Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper share what they sold in March to make over $19,500 in sales.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast – March Numbers
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are giving you the recap of March. March is over and guess what? Over $19,500 in sales and only six items.
Melissa: We're gonna dive into the breakdown of the eBay feeds, the shipping costs, and of course the profits.
Rob: All right guys, we are stoked. Our best month yet out of the year and it is March. So we're gonna give you guys the breakdown of what we sold, how much we made, and definitely the bottom line on profit.
Melissa: Yeah, and I think, we've done these income reports now. We've been doing 'em since 2015, so we, not always consistent, but we've been try for the last eight years, try to do these monthly.
So that it helps people see like what we're selling, what's actually profitable and so forth. Cuz we started watching some bloggers do their income reports and when we started our blog back in 2015 and we were curious, we're like, well, what are, what is all this about? So that kind of got us intrigued and, and it I don't know. It motivated us to, to keep going with it, even when we wanted to quit because nobody was coming to our blog. So, yeah. So I think the numbers motivated you. So that's the whole purpose behind why we go through these breakdowns.
Rob: Plus we teach this. Yeah. We teach people how to go to the next level with their business.
So we wanna show you guys what we're doing in our business. So hopefully you can duplicate it and do it as well. So, numbers are in, we are stoked for last month. It was amazing. So let's get into it.
Melissa: It was a busy month, but only it was six sales. So there are some pretty high dollar sales, which is awesome, so love it.
You wanna, let's dive right in, right?
Rob: Let's do it. Six sales, but only five customers. So, We'll tell you how that happened.
Melissa: Well, that's the first one on the list is actually the Stryker stretcher.
Rob: Back then, you guys remember this has been the gift that keeps on giving. This is the third month straight that we have been able to create some good income off of those Stryker stretchers.
So I bought 12 of these from one of our contacts, 12 of 'em up front. We are down to one left for say we're only gonna see one more sale probably next month, but we're down to one left. We sold, I think three this month. Yeah, so the first one we sold, I sold it for?
Melissa: $3,638.
Rob: $3,600 is what we sold this one for.
So, the cool thing about this was, like I said, the guy who bought this one right after he bought it, he wrote me and said, hey, do you have another one? And I said, absolutely. So he ended up buying the second one the next day. And I ended up getting to bundle 'em together and ship them together, which worked out great.
So I'm happy about that. Saved some money on shipping. I gave him a little bit of break as well on the second one that he bought. I took I think an extra a hundred or $200 off of it. Yeah. So gave him, it was $3,400.
Okay.
$3,426. Yeah. Okay. So we gave him a little bit of a break just because we wanted him to feel like he got a good deal, when he bought two from us.
So, that worked out really, really well. So, those two together, are we gonna break them down for?
Melissa: Yeah, for the, well, the first one we, well, they, both of 'em we paid $183 for. Okay. So, eBay fees were $353 and $331. Okay. And then shipping cost was $190 total.
Rob: $190. Cuz we were able to put 'em together.
So, how did you get the same exact, exact? I have no idea. But they're different. I saw that too. You checked it? Absolutely.
Melissa: You double checked the number. Really? I did. Interesting.
Rob: The same amount of exact profit on both of 'em, even when I charged a little bit less for the second one. But I put the shipping together.
Melissa: Yeah. And the shipping was combined. So 2009 and you took the shipping off the one and put on the other, so gotcha. $2,912 for each of them. Yes. So, I will have to add too, that normally, when we report our numbers, it's like a, a a zero or a five or whatever, 99 that we sold it for, but these are all including sales tax.
So we, and we are gonna deduct that at the end. We normally don't always report that because then it looks like the items sold for a little bit more, you know, cuz they add on sales tax, but we'll deduct that in the end. What happens with sales tax is eBay collects it. eBay remits it because of this whole online market and whole online thing that's happening. They had to do this, I think it's two years ago they started doing it. And they take it, the tax and they remit it for you so you don't have to know the laws of all the different states that you're selling to. Yeah. So it's a, it's helpful. I don't know.
We don't have to do it, so that's not, that's nice, but we don't see the money, but we do give fees on that money.
Rob: So yeah, they do charge us fees and with this, all the sales for this month over a thousand dollars and they charge us fees on top of that. So that kind of stinks. Yeah. But at the same time, it is what it is.
They're taking on all the risk and of doing all the, this
Melissa: cost of doing business. There's absolutely, there's are costs of doing business. And you just have to know, you'd have to know all those taxes and all the laws and remit, and that's a lot of your time and it's not worth it. So, yeah.
Rob: And they went through, they started out with a couple states and a couple more states.
