Rob and Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about the day that can change your life in 2024.
Part 1: 3 Reasons Why Your Flipping Side Hustle Is Not Profitable
Part 2: How We Made Over $20,000 On Free Items
Part 3: How To Make More Money On Your Flips In Less Time
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You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
The Day That Can Change Your Life In 2024
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode, it is the day that can change your life in 2024. All right, guys, I know this is a bold claim, but this is the day that can change your life in 2024.
So about a year and a half ago, I came up to Melissa and I said, hun, I found an amazing vacation.
Melissa: Oh, he loves vacation because that you just love to go on vacations all the time.
Rob: I do. So I showed her and what I found was a 17 day Hawaii cruise right off the bat. What like Melissa always does to me is she says, we don't have the money for this. If you want to do it, you need to flip some items so we can pay for it.
Melissa: This is not the first time that we flipped items to go on a cruise. So we did, you came to me with the transatlantic cruise in 2010. We did, we did that one and you did that within like two months. I think we went on that one.
So you actually planned this one out a little further.
Rob: We did. So the difference between the transatlantic cruise that we did years and years ago was well, there are a couple differences. We didn't have kids, so it was just her and I, but the price difference on this one was we paid $600 a person on the transatlantic.
This one was $6,000 to be able to go and do this for our whole family and we had to travel across the country to get to where the cruise is going out. So I told Melissa, I want to do this. I think it will be an epic trip. It's going to be amazing. And I'm trying to talk it up and tell her. And she's telling me I gotta flip it.
So, but I am the high profit flipper. So she tells me if you can flip it and you can make the money, we totally can do it. Now, remember we had to plan it out on this one. This is going to take us a little bit of time. And I thought to myself, I said, you know, people know you as the high profit flipper. They know this is what you do is high profit.
So what if I do one, one up on Melissa and I say, I'm going to find one item to be able to pay for this entire cruise. And Melissa starts laughing just like she is right now. She starts laughing and she's like, all right, let's figure this out. So I decided I was going to find one item to do this and I started looking and I started looking.
Melissa: You like a challenge too.
Rob: I do. I love challenges. So I start looking for the one item that will pay it off. And I start looking. The problem is when we flip items, the retail on items have to be super high. And I don't spend a lot of money on items. I don't want to go out there and spend $5,000 to make $6,000.
That's not my goal. If I was spending $5,000, I've only done that on one other flip, $5,000. This is kind of getting detoured, but I've only done it on one other flip. I spent $5,000 on an item and we sold it for $25,000 on a single item.
Melissa: I was very nervous about that one.
Rob: She was. We sold it within a month and a half.
Anytime I spend over $200 on a single item, Melissa starts to get nervous. I don't like it. She wants me to spend. And I like it too. That's what I like to do is find those low, low items with a high profit on it. So I'm searching and I'm searching and I find a couple things and they just don't pay off because the retail is not that high.
Then I find a Turbo Chef. A Turbo Chef oven. It's one of these ovens that you'd probably see in a gas station or a a, a store, sits on a Subway or? No, no. Subway uses a different one 'cause they have proofers. So this is one that sits on a countertop, so it's not super, super big. It sits on a countertop inside of a store, maybe like a sub shop as well, where they'll put the, the sub in it real quick, heat it up, pull it back out.
It's one of those ovens. So I find it $150. I find this thing, I contact the guy. I think he was actually asking $300. I offered him $150. He said he would do it. So I found it. I went and got it and this thing was awesome. So we found this item when I got it. I knew I looked at the retail on it, $35,000, $40,000 and this guy was getting rid of it.
He had another one that he went a different route in the kitchen that he was doing. He was doing like a brewery or something like that. I don't know. I don't remember exactly what it was, but he went a different route and he was getting rid of it. I found it snagged it really quick. We got it I brought it home.
I did the retail on it or the resale value on it and what it would retail for, like I said, $35,000. Amazing, amazing find. We got it, we flipped it, and I flipped it and made $6,250 within, I think it was like a month? It was not that long, yeah. Pretty quick! I made it within a month, a month and a half, something like that.
We sold it fairly quick. And I was just floored that we were able to do this and be able to pay for this cruise off of one flip.
And that's not the first, we've sold Turbo Chefs before. We have like for $8,500, $6,000 this was a different model so it was a little bit lower value. But, I mean, still a good value. So it was still a good flip.
