Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk to Chalene and Brock Johnson about how they took their side hustle to a full-time business.
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How To Take Your Side Hustle To A Full-Time Business
Chalene Johnson: Brock, let's invite on Rob and Melissa. Have you already located them here?
Brock Johnson: I have, I have located them. Yeah. I know we've talked about them quite a bit over the last few days, but really, really excited to have them on. They do this full time. They do it as a family. Rob and Melissa on Instagram, they are the flea market flipper. That's their instagram handle right there. They're here on zoom with us. We'll pull them up right now.
Hi, how you guys doing?
Rob Stephenson: What's up guys? Hey.
Chalene Johnson: Great to have you guys. Thank you so much for doing this with us tonight. We appreciate it. Of course, we're excited to be here. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Well, we've got comments that are going to be flying through, but I don't want you guys to worry about that at all.
Brock and I are going to field those questions for you and just really want to thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge and your experience with a group of thousands and thousands and thousands of people right now are really excited about this. Many of whom have sold for the very first time this week and are realizing the potential.
I'm not sure if you guys can see the chat, Rob and Melissa, but I, I'm just curious how many of you are just blown away at the potential, the enthusiasm, the popularity and the ease of reselling. that you, you had no idea it was this easy, this simple, this fun and this popular. Oh my gosh, all these yes, yes, yes, me, me, me.
Absolutely. Super excited. So Rob and Melissa, you probably like, yeah, where have y'all been?
Melissa Stephenson: Yeah. He's been doing this since he was 16 years old.
Chalene Johnson: So now Rob, is it, so you, I've read that you've been doing this since you were 16 years old, not obviously full time, but was the motivation when you first started, was it to make extra money?
And if so, what was your motivating factor? Like why, as a kid, were you already interested in making income?
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, definitely. My, my parents, from a young age, they would go to yard sales, and this was before eBay and then they would buy stuff at yard sales and this was a side hustle for them. So they buy stuff from yard sales, bring it home and put it on the classified and they'd sell it that way.
So I'd see them do that and get supplement, you know, supplementing their income with that. And that was awesome. And then as I started getting older and. There was no easier money than to be able to buy something at an auction and then throw it onto eBay and sell it. And you had control of your own schedule.
So that's how I got hooked into it from a young age. And then, for years and years, I did it as a side income. I had a couple other jobs and yeah, I, I, I mean, I just was hooked because of that.
Chalene Johnson: So were you, your parents were doing it just as a extra way to make income almost as a hobby? Yeah. I have to, I have to imagine that they are probably pretty excited to see that that their influence has turned into something that's just blown up and that you guys are doing such wonderful things, not for your family, just for your family, but other families too.
Your mom started with baby clothes, her baby doll clothes, right? Oh, yeah. Baby doll clothes all the time. And do they still flip?
Rob Stephenson: They don't do it as much anymore. My parents are a little bit older now. But they, man, when I was into it, yeah, probably in my early 20s, they were, they were in the heart of it.
And yeah, they, they loved seeing, I mean, they still love to see what we do, especially when we have the, the kids intertwined into it and the kids enjoy it. It's just, it's a fun, it's a fun profession for sure.
Chalene Johnson: So tell me this, this obviously, wasn't your full time gig initially. So what were you both doing beforehand?
Melissa Stephenson: I was a personal trainer for 10 years. And then when I got pregnant with our third baby, well, you were, what did you, what did you do at that time?
Rob Stephenson: I did inspections for home inspections.
Okay. Okay. And, did you enjoy what you were doing? Both of you.
Melissa Stephenson: I liked it, but as we had three kids, three and under, and at that time I was like, I have to be home because it's insanity at home.
I don't know what to do, so we're just going to, I'm going to back off. You're going to work a little bit more. And then at that last, month when we were about to have baby number three, his job cut health insurance. So we're like, okay, now what are we going to do? So.
Rob Stephenson: Even with my job, the only reason I really had a job was because of the health insurance.
