Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper share how one purchase made them $25,000 in their reselling business.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast - This One Purchase Made Us Over $25K In Profit
Rob: What's up flipping fam? We are excited about today's podcast episode that we are talking about that one purchase that made us over $25,000 in profit.
Melissa: So I remember this purchase very well because it is one that you did when I was just about to have our second daughter.
And actually you went back to pick them up when I was in the hospital, I already had had the baby, so we already had the baby, we were all resting. We were good. But then you're like, I gotta go get these or they're going to be gone. So I remember that very vividly. It was almost exactly eight years ago to the day her birthday is next week.
Rob: So you guys might be asking, what in the heck is this that made you guys over $25,000 in profit, I will add, on one of our purchases. And what was so important for me to have to leave the hospital and get this one purchase that we made. So the caveat is it was one purchase, but it was also 60 sleep number, king size mattresses, that we actually purchased.
So before the baby was born, before Melissa was in the hospital, I actually found a listing on Craigslist for a sleep number mattress. We love sleep number mattresses. The cool thing about them, especially back when we did this flip, they come all the way apart and you can get them into a box and you can ship them, which is really, really cool.
That is why I found one on Craigslist. I went to look at this mattress and not knowing what I was getting into, went to it. The address that the seller gave me, I went to that address. I showed up at a hotel, so I didn't even know it was at a hotel until I got there. Well, when I get there, I found the owner of the hotel.
The guy told me his name, asked for him. He came up to the front and said, okay, let's go. You can look at this, these mattresses. And I was like, these mattresses. Okay, what's going on. He took me to one of the ballrooms in the hotel, one of the big conference rooms, whatever it was. And he had eight of them stacked up against the wall.
These mattresses, not anything spectacular to look at, had stains on them. And he's like, you can pick whichever one, you want $200. You take it all king size, huge mattresses. These are not small mattresses. So I picked the best one that I thought that I could get. Sleep numbers too, like the stains on them wasn't a big deal. I knew I could wash them, clean them, make them like brand new. So, I picked the best one that I thought was the best one by far. I grabbed it, took it apart, shoved it into my SUV at the time, and started driving back home. And when I did that, I thought, you know what, maybe I should ask him if he'd do a better deal if I bought all that he had. So I called him back and said, hey, what kind of deal would you do me if I bought the rest of those mattresses that you have, and he goes, give me one minute, I'll call you right back. So he calls me back in a minute and says, okay, I have 60 of these mattresses king-sized mattresses.
Then I was like, oh my goodness. I thought it was only going to be like seven or eight mattresses. I didn't think it was going to be that much. All that he showed me in the room where those eight, that was all that he showed me at the time. And he says, I have 60 king-sized mattresses. If you will take them all, I will do them, I think he told me like $80 a mattress. I said, well, how about $60 a mattress? And he said, absolutely, sold. So I negotiated that deal on 60 mattresses for $60. So he paid $3,600 bucks for them all. The cool thing was he wasn't totally redoing all the rooms at one time. So we had them spread apart by a couple, I think it was a month at a time. Exactly. 20 mattresses on the first trip. 20 mattresses on the second trip, 20 mattresses on the third trip. So he split them up for me to do that, which was awesome. And when Melissa, when we had our second child, Melissa was in the hospital, that was one of those trips that I had to go pay the guy.
Melissa: That was the first trip.
Rob: Was it?
Melissa: I believe so.
Rob: So the first big trip.
Melissa: I think we went to go look at, I was with you and then I was in the hospital when you did the next one.
Rob: So I had to go leave the hospital after the baby was born, she was healthy, no issues, no complications. I was just sitting there twiddling my thumbs in the hospital room.
Melissa: Waiting to go pick those up.
Rob: Exactly.
So that's when I left and I took a trailer, we went and picked up the first load of mattresses that we got and that is how we made over $25,000. And this was through a process of probably two years. I got them into a storage unit. We cleaned them. It took a little while to clean them and that kind of stuff.
But through the process of this one purchase of these 60 mattresses, we were able to make over $25,000.
Melissa: We had a good system down. I mean, we would take them to the laundromat, that's the cool thing about sleep numbers. We took them to the commercial, like the laundromat has commercial machines, big washing machines.
So we would take them there. You didn't throw them in the dryer, right? Because then they would shrink, right?
Rob: Yeah.
Melissa: So just the washer. So we put up a clothesline in the backyard and then at one point we had a clothes line in our office with one of those things blowers to dry them and then we'd sell them.
So, and then we sold a lot for the whole mattresses.
Rob: So the whole mattress we would sell, and then we figured out that it was worth way. Almost double the money. The mattresses were worth almost double if we parted them out, the chambers, the foam, the covers. So we started parting them out and that's where we, we probably, if we had done that from the beginning, we probably would've made at least $40,000 or $50,000 on the whole lot of mattresses.
