Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how they turned $100 into $500 without using eBay.
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How We Turned $100 Into $500 Without Using eBay!
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we're talking about how we turned a hundred dollars into $500 in one single flip.
Rob: Alright, guys. On today's episode, we are recapping a recent flip that we just did. A cool thing about this flip is it was taking a hundred dollars investment into $500 and we did it without using eBay.
Melissa: So. No fees, eBay fees, no shipping costs. So that was nice, even though we don't love dealing with people on marketplace.
Rob: But this one wasn't bad.
Melissa: No, this one was a really good one. So, we're, and it's not our normal 10x. So I know we talk about 10x, but you had planned for it to be more, but then
Rob: yeah, 20x on this one.
Melissa: We're gonna dive into that. Yeah. It's kind of why. You didn't take on the project.
Rob: So, so what was it? You guys are on the edge of your seats trying to figure this out. It was a toll booth. A toll booth. Ticket booth. Sorry. Ticket booth. Well, it's down here in Florida. I'll explain it. Yeah. So down here in Florida on the beaches, there's a little booth. A lot of our beaches are, you can drive on the beaches. This had a little booth that sat on the edge of the beach. That when you drove up your car, you paid to go and drive the car on the beach. This was what it was. It was a ticket booth, toll booth, whatever you wanna call it. It was just a little glass enclosed room, not very big.
I would say six foot by maybe three foot and then seven, eight foot tall is what it was. So that's what it was. We bought it for a hundred dollars and I had the expectations. It had one piece of glass that was broken out of the side of it. It got shattered probably in moving it, the first time I, not it, that's how I bought it, was without the glass.
And I had the
Melissa: you knew it didn't have it.
Rob: Yeah, I had the expectations of putting the glass, or not expectations, the intentions of replacing the glass. I had an air conditioner unit that went on an RV. I bought three of those a while back, so I had that in my stockpile. I was gonna throw an AC unit in it and call it a security booth, ticket booth, whatever it was.
That's how
Melissa: you could use it for anything, a couple things. Yeah.
Rob: Yeah. So that's how I was going to sell it. But it did not. It sat at my storage yard for probably two years and I never got around to doing the project. So, yeah, ended up thinking, okay, I need to start cleaning some stuff outta my storage yard.
And this was kind of like the death pile. You guys have the small death piles. I have the big death piles. I got some big stuff that I'm like, okay.
Melissa: No, we're calling them money piles now. They're not, they're not death piles. Thank you. They're money piles 'cause we are not, they need to make some money and not just sit there.
Rob: So the cool thing was they snapped a couple pictures in the back of the lot that I had it in and had immediately just tons and tons of people reaching out, saying, hey, would you take $150? I listed it for $500. Hey, would you take $150? Would you take $250, $350 tons of people reaching out with lowball offers?
I get it. We do the same thing when we're buying items, and I wasn't to the point where I was gonna do that. Finally somebody reached out and said, hey, when can I come pick it up? I'll give you full price for it. And when they did that, I said, all right, I gotta move it outta the backyard. I'll get it out this weekend.
And I went and moved some stuff around, got the forklift to it. Which this one I did use the forklift because I had it there.
Melissa: You haven't used the thing in forever.
Rob: I haven't, and I didn't have to, to be honest with you guys, I could have moved it with a dolly and not needed the forklift. But, yeah, I ended up using the forklift to get it outta there and we got it loaded up with the forklift.
Melissa: So. And you wouldn't have needed to 'cause they brought three people or two, two people.
Rob: No, absolutely. Yeah. I could have easily moved it around without the forklift. We could have done that, like I said.
Melissa: But you like to use it too when you can.
Rob: I do. It wasn't, wasn't a big deal. And it's easier to use it when you do have it.
So we had it and I used it. But, so a hundred dollars investment into $500. Yeah, and I, to be honest with you guys, I, if I would've done the work to it, I figured between $2,500 and $5,000, I would've sold it for, if I put the air conditioner on the top, painted it, made it nice, cleaned it up, put the glass in it, that's probably what I would've done.
But sometimes it's just nice to liquidate, get rid of some stuff that's sitting around and you don't have the, not the willpower, what's the right word? You don't have the motivation. Thank you. The motivation to get it cleaned up and do what needs to be done to it. And that's where you just cut ties and you go with it.
I didn't lose a penny on this. We actually made five times our investment, which is great, and that's how we sold it. And yeah, I. Killer, killer deal.
Melissa: It's not sitting in your storage yard.
Rob: It's not, it's not sitting over there and got it out of the way.
Melissa: And they were very appreciative and want you to, they said, if you could find us some more, we'd love to buy them.
Rob: She did. The lady who bought it actually reached back out and said, please, anything else that you have in this type of, they're in the security business. Anything else that you find in this, this type of stuff, we can use it. Let us know and we're happy to buy it from you. So that was pretty cool too.
Melissa: I think the, a huge piece of this too is like, it's always the hardest part. Listing is the hardest part. It is getting stuff done. And I think like you have to evaluate your business at one at some point because you can get great deals on, great deals on projects, but sometimes you have to evaluate is it worth it?