I was making more money flipping, but this job was a, pretty easy job that I could keep health insurance for the family. And then, yeah, I could flip on the side and I was making more money flipping than I was, at the
Chalene Johnson: job. I find a lot of would be entrepreneurs allow that, that health insurance piece to be the thing that scares them.
And they just never look into it to realize how affordable it really can be. Okay, so then walk me through the decision because I, I don't know your story, but I often hear people ask or assume that your side hustle income needs to replace or surpass your full time income before you quit. But when you talk to people, that's usually not the case.
Usually what, and you know, I'm not. Again, I don't know your story, but for most of the entrepreneurs I've worked with, it's, that's not the case. Rather, what happens is they can see that if I had the full time potential to focus on this, I know I would surpass it. So is that true for you?
Rob Stephenson: That's exactly what happened.
We got thrown into it for sure because of my health insurance going away.
Melissa Stephenson: Yeah, and we had to make a decision. We knew we were making at about probably 15, 10 to 15 hours a week. We were making $30,000 to $40,000 a year. So we knew, okay, well, if we can both now have time to throw at it, what can we, what could we really do?
We're like, okay, let's try it.
Chalene Johnson: Can you give us that statistic again? You said you were working how many hours a week, like 10 to 15 hours a week. And making $40,000. Yeah. So that's really important. I think everybody should listen to that because it is a misconception that your current income or your side hustle income needs to replace your full time income before you quit.
You just need to see that that potential is there and from potential, and then also your enthusiasm for it. Okay. So then, this is how many years ago that you guys took the full time plunge?
Melissa Stephenson: Almost five years ago now, because our little boy is five. That's so old. Wow.
Chalene Johnson: And what was that first year like?
Melissa Stephenson: It was really crazy, but I mean, we were really excited to get into it too. And we had a, I mean, we
had a great year.
Rob Stephenson: So it was fun. We jumped to $130,000 in the first year from $40,000. And we still weren't putting full time hours into it. We probably were up to 30, 35 hours a week.
Chalene Johnson: And, and is that collectively between the two of you that many hours?
Melissa Stephenson: Well, I, I was doing more of the listing and stuff. So, I was helping him and then I started doing a little bit on my own, like some more baby stuff and I made my own account. So it was fun.
Chalene Johnson: When it comes to sourcing. Well, I want to stay at the very beginning. At the beginning, what were some of the biggest mistakes that you made that either, meant slower growth or greater frustration?
What'd you say?
Rob Stephenson: Well, over promising back in the day when I started. Listing an item because the majority of what we, we talk about tonight, we list, we probably sell 90 percent of our stuff on eBay. So all these other avenues and stuff, we do cross post, so when you say that we do that, you can do that, but, yeah, 90 percent of our stuff comes from eBay.
And in the beginning, I would get an item that was used from an auction and I would take pictures of it and I would think it was like an immaculate condition and I would list it that way. When the buyer got it, they had a different expectation of immaculate than I did. And then I had all kinds of problems in the beginning by over promising stuff.
And then the buyer got it and they had a different eye for what they were buying.
Chalene Johnson: So give us a recommendation. What is the best way to list something then so that you don't overpromise and so that you can avoid those returns? Cause I know personally, when I've had something returned, it feels so personal.
I'm like, Oh, how. How dare you! Rude! I will find you and I will become a troll on your Instagram. Like literally, you're just like so offended.
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, definitely. I mean, what we do is we take any pictures of imperfections, any scratches on the item, anything. We're more trying to, cause you have to understand this buyer who's buying it on eBay and you're shipping it to it.
They have no idea and pictures always look way better than the item really is. So even if you can't even find a scratch on it, almost all of our listings, I put anything used. Yeah. Use please expect normal wear and item might have scratches, scuffs or scrapes. If I put that disclosure on every item. Then people have the proper expectations when they get the item.