Absolutely, our most expensive was $10,000. So we sold a Turbo Chef for $10,000. Yeah, I thought I said that, sorry, I didn't. No, eight, I think our other two that we did. Yeah, $8,500 were the other two, because I've only done three so far, but this was the third one that I did. And $6,250 is what we were able to get for it.
So, we got it. On the cruise we go. And we did it. So we went, we booked the cruise, and like I said, this was booked out a while. So we got to, actually we invited some friends on it as well. Had some, had some fun with it. We ended up driving from Florida over to not Washington, where did we go to?
California. California. LA. We drove to LA. With our trailer we pulled a trailer behind us.
Melissa: We gotta pick up stuff as we go too because then we gotta make it the trip a write off.
Rob: We do. We do. So we did that. We pulled the trailer. I parked it in a parking lot for 17 days, which that was a god thing that we were able to even find a parking lot.
It was a parking lot that had a cover over top of it. So it was underground to fit our trailer and our big old truck inside of there. We did it. It was awesome. It had a big enough parking spot to do it. So then we went on the cruise. Now we get on this cruise. This is the first cruise our kids have been on.
Melissa and I love cruises. We've been on
Go
Melissa: big or go home. 17 days for their first cruise. And we live in Florida that cruises are literally an hour away for us to hop on a boat. But we know that's not the first cruise that we're gonna do.
Rob: So we get on the boat and all of a sudden we're on the boat. Everybody's having a blast.
It's so much fun. And this is the first day and all of a sudden we go to dinner and the boat is rocking. We're going out of California and the boat's rocking like crazy. And I'm trying not to say anything because I'm like I do not want to be seasick for 17 days. It was crazy. So when our kids are like, Roxy is not really liking it.
So she wants to go back to the room and then we're like, oh crap, what did we just do? We're on this boat for 17 days. We had never gone out of the Pacific. Yeah, the Pacific. So we didn't know really what to expect. Praise the Lord. After we got through 24 hours the next day, actually I think it was 48 hours because the next day we got up, we went to the gym.
I ran on the treadmill. I got down and started doing pushups. And when I stood up, I was like, oh, my goodness. I'm gonna pass out. I'm gonna throw up. I didn't know what was happening. So I think it took us like 48 hours of just kind of being a little easy and we don't I didn't take any seasick pills or anything like that.
I love the ocean. I love deep sea fishing and doing that stuff.
So it got
Melissa: better. That's the point. It got better. And it was an amazing cruise because the first little bit we were a little nervous. But it got better and it was a great time. We got to see lots of cool stuff in Hawaii, erupting volcanoes, a volcano erupted the day we got to that island.
And yeah, it was, we saw the grand canyon of Hawaii. It's what its nickname. I can't remember what it's called, but it was, it was just so beautiful. So, so many beautiful beaches. Yeah, it was an awesome time with a lot of good friends.
Rob: All right, so you might be asking yourself, why is this day have the potential to change my life for 2024 or change my trajectory in 2024? And the reason is because we are opening Flipper University for the last time of the year.
Melissa: And it's only February, which is kind of crazy that we're not going to do it the rest of the year, but we really want to focus on our members and our new members coming in and also our flipping part of our business.
So, last year was really great and Rob has a lot of big projects he wants to work on this year. So that's kind of, we're focusing on those two things. So this will be the last time of 2024.
Rob: So if you do take the plunge, jump into our flipping family, this is how it can change your life. Now, for us, our last year numbers are in, we sold 46 items for just under a hundred thousand dollars.
What was it? $96,000? $93,000. $93,000 and 46 items. Now you guys know we're the, the high ticket. We love doing this stuff. So a couple of those numbers, our average sale price was $2,000, $2,034, just over $2,000 per item, to be able to get to that almost $100,000.
Melissa: One important thing to note is that 37 of those 46 items, we spent less than a hundred dollars on.
Some of them were like $5, $10, $20 too. But so 37 of those items, we're not paying more money for.
Rob: Like I said, we love finding those items. Now, how does that equate to you? What does this mean for you? This is the blueprint in Flipper University, how we have built our business. We love teaching and helping other people build the same exact business.
So if you want to jump into Flipper University, we want to have you do it. And we want to be able to teach you how to build this.
Melissa: So over the years we have gravitated towards this higher value, higher profit business model because, for several reasons, really. And now it's almost only what we do is like, we're very picky about the items we buy now, but if you're just starting out in this, if you just, we said this before, if you added one, $1,000 to $2,000 sale to your business each month, what could that do for your business?
