. Melissa and I moved it around one time. If you have a buddy, a friend, a spouse, a partner, something like that that you can have help you move something like this, totally doable.
Yeah, so it is a TurboChef oven, yeah, that we sold.
Melissa: All right, so the first tool that you need is a smartphone. So we do pretty much our whole business just from your smartphone, so.
Rob: So awesome.
Smartphones have changed the industry and the flipping world for sure, because you can do so much awesome stuff on the smartphone.
You can do research, look up items, you can look up other stuff on YouTube, on all these different, take all your pictures, do all your listings.
You can do everything from the smartphone.
Melissa: So, and you used to have to be able to, or used to have to take pictures on a camera, upload them onto. Like with the cord, upload them to your computer, put them in whatever area.
What was it on a hosting? A hosting thing. Yep. And then get them listed. And now you that that was a big process to do. And now yeah, you don't have to do that. So.
Rob: Now not only can you do pictures, you can do videos and upload them straight to eBay. Get them listed and yeah, that is amazing. The smartphone has changed the industry, so pretty much everyone has, hopefully you have a smartphone and you got the first tool that helped us turn this $400 into $10,000.
Melissa: All right. And the next one is kind of obvious, but it's the eBay app. So, and these are all things that shouldn't cost you anything else because you probably, you already have them and eBay doesn't cost you anything to just have the app obviously, but the eBay app is great. To even just before you're gonna list or anything.
Obviously you need it to sell, but looking up comps is a big one too.
Rob: Yep. So let's touch on the eBay app. Why do we use the eBay app versus Poshmark versus, Craigslist, OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace? Why was this sold on eBay? And the reason is because eBay reaches so many more people than any other app out there right now.
eBay has over 152 million registered users. As your local apps, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp all those local apps only have roughly 20,000, 50,000, a hundred thousand people that are in that area reading the local classifieds or the local listings in that area. So that is why eBay's very, very important in this sale right now is because we got it nationwide, even worldwide, that we're able to advertise this TurboChef oven on.
Melissa: And some of those other local apps like OfferUp and Facebook do offer shipping now, but that's something that we've talked about before is we still don't feel comfortable selling our higher dollar items through there because if something were to go wrong, they don't have good customer support and like you can't get anybody on the phone and it's just really rough.
So if you're doing something that's higher value, you don't wanna risk that much money going out. So we haven't done shipping through those for the higher value stuff. Yep. So it makes sense for us to do eBay so.
Rob: That's it. So tool number two, that was two, correct? That was two. Number three. Number two, number three is Google.
Melissa: Google.
Rob: Still a great tool. Sounds simple. But Google is amazing, a tool that we use all the time. We use the Google app. Jump into the browser, jump into Google. We do research on Google for actually, like retail of items if we can't find good comps on eBay. Good research on eBay. We'll jump into Google and we'll have a good idea of what that item is worth.
Google's just an amazing tool that we use for almost every single thing that we flip.
Melissa: And we also used it to find the manuals.
Rob: We did. Oh, thank you. So Google is a great resource and something that we have added recently into our flips is we create these manuals for every single flip so.
Melissa: You can find 'em on Google.
Rob: For and download them a high dollar flip that we are trying to sell. We will actually download these, these these manuals have them printed out at one of our locals. Ours is Staples. We can do it all online and then run in there and pick it up that day or the next day. They'll bind it and it looks just like a nice manual.
It's really, really nice to be able to do this and offer this. Which makes your items worth more money. If you have an owner's manual, installation, manual, whatever you can get for the item. So, you're right, Google is where we actually found these, and then we're able to download them, upload them into Staples and get the manuals printed.
So definitely a tool we use.
Melissa: Kind of sets your listings apart from other sellers too, if you can download the manual, and obviously it has to make sense if you're selling a $20 item. Like an appliance or something, and you don't need to go get a manual for that, but if you're selling something of higher dollar, like that will make it just worth that much more.
So, yeah, and it just looks nice.
Rob: And just so you know, for us to print this off, have it bound and all that, typically a normal manual costs about $10, to have Staples do it. I'm sure there's other types of printing, stores or in your local area that you can, you can use for the same exact thing. But typically $10 to $20 you can do that. For an item that's a couple thousand dollars, it is a game changer because that buyer that might be looking at yours and comparing it with another one, when you show them this nice manual that's coming with it, if they have any questions about operations, they can use this manual and it's coming with the sale. I'm telling you, that's a game changer for sure.
