Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about what they flipped in February to average $1K per item.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast - February’s Flipping Numbers Are In Averaging Over $1K Per Item
Rob: What's up, pro Flippers? On today's episode, February's numbers are in, and we're gonna break 'em down for you guys in just a minute.
Melissa: We're gonna dive into our fees, the shipping cost, the sale price, and of course the profits of each item.
Rob: All right guys, so this year is flying by, I can't believe we're in March, but guess what?
We're gonna give you guys what the numbers were we did in February. We love giving you the recap.
Melissa: February's totals are in, and we had $9,180 in sales in seven items.
Rob: Woohoo. So just under 10 grand.
We wanna dive into, of course, all of our fees, shipping costs, and the profits because we, we, we like to be transparent with our business and we had a partial refund this, we're gonna talk about too on one of 'em.
So we're gonna talk about all those because it is important that you have to still be making money in this business and your time is valuable. So we wanna make sure we're still making money.
So, so we are just under a thousand dollars per item. That's what we averaged in profit. Thank you. It wasn't, yeah, that was not the gross, that was the net. In profit we're just under a thousand dollars per item that we sold. So let's get to it.
Melissa: Let's dive in. The first one was the Nordic Track. Nordic Track. We're still selling Nordic Tracks 27 years later.
Rob: I love it. I love it.
Melissa: That's the first. If you don't know if you're new around here, that's the first item big, that you really ever sold on eBay.
Rob: Big box item that I ever sold on eBay was a Nordic Track. That's what really got my, my gears, yeah, my gears turning my brain into this business was that Nordic Track that I sold over 20 some years ago. 27 years you said? Yeah. So around 27 years ago, I sold that first item and I just sold another one last month.
So I typically don't list a lot of Nordic Tracks. I think think I still have one more in the shop that's not listed right now. But, guys, that's what we sold. We got this one for free. These items, I mean, these Nordic Tracks were built in the eighties and the nineties, and they're still selling now, so got this one for free.
I actually tried to give the guy some money on a road trip. I tried to give him money to buy his lunch and he said, no, don't even worry about it. Here, just take it.
Melissa: You were in Arizona.
Rob: Arizona. Exactly. So that's where we got this from. Got it listed. We actually didn't have this one listed that long. I think I had it listed for less than a month, cuz I just recently listed it.
Melissa: I know it was our summer road trip, but then it's selling now. And so it's like, oh, lots of months pass. Well, we just got it listed. Yeah, because that is the bottleneck that we are continually always working on. So.
Rob: Exactly. So, but anyways, we got it listed, sold it for paid zero, zero for it, and we sold it for $350.
Melissa: Yep. $350. eBay fees were $45. $45. Shipping costs was $74. $74. So total profit was $231.
Rob: $230. Not too bad. I mean, that's a higher. I mean, we didn't pallet ship this. It went in a box, so not too, too bad. But over $200. Yeah, it wasn't easy to pick up too. It wasn't bad. Got it for free. So it made some, made some cash.
So excited about that. Always excited when we can come out above. So.
Melissa: The next one you've had for a little while, you sat on this one for a little while. The Windsor NuWave.
Rob: So I did, this one was sitting in my shop for a while and it needed a little bit of work and that's probably why it sat, it didn't have the brush up front on it, so I sold it as is.
But guess how much we sold it for as is?
Melissa: A thousand dollars.
Rob: A thousand bucks. Made a thousand bucks on this. How much did we pay for this? $25. $25, bought this from the local flea market. I honestly, guys, I've had this for over a year, but it's been sitting in my shop. I had it listed. It was in, it's had some scrapes and scratches on it, but it was missing that thing. Everything else worked on. It worked great. So yeah, we sold it for a thousand bucks, $25 to a thousand dollars.
Melissa: And had it been working, what would it have been worth?
Rob: I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think or think more towards $3,000 or $4,000 new. Okay. So more probably towards $1,500, $2,000 I should've be able to get.
So but don't quote me on that. I'm not a hundred percent sure. Like I said, I did the comps and I didn't even change the price on this for over probably a year of me having it listed.
Melissa: It's been sitting there for a while.
Rob: It has, it's been just sitting in my shop on the ground. So, but we got it out. We got it shipped and sold it for a thousand bucks. What did we pay in eBay fees and shipping?
Melissa: eBay fees were $130 and shipping cost was $170, which brought our profit to $675.
