Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about their most embarrassing flip ever!
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Most Embarrassing Flip EVER!!
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about the most embarrassing flip that we have ever done.
Rob: All right, guys. So this is going to be a fun episode. I'm not sure if we've ever talked about this on the podcast or not, but it's going to be really, really cool. We are going to talk about our most embarrassing flip ever. We have a lot of stories in this business and this one you are going to enjoy.
Melissa: Whenever you, you know, you're out finding treasures, you've come across some interesting, weird stuff. And so we're going to dive into, yeah, probably you said most embarrassing, most weirdest thing we've ever sold. So, but before we did that, I wrote a list of a couple interesting weird things that we've bought and sold over the years.
So I thought dive into those and then we'll get to that one.
Rob: For me, I love the weird stuff. I love the stuff that I don't know what it is and it catches my eye and then I find out it has a high retail value. So that's really, really what I look for, but I'm attracted to that weird, this one, not necessarily this one that we're going to talk about today, but on a normal routine, like I, I enjoy stuff that I don't know anything about, and then I get to learn more about it as well.
Which I did this one a little bit late, after I bought it, I learned more about it. So, but before we jump into that, like I said, like Melissa said, we do some crazy, weird, strange, just odd stuff because we get it for a really good deal and then we turn around and we sell it on eBay, so.
Melissa: I would say probably one of the first ones I remember that was really weird because I posted it on my personal Facebook account and all of our friends started talking about it. So it was one that came up a lot was that prosthetic leg. So you went to the flea market, you, I don't think I went with you that day. We didn't have kids.
I don't know why I didn't go with you that day. No, you didn't. I was, I was home. Anyways, this was before kids even. Yeah. This was a long time ago. Yeah. And you went to the flea market, came back, and you had got this prosthetic leg for $35 I think you got it for. And then put it on eBay and sold it in less than 24 hours for $1,000.
And it was like, wow, that was a really cool one. So.
Rob: And it was small. It was a tiny little flip. But that really opened my eyes. And that was a weird one. I didn't even know what it was when I saw it at the flea market. It was there and I saw titanium on it. It also said Ottobock. It was the knee joint that was expensive.
Yeah, so we actually bought that and flipped it. That's a, that's a cool one. Still not the weirdest, but definitely a cool one. A couple other ones that we have done. I've done a lobster tank, a commercial lobster tank that they would have inside of a restaurant. This was a round tank, that they put the lobsters in.
It was acrylic like fake glass. About this tall. All in a round circle and the lobsters would sit in there and then when somebody would buy lobster for dinner they'd go in and they'd fish the lobster out and go boil it. We sold one of those tanks and got it from a
Melissa: Did you ship that one?
Because that was before we did a lot of freight shipping.
Rob: I don't think I did. So it must have gone local. It must have gone local.
Melissa: Cause I remember you selling it but. I do too. So you probably didn't sell it for as much as you could have sold it for. Absolutely. Cause you didn't offer shipping.
Rob: Yeah, you're probably right.
Cause that was a long time ago. But I don't remember. Yeah, I don't think we did offer shipping on it, but that's a cool one. It's a cool lobster tank that we actually flipped.
Melissa: What's really fun about that one is because we go to the Keys every year and get lobster. So it's kind of like we could have kept it and used it.
No, not really. But, that's like we go and we love to go catch lobster and we bring back like 80 to 100 lobsters when we go. And it's a lot of fun. And that, you know, packs our freezer for the year, so it's a lot of fun. Absolutely.
Rob: So what do we got? What do we get next on the, just kind of weird stuff that we've flipped.
The Harley Davidson sign was a weird one. Very weird. Harley Davidson sign was, I believe it was like 12 or 14 foot long. The sign was like 12 or 14 foot long. Height wise, it was under 8 foot because I was able to ship it. I actually shipped this bad boy, so I think it was like 7 foot tall, from the ground to the top, so we were able to get it into the back of a semi truck.
So, definitely weird, but, what did I say? 12, 14 foot long. That's huge.And then height wise, 7 foot, and then it was only like 40 inches. The width of the sign was less than 40 inches, but we got it on a 40 inch pallet.
Melissa: And you bought it for like 200 and something dollars, and then you sold it for $7,500.
Rob: Well, we bought three of them, and I think it was $333.
No, it was $200 each. You're right, so two something a piece. It was two something a piece. Sold it for $7,500 on that one, which is a cool one, another odd one out. I love looking for. And $1,000 for shipping. And $1,000 for shipping. So, odd ones out. We love those type of flips, so.
Melissa: And the bus wash was another weird one.
Rob: It was a bus wash a portable bus wash that you actually has wheels underneath it, super tall. We actually sold two of those bad boys. One was shorter than the other one just by a couple foot, but it was one that's on wheels. It's on bad it has batteries inside of it and it has like a pallet if you think about an electric pallet jack. Has a little gas handle on it. You walk it around the bus and this brush spins and cleans the buses while you walk it around the bus. Really, really cool when we sold that one. Still not the craziest, we're getting there.
