Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper interview Kat The Nurse Flipper about how she built her reselling business in the middle of nowhere.
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How This Nurse Grew Her Reselling Business In The Middle Of Nowhere
Rob: What's up pro flippers? On today's episode, we have a special treat Kat the nurse flipper is joining us to answer some questions about her business. And we are so excited to talk to her today. So, Kat, thanks for jumping on and spending a little bit of time with us today
Kat: Thanks for having me. I'm excited about it.
Melissa: Yeah. We're so excited to have you and learn more about your business. One thing that has been so fun with starting this podcast and interviewing different people has been so many different ways that people do their business. And there's just, there is a million and a half ways that you can run your reselling business.
So it's really cool to pick up different, different ideas and different things from people. So we're excited to have you.
Rob: And one really cool thing about Kat, what she was just telling us before we jumped on is she's in the middle of nowhere. And she's got a killer business. And a lot of people use that as, hey, I can't build a reselling business because I'm in the middle of nowhere and there's nothing, but Kat, we'll dig into that a little bit more, but it's so exciting to see you killing it in the resale world in the middle of nowhere.
So that's awesome.
Melissa: So let know us, Oh, sorry. Go ahead. So let us know how you even got started. Give us a little background, how you got started in the whole reselling world.
Kat: So I've been reselling off and on since 99, kind of since the beginning of eBay, but I kind of did it in spurts. So I would take a break, do it for a couple of years when my oldest son was born because I was staying home with him, wanted to make some extra money. And then this go around, I've been doing it for about four years, a little over two and a half full time. And I had my son at 40 years old and I'm older and I, cherish the time a little more than I did when I was 19 and had one.
And so I wanted to be home with him more. So essentially after I had him, I really started going heavy into it to build it up while I was full time nursing. And I, my goal was to quit in the end of 2022. I ended up getting mad in February of 2022 and I quit and have not looked back.
Melissa: That's awesome. I would say we run into a lot of nurses who do this like on the side and then end up quitting because it's such a hard, it's an amazing career, but it's tough.
Like it's a tough, tough career. We appreciate all the nurses out there, but there, I mean, this is awesome that you were able to do that.
Rob: And it's really cool seeing the background of your kids because kids change everything for you. For what your priorities are and how much they need. And it's just really, really cool.
Cause that's similar to our story as well. When the kids came along and we got to three kids, it's like, all right, we got to do something different so we can actually spend time with these kids. And that's what pushed us really overboard as well.
Melissa: Yeah, that's, that's awesome. So where are you mostly selling?
Like, where did you start selling and what, where are you selling now? What platforms do you use the most?
Kat: So eBay is by far our number one as far as sales. I also cross post, I cross post over to Mercari and Poshmark. We were selling on Etsy, but we weren't getting enough sales to make it worth it. So we have stopped that.
And then I also do live selling. It is primarily jewelry because it's easy to ship and I sell in volume. And I do that on Whatnot as well as on Niknax, which is a district platform.
Melissa: Can you tell me a little more about Niknax? I know we were on your show and you were talking about it and I had no clue what you're, like, what that is.
So could you let us know what that is?
Kat: Yeah, so Niknax is a district marketplace. District essentially is kind of like, I would say, think of it as like an antique mall with little shops. So different people have their shops on there. Niknax is run by Jocelyn Crazy Lamp Lady, who's a good friend of mine.
And she started it. I think we're up to almost 20,000 members that are on there now. And then there are over 2,000 sellers. So it's essentially a smaller version of eBay, but it's more kind of social because you have to bring your following. And, but the benefit to people selling on Niknax is they get Joslyn's 300,000 plus following looking at their items because it's her platform.
And there are, there are quite a few, they are starting to pop up. I was asked if I would start one and I just, I don't have the time or the effort to put into managing it. So it's, it's essentially just a smaller version of eBay, but they have, it's like eBay and whatnot put together their static listings, so their buy it now listings, as well as going live.