Rob: $675. I love it. Over $500. So killer on that. This actually did go on a pallet, so that's why shipping was a little bit more expensive. It was heavy, so, still, it was a decent deal. $170 on freight shipping. Not too bad, but yeah. Love it.
Melissa: The step two toy. So that
was one that our, our kids got so much use out of this thing. It's like an old, what'd you say? Vintage. They don't make 'em anymore. Yeah, but it's not, is it vintage? It's more like, 2000.
Rob: We've had it 10 years. So we've had it for 10 years.
When our daughter was born, I bought this at a local, the local thrift store. Actually a Habitat for Humanity is where I got this, paid $10 for it, used it for all three of our kids. And then finally I'm like, okay, it's time to go.
Melissa: It's a little roller coaster that they just sat in and just went. It's like it, they say roller coaster, but it just goes in a circle and it can go on a track too.
We have the track, but the buyer just wanted actually just the car. And it just goes in circles and our kids played for hours on that thing. So it was a definitely, yeah.
Rob: Six-volt, a six-volt little car that you charged up. And then they would just go on this little rollercoaster. It'd go up, up and down, but in a circle and it kept doing that.
So it's just stayed in a circle, cool toy, got it for $10, used it for 10 years. And then we sold it.
Melissa: Well, they haven't used it probably the last.
Rob: Well, we had it for 10 years. Thank you. So when they were younger, yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know cuz Roxy jumped into it when I had it, taken pictures of it. So they still would've played with it, but it's been in the shop.
So anyways, we had it for 10 years, sold it for $190. Yep. Actually I sold it for $150 and then $40 for shipping on that is what I charged him. So $190 total, which wasn't too bad, I mean for a $10 toy. I thought that was a reasonable, and the guy offered me, cuz I had it listed for more with the track and he said he didn't want the track, so asked me if I'd take less and I was like, $150, let's do it.
Yeah. And then paid for shipping on top of it.
Melissa: And, that's what a lot of times whenever we're doing our numbers, we just include the shipping in the price because a lot of times we do free shipping, so it's already included. Every once in a while we add shipping, so we just always add it to the total price.
Rob: And this one, I paid a little bit more for shipping than I originally quoted the guy. So I think it cost me a little bit more than the $40.
Melissa: We had $10 invested, eBay fee $10 plus many years used, eBay fees, $24. Shipping cost was $58.
Rob: So $58, $18 more on shipping than I quoted him. But like I said, plenty of use outta this bad boy.
Still made what was our total profit on it?
Melissa: $98.
Rob: Almost a hundred bucks for using this thing for 10 years. Come on, you cannot beat that. I mean, we gotta use this bad boy plenty. We have memories with this thing. We have videos with this thing from our kids at young ages and it was pretty cool. So a hundred bucks.
I'm happy with it. Absolutely.
Melissa: All right. The next one was a fun one. The Crosby Hook, that's number four.
Rob: The Crosby hook.
The Crosby hook. So I got this from one of my contacts, $25, paid for it. Heavy sucker, about 50 pounds.
Melissa: I know when you brought it back, it was all rusted and you needed to clean it up, but you, I looked or I tried to pick it up, I think, and it was so much heavier than I thought it was.
Rob: Yeah.
50 pounds. So this is made for a crane. It's a crane hook. You put on a crane, you drop it down, open the hook, and it grabs whatever you're trying to pick it up. I think it goes up to, it'll hold 40,000 pounds, is what it's rated for. So it goes down, hooks, it picks it up.
This one was kind of unique because I sold it. I don't know anything about this. A lot of stuff we sell like this industrial stuff. I don't know anything about it. The guy got this, he paid $700 for. So we paid $25, sold it for $700. Amazing. I love it. He sent me, as soon as he got it, he sent it and said the latch was missing the safety latch, so it was unsafe for it to be used.
Now we had a couple different options in this. I sell all my stuff as, as is look at the pictures. I reached out to him. I said, did you see the safety latch in the pictures? He told me no. Right there. I could've went to eBay and probably got them to reverse it, but at the same time, I felt bad because this guy paid good money for this.
And I did not want to just be like, all right, you're screwed. Go after eBay. eBay will close it out. It wasn't a big deal. I didn't wanna do that. So I went online, looked at the safety latch, repair kit for it, $190. I asked the guy, hey, if I buy the kit for you, I'll give you $200. I'm sorry if I give you $200 refund, will you go buy the kit?
