Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how to price your items to sell on eBay.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast – How To Price Your Items To Sell On eBay
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are super excited to talk about how to price your item to sell on eBay.
Melissa: Because we wanna get those items sold so we can make some flipping money.
Rob: As quick as possible.
All right guys, so today we are answering a question that we get a lot around here.
How do you know what to price your item to sell for on eBay?
Melissa: So we're gonna dive into a couple things that we look at when we're pricing our items and cuz the whole goal is to get your items sold and hopefully quickly, you know, some things obviously take longer than others. Some things that you might sell within a couple hours, you're like, crap I priced it too low.
It shouldn't have sold it that fast. But so we're gonna kind of talk, dive into those and talk about that today.
Rob: Yep. So one of the biggest things that we try to do with our items is have them roughly at 50% of retail. That is one of the first criteria that we're actually. That's probably the benchmark that we're looking for when we're actually buying an item to resell it, we want to know what is that 50% mark.
If it's a used item, remember we're talking about used items. We're not talking about new or anything like that. No, this is a used item. That is our benchmark. Now, once we have that benchmark, we're gonna go into eBay and do some research.
Melissa: And the condition also plays a part in that absolutely too. So if it's like something that's in rough and we don't do clothing or shoes that much, so the, that could be a little bit different depending on like how much wear it has to, but we do a little bit more housewares, appliances, kind of anything, but roughly of 50% is what we're, what we're looking for.
But the condition does matter, so.
Rob: Absolutely. So the two variables that we want to check on eBay for are active listings and completed listings. You can't go off of just active listings because people can ask anything they want for an item, that doesn't mean they're gonna sell it. So you actually have to do the comparison of active and active and sold listings, completed listings is what you have to do. So go in there and find the average of what has sold, and they're only gonna give you the average for the last 90 days. They're gonna show you all the sales for the last 90 days that have sold. One thing that you have to keep in mind, if you're a new seller, you might be on the lower end of that average.
So say there is, five or 10 items that have sold like that. You might have to be on the lower end of that average if you're a new seller and don't have a lot of feedback yet. Now, if you're a veteran seller, you got, you know, 500 feedback, you have 200 feedback, whatever it is, and you have a hundred percent positive feedback. That's where you can, a, you can ask more towards the average or the higher end of that item that what that comp is on that item for the sold items.
Melissa: So yeah, that's what a comp is. If anybody is just getting diving into this business, you know, you'll hear people saying, what are the comps at? Like, that is really how we determine what to price our item at.
What are the comps? And the comp is just your comparable items, like you said, of what has sold or what things are listed for. But what has sold is the most important. Yep. But what happens if there are no comps?
Rob: No comps. That's where we go back to 50% of retail. So we wanna go into Google, we wanna find the item.
Find the model of that item and you wanna try and find a, what the price is on that item. And then, then your benchmark, like Melissa said, it definitely depends on condition. Your benchmark is gonna be that 50%. If it's in really good use condition, there's no comps on eBay. You can probably ask a little bit more, maybe even up to 75% of retail if nobody else has it on eBay, you can't find any comps and nobody has it on there. It's more of an expensive item. I love it when that happens because then nobody has that item. When somebody goes into Google or goes into eBay to search for the item, mine is the only one on there, so I can ask a little bit more. Never, am I asking over what retail is.
But you can be more towards that 75, the higher end of the retail price. You can be more towards the higher end of it when nobody else is offering that used item on eBay.
Melissa: You've reset comps before. I have like you have set your own when there wasn't any. So, or, or some that were lower, set lower and you went in cuz you have higher feedback and you're like, this item's worth more and you sold, sold some of those items.
So, yeah, so.
Rob: You definitely can set your comps. One of the ones that sticks out to me is the knee brace or sorry, knee rehab machine.
Melissa: Yeah, that's what I was saying.
Rob: Bought it from the flea market. We paid, I think it was $60 for it. Paid $60 for it. Retail on that item was I wanna say $3,500 to $5,000.
The only comps that I could sell or that I could find were like at $700 and that was low to me that this is a nice, it's an expensive machine, so I actually reset the comps. I put it up at $1,600. I think we sold it for $1,600 if I'm not mistaken. So $1,600. We paid $16, sold it for $1,600.
