Rob and Melissa Stephenson, of Flea Market Flipper, talk about two items they found at the flea market that should make $1,500.
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Two Items We Found At The Flea Market That Will Make Us $1,500
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode we're talking about what we found at the flea market last weekend that's going to make us $1,500. All right, on today's episode, we're talking about what we found at the flea market. Two items last weekend that we're going to sell for $1,500.
Melissa: Now we haven't, we used to go to the flea market almost every single weekend.
It's kind of how we got our name, you know, cause that's where you were at every day, every weekend you were there religiously Saturday and sometimes Sunday too. But we haven't gone as much cause we don't really need a ton of inventory right now. We still have some to list, but we were going to look for stuff for our, for, for, what were we looking for?
Rob: Upcoming trip that we're taking.
Melissa: Oh, yeah, some snorkel stuff and some, some snorkeling gear. So we were just like, let's go check it out and see what they have. There's something else we were looking for. Oh, a freezer. Yep. So we're like, let's go check out the flea market, see what they got. And of course, when you're there, if there's a good deal, you can't pass up on it.
So what did we find?
Rob: We snagged two things. So two things. One of them actually wasn't at the flea market. One of them was at the flea market, but we picked it up on our way back to the house after the flea market. So the first thing is a panini press, not really looking for this, but, and
Melissa: I spotted this one. I'm going to take credit for that one.
Rob: Melissa found it and I would have walked right past it. I did see it, but I didn't think the return on it was as high as it actually was.
Melissa: It looked commercial to me.
Rob: It did, but I've seen these where they're not super expensive. So it's a panini press, made by Star.
Yeah. Made by star. And when we looked at it, the guy had a big $50 price tag on it. So I stopped and looked at it, asked him if it worked. He said, yes. And that was pretty much it. I walked away. I remembered that it was Star and it was a Pro Max. I believe it was Pro Max. Yeah, Pro Max was the model number.
So I walked away and as I'm looking it up, it was pretty expensive. The new ones were up to $3,000 to $5,000. And then the used ones were going for, I believe roughly a $1,000 to $1,200 or $1,500. So I was like, wow, that's a little bit more than I was expecting. I was expecting to be selling for like $300. Cause I've seen these that don't sell for super, super high price, but it was selling for a lot more.
So we had some comps at $1,000, $1,200, $1,500 in that range. And I was like, all right, well, let's go back and I'll offer him a little bit less, see what he does. And we did, and we got it for $45.
Melissa: For 45 bucks. And tell me a little bit about your thoughts on negotiating at the flea market. So like what are, cause you could have just gone off and paid him $50, which he would have been fine too. But you said there was kind of a mental, you know, thing with negotiating.
Rob: Yeah. For all of our negotiating we do it just because I feel like, people who list stuff, they list a little bit higher expecting to be negotiated with.
Melissa: Well, at the flea market too, you pretty much know that it's gonna be always a negotiation.
Rob: Yeah, always. And that's what they're expecting. So I actually offer the guy $40 for this. I probably would have paid $50 for it. But at the same time I offered him $40. He said, well, you split the difference and go $45. And I said, yes, I can do that. So that's what we did. The other thing was I was taking a chance on this as well.
So I didn't plug this in. He told me out of his mouth that there's nothing wrong with it. I tested it. It heats up the bottom and top both heat up. There's nothing wrong with it. So i'm taking a chance on that at $45 that I got something that is absolutely working. So, that is sometime in a risk in our book to be able to do that, pay $45, but I would much rather if I was spending like $300 for this to make a $1,000 or $1,200, I would really, and I wouldn't pay that much anyways to invest it. If I was paying $300 for it, I would definitely try to get $2,500, $3,000 for it. But in this case, like I said, $50 for it, $45 for it. It's okay, I was taking a risk, and I knew if it didn't work, I could either try to go back the following weekend and tell the guy that it didn't work, or, I was just gonna eat the $45, and I was okay.
Melissa: You could always sell it for parts, too, and I would still be, you'd still make your money.
Rob: Absolutely. For something that is a $3,000 to $5,000 price tag on new, yes, you're 100 percent right. It was in really good condition too. That's what caught our attention, first off. That we could sell some parts off of it, that we probably could easily make our money back on it to make the $45 and not lose anything.
But, for me, for negotiation, I always try to negotiate a little bit. If they will not negotiate, and it's a no brainer for me, like, this was $50 and I knew I could make $500 on it, make my 10X on it. I would pay the $50 for it if they weren't willing to negotiate. But, if it was something I was going to make $350 on and it was $50 and they wouldn't negotiate, I might walk away from it because it didn't 10 X what I was trying to do.
So, I pretty much always negotiate, but sometimes I'll pay the asking price. If it's a good deal, I still try to see if I can negotiate with them.
