Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about whether a recent flip was worth the time and effort.
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Is This Flip Worth It?
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we have some fun. We are going to be, I guess you could call it auditing our recent flip to figure out is it worth it? Is it worth it to be doing some flips?
Melissa: And this is gonna be a series that we're gonna do in the future. So we're kind of excited to dive into is this flip worth it and different, different scenarios and different items.
But we're gonna start with one that we already had.
Rob: Alright, so we are excited that you have a special treat coming your way. We are gonna start this new series called: Is it worth it?
Melissa: Is this flip worth it?
Rob: Love it.
Melissa: That's a probably the biggest question that people have when they're out sourcing, when they're looking for items, they wanna know, is this worth it?
So there's a couple different things that we have to look at to make sure it's gonna be worth it in the long run.
Rob: So first off, what actually motivated or what prompted this new series that we're gonna start? We had a lot of people reach out after our last flip, saying, hey, that's not worth it. So we wanna break down.
We're very honest with you guys, always. We want to tell you what we have invested, what the eBay fees, what the shipping fees, all that stuff. We wanna break it all down so we don't hide anything we want you to know. Is it worth it? And we're gonna break it down even a little bit further. Sometimes we don't break down the hourly rate of how long it takes us to flip something.
We wanna do that on this one as well. So we wanna figure out, can I make some more money working at McDonald's or can I make more money flipping some of these items? So that's what, I guess,
Melissa: prompted this,
Rob: prompted this whole series on, starting on this first one that we just recently sold.
Melissa: So we recently sold a it's a street globe lamp.
Lantern, like a cover, a lantern cover. If you look at like the old style, what would you call it?
Rob: Yeah. So like in an old town you would see a lamp post in the, along the street on the top of them, they have a big globe. And I've sold a couple of these in the past that I actually believe I had to buy them.
I don't remember where I got. They were glass.
Melissa: I think you did buy them and you sold four of them at a time.
Rob: I think I got them from an auction. I do remember. Yeah. So those were glass. They were actually in a car, not cardboard, styrofoam. These were not, I actually pulled these out of a dumpster, probably overstock for, some city or something like that.
I pulled them out of a dumpster. And we actually sold them. So we didn't have any money invested into them. But they weren't glass. They called them a, it's almost like a plexiglass. Really, really cool looking globe big. So, you know, it was a street, it wasn't like a residential thing, it was a commercial globe, it was commercial.
But we got them at the right price. But that doesn't always mean that free stuff is worth flipping. Right. That has to be worth your time doing it. So.
Melissa: It has to be. So that's why this is one of the probably the biggest reasons when we're looking at an item. We want that initial investment to at least 10x what as a sale price, because that leaves us enough wiggle room for eBay fees, shipping costs, our time invested.
That leaves us enough room for all of those. So that's why we've kind of created, or that formula has worked for us over the past.
Rob: So that was what we are going to do is break this one down. So zero money invested. I believe I got four or five of these out of the dumpster that I was at. And trying to even go back a little bit further, one of my contacts called me out to look at something in a yard that they were actually cleaning out trailers that storage
Melissa: stuff, and then you jumped in the dumpster
Rob: and that's it.
They had a dumpster there with a whole bunch of cool stuff. I pulled a couple more things out of it. I don't remember right now. All the stuff that I pulled out of it. But I pulled out these other things.
Melissa: You don't typically just go dump jump dumpsters. I I don't. But you have gone and a couple friends, if they've invite you in to come look at their stuff in the dumpster, you'll
Rob: I have, I got some cool chairs before, yeah. From that one dumpster where they were actually cleaning out a house and out of the storage unit, outta the storage, like the, the detached garage, they were throwing stuff into the dumpster. And that was a friend who said, Hey, go get what you want outta the dumpster. That this was a different one. Yeah.
But I pulled out some really cool chairs. I pulled out some other stuff to flip as well. So, we don't always dumpster dive, but in this case, I was looking at some big pieces of equipment and the dumpster's on the property. My buddy was there with me saying, hey, it's absolutely all this stuff is trash.
They're not taking it with them. They're trying to clean out these trailers so they can get rid of them. So whatever you want, you can take. And that's how we ended up getting these globes. So we got four or five of these suckers.
Melissa: Yeah, so it's sold on eBay for $229. Now you've had this thing listed for a little while. I have. It's been a while.
And you're about to go through, and we're gonna talk about this later, but about to go through and take all your listings down and get them re-listed. As we've moved, we're moving storage unit storage shops, and getting everything reorganized. And so we're in that process right now and we'll talk more about that in the future episode.
But this is one that's been listed for a while. And when you first sold it, you're like, did I charge shipping? 'cause that was, you kind of wish you would've charged shipping on this one. Yeah. So, because normally you either charge shipping or you build it into the price,
Rob: but I was second guessing myself.
But then it's not super, super big. I put it into a, I wanna say it was either a 16,
Melissa: it was two boxes that you did.
Rob: Maybe they were 16 by 16. So I put two boxes together, but I needed the square to be at least, I think it was 16 by 16 is what I put them in. Maybe it was 18 by 18. Ah, I don't remember.
Melissa: We'll have to look at the video.
Rob: I don't remember. But yeah, that's what I, I wanted to make sure, that I could get them in that box and I couldn't find, it was taller, so whatever it was, 16 by 16 or 18 by 18, it was taller than that. I think it was like 21 inches overall height wise. So it wouldn't fit into a square box. I had to put it into a oblong or put two boxes together, to give me enough room to do it.
So, but, but break down. Did you break down even the cost of the boxes and stuff? Yeah, I think two bucks a box.
