Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about what they'd do if they were starting an eBay business in 2026.
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What I’d Do If I Had to Start My eBay Business in 2026
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode we're talking about what would I do if I had to start over from day one today, in 2026?
Rob: So we are talking about a cool topic today. We're talking about what if you had to start over and maybe you're listening to this right now and you haven't started at all.
So it's kind of on eBay on, sorry, on eBay. What if you had to start over on eBay or what if you haven't started at all, what would you do in 2026 or what I would do, and you could absolutely do it as well in 2026 to get a profitable business up and going.
Melissa: Yeah. So you've been on eBay since. 96, right? Yep.
30 years.
Rob: Yep.
Melissa: Is that right? Yeah, 30 years. So you've been selling, you've been on the platform since it started?
Rob: Yep.
Melissa: Essentially. When you had to go and do, what is it? HTML code and all this stuff. So it's actually a lot simpler now. So now you can just use a smartphone. That's all the tool you really need for the whole business.
You just need your phone, right? It is, you don't really need much else. So.
Rob: Your phone and inventory to be able to sell. So what would I do? I would definitely start where I'm at and I would try to sell some stuff that I already had. If I didn't have stuff and I didn't have money to invest yet, I would actually drive and find stuff that was in the trash.
That wasn't really trash that people were throwing away for whatever reason. And I would try and sell that stuff with no money at all invested, and then I could totally start bankrolling, and get some money together to where I could start investing.
Melissa: So let's break it down a little bit. So, usually the biggest thing that a lot of people think that, okay, I'm getting started.
I need a ton of inventory, I need a lot of capital. But the biggest thing is really just overcoming. The fear of a perfect plan or analysis paralysis like you think I need to know everything about the platform. I need to know all the ins and out of shipping. I need to know everything before I can actually start.
And really the biggest thing is you learn as you go. Yeah. So you will learn, you'll make mistakes and that's okay, but, and hopefully by, you know, listening to podcasts and YouTube, you make less mistakes. But you will still make mistakes. You still make mistakes. But you learn from them and then you don't make them again.
Hopefully, usually you learn from them the best. But really is just getting started and then building the confidence and the momentum. So what we recommend if you're just starting out, is most people do have stuff around the house. So most, most people, unless you're a minimalist, which is great if you are, but maybe not as great for eBay.
But most people have stuff around the house, so we like to, you know, find stuff in your kitchen, like maybe kitchen gadgets that you bought, that those are a great one because usually people buy them. They only use them once and then they sit and you don't use them again. And other people will buy them because they're, I'd be a discounted rate.
What are some other things like brand name clothing is a good one. Like jeans or something that is higher end that you have, you don't use, you don't wear, that you could list. So those are just some examples of things you could start with.
Rob: Stuff in the garage, stuff in the attic. Just whatever.
Melissa: Sports equipment.
Rob: Old sports equipment.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: Exactly. Just stuff that you are not using. Haven't used it in the last six to 12 months. Typically, you probably won't use it again, and you can totally turn it into cash by doing that. But if you do not even have anything in your house, you can go and find stuff outta the trash.
And this hits even a little bit closer. I was taking, our son to a friend's house last night, and when I drove past, somebody had a big air and this was not a cheap one, it was a inflatable boat. I meant to go back and pick it up, but I forgot to after I dropped him off. Really? I did. It was out on the side of the road.
And me personally, like I said, if I was starting from ground zero, today, what I would do is I would've went and picked that thing up and I would've got some of the seal, paint, if most likely there's a little hole in it or something like that. I would've got some of that seal paint. I would've painted it, and I could have turned that into probably a thousand dollars from a find off the side of the road and all it would, it'd roll right up and fit in the back of a trunk, fit in the back of my truck, fit it in the back of anything, and then be able to do a little bit of elbow grease. And if you don't know how to do elbow grease, you can find somebody on TaskRabbit or something like that that would help you.
But I'm just giving you other options besides stuff in the house that is the easiest place, but you can totally find stuff outside of the house as well for free to be able to start this business.
