Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how to make $1,000 this week by flipping if you are just starting out.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast – What I Would Do If I Needed $1000 This Week And Didn’t Have My Current eBay Business
Rob: What's up Pro Flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about what steps I would need to take if I needed to make a thousand dollars this week and I didn't have my current eBay business.
Rob: All right, so we are talking about what steps we would take to make a thousand dollars this week, and we didn't have our current business that we built up.
Melissa: So we don't have any experience when what we've done already. So we don't have any of the systems built out or anything. What would we do if we needed to make an extra thousand dollars? So we wanna kind of take you through those steps of things that we would do.
Rob: Absolutely. And one of the first things that I would do is I would go out and I would start looking for stuff that people had in the trash.
Melissa: There's so much stuff that people throw away. We find stuff all the time, and we're not even looking like we're just on our normal walks to our downtown area, or we're driving by somewhere and then come back and pick it up because you can't, it's hard to turn down $50, $100, $200. Yeah. It's sitting there in the trash.
Rob: Normal routine.
That is all we're doing. We're not dumpster diving. We're not actually seeking out this stuff, but if I had to go out and I had to make a thousand dollars this next week, that's the first place I would start. I would go and find those free items in my local area that I could take my car to, drive around, find those items, throw 'em in the back of the car, and, be able to get them so I could clean them up and get them either listed on eBay or even quicker listed on Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp.
Melissa: Yeah. And we know people make a living doing this, just finding stuff for free and then turning it quickly and selling it so. There is a lot of money to be made. And I would add too, you know, you're, we just did it on kind of our routine, but if you really need to make some extra, extra money, go find some of the areas.
Know that their, what their trash day is know, usually most cities, counties have a large item trash day and you can find that out and then go the night before. People throw stuff on the curb the night before and go around to different locations and see what you can find. So.
Rob: If you spent one day, one day, on the right day, make sure it's the right day where there's actually stuff out there.
You could easily come back with over a thousand dollars worth of stuff for free, just out of the trash. So, but we're not gonna stop there. So what else? I, I'm, I'm, I'm super motivated. How do I make this a thousand dollars this week? The next step I would do, I'd take out my smartphone and I would look on the apps.
I'd look on Facebook Marketplace, I'd look on OfferUp, I'd look on Craigslist, and the key search word I would do is, free. That is what I would start with. And I would try and find out anything on those apps that somebody was giving away for free that they curb pick up something like that, that they wanted somebody to come and take.
That is the next step that I would do. I would find those free items. And there are so many, I can't tell you how many free items, I mean, just yesterday we sold a Nordic track that I got off the app on our road trip last year. Yeah, Facebook. Exactly. Somebody posted it for free. I responded back and said I would come and pick it up.
When I got there, I tried to pay the guy. I said, here, let me give you some lunch money, buy you a sandwich or something like that. And the guy's like, no, no, you don't have to. I'm okay. You just take it. And, I took it, but we got it for free and sold it for $350.
Melissa: It didn't even have the monitor on it, right?
Rob: No, no monitor on this Nordic Track ski machine. So it just shows you the potential, the potential of being able to find free items on the app as well, that have high, some high value still in them, but for whatever reason, people are moving, getting rid of stuff, cleaning out their closet, cleaning out their garage.
They're getting rid of stuff and they don't want to sell it. They don't wanna deal with it. They just want somebody to come and pick it up and take it out of their life. And that's where you jump in and you can find some amazing deals.
Melissa: Yeah. I think people sometimes don't understand, well, why wouldn't they just sell it for $350?
Because people, you, you don't know their situation. A lot of times they just want it gone. They don't wanna deal with it. And if you will take the extra energy and time to list it and get it to the right market, then you can make some money. And that's where you get, that's how you make your money is because you're doing the little bit of legwork it takes.
And now we've gravitated towards these larger profit items. So we are spending a little bit less time in the nitty gritty, but, but it, you're doing the legwork, so you're connecting that item to the person who needs it.