You can put it in and you can use the hook. So it's already to you. You don't have to pay to ship it back, anything like that. And he said, if you do it for $300, I can't put it into myself. I have to take it professionally and have it done. If you do $300, I will absolutely do it. So without any issues altogether, I could just be done with it.
I gave him $300, still sold the thing. If he sold it for $700, what is that? $400? Yeah. So paid $25, sold it for $400 after fees and stuff. Still made decent profit on it, was not hard to ship. Went in a a box piece of cake. So what was our numbers on this one?
Melissa: It was eBay fees were $61. Shipping cost was $22 and the total was profit was $592 minus $300 would be $292.
So almost $300.
Rob: Almost $300 on this with refund. Still, like I said, this is a small, it's heavy, but it was only, I mean, fit in a box about this size. Yeah. So not very big at all. I'll take it. $300, profit, we'll take it. Absolutely.
Melissa: And that's where you kind of have to think about your business. Like what is it worth your time like you could have gone, but it's also good customer service as well. Yeah. Like you wanna have that good customer service. If it was somebody really trying to like, hey, you sold this to me, it's not working and you sold it as for parts not working, like, sorry, like this is how we listed it and no we're not, you know, we we're gonna, can't give you a partial refund or whatever.
But this was something that we didn't know it needed a safety latch.
Rob: Absolutely not.
We didn't. So it's not one of my normal things that I do. Yeah. So, and legitly, I felt bad. The guy paid good money for this. I mean, $700. I think retail on it was, $1,200 or $1,500. Yeah. So, he, he got it for a good deal, but at the same time, he couldn't use it because it didn't have the safety latch.
He said it was unsafe to use that way. So I had that decision. I could have went through phone calls to eBay, got him very upset and just went off and kept the money. But I, I chose not to do that in this route. Some cases I might do that, where I go into it if I feel like I didn't do anything wrong but this.
Melissa: Just like if they've misread the listing. Yeah. Or they bought an item that they didn't go through. Like that's kind of like, well we got the fulfillment, we shipped you the item. Like we did our part that we said we were gonna do so, but this was a little bit different, so you just have to look at each. Yep. One as.
Rob: And I thought that was fair. He's paying more than, I mean, after taxes and shipping on it. He paid still good money for it and he got a refund and got it fixed. So, absolutely. That's how we chose to deal with this one. Yeah. Every single return request is a different situation. It depends on what is going on in that situation.
Depends on how we handle it and what we actually do. Like I said, this was the best way we figure to do it.
Melissa: There's no cut and dry, like we always do a certain thing. No. So, like we don't accept returns on our items, but on, in this kind of situation. And it was the, the, a partial return was the best for both parties.
Absolutely. And we want our customers to be happy. Like, that's our goal. Our goal is not to take people's money. Like that's not what we wanna do. No. We want to provide them an item at a discount so they're getting a good deal and provide an item they can use. So.
Rob: I think it was fair. I think it was very fair to do that. That's why we did it. So I think it's cool. So.
Melissa: All right. The next one was the famous new sales that we've been doing lately is the Stryker stretchers.
Rob: So love the stretchers, still paying off for this. I think we had two of these in the month of February. Sold these for more. These are the higher end ones.
So we sold 'em for $3,250. Yes. Is what we got for these, plus an extra $300 for shipping. Yes. On top of the $3,250. So what was our numbers on that? We paid $183 for these, a piece is what it broke down to be.
Melissa: Yes, cuz we bought 12 at one time, $341 for eBay fees, $203 for shipping costs and total profit was $2,523.
Rob: $2,500. I love it in profit. Love it. Absolutely love it. So this actually went on a pallet and it got shipped from here, Florida. I say here, like, you guys know where I'm talking about. It got shipped from Florida to California. Both of the stretchers this month, different buyers, went to California and one of 'em was like a hundred, $180 to ship and the other one was right at $200.
Yeah. Which is awesome. I love it. I feel like that is a very, very reasonable, very cheap to be able to ship. This pallet was almost eight foot long is how big it was.
Melissa: It was narrow but long.
Rob: The stretchers. Yeah. Three foot wide, which still, that's not that narrow. Three foot wide and eight foot long. And then it was like 25 inches tall.
So, a big pallet and I still was able to do it for right around $200 on both of 'em. Yeah. A killer, killer deal on that. So, and $2,500 in profit, I mean, for this item, total time invested into this bad boy. I would be surprised if it was over three hours. So three hours of my time for $2,500. I'll take it all day long.
