Rob and Melissa Stephenson talk about why it's important to get items listed on eBay now, before the Christmas holiday.
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Christmas Is Near! Get Stuff Listed!
Rob: What's up pro flippers, on today's episode guess what, Christmas is around the corner and we want to give you guys some tips to make some extra money All right guys, so we are coming off of our five day challenge, Flip It For Christmas challenge. We want to kind of recap how that event went and some tips that you guys can use right now in your business in your house to make a little bit of extra money before Christmas.
Melissa: We love this challenge It's a lot of fun. We have fun with all the people that are there and Christmas is your favorite time of year So, it kind of just incorporates everything, flipping, Christmas, fun so we always love doing this one every year. So, it's been a lot of fun with all the members, seeing people have quick wins, $100, $300, $500, that's just really just starting out with stuff that they have in their house.
So it's been pretty cool to be a part of that.
Rob: Absolutely. So we, we want to give you guys a quick breakdown of this event. It was a five day event. The first thing that we had people do was find an item inside their house or multiple items that they are not using anymore. And that's where we started with getting those items listed so they could make some money.
Melissa: Yeah. Most of this was stuff that people already had because you don't know, just think of all the things that you have that you haven't used in the last year. So a lot of times these can be things like, kitchen appliances that you, that's a good category because you typically will buy or get gifted a kitchen appliance and you might have great intentions to use it.
And you never do so because there's so many kitchen gadgets. Like we've sold many of them because I have the greatest intentions to go use them. I want to try them. And then I end up, I have like two things I use. So, I don't really need all the other stuff.
Rob: If it's sat for over a year and you have not used it, chances are you can get rid of it.
You can totally put it for sale and make some money on it. That is what we really really taught people in the last five days is how to take those things that you aren't using- kitchen is only one place- you can use the attic, the basement, the garage, your closet, stuff that you have not used inside your closet for over a year. Whether it's shoes whether it's shirts, whether it's pants, whatever it is, it's time to get rid of that stuff and that will help you feel better all around you're gonna make a little bit extra money. And you're able to get rid of the clutter get rid of some of the clutter that's inside the house. Get rid of it and do it. Exercise equipment, another great one. Yeah. Great intentions, you haven't used it in a long time get rid of it!
Melissa: And people ask us what platforms we use to sell and our two main platforms are marketplace and eBay. Those are what we do everything on, and eBay is even more than Marketplace. eBay is probably 95 percent of what we sell.
We sell on eBay. We do love Marketplace for some of the stuff that isn't quite at the price point that we needed to sell on eBay and offer shipping. So, cause there is anything like that's less than $500, but as big, we don't really sell on eBay. So it's kind of like our tipping point around there because it has to be worth it to, for somebody to pay for shipping also, for the item.
So, but everything like Marketplace is great for those items, but eBay is where we like to sell all of the other items. So.
Rob: And we'll even cross post on eBay and Marketplace to try and sell something locally. Just last week I sold a wheelchair for a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, and I sold a scissor lift, both of them on Marketplace.
That's, they were local sales and we'll cross post them onto Marketplace, but we still have them on eBay as well. So, to see if we can sell them locally, without having to ship and pay eBay fees on it. If we sell them in the marketplace, then we'll do that as well. So don't be scared to cross post if you're not doing that.
You can also take less money if you are selling it on marketplace because you know eBay has fees and shipping that have to be accounted for.
Melissa: Yeah. Those are definitely our two favorite platforms to sell on and we were kind of dove into those a little bit this week, during the challenge and what I mean, marketplace does have its place and we do like it, like we just sold those two things for this week at $4,000.
But the one nice thing, one big benefit to eBay is you don't have to meet up with people. So that's one thing why we love eBay, because you can just ship it out. Like you don't have to meet up with people. You don't have to get on somebody else's schedule. You don't have to organize a meetup and get the time, like your schedule to meet their schedule.
You just have to package it up and ship it out and make sure you're, you know, having good business practice and sending out the item you're saying that you're sending out and and package it properly, but it's a lot easier.
Rob: It weeds through the flaky people. There are so many flaky people on marketplace It still doesn't stop us from selling on marketplace. But you have so many people who will reach out and ask if it's available and then they just don't even say anything again after they do that.
So it's very, very crazy on marketplace eBay. You don't deal with that. Typically, somebody will find your listing, they'll buy your listing without even ever reaching out to you. They'll pay for shipping on that listing, and they'll pay for the whole thing and all you do is ship it out and you don't hear from them.
Hopefully get positive feedback because you under promised and over delivered on the item. They'll be super excited about it, give you positive feedback on eBay. And that is what we love. We much more prefer that than dealing with flaky people that are on Marketplace.
Melissa: And we wanted to really just hop on a quick episode today just to remind you to get your stuff listed.
That is, that could be a Christmas present. So like that's kind of the, the season we're in right now is getting into the holiday season. Actually, we're there, we're in the holidays. But people are starting to look for stuff and people will buy some presents on Marketplace. Like there's, my son is trying to sell his, what is it?
Punching bag. Yeah. And we've had it listed for a little bit. I've gotten some offers, but I'm trying to see if we can get what we're asking for. I'm trying to get $75 for it. I've got a lot of $50 offers and I asked him if he wanted to take it and he's like, no, let's get $75. So I'm like, well, if we want to get $75, I really should have it listed at a hundred because then we could take an offer. So I'm going to take it off and relist it for a hundred and see if we can get $75. But we're getting a lot more action on that right now because it's a great Christmas present. It was his Christmas present a year or two ago and now he wants to sell it. So that's fine.
He can make the money. It's his present so he can sell it. But yeah, but those kind of things that if you think about like what you have that you haven't used are great this time of
Rob: year.