And for me, I just utilize the live sales on there right now. I'm not doing any buy it now listings.
Melissa: Okay, cool. I think the live selling is so cool. And it depends on what you're selling, like the stuff we sell isn't really like a cooktop for live auction is not really gonna, but the stuff you're finding is super cool. So what are some of the stuff that you sell or like to find and sell?
Kat: So for the live selling, it has been primarily jewelry. And I do that on purpose because in a live show, we sell between 40 and a hundred items within about two hours. And I want something easy to ship. So we have all, we've mainly done jewelry, but I've also done like antique postcards and trading cards, linens like little handkerchiefs I do because all that stuff's really easy to ship and volume.
I wouldn't want to go put like glass and breakables, which I do sell on eBay, but I don't want to sell a hundred of them in a day. That would just be excruciating. As far as eBay goes, I will sell pretty much anything that will make me a profit and is legal. And I get lots from online auctions. I also have a thrifting channel. So I go thrifting a lot of that's closed where i'm at because it's so rural. I cannot find a lot of other stuff and it's mainly clothes and linens here.
I get, I get lucky occasionally. And as far as the lots it's kind of crazy because it's like season So like I got 1200 vintage license plates from an antique dealer an online auction and all of a sudden, we're flooded with license plates. I've done the same with scarves, Harley pens. I got 600 at a time.
So it kind of goes in waves depending on what I can find. And I try not to limit myself just because of where I'm at and how hard it is to find inventory.
Rob: Yeah, that's cool. I do have a question about the, the live auctions. Do you, do you have reserves that you will do, or is it everything absolute that you're just on there and selling it no matter what?
Kat: Yeah. So I don't do any auction or any reserves. My auctions are 15 seconds. So I'm running a hundred items and two to two and a half hours typically. And. I started the lowest I'm willing to take. I will tell you, I did take about five to six months off at the end of last year, because for about two months I was losing money.
I was not making it back. It kind of went downhill and the live auction scene is kind of like that. It's very low. Up and down and it's not predictable where like eBay and stuff I can predict kind of, you know, what something is what it's going to sell for a live auction. You have no idea. It depends on who's in the audience.
And if there's only one person that wants it, it's not going to go for very much. So I tend to start it right at or a little above what I paid now. And with the jewelry, sometimes that is like $20, $50. I've sold $200 pieces on there and I'll just start it at the lowest I'm willing to take. Most of those higher dollar pieces would do well on eBay as well.
So if it doesn't sell and whatnot, I might try one or two shows. Then it's going to go over to eBay.
Melissa: Okay. Yeah. I'm curious about live shows too though. So that's, it's just so different than what anything we've done. And are, so you're doing like how many of those typically a month? Are you doing them on both?
WhatNot? And Niknax?
Kat: So right now I am doing one to two on whatnot a week and then I do one on Niknax. Last year I was doing five a week and I think I kind of burned myself out and my viewers so I think that's why that income kind of went down a little bit. I was flooding it and so I'll do like one fine jewelry sale and then if I get good linen I might do a linen show in addition to it but I'm not, not making myself do a certain amount like I did last year because I don't want to get burnout on it again.
It's definitely a real thing.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: Absolutely. A real thing. So, and how are you getting people? Are these people that, like, you schedule it so they see what kind of stuff you're selling or they know it's happening at this date? Are you telling people on your socials when it's happening? How do you get people to those?
Kat: So when I first started back doing it, I was just doing pop up. So if people were following me, they would get notified because I didn't want to commit to any time with having been burned out on it. But you do tend to get more people of you schedule. So like right now I have one Sterling show schedule and I will I do a preview video and I, we'll put that out the day of because I don't want to put it out too early and feel like people will forget it.
So like Saturday, my show's at 3 p. m. I'll put the video out maybe like 10 or 11 a.m. Say, hey, here in a few hours, I'm going to be selling this. And for a while, I didn't, didn't advertise them and because I don't want to like over flood people and annoy people with it. But so I think doing like one to two shows a week helps with that.