And then you grow from there. You don't have to just only do this kind of flipping we do because we're just being more picky on the stuff that we sell, but you don't have to do that. But if you add one of those items in that, that can help your months so much with your flipping income. So, and we love this business model.
A huge reason is time because if you think about for one bookkeeping, it's a lot easier to track 46 items. Like there's one thing right there. Absolutely. But the time spent listing, finding, listing, taking pictures. Like you're doing that already. So if we can do that one time versus what did you figure to make around a hundred thousand at $10?
Rob: So we'll give you a visual. A lot of flippers do t-shirts, knickknacks, they'll do, CDs, DVDs, stuff like that. They'll do some smaller stuff that they can pick up from thrift stores. If you imagine a $10, a $10 sale on eBay, which I bet it's probably average for a normal flipper. If you imagine that to get to a hundred thousand dollars, 10,000 of those items throughout the year to do. Now think about how much like Melissa said how much time is it gonna take you to find 10,000 items.
How much time is it gonna take you to picture? You got to put pictures of those items in your listings. Then you got to list those items and then you got to put them in envelopes and you got to ship those items out. How much time is it really gonna take you? to do that on 10,000. I mean on 10,000 items versus 46 items.
Maybe you don't even hit the the mark where we're at, but maybe you go to say three times what we do. 4, 6, 8, sorry, 4, 8, 12, maybe do 120 items instead of 10,000, to get the same exact results. That's why we do what we do. So we have that time to be able to spend with each other, to spend with our kids, to go on field trips with our kids, to volunteer at our kids' school. It's just one of those things. It's where are your priorities? And that's where you really should be building your business into fit into your day and your priorities.
Melissa: Yeah, I know. Like a lot of times we go and we do help our kids and there's nothing wrong with doing the smalls and you need them to build your business, especially if you're just starting out. You need them. We're not saying you don't need them. And we do them with our kids too, but it gets very tedious. We even just listing with our kids. We're like, man, this is a lot. And sometimes we are doing like a hundred dollar items. So it's still a good chunk, but it's like, this is a lot for just a little bit.
So it just gets more tedious, but yeah, you definitely still need them in your business, but adding this can completely change the trajectory of your flipping business. And I wanted to talk about one quick thing about like, why higher value items to people get worried about. Okay, well, what if I get a return on these items?
Because if you get a $15 return, okay, you know, whatever, mail it back to me. The people that are buying, spending $1,000 with you, spending $500, even spending, you know, $2,000 with you are people that want the item? They're not typically tire kickers who are gonna try on a t-shirt it doesn't fit and send it back or they're going to, you know. They're just out like okay.
You just shipped me something in this big old box. I don't want it anymore. Send it back like that or on a pallet. That's not the clientele. I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen If anything, sometimes there's a shipping damage claim, but we don't get a lot of returns because we, we deliver what we say we're going to deliver.
And like, like I said, if it's damaged and shipping, that's a whole other thing, but we even didn't even have any damage claims last year. Knock on wood, right?
Rob: No, no damage claims and shipping and no returns last year. One quick note on that is when you ship stuff with freight, when you know how to use freight and you ship stuff with freight.
It's so much safer to ship it that way because you're not dealing with a disgruntled employee who might be having a bad day and they throw it out of the truck or they kick it down the street to get it to your, you're not dealing with any of that stuff. When you're dealing with freight, a forklift picks it up, pulls it and moves it all around the company and all that kind of stuff.
So you're not dealing with as many damage claims with freight. And sorry, go ahead.
Melissa: I was just going to say, and I'm not saying that they'll never happen or you'll never get returns. And you know, you learn through the process. We've definitely over the years have learned how to really, really make our business, what's the word I'm looking for, to where you have a lot less likelihood of a return.
So we've done everything that we can. And we learn from your mistakes over the years. And that's something we want to help you do, is be able to go through these so you don't have to go through all of the pains that we went through over the years and try to get you there faster.
Rob: Yep. So, and you might be here right now being like, Rob, I can't even imagine paying for a cruise or a vacation. I'm drowning in debt. I'm trying to figure out just how to make ends meet. And I totally get it. The potential that you have in this business, what, like Melissa said earlier, what would one sale a month at a thousand dollars at $1,700 at $2,000. Just one sale a month. What if you implemented that into what you're already doing?
If you're already a flipper, how would that change your life? How would that really, really change the trajectory of your business? If you could totally do that. And that's what we've honed our skills in on. And that's what Flipper University teaches you how to really go after these high profit items, but how to do it safely, how to, you know, be able to do this safely.