Melissa: We were one of the last states to actually, we had to still remit our, well, our own sales that were in our state of Florida, but now they're included too.
Rob: Now it's all done. So in these numbers, we actually took the total number that eBay collected from the buyer and then at the end of it, we'll talk about the deduction that we had to deduct.
From the full total for all the taxes added up that they charged. Out of all these, are they charged on all of these items that we sold. So the first two were those stretchers. What is our number three?
Melissa: The computer component.
Rob: Computer component got this from one of my contacts again, and I didn't pay anything for this, actually found this in one of his bins that he had gave it to me.
Not very big. A tiny little computer board, came out of an expensive computer. This is probably the fifth or the sixth one that I sold. The other ones were, I sold for a lot more money. Cool thing about this one was it went overseas. Somebody bought this through global shipping, went overseas, did not have to, eBay, didn't take out taxes on this because it was not in the United States. So it went overseas, shipped that. And what was the total on it?
Melissa: $269. $269 ended up paying, got it for free. eBay fees were $29. Shipping costs $14. And then your total profit was $226
Rob: $226. I love it. Nowhere near our thousands of dollars on the stretchers, but still cool. Thing is tiny, just threw it in an envelope, shifted out very, very easy, very quick to do.
So yeah, always happy about that $200 profit.
Melissa: You didn't get switched over to the international shipping or you have global shipping?
Rob: I did. I just say global shipping, so they switched me over to international.
Melissa: Yeah. Okay. To the international shipping? Yeah. Okay. Yep. It's basically the, basically the same thing.
Yeah. So, but yeah, you end up, you're responsible for shipping it to the hub and they take care of the, all the customs and all the rest. So.
Rob: Yep. Forward it on to the buyer in whatever country they're in yeah, so that's all taken care of on the backside by eBay. You just have to ship it to the hub.
Melissa: All right, next one.
Rob: Number four, the vcr. Vcr. This is a cool one. A lot of people do not think that retro stuff will sell. Bought this from Goodwill for 10 bucks. I remember when you got that one. I, yeah, it was awesome. So, got this, got had a remote with it, missing the battery, cover on the remote. disclosed it in the sale. It was a vcr, DVD combo, if I'm not mistaken that you could, I think, record from VCRs over two DVDs you could record on there. But I'm sure this is probably a nineties unit from the nineties. It was a cool unit. I bought it. I know it was expensive, when I, back in the day and sold it for $200. $199.
Melissa: Bought it for $10. Sold it for, well, $199 but it was $214 with taxes.
Rob: $214 with taxes. So, ended up getting, what was total profit on that one.
Melissa: $150. So $150. Shipping cost was $30 and eBay fees were $24. So $150.
Rob: Sweet. So got $150 out of that deal. Not.
Melissa: So people still use that, that stuff.
Absolutely. People like that technology that's a little older and Absolutely. And I could imagine, so that one is one that you take the VCR or the VHS and you're recording on it on the dvd. Okay. I still imagine that people are doing that from some of their VHS's. Yeah.
Rob: So, yeah, and we just actually bought a VHS.
I think it was Hunchback of Notre Dame. In Notre Dame just the other day.
Melissa: You're hoping that one of these I love vhs. I love it. One of our, one of our members, Jenny, she sold, I can't remember what movie it was. She sold one for almost a thousand dollars though. Yeah. Did you talk to her about that?
You just need to show it to her. See if.
Rob: The only reason I bought the VHS is cuz you see 'em all over the place, but this one was still sealed and it was from the nineties. Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yeah, so still seal and was sealed, so, so in the original package, so I bought it. I, I think it was like a buck.
It's what it was so super cheap.
Melissa: We're not so great about the collector stuff. No, but you always wanna just it's fun. Yeah. Yeah. It was nothing. So.
Rob: But anyways, back to our list. That was number four. What was number five?
Melissa: The TurboChef.
Rob: TurboChef. Love this bad boy. Got it for $150. TurboChefs have been doing well for us for a while.
They have, this is our third and our last one that we had in our stock. Have to look for some more of these bad. But paid $150 for this. It had a bad fuse in it, replaced the fuse. Sold it. This one took us a little bit longer. Probably had this one on sale for a couple months. And then I had it listed for, I think, if I'm not mistaken, $799 or $899.
Yeah, you took a little bit. It was a lot. I had it listed for a lot more. Somebody sent me an offer for $6,000. I countered it $6,500 cuz I was ready to move it. It was a crapload of profit. So I was ready to move it. He came back at $6,250 and I said, okay, I'll do it. So I sold it for $6,250. Still $6,000.