Because it needed to be more towards the 50% mark of the the retail price, and that's what we actually we're the ones who sold it for the higher end and now anybody else after selling it after us and sees that comp, they can go towards that higher end of it. Still getting an amazing deal. The buyer's getting an amazing deal on that product because we're still at 50%. If they were gonna gonna go have to have to buy it new, we gave them another option that they actually got a great deal on for sure.
Melissa: Yeah, we're never going over retail unless there is, there is a chance that you could do that. And that's usually when something is collectible.
So something that was not, is not manufactured anymore. Something that would originally in the eighties was retailed for whatever, and now it's a collectible. Like those things are a little bit, that's just a different, a different genre, what am I looking for? A different type of item.
Rob: It is, and it's cool. Something sticks out that we've sold as a collectible within, I think this was last year we sold.
It was a Sony, a stackable, you guys might remember in the eighties, the stackable radios. It had a case, a wood case. Wooden speakers found one of those. I think.
Melissa: It looked like it came out of the eighties.
Rob: It did. It found one of those, I think we found an OfferUp or marketplace, but I think I paid like $25, $40 for it somewhere in that area.
Sold that one for was it $800 or $900? Yeah, just under a thousand dollars. Yeah. Now retail on that, back in the day probably wasn't over $500. Maybe even like $350, but it was a collectors and it was in beautiful condition. Somebody paid the money for it over top of what retail was because it is, it's vintage.
Melissa: And it was not manufactured anymore, it's what they wanted.
Rob: You couldn't find nobody else on eBay. One in this condition. And that's why we asked more money for it. We got it. The buyer got it, was super excited for it, probably had one as a kid and found this one in great condition and they paid the extra money for it. So that gives you an idea of asking over retail, but it does have to, it has to be something vintage that is actually has collected value.
Yeah. Has collected value through, through the last 30, 40 years, something like that.
Melissa: So, and one other thing to remember too, when you're doing your pricing, like you have to know, like, we're in this to, we're doing this for, to make an extra income. So when you're doing your pricing, you're pricing it fair.
It has to be a good deal for the buyer to get, but you also have to make sure you're getting money. You're making your money for your time. Because if you're not, then what's the point in doing this business? So, your money really is made in the purchase of the item, and we wanna make sure that we're pricing it, we're accounting for shipping costs. We're accounting for materials and our time, so, and you have to make sure that's worth it. So, yep.
Rob: Our goal is to 10 x at least 10 x what we're buying. And the money is made in the buy, like Melissa said. You're, you have to get your items low enough that you have that 10 x, that you can make on them and we're not talking about like getting an an item for a dollar, selling for $10.
Melissa: That's one thing. Somebody had written in a while back and said, are you just going to the dollar store, buying dollar items and then selling? I'm like, no, that's not our business model. We're not buying, I guess people do that.
Like they'll buy stuff for a, a buck or so and then go double their money or whatever. But that's not what we're interested in. No, that's too much time.
Rob: So if you're spending $20 on an item, you wanna make over $200. That, that's what we're looking for, is that 10 x option. And if you're selling it for $200, the, probably the retail on it is $400 to $500.
So, and how do you find those items? You might be saying you guys are so full of it. You have. Guys, our last year, our average, for the items that we sold, we average, was it $1,200 or $1,400? $1,200. So $1,200 last year per item that we sold. That's what we averaged is the sales price on that. So we are looking for those items and we don't invest a lot of money.
Now, sometimes if I see that diamond in the roof, if I see that needle in the haystack, and it's not, I mean, we find 'em all the time, but it's not something that is like, yeah, it's, it's not the easiest thing to find. But they are out there and if you're searching, if you're looking and you're looking in the right places.
You can definitely find those. So, another.
Melissa: I find 'em other across the country too. Cause that's a lot. One thing that people say too, like, well, well your area must be great for that. And I mean, we're in near Orlando, but it's a, so it's a big area, but at the same time, we take our trailer across the country every, for the last three summers have done this, this and find stuff everywhere we go. Everywhere.
So, so many. And, and my mom lived in, every Christmas too, we would bring some, we'd always come back with something and she lived in a, with a population of like, what is it? Nothing. Yeah.
Rob: Like there was less than 10,000 people in their town. Tiny, tiny podunk town.
Melissa: Yeah. And we still would find some of the thrift stores or a marketplace. Yeah. Or OfferUp. So.
