Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper launch a six-part series on how you can make your first $200 flipping.
How To Make Your First $200 Flipping Part 1
How To Make Your First $200 Flipping Part 2
How To Make Your First $200 Flipping Part 3
How To Make Your First $200 Flipping Part 4
How To Make Your First $200 Flipping Part 5
Best Bank Accounts For Resellers To Use With Ebay Managed Payments
Check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
Reseller Hangout Podcast – How To Make Your First $200 Flipping Part 6
Rob: Okay, we're talking about eBay, our favorite topic to close off our six part of this six episode series that we put together.
Melissa: On how to make your first $200 flipping.
Rob: Okay, so you guys should have those three to five items listed on Facebook Marketplace, on OfferUp, you should be getting some feedback.
Melissa: Hopefully some sales already.
Rob: That's right. If not, you know how to promote them, you know how to relist them if you have to.
But now what is next? The next step for us is definitely one of our favorites. We told you eBay is our bread and butter. I always say 80%, but it's really more towards 90%, 95% of our sales come from eBay.
Melissa: We used to sell more on Facebook because we used to sell more of the bigger items on Facebook and we sell more now on eBay.
Rob: We do. So now you might ask why. Why eBay?
eBay has got a bad rep out there. They, a lot of people hate eBay. Why, why, why? Okay. So check it out. This is the real numbers. This is the truth. eBay has roughly 159 million registered users. What does that mean for you? More potential buyers. So in a local market, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp. Those are where you're going to get the quickest returns on listing stuff, because it is very, user-friendly very easy to get some results, but when you're ready to go to that next level, that's when you want to step into eBay, because you can get more money for your items.
Sometimes you can sell your items quicker because you have a bigger pool of buyers looking for that specific item.
Melissa: And we left eBay for last because it is a little bit of a bigger monster to jump into, but it doesn't have to be, it's not as scary as a lot of people think it is.
Rob: It's not, but there are more fields to fill out. It is not as user-friendly as Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp. So it does take a little bit more, but let me tell you, the learning curve is worth it.
That is why we have built our business on eBay 90% to 95% of our sales come on eBay. It is a little bit of a bigger, fish to fry, but it definitely is worth it.
Melissa: It's worth taking the time to learn it.
Rob: That's right. You guys might be saying, okay, okay, I'm sold. I'm sold. How do I get into eBay? Well, we're going to get to that in this episode.
We want to get you guys comfortable. We want to tell you some perks about eBay. Some things you definitely want to start doing, if you do want to start listing on eBay.
Melissa: Yeah. So first, if you don't have an account, you're going to have to create an account, which you can do that pretty easily. Following the prompts, create an account and they don't use PayPal anymore.
So you will have to hook up another kind of banking system.
Rob: It's called managed payments. So eBay does all of their own, transactions or their processing now in-house, which is, it's kinda cool, but they switched over, what it's been almost two years now?
Melissa: Well, that's when they first started.
Rob: It's been gradually, we've been on it for over a year and a half, something like that.
But like I said, it's, in-house processing instead of using a PayPal, who's always been the processor they switched and went into in-house. So all that stuff will be prompt. You can follow that stuff, get all that stuff done. The thing you want to know about eBay is your sales are a direct correspondent with your feedback.
So you want to build, start building feedback immediately. So that's going to be selling feedback as a seller. It's going to be buying feedback as a buyer. You want to try and build that feedback up. So potential buyers can see you and say, okay, these people are not brand new. They don't have one or two feedbacks.
They had 50 feedbacks, they have a hundred feedbacks. They've done transactions, and they have had good transactions. So I feel more confident buying from them.
Melissa: Yeah. And building up your feedback. Feedback is not that important on other platforms that much. Like you can on Facebook and you can on OfferUp, but nobody really cares to look at it, I don't think, but on eBay is very important. And mostly because on the other apps, you're meeting the person and like the item's there. So you're doing a transaction in person, whereas on eBay, you're trusting them to ship you the item that they're saying, they're going to ship you. So that's why the feedback is so important.