Chalene Johnson: That's great advice. How about how you organized your systems? Like, how did you, or did you in the beginning create systems so that this was faster, easier?
Melissa Stephenson: Systems was not our strong point. So I think we're still working on it as we've gotten bigger and going, you know, having more inventory. But we were in a 575 square foot house.
Like when we got first got married and we were there for five years and so we just got a little shed and everything went in the little shed and a lot of people who do smalls, a good thing that they do is put them in top, like get big Tupperwares and you can
Chalene Johnson: You call them smalls?
Melissa Stephenson: Oh, yeah, like we sell a little bit larger items typically, but most like, yeah,
Chalene Johnson: so that's lingo.
Yeah. The lingo is smalls. What, what, how do you, what, what is defined as smalls? Cause that's my husband's nickname for me.
Rob Stephenson: Something about this size, size of a cup.
Chalene Johnson: So smalls is just anything that could be like shipped in a small box. Yes. Yeah.
Melissa Stephenson: So a lot of people to organize that they'll take, you know, big just tubs and label them with like a letter and a number, A one, A two, and then you can put that number in the listing.
So you know, like, this is as you grow, wow, you know that this item sold. I can go get it from this tub and it's right there. Instead of, I don't know how many times I cannot find an item that I just sold. And I'm like.
Chalene Johnson: Okay you guys, how many of you, your mind is blown, right? Just hearing that like right Vanessa is, is just like,
Brock Johnson: my mind is blown.
That's. That's such a, such a genius idea.
Chalene Johnson: That is so good. Okay. So, you sell, you tend to sell larger items and a lot of people are afraid of that. I'm sorry.
Melissa Stephenson: I said, we've gravitated towards, I mean, I guess you've already, you've sold larger items.
Rob Stephenson: Well, larger items. We started, now we started selling items that we ship on a pallet. There's so much profit lost, for items that you can ship on a pallet and it is not about that. Yeah, it's not as difficult as people think it and it is so reasonable nowadays to be able to ship stuff on pallets. So, not everything we do goes on a pallet, but, probably I would say 50 percent of what we do ships on a pallet.
Chalene Johnson: Can you give me an example?
Rob Stephenson: Sure. I just shipped out a cooktop today, a cooktop that was 45 inches, it was a drop in cooktop. Probably weighed, I could pick it up myself, so the cooktop without a pallet weighed... I'd probably say 50, 60 pounds. And then when you put the pallet on it, probably 150 pounds, 100 pounds.
We shipped that today. We paid $150 for it and we sold it on eBay and we sold it for $1,700.
Brock Johnson: Wow. So, so where do you go about starting with that? Like, do you just go buy any pallet? Is there a special store? Walk us through the shipping process. I'm curious.
Rob Stephenson: For sure. Yeah. When we, when you start out, people give away pallets for free.
So you don't have to go buy pallets. Sometimes I build my pallets, so it's the right size. If, if it is, if it's a unique sized item, sometimes I'll go and buy the lumber and build it, but the majority of the time I try to reuse pallets that are already built. The one that I used today. I, I just reused the pallet and then I built an actual frame around it to protect it.
And I built that out of lumber that I bought. It was like three two by fours, to do that. So, but the process is, yeah, you get it on a pallet, you strap it with ratchet straps, make sure it's on there nice and tight. And then you have to find the quote, you have to find a good company, that will give you a good freight quote to actually ship it from wherever you're at to where it's going.
So, but the company that has, you know, changed this industry is USHIP. USHIP has. Tons of freight people who will bid on your freight shipment, and get you the lowest quote on your freight shipment. So, that's changed the industry for freight for sure.
Melissa Stephenson: Because if they have an empty spot in their truck and they want to go somewhere, then the company can pick up something extra, so.
Chalene Johnson: Do you feel that gives you an advantage because so many people are like afraid to ship big things?