Melissa: Because when you listed them, you listed the two separate ones, so you only had to clean up two to list.
Rob: Take pictures. Take pictures, exactly.
Melissa: Two. And then when you sold it, you clean it up and sold it, clean it up and pallet it so you didn't have to take pictures of it. Which is a pretty cool thing when you do sell multiple things, you don't have to take pictures. As long as they're all the same and one's not more damaged than another one or something that you have to show damage. Yep. But that's pretty cool about that. Absolutely. And I do have to add that
Rob: she didn't want me to buy 'em.
Melissa: I didn't, I, I think I said this last month I was against, I was pretty against this one.
I didn't want him to purchase some. I'm like, we, it was a $2,200 investment, which I don't like spending that much money, but he's already definitely made the money back.
Rob: I saw the, I saw the payoff. Yeah. We're well over $15,000 now. I think we're at $20,000 on a $2,000 investment,
Melissa: And going back through some of our old, I don't know what I was doing on our blog or something, I was going back through some old, posts and old numbers.
Oh yeah. Cuz we had to do our, our taxes for 2021 and 2022. So I was going through some of our old stuff and then, it's always interesting to see like the stuff that we sold, is a lot, a lot of the stuff is group stuff that you buy and it's a huge thing if you can buy stuff pays off hugely. Yeah.
At a great deal at, yeah, as a group. Like that was the, the Sleep Number beds were one years ago. What was the other? We talked about that the other day on the podcast. The
Rob: stretchers, the, the breaker boxes.
Melissa: The breaker boxes. That was a big one. Last year. We sold so many breaker boxes. That was our biggest seller of the year.
So, but it's because you bought 'em all in bulk Yeah. And
Rob: sold 'em piece by piece.
Melissa: Sold 'em piece by piece and it worked out. So.
Rob: So if you guys can do that, definitely be on the lookout for some of that bulk stuff you can get. Yeah, it, it's huge when you're able to do that.
Melissa: Because you can get it for next to nothing like those breaker boxes we have for like you got for like $10 each.
And then we did sit on those for a little bit, but, but last year they made us $18,000.
Rob: That's awesome. That's amazing.
Melissa: Sleep Number beds made us $25,000 in profit. So, and that cuz you bought 60 at one time.
Rob: So be on the lookout for multiple items that you buy in a lot. There are definitely, which you can sell off and make some money.
Melissa: These, and this you only about 12, so there's not a ton of 'em, but they're definitely, the money's there.
Rob: These never even made it to my shop. They stayed in my trailer and we started selling 'em so quick. Yeah, like I'm pretty confident these last four that we have will be sold by at the end. I think in March.
Melissa: That's gonna be in March totals.
Rob: Yeah. I think they'll be in March. We'll have these bad boys sold. So, but killer deal. So that was the first one we sold. What did we sell after that?
Melissa: The RV stove.
Rob: So, stove, this was actually a freebie. I had a buddy who was cleaning out a storage shed that his dad had left to him, that he had a whole bunch of boat stuff.
I love boats. I love boat stuff and it's expensive. So he had a whole bunch of these, I think RV or boat, anything, RV, marine, absolutely. They're worth some money. So he had a whole bunch of these things that he had in there. I've already sold, I think two of 'em, months and months ago. I think we sold 'em last year.
I pulled these outta my shop. I saw 'em up on the shelf and I was like, I don't even have those listed yet. Let me grab these, clean 'em up, we'll get 'em listed.
Melissa: How many of those things do you have?
Rob: This one's sold in like a week and a half. Sold super quick. We sold it for, I had it listed for more. I actually was reaching on the list.
I think I had it listed for $600. And, somebody in the military, retired military, reached out and said, hey, can you gimme a discount for this? And I, I like doing that kind of stuff too. He said, I got $440 to spend. No, no, no. He told me $400, would I do it for $400?
And I had it listed for $600 and I said, I will do $400 if you can pay the shipping, it's gonna be roughly $40. If you can pay for the shipping, I'll absolutely do it. And he's like, yeah, please. And so we did it for $440 is what I sold it for. Had nothing invested into it. The guy gave me all this stuff for free.
He was trying to get rid of it, which you can find those deals as well. Yeah. So got a killer, killer deal on this. $440. What were our numbers on this?
Melissa: No item costs. eBay fees were $55. Shipping cost was $45 and total profit was $340. I did have, when I posted something about this, I think on Instagram, the, somebody said, well, wouldn't, isn't your friend mad that you sold it?
