Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how they made $5,000 in 24 hours in 2 sales.
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How We Made $5K In 24 hours In 2 Sales
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we're talking about what we sold in 24 hours to make $5,000 on eBay. And in just two items!
Rob: Alright guys, so we have a cool, fun episode. Over the weekend we had two sales come in and totaling $5,000. We're going to talk about it, what they were, kind of give you the stories of how we found them, and yeah, just give you guys a little bit of history on these two items.
Melissa: And I have to say that things have definitely been selling a lot lately. Probably because you've been listing more. It's funny how that happens. It correlates. List more and sell more. It's, it's funny. But sales have been really good, and we don't sell, like, stuff like, Q4 is usually really good for a lot of resellers because it's Christmas time.
People are buying a lot more, but that's not typically the box that we are in. Like we don't really buy stuff that is necessarily for Christmas. Christmas presents. Ours is kind of more steady all year, but sales have been picking up. So, which that we're thankful for, but we've also got more stuff listed. Yep.
Rob: You might even notice behind us.
We got a couple of little things that are kids things. I think there's four items behind us. One of them is mine. It's a cooktop and then a bread maker. And, our kids' things that they actually have bought. And we, from thrift stores, and we're getting them listed. So, we're doing a lot more of getting stuff listed, which is helping the sales come in, guys.
And Brody just sold something. What did he sell? He did. He sold two things last week. He sold a punching bag, and then he also sold a...
Melissa: he sold his punching bag, which he got for a Christmas present. So, you know, it's his. He can sell it if he wants to. Yeah, he sold it for a hundred bucks and he was super excited about that.
And then he sold the thing that he bought on the road trip.
Rob: Little side note about the punching bag. So I think I bought that from the flea market for his Christmas present last year or the year before? It was two years ago. Two years ago I bought it and I paid $10 for it. Well, he sold it this Christmas before Christmas, and he sold it for a hundred dollars.
So that just goes to show the kind of stuff that we do is so much fun, to be able to do that. And it wasn't, I mean, not price gouging by any means. It's probably a $200, $250 punching bag. So somebody got a really good deal on it. It was a nice punching bag and that's really, really cool.
Melissa: Yeah. For Christmas. And he made his money. And now he can go spend it.
Rob: And then his other thing that he sold was a mosquito magnet we bought on the road trip. Negotiated them down to $15 and we sold it for $175.
Melissa: Yep, and he made $100 profit, $97 profit on that one.
Rob: Less than two weeks, it was listed for like less than two weeks and it sold.
So, killer deal on that.
Melissa: Over the road trip, we started off giving them each $100 and see how much money they can make from $100. We didn't quite spend all their $100. We kinda kind of like we just, I don't know. We didn't keep it going, which we were like, we should have it because it was a really fun thing to do. But they all picked up a couple of things and the girls have some stuff listed right now.
So we'll see what, what sells. They keep asking, did it sell yet? Did it sell yet? Absolutely.
Rob: So dive into our back to what we originally got on here for. It's telling you guys about these two sales over the weekend that came in for us. So, the first one, we actually did pick it up on the road trip, over the summer.
We picked it up and it is a commercial exercise machine. Weird kind of commercial exercise machine. It's made by, I don't know who exactly it's made by, but what it is is a total gym exercise machine. Now this is a, not just any total gym, not the run of the mill that you see everywhere. This is actually a, they use it in rehabilitation facilities.
So it's a commercial, it's heavy, it's big. The one I had, right, it is when I was training, it is. And that's how my eyes search for that kind of stuff. When I've done it in the past, I know something about it. We actually found this on the road trip and it was in Michigan and we paid $40 for it. So, and guess how much it sold for.
How much did it sell for? $2,500! $40 to $2,500. Now, and like again, I'll say, this is not a price gouge. These things are over $5,000. It's a super expensive piece of equipment, if you were to go and buy it new. So it gives somebody a really good deal, and it was in great condition. It still is a really, really nice exercise machine.