Rob: And there's other key facts in eBay that keep you protected when you're buying or selling items. But the biggest thing is that, is that that's the security that people see.
Melissa: The buyers like that.
Rob: Exactly.
Melissa: So if they're going to be putting their money out there, they want to know that you're a legit seller. So that's why it's so important.
Rob: So the best thing we can recommend you guys doing is some of those buys, a lot of people buy on Amazon because it's so quick.
Some of those buys that you're doing on Amazon, if you can hold off a day or two for the shipping and you can wait a day or two to receive that item, switch over and start buying some stuff on eBay, on your new account so you can start getting that feedback. Typically, the stuff that you're going to buy from sellers on eBay will give you feedback immediately after you pay for the item that is going to start your rankings to go up. So that's the buying portion of eBay, the selling portions of eBay, go through your house like we did before. When you found those three to five items that you could sell this time, we want you to go to the items that you would probably donate that are not trashed by any mean.
Melissa: They still have to be good items. We're not trying to sell trash.
Rob: Exactly the items that you would probably donate to the salvation army and Goodwill, habitat.
Melissa: They're still worth like $10 or $20.
Rob: Exactly. So those items that you would donate, let's pull those out. Let's pull even more this time, maybe pull out five, ah, start with five, let's pull out five of those items that you would donate to one of the charities something like that.
And let's sell them on eBay for a really, really good price. So you do not want to lose money on shipping, make sure your shipping is covered when you're listing this item, but make sure you're giving the buyer a really good deal to where they're paying probably half of what it's really worth.
At a $10 item they're getting it for $5 with maybe $1 or $2 shipping, whatever it is. You're giving them a great deal. So that way, when they get the item, they're going to be happy with the item. They're going to give you positive feedback, and you're going to start building that feedback as a seller. So you want to have seller feedbacks and buyer feedbacks.
They all go together. So you can't really tell unless you jump in and make eBay, eBay has them split up for buyer and seller. But when you're just looking at somebody's name on eBay, it'll just show all of the numbers, buyers, and sellers, feedbacks together on your name for those transactions that you had, you have done.
Melissa: Yeah, and we're going to put in the show notes of video like we did before on how to list on eBay. So going through the prompts to just kinda show you, how to list on eBay, it's just a little bit different. There's usually more forms to fill out more categories, is it categories? More fields to fill out.
They want it to be described a little more in depth than,
Rob: which is cool
Melissa: because you want the buyer to know what they're getting.
Rob: Exactly. The one thing you have to remember about on eBay, that's different about Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp. Melissa touched on it a second ago is, and these local arenas, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp the buyer's going to get to see, touch.
They're going to get to feel that item before they buy it from you. On eBay that is not the case. EBay, they are going off of your pictures, which I will recommend when you're selling to list as many, eBay allows you to put 12 pictures in and one video, which that's not really key for these first items that you're selling to get the feedback, but that will help you when you get into higher profits.
But definitely use those 12 pictures if you can. Make sure your title has everything in it, make sure your description describes if it is used, if it's scratched, scuffs or scrapes. Our one tip about selling on eBay that you can take to the bank is under promise and over deliver. Make sure that buyer and knows the condition of that item, or even you exaggerate a little bit worse on that item than it really is. So when they get it, they're happy, they're super happy and they want to leave you positive feedback.
Melissa: Yeah. You've done the opposite when you were a kid and that's not.
Rob: I've learned this the hard way 25 years ago about thinking that when I bought an item, it was amazing. It was in immaculate condition.
Cause it looked like that to me. And when you sell it that way, and then the buyer gets it and there are scratches on it, there are scuffs on it, stuff like that. They are not very happy with it. So needless to say, I dealt with back when I started selling, quite a few refunds returns, that kind of stuff, because I didn't accurately describe the item.
So the best thing you have to remember is that they are not seeing the item, all they can see is the pictures you have. So if your pictures look amazing and you can't tell that the item's used, and it looks like it just came out of the box, but when they get it and see it, it's not that nice because pictures will lie to people.
