Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper share how they made $976 at their recent yard sale.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast -Rob & Melissa Yard Sale Recap
Rob: What's up, guys? On today's episode, we are super excited to actually recap our yard sale that we just had this past weekend.
Melissa: We made almost a thousand dollars in sales in two days. We're going to dive in.
Rob: All right guys. So we had the yard sale. It happened last weekend. We did a Friday and a Saturday yard sale, which is definitely one of the tips that we can offer you guys is doing a Friday, at least in our area, Friday and Saturday yard sales get the most traffic. Sunday? Yeah, not so much.
So we do not stay open for Sunday.
Melissa: Yeah, we've done that one time and it wasn't so hot. So we decided not to do it again. But one thing that opening for two days lets you do versus one day is it lets you get set up and gives you more opportunity to bring out more stuff the second day, because we always think that we're prepared.
Well, maybe we don't always think, we have good intentions to be prepared for the yard sale and then life happens and we don't get as much as done as we want to. But then once you're in that mode, you get everything set up on Friday, then you're like, okay, Friday night, what else can we pull out for Saturday?
So.
Rob: And this one, we were a little bit later on Friday. We actually did not start up until probably 11 o'clock, 11 to probably two o'clock is what we opened up on, on Friday. We were tired in the morning cause I stayed up late trying to get stuff out of the garage, out of the shed. We were tired in the morning.
So we got up probably I would say eight ish and then started setting up for the next couple of hours before we actually put out signs and had people stop. So that is one thing that in the past we have not done that. We'd made sure that we were ready to go on Friday morning and we'd get out and get signs out by eight or nine o'clock, eight or nine, a better practice.
But this one didn't play off, we were tired. We had a lot of stuff going on, so, but still, I believe under a thousand dollars. Right, I think our total sales were $976. Totally worth the time that we put into it. It was a good sale to do that for the time that we had spent into it. For sure.
Melissa: And you still didn't get to do as much in the garage as you wanted to.
Rob: I didn't get as much stuff out, but we did get a couple of things out. And yeah, we had more stuff to bring out actually on Saturday than we did on Friday. It just gave me some more time Friday night, I still worked on getting some stuff, cleaned up, getting some stuff organized to where we could actually put it out for Saturday.
And yeah, people that stopped on Friday, some of them came back and bought and stopped on Saturday as well. Cause we told them that we'll have some more stuff coming out on Saturday. So, that was definitely a perk on what we were doing, that we had more stuff to keep adding to the list. And we told people we might do another one within the next month because I didn't even get into one, actually two of my sheds that are full of stuff. So, I told people in the next month we might have one more to try and liquidate some more stuff.
Melissa: So we wanted to also talk about a couple just quick tips that could maybe help you increase your yard sale. And I know up north it's still pretty cold, so you're probably not, you're probably not thinking of it yet, but probably another month or two, you know, we can start thinking about getting ready for a yard sale.
So one thing that we did that was super helpful, which we didn't do it til the end, of the yard sale that we should have done earlier was post some of the items on Facebook Marketplace. So some of the higher dollar for a yard sale. So we had a rug cleaning machine that you said, we talked about last week that the handle was broken.
So you're just not going to mess with it. And you're just going to sell it as is because it was worked fine and just, it wouldn't fold in. So that was still sitting there. So I snapped a picture. Now the pictures at a yard sale are not amazing because we're outside on the driveway. So it's not like it's very, you know, there's leaves and stuff.
Rob: Not eBay quality pictures, definitely not eBay quality, but they will do the purpose.
Melissa: And the price is so low. We're just trying to liquidate. So we posted it for $50, had like three, four messages right away. Somebody said I'm on my way. And they came and got it. And the same with the stroller stroller for $30, it's actually two, I listed it for $25. He's like, I'll give you an extra $5 to hold this.
I'm like, sure. For 20 minutes I can hold it. And that was one thing is if you do list your stuff on Facebook marketplace, while you're at a yard sale, don't offer to hold it. It was 20 minutes. That's one thing like, he's like, I'm on my way, but don't offer to hold items for a long time. Like, don't say if somebody says, I'm coming this afternoon, say, sorry, you know, we're at a yard sale.
I can't hold it for you. If you're on your way, come this way and we'll let you know if it's still there, if we still have it.
Yeah, because you're trying to get rid of stuff. Like that's the whole point. You're trying to make money. You're trying to declutter. You're trying to get rid of stuff. So you can't necessarily hold stuff for people and people understand it's a yard sale.