So like right now where we're at in our business, more projects are not worth it. Even though you'll still find some, I'm sure, but you know, you do say no sometimes now. I do. You're getting better at it because you know, you still have stuff that needs to, yeah, move. So, if you're finding yourself, like you're not motivated to do the projects, don't take on more projects, you know, liquidate them, maybe just sell them as is.
Sell them for parts or sell them if you are, you know, you intended to fix it or you intended to do whatever, and it's not getting done and it's not getting done and it's not getting done. Maybe have a yard sale and get rid of some of your old stagnant inventory. Although is it really called inventory if it's not listed?
Because it's not, you can't sell it if it's not.
Rob: It is inventory. It's just not listed inventory.
Melissa: It's just not listed inventory.
Rob: Yeah. You bought it for inventory for sure.
Melissa: So yeah, so, but maybe you just need to do a little clean out or spend a day and get organized 'cause that can help too, if you're trying to organize yourself and then be like, all right, well this project needs to get done and then this time on, I'm not gonna have time for it.
I'm just gonna list it as is or.
Rob: And pick it. Pick it and make sure the ones that you are doing are the ones worth the most. Yeah, for sure. Really get rid of the ones if you don't have that much markup on them, which I have some projects that $15,000 I just have sitting that has been sitting for a couple years.
I have items like that that are $5,000 to $15,000 that I have not listed. And that's my goal is really to get in, dig into those, get them up and going whatever they need, and then get those listed and sold. And these, some of these smaller ones that a little bit less money, those are the ones that I'm going to cut loose, with very little effort into them and do that.
So one of the thing that I did want to touch about on this one was offers. People, when you do list stuff on Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp Craigslist, you're gonna get a lot of lowball offers. We are those people as well. I'm trying to find good deals and I'm sending lowball offers and if people wanna get rid of them quick, they accept the offer and I go and pick it up and that's how we make money.
But that doesn't mean you have to accept those offers. So just because you list something and somebody sends you an offer and, you know, I had multiple offers come in at $250 and $350 for this $500 item. I didn't have to take it and I didn't really, I didn't even respond to some of the people that I didn't want to.
If you have your item priced, like this item, brand new, this, this ticket booth, toll booth, whatever you wanna call it, probably seven to $10,000. Brand spanking, new painted, nice glass, everything, the sliding door, everything greased up working good. That's probably what it was worth at $500. It was a steal.
It was all aluminum. The whole thing was aluminum. Other than the windows around the top, those, I mean the glass, but the rest of it was aluminum. So, and aluminum scrap alone, you know, a couple hundred bucks for sure. 'cause it was solid aluminum. So don't be scared either not to respond or tell people no.
Stay at your price or come a little bit down. With this being said, people do want to get a deal. Yeah. So if you do mark it at $500, I wasn't worried about it flying off the shelf. We were actually traveling when I did list it, so I wasn't.
Melissa: Yeah, you listed it like right before we left.
Rob: I wasn't worried about it if I was waiting for that right person to come in and say, okay, I'll give you $500 for it, and they did.
And that's kind of what I did. So, but I just, I'm giving you permission. You do not have to take half of what you listed an item for. There will be, if it's priced right, there will be both people who come and will pay the full price for it, or if you give them a $50, you know, discount on it. Something like that, just to make them feel like they're getting a better deal on what you're asking.
Totally. You totally can do that. So don't be afraid to tell people no. Don't be afraid to just not take the offers. If you get some lowball offers.
Melissa: Yeah, and we've actually sold or been listing a couple more things on Marketplace lately because we've had some stuff that we just wanted to get rid of and some bigger stuff that's not really worth it to ship.
Yeah. Like that, at $500, that toll booth is not worth it to ship, but at $2,000, it would be worth it to ship. So that's why we didn't list it on eBay because you didn't have it ready and for the higher price. So, so it's just Facebook Marketplace and so we've had to deal with like, every time we deal with Facebook Marketplace, it's like, oh, this is why we sell on eBay.
This is so annoying. But then there are still good people too. We've had some good transactions lately, so.
Rob: Well, both of the two that we did, I didn't make. So last couple things that we've tried to sell on marketplace, and this is kind of going off topic, but it is, it's still good. So we had Bowflex weights put in there that they didn't work, which is a whole other topic, but, took them to meet one guy and one guy's like, yeah, they don't work.
And I said, yeah, that was in the description. We, we said that they're not working. That's why they're so cheap. And he's like, yeah, I can't do anything with them, but I'll buy the stand from you. And I'm like, no, I'm not selling the stand separate period. That's it. So that was the only one that we had that was annoying, kind of waste of time and annoying because they didn't read it. The last two, so we sold a humidor, we pulled out of the trash, a tall cabinet humidor, ended up selling that, pulled it out of the trash. Put a little bit of time and effort into it to make it, but sold that one for, I listed that one for $550 and we sold that for $450.
And the first person who came and looked at it and said they paid $450. They paid us. They bought it, they took it. I didn't make a ton of, because I don't like bringing people to the house either. So I'm taking to a local supermarket or something close to us where I can meet people. That's what I did for that first person bought it.