Melissa: Yeah, we've done a lot of stuff up from the trash.
Rob: We have thousands and thousands of dollars from free stuff that either we had been given,
Melissa: it was an exercise bike that we got out of the trash.
I think we sold that for $300. What are some of the other things? You got that
compressor case,
that case it was like a trumpet case or something? No. What was that? I don't know. We for like, you sold it for like a hundred dollars. Yeah.
Rob: Wheelchairs, speakers, everything you can think of. We have pulled out of the trash and we have sold.
So there is, that's the other way and that's what I would do if I, like I said, back to me, if I'm doing that and I don't have anything in the house, I'm going out and I'm finding stuff on the local trash days and I'm looking just for a couple things that I can turn around and either sell on eBay or sell, in the local market to be able to bankroll something.
To like the last episode we just did, we talked about a hundred dollar investment that will turn into probably seven to $10,000. That's exactly where I would be going. If I had to start over today, I would try and get a little bit of bankroll and then I would invest in one of these high profit items and I'd throw it on quickly and then start making money quickly.
Melissa: Yeah, and you would do some of those higher value ones a lot sooner?
Rob: Yes.
Melissa: You also do need to establish a relationship with eBay. So that is your primary, if you're starting, you want to open your eBay account and get that relationship with eBay going so that you can get to those higher value items faster because they do wanna know you're a legit seller.
So when you first start, I believe it's a $500 cap and 10 items. So you will have a cap, but you can get those increase very quickly if you, you know, ship your items out on time. You get them sold, they shipped on time, and you're a good seller. You can get those, those lifted very quickly and then keep growing from there.
Rob: And that cap means your inventory. So you can list either five items or up to, is it five or 10 items?
Melissa: I think it's 10 items and
five,
Rob: 10 items and up to $500 in inventory. So that can raise very, very quickly. Once eBay sees that you are an active seller, you're doing exactly what you say, you're getting good feed.
But the goal is building your feedback and that's seller feedback and buyer's feedback. Build that as quick as possible. For me, I would, I buy probably 20 items, very, very cheap items or items that I needed. I'd buy like 20 of those to get 20 buyers' feedback. And then I would be working on the selling feedback as quick as I possibly could.
And then that's how you build your foundations on eBay and then you hit the ground running. You just go and find those high profit flips and you start making money as quick.
Melissa: And you would start, you'd add a higher value flip, and then you'd also put in, like if you were starting over, you'd do some of the smaller stuff too.
So that you can be consistent in those listings. Yep. And then add a higher value one, like even if you added one of those every month for a little while, and then I mean, that adds up a lot. And then listing consistently helps very much. Especially, you know, as you're getting that momentum and growing.
Listing consistently helps. So, absolutely.
And then if you start, you say you start, you're getting started. That's what we're hoping. This is kind of like a getting started episode. We're hoping to encourage you to start, but then maybe you've already gone through your house, you've already listed some of the stuff in your house.
Then where do you go from there? So now hopefully you have a little bit of bankroll like you were talking about. You can go find some items. Our next recommendation would be to look at niches, niches, niches that you enjoy. So think of three. Three different categories of items that maybe you enjoy that you already know a lot about, because.
A lot of times going to a flea market, going to a thrift store, going to these things and seeing all this stuff, you're like, I have no idea what this is even worth. Like there is so much here. How do I know what is valuable? How do I know? But if you are familiar with a topic or a category of item, then you're gonna already have a leg up on that.
So, we recommend starting there. So like say, you know, golf, you know what? Golf clubs are expensive. I always go back to golf because I want to learn golf clubs. I'm going to learn one day, but I don't want golf and I don't like golf. But I think, I know there's lots of valuable golf clubs at thrift stores anyways.
So if you know that you already have a leg up, you just go browse through. You don't have to look every single one of them up. So just, that's just kind of like a, a, an idea to go think about your hobbies and what you like.
Rob: For me, my high profit, I mean, my niche would be high profit flips 'cause that's what I love.
