Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about whether you need a forklift for big high profit flips.
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Do You Need A Forklift To Sell High Profit Big Items?
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about one of the biggest questions that we get around here at Flea Market Flipper. Hey, do you have to have a forklift to sell those big items and those heavy items that you guys flip?
Rob: All right, guys. So one of the biggest questions we get are, do I need a forklift to ship the items that you are selling? They're big, they're bulky, they're heavy. Do I have to have a forklift to be able to do these types of flips?
Melissa: We are Rob and Melissa with Flea Market Flipper and our business revolves around these larger items because we have found that they, you get the most bang for your buck, you save a lot more time and you make a lot more money for less time. So that's kind of how we've gravitated towards this business model. But this is a question we get a lot because not everybody has a forklift, right? And so, and it's not, and you're using moving pallets.
So, but do you need one to run this business? If you don't have one, you're not allowed, you can't do it. So.
Rob: And it's such a great question. So we actually just shipped a large pallet out yesterday. It was a double oven. We picked up the double oven. I palleted it up. We threw it on a pallet. We built a box around it and then I actually shipped it.
It weighed 400 pounds. So do you think I can pick 400 pounds up or Melissa and I can pick 400 pounds up? And the answer is, no, we don't really have to, but the other answer that's going to surprise you is we didn't use a forklift either.
Melissa: So the short answer to the whole question is no, you don't need a forklift, but we're gonna elaborate on a little more of what you can do If you don't have a forklift, so.
Rob: Absolutely so what we did with this one that I did yesterday is I actually built it.
I built the pallet on the ground. I knew once I built it that I would be able to lean it back and I could back the trailer right up to it and then I could push it up and we shimmied it on the trailer. That's how I did it and that works just fine. Some things that are, and like I said, that's 400 pounds.
I could easily tip it over myself, not pick it up, but I could easily tip it over. And I'm not a big guy. I'm, I don't got big old muscles, but I could easily tip it over. And I could probably could have done that for a five or 600 pound item as well. But for 400 pounds, I tipped it over and I let Melissa hold the back of it. Brody helped me.
And my son who is all of three foot nothing, held it with Melissa and they just tipped it on that tipping point. We backed the trailer up to it and pushed it onto the trailer. And then now the trailer is a lower trailer. It's a four by eight trailer, one of many trailers that I have, but this is a perfect one for doing this kind of thing on.
So we did not have to have a forklift.
Melissa: Yeah. I wanted to add it, like you don't need a lot of stuff to get started. And that's something that we never recommend going to buy a truck or trailer that you, you know, you want to make sure that you like this business before you go and do any of that. But I would say that little, is it a four bay trailer is a really handy tool.
Once you know, like, this is a, like a business you want to pursue. That is one of the handiest little tools I feel like, and that people you can use, cause it's low to the ground. You can kind of shimmy it up. Like you said, lift it up. And you can even build the pallet in the trailer. So that's another one that we can do.
Rob: So. If you don't have a trailer, you can rent a trailer or you can rent a flatbed from like Lowe's or Home Depot and you can push the unit up onto it. You can slide it up on the flatbed, stand it up, put it on to the actual pallet, strap it down and do it. So you do not have to have a truck, a trailer, or a forklift to be able to do these types of flips.
If there's a will, there's a way. If you want to do it bad enough, there is totally a way to do it. Another thing I will add about this one. Well, I was just going to say, so I brought this and built it at my house. I brought it from my shop, built it at the house. And what I did is, a couple months back I bought my dad a electric wheelchair and with that electric wheelchair, I also got a hitch mount, that, raises and it lowers.
So it's a mobility scooter or wheelchair lift, works off of a battery. I got that for my dad for the wheelchair so I could take it to him and maneuver it around when I do take my dad places. But what I did is put that in the back of the hitch so I didn't actually have to put this double oven in the back of my truck.
I didn't have to slide it up there. So I put this lift in the back of my hitch. It goes into the hitch. You use a pin. You put it in the hitch. And I lowered it down just like I would load a wheelchair on it. And I pushed up the... the double, sorry, double oven on top of it, and then I lifted it up, and I brought it to my house that way. When I got to the house, I lowered it down, and then I took it off of that, and that's how I used it.
So, that's another hack that you can totally use is different items, different things, and you can get those things for free. A lot of people will give away those mobility lifts. If you have a hitch on the back of your car, your truck, your van, you can do that as well, but it's just another way that you can be able to utilize some other tools versus having to have expensive forklifts and other stuff like that.
Melissa: Could you put that in the, on a pallet in there? Or no? Would it?
Rob: Yes. I actually brought it home on the pallet. Oh. The only problem was the, the range itself, the one that I have, I think the limit is roughly 250, 350 pounds. And this ended up being 400 pounds once I had the built, that's the pallet.
Melissa: Oh, so you didn't wanna no, and I didn't wanna. So you mean the, the thing could only lift 300 pounds or something.
Rob: Okay. It's made for, I think it, and some of them will go up to like 500 pounds, some of the mobility lifts, so you can find a more heavier duty one than the one I have, but I didn't want to chance it. After I built the pallet I could have totally taken it. Yeah, what? I could have moved it around on the pallet. That, I mean, yeah, once it's on the pallet, I could have moved it around with that lift as well, but then I added wood to it. I added the, so it got heavier. It got heavier, and I didn't wanna do that. So that's why we actually pushed it into the back of the trailer.
My trailer limits are like 2,000 pounds a ton. Something like that on the 4x8 trailer. Maybe it's a little bit less. 1,500 pounds, something like that. But I knew it was way, way underneath that. So that was how we maneuvered this one.