Melissa: I was gonna just add one more that I had in my head too. Just from this last year was those stretchers. That was a really good buy. That was a good one. So, 12 stretchers. I mean, just random. Like a hospital was upgrading and so you got them for like, was it $180 each?
Rob: One, yeah, a little over $180
Melissa: $2,200 for 12 of them? Yeah, somewhere around there, yeah. But we made, we haven't done the total yet for that one, but it's like $50,000 or something on them.
Rob: Off of like a $2,200 investment, so $50,000. So that was a really good one. Last year, huge for us, that was an awesome flip.
Melissa: Alright, so what's the most embarrassing one that we've done?
Rob: We've taken enough time, let's chat about this bad boy. So we are at the flea market. Did I come with you that day? I think you were with me that day.
Melissa: I think I was, because we had the kids. So, I'm pretty sure
Rob: I was there.
I think you were. So, I'm walking around the flea market.
One of the vendors that I bought stuff from. I'm just wrangling the kids. Cause they're little. Yeah. One of the vendors that I had bought stuff from. I walk up on this and see this gold looking chair, like a, a lounge chair. Really, really weird, cool looking. And it looked like a, a puffy, it could have almost looked like it was a blow up chair.
And I asked the vendor, I was like, hey, what is this thing? And he goes, I don't know. It looks like a pool float. That's what he said. And it had little rings around the bottom of it. And he's like, I think you tie it down in the pool and then you jump on top of it and that's how you float it. And I was like, all right, cool.
I found a little tag on it that, I forget the brand name of it, but I found a little tag, which I always do. I try to find a brand name.
Melissa: It is, that's what you do. You go and you, did you walk around the flea market? I think you walked, usually you walk. I do, I left. Walk away, look it up, see if it's worth anything, and.
Rob: I think the price, it was either $10 or $15.
I think I talked him down, maybe it was $15, I offered him $10. I know you spent $10. Yeah, I bought it for $10, but, so I'm walking around looking it up, and I pull it up, and I type in the name of this chair, and it comes up that it's a yoga chair, and I'm like, yeah, it's a little lounge, cool. So it pops up on my phone.
I couldn't find it. I don't think I found it on eBay. I think I found it on Google and it says yoga chair and I'm like, awesome. Yeah. Okay. So it's worth like a couple hundred dollars. Retail was in like $700 or $800 is what the retail was on it. So I'm like, okay, get about half of that. Absolutely. $10 to, you know, make $300, $400, whatever I can on.
And I was like, okay, I'm, I'm done. I go back and I, I talked him down or I got it for $10. I, I know we paid $10 for it, but I don't remember if I talked him down or he wouldn't go down and he had it priced at $10. So, I bought it. I specifically remember this as well. So, I couldn't actually, this is the first, well, anyways.
I couldn't actually take it because I think we were in our SUV. Oh, you had to come back and get it. Yeah, it was a, a lounge. It was longer. So, I had to take Melissa and the kids home and I had to come back and get it. When I got back, he told me something about that. It was an expensive chair. And I had already paid him I told him I'd come back and grab it with my truck. And he told me it was an expensive chair and that's kind of all that he told me and I was like, oh awesome.
I'm excited. I got it for $10. So I take it sell it I take it back, and like I always do I don't know a lot about the items that I am buying. But I do find that brand name and that model, and that's what I look for is the retail value on it. So I get it home And I start doing some research on this bad boy.
Now, this is, this is the crazy part. So it is a yoga chair, but what I didn't read when I checked it out, I saw that high price tag. I love the high price tag. What the retail value is. I saw it was a yoga chair and I'm like, sweet, this is a good flip. I got this bad boy. So we paid $10 for it, brought it home.
I started looking it up. All of a sudden I look it up and it is a bondage, like a sex bondage chair. Now Melissa and I are pretty wholesome. We don't, this is not something that we would ever really talk about. It's pretty embarrassing. So we ended up getting this, but the price is still there, and I'm like, okay, well, I can't throw this thing away.
I gotta do something with it. So we listed it on eBay. Listed it on eBay, but before we listed it on eBay, this is pretty funny, too. So, oh, no, I picked it up in my trailer. I had to go back, so I didn't take the truck, I took the trailer back.
Melissa: The trailer when your friend stopped by.
Rob: So I had a friend come over with his son.
His son is probably like, I don't know, seven or eight years old. And I fold down, I'm like, guys, you aren't gonna believe what I got today. Fold down the back of the trailer, it's our enclosed trailer. His son comes in. It's like, cool, a couch! He jumps on and then sprawls out on this, this, this couch or this, this chair.
It, cause it looks really inviting. So he jumps onto it. He's sprawled out on it. I'm like, guys, you're never gonna believe it. I'm talking to my friend, him and his wife are right there. And I'm like, you're never gonna believe what this thing is. And they're like, what, what? And I said, it is a, a bondage chair.
They screamed so loud at their son to get off of this chair because it was at the flea market and that's what it was. So, anyways, super super embarrassing story.
