Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how to handle storage in your reselling business.
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How To Handle Storage In Your Flipping Business
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we're tackling the question, what about storage?
Rob: Alright, guys, so today we're talking about storage and more specifically what do you do if you don't have enough storage? When is it time to get a storage unit? What are all the questions about storage that you have? We're going to go over a lot of that through this episode.
Melissa: This is a kind of a bigger obstacle that, or not obstacle, maybe a obstacle, excuse, a question that we get is, you know, what about storage? How do you handle storage? And so we kind of want to take you through our progression a little bit of how we've progressed with storage and, what you can do in your business. Cause one of the biggest things is we do not recommend starting out and going and getting a storage unit.
If you are like hopping in today, I'm just starting on eBay and going to get a storage unit. That's not where we're at.
Rob: So absolutely. So how I started back in the day after I moved out of my parents house, I rented a duplex one side of the duplex. It was a two bedroom duplex and that's what I started with. That's what I had at my hands that I could use for storage.
So I lived in the back bedroom. I had the front bedroom that I could use for my eBay business for my flipping business there I actually started out with the closet. I stored everything in the closet. I still had a hide a bed in there. If somebody wanted to stay over, I had a bed in that room. You had a roommate for a little while.
No, that was later on down the road that I got everything moved out of there. But in the original one, that's how I lived. I lived in the back room. I had the front room that I use the closet to store stuff in. And then I used the spare bedroom to be able to box stuff up and to use for my business.
That's how I started. No storage units, no sheds, nothing like that. That's exactly how I started. And that's how we recommend a lot of people starting in this business.
Melissa: Yeah, and when we actually got married, we lived in a 575 square foot house with no storage. Like, we did not have a pantry. We had, like, everything was kept in a lazy Susan.
Like, we did not have room for storage in this house. So, obviously, we couldn't really do much, so we just put a shed in the backyard. Like, that's where we kept our stuff for flipping. Then that's all you had for a long time. And then you did build a larger shed, like you had a small shed that, you know, you can just buy at Lowe's or Home Depot.
And it made sense to buy it and just put the stuff a 10 by 12 shed is what we had. So we had that in the backyard.
Rob: And then we moved, progressed as we got. We progressed into a larger shed. I think I built a like 16 by 16 or 16 by 20, something like that in the backyard. And then we used that. And as we outgrew that, we actually went from there to a storage unit.
Melissa: Yeah. I think we actually, before we did the storage unit, it's when we moved cause we, started having kids and we couldn't fit kids and obviously in a five, well you could, but it would be very difficult. So we moved to a little bit bigger house and then we started using the closets and we had an extra bedroom and we used the extra bedroom and closets.
And then we also, and with this house, had a garage for the first time in a long, like ever as a married couple. So we had a garage, so we had some more storage space that we could use, which was pretty cool.
Rob: So, and as it grew, as our business grew, that's where we went out and got our first storage unit. We grew that first, second, third.
I think I went into four storage units before I actually went into a warehouse, a big metal building warehouse. And now that's where we're at right now. That's what we have. So what's the moral of this story? Where you're at, where you're at right now. If you're starting off your business, you don't have to worry about getting a storage unit.
You don't have to worry about having a big warehouse, even one storage unit, whatever it is. Start where you're at. Find those items that you can store in the pockets of your house, in your apartment, wherever you're at. Start with those items. Really get the business going so you understand how the business works, how everything, the whole process works, start to finish taking your pictures, getting it listed, getting it shipped out, and get that process down in the beginning stages of your business.
And then as you start making some money and it makes sense for you to go out and rent a hundred dollar storage unit, go to that once you are making the money. And it's consistent for you. You can totally do it. Then it makes sense to go out and get a storage unit and start using that for your business.
That's exactly how we did it. That's how we recommend people doing it as well.
Melissa: Yeah. Like we just, I remember using just the back closets. We would have stuff in there in the back closets and then the back room, cause we didn't have kids, three kids at that time. So we were able to use that extra bedroom.
So use what you have. And then once it does make sense, it is beneficial if you are living with somebody that is not maybe a reseller or doesn't want a whole bunch of stuff in the house to get a storage unit at that point. If you are at that point in your business because it is nice to have it separate.
And it might motivate you too to have a separate place. Like if you know you're paying $150 a month for the storage unit, it might give you that extra motivation you need to get your stuff listed. So that can be helpful too that you have that little extra bill be like, all right, this is my legit side hustle or legit business.
We got to get moving on this so it might give you that motivation.
Rob: So absolutely, so let's take this one step further now. What about storage on what we do? We do the larger items. We do the higher profit items. So.
Melissa: Which typically are larger, they don't always have to be, but typically they are because people won't ship them.
And that's where our money is made in shipping items that most people won't ship.