Rob Stephenson: Yes, our first story with that is we had a dining room set. It was 10 chairs, 10 chairs, a huge table, a buffet. We had it, we bought it for $350. We had it listed locally for $700. This was a gorgeous set. We could not sell that.
I started looking on eBay and noticing the people who were offering shipping for this stuff. They were moving these items and then I was like, okay if they can do it I'll figure out how to do it if I sell it. We sold that table and chairs in less than 30 days. It was like a month and we sold it for what was it?
Melissa Stephenson: $2,200. $2,200. That was our first freight shipment So he's like i'm gonna figure this out. I just got to figure it out.
Rob Stephenson: And the buyer paid $500 for shipping and that we were able to ship it under $500. So, yeah, I, I, I mean, yeah, that was our aha moment of, okay, there's something to these larger items. If we have the, the, the, the will to do it, we can do it and we can make some good money.
Chalene Johnson: And of course that means that you, I assume have had to upgrade the storage that you have, if you know, if you're, if you're not in the market of just smalls, and you've got tables and chairs and so, so what does your storage look like today?
Melissa Stephenson: Yeah, we rent a warehouse. It's a small garage from somebody.
It's not like a huge warehouse. It's about 1,400 square feet. Yeah. So, wow.
Chalene Johnson: Okay, do you specialize in a type of item that you just know, like this is what people come to us for, or this is, we, you know, we're kind of known for whatever?
Rob Stephenson: We, we don't, we all, all
Melissa Stephenson: we do some of the same kinds of items because we know them now, but we do a lot of exercise equipment, restaurant equipment.
I like to do like baby strollers because you can find baby strollers everywhere and there's some, there's some, a lot of money for some of those high end brands. So, yeah, so there's a couple of things we gravitate towards just because we sold them a lot.
Chalene Johnson: But now let's talk about how you, I'm sorry, go ahead Brock.
Brock Johnson: I was just gonna say, yeah, a question that I feel has been coming through a lot is, and it's a question I have myself, is with now a lot of inventory and selling a lot of things and doing this full time, how do you track, like, the price, the shipping, all that, do you use QuickBooks? Like, what's your, your tracking system?
Melissa Stephenson: I honestly use a basic spreadsheet, so it's one thing with our being able to do larger items, we have less volume, so it's a lot easier to keep track of the numbers, so that does help a little bit, but like if I can do it at the end of the month and it's not overwhelming, so if I do it each month, it's, it's fine, and I just use a spreadsheet, but I, we're working to get into QuickBooks, so.
Brock Johnson: Got it, okay, so, so you do it monthly then, okay, and then are you tracking shipping the entire time it's shipping, like making sure that it's, It's getting there delivered or is it just like you check, make sure it's picked up and you make sure that it's delivered.
How, how does that work?
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, we update the tracking number when the item sold and I don't honestly, I don't even look at it again to be honest with you until the buyer either emails me and says, Hey, something's going on. I can't find the shipment. I don't usually mess with it because it's usually a, I mean, it's a system.
Once you, once you get rid of that package, I mean, it's, it's kind of out of your hands until somebody notifies you that you have a problem. Then you step in and you have to call the carrier and you have to figure out what's going on. But like I said, they, and the buyer can't be upset with you. You've done everything that you're supposed to do.
And you just have to do a little bit of extra legwork to find out what happened to the item. If it does go missing, but they can see where it's at with the track.
Chalene Johnson: And then what about that customer who receives the item and then refuses the item. How does the return of a large item? How does that work?
And also the return freight.
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, this is one of the things where we, everything we sell, we sell it as is and we sell it with no returns. eBay frowns, they don't want people to sell like that, but the difference about the stuff that we sell is it's a little bit more unique. It's not like a cell phone charger.
It's not like something that is that easy to do shipments back. And yeah, knock on wood, I mean, it's been the, our business model through the years. Has evolved to where we have a great terms and conditions. We, we list stuff that's very accurate. We don't make false promises for the item.
