Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about the importance of high profit flipping in your reselling business.
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The Importance Of High Profit Flipping In Your Business
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers! On today's episode, we are talking about the importance of high profit flipping in your business.
Rob: All right, guys, on today's episode, we are talking about high profit flipping, but not only high profit flipping, but why is it so important to have these types of flips in your business?
Melissa: Yeah. So we had something that happened just recently. So we wanted to dive into that and why because we had so much profit in the item, why that was helpful. Obviously it's helpful to have more profit in your item, but
Rob: It's not as stressful if something goes wrong.
Melissa: Right, and so we had something go wrong, which is getting fixed, but in the meantime, we're not stressed.
Yeah, strapped because we still had enough profit in the item, so.
Rob: So what we're talking about is one of our last, freight shipments that we did. And it actually got shipped. It was delivered and everything was okay. The problem is the freight company came back and said it weighed more than we said it weighed, and they charged us an extra $324 for the shipment. Now, right now, if you don't know, we've dealt with a freight company for years. That company actually went out of business. They went bankrupt and we're testing new freight companies. This company is the first time we've ever shipped with them. And the issue is, we had the proper weight, on the tracking or the BOL, the documents.
We had the proper weight on it, but then when it got into the freight carrier, they actually said it weighed a lot more. So they came back and recharged us. We just found this out yesterday. So I got on the phone and I told them this is, it was two weeks later that they charged you. Yes, two weeks after the whole thing happened.
So I paid the original amount. Which was $231 to ship this. I came, they came back, two weeks after the whole, package was delivered, actually the whole process. So after I created a label, two weeks later, they came back and said, okay, here, you're getting an overage charge of $324. Now, the total price for this item, we paid $42 for it, we sold it for $1,750.
And we had over $1,000 in profit after the whole thing was said and done, after eBay fees, after shipping and all that kind of stuff, so another $320 is not the end of the world for us. We're still roughly $700 in profit, which is still a great flip, $700 on a single item, an amazing flip.
But guess what? This was falsely done. And this was a learning process for this carrier that we're using. And I called them yesterday, got everything submitted to them to get it taken back in the refund back on it. And it was a lesson learned for me on, okay, this carrier is trying to do, some, some crooked stuff on the back end.
But you have to be there and you got to look at that kind of stuff and then you just have to, it's going to take me a little bit more legwork to get the, the refund on it. But it is a lot less stress. It's a lot less strain on Melissa and I because we know the money is there and it's not going to hurt us even if we weren't going to, we weren't able to get it back.
Still $700 profit is a big profit, but I'm going to get it back in this case. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I'll be able to get it back. It's not a huge ordeal I'll be able to do it. I just had to show them exactly the weight of the item which I already knew that, but I just have to show them that and then they'll refund us the money.
So all that going into it is when you're doing high profit flips and this is, if this was a $50 item and then I shipped it out and it paid, you know, $10 or $15 on the, on the shipping and then it came back and they charged us an extra $30 by saying it was an oversized box or you know what I mean, it's a lot more stressful to be in that situation, than be in the situation where we're in, where I already know the profit.
Even if I couldn't get the money back, the profit is still here. We still made a really, really good money on this flip.
Melissa: So I think there's two big things that come out of this. So the first one is making sure you're buying your items at the right price because this one was bundled $42 is a weird number, this one was bundled with five other things that we've bought on the road trip. So I think you what was the total like five or six things you bundled together ended up being a couple hundred bucks Yeah, $42 per item is what we just averaged.
So, so $42 I know is a random number, but it's buying stuff at the right price and not getting too attached to it at a higher price. And like, you know, okay, I'm buying it for $200. I can make $400 on it. That's not really what we're going for. So we're going for 10X because that gives you the wiggle room to have enough profit.
Rob: So I don't know if you want to tell. Absolutely. And that's what our goal is. Is 10Xing what we're investing in. If we're paying $50, I want to make at least $500 to a thousand dollars. I want to make at least 10X what we're doing. And a lot of times it's way over 10X you $42 to $1,750. Come on, that's insane.
So that's what our goal is.
