Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about their last two flips of $750.
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The Big Secret Behind Our Last 2 Flips Of $750
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about that big secret that helped us make seven $50 in the last 24 hours.
Melissa: In just two flips.
Rob: All right guys. So on today's episode we're talking about our last two flips, which just came in in the last 24 hours, and we want to give you guys the big secret on how you can do the same thing.
Melissa: But first we're gonna talk about the sales. Absolutely. So the first one is a Cadillac door that you got for about $20. And he sold for $3,300. So I say about, because you had bought all of them in a lot, right? Yeah. Or you bought a whole bunch in a lot. Is that what it was?
Rob: Yes, I did. So this is the investment that keeps paying.
I love those investments. This flip, we actually got it, I got this a couple years ago and have sold already two components of the big lot that I bought. I bought four doors. I bought a trunk lid. I bought a subframe. I think a couple more little things that I ended up buying all together for a hundred dollars.
We ended up, averaging it out to be $20 per item that we paid. This was the rear door that we actually sold on eBay from the Cadillac. I think it was a CT, something like that. So paid $20 for it, sold it for $300 plus $200 in shipping. So killer, killer deal. That was our first flip that came in.
Love it.
Melissa: And the second one is Thomas the train engine. Right?
Rob: This one's cool. Peg Perego made these back in the,
Melissa: that's a stroller brand, so they must have done toys too.
Rob: They did toys too. Ride on toys. So it's a ride on Thomas the train with a pull behind. I don't remember the name of the train. Like clear, like a caboose.
Oh, I, I don't remember. Anyways, it's a pull behind. So you have two kids that can ride this at the same time. We used this one, right? We did. Is this the same one? We had this one for years for our kids when they were little. So we've had this one for years. Used it for years, paid $25 for it years ago from.
I don't remember if this one came from the flea market or the local thrift store. One of those, 'cause we bought, we have another one too, and I'll end up selling the other one as well. But this one came from,
Melissa: our kids are too big for them now.
Rob: Yeah. One of those places they came from, we had this one set up and it worked really well, but $25 we spent on it.
And we sold it for $450 plus, plus shipping an extra hundred dollars for shipping. So those are the two flips that just came in within the last 24 hours. And the big secret, we want to, we want to give it to you guys on how you can get sales quickly as well on your eBay store or your eBay listings.
Melissa: The secret is, it's not a secret, is listing consistently. So, I know it sounds boring, like that is not a secret. If you list, you're gonna make sales, right? So this is something though that you haven't, you've probably listed maybe three to five items since April. Yeah, like we took the summer off. We kind of got, we got back into the swing of things with the kids, and then we just started a 10 day listing challenge with our one-on-one coaching group.
And everybody's been throwing in, like they're getting their listings done per day. You're five days in, is that right?
Rob: I think five days in is when I hit the first sale. And yeah, within the less than 24 hours, the second sale came in as well. So, and we're staying on that trajectory. So the secret is consistency, get consistent.
If you want to make consistent income in this business, get consistent with what you're doing. And for me, I have plenty of items that I can continually list every single day for the rest of your life. Exactly. So that is my goal is actually we're doing a 10 day one with our one-on-one, like Melissa said, our one-on-one coaching students.
We wanted to see results. I wanted to see results. Five days into it. Yeah, that's when the sales came in and I'll keep going with it and I guarantee we'll have some more sales come in fairly quickly. From this, we usually see sales when we do this, we usually see three, so another sale within probably the next 24, 48 hours should come in. On something else that we have, that's usually how they come for us, or three sales. And then if we stick with it, we'll keep the sales coming in more and more.
Melissa: And that's, our numbers are a lot lower than, a lot of resellers. Like three items in one days is normal, but our items are, you know, a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars, so it's a little bit different.
So we do, you know, sell usually in threes, but it's either a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars typically. But one thing I wanted to point out is the, the two items that both sold were not items that you just recently listed. Absolutely. So we see this over and over and while nobody can predict the actual algorithm that eBay uses and all this stuff, you know, you can make
Rob: or prove our theory of why this works but.