Everybody who's getting our stuff are, they're getting it probably for 50 percent of retail or less for a unique item. And they're very happy with that. So they, we don't deal with returns very much at all.
Chalene Johnson: Nice. Okay, but on the occasion, when you do, how is that handled?
Rob Stephenson: Typically, if we do have a return, it happened in shipping, so something was damaged.
And if you package your item properly and you pay for insurance, we tell everybody to pay for insurance when you're shipping something. You pay for insurance, you package it to the guidelines. If you're shipping FedEx and UPS, they... take a picture of it. Exactly. FedEx and UPS, they want two to three inches of padding, bubble wrap, around the item and then they want it in the box nice and tight. If you do that and like Melissa said, you always want to take pictures so you have proof of that. If something does come back or if there's a problem with the item, typically it's with your shipping company and you all, we've never lost a shipping claim.
We've always been paid out our shipping because we ship it the proper way.
Melissa Stephenson: But you do insurance up to a hundred dollars with FedEx and UPS and $50 within priority. So that's included in your shipment. Yes.
Chalene Johnson: Nice. So when you are looking at an item and you're the two of you know, like, okay, based on what this is priced at, we've got a little bit of history.
We know we can get X amount of dollars for this item. But you don't necessarily know, or maybe you do based on your experience, what it's going to cost to ship it. Can you eyeball things now based on size and weight and kind of say, ah, it's going to run about this much for shipping.
Rob Stephenson: Yes, we that's the cool thing about doing it for so long.
I mean, we've shipped hundreds of freight items. So typically
Melissa Stephenson: even boxed items too. Yeah, you can kind of know what it's going to be, but,
Rob Stephenson: but everybody, when you start sourcing, your money is made in your buy. So the cheaper you get your item. Then you can afford to sell the item and do free shipping. You're making all of your money in the buy of the item.
That's how our money is made. Buying the item right at the right price. But even like freight shipping, we do free freight shipping on the majority of our stuff. And I know for me to ship something from Florida to California. On a normal sized pallet, it's going to cost me about $200. I do that in my price.
Chalene Johnson: Shipping included because you're factoring that into your buy. Yes. Phenomenal. This is really great. And, when it comes to doing smaller items or clothing, etc. Is it because the margins are smaller there that you've just decided to make the most
Melissa Stephenson: It's more of a time thing because it takes the same amount of time to list an item.
I mean, it takes longer to ship it, to package it up. But, for the most part, taking pictures and listing an item takes the same amount of time for a 5 item as it does. For $1,000. Yeah. $500 item. So.
Chalene Johnson: When you think about yourself doing this, hypothetically full time, what would you enjoy more? The sourcing, like the finding of the items, To be flipped or would you more enjoy the photography, the listing, the, you know, the coordinating of the shipping.
So would it be listing or sourcing? I'm reading a little bit of both, which is kind of interesting because, and some people say they'd like to do both. But, you know, I think that's really interesting. Some people are like, no, I don't, I don't want to go out and shop. I don't, I don't want to have to. So, I don't want to have to search.
I don't want to treasure hunt. I would rather just sit me down and it's the attention to detail on the listing side of things. And how does that work out in your relationship?
Rob Stephenson: I'm amazing at sourcing. I can find deals all day long.
Melissa Stephenson: And sometimes I have to reel them in and have no more. We can't buy it. We can't get any more right now.
We have to sell it. We have to list.
Rob Stephenson: Listing's not. Not my strong suit. No, but I do it.
Chalene Johnson: Okay, so Melissa, that tends to be what you'll do.
Melissa Stephenson: Well, I do more, we do a lot with, we have members in our online stuff, so I do a lot of that part of it. And I do some listing, and now I'm working more with the kids too.
We're teaching them how to do it, so I've been doing a lot of work. on like helping them take pictures. They're still little, but I mean, they're, they're really getting excited about making $10.