You know where it's not like every day Okay, here I am here but i'm making more by doing just the one show with a little bit higher quality jewelry, than I was doing five shows with kind of like lower end jewelry. Yeah.
Melissa: I mean, it does make sense and you're not burning yourself out. So you're doing once a week.
So that's a way better to do that. So how are you overcoming the obstacle of living in a very rural area? Like where, where are you finding a lot of your stuff? Where do you like to go to source?
Kat: So most of my higher end stuff comes from online auctions. And I, I have two that I buy from actually one is in Maryland.
One's in New Mexico. I love Southwestern stuff. So that's something I look at a lot. So I have one that I like that I go. Basically every auction I buy from them, they ship to me and most of my higher dollar stuff, that's how I'm getting it. Thrifting is how I get kind of the bread and butter items, you know, like $15, $20, $25.
And that's again, I'm in a low income area, I might occasionally find like 50 or higher items, but it is not very often. But I have to go thrifting to make content for my thrifting channel too. So it's kind of twofold. Luckily, our clothing at a lot of these stores here are only $1. So $1 into $15, I'm like, that's 15 times your money.
And I'm totally okay with that.
Melissa: Yeah, so you probably, you don't have as many good things, but when you do have stuff, it's probably cheaper, you can probably find stuff like in the, some of the larger areas, I think thrift stores are a little more expensive, than you probably have, which would be, yeah, for sure, pretty cool.
So, and how far are you willing to drive to go pick up stuff. Like if you go buy it from other places or go thrifting, if you're like, going to take a trip.
Kat: So thrifting, I typically will go like an hour and a half to two, like tomorrow I'm going down to Clearwater, which is about two and a half hours.
That's to pick up some high end items off of auction. But I will also, if, if, if my husband and son tolerate it, I will go thrifting a little bit there as well. But typically that is what I do. Like if I go two and a half hours away to pick up from an auction, I'm going to look at those thrift stores too, because most of those auctions are in higher end areas than where I'm at.
I have went probably five hours is the longest that I've driven to pick up an auction hall, and that was down to South Florida. So I will drive five hours if it, if it's really, really good stuff.
Melissa: Yeah, that's awesome and make a trip out of it right and stop. Yeah. Yeah, talking about that the other day, because he grew up, in the area he grew up, like we had a you had a nicer area so your parents would buy stuff at yard sales. And like he's like I we had all the greatest stuff that we would get from yard sales because it was a a nicer area and, was it the the other day?
We had a comment that, like that some the eBay just started in the 90s and there was no like phone or computer I'm like, no there was there was definitely phones and computers.
Rob: And apparently we're buying cell phones in like the late 80s from yard sales. And these were big the big brick cell phones. If you those are the super cell phones that we had and we're getting them from yard sales, which was crazy back then but.
Melissa: That was just a tangent.
I don't know where I was going with that. But I just thought it was interesting like some of the stuff you can find at different
areas.
Rob: I did have a question too. So in more rural areas are do you have estate sales? Are you doing any sourcing from estate sales? Because that's kind of what I think about like in the country you find more of the estate sales.
So how is that in your area as well?
Kat: So I go to them occasionally. I look on estatesales.Net and if the pictures look like they're worth it, I'll drive. But again, they're like the thrift stores where the majority of them are at least an hour away from me. So here where I am, there are not very many. And most of the times the ones that are here are not ones that I see anything that would interest me. So like last week I drove almost two hours to one that was absolutely incredible. So I check, I check pretty much like 100 to 150 miles out, which, you know, can be almost three hours of driving. And I just want to make sure it looks like something that's going to be worth it for the drive. But here in my area, There really is not much.
It is very, very hard. If I, if I wasn't willing to drive over an hour, I probably, well, I can source online though. I do source online and it's shipped to my house. But as far as like the stores and stuff, I have to drive.
Melissa: That's pretty cool. We've never really had stuff shipped to us that we've bought online.