But at the same time, like Melissa said, eliminate, not eliminate.
Melissa: You're going to have issues like you're going to go through stuff and that's exactly, but we have support to help you.
Rob: So exactly. But like last year out of those 46 items that we sold, we did not have any damages and we did not have any returns, no returns, nobody.
It's not like an Amazon buyer where you're going to try something out and send it back. These are people when they're spending a lot of money for something, they need it. They want it to work. Yeah. If it's advertised the proper way that they're going to stick with it. That is the biggest thing about what we do.
Melissa: No, I was gonna also add, and we got, we were able this year to get something that we are so excited about. This is huge. For our new members, for our freight members, people who are, we're teaching freight shipping with, we created a relationship with a broker and now we're able to get some of the best prices on the market for our members.
So it has been a game changer. We love it.
Rob: And not just any broker, like Melissa said, these are by far the cheapest prices on the market in free shipping, which opens the door so much more for us to be able to ship items, ship them reasonable. It's just, it's just amazing. And this is the first time, that we've in the last eight years been able to, and I tried this for years to actually
We've had
Melissa: people reach out to us for years for a long time.
And every time they go and run a price, we're like, no, we can get it cheaper. Sorry, it's not going to work, but this time it worked.
Rob: So this is the first time that we've been able to build this relationship, to be able to benefit our members. And this is only for our members, the people who are in Flipper University are going to get access to these cheap freight shipments, the cheapest quotes out there right now. Trust me, we've compared them all around, to find out and before we even partnered with this broker, we wanted to make sure that they could deliver, with what they're doing. So absolutely excited.
And you will have access to these only by jumping into Flipper University.
Melissa: And I know we touched on this on the last video, but real quickly, the reason why this business model works is because we offer shipping, like we're putting it on a larger market. We prefer eBay. So we do a lot of it on eBay.
But it's because you're offering shipping. We do sell some on marketplace, but the majority is we're offering shipping. We're reaching a lot more people and we're willing to deliver it to their door. So the likelihood of them finding the exact item they need in their local area for cheaper is a lot less like, so that we're bringing that service to them.
And that's why they're willing to pay the money they're willing to pay. And they're still getting like a discount, like 50 percent off. So it's not like we're, we're not price gouging anybody or anything like it. We're still giving them a discount on the item. So.
Rob: And then one of the other biggest, opportunities or the biggest, pluses with Flipper University is our community.
You have access to a like minded community where you can get in there, ask questions. It's just amazing to be able to interact with like minded resellers who are really going after the same goals you're going after. And if you have problems, you can get into that community. It's a really encouraging group.
It's awesome. It feels like a family. It really does feel like a family that you build a low drama. Melissa and I are not drama people. We don't really stand for drama. It's just a really, really low drama group that people are in there really helping each other out and they want to see people succeed.
That is the biggest thing with the community.
Melissa: Helps everybody out. And I did want to add also that, if you're here, if you're listening to this, or watching this and you're like, I don't know if I'm quite ready for a freight shipping. We do have an option that doesn't include the freight shipping, so you can still make some really great profits on items that fit in large boxes.
We just boxed up for our boot camp the other, a couple, a week ago or two weeks ago, a cooktop that you listed for $1,700.
Rob: $1,750, and we paid $45 for it.
Melissa: Paid $45 for it. So, and that's in a box. So there's a lot of things you still can do in a box. So we do have that option as well. So you can go to, FlipperUniversity.com and go check it out and we would love to see you in our members group.
Rob: So we cannot oh, nope, go ahead.
Melissa: I almost forgot. We have the, we're doing a training on Wednesday for the first 25 people who jump in, we're going to do a sourcing training, for you guys. So on Wednesday.
Rob: Back by popular demand, people say they want to learn, and this is their biggest obstacle when you jump into high profit flipping. They want to learn how to find those items. So we are jumping in on a live call with the first 25 people who jump into Flipper University. Grab your seat now because they will go quick. But if you guys want to jump in there, we're going to jump on and do a live call with your zip code.
We're going to jump in, use your zip code, and we're going to source items in your area, might not be able to do everybody, but the first people who come in, those are the zip codes we're going to start with. So the first people who enroll. That's the first zip code we're going to take and vice versa, all the way down to 25, we're going to do as many as we possibly can on this live training.
And that is taking place on Wednesday, Wednesday.
Melissa: So we hope to see you there.
Rob: You guys rock. Have an amazing day. And we cannot wait to see you on the flip side.