Come on, on $150 investment. You can't complain about that. Love those. Take those all day long.
Melissa: So, so $6,625, $150. eBay costs. eBay fees were $671. Shipping costs $125 and ship it went on a pallet. And then total profit, $5,679.
Rob: $5,600 profit.
So, and yeah, you guys remember I took the offer. $6,250. The price that we did was including taxes. So at the end of it, we'll deduct all the taxes out of these. Cause that's how I get halfway through these, and I'm just looking at my even numbers and I realize that they had taxes added into it. So at the end of it, we'll deduct all the taxes and show you the total profit out of that.
But still $5,600 and some change on this $150 investment. Come on man. That's awesome. I love it. I love it.
Melissa: And it's not even that huge. It did go on a pallet, but they are heavy. It's like a big microwave is what it was. They, they're heavy.
Rob: This one was a bigger than the other one, so it was an I five TurboChef and probably weighed 300 pounds, 350 pounds.
Melissa: We didn't even have to lift it up. We were able to shimmy it using that your, the dolly. Your dolly. Yeah. So we did, we did, we made it work without having to pick it up.
Rob: I had a couple of, couple different tools that we were able to use a furniture dolly onto a lift into the back of the truck, then on, from the back of the truck onto the pallet on the lift, and then pallet it and then pushed it back into the back of the truck to deliver it.
So, yeah, cool stuff. Tools make this business, if you have the right tools, the right dollies, that kind of stuff, it totally helps. When you get up to the higher value, larger items, it definitely helps have the right stuff.
Melissa: You, you didn't start with a whole bunch of stuff. Absolutely. You just, and we don't even pay full price for a lot of our stuff.
We find it at the flea market or whatever you use. Yeah. Yard sales and, and then your grows your, your tool library not library. What is it? Collection. Collection grows. Yeah, absolutely. So then it can be helpful.
Rob: That's it. And then number six, the Stryker, another stretcher. So three this month and this one was the sweet one.
So what I did with this one is I had. A couple of the same models. I actually had extra seat belts, or not whatever they call 'em, straps that go over the stretchers. I threw in a couple extras with this one and listed it at a higher price, just hoping somebody would, take me up on it and do it.
And I still listed them on the lower price, just average without the extras. We sold both of 'em and then this one finally sold. What was the total on this one? Sold for? $5,400. $5,400. That's including, I remember that's including shipping taxes as well. But $5,400 is what we sold this for, including shipping and taxes on that killer, killer deal.
This is the same one we only paid. $183 for, and then what were total eBay fees?
Melissa: eBay fees were $485.
Rob: So eBay fees, this was a mix between this one because I had this one listed with promoted listings. Yes, promoted listings. So I think they charged me an extra a hundred and some dollars for promoted listing on this.
It might even been an extra $200 for promoted listings, which I just included it in the eBay fees on that. I kind of reached on this one. Some of these stretch. I didn't list them with promoted fees because they were selling like hot cakes and I didn't have to, this one I had it listed longer because I did the extras and I didn't know you had more.
And I had the higher price on it, so I didn't know if it would sell. But it sold it, sold 'em and made some killer money on it, so. Awesome. And then shipping on this one was one? $140. $140. $140 for this, killer deal as well. Went on a pallet, we powdered this bad boy up and shipped it.
So, total profit $4,592. $4,592 I love it. Those two last ones were the killer ones for this last month. Great, great deals.
Melissa: One thing that was pretty cool is those both sold while we were on vacation. So yes, that was it. It was pretty cool to be able to have that little, cushion when you come back from vacation.
Yeah, because sometimes when you come back from vacation, it's a little stressful, so.
Rob: Absolutely. So over $10,000 sitting in the bank when we came back, shipped these two bad boys out afterwards, worked out in our favor. So killer, killer deal. An awesome, awesome month. We absolutely love the month of March.
We'll see how April goes, report back to you guys, let you know. But remember, we only have one more stretcher in the repertoire.
Melissa: You gotta start getting some more stuff listed now too. Yeah, we, we absolutely do. And I do have to add that I was against, I know I've said it before, but I was against the Stryker stretcher purchase, and I get reminded of that all the time.
Every time they sell, I get reminded that they. I did not wanna sell.
Rob: Dude, the strykers, we've probably almost cleared over $40,000 in the title total in the three months.
Melissa: So the total crazy for last month was $19,572. And total sales, total sales item cost. So $709 out of pocket.
Rob: Guys, which is pretty, are you listening to this? We only had to spend, $7,000 out $700, sorry, $700 out of pocket to make $19,000 in six sales. How awesome is that? That's amazing. $700 out of pocket to make almost $20,000 in sales.