He usually does online auctions, but they're local, like they're not that, you know, so they're within an hour of driving, not to be shipped.
Rob: The majority of our stuff that we buy, people don't know how to ship it and they won't ship it or it's too expensive if they do try to ship it. So yeah, we stayed kind of in Central Florida to be able to do it, but that's really cool.
It is really cool.
Kat: Yeah, I would look though, honestly, because you know how to ship it. And if you could arrange shipping, like you might be able to get some stuff cheap on online auction, because some of them if they do it at the auction house, they'll hold it for like a week or two. So you could arrange freight to go pick it up. Like if there's certain stuff that, you know, yeah. Cause I actually had some furniture that they were willing, like I asked them, they were willing to hold it for me to arrange for eight to come and pick it up because it was like $5 for Ethan Allen that sell for thousands. So. Yeah, I would think about looking.
Rob: Yeah, especially because auction houses too will probably they will have a loading dock or they will have a forklift on property. All they have to do is have it on a pallet and you can have a freight company come and pick it up and we know how to do that as cheap as possible. So that is a great point.
I love it. I love it.
Melissa: You don't need more. No more sourcing. We don't need more items right now. We're on a sourcing pause.
Kat: That's how I end up. I either have like nothing or way too much. It goes because when I see we're getting low on inventory, then I go looking and I don't do anything small. So we go from like zero items to, you know, a few hundred.
And a matter of day, like, okay, no problem anymore. And then I have to make myself stuff.
Melissa: Then you got to get them listed and sold. I haven't had a question about kind of the numbers and like, when you got started back again into reselling you, like what it right now kind of is your, is your reselling business making per month?
And then did you have to have a certain number before you like knew, okay, I can quit my job. I need to be at this point. Like did you plan that out or how did that work?
Rob: So and talk a little bit about your because you have employees. Yeah. And you have employees too. So factor that into it as well in the question.
Kat: Yeah. So when I first started, my goal was to have like a hundred thousand in income coming in from eBay before I quit. That was a big thing. So about $10,000 a month and that's when it was just me. So I didn't have any employees at that point. And. I, I wasn't making it regular. Like I said, I got mad and so I quit in February instead of waiting until the end of the year and kind of just went all in.
Now like this month, I think we're right at like $13,000 to $14,000 on eBay. And then we, Poshmark and Mercari are very slow. So they might be like a thousand each on a, you know, on a good month. They're definitely not one of our main ones, but whatnot is about $10,000 a month as well. And Niknax, now Niknax is a little newer.
So that's probably between $3,000 and $5,000 a month. So the live sales definitely now have played into that and the live sales. Played in a lot to me getting more employees because I just could not do everything. There was absolutely no way. And whatnot, like last year we did $230,000 on whatnot and sales.
The year before was $250,000. It's going to be down this year because I'm not doing it as much as I was. But the thing with whatnot, and I think that'll people might not consider is my, my buy cost is a lot higher. So my profit margins might only be 30 to 40 percent if not less on whatnot. Versus eBay, I typically at least 10 times my money because I buy stuff so cheap that goes on eBay, but whatnot is making, it's the whole fast nickel over a slow dime.
Like I'm selling it in a day. Like I can, have it shipped in today and I sell it tomorrow. So it's really fast, but the profit margins are lower and Niknax right now I'm just doing a one hour show a week. So that I'm not, I'm not doing a lot because I, again, I don't want to burn myself or my, my customers out by like, oh, here I'm at, I'm here every night, which is what I was doing sometimes twice a day.
I was a little bit crazy, so that made it where I needed employees to help. We were cataloging all of whatnot and now we are again because we're just doing one show, but I had an employee that that's all they did was catalog for whatnot because they would be taking, you know, the hundred pictures of the items for the auction.
And then when the sales went down, I stopped cataloging. So I was like, I'm just going to show you guys what I have. We're not cataloging, but now that we're doing higher end jewelry, again, we are cataloging. I want them to see it. They can pre bid and we actually have been getting quite a few pre bids. So if somebody can't make it to the show live, they can come on put in their highest bid.