Melissa: But it like over and over and over again, we see the same thing. These are the, I know the Cadillac door, you've had, you've had it both listed for a long time. The Cadillac, three years.
Rob: Well, Cadillac door's been three years. Been, well, a couple years, definitely a couple years I've had that. We sold the trunk lid and the subframe super quick after we got them .
And to add to that, I don't think I expanded on that, but we paid a hundred dollars for all of them . The, the subframe I sold for a thousand dollars, trunk lid, I think was $750. So we paid a hundred dollars for all of these and they keep selling, which is, so that's why we average about $20 for the door, so, which is awesome.
But we sold those other ones, well paid off our investment and still had these sitting on. Just sitting in the shop right now, I had them listed, for $250. Yeah, so you've been sitting for a while. Sorry. $300, $299 is what I sold it for. Yeah. $300. But that's one of those things that you, just because you're directly listing items doesn't mean those items are the ones that are gonna sell, but it peaks the algorithms to your store getting active or your listings getting active, and some of the older listings will start to sell as well. So that's just something to keep in mind. If you can get yourself to do a listing challenge where you are are listing daily, whether it's one item, whether it's five items, 10 items, whatever it is that you can do, depending on your business model, exactly.
Whatever you can do, you will totally see the results and that is the big secret that's not a secret. But it's really, really what helps, you know, in our community, with us, we've done this, I've been doing this for 27 years, and every time we buckle down and we start doing this with the high profit items, we start to see sales come in and they're, they're substantial sales as well.
So that's awesome.
Melissa: So you're saying if I get list my items, then I can make sales? Absolutely. Your stuff cannot sell if it's not listed and even like you didn't list for several months and that does hurt your account. Like it's not gonna, it's not gonna get shown as much because eBay likes to have activity when you're on the platform.
Buying too helps, I mean, you know, you can't just always be buying obviously, or your stuff won't sell, but you have to keep listing. But both eBay just likes being on platform. That does show over and over again, like we can't prove you actual statistics of it working. We just know that for us and for some members in our community, we see it happen over and over years and
Rob: years and years for years.
So, like Melissa said, we can't prove it, but we can show you statistics on our community every time we do something like this. We don't have the actual numbers.
Melissa: We probably, that could be a fun case study though.
Rob: It would be. Actually, we should keep track of that. Every time we do this, we see results. You can totally see results.
So, and it might not come after five days. I've had it gone 12 days before I, I start to see sales. But it is the activity and the consistency is what will pay off. So, if you're struggling right now in your business, do this, do this with yourself. Do this with a friend. Even if it's not like some of the items that I listed, they're not super expensive items.
I listed some belts. I bought a big lot of belts from our local tractor supply. They sold them to me like 40 some cents a belt. And these are, some of these belts are $30 and $40. They were just trying to get them out of the store. They didn't stock them anymore. I bought those belts just with this listing challenge in mind, that's what I wanted to do is be able to get some of the high dollar items listed, which I have two cooktops out of this whole thing. And then list some of these lower dollar items that are anywhere from $15, I think I even listed one for like $7 or $10. And I'll run a couple auctions for 99 cents and just let them go out just to get the activity back up in my store so I can get the algorithms working in my favor so I can see those sales come in more consistently.
Melissa: Yeah, and it's something that you said in one of the groups was or you we're writing to somebody. Just how important it is to have, keep building your inventory 'cause like this is stuff that sold a while ago, so, but because you have that inventory already up. Yeah. From a while ago now you start to see some more sales.
So I think that is an important note. Yeah. One other thing that I wanted to say is a lot of times we do free shipping on some of our bigger items. These are kind of middle items, so both in both size and in value. And you made the buyer pay for shipping. So that's something we, we go back and forth if we're gonna do free shipping or not, we'll raise the price if we do free shipping.
