Rob and Melissa Stephenson, from Flea Market Flipper, talk about whether resellers should be worried about tariffs.
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Should You Be Worried About Tariffs?
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we're talking about tariffs and should you worry about tariffs in your eBay business?
Rob: Alright, so today we are talking about tariffs and how they're gonna affect you if they are, if they're not, but we're gonna talk a little bit more about what's going on with the tariffs scare going on right now in the U.S.
Melissa: Yeah. So we are, this is not at all any political, we're leaving up politics out of this. We're just trying to bring it to you as a reseller and this is not a topic that we are, you know, have dove into and are well versed in. So, but we wanted to bring you the stuff that, from our perspective, what we expect this to happen.
And kind of we've done, you know, a little bit of research on what we think, how this could affect our business, if it will affect our business , in the future. And overall, just to let you know, we're not worried about it. So that's, that's the overarching, thing is we're not worried about it in our eBay business and we're gonna break kind of down why and some, some things.
Yes.
Rob: So tariffs typically are exporting, importing. That's when the tariff prices are gonna cause, not manufacturers, but they're gonna cause the resellers or sellers of a good to go up in the price. Yeah, we'll talk a little bit more about some businesses that are doing some crazy stuff right now, but for the most part, if you are not bringing stuff in from another country.
And you're sourcing inside the United States or inside your country specifically, then you shouldn't have to worry about the tariff scare that is going on because everything that you're doing is recirculating in your country. And typically what we do, you guys know, we go after high profit. That is where we're buying in the local market, and then we're reselling it in the nationwide market, sometimes global market. We'll talk a little bit about, a little bit more about that as well. But for the most part, they won't affect us as resellers in the local, state, in a local country that we we're living in.
Melissa: Yeah, directly. They could indirectly affect us in a couple different ways, and we're gonna dive into those in a minute.
But I asked ChatGPT to help me out with this one a little bit. So.
Rob: Love ChatGPT.
Melissa: I know 'cause I was like curious. I'm like, okay. So what is your perspective? I don't believe that this will affect our personal business model. Like, and there's so many different ways to do reselling, so this could affect the way that you do it.
This is not going to affect our reselling model. Now we do have people that do sell internationally, that are internationally. And, and like you said, if you sell in your own country, it depends what country you sell to and global shipping will, can have some effect and they will have to take in the tariffs if it's coming from that country.
So, but where was I going? Oh, I said, you know, I asked ChatGPT and one of the saying says, your business model focus on sourcing used items secondhand, locally, Facebook marketplace, flea markets, and reselling them nationally. These items have already been passed through the original supply chain, meaning they're not subject to new import tariffs, which they also shouldn't be taxed either, but that's another topic for another day. So the second hand, the tariffs hit new imports. They don't apply to resold or used items, especially in the peer to peer resale economy. And flipping sit sits in the circular economy space where value is extracted from what's already exists, making it one of the most tariff insulated models out there.
So, you know, take it for what you will. But that is, that is our perspective too. That is how we believe it will not affect our business directly as far as sales.
Rob: The other cool thing about the tariffs , what's going on right now is it might cause our business to even go up and we'll be able to sell stuff faster and for more money.
Because what happens is there might be shipping delays of stuff coming from other countries , from sellers who are importing stuff to be able to sell. And it might cause a backup for inventory. And when we're able to , find that inventory in the local market and sell it used inventory versus brand new inventory, it will help our business.
It will help our business to be able to sell, sell quicker and to be able to sell for what the items are worth. Now, we're not talking about price gouging, please don't get me wrong. No, we're not talking about selling for over what the retail price is, but our resale value can absolutely go up, not to retail, but it can go up on the value if the product is harder to get imported in from another country.
Melissa: Well, and that happened, during Covid too. So that happened. We had a lot of freight shipping delays, a lot of, you know, international delays, a lot of that stuff that happened during then. And we have a lot of businesses that flourished during that time because they couldn't get it, you know, shipped overseas.