Melissa: Yeah, I wanted to add in case it, you might be new around here, new listening, we do a road trip almost, well we have for the last four years, road trip across the country, and it's to go see national parks and to go see different things in different places. But we also bring our trailer with us so that we can pick stuff up along the road and where we might be going.
And we usually fill it, come back and we make money from it. So, so it's kind of makes it fun for content, makes it a write off for part of the trip. So, and we get some inventory and find it across the country too. And, I don't know. We started that, yeah, in 2020 when we went on that first road trip.
We didn't even intend to. That's when we, but we did have the trailer because we had all the stuff with all the people. Yeah, that was our first one with 11 people in the van. That was a lot. Anyway, so we do that across the country, almost every summer we have for the last four years.
Rob: And so not only does it pay for the road trip, we have some. fun. We have some great content that we can share with you guys. It's just so much fun to be able to do it.
Melissa: We can also show that it's not just our area. Cause a lot, sometimes people will be like, oh, well you're in a busy area. So that's why you can find stuff, but no, you can find stuff. There is stuff everywhere.
If you can get your eyes trained to look so.
Rob: Brings us to the next point. Both of these items, that sold for $5,000, both of them were not in our local area. They were across the country. A couple weeks ago, well, I guess a month ago, we went to a mastermind, that we, flew out of town, bought a, when I was there, I'm always looking for stuff, no matter where I'm at.
And we flew, which was a little bit harder, but we flew and, we actually found a cooktop up there and I bought it and, we actually have close friends that were up there that we actually stayed with while we were going to the Mastermind. I talked to them before I bought it. They told me that I could totally buy it and then keep it there until I sold it and ship it out.
And they were okay with that, so they did that. They helped
Melissa: You palleted it up while before you, left.
Rob: They helped us do that, so one of those things that we actually found this second item in Boise, Boise, Idaho. So we picked it up, and we got it cleaned up, got it palleted and then we flew home and then we put it up for sale and it sold within, yeah, within a month and we sold it paid, I don't remember if this one was $150 or a hundred.
I think it was $100. Don't quote us. I have it in our records. We should have looked, but it's between $100 and $150 what we spent on it. And I actually offered the guy, I think he was asking $250. I think it was $150. He was asking $250 for it, and I asked, I offered him $150 for it. Went and picked it up, like I said, got pictures, got it all packaged and ready to go.
And then, yeah, we flew back, and it just sold over the weekend within, 24 hour period we sold both of these in the same price $2,500 for this one as well. Killer killer deal on this So $150 to $2,500 we love that, love that when that happens and like I said first one was a commercial exercise machine. Definitely not something somebody's using for a christmas present and the cooktop, not really something somebody's using for a christmas present, but at this time of year, stuff is still moving.
It's still selling if you can get stuff listed and get it on there.
Melissa: Yeah, but the exercise thing could be kind of something. I was thinking about it because of January. Most people do like to ex like for it, but that's more of a rehab thing. So maybe not. So it just depends. Maybe somebody's start like opening a rehab center or something.
You never know, or needed a new machine.
Rob: You never know. So you don't know, we don't care because somebody buys it and we ship it where they want it.
Melissa: So talk a really quick about, so why are these people selling this stuff locally? So both of these were on marketplace that you pick or OfferUp. Why don't either one?
Cause you look on both of those. And so both of them were in the local market and they were selling for that much, but why can we get so much more money on eBay? Like, why does that work? Yeah, absolutely.
Rob: So no, it's, we're taking something from a local market, which I'll break down. One of the things that we did was the exercise.
We bought that in a little town inside of Michigan. And I don't remember, remember the exact name of the town. Anyways, it was a little town, but it was in a local market in a little town. You're limited when you find stuff in a local market. So, even if we bought this one off of marketplace, it was listed on marketplace in a local town, which could have had maybe 20,000, maybe even less than that.