And then if they win it, they win it. If they don't, they don't. So overall, all between everything, we're probably at about $25,000 to $30,000 a month coming in as far as gross before, before all of our costs.
Melissa: That's awesome.
Rob: That is awesome.
Melissa: Yeah. You're doing a lot.
Rob: You're fingers everywhere. That's pretty crazy.
Melissa: But you also have that entrepreneur mind. That you, you know, do every, you know, it's, that's awesome. So I'm curious about the live shows. We're going to have to go watch them because I think that's super interesting. Now, just one question that came to mind while you were talking with the jewelry, you're doing more of the higher end jewelry.
How does that happen? Like, is it authenticated at whatnot? Or how does that work? If somebody, I mean, I get, If somebody wants a return, you just accept returns? Or how does that process work?
Kat: So hiring to me is like starting stuff at $10 instead of $2. Okay. Okay. I do, I do some of the higher dollar, like I'll do Tiffany Co pieces.
Okay. Whatnot does not have any authentication as far as that. And, they actually take the return. So I, as a seller never get the return. It is sent back to whatnot. And I believe that whatnot then would check it out and authenticate it. So like, if somebody was getting a bunch of like, this is fake, this is fake, this is fake, whatnot, has it sent to their headquarters?
They check it out. And then that's sent back. The seller might be put in jeopardy. One of the things I don't like, though, is we don't know. So as a seller, I don't know who's returning my item. They don't give you any metrics and you have no clue who is returning anything. So that's kind of a little frustrating because I would like to know if people, you know, are complaining and returning things.
But if they don't message me and sometimes they will message me and I will take care of them. Like I do a lot of vintage. So I've had like clasps have broke, like when they go to wear it, things like that. And I might just like say, hey, here's your money back. But I don't, I don't think you're supposed to. Whatnot wants to handle all of the returns for you, but to my knowledge, I don't think there's any authentication process on any of it. And there I have seen, it's kind of crazy. I've seen items selling for like a thousand, $2,000 like Louis Vuitton purses. So it's not all lower end items. I think my highest that I've sold is probably about three or $400 on whatnot, but I've seen stuff that's significantly higher.
Melissa: Yeah, I've seen, my kids were on it at one point where Pokemon cards they were looking at, and we were watching an auction. Because I mean, that would probably be easy to fake too, is like cards, different kinds of cards to do. So, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that's interesting. So, what would you, well, what would you tell somebody who is thinking about getting started in reselling?
What would you, be a piece of advice maybe that you've learned from a mistake, or that, like, that you would help somebody get started in this business?
Kat: I think the big thing, and I personally didn't pay attention to it enough, and it's hard with buying lots to pay attention to it, is the sell through rate of things.
That's how I've ended up with 7,000 items. I don't necessarily really want to have 7,000 items in my inventory, but when you're buying lots, like I might buy a lot for two or three items that are good money, they're going to sell fast. And then I end up with 20 items that are not great money and are not selling fast.
So for me, luckily I have the space, we have over 5,000 square foot of space. And if someone did not, that would create a problem really big. So I think checking the sell through rate and just knowing what you want to do, like I'm okay with listing those items. I have the space and they're essentially to me free, you know, those two or three items that I really wanted the lot for, pay for it. And they're typically paid for pretty fast. So the rest of that lot is pretty much a zero cost for me, and I'm okay with it sitting there. But if somebody doesn't have three sheds and an extra house, they would be in trouble really fast, really fast, especially buying lots. And that that again is one of my biggest like ways of buying and how I have ended up with 7,000 items so I would say check the sell through rates. And make sure that stuff is selling. I I wish I had paid a little more attention, a lot more attention to that back in the beginning and I probably wouldn't have a lot of the stuff that I have. And when buying lots I'm being more particular like if it's 10 and I see it's not selling well, I'm actually going to give it away.