Rob: There's great deals to be had everywhere. Yeah. But one of the other things that I will add too, like one of the, where I'm shipping out two stretchers that we actually recently bought, we paid $185 on $183. Yeah. $183 for, sold these for $3,200 plus another $300 for shipping. That gives you an idea of the 10 x.
So I wanted to make at least $1,800 on these to make it worth it. I even went over that. I doubled it. These items are roughly $10,000.
Melissa: So you're under half of retail.
Rob: Absolutely. So they're over $10,000 items and we sold them. But that's where it came in, that I wanted to sell these quicker. I didn't wanna sit on these.
Now, the a, the asking prices. So what's available right now on the market? Anywhere from probably $3,800 all the way up to like $7,000 or $8,000. Those are the averages of what other sellers are selling it for. I could put mine at $4,000, $5,000 and sit on it and wait for it to sell, and it probably would, but instead of that, I put it at the lower end.
I wanted to be at the lower end because I'm still making amazing even underneath the lowest other the lowest other option on eBay. So that's the other thing you have to think about. How quick do you want your item to sell? If somebody is looking for that, and these stretchers don't have a big competition on eBay, there might be a handful of the model that I have, maybe, five or six other sellers that are selling it.
So I'm maybe one of six, one of seven, somewhere in that area. I wanted to make sure mine were the most appealing to somebody who is searching and in the market for. There where they can go in, I give them the shipping price, they jump in, they buy it immediately, and that's what happened last week. We sold two of them, back to back just because we were the lowest. And that's one of the things you wanna take in consideration when you are pricing your items. Now, like I said, my feedback will allow me to go to that higher price, but I might have to sit on the item longer. And I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to move it as quick as possible.
Melissa: No, we, our goal is to get things moving this year.
Absolutely right. Absolutely. We were trying to liquidate and get stuff sold. Absolutely. So you can go. I would say one big thing when it comes to pricing too, that helps with your pr, helps with your sales, which is kind of a tangent of pricing, I guess. But building your feedback is so important. And I know you touched on it a little bit, but building your feedback will allow you to be more competitive.
Like you can, if you're, it's a competitive market and if you're selling items that have hundreds of competition, that a person is more likely to go to, either the lowest price or somebody they trust. So those are your two things that you have to consider. Yep. But building that feedback, is huge because you can ask a little more for your items if you're a trusted seller, and your items get seen more so you start to get more traction in eBay too.
And another thing we didn't talk about is you have to also consider eBay wants you to do promoted listings too. So you have to add that into your cost whenever you're pricing your items.
Rob: So, which I will add is cool when you are searching for those items. The two stretchers I sold last week that we're shipping out today, I did not promote them.
I did not have to pay eBay extra money on top of that because like I said, there was only seven sellers. So anybody looking for this specific model is gonna get seven options to do it. It's not like they're going through hundreds of items and one has to stick out to them. Seven options, seven other sellers, and I have to stick out in that.
The way I chose to stick out is by being the lowest price for the item, including shipping. I wanted to be at the lowest price so I could do that and move them quickly. Which is really, really cool. You have that option for sure.
Melissa: Yeah. So you can, yeah, there's a couple different ways you can be absolutely competitive about it.
So, but I mean, roughly the two biggest things I think we look at are the retail price. Yep. And we go off of that and then the comps, like looking at the comps on eBay and what things sold for is, the best way to know. And if there isn't a comp, it's not, not always a bad thing, cuz you might have something unique.
Absolutely. Or you might have something that could be worth something you never know. So.
Rob: Absolutely. So Melissa kind of just summed it up guys there. I, I would consider three: your active license, your active listings on eBay, what people are asking for it. Yeah. You wanna be competitive with that. Your second one is the comps, what they have sold for, so you know you're somewhere in that range.
And then the retail price, if you look at those three items when you're pricing your items and find that happy medium, where to price your item, you're golden. That's where you really, really want to be, to be able to move your items. So.
Melissa: And make sure you're buying your items at the right price so you can make sure you're making enough profit.
Rob: Yep. So. So what if you're listening to this or watching this and you wanna learn more about the resale world of where should you go?
Melissa: You can check out freeflippingcourse.com. It's just a quick five day email course, beginner course. And we talk about five mistakes resellers make that can cost them money.
So thank you guys.
Rob: You guys rock. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Hope you have an amazing day, and we'll see you on the next episode.