So we ended up, things were back ordered. You couldn't get stuff. So a lot of eBay businesses really thrived during that time because, because of what happened. What was that one thing you tried to sell? And somebody bought it and they're like, oh, I'll pay like an extra $300 for, for you to ship it to me.
That because they couldn't get it. It was out of stock. What was it?
Rob: It was an extended hitch. A rubberized, like an extended trunk. You put it into your Reese hitch, extend it out and it, enabled you to actually carry luggage and stuff, out of the elements. So it had a lid on it that closed. , But they were out of stock from the manufacturer.
The guy said, I tried to order from the manufacturer. But they were like, three, four months out and because of they couldn't get it manufactured from another country and get it over here, this was worth, and you couldn't find him anywhere else on the used market, this exact one. So the guy was willing to pay way, way more, even what it was selling for retail. Retail, he was willing to pay more because he needed it for a trip. And I wasn't price gouging, I wasn't selling it for over retail. But the shipping aspect of it pushed it over what retail price was and he was willing to pay it because of that.
Melissa: 'Cause you even sold it. And then at first you do free shipping and then when you went to go ship it, you're like, and you told the guy, you're like, look, I can't, it's gotta go freight.
It's gotta go freight. I can't ship it for what I thought I could ship it for. It's gonna be too much money. And so you were gonna cancel the transaction and apologized for it. And he said, okay. But that's when he came back and like, I can't find it anywhere. I'll pay for the extra shipping, whatever it's gonna cost to get there.
Rob: And thank goodness that story had a happy ending. The guy ended up finding it a day or two after he reached out, bought ours a day or two after he found it locally. And he found it for less money. So I was okay with that. I didn't want to charge him more. But yeah, for the shipping to get it there on freight, it was gonna cost more.
So, that worked out really, really well. We ended up selling it again, and I sold it with the up price on freight shipping, because originally when we sold it. I thought we could take it apart and put it into a box, but it would not come apart enough. So it had to go on a pallet. We sold it again, to somebody else who knew what the cost was on freight was.
And we were able to ship it to them and we sold it again. So, not a big deal, but it worked out in our favor. But that just shows you, the power of what is going on right now when people can't get products that are actually manufacturers out of the United States and then coming into the United States, it's, it's backing stuff up and that's where we can actually be able to sell our items and sell them quicker because you can't find them anywhere else other than the used market.
So it's gonna be really, really cool for us.
Melissa: Yeah. It definitely should help our business. One thing we will have to watch out for, which we also had to watch out for when backups during, COVID too, is maybe some shipping delays, some freight delays. So if you do ship a lot, which obviously that's the goal of the business, is to get stuff moving sales and shipping.
So there might be more delays. And I was looking on the eBay statement as far as what eBay was saying on tariffs. And they had stated if, you know, they're shipping delays overseas and because of tariffs and because something's held up because of this, like, if somebody were to go to leave you negative feedback for a delay, they would make sure that it gets removed.
So you can't get, you know, penalized for a delay in that. In that regard. So that's, that's cool that eBay has our back for that. Yeah. So.
Rob: One other thing to be on the watch out or on the lookout for is, something that Melissa found. I don't know if we should say the name of the company that's doing this.
You will find,
Melissa: I mean, why not?
Rob: You will find companies in the United States that are taking advantage and I feel like you should get punished for this. Yes. Taking advantage of all this stuff going on with tariffs. They upped their prices on their products and all their products are manufactured in the United States, but the buzz, about everything going on with the tariffs, they blamed it on the current administration saying that it's all his responsibility, but at the same time they are manufacturing in the U.S. raising their prices because of they know other people importing stuff have to raise their, raise their prices. So, I don't know if you wanna the name of it or not.
Melissa: No, I, I think that it's just something that companies should be held accountable for and nothing against this company, but they did it so like, it was Hallmark.
Like I, it was a girl that went on and I did not do research to know like if it's, this is true, but this girl's video went viral and I just think it, whether or not it's that company. All companies should be held accountable. Yeah. And it should be illegal to do this, but they,
Rob: Well it's illegal to price gouge.