But for these, they're that weird number that. You know, it's not a couple thousand dollars, it's a couple hundred, so you gotta watch the shipping a little bit closer. Absolutely. Would you say that? Absolutely. Than a, a higher value or a higher dollar?
Rob: Yeah. The door, the door. I should, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
I'll, I'll do the measurements on it today to find out if I can ship that into, in a box, in a box which will be FedEx or UPS. If I can't, it will get strapped to a pallet and go that route. It will be cheaper if I can get it on, in a box, in a box to FedEx or u p s. So I'll shoot for that if I can do that safely and then the train.
Absolutely. It'll actually go in two boxes, to FedEx with FedEx or UPS. So, yeah, it all depends, but I did charge extra on the shipping and I just listed a cooktop last night that I, I factored in $150 on shipping for the cooktop and I did free shipping on it. So it all just depends on what your business model is.
Melissa: How much you have that listed for, though?
Rob: I think it's $500.
Melissa: Okay. So it's still that same couple hundred dollars mark, which is, that's the range where you really have to be a lot more careful with knowing how much you're gonna charge for shipping versus not, if that makes sense.
Rob: Yeah, and I know the stuff, even like the cooktop that I listed last night, I know that's gonna go FedEx or UPS and I know it probably would cost me without materials, probably cost me about $70 average on average, $75, $80. And then I have that extra funds inside of it because I have to actually buy, styrofoam for a cooktop. And the box, I'll end up buying the box for it as well. So I'll spend some more money and some time on that. But I have all of my I's crossed and t's dots, you know what I mean? That's backwards and t's I dotted, but I have all those things figured out into the price.
When I do do free shipping, I want to have all that stuff paid for so I'm not going out of pocket stuff.
Melissa: Awesome. So the moral of the story is get listing, grab an accountability partner, grab, find somebody, either one of your friends, somebody on Facebook, somebody to help you stay accountable. Somebody in one of the groups. And decide that you're gonna do it. Do a listing challenge for yourself. You know, start with 10 days and maybe go 30 days. And it's amazing what you'll see. And depending on your business model, you might have to do more than one. Like for us, we do bigger items. So one listing a day is pretty good. You might need to do five or 10 or whatever it is for your business that you need to do. Get it done.
Rob: Yeah, and, and Melissa just even kind of moved over, one of the most important parts other than the consistency of listing, accountability partner guys, even for myself. I had got into a slump of not getting stuff listed. But doing this with our one-on-one coaching students at the same time, it motivated you, motivated me to do it.
I had somebody that you know, was gonna ask me, hey, did you get your listings done today? And I did. I absolutely did. And I've been on this track record for the last, I think it's six days now. So days might be the seventh day. That is something that is huge. If you can find that accountability partner who will sit there and keep you accountable for what you're doing.
Melissa: And it might, pro tip, if you work with your spouse, it might not be able be your spouse. We'll just throw that one out there.
Rob: Oh, might is the right word. It's probably not a good idea to use your spouse as a accountability partner, unless that's all you have and you're okay with it, then you can can totally do it.
Melissa: But I mean, we've really learned to work together a lot of the, we we're together pretty much 24/7 and we've learned to work together and that's something we know is not really a great idea for me to try to keep you accountable.
Absolutely. On your listings. It doesn't really work.
Rob: Absolutely. So such a good point.
Melissa: Awesome guys. So we have a very fun challenge coming up at the end of September, where we want to help you make your first $250 from flipping. So we're super excited about this three day challenge coming up. If you want to check it out and get registered, it's free. Go to learn2flip.com and learn the number two, oh yes, flip. Oh yes, sorry. It's learn the numeral, the number two, number two, flip flip.com. And then we'll put the link in the show notes.
Rob: We'd love to see you guys there. We're so excited for this event. It's gonna be so much fun of interaction, learning, getting results.
It's gonna be so much fun. So do not miss it. If you have not signed up for it yet, get in there, register for it today, and we will see you guys at the event. You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we'll catch you on the next episode.