We do appliances, we do exercise equipment. We do a lot of just, it's gonna be a commercial or industrial stuff. So that's what I would jump straight back into. For people that don't know, like Melissa said, pick that topic that you do know, you know, something about, and I think even back 30 years ago when I started this business, my mom, we started out doing like, uh, exercise equipment, Nordic track ski machines.
That was my first big. And it wasn't huge, but it was a bigger flip. And I started out of that and then I started branching out and doing other exercise equipment. So I knew more about exercise equipment, so I could go into that. And I knew it was paying me really, really well, for being in that niche.
So think about the niche that, you know, and you have the leg up, like Melissa said on the competition. You know more about that. So it's less research when you actually are out there finding those things. But I was just at the thrift store yesterday with Brody, trying to kill some time before I picked up my daughter from school.
And guess what we found? Three braces and some type of, I don't know what it's called, some type of device that does like, you put a, a sleeve on and it does compression, compression, something like that. But we found those and we spent $38 and we should be able to turn $38 into over $500. Now, this is not super high profit.
This is not big items. These all fit into a little tiny bag, so it's not gonna be crazy to ship. It's not gonna be do that. But that stuff is everywhere. We just went to a thrift store by their school and we found we spent $38 to be able to make roughly $500 or even more on these. How many did we get? 1, 2, 3, 4 items.
A total of four items to be able to make $500 or more on this. So we'll get those listed. We will, we will keep you updated with that, I'm sure with a, a later podcast, but that just shows you how easy it is to be able to go out and find some of these items and turn them into cash.
Melissa: Yeah, and the braces will be fine.
We do are a hundred percent sure the compression thing, listing on eBay. You do have to be careful with some medical equipment. If it is
Rob: prescribed,
Melissa: prescribed, a prescription, then they will not let you do it. So we just have to look that up. But the, the braces, we've done lots of braces, lots of different kinds of, you know, knee braces and all that kind of stuff.
Yep. So that we, those. Sell fine on, on eBay, but we got off a little off topic, so, but yeah, the biggest thing, just to recap is getting started is. Get started. Like I feel like the biggest thing, thing that holds people up is that analysis paralysis. And you just need to hit the ground running and go.
You don't have to know and everything. Open your eBay account. If you haven't opened your eBay account today, you're listening to this, go open it today and let us know that you did like send us a message. We're on all the social platforms. Email us rob@fleamarketflipper.com and let us know that you opened your eBay account and you're gonna get some stuff listed and we're excited to help you along the way.
Get started.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: And all
Rob: we'll give you permission that you will make mistakes. I made mistakes. I still make mistakes. I'm not perfect at this business. There's always stuff changing. There's always new things. You have permission, but when you're starting all out at the bottom, the mistakes don't hurt that bad.
When you're selling a $5, a $10, a $20, a $30 item, even a hundred dollars item. I mean, once you get up to that, you're trying to learn this process so you will make mistakes. Just understand. You can, you can figure out everything. You can work back from anything. Nothing is going to be crazy. There are solutions for everything that you, if you do make a mistake, there are solutions for everything.
So you will make mistakes. You're gonna learn from those mistakes, and you're gonna get better and better every single day. You're getting better at this.
Melissa: Yep. So number one, get started. Number two, find some stuff in your house. Get some stuff listed, get those 10 items first listed on eBay and get that seller status with eBay.
So you're starting to build that relationship feedback and build that feedback. So those are the first steps to get started on eBay. And we still think it is one of the best businesses out there. I mean, with all this crazy AI stuff like. Things are changing. The whole world is changing. But right now, like it's still a very great business because people are constantly getting rid of stuff.
People are still constantly needing stuff, they're constantly buying stuff. So it's still an amazing business. And we did just create the eBay launch lab just recently. So we just launched that last week. If that's something, if you really wanna get started with eBay, it's just a small, like mini. Launch lab to help you kind of walk you through either all the steps of eBay.
So you finally do get started. We'll link that in the show notes if you wanna check that out. But thanks guys for hanging out with us.
Rob: You're amazing and thanks for spending some time with us and we can't wait to see you on the next episode.