Rob: So let's break down one of our last flips that we did, which was a cooktop, a cooktop that had a downdraft on it. It was a 45 inch cooktop. The footprint of that cooktop that we sold, we paid a hundred dollars for it and sold it for $2,200.
Let's just use round numbers on. Say it sold for $2,000. Now let's also say you're selling small items and you need $20 as your, your average range of your price. You need a hundred of those $20 items. Now, what are those $20 items? Maybe it's shirts, maybe it's knickknacks, whatever it is. Think about a hundred items versus storing that one cooktop that we had to store.
Melissa: Like how many tubs would you need? Like if you're thinking of footprint space, as far as space for storage, because people, a lot of times people ask us, well, how do I store something that big? Well, the cooktop is not super huge, but maybe you're going for a range.
It's the same thing, like a $2,000 range that, you know, you have to store that. But how many tubs of items would you have to store for that same amount of money? It's probably very similar. So, and if not, I could argue that probably the larger item takes up less space, and you're only doing one cleaning, one listing, and one shipping over a hundred items.
Rob: So that's why that's our business model, is because you do not have to take pictures, list, fulfill, ship out a hundred different items to get to that $2,000 mark. You can list one item. Take pictures of one item and ship one item, which cuts down drastically on your time frame in this business.
Melissa: And you're not trying to store a hundred or two hundred of those kind of items either.
So like you only need, you know, a smaller amount of them. So they, they essentially take up the same amount of space. It's kind of what, what we have found and what we kind of think about.
Rob: That's why we gravitate towards that. So, but when you do weigh out a $20 item versus a $2,000 item and then how many of those items need to sell to equal the amount that you can make on the $2,000 item, it does it really does even out to where although your time is a lot more invested into those smaller items. And that's why years ago, we figured this out and we decided to switch over to the high profit items.
Just because they are a little bit larger, but at the same time, it's a lot less work on our end to do one high profit item.
Melissa: Yeah. And we've had people to like, especially just starting out in this business. They don't have storage. I remember Lisa got that double oven for free. I think we helped her get it for free.
Right. And then she ended up selling it for a thousand dollars on eBay. She lived in an apartment and she kept it in a carport. It wasn't that, she didn't take long to sell it, right? No, it sold within a week or two, yeah. Yeah, she had a tarp over it on the carport? I think so. She was in an apartment.
She didn't have the storage for it, but it sold. And she even didn't have a truck or trailer, so she rented a truck from UHaul. After eBay fees shipping and UHaul, she still made over $600 in profit. So, from one flip. One flip. And so, it was, it was kind of cool. And she didn't have the, the storage. But if that was something that she, was like, okay, this is a, like something that's viable.
It would be totally worth it for her to go rent a storage unit. I don't know if she ever did, but that like, it was worth it if that is something you're willing to pursue.
Rob: And you get good at it and you enjoy it, that's where we tell you to go out and find a storage unit, but it has to be viable. It has to be the, that you're enjoying it.
You're enjoying the profits. You're enjoying the whole process of the business. That's when you go out and you invest back into your business. I mean, most of you have done that for years, not just doing what you're doing, but investing back in the business to make it easier. To make it streamline, to make it better.
Melissa and I are huge advocates of that. Being able to make your business better by investing into it.
Melissa: Yeah, so for sure. So I think that was, yeah, the answer to that. That's how we would combat that is like, as you feel the need to grow or you're like busting at the seams and maybe it's time and run the numbers.
Like don't just guess, like run the numbers. What are your profits each month? Not just your revenue. Don't just look at your revenue, look at your profits after eBay fees, after shipping costs, and how much time are you spending in your business and then divide that hourly. Like what are you making hourly and look at it and be like, okay, I'm making this much profit.
I could double what my sales if I had the room of a storage unit, which means that I could get a storage unit and I'm going to still make more money than I'm making now. So I just look at it like that. So, we are also excited to announce we just opened the pathway to $10K. It's our new program that we have kind of broken down Flipper University and taking it in small chunks month by month. And we're super excited about it. We've had a loads of people hit our 10K Pro Flipper Club. I think, yeah, we're close to a hundred people that have hit the 10K Pro Flipper Club now and we want you to be in that.
So if you want to go check out the pathway to $10K is that you can check out learn2flip.Com and it should be there at the link.
Rob: Learn2flip.com. Guys, we want to see you there. You guys can go there and register. I'm excited about this program. The goal of the program is a six month process, progressional progress to get you to $10,000 in six months.
That is the goal of the program. If you do what we have you do, it's broken up to month by month and you guys are going to absolutely love it. And we're so excited to help you grow in your business. So you guys rock. Thanks for spending some time with us here today. Cannot wait to see you guys on the next episode.