Chalene Johnson: Talk to us about that. First of all, why is it important to you to you know, share this because obviously you want your kids to be kids but why is it important to you to teach them they've got this ability at any age?
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, no, I mean, it's important to us. Our kids started asking for toys all the time. Yeah. And you hate telling your kids No, no, no, no, no. Yeah.
Melissa Stephenson: And or Yes, yes. Yeah. You're not really well either.
Rob Stephenson: Either. And so we started figuring out that they could go in their closet and they could find toys. And I mean, this is what we do for a living.
We sell stuff, so why not sell some of the old toys? Toys? I'll tell 'em, sell it, teach 'em how to do it in the process of it. And then, yeah. Now. Our kids go to the thrift store, the flea market with us.
Melissa Stephenson: And Roxy did yesterday. She found something. She called him over and she goes, dad, dad, dad, come here, come here.
Rob Stephenson: I think this is a good one. And she found something for $4. It was selling on eBay for like $30. So, they're starting to get eyes for that stuff. And it's really exciting to see that.
Chalene Johnson: That's so cool. And what do you see happen with them when they, they get a sale? They're excited.
Melissa Stephenson: They're like, where's my money?
No, but they get really excited. We, and we take them through like the process of, okay. You bought it for this and they usually pay for it. And then we had to pay this for shipping and here's your profit. So they don't understand that really yet, but I mean, we're still working through it.
Chalene Johnson: So, yeah, well, I want to commend you both cause it's, it's really a remarkable thing when you can give your children that experience.
It's one thing to tell your kids and say these things, speak the words to your children. Like you can do anything. You can be anything. You you'll make money someday, but like to teach them as children. To give them the experience that they actually are doing it and to teach them the value of money and more than anything, that confidence that they will have knowing they already have the ability to say, I want something and I know how to do the work to make the money to buy that thing.
And I have to imagine that it gives them a better sense of the value of money too, and the value of things for sure.
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, for sure. They have to save up for stuff versus just going and asking mom and dad for it.
Melissa Stephenson: So they have to figure out if they actually want to use all their money on the thing that they just saved up for.
It's really cool. And it's interesting to watch all their different personalities, how they're dealing with it. So it's fun.
Chalene Johnson: Do you have a, a shelf life for your items? You know, is, do you basically say like, Hmm, if this is going to take six months or longer, then the answer is no. I mean, do you, do you want to flip things very quickly?
Or are there certain things that you'll hold on to longer? Yeah.
Melissa Stephenson: This is where we differ a lot. I say, get it out. Turn, let's turn inventory. And he's like, no, I see what we could get for it. So he'll hold on no longer.
Rob Stephenson: Well, the problem with some of our stuff is it's unique stuff and you can't get it to the right person.
The right person will not come along. We don't do a lot of auction listings on eBay because you can, it's very hard to have a unique item and it'd be find the buyer in seven to 10 days. Those are the longest auctions you can run, and if we list it for a buy it now price, sometimes it might take a month to find that person.
But the profit is huge because we're off, we're offering way less than it would be retail. So when that buyer jumps on there and sees it, they're like, yeah, I'm not going to miss this. I'm going to jump onto this. And they jump on and they buy it.
Chalene Johnson: Is there a percentage that you look at where it's like, okay, here's the percentage I'm willing to pay for it, knowing I can make this amount of profit.
Melissa Stephenson: Our goal for our, our buy price is like 10 X. So like what we buy, if we buy a $20 item, we're looking to get about $200 for it.
So, and that's kind of what we average.
Chalene Johnson: Let the right person find your item. That's great. When it comes to the auction versus buy it now on smaller items or for those folks who are a part of our challenge who are just starting out and listing some items on eBay, how do you recommend they do that?
Rob Stephenson: We, we do. If you're starting out, you, you have items that you might take to a Salvation Army, a Goodwill or something like that. If you have those items and we wholeheartedly tell you, throw them on eBay, never lose money on shipping. Make sure your shipping is covered. Okay. Start that thing as a low auction, because what you're going to get in exchange for that is your feedback.