Melissa: Yeah. And I was gonna add that we picked that for $75 and sold it for $900 and plus $300 for shipping.
So they paid for $300 for shipping. So, so yeah, this was a good flip. Yep, absolutely. But, didn't Lisa start with the double oven. Wasn't that one that she got? And she was in an apartment and did a double oven and she ended up renting. She didn't have a forklift and I mean that stuff didn't have a truck or trailer.
She ended up renting a truck from U-Haul and she got it for free. I think we helped her get it for free and her. She sold it for a thousand dollars fairly quickly too. So they're like two weeks. So she rented a truck. What is the trucks at U-Haul? Is it $15 or $30 a day?
I
Rob: think they're $19. 99. I think from Home Depot, Lowe's, U-Haul, you can rent from any of those places. They do charge you mileage or it's a time frame 30 minutes to an hour and it's for this price. But you do have those options to be able to get something like that.
Melissa: But after her rental fees, because she didn't have a truck or trailer, after her eBay fees and yeah, eBay fees and her shipping costs, she still profited $600. So, that was a pretty cool one, too. And that was her first freight shipment, so it was pretty cool to see.
Rob: And the best part is she didn't have to go any money out of pocket. She got it for free because somebody updated their kitchen, gave it away for free. She got it. That was on OfferUp, I think.
Kept it out of the landfill. Somebody else got to reuse it and she made $600 on the deal. So, yeah, we love that kind of stuff. So the, the answer is no, you do not have to have a forklift. You do not have to have a truck or a trailer.
If there's a will, there's a way.
Melissa: We have a lot of people that have used the back of their minivans that, I mean, you guys know that Stacey Gallego has been around for a while and she has done multiple, multiple flips, but she didn't have a truck or trailer for a long time and just used her minivan.
Like, and you said they can pull it right out of the back, right? So you've used our truck too, or our, what is it? SUV. SUV. So you just open the doors and they pull the, right out of the thing and.
Rob: We have a large SUV, an excursion. And the doors open up in the back. And I've slid pallets right in on that back cargo area.
And I've delivered pallets that way as well. So, another pallet that we just recently did, was the industrial vacuum machine. Oh yeah, it was a smaller pallet. It was, and what I did with that one, no forklift involved. I actually put the pallet onto horses, actually sawhorses, and I built the pallet on sawhorses, and Melissa helped me lift the machine.
The machine was 110 pounds.
Melissa: Yeah, and because you already built it on the thing, we just had to slide it in. So.
Rob: I backed the truck up to it, Melissa and I tilted it up a little bit, pushed it in the back of the truck, and that was it. So there are many ways around if you really want to learn how to get into the high profit. That, that's really, they kind of go hand in hand, not always, but typically the higher profit items are a little bit larger, and there are definitely ways you can get into it without having to invest a ton of money into forklifts, pallet jacks, all that kind of stuff. You can totally find a way to move stuff around without doing that.
Melissa: Another good thing that can help you too, if you don't want to move or you need help, you can always ask, you know, friends or family to help you. Just to, you know, maybe you need to move it, the item or whatever. But there are ways to hire a handyman. So we've had people do that too. So, you get, what is the different websites that you can go to?
Do you remember what Angie's list is? One of them. Okay. And you find somebody and then create a relationship with them and then you don't have to necessarily go through whatever they are on, and you know, pay an hourly wage wage to help, have them help you either build a pallet and get it loaded up. So it's definitely option because there's so much profit there.
Like this only works because we're getting items at a good deal. We're selling them for still about half a retail, but there's still worth so much that there's enough wiggle room to be able to even hire somebody that's worth it.
Rob: So, and the double oven we did, like Melissa said, it was a total of, we sold it for $800, $300, $300 or $900.
And then $300 on top of that for shipping. Shipping cost me $300 plus I paid an extra $50. It was, $345 total, to get insurance on that. And, I even have to bill the guy out for liftgate on that too. So we should get $100 back on liftgate, on shipping for that, which goes into our total profit, but still we'll clear $600, $700 on that unit right there.
The unit that I was talking about before that, this was one we did last week was the industrial one. We paid $42 for that in a lot of items that we bought from, a lady who was selling stuff out of a storage unit. And we sold it for $1,750. And, and I mean, shipping on top of it was $230, but you can see how much the profit is.
Now we have trucks, we have trailers, we can do that. But if I had to rent a truck or a trailer, like Melissa said, $20. You got it. It's there. It's there. The money is there and still making great profits. So hopefully this episode kind of gives you a little tweak of a mind shift of what's possible.
And you can totally do it if you choose to do it. You can totally do it. You just have to have the will to do it and then you can do it.
Melissa: Yeah, so we are, thank you so much for listening. We are so excited that you are here. And very much value your time. And we are doing an upcoming challenge that we're super excited about.
Woohoo! And we hope that we get to see you there. It's the Flip It for Christmas Challenge, starts November 13th. And, yeah. So we're going to help you make your first $500 from flipping during that challenge and to make $500 for Christmas.
Rob: That's it! My favorite time of year is Christmas, guys, and we know it can be stressful for some families because you might have kids, you might have people that you're trying to buy presents for or it's just a holiday, the holiday season, it gets stressful.
We want to help you alleviate that stress. We want to help you make an extra $500, with this training. That is our goal for you, going through the training is to make $500. The challenge, training, same thing. But that is what it is. So if you have not grabbed your ticket yet, please go to the link below, grab your ticket.
We'd be super, super excited to spend a couple days with you and give you some great advice, some great actionable steps to make that extra $500.
Melissa: It's flipitforchristmas.com.
Rob: You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we'll talk to you soon.