Melissa: Yeah. I think there's something also about getting comfortable with that too. I feel like to know that it's okay if, if the buyer and the seller don't meet, you don't meet at the price, because we have to get stuff at a certain price in order for it to be worth our time, worth our investment in, you know, shipping and all this stuff. So we have to know what our bottom line is, and if it doesn't meet up, that's okay, like it doesn't, it's not, not any difference for the seller or us, we just don't proceed with the transaction, and I, and that's fine. But I think you have to know that it's okay to walk away, because that's one thing that I have a hard time with. If I, if you offer some, you're talking to somebody and they want you to buy their item, and then they maybe throw you an offer, or you, but it's still too high for you, and you're like, I don't know, I can't do, it's hard for me to walk away.
So you kind of, you get, you, you know, unattach yourself pretty well though. You're like, okay, I'll be, I just got to the flea market. Let me look around and I'll be back. That's kind of one of your lines that you say. So, cause I always feel bad walking away like, oh no, I'm, I'm good. Thank you. It's kind of, it can be kind of awkward, but I think the more you practice it, right?
Rob: Well, absolutely. You get more comfortable with interactions with sellers when you're trying to negotiate and you can really read sellers as well. So I'll give you another instance. So something else that we bought at the flea market, if I was going to sell it, we'd probably make $4,000 on it. So I bought this,
Melissa: why aren't we selling it?
Rob: the same day. It is actually a three phase converter. So my shop, where I have stuff, we buy, occasionally we buy three phase stuff, commercial equipment, that is three phase. Three phase is three legs of power. For any normal residential house, most places have it's a single phase, which is two legs of power.
It has to be like an industrial building that actually has that third phase. Well, I've wanted one of these for a long time, And one of the normal vendors that I deal with had one of these this last weekend. So it was a three phase converter. So it's a 40 horsepower motor, that has some capacitors inside of it.
It's all made professionally made. So you hook it up to 220, which is the single phase. You hit a button and those capacitors jump in and make it into three phase. So I can test and run heavy heavy equipment and stuff that I typically buy for a really really good deal because it's three phase. So now I'll be able to put this in my shop and test it. So the vendor on this one wanted $800 when I walked up to him now I went on Saturday and I knew he wanted $800.
I probably could have offered him a little bit less The thing is he still had all day Sunday. This vendor stays until Sunday. He's one of the last vendors there. He always got a lot of stuff. Stayed till he'll stay and try and sell it on Sunday. So I didn't offer him anything on Saturday. I did the price check on it. He wanted $800 for it, and it was retail at $5,000-$6,000 for this unit.
He got it from a storage unit, I'm sure he already made his money back on the storage unit, he, but he wanted $800 for it, so I went back at the end of the day on Sunday. We went to church on Sunday morning, I got out of church, we ate, we didn't back, and I went back, I think it was about 12:30, 1:00, when they started packing up, and I went back, I looked in the back of his, his, this thing's super heavy.
It probably weighs, he didn't take it outta the truck. No, I prob that's why he didn't take it outta the truck. I assume this thing weighs probably 600-800 pounds. It's a huge motor. But he didn't take it outta the truck. I got back there. It was still in there. I was excited. I wanted it for $400. I was gonna try to get him on half of the price on it because again, I'm taking a risk on this.
I know this vendor pretty well and I probably could work something with them if it didn't work, but I'm still taking a risk. So when I came back I said, hey, I see you still have that. What's the best deal you'll do? And he told me $650. And I said, would you do $500 cash and I can pay you right now, $500 cash?
And he said he looked at his son and he said, yeah, let's do it. So he was selling it quickly. Now if I turn around and sold it, retail five, $6,000, I probably could get about $4,000 for this. But I don't wanna sell it. I wanna keep this for the shop I need this. This is a very, very great tool for me to have in the business that we're in because I can test three phase stuff. And it's very easy to do with this machine.
So, but that gives you an idea of negotiation with this as well. He was asking $800. He told me the lowest that he would go was $650 and then I offered him $500 cash And I had the cash in my pocket to do that and he actually took it. So, just another negotiation.
Melissa: One funny thing, too, about that is we do get a question sometimes, like, well, what if your sellers, like, find out what you're selling it for? Why didn't they sell it for that much money? Like, you know, so say that is worth $4,000 on eBay. Why isn't he selling it on eBay for that much? And it's funny, cause he, you said that his son's like, oh, I watch your videos all the time.
So he sees what we're selling it for. But there's still, you know, that's not their business model to go sell on eBay. Their business model is a quick flip. They buy storage lockers, bring it to the flea market and liquidate as fast as possible. And it's just not, it's a different business model. So they're doing the same thing we are.