Yeah, just people that are in that local area that have the opportunity to see that not somebody across the country who's able to see it only in the local area? So we buy it we buy it in the local area and then we bring it to a nationwide market, even global market, when we throw it onto eBay that we have the potential to sell it. So it's just taking it from a smaller pool of people and then offering it to a huge pool of people which last time we, checked eBay's like a I think there had 135, 136 million registered users that have the potential of much more, many, many more people looking for that specific item.
So, and, and what we do, we find it in the local market, smaller market, and bring it to a huge market where we can make really what it's worth. And I'll reiterate, this is not price gouging. We're not taking advantage of anybody. We're bringing a great product to somebody who really wants it and needs it and saving them almost 50 percent of what they have to pay for anywhere else.
That's why it works too. Because of those two things. It's not price gouging. Some people are like, ah, you're price gouging. It's not. We're giving somebody a great deal on these. We're not charging more than what they originally cost new. We're charging way less than what they cost new. And then that might be the only option the buyer has to buy it is buying it new or finding it secondhand with us, to where we can make that money on it.
And
Melissa: they get to look on their phone, scroll on their phone, look for that or hit Google. We, a lot of our items get shown on Google now because, you know, people search for that item and then eBay will then repopulate. with your item, which is a great thing when you post it on eBay, that it will come up in Google.
So, and then they get shipped to them. Like it's a pretty, or they could go out and hunt like we do, but that's just like, we just stop everywhere we go. It's just kind of like in our nature to go check out some stuff. So, so it's the convenience thing and they're getting a great deal. So that's why it works.
Rob: Absolutely. One other thing that while I will reiterate on this or re hone in on this point is both of these items will go freight. So they are going to get strapped to a pallet. They're going to ship through freight shipping, but guess what? I don't need a forklift to do this. I don't need a truck to do this.
Both of these items will fit in the back of a minivan, will fit in the back of an SUV.
Melissa: Who were we talking to? Jenny the other day. We were talking to her and she's like, I've done all, like how many freight shipments with her minivan, right?
Rob: Both of these items, Melissa and I can pick them up and put them in the back of our SUV to be able to ship it.
Or whatever we want to do, if we have the carrier come directly to us and pick it up. I mean there's many, many different ways to do it, but the biggest thing I want to talk about is we don't need a forklift to do this. We don't need a forklift to do this business. Do we have forklifts? I have multiple forklifts.
Do I use them? I use them, but not that much for the stuff that we are selling. So I just want to let you guys know that as well, because maybe you're thinking about, man, I would really love to make turn $40 into $2,500. How do I do that? Guys, we do it and we do not have to have crazy, crazy tools to do it.
You can totally do it wherever you're at, you can learn how to do this as well.
Melissa: And one other last thing before we, end was I wanted to talk a little bit about, so some people are like, well, those. eBay fees are crazy. I know we didn't dive into all the fees on this one yet, but we'll do that on the monthly recap.
But like when I post on social media, people are like, oh, who wants to pay eBay those fees? Well, if you think about it, if you're going to get $40 for the item on Facebook, or you're going to get $2,500 on eBay, but you might spend, what's it going to be like, is $2,500 the limit for the 13%? That's where it cuts off, yeah.
Okay, so you're going to pay $300 in fees. How much did you still just make? Like the, it's worth it. And that's why we do the business model. We do also, because it allows us to have still a really good profit and pay eBay and pay our shipping costs. And so that's why we've gravitated towards this higher value item business model.
So anyways, I just want to touch on that. Cause it is worth it because in the local market, you just cannot get as much you can try. And we have had some great Facebook sales recently too. So you can cross post and sometimes there is somebody local that can buy it, but the likelihood of it happening over and over, it's just a lot harder, so to sell locally.
Rob: Awesome. You guys rock. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Hopefully it has motivated you. Hopefully it has encouraged you to be out there looking for those high profit items. This stuff is selling. It is. We greatly appreciate your time. You guys have an amazing day and we'll catch you on the next episode.