Rob: No.
Melissa: Like, wouldn't your friend be mad if he saw this video that you sold it for, whatever, and like he knows that you sell it. This is what you do, like this is what you do. And so he had a whole shed full of stuff that he wanted gone and he didn't wanna take the time to go through it, enlist it. So he said, here, take it.
Just take whatever. Yep. And so like people you don't know like what people, they don't wanna take the time sometimes. And we're gonna take the time and do it. Yep. And it's worth $340 for your time.
Rob: Absolutely. Love it. And this wasn't like, this was a little one, so we're talking about a little, yeah, rV stove goes in a little box. Yeah. Yeah. Very small. Very easy to go. Definitely. Time invested into this, probably less than an hour to make $300 some dollars. Absolutely.
Melissa: Just once you finally listed.
Rob: Exactly. Pictures, listings, and then boxing it up. Yeah. Like I said, an hour, maybe an hour and a half tops. But still $350 for it.
I love it. I love it. Every, all day long.
Melissa: Yep. Last one was the next Stryker. So same thing, stretcher $3,250. Item cost $183 eBay fees were $339, so $2 cheaper, which is interesting. And shipping cost was $184. So a couple dollars cheaper.
Rob: You know what I just realized on these, our numbers are a little skewed, but it's all right. We'll just tell you in the video. I didn't add in the shipping. I charged $300 a piece for shipping on these and I didn't add it in there.
Melissa: Oh. So we actually got an extra $300?
Rob: We made some more money. So we did make over $7,000 in profit this last month, which is cool. All right. Cause that was an extra $600. Yeah. On it. So.
Melissa: So it'd be $7,300 would be our total.
Rob: $7,300 total.
So be our, sorry guys. I just realized as I'm doing this, when she's saying the numbers, I'm like, Yeah, I did charge an extra, it was $300 for shipping, but I
Melissa: You're supposed to put that in the sold for.
Rob: I know, I didn't realize it. So, yeah, so it was, yeah, we made good money on these, I charged them $300 for shipping, so yes, which covered my time for building a pallet. I got the pallets for free, so I didn't pay for any of that stuff. But I mean, my time building the pallet, most of it, like the first one was $208 or $203 for shipping. The second $181 believe. So killer, killer deal. Love it. The stretchers keep paying off and they will keep paying off hopefully throughout March as well.
All right. So is that all?
Melissa: Yep. So the total, we had seven items total sold for $9,180 plus $600. So, $9,700 right? Is that right? $9,780. Item cost $426, eBay fees $995. Shipping cost $756, which brings our total profit with the $300 partial refund and the extra $600 yep. To $7,303.
Rob: Love it.
So seven items over a thousand dollars average per item.
We love to keep that average at a thousand to $1,500 if we can do it. That's really what our goals are. And definitely 10 Xing what we're doing. So, which, what was our total invested in this? The investment line. Yeah. Item cost $426. So we invested $426, $400, $426, to make.
Melissa: So we almost 20x. Yeah. Isn't that?
Rob: Our, that's our goal is to 10 x what we're doing. So.
Melissa: $4,000 would've been, yeah 10x.
Rob: Yeah. So we did, yeah, absolutely. So, we love it. We love it when we're able to do it.
Melissa: The stretchers helped out with that though.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: The other ones were a little bit more.
Rob: That's what, what, it's all, even that evens itself out. Yeah. So, that's what the whole, the whole game that we're trying to do is, is definitely trying to get the average to hit that. And we sell some things that are cheaper and some things that are a lot more expensive and it works in our favor, so, awesome, awesome.
Melissa: Even if you can add in, like a lot of times when people are starting out doing the higher value stuff, we're like, would it just add one thing in a month?
Like if you could just have one of those extra sales or two a month, like what can that do for your business? Like an extra thousand, $2,000 sale. So, and you're not spending like, and we're saying a thousand dollars sale, we're averaging investing a hundred dollars. Like we're not looking to to spend $800 and make a thousand dollars mean that's not our business model at all.
Rob: No, absolutely not. There's too much work involved in it and that's too much money to go out. So, yeah. Awesome. Well, if you guys wanna learn more about this flipping gig, where can they go?
Melissa: Can check out, freeflippingcourse.com. We have some extra resources there. And yeah, we'd, love to help you out some more.
Rob: You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we will catch you on the next episode.