Melissa: Yeah, two bucks a box. So that's $4 in boxes. And then you said like $8 in peanut
Rob: bubbles and peanuts.
Melissa: Bubbles and peanuts.
Rob: That's right.
Melissa: So like $12.
Rob: I ended up buying another,
$16.
We buy our bubble wrap from U-Haul.
I bought another box of bubble wrap. I have multiple boxes that are packed in a trailer somewhere right now. For me, sometimes it's just easier to go and buy a new box. So I think the boxes are like 20 bucks, 25 bucks, something like that. But I only used a little bit in there. I still have three quarters of the roll of bubble that I'll be able to use for something else.
So we broke that all the way down as well.
Melissa: So I think it was $16 total, actually.
Rob: $16 total in packaging materials.
Melissa: And the shipping cost was $36. And that was because you got a great deal through eBay.
Rob: 70% off on shipping.
Melissa: On, right?
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: Did you get FedEx or UPS?
Rob: I am pretty sure I did fedEx, let me think.
Where did I drop it at? Yep. FedEx. I did FedEx. The FedEx hub by us. So we did get FedEx shipping on that. I think it was like 70% off. Ridiculous price. So overall, what was the cost of the shipping label? $35?
Melissa: $36.
Rob: $36 for the shipping label.
Melissa: eBay fees were $31, which brought our total with the packaging to $148.
Rob: $148.
So, so about $150. Now if we break that down even a little bit further, how long did this actually take me to do this whole transaction? I was dumpster diving. Not on normal for me, but I was dumpster diving. Can't really take that into effect. I picked it up, put it in the back of the truck. These are globes.
It's not like I had to do anything to them. It wasn't like I had to
Melissa: Did you even clean them up or anything?
Rob: I didn't, I just took pictures. 'cause they look nice and they're outside globes, so, they're a textured type of plexi or whatever you call it, a lexan, I don't know what it is. Whatever it is.
It's a real, real thick plastic. So they're textured. So it's not even like it's clear glass that will show smudges. Yeah. It's made for a streetlight, that's what it is. Took a picture.
So all I did is set it up and take a couple pictures and then list it. So maybe a total of, I would say, 30 minutes from getting these items, setting them up and taking pictures of them.
Maybe 30 minutes. And then maybe, I mean, you could argue I, whenever I do video, so I did a video of me packaging this, it always takes me a little bit longer because I'm setting up the camera, doing stuff like that and I'm trying to make sure I'm getting everything in the camera. So, maybe call it another hour, into,
Melissa: to ship it out?
Rob: Packaging. So yeah, even call it two hours. Two hours total time in this, which I think I have a lot less than that into it. And I have multiple other ones that will actually make the same amount of money on, but call it two hours. Two hours and to $150. So $75 an hour. Is that spectacular? I mean, it's pretty decent.
It's not like over the moon ridiculous. Some of our flips, I'm sure we make over a thousand dollars an hour, but this one's $75 an hour for something that I got for free that I just took a couple pictures and listed it and that's all I did. I set it on shelves inside of my shop and I haven't thought about it again until it actually sold.
Melissa: So yeah, you really didn't do much with it but.
Rob: So we want your input. Was this worth? It was $75 an hour and trust me, like I said, I don't really think I had a total of two hours into it, but we'll be on the sparing side. Let's say we did have two hours, 75 bucks into it. Was it worth it for us to do this flip?
And we wanna hear from you. We wanna know if you think that was worth it or if that was not worth it, so let us know.
Melissa: But I would say on our side that it's worth it. I mean, it is a lower flip for us, but hey, that was not bad for two hours worth of work. And I want to dive into in future ones. I'd love to hear some, we're gonna talk about different scenarios, so it's not just gonna be like a flip that we did, like a, a future, a potential flip or a flip that one of our members did, or that they're thinking about buying because there's a lot of different criteria that come into play.
Like it, sometimes is it gonna go regular shipping or freight shipping? Like that can be a huge factor, whether or not you buy it. Like we had some of those big strollers that made sense to go one and not go another once they got to a certain size. So it just, there's a couple different factors that can go into, is this flip worth it?
Sometimes some things are too, too much of a project and you're gonna be like, yeah, that's gonna be a lot of hours. Too much time and energy and it's not worth it. So yeah, we wanna kind of dissect a couple of these, but for us this was a fairly, you didn't have much time into it.
Rob: I didn't.
Melissa: Not much effort. I mean, into it, I would say.
Rob: And it multiplies by four. So overall, when this is all said and done, I mean be close to a thousand dollars.
Melissa: Oh. The same time of. Exactly. Of picking and listing.
Rob: Exactly. And the person who bought this one, they might buy the other ones. They might need multiple ones. I don't know why somebody would only need one of them. So they might buy more, but they might have wanted to see what kind of condition it was and then make sure it would fit for their application. So maybe the other ones will sell,, after that to the same person. I have no idea. But absolutely it's worth it for me to spend a little bit of time doing this.
Plus I'm able to create content for you guys, talk it out with you guys on the podcast, and we're able to show how we do stuff as well as shipping, the boxing up aspect of it as well. So, yeah.
Melissa: And if you want to us to answer one of something that you are thinking about buying to flip, I mean, obviously it's not, not gonna be like you're out and about here, snap it.
Let me know. But write in to us on Instagram. Message us and let us know. You're thinking about this, would this be a good flip? And then we can start thinking about all the different things that go into making a good flip. Yep. And I think that'd be really fun.
Rob: You guys are awesome. Anything else we have to add?
Melissa: Nope, that's it.
Rob: You guys are amazing. Have such an awesome day. We cannot wait to see you on the next episode.