Melissa: Well, no, you know what is the best part about this story? So you listed it, it actually sold pretty fast. It did. And, so it sold for, I think I wrote it down, $334 plus $100 shipping is what it sold for. But, the buyer was local. So, instead of shipping it, Rob got to deliver it to someone.
Rob: I delivered the sex chair to somebody's house, which is even better. But they did not come, surprise, they didn't come to the door when I got there. So I left it on the front door, when I delivered it, so.
Melissa: But now, like, you would have had to do the QR code and stuff because you did that. I would have. So you, you did risk not. Like them claiming that you didn't deliver it.
Rob: I protected myself too on, I put it on the front door and I took a picture of the door. I took a picture of the address and yeah, screenshot, all that kind of stuff.
Melissa: But it still might not hold up now.
Rob: And this is prior to actually when they did a QR code. So I feel like I definitely could have expressed, hey, I showed them that I dropped it off at the doorstep. I even messaged them while I was there on eBay and said, hey, the item we just delivered it, it's at your door, all that kind of stuff.
So I took care of my. I, I, crossed my T's and dotted my I's on that bad boy.
Melissa: But now if you were to deliver something that something's sold on eBay, you'd want to make sure that the QR code is scanned because then it shows just basically your tracking code showing that it was delivered. So the person, the buyer can't come back and say, we never received the item.
That's just basically saying that you received it. So what are you laughing about?
Rob: Just the whole experience is. So crazy and off the wall. It is so much fun to talk about it.
Melissa: And we have so many different things that we find and so many stories. And that was one of the things like we were talking about this morning.
Like we should probably share some of these fun stories that we, you know, like, I don't know, it's just, it's an interesting, oh, job that we have like that. You come across these weird things and all these stories.
Rob: And yeah, so anyways, that was kind of more about Melissa and I, who we are. I, I would have walked away from it.
Had I known that it was a bondage here in the first place. I had no idea what it was. And that's one of those things that. It's cool. It's a cool story. And the whole way that it played out is pretty, pretty cool. But at the same time, that's something that I probably would have walked by and stayed away from altogether.
But I had no idea. Did you list it as a yoga chair? I listed it with the brand name. I don't remember if I used bondage and all that stuff into it. Because I feel like eBay would, might not. They might not. I don't know. But like I said, it showed me on Google. The first thing that popped up was a yoga chair.
But I, it might've said yoga bondage and I didn't read that part because I was so excited at the retail. I get, yeah, just super excited when I see how much it's actually worth and I don't. So I kind of jumped in and I saw what it was worth and I saw it was a yoga. I saw those words and I'm like, all right, sweet.
We got this. It's only $10. Like a $700 or $800 chair or whatever. We got this. So, anyways, cool story It's just kind of fun to share that with you guys.
Melissa: And we'd love to hear some of your fun stories. So if you're watching this on YouTube and comment below or if you're listening on the podcast, let us know on some social channel that we're on dm us or comment.
Let us know like what some of your fun interesting finds that you've had because i'm sure you've had there's there's always interesting ones that have stories and, it's a lot of fun, but we'd love to hear from you Absolutely, and we also are kicking off our live shipping bootcamp later this week.
So we're really excited Thursday and Friday. We're going to be going through all things, shipping in a box. We're not covering pallets. We're not covering freight shipping, but anything that goes in a box and we have shipped some really large boxes. So from NordicTracks that you've sold for hundreds of dollars from what was that beer seal can seamer you just sold for $1,750, that one in a box.
We do a lot of boxes that are still high value stuff.
Rob: So the three pole saws that I just did super long, it was like seven foot long on the pole saws.
Melissa: $2,500 on that one. So, so you can still do high value and still like not have to do death, not have to do a freight shipping, but we also, we don't want, we know that shipping is, what is it?
A hurdle for a lot of people. And it's what keeps people from getting started on eBay. Like you think about doing it, you've thought about it, you want to do it, you know, this is a pretty cool side hustle, but the shipping is a little intimidating and we want to take down that barrier for you. So, it's a two day bootcamp and we hope to see you there.
It's learn2ship.com.
Rob: Learn2ship.com and grab your seat right now. I don't know if you said it is a $47 enrollment to jump into it. Two days live. We're going to answer your questions live. We are going to do some demonstrations live and it's everything. It's not just how to box something, but it's how to do this stuff the right way.
This whole process, how to get labels the cheapest that you can get them. Absolutely. Sometimes 70 percent off of labels on some of the tactics that we're going to share with you guys. So, it's going to be exciting. You guys going to jump on, don't miss it, super excited to spend some time, answer some questions and go through some demonstrations with you. If you guys haven't done it, go grab it, learn2ship.com. Can't wait to see you guys there. Otherwise, thanks for spending some time with us today, guys. Hopefully we put a smile on your face. Sometimes that is our goal. It's a fun business that we're in, but we love seeing people smile and have a good time in this business.
So you guys rock and we'll see you on the next episode.