So they're a little more than normal Facebook Marketplace
Rob: yeah. So hindsight 2020, we would have posted stuff on Friday afternoon. And then we would have had people showing up all day Saturday to pick up some of the larger items or higher ticket items that we have on Facebook Marketplace, but we did not do that.
We actually didn't post it probably until Saturday afternoon.
Melissa: Probably till two, we stayed open later than we normally did.
Rob: After 3, 3:30, something like that.
Melissa: Yeah. So we had a couple of people come and also, actually.
Rob: That's a great tip. Wait, before you go, that's a great tip to post that stuff on Facebook Marketplace while the yard sale is going on as early as you possibly can. And then to where you can set up some appointments where people can possibly come the next day and you'll still start making money at that. So that was definitely a great tip to take.
Melissa: We've even have somebody coming today to pick up something that they couldn't make it to the yard sale and we already closed up, but they were still interested.
So, they're coming to pick it up tonight. Yep. So, that's still from the yard sale, that $40 for, what was it? The trailer.
Rob: The kids' pull behind trailer.
Melissa: And we did talk about the hutch, the China cabinet, that we got out of the trash while we were walking by. We set it up. We had a couple lookers, but nobody ended up snagging it.
So we did put it back on the curb and somebody grabbed it.
Rob: So it did not go to the landfill, somebody else grabbed it and they're either trying to sell it at their yard sale this weekend, or they're actually using it in their house. It was a nice hutch.
Melissa: Or painting it and reselling it. But, we did post that on social media and a couple people had said, you know, if you didn't try to sell with the top, if you only tried to sell the bottom that it's worth like more people are desirable, interested than that.
So even if I would've loved to repaint it if we had the time, but I don't have the time right now. So, and it was a pretty piece so, but we put it out. Somebody else grabbed it, so it didn't go to the landfill, but it's, it's all good. One more thing that you wanted to do and you thought of after that you didn't do was add eBay signs too.
Rob: And that's something that I thought about after the fact that I could actually, some of the stuff that I pulled out, a couple outboard motors that I had been sitting in my shed for the last five, probably five years, great intentions with them, but I just let them sit. These are probably like 30 years old, nice older units, nothing wrong with them.
Other than they sat. I could easily have taken, a clip, a printed out sheet of paper showing what they had sold for on eBay. We are only asking one of them was like $75. The other one was a hundred dollars. And none of them had sold complete, but people were parting them out. And just the lower unit, just the smaller, lower part where the prop is, they were selling on eBay for like $300 for just that unit. Not, not including anything else of the unit. So probably could have got close to a thousand dollars by pulling the whole thing piece by piece. I really didn't want to do that because they were good outboards. They didn't need to be taken apart.
So I wanted to sell them to somebody who would rebuild them and do it, which we did. But that's one of those things that you can do is print, if you're asking them very little for your items, to me, $75, a hundred dollars. I mean, it's a lot of money, but at the same time, compared to what it's really worth, you can print out and show somebody who's interested in it.
Hey, this is what it's selling for on eBay. I don't typically like when I go to the flea market and people say, hey, it's selling for this on eBay because they won't actually sell it on eBay. I absolutely will, but just showing people, hey, this is the value of this item. If you really wanted to, you could easily get your money double or triple it by taking it and selling it on eBay.
And that's me showing people to do it. I was going to do it myself. If it did not sell at the yard sale a hundred percent, I was going to try to list it as a complete unit on eBay. Probably I would say $300, $300 to $400 for each outboard that I would have tried to do it. Who knows how long I would have had to sit on.
But at the same time, it's one of those things that I absolutely would have done and somebody might've bought it to take it apart and part it out themselves. So, but you can do that. You can print out some completed or some listed things. We've been at thrift stores like that actually do, hey, this is the item here.
This is how much it's worth on eBay. We're asking half of this or a quarter of this, you know, that it's worth this because people are selling it for this price on eBay. So that's another option that you can do when you're actually have some are higher value items that you're actually throwing out there, the yard sale that you're able to sell.
Melissa: Another thing I was thinking about too, that we did was, earlier on Saturday morning, we posted on Facebook Marketplace. So posted the yard sale that, where it was located at and then take it down after. So we're there and the, some you have to check what actually, we didn't post it on marketplace.
I posted in groups. So there's a couple of different Facebook groups that allow you to do that. You know, they're reselling groups that let you do that. One of them that I posted in said they don't like pictures because then people start asking like, oh, can you hold that for you? Can you hold that for?
So I get that, you might not be able to post a picture, but you can still post that. It's, you know, it's kinda like the classified, you know, sitting there and you can also use, we didn't this time, but you could use, garage sale app, like it's G sailor is a good app to use and people look up that to go to yard sales to find it, but we use good signage.