But you live and you learn. Everything was a learning process for us. And, yeah, it was a really cool, flip that we're able to do it, but that brings us to one of our points of this podcast. And this is definitely a huge portion of this. If I had not asked this guy, if I could buy more of the mattresses, I would've had to pay $200 a piece for those. When I actually bundled all that he had, and I was this out for him that he didn't have to keep looking or listing stuff on Craigslist, having people 60 of them, exactly. Having people come and pick them up and he could do it in one shot. It was worth more to him to do that with me.
So that's why he took a lot of money off of the price of the mattress. And I was able to, instead of spending what 60 times, $200, $12,000. Instead of spending $12,000, we spent $3,600, almost saved $10,000 on that deal. So, and I think of how many times at the flea market I go and I find a vendor that has something that I want before I negotiate on that price of that item.
I'm looking around at other stuff that the vendor has and seeing if there's anything else that I can lump together and get one group rate for it. One package deal on the items that I want instead of just trying to buy that one and get a better deal on it when I'm putting other stuff with it.
Melissa: And they will give you a lot better deal if you're bundling stuff together.
So that is definitely a way to save money on inventory. I was trying to think of another time that we, bought a lot of, and I remember the Christmas lights. You only bought a couple in the beginning.
Right?
Rob: Absolutely, I started out with 100.
Melissa: Back when those, what are they? The star showers lights came out like it was the first year they came out.
Nobody had them yet. It was like the very first year. And then, somebody at the flea market had a return pallet, I think. Right? Yeah. So we ended up buying, you bought a couple and then you ended up going, I think you bought a hundred.
Rob: Well, that was like the fourth or fifth time back. But yeah, we started out with 10 from the vendor at the flea market.
Melissa: And we listed them and they sold like
Rob: hotcakes.
Melissa: Yeah. Like right away.
Rob: Yeah, we did that and I was able to get a better deal. I think we were only spending, I think I got it down to probably do you remember it was like $5 a box?
Melissa: $6 or $8, I think.
Rob: Something insane that we got them from this vendor.
Melissa: It was getting closer and closer to Christmas too.
Rob: The more that I bought, the better deal they would give me.
And we started off with 10. I bought 10 just wondering if I could do it if I could flip them. Cause they were Christmas lights and we were close to Christmas. But we ended up making almost like three, it was $3,500 in a matter of like three days, was it. Crazy crazy deal. But I bought 10 at first.
We sold them out really quick, sold them all that day. Went back to that vendor and then I think it went up to like 25, I bought 25. We sold those fairly quick. Yeah. I think it was the process of a week. I went in a couple of times and bought in the last lot that we bought, we bought a hundred of these star shower lights.
Melissa: We were testing them, because you know, with return. Some people just return it for no reason. And then some people, they don't work. So we had to go through and not a lot of them didn't work. There was a couple of, there were a couple, so we had to make sure, you know, to get those out. We weren't selling those, but we tested each one.
We're going through each one. It was a lot of work, but a $3,000 bonus at Christmas time was very, very helpful for us.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: And we, I even remember going through, like once we were close to Christmas, like two or three days before Christmas, we could only sell them locally then because eBay, we couldn't get them to them fast.
So it was a week over a week. But, those, so we just started selling locally and they were selling on Facebook, like crazy. Cause you couldn't even get them in the store. They were just sold out everywhere. So and people just wanted them, cause it's easy, you plug it in and there's lights on your house.
Rob: So that's it, it was really, really cool.
The first year they came out, so they sold out, they weren't prepared for it. And we were able to capitalize on that by one of the vendors who bought returned stuff. But it's the same thing. We started buying I bought 10 the first time, got her way down on the price of what she was asking for it. I think she probably was asking $15 and $15 a piece.
And then we got her down when we bought 10 of them. She came way down on the price. And then when we ended up buying a hundred, I think that's where I got them down to like $4, for buying a hundred of them at a time. And yeah, we made really, really good money on that, but it's a great, great lesson.
Look for those items that you are buying, even if it's at a thrift store, you find a couple items that you want, that are worth some money. You can take those up to the manager or up to the cashier and say, hey, listen, I want a couple of these items. Can you guys do any better? If I buy all these items and a lot of times they will. They'll give you a discount or they'll knock down a couple of dollars off of each item.
So you can definitely bundle stuff together. And try that out. I'm telling you that will make a huge difference when you're out there reselling stuff.
Melissa: And sometimes if you go, like you go with the apps like you did for the sleep number or whatnot, if you go and you realize that this person has a lot of stuff for sale, like you can ask them, what else do you have?
And so, and you can sometimes look and see too what else they have for sale. Right? So on the app too, cause you never know, like it might be somebody who does this and are maybe they're they're like they also sell at the flea market or sell other places and they find stuff all the time. So, you know, you never know when we can bundle stuff together and that saves you money over time. It can save you a lot of money.
Rob: Absolutely.
All right, you guys rock have a great day and we will see you on the next episode.