And the same thing with the toll booth. Had that those people meet me at my storage. They took it. The first people who looked at it paid me full price for it. So, really, really cool. Out of the last couple of sales that we've done, that's how they went. And these are on Marketplace sales versus eBay.
Melissa: Yeah. And we don't meet at the house anymore because of one incident about nine years ago. It was nine years ago, which is weird when I looked that up. And we talk about it more on episode 114, like just being safe on Facebook Marketplace because it can be a great place to make some quick money. But just, you know, be safe and if you can go and meet outside of your house, that's usually better.
Rob: So that's what we recommend for sure.
Melissa: So that's what we would recommend. Yeah. Just a busy place. Like, and, and not anywhere far away, like try to go to like a shopping center not far because some people will be like, oh, I'm I'll, I'm coming, or I'll be there. And then they don't show up. So typically we just wait till they're actually there.
Rob: Or they'll try and talk you down on price, right.
When you get 30 minutes from your house, an hour from your house trying to meet somebody and accommodate them, yeah, just don't, don't do that. Only pick a place that's five minutes from your house. Go and do that. That way if they do come and say, yeah, I'll only give you this much money for it. They wasted their time driving to you.
You didn't waste your time. And I had multiple people ask me to deliver these items into Orlando, into different places. And I tell them, pickup is in this location. It's in where we live. At the end, I can give them the, even the address of the the strip mall or the shopping mall that I'm doing. This is where the location is.
I'm not driving 30 minutes to meet your needs. And then for you to say, oh, by the way, I'm gonna give you half of what you're asking for. No, we don't. We don't play that game.
Melissa: No, definitely not. And another one too was there's a lot, there's a lot we can talk about on marketplace still, but, you took Zelle for the one of them, and we don't usually like to take Zelle, don't, but we did and we just made sure it was there and it was there in the account and it making sure that it was actually in our account and we didn't get an email saying it was in our account.
Rob: So that's, or a screenshot from the buyer who's doing it.
Melissa: So those are the biggest scams. If somebody wants to pay you with another processor, they'll say, look at, check your email for confirmation. Yeah. Or send you a screenshot. But no, you have to physically go open your account and make sure that it is pending transaction into your account or that the money's there.
Rob: So, yeah, and that's a huge thing. Don't let them forward you or show you a screenshot on their phone saying hey, it's already sent. Make sure and for me, we had it sent to my cell phone number. They, as soon as it went into the account, they send me the notification on my phone. Can't really fake that when they do that.
So I got the notification from my bank saying, hey, money's in there. And that's it. Not a text message from the guy sending you money with a screenshot. So yeah, that's how it worked. And the guy who did that, he actually didn't send me the money who came and picked up, the humidor. He had his buddy or his business partner or whatever.
Yeah. He called him on the phone and he's the one who sent the money. So he definitely could have, you know, jerry-rigged something up, sent me an email, or sent me a right, a text message and saying, hey, here's a screenshot of the money in your account. No, you have to make sure either you're pulling up your bank account, on your phone, on your computer, whatever you're doing, you're pulling it up to, you see the funds in there, not pending.
You see them in there, or it gives you a notification showing that they're in there as well. So that's just a tip, pro tip, when you're actually taking Zelle, if you're doing it, I prefer taking cash no matter what. But sometimes, if it's up into that $500, $1,000 range, yeah, people, some people don't feel comfortable carrying that much cash and they might wanna do Zelle.
Just make sure that you have it.
Melissa: That lady asked about taking cash or Zelle too and you're like, cash please. Ahead of time. If you're worried about cash too sometimes 'cause I have heard also stories of people getting fake money. So you can grab a, a marker if you want.
Rob: Staples, Office Max, any of those places we'll give you, or even Amazon or eBay.
Yeah. Buy one of those, markers that will tell you that's the money markers that it's a good bill for sure.
Melissa: Yeah. So those are just some Facebook quick Facebook tips as we, we probably will start listing some more stuff on yeah Marketplace lately. We need to amp up our sales for the fall. So we are, you're giving yourself a listing challenge, right?
Rob: That's it.
Melissa:So get that stuff listed, get that money pile listed. Don't get overwhelmed by projects. And sometimes if it's too much, the project's too much, then just maybe it's time to just let it go so you can go find other stuff. So if you, I, I do think if you find yourself just unmotivated, something has to give, either you have to figure out why you're not motivated to get it done.
Like what is the, the the reason or just remove that item from your inventory. Get it, you know, liquidated and sell it.
Rob: Make your money back. Get out of it. That's awesome.
Melissa: Get out of it and do something again.
Rob: All right, guys. If you want to go to the next level with your business, your flipping business, your side hustle, whatever it is, we have just opened coaching right now, one-on-one coaching. Absolutely love working with people to help them scale their business.
If you guys wanna check that out, fill out the application, see if you're a good fit for this portion of our business, please go do it. Where can they do that at? Also, we'll put the link below in the show notes, but also fleamarketflipper.com/workwithus and we would love to see your application and see if we are a good fit for each other.
You guys rock. Thanks for hanging out with us today on the episode. We will see you on the next episode.