Melissa: Yeah. Alright. Number four is one that you use all the time for many areas of your life is YouTube. So.
Rob: YouTube is a game changer in this industry. So, this one we actually, I do research before I do almost anything. If I'm doing a project, if I'm trying to diagnose something, if I'm trying to figure the best chemical out to use on stainless steel or any type of machine, which hint, hint, that's what we did with this.
I jumped in to try to find out what cleaning agents I could use inside this unit and what cleaning agents. I get some cleaning outside. It was very dirty when we got it. Lots of grease. So, and the agents that I did use, which is kind of bonuses, oven cleaner and a stainless steel cleaner, that we used it, and I think I actually used Bar Keep on this as well.
Yeah, you did. Google, somebody mentioned Bar Keep being a really, really good stainless steel cleaner that could take a what's it called? A brown haze off of stainless steel. And it works really, really well. So, YouTube is where you'll find videos of people really showing you what you can do to troubleshoot, to fix, to clean, to do anything.
So YouTube is definitely one of our tools in our arsenal that we use almost every single flip that we do.
Melissa: I know. Can you imagine before there was YouTube, like you can look up anything, any problem you have, you can look up and there is a YouTube video, somebody solve that problem and did it for you.
There was one o other item that was just a fuse and you just had to replace the fuse. And it, that was another TurboChef, I think, right? It was absolutely. And that was, we got for one $50 and I think it sold for $6,000, but it was just a fuse that was wrong. And so,
Rob: jump on YouTube. YouTube, jump on YouTube, find some diagnosed videos, diagnostic videos and figure out that there is a fuse in there.
That was what was causing the problem. Change the fuse out and do it. So YouTube game changer, definitely game changer to be able to do almost anything you need to do in this market.
Melissa: All right, number five is a vehicle. So it's not some a lot of people say, do you need a truck or trailer to do this business?
The answer really is no. But you do need a vehicle to move some stuff around. There's also a solution of if you don't have a way to transport something, you can rent trucks for like $15 or $20 a day. Right? Yeah. Like the U-Haul trucks.
Rob: Yep. I think they do rent $20 U-Haul, Lowe's, Home Depot, all of them will have pickup trucks that you can rent.
When you're making this type of markup on an item, it's worth it. Yeah. It's definitely worth it for you to figure out how to rent a truck for the day. To be honest with you guys, even Turo, Turo is a, a recent app that was turned on to us about renting a vehicle, renting a truck for a day from Turo. And you probably can get a truck for less than $20, probably no miles for a local truck for one day.
And you can go in there, go pick up a truck, have it dropped off to you, use it to move something, bring it back. You can totally, if there's a will, there is a way. And you do need a vehicle on this. Something that will surprise you for this flip for, for us is we did not use a forklift. Believe it or not, a lot of the flips that we do, You do not have to have a forklift to do it.
Do we have forklifts? Absolutely. Multiple forklifts, that we have used in the past, and it's very nice for where we're doing large items, working on boats and other stuff. For my personal use, we absolutely have forklifts. This one, no, I could build this in the back of a truck. I could build it in the back of a trailer.
I could build it on the ground and have somebody help me pick it up and put it in the back of a truck, an SUV, a caravan, whatever you have. Totally, I could do it however I wanted to. I did not have to have a forklift to maneuver this thing around.
Melissa: Yeah, that's a lot of times people ask us about the trucks or trailers and there's definitely, if there's a will or there's a way, because we have a lot of our members too, don't start out with them and, and we always say, don't get a trailer starting out.
Like, you don't need to buy a new vehicle. You don't need to, you know, get a trailer starting out. See how this business works for you. And then when it makes sense, expand, then you can expand. Like even one of our, our first, $100K member, Stacy, she didn't have a trailer for like two years I think.
Yeah. And she just recently got one, like a year ago. So.
Rob: She had a minivan and she picked everything up in a minivan. In a minivan. Had people deliver stuff to her. Some. Yep. She had a guy that would pick up stuff and I mean, she had a handyman that would be able to pick up stuff and move stuff around if she had to.