You want to build feedback up with items that you don't care about, so you have a legit... So
Melissa Stephenson: more people will buy the higher priced items later on. Exactly.
Chalene Johnson: So they're not going to buy... Wait, so I'm not sure if I'm following. You're saying, list those things as an auction. Sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you're first starting out, because that helps with feedback?
How so?
Rob Stephenson: As long as you don't care about what the item sells for, you're just trying to get rid of it. You're selling it for the feedback, basically.
Okay. Like, your feedback's very important in eBay. People will go and check your feedback. They'll see what you've sold. Like, we've sold items up into the $20,000.
People can go back and look at that on eBay. I know, they can trust you. And when I have an item for $5,000 or $10,000, they're not going to question... my reputation because of they can see it on the feedback. So when you build up that feedback slowly, you can't do it super quick. But when you do that in the beginning, that will help you leaps and bounds.
Once you get, if you really like this business, it will help you leaps and bounds once you get into the business a little bit longer.
Chalene Johnson: Let's talk about Facebook marketplace and your opinion for, again, for the folks who are just getting started, they have many of them have listed their very first item this week.
What are your thoughts on Facebook marketplace for those folks are just starting out.
Melissa Stephenson: We love Facebook marketplace and we do like we tell everybody like that's a great place to get started. They have made it a little bit more difficult more recently just because they want you to pay to play and so they want you to boost your items.
So like before I would post a stroller. That I could get, you know, $150 for and I'd post it and I'd get hundreds of views and sell it within two or three days. And now I get like five views organically. So, and that's not always the case, but the views have gone down a lot, at least in our area. But they want you, and if I boost the item for a dollar a day for like three days, it usually gets sold.
Chalene Johnson: A dollar a day? That's nothing.
Melissa Stephenson: No, it's nothing, but you don't know if it's going to get sold, but if it's over $50, then it's worth it.
Chalene Johnson: Besides UShip, are there other shipping companies that you recommend nationally?
And if so, why?
Rob Stephenson: UShip has them all, right? Yeah. The cool thing about you ship is you're going to have a lot of carriers on you ship and some people's areas are different. So if you go on to you ship and you start getting quotes and you see a freight company that's giving you pretty reasonable quote quotes, you can go outside of you ship and you can try to contact that freight company to see if you can get a cheaper quote through them.
We don't use UShip that much anymore. We actually work with a carrier that we've been using for quite a while now. Yeah, that are closer to us, but that's how we started was with you ship. You have to go in there and you have to see what kind of quotes you can get, and then you can reach out and try and experiment.
We've, I can't tell you how many freight companies, when we started doing this, that we've shipped with. It's probably 15 different freight companies. And we kind of honed into who we like to deal with.
Chalene Johnson: So for someone who's brand new, is that going to be a challenge for someone who's brand new and has no reviews to sell an item on eBay?
Melissa Stephenson: No, if you do that and you people will buy those little items, they don't, they're not thinking they're going to get scammed on a couple dollar item. So, okay. Also, you can build feedback by buying items too.
So you, you get buyers feedback, but the star, the number is still the same, but they can, people can go look at your account and see which is seller, which is buyer. But if you have. 10 feedback, 5 is selling, 5 is buying, you still have 10 feedback.
Chalene Johnson: So that's amazing. And we like, and for people who have sold, like maybe they sold something on eBay like 5 years ago, 10 years ago, would that feedback still be there for them?
Rob Stephenson: Yes, it will be there, but you will not be able to see the items that they bought and sold. So it will still, if you had say you had 50 items and you quit selling, or 50 feedback, you quit selling for however many years. Your name will still have that 50 next to it, but nobody will be able to go back and see the past transactions that you've done.
Chalene Johnson: Any advice for those people who are like specifically on Facebook marketplace, those who are like, I'm really uncomfortable with having people come to my house and doing an exchange there, any suggestions?