I mean, they will, probably,, sometimes accentuate the best qualities of an item until you're actually holding it in your hand. So if that's the case, you're gonna upset buyers, which they will not give you positive feedback and maybe even ask for a return on the item. So we're trying to alleviate that.
We're trying to make sure you get the learning curve that we've learned years and years ago, and trying to get you to selling on the right track for sure.
Melissa: Did you say also, it's recommended to use all your pictures that you have?
Rob: Yes. Another good point for sure.
Melissa: They give you 12 pictures.
Rob: 12 pictures and one video. The video is not that important where you're at right now, but it will be huge when you get to the point of selling some higher profit items.
Melissa: And I want it to go back to the bank account just for a minute, just because I know that can hold a lot of people up. Like, oh, I don't really want to put my bank account in here, but you don't have to. So we recommend that you don't, that you put a separate bank account because you want to keep, even if this is, you're just dabbling in this as a hobby that's okay.
But you'd like to keep that money separate. And then you could see, you know, what is my flipping side hustle? Like if you turn this into a side hustle, eventually what's it really doing, but it's also smart to keep it separate than your other accounts. I dunno if in case they want to go try to get funds or whatever.
But there's a couple of different bank accounts that we've researched ourselves. We ended up going with CIT, which was an online banking account. We just thought it was easier to have an online bank account with eBay. We've been pretty happy with them. And we did a blog post a little while back comparing a couple of pros and cons to different banks.
So we'll put that link in the show notes too, so you can check them out and see which one might be a good one for you if you want to, or if you just want to use your regular bank, but I would still open a separate account for that for eBay.
Rob: Definitely.
Melissa: Keep everything separate.
Rob: Definitely, it helps out even when it comes to your taxes and stuff like that.
Yeah, different accounts that you can look at and see what's coming in, what's going out from eBay and keep track of that, for sure.
Melissa: So, yeah, I just wanted to add that, a little note. So we're back to listing on eBay we get those items listed and then you got to ship them out.
Rob: And we do have the video below, like Melissa said, she'll have the link below, how to list that item, that first item that you're going to list.
So it gives you a little bit more information easier, so it'll be easier for you to list those items, but we definitely recommend start building that feedback with buyers feedback and seller's feedback. So do both of those, but sell those items that you would donate to the salvation army donate to a charitable,, organization, that they're not trash, but they definitely can be sold and find those items that you'd donate, sell them on eBay for very, very discounted just for that feedback.
Melissa: And if you are a little bit past that, where you've already built your feedback a little bit, you know, finding prices to list your items. So typically we list them a little higher on eBay and a little lower on Facebook, but we still give ourselves a little room to negotiate on Facebook and OfferUp.
So they're kind of similar. But we know we're going to take less on Facebook because we don't have the fees and the shipping costs and stuff. So even when we look at the comps, that is a huge way to go and find out what can I sell this item for? And it's not just, what's listed. It's what's sold.
Rob: Yep. So, and comps are comparable items that have sold.
So you want to go back and look at eBay. It's called completed listings. They'll show you everything in the last 90 days that has sold in the category or the item that you're looking for, go in there and check that against the item that you have and see what they're selling for, that way you have a good idea of what you can price your item for.
Melissa: The other thing is you might have to price your items, if you're just getting started on eBay, you might have to price your items a little lower, not just the ones we're trying to build feedback, but like, if there's a range of say, $20 to $30 and you're newer and you don't have, you only have like a couple of feedback.
You're gonna have to price it to the lower $20.
Rob: Maybe even underneath it to get it to move. It depends on how hot the item is selling. If it's an item that there's a lot of inventory on eBay for, you might have to sell it low, to get it to move.
Melissa: But once you build your feedback up our established seller, you can start selling on the higher end of those comparables, which is pretty cool.
Rob: Absolutely. And some of our items we sell our, I mean, even like the knee thing that I just recently sold, we sold higher than even the comps because it was undervalued. I mean, people were selling them undervalued because of what the retail was. So that's a whole other podcast for a whole other day.
Melissa: You were going to talk too about, one of the local market. How you just sold that?