So there, if there's a will, there's a way. And Stacy was amazing. Her story is amazing. Just how much she's been able to do in this business. So yeah, really, really awesome.
Melissa: And then the last bonus one would be, you know, tools to create a pallet. So this one did go on a pallet, it was a small pallet.
And you can get pallets for free. We get all of ours for free from different businesses. Yep. There's a couple different businesses you can usually go. We did one at Walgreens that we did. There's a lot of different ways you can get.
Rob: This pallet actually did come from a Walgreens. Oh, did. So if you do have a Walgreens in your area, I actually went into the Walgreens.
They had multiple pallets sitting out in the back, noticed them for months, and I went in when I needed it. It was a smaller pallet, so this was only 36 by 36 inch pallet. Perfect size for the TurboChef. Went into inside, talked to the supervisor, asked them if I could take one of the pallets. They said, absolutely, take as many as you want.
We grabbed one. Got it. So palleting this, the tools that we did use, I have a nail gun, a DeWalt nail gun. I have a DeWalt saw. And those are really the tool tools. So this is kind of bonus the tools that I use for almost every single pallet. If you don't have a nail gun, hammer nails, you can use, you can use a screw gun, whatever you have, you can build a pallet with that stuff.
But you do need some way to cut two by fours, to build. And not every pallet needs a frame around it. This one was a very expensive item, so I did not want it to get damaged, so I took a little bit of extra time with that. A couple other things. We use for the pallets of ratchet straps, very cheaply purchased at local hardware stores for a coupon.
Harbor Freight. If you have a Harbor Freight and Tool around you, we get all of our straps from there. The orange straps, we use those, I used a blanket around this, moving blanket. Got for $7 from Harbor Freight. I look for deals all the time from the Harbor Freight Company. Harbor Freight. Harbor Freight Tools.
Yeah. Harbor Freight Tools. I think that I can't even, I'm drawing a blank, but it's Harbor Freight. That we get a lot of our, our tools from look for coupons and when stuff goes on sale, we'll stock up on straps, on blankets and that kind of stuff. So a little extra bonus. That's what we use. 'cause this did go, like Melissa said, it did go on a pallet.
It did not go in a box, it went on a pallet. It was heavier. And too big to actually go on a box. So that was kind of a bonus on the end of this flip.
Melissa: Yeah. But the, all the other tools are so simple to use 'cause you probably already have them all and they're. You have it at your fingertips and you can anybody, that's the best part.
Like we would like to keep it simple because you don't need a lot to get started with this business. Like, and that's probably why it's one of our favorite things to, to do. Absolutely. And it's, it's simple. I mean, it's work. It's not, we're not saying it's not work, but it's, it's a simple business model.
Yeah. So, and we have gravitated towards these items over like doing houses, over doing, because it, they take up a lot less room and they're a lot less work and there's a lot less, red tape, red tape in them. So we've talked about that before. But like the, to see those higher values, usually you have to get into something like vehicles or houses or something like that.
And that's kind of not what no, not where we're headed with that.
Rob: Absolutely. And like Melissa said, these five tools, you have access to these five tools typically. As long as the only odd one out that you might not have, which a lot of people on here have vehicles. Everything else you have access that's all free to do that. And the only other,
Melissa: oh, your smartphone's not free, but you already have one, so.
Rob: Well, exactly. Typically everybody has a smartphone, a phone that you're able to use to get all these different apps and be able to use them. And the only other missing variable is the palleting, which like we said originally, if you don't have a truck, if you don't have a way to move something, you can rent it.
You can find a handyman who will build a pallet. We have, one of our students actually does not want to build pallets, and she found a handyman who would come and build the pallet for her when she was ready to ship something out. Costing her roughly $80, $80-$100 to do that. Man, that's awesome.
You can totally do that when it suffices. You're having enough profit on an item. That just is so, so worth it to be able to do that. So if there's a will, like I said, there's a way to do it. You just have to figure out how to do it.
Melissa: Yep. So thanks so much for listening. If you guys wanna check out, we have five mistakes that resellers make that cost them money you can check that out at freeflippingcourse.com and you can grab those five mistakes.
Rob: You guys rock, have an amazing day and we cannot wait to see you on the next episode.