Melissa: But the second part to that, that's very important to this is you have to watch your numbers. Like you have to watch your accounts because. These companies are doing this more. It's not just this company. Like it is UPS. It is FedEx. It is eBay. It is all all these companies like we've dealt with them over the years.
We've been you've been doing this for 20 some years, like you and you know, we've dealt with them for a lot and it's not a huge portion of the business, but you still have to keep track. Like, you don't want to go, if we wouldn't have checked our credit card that we used, like, we wouldn't have, might not have seen that.
And that's a huge chunk of change, $300. Like, that is huge. So, you know, definitely watch. And even if it's a smaller amount or whatever like sometimes UPS or FedEx will come back because the way that they they calculated the label, they're saying, you know, it was heavier here or whatever. So you have to kind of watch that because you don't want it a lot of times they just these companies just think that you're there you're gonna roll over and they're gonna go back and forth like we had that issue with ebay and ups talking back and forth and you must have been on the phone like so much.
And it's like, that's, it's not worth your time for the $80. It actually was a hundred and some dollars because they charge you two labels. So he had to go back and forth and it's like. You spent a lot of hours for that label, but at the same time, it's principal, so you're gonna do it.
Rob: And I will add, after all the time that I did spend, even this is a different situation with eBay and UPS, something going back and forth with them about a,
Melissa: they kept blaming each other, and they just want you to roll over, and it's annoying.
Rob: A return label that we had that was not our fault, that UPS, it was their error on it. Getting the money back, it was a little bit. It was a little bit more difficult than I originally thought. But I will say after many calls to eBay, many calls to UPS, I have everything in the paperwork I mean everything in the the works to get the refund for the $160 of the label that it cost me to do it. At the same time eBay stepped it up and they went over and above and they helped me out. It took four phone calls. It did but they immediately helped me get money back into my account, that they could do.
And they refunded. Yeah. And I don't want to go into too many details because I don't know on what end of it that I, I'm not supposed to be sharing, but eBay really took care of me. And I will say it took me quite a few phone calls to get there and very, a lot of frustration, but the representative that I got in the leadership team really took care of me.
And I appreciate that about a company, but it took me so long to get to that point. And that's another lesson in this is don't roll over. Like Melissa said, don't roll over when something happens and you know it's not right. And you know, all they're trying to do is wait you out to where you're going to forget about it or go away.
Don't do that. Don't let them do that. And for us, it was $160 from eBay and UPS. And this is a whole other issue other than the freight stuff. But they were, I mean, I feel like these larger companies will expect you to roll over. Don't do it. Sit there and stick to your guns. Make sure that you are going that extra mile, to do what's right.
And that's the biggest thing is I'm not trying to do anything wrong. None of this stuff is my fault at all. I'm not doing anything with the freight portion of it and had any issues with the freight. It's the company's issue. And the same thing with UPS. I wouldn't have the issue had UPS delivered the package that they were supposed to instead of lying and saying that the buyer refused it.
So. And I'm not turning this into a negative, episode, but at the same time, just stick up for yourself. Yeah, exactly. Stick up for yourself, stick to your guns, make sure that you are, going that extra mile because that's what they're banking on is you rolling over and forgetting about it, and then they're gonna keep the money, and they don't need the money as much as you need the money.
And that's where you just have to do it. So that's our encouragement.
Melissa: I will add one other benefit to having like high profit flips and like the way we do our business is lower volume. So it's a lot easier to watch your books. So with the volume and especially the volume, if you lose a dollar, $2, it's not the end of the world. But it's a lot easier to keep track of smaller amounts of sales in your book.
Rob: When you have three sales in the last month, that's a lot easier to keep track of it.
Melissa: So that's just one other benefit is you have less, there's less that, I don't want to say it can go wrong, but less that you have to keep track of so that you can, you know, keep track if something does happen.
And this doesn't happen every day, but when it does, you know, so, stick to your guns and make sure that these big companies don't win because it's not like the, yeah, this, the small business owner. So yeah, so that is the benefits of having some high profit flips in your business. And make sure that you're watching those accounts so that you can catch any of those transactions.
Rob: Absolutely. You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we'll see you on the next episode.