Rob: Yeah. So I'm shipping an Airdyne exercise bike, it's called a Schwinn airdyne. We picked it up on a road trip, paid $75 for it. I'm on a road trip in a local market. I bought it off of OfferUp or, Facebook marketplace. I don't remember which one it was. But when we were back and forth on exactly kind of interchangeable, we were on a road trip.
We bought this and I just sold it two days ago. I'll be shipping it out tomorrow. But sold that thing on eBay for $600. If I would've tried to sell this in a local market for $600 there, nobody would have ever bought it. I guarantee it, nobody would have ever bought this in a local market on eBay.
I'm actually shipping it to the buyer's house. And that is a big key in this, but it also reaches so many more people who are looking for this specific item. So that is one of the biggest keys. Why we sell on eBay is because I guarantee in a local market, the most I would have been able to get for this bike would have been $150.
I could have doubled my money from what I paid, but I also could throw it on eBay and, you know, get $75 to $600, which is a lot more enticing. It's better, and that's why we sell on eBay. That's why we sell it at 90% to 95% of our items because eBay reaches more people. You have a bigger pool of people looking for that specific item.
Yeah, that's something that I will be boxing up, but yeah, super excited about $75 to $600 on an item that we just sold on eBay two days ago.
Melissa: So once your item does sell, you will have to ship it out. There is an option for local pickup on some things, but we don't list our stuff with local pickup because it only, you're limiting yourself again. Wait. Okay. Sorry.
Rob: We do what we do because eBay recently changed local pickups. So they give you the barcode. If somebody does see the item and they want a local pickup, the barcode on your app, on your phone, they'll be able to scan it with their phone to show that they picked it up.
We do do that, but that's not the only way that local pickup only. Exactly, exactly. And we don't do that. We do local pickup, including shipping. So if somebody is local and they want it, they can buy it that way. If they're, if they want it shipped, they can do it that way. So they have the option.
Melissa: You used to only be able to do one or the other, now you can do them all together. Right. Okay. Yeah. So, but we want it, we're going to be shipping our items out, so, and don't let shipping scare you. It doesn't have to be that scary. Just making sure something is packaged up properly. You know, most of the stuff that you're going to sell, probably isn't too huge right away.
Rob: Envelopes, small boxes, even USPS, the priority boxes. They have all that kind of stuff that you can get started with.
Melissa: We reuse a lot of shipping materials. We keep everything that we get delivered to us. We break down the box, we keep it. We like to reuse everything because who doesn't want to recycle and pay less money for shipping supplies.
Yeah. So, yeah, so you have to ship it out and that's how you fulfill the eBay. And then once they get it, they'll leave you feedback. And you can leave them feedback and the transaction is complete and then you rinse and repeat, do it over and over and over again.
Rob: That's it. But the cool thing is the higher, your feedback gets the better you get on eBay, the higher you can ask for your items, the higher price you can ask for your items. Not that you're price gouging by any means, but you're showing yourself as a valued portion of eBay, a valued seller, and people will trust you more so you can keep going up on the comps. You can keep going up to the higher portion of the comps.
Like we said, we've sold stuff over top of the comps and we sell stuff at the higher mark of the comps when we're actually looking for stuff to buy, we know what we can get for those items.
Melissa: So, so that was kind of eBay in a nutshell, we threw a lot at you.
Rob: Well guys, check it out. We put together a free workshop.
If this seems like something you want to learn more about, go check out the workshop.
Melissa: The link will be below in the show notes so you can see if you want to dive in deeper to this. Like the whole goal of this series was to get you a couple hundred dollars. And we hope that you're able to do that. You don't really have, you don't need eBay to do that, but if you decide that you kind of like this and you might want to make some more money, eBay's definitely your tool to use.
Rob: eBay's the next step when you're ready to go to that next step. That is what you want to learn, get really good at, and conquer is definitely eBay.
Melissa: So check out the workshop below and thanks guys so much. And again, DM us on Instagram @fleamrktflipper. It's no vowels in market though.
Rob: There's a link below.
Melissa: There's a link below. Thanks guys.
Rob: You guys rock. Have a great day. We will see on the next episode.