We're just doing it at different parts of the chain, I guess you could say.
Rob: His son actually pulled it out and showed it to me what it was retail. He says, here's the model number. Cause I couldn't find the model number on it because I had it up against the truck. He goes, I took the picture of the model number.
It's right here. Here it is. It's like he had it for sale for $5,500, something like that. Or that's what the manufacturer was selling it for, for like $5,500, somewhere in that range. I don't remember what it was. So he knew exactly what it was worth. He didn't go on eBay and show me what it was selling for on eBay.
But he showed me the manufacturer. So he knew what it was. And I told him, listen, I'm not selling this just so you guys know. Because he knows a lot of stuff that we do buy, we sell. He knows that. He sees some of our, our reels and some of our TikToks that we actually do, showing the stuff that we're buying and selling but he he was telling me how much it was worth. And to me it was worth $500 because I'm going to use it in my shop. We'll be able to use it multiple times. And then if I ever do want to sell it someday, it still is not going to lose its value. I'll still be able to make $3,500, $4,000 on this unit because it is it will be worth it even however long I keep it and use it for. But I'll never sell it anyways because it's a very, very useful tool.
Melissa: That's another great, fun thing about this business is you get to find stuff for yourself for super cheap because you're out looking for stuff and you never know what you're going to come across. Somebody just said in the group, cause I posted something about appliances. I can't remember what I posted, but I posted something and she said, I'm actually going out to pick out, pick up a set right now.
But they're for me because I need a new, I think it was washer and dryer. I'm not selling them or whatever it was. So cool. So, but yeah, you can get a great deal because you're already looking for all those deals. So, yep.
Rob: Anyway, so we got to get back to what we bought to make us $1,500. The panini press was the first one paid $45 for it.
We should be able to get about $1,200, $1,300, somewhere in that range with it. And that's probably excluding what we'll charge for shipping on top of it. It won't be super expensive to ship. It's actually right behind us, but I'll be able to ship it in a box. So that one's not going to go on a pallet.
And then the other thing that we found, and I found it in the morning, which this one got me a little bit, so I found it in the morning on Facebook Marketplace. I was planning on doing it, because it's something cool that I thought our kids could be able to flip. And it's an Otis
Melissa: You're trying to get the kids to do a couple, making some more money.
Rob: Yeah.So it's an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie oven. A countertop oven, that sits on a countertop, and you plug it in, it's got like a convection fan in it. And it heats it up and it, it cooks cookies. So, Melissa, you said you used to cook them out of this.
Melissa: Yeah, when I was a vet tech, we used to go and that was one of our things we had to do was put the cookies in for, like, before people came and you could smell them making.
You just put the stuff in and it all cooks the same, so you have the instructions and it cooks the same.
Rob: So the reason why this one got me is because I jumped onto eBay and like I always do I put the name in it and I put the model number and right away something popped up for $1,300 that had sold. And I looked and I think there's another one for $600, $700 somewhere in that range And I was like shoot.
This is a great deal. They're asking $60 for it or $59 I offered them $50 for it. And she said that she would go $55 on it, which is perfectly okay. I said, I would do it. Then when I got it, I started looking and there was lots of them that were listed for a $100, $200, $300.
So they're selling for a lot less money as well, but I went and looked at the completed listings and saw one had sold for $1,300. I have no idea, same model and everything, why it sold for that much money. So. But I'm expecting probably to get about $300 for this, which brings our grand total up to roughly $1,500 for these two items, which is still a good deal. I probably if I would have done a little bit more research I wouldn't have pushed and wouldn't have bought this one because I was thinking I was gonna get about a thousand dollars for it. So. But it's okay.
It's still we'll make money on it.
Melissa: I'll make the kids clean it.
Rob: Absolutely, and we'll make some cookies with it and a lot of people inside of our group have flipped these Otis Spunkmeyer ovens. So I wanted to grab one myself as well. I'll be the,
Melissa: first one we flipped.
Rob: Exactly and I'll able to talk a little bit more about the box that it requires to ship in and weight wise and it will help our community out as well. For people who haven't done it, yet I'll be able to have the experience on flipping it, knowing what it can sell for in the box, shipping it out, helping other people do that as well. So that's really really cool as well. But those are the two items that we snagged and that one bonus that we got that was really really a killer killer deal, but we won't sell it.
We'll actually keep that.
Melissa: Yep, so let us know if you went treasure hunting this weekend, hit us up whatever platform that you like to connect on where you, instagram is a big one that we like to connect with people on, but yeah, or comment below this video and let us know what you found this weekend, what treasures were out there and thanks so much for spending time with us.
Rob: You guys are awesome. Have a great day. We'll catch you on the next episode.