Yeah, and Melissa went over a real key pointer that I wanted to make sure you guys, you caught on that is whatever you're listing on marketplace.
If you are listing a marketplace, make sure that you're asking more than what you want to get for it. Ask a little bit more. Everybody who buys anything wants to get a better deal on it than what you're asking for it. So leave a little bit of room for negotiation. That way people are feeling like they're getting a good deal.
Me personally, I'll never jump in and be like, alright, you're asking $200 for it, I'll come and pay you $200. You will find those people who will do that, and they're few and far between, but the majority of people are gonna say, alright, well you take $150, and then you go back and $175. They're gonna negotiate back and forth with you because they know that's...
That's the name of the game is negotiation to get the price on it. So, make sure you're doing that, adding a little bit more to the price, not overcharging, but adding a little bit more. So you have some room for negotiation. That is a big key in this business.
Melissa: Like I have it listed for $75 and most people aren't just going to be like, $75, you know, I want, they're going to give you an offer.
So, cause they do want to get a good deal.
Rob: So I'll give you another example for that wheelchair that we had listed. I had it listed for $2,000 on eBay on locally, I think it had it for $1,500. Well, I came down to $1,000 on it because I didn't have to pay the eBay fees on the two thousand dollars on eBay I was expecting maybe somebody didn't negotiate me down to $1,750, maybe $1,500. But I left some room for negotiation in there to where you totally can do that. That you want to leave negotiation and the guy was super thankful and very appreciative that we sold it for a thousand dollars when we were asking so much more for it.
Melissa: Okay, so back to getting your stuff listed for Christmas, anything that is a Christmas, could potentially be a Christmas present, or any decorations for Christmas.
And then also think of anything for the New Year. People have resolutions for the New Year, usually exercise resolutions, and that's when exercise equipment is great to sell, so just kind of think of those things. You still will sell like the stuff that you normally will sell to people are still remodeling their houses like we sell a lot of appliances people will still buy that stuff you sold a lift this last week for $3,000. $3,250..
I mean, that's not a seasonal item. Obviously. It's somebody they're still buying. Yeah, like people are still buying so and that was a What is it's called scissor lift, right? Yeah, scissor lift. So I mean lift it was a pretty cool, but people are still buying those things. So but this is a great time to think like for some reason last year we had a whole bunch of stuff in our house that we wanted to sell just like local marketplace. The kids, mostly, it's mostly the kids stuff because they're, they, you know, outgrow stuff or they don't play with it anymore.
But then it was like after Christmas when I was trying to get rid, I'm like, oh, this would've made money at Christmas and made me mad. Like, oh, we should've got this listed on marketplace before we left for Christmas vacation. So don't do that. So don't do it listed now. Yeah. So don't do that. Get your stuff listed 'cause you don't wanna wait till after Christmas and you're like, oh, I should have listed that. Because it would've sold a lot better and you don't wanna hold onto it for another year, so. Nope. Absolutely. So get your stuff listed 'cause it can only sell. If it's listed. That's it. And one thing that I'm so excited that we just started doing with our Reseller Academy members, which I love it because it's taking action and getting stuff listed.
And that was our whole point of our challenge this week was to get your stuff listed and people did it like three to five items every day and we did it. But in our, our, the new members, we're doing a listing power hour where you hop on and you just get yourself listed because that is, is it not one of the hardest parts of doing this?
And if you have accountability, you'll get it done. You sit there. And you just sit there with other people and just get your listings done. Like it makes so much sense, but anyways, did you have anything else you wanted to add?
Rob: No, that's it. So get your stuff listed. Guys, this is the time right before Christmas.
You want to make sure that stuff is listed so you can't sell it. Make a little bit of extra Christmas money with stuff that you're not using.
Melissa: Oh, one last quick story of something that we did at Christmas, which was amazing. Do you remember those? No. So, if you think about, like I said, any decorations, one year, at the flea market, the first year that the, lights came out.
Yeah, yeah, you do remember. The, the, one of the lights where they just, there's one light and it shines on your house. What are they called? Stargazer? I don't remember. Star something. Anyway, somebody at the flea market got a whole pallet of them, and you ended up buying them from her. You bought a couple, and then we're like, let's just buy a couple, see if we can sell them at Marketplace.
Well, they had sold out in the stores. All the stores were sold out. This was the first year that they were star showers. Star showers, yeah. This was the first year that they were a thing, and, we're like, let's see if we can sell them. Well, the stores, you could no longer get them. So, we were selling these.
We had to, we did have to open box because I think she got the pallet as return. So when you get something like that, you have to obviously make sure it's working. So we tested them and I want to say that something like 80 percent were working fine, so I think we bought them for 10 and sold them for what they were selling for in the stores because they were still new, like $40. But we made like $3,000 that weekend. Cause you ended up going back and getting like a hundred of them. We sold those things on marketplace. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Like, because we think we sold a couple on eBay, but then we didn't have enough time before Christmas to ship them. I don't know why you're decorating your house like right back.
But anyways, whatever. They sold like hotcakes on Marketplace and we made about $3,000. It was a lot of package or a lot of testing and meeting up with people, but it was pretty cool. It was a, it was like a rush. So some of those things you never know what is that popular that year. That was a fun one.
So nice $3,000 Christmas bonus for sure. So. But anyways, thanks guys for listening. If you do want to, one thing that we added to our challenge was a, a list of household items that you can use to sell on Marketplace. So if that list could be handy to you, we have 47 household items that you could resell.
It's just a list to kind of jog your memory, to see what you have in your house that you could sell. So you can grab that at Learn2flip.Com and it's Learn2Flip.com and grab that list and sell some of your stuff.
Rob: You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we will see you on the next episode.