I know. In situations like this, so this should be illegal.
Melissa: Yeah. They had raised their prices. All their ornament prices, they had raised by a certain percent. I don't know if it was like $20 or 20, like whatever percent was for all their ornaments. And the girl, like she had the original book of ornaments, catalog. Yeah, the catalog that you buy. And then they handed her, an excerpt, said, oh, you know, if it's priced at this here, you know how you see the, the discounts if like at stores? Well, this is, if it's priced at this, this is the real price. So it was like an insert because of the tariffs. And then she did some research.
She's like, okay, you know, you kind of, you know, okay, we've, it's been going around. You kind of hear that. And then she. Started to, they're based, I, is it Nebraska or Kansas, or both?
Rob: Yeah, I think it was Kansas. Kansas.
Melissa: One of the one, one somewhere Midwest they're based out of, and she's like, she got on the phone with people and was like, you know, is, are, do you import a lot of your, products to make these?
And they're like, no. Like, she's like, if they imported, you know, even something, okay, raise the price on that thing. I get it. But they weren't really, they couldn't give her an answer. So I mean, that's just something that we're gonna have to watch out for. Not just, you know, that company, but all companies need to be held accountable if they are manufacturing in the United States and they start raising your prices.
I mean, that's just not right. No, it's not. Anyways, it's not. That's a little rant, but I was a little, I'm glad that that girl made that video because it needs to bring us awareness of what is going on and, and yeah. So for the future.
Rob: Yeah. If companies are raising their prices because of the tariffs, that's different other than if they are manufacturing here and just trying to jump on the bandwagon and start charging more for, for items that they shouldn't be charging more for.
So anyways.
Melissa: I did wanna say to, so to also, if you're doing a lot of international shipping, you might have some more, not really hoops to jump through because eBay is gonna be collecting the tariff for it and they're gonna be going through, they take care of customs as long as you're using the global shipping program.
All that, you don't have to do those hoops. Like you just sell the item, the person buying it sees all the extra fees, the custom fees, the tariff fees, everything. So they should know that it could affect your sales. They might choose not to buy your item because there's all these extra fees and all that stuff.
So that's how it could more affect. And then, like I said before, if it could get delayed in shipping. But if that does happen, then you just contact eBay and they're, they should help you out to remove any negative feedback from that situation. So. Awesome.
Rob: In conclusion, there's never been a better time to be a flipper.
Flipping how we flip in the local market, taking it to the nationwide market, amazing, and sometimes global, but there's never been a better time to be a flipper right now.
Melissa: Before you stop, go ahead. I wanted to say one more thing, so don't I. Like we stopped watching the news years ago, probably over 10 years before we had kids, like 15 years ago, we probably stopped watching the news because some of that stuff can paralyze you.
So if you could see all this bad stuff happening, like you, you see stuff instantly from all across the world, all across everywhere. And that can really impact your ability to go out now and grow your business like, because you have all this stuff, like it's not gonna work. All these negative thoughts and emotions of why this can't work instead of just like doing the thing and then having it actually work and then, you know, maybe working through some things that do happen.
So, you know, don't let all the, any craziness, like any, any, our business is pretty good in down economic times, which, you know, works for us right now, which is really cool. But don't let that stuff stop you because you can have a great reselling business. This is a, a. Great time to get into this business and yeah.
So anyways, that's just my soapbox. Don't let that stuff stop you. Absolutely.
Rob: And guys, we put a, a training together,, not that long ago. Yeah, definitely. If you are looking or thinking about getting into a business that is not affected by the tariffs for us , then go check out this workshop that we put together.
You guys might enjoy what we do. We love it. We're partial. That's why we're here with you right now. We're talking more about what we do because we absolutely love it. We love selling items. We love the freedom that it gives us to do in this business. So, like I said, we'll put a link
Melissa: in the show notes below.
Yep.
Rob: Awesome. You guys rock and we can't wait to see you on the next episode.