So we have a couple busier roads near us, and I think that's really what helps us the most. And so once we get those out, then people start coming. So.
Rob: And bright signs. Melissa actually takes fluorescent cardboard paper and they're very neon sort to catch people's attention.
Melissa: So it's a very bold marker. So, and say huge yard sale.
That helps a lot. And then another thing too is you had your Remax sign out, right? So we have, like something that gets attention. We've used a blow up, bounce house, snoopy. What's that when it was Christmas time, we used the Snoopy Christmas.
Rob: Inflatable.
Melissa: So just to get attention, like down the road and people like, like, oh, what's going on down there.
So, and we just bought a Remax. He just got it at the flea market a couple of weeks ago.
Rob: And open house, it's an inflatable. So I think it's like eight foot tall, but it looks like a hot air balloon, but it just has an open house, a Velcro sign that you can put on the front for somebody who's selling a house.
We're getting ready to resell it. I wanted to keep it through the yard sale and then we'll actually sell it. But it's one of those things that yeah, definitely will attract people to come in and see, hey, what's going on there. So.
Melissa: Just to get some attention.
Rob: So definitely think about, to think about something like that.
We have used, like Melissa said, bounce houses before, put them out close to the road.
Melissa: And put interesting stuff near the road. It gets people like put your cool stuff that might get people to stop anything antique or any, you know, furniture might get people to stop. That's kind of cool. Yeah, so we like to set up stuff out front and I think if we ever had, what are those called? Air dancers, have we done one of those?
Rob: Yeah. So yeah, you can do that too. All this stuff, make sure that it fits your local, wherever you're at, you have regulations or you're abiding by the regulations of your local government. Because some of them, we don't live in HOA. We don't have issues like that, but if you do, make sure that you're abiding by that.
Melissa: If you are somebody had commented about that too about the HOA. You have to check with where your development is. A lot of times they do yard sales on specific weeks, or, you know, like two weekends a year or whatever it is, then you can still do a yard sale. So, but it might have to be a specific weekend that they do it because they don't want everybody doing them whenever they want.
So, but yeah.
Rob: Two days, probably a day and a half really. And, close to a thousand dollars, not a bad yard sale. Definitely. I mean, anything, if we get close to thousand dollars, we think it's pretty much a success.
Melissa: And one of the thing we didn't add was we had the kids make cookies.
Rob: This was cool.
Melissa: Yeah. So they make cookies, sell their cookies and we had cookies and water, available for sale and they sit there and like cookies for sale, and then they sell them. It's just a fun, another thing for them to make some extra money. So.
Rob: One family came up and bought probably $20 worth of cookies. They started out buying like, I think $4 worth.
They started passing them out through their family. And then this was probably two car fulls of people. They jumped out and then they ended up spending probably $20 on these chocolate chip cookies that Melissa and the kids made. So, baked goods was definitely a way to get people and their water too, we had waters for sale, going that route as well.
Just thinking kind of outside the box of maybe a little bit extra money that you can make through that kind of stuff is really cool. We also have cotton candy machine, a commercial one of those, and snowcones that we have done in the past, but this one, like I said, it comes up on us quick and we didn't get everything set up for it.
So, but it's okay. It definitely still paid out with just the baked goods. Yeah.
Melissa: Make it fun. So I have to do another one soon and get some more stuff out. Get the kids some more stuff out there and for sale.
Rob: Yep. Keep you guys posted on that. So, but that's it, it was a success. For everybody who was wondering it was a success.
And if you guys are able to do a yard sale, definitely a great way to, liquidate, to consolidate and get rid of stuff and to make a little cha-ching, some cash.
Melissa: And maybe some stuff that's been sitting for a while that hasn't been selling or is just a little stagnant and you just don't want to look at anymore.
The one of the things. I did a couple of like two different tubs. It's not that they were, most of the stuff was not even listed. It was because I just didn't even, it was not worth it to me to list it. It was like a $10 or $15 profit and I'm like, I just want it gone. So it's stuff that we had picked in the past and that the profit wasn't there.
So I'm just like, okay, let's just sell it..
Rob: Sometimes you get to do that for peace of mind, you got to get, get rid of stuff. Exactly. Start fresh, and then you can start all over again. So, definitely cool. We only pulled out probably one box full of stuff from the yard sale, that we actually are going to list and have the kids list on eBay.
Yeah, the rest of it, we probably had, I would say like seven or eight boxes full of stuff that we will donate to the local thrift store to let them sell it. Yeah, that's it. Awesome, guys. You guys rock. Have a great day. We will see on the next episode.