Rob Stephenson: Yeah, we, we don't recommend people going doing meetups at the houses. I mean, when we use Facebook marketplace, I go to a local, we have a strip mall, that's really close to us, a public place. And we also have a, a police station that's a mile from our house that we can easily go there and meet. So, yeah, I, we don't ever recommend it.
And I had a situation happen. We used to let people come to our house and then I had a situation happen where it was like, okay,
Chalene Johnson: tell us, tell it to us.
Rob Stephenson: I had a guy that came from an exercise machine. It was, it was a Pilates exercise machine, really expensive. We ended up selling it for like $1,750. But I had a guy come about an hour and a half away.
Come into my house and look at it and then tell me you're going to drop the price to this. Because these springs aren't what I thought they were. And I was like yeah, I have already dropped the price for you, but if you don't want it, there's no sweat, you can leave. And he got angry and he got very angry.
He went out to his car and then came back to the door and I already felt uncomfortable. He came back to the door and said, okay, we'll take it. And I said, no, I'm sorry. I don't want to deal with you. And I locked the door and he started beating on the door. And I was like, oh man, exactly. So that was the only one that that was the last time and we've sold hundreds of items thousands of items exactly for through Facebook marketplace at our house and stuff like that.
But that one time was all I needed to be like, okay, we're not bringing people to the house. We're just going to meet them in public. Don't, don't offer to deliver something miles from your house because you'll have people. Okay.
Chalene Johnson: So I'm just gonna play devil's advocate here. So if I'm selling a couch.
I got to load that. And part of the reason why I want to sell it on Facebook marketplace, cause I don't want to have to rent a car or a truck, I should say to transport it. What alternative do I have? I would just make sure you have people with you.
Rob Stephenson: Okay. Somebody in the house, never do something alone if you have to do the house.
Chalene Johnson: You need some muscle. You need some serious muscle. Well, that's amazing. Final words of advice do you have for those folks who are watching right now who are kind of, they're feeling overwhelmed by just Just starting, like just starting. So what advice do you have for that new person who's just, yeah, I've got so much, I don't know where to start or what to start with.
Melissa Stephenson: I mean, I pick one thing and start, that is the best thing.
Rob Stephenson: I think you've done a great job. It is really just getting started. That's the biggest thing. That's the hardest point is getting started. Whether it's one, two or three items that you start with, get them listed. You're going to make mistakes in this business, but the cool thing is.
Nothing is, I mean, almost every, anything that you do is, is correctable. It's not life changing mistakes once you're at this small level. So yeah, it's consistency. Once you get started, keep doing it and keep doing it and you're going to get better and better at it.
Chalene Johnson: That's so great, guys. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is there are other people who do what you do and have been doing it longer than you and perhaps are more successful.
All of the things right. But yeah, the two of you have have an expertise and you now market your you teach other people how to do this. Is that correct? We do. Yeah. And that's what I want people to understand is that there's always going to be somebody who's done it longer, who's got a degree, who has maybe more accolades or more, whatever it is.
But the fact that you've learned how to do something means that you have an expertise, whether that's learning how to flip something, whether that's learning how to survive a divorce or to recover from, the loss of a child or to, figure out how to make all organic baby food. Like whatever it is, you have an expertise, you figured out how to do something.
And of course there's people who do this and teach that for free, but not the way you do. And that's what makes it so special that, you know, your story, I think is so inspirational for two reasons because you've got a side hustle, you know, flipping items, but you also have that second stream of income.
And that's what we've been just really trying to send that message home to everybody. But you've got two streams of income because you're also teaching other people how to do this.
Melissa Stephenson: Flipping was our side hustle before and now then it turned into our full time income and then teaching people with our side hustle so it's always there's always something. So it's a lot of fun.
Chalene Johnson: Amazing. Rob and Melissa thank you so much for joining us tonight. You guys were just amazing.
Thank you. We appreciate it.