Melissa: Are you jazzed up?
Rob: I love it. I'm stoked. That is killer. Killer, killer. I love it.
Melissa: That is one of the really cool parts of it.
Rob: So that's one of the biggest things we preach is your money's made in the buy guys, we gotta be getting our items that we're getting, we have to get 'em as low as possible. These Strykers worked out in our favor cuz I bought 12 and one shot. So I was able to talk my contact down and get 'em to a good price that I knew I could make some good money on.
Sorry, I interrupted you so I know. It's just $700, a little over $700 and total invested.
Melissa: Total eBay fees $1,893. $1,800 in eBay fees we get, I think we talked about this recently, but we do get comments on social media a lot. Like, well, eBay's like taking all your money or whatever they, what did they do?
And of course, nobody wants to spend to give $1,800 of our money to eBay, but without them, we wouldn't have sold them. So it's, let me give you a good example. It's the cost of doing business again.
Rob: We had these stretchers listed on marketplace in our local area. That's true. And we had them listed on eBay for the same amount of time.
Guess how many sold on market? The big goose egg, nothing. We sold nothing on marketplace and we sold them all on eBay because it reaches so many more people. So that's what we did.
Melissa: You have ‘em cheaper on marketplace or the same price?
Rob: I might even have 'em a little bit cheaper, but marketplace too.
When people see 'em, they offer you half of what they are actually are. On eBay people buy 'em, they pay for 'em, including shipping, pay it right there, it's done. You don't have to deal with anybody. It's just way, way easier platform, way easier transaction. So, but that just gives you an idea of if we do sell stuff locally, if we, you know, we don't have to pay the eBay fees, but I'll pay $1,800 any day to get the amount of money that we're able to sell these stretchers for online. So.
Melissa: The shipping costs, that was pretty low actually. $499. Absolutely. For shipping for, we had one, two, three, four freight items and well, one of 'em went together. Yeah. So that helped. And then, so three freight shipments and then two regular boxes.
Rob: We got this freight shipment down. We know how to ship stuff, freight. We're amazing at it. I absolutely love it. It's taken us years to get to the point where we're at. And it just shows, I mean, we had six items and spending that little and shipping on those items. Killer. Killer deal. Love it. Yeah, that's all.
Melissa: And what did the other two go? What carriers? Were they bigger?
Were they middle?
Rob: One was a USPS that went to, you're talking about the com computer component? I think it was USPS went to eBay's local hub that forwarded it on. And the other one, FedEx. VCR. Probably. FedEx. FedEx. Or UPS you don't remember? No. And it's probably FedEx. I don't think I dropped anything at UPS, this last month. Yeah. Last month.
Melissa: Interesting.
So, so that brings our total, well, okay, so taxes then were $1,155.
Rob: So that's, so those are the taxes split between all these. We didn't pay the taxes on the computer component, but the other five items that we absolutely, they put taxes in because they sold in the United States. They put the taxes in, but sales tax, yeah, I just added them all together and it was like $1,155 deducted that from our total profit. So I knew what our total profit was, so yeah.
Melissa: And that's not your income tax cuz that's another thing that people do ask us too. Well you're not, you know, talking about taxes, but taxes are way, like your income taxes are way more complicated than just an actual percentage of the item sold.
Yeah. Because we're running this as a business. This is our business. We do a lot of things in our business. So there are a lot of other components and it's not like, oh, just take a percent of that item, and that's your taxes. It's not, it's a little more complex than that. Yeah. So, but that is the sales tax.
That's straightforward. We don't have to deal with it. The buyer does have to pay it. And, and we do have to pay fees on it, which kind of stinks, but it is whatever it is. Another one cost of doing business.
Rob: eBay can do it because they can. So that's why they do it. So anyway, so total profit minus our taxes?
Melissa: Well, it's $15,316.
Rob: Over $15,000, guys. Are you getting this? This is over $15,000 in six items. Only five shipments, but six items sold, over $15,000 in profit after everything's paid out. The item, the eBay fees, the shipping, everything. $15,000 in profit. I love it. I totally love it. Killer, killer killer month in March.
Melissa: So yeah, so that was fun. So yeah, so that's March. So now we gotta get back to work and get some more stuff listed for back to work for April. So.
Rob: If you guys listen to this podcast, you are jazzed up like I am, and you're like, okay, how can I learn more about this? What can you guys do?
Melissa: You guys can check out, freeflippingworkshop.com.
We talk about our business model, how we go for the higher profit items, the freight shipping, all that stuff. So it's a, if you're curious, it's a great place to check out. So.
Rob: You guys rock. We will see you on the next episode.