I have somebody that sells at the flea market. And she'll come and pick up whatever I want to give her. She doesn't pick through it. It's like, here's three boxes of stuff, so I'm trying to determine, you know, if I'm paying somebody to list the item, I'm paying somebody to ship the item and I'm only getting $10.
It probably is not worth it. So I am trying to be a little more picky rather than when it was just me. Like I'm like, I'm going to sell everything and I make $5 and make $5, but it's a little bit different when you're paying people and you have that extra cost going into that item.
Melissa: Yeah, for sure. I was going to, I was going to ask you too, about like, do you have a yard sale or something with all the other stuff?
But that's a great contact. If you have somebody to give that to, and she can go sell it at, at the flea market. Cause we do, we'll do like a yard sale once or twice a year, but the kids love to do it. They accumulate more stuff than anybody. Like, I don't know how they accumulate more stuff. So much stuff, but I, I remember even going to the flea market, people would just hand 'em stuff like, oh, here, you take this, take this.
And I'm like,
Kat: they do that. They do that to my son. They like, give him free stuff all the time. You can pick something, you can have it for free and like I could do the yard sale, but the problem is getting the stuff together, like I'd set it aside and then like, where do you store it for six months until you're gonna have a yard sale?
So I just, I, and I had, I had a lot set aside with that in mind. And I was like, I don't want to hold this for three more months until I decide to have a yard sale. So I ended up calling her. She came and got everything. And it was surprising though. I did pallets at the beginning when I started doing this again.
So four years ago, I was getting a lot of overstock pallets. I was getting Amazon returns and I actually had a yard sale made like $1,600 in a day in the middle of nowhere. I was, I was very, very shocked because I'm like eight miles off of any main road. So it's like, somebody is driving for, you know, it's like, where are these signs taking me kind of thing, but it was, it was really busy and we actually did very well with it.
Melissa: That's awesome. Yeah, those return pods, a lot of our vendors at the flea market get those return pods. And then we pick through and see if there's stuff that we want from them. But those are another cool way to do the business too. So in addition to doing all these different platforms, you also create content and help people with their reselling business.
So, where, I know you just hit 80,000 dollar, sorry, 80,000 followers on I wish 80,000 dollars, that would be 80,000 subscribers on YouTube, so congrats for that. And we'll definitely put those links below to all your social media. Where is the best place to follow you? Is it YouTube or Instagram or where?
Kat: Everywhere. YouTube, Instagram are my main two, the Nurse Flipper. And then, I think I have a TikTok, but I'm not, I talk too much. I have to learn how to like shorts and quit talking so much. So I do, I do have an account on TikTok, but I don't post. And then also over on Facebook too, same name.
Melissa: Okay.
Awesome. We'll definitely put those links in the show notes. So go follow her and yeah, any last words of wisdom.
Rob: Yeah, you're amazing. I mean you're definitely challenging us to step up the game with what you're doing. So you're amazing. Yeah, keep it up. Keep it up And yeah, if you have any last words for anybody listening or watching, yeah, let us know for sure
Kat: Yeah, I think the big thing is figuring out how to do what works for you where you're at. Like we were talking about it a little bit at the beginning like people will say, oh, I can't find anything because of where I live.
There's a way to make this work no matter where you're at. Whether it's sourcing online or having to drive a little further. And that's one of my biggest things in my videos. Like if you tell me you can't make a lot of sales and you probably can't, I think mindset is a really, really big thing. Just overall in life.
So having a positive outlook on it and saying, okay, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to get more sales. What do I need to do versus trying to blame everything? I think that would be one of my biggest key points to anybody that's trying to do it.
Rob: I love it. I love it. Positivity. Definitely a great takeaway and a great way to end this session for sure.
So again, Kat, the nurse flipper, go check her out. She is amazing. Thank you so much for spending time with us. We greatly appreciate you. And yeah, have a great day.
Kat: Yeah, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.