Rob: So now you have an amazing resource or two resources, the trash, the apps.
You have a place to be able to get a couple of these items to be able to make a thousand dollars. What's the next step? The next step is cleaning them up. Sorry, didn't you?
Melissa: Yeah, I had a couple more ideas.
Rob: Go ahead. Let's do it.
Melissa: I was gonna piggyback off of the apps. There's other free apps that are just devoted to just free items like freecycle.com. I'm on there. There's a couple other ones too, but you just sign up in your area and then you get notified when things for free. It's the same thing. People just don't want 'em to go to the trash and they don't want, they want somebody to come get 'em, but they don't wanna deal with it.
So they just post it, hey, this is free if you can come pick it up today or whatever. So you just get notified of things in your area and if something good pops up, then you can just go grab it.
Rob: Awesome. Another place that you can find those free items. So now you have the free items coming in, how do you get rid of 'em?
And that's where you have to clean them up and get some pictures and then throw them on Facebook. Marketplace. You throw 'em on, offer up, you throw them on Craigslist, throw 'em on a couple different platforms to get them sold as quick as you possibly can. I would really strive because of what I know, my knowledge of what I know.
I would strive to get an eBay account and I would try and get stuff listed on eBay because I know I'll make more money on eBay, but you can make faster money. If you need the money quick, you can sell it faster, for less money on Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp. So, that's where I would start, but I would be striving towards getting back to an account on eBay so I could make more money on the items that I'm selling.
Melissa: Yeah, in the long run, that will definitely be a better platform for many items. So, but also cross-posting cuz you never know where things will sell. So we definitely like to cross post on all of the apps. One other thing you can do too is have a yard sale so you can collect all your free items and at the end of the week, have a yard sale.
And just sell that. Which is funny because a lot of the item, we just had a yard sale two weeks ago and half the stuff we sold was stuff that you got for free.
Rob: Absolutely. I picked it up on the side of the road. I picked it up wherever it was and I did that. So, this is such a great point that Melissa brings is once you have those items and you've tried to list them on OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace and if they haven't sold in the next five days, throw a yard sale on Friday and Saturday, whatever it is, throw a yard sale, put some of those items that you have.
If you have any items in your house that you're ready to get rid of, throw them out at that yard sale. Make sure you're publicizing that yard sale if you can. We didn't do that. We just put signs up when we do a yard sale. Yeah. Local signs around the area and that's how we bring in traffic and still get a ton of traffic that way.
But if you can post it on Facebook, Marketplace, post it on OfferUp, and I'm sure there's some apps too that talk about yard sales, isn't there?
Melissa: Yeah, they, yeah, they have GSaler. I don't know if there's new ones that, I haven't used them lately, but just posting it on marketplace in your local area, yard sale, groups works really well usually. So, but some of the apps couldn't work too, so. Absolutely. To get a posted, you used to have to pre do it in the classified, be like, okay, it has to be in by the Wednesday classified. Yep. Like by Wednesday it won't make it to the Friday or whatever.
Yeah, I remember. Yeah. We had to do that.
Rob: Yep. And now you don't have to, you just go throw up signs or throw 'em in an app immediately and get the exposure. So yeah.
Melissa: And we made a thousand dollars on our yard sale.
Rob: We did.
Melissa: So, which is another point that, we also, while we put out everything, at the yard sale, sometimes we take pictures and throw it on marketplace during the day.
So we're like, hey, we're outta yard sale here, it's available. And we list it. So we actually ended up selling something right after the yard sale was over for $200. Yeah. So we put that in there with the yard sale stuff.
Rob: Yeah. $250, 250 bucks. Solar generator that, we put on there. So, I will note was a free generator.
I got it for free from a friend and yeah, we sold that after the yard sale, but we listed it during the yard sale and somebody came the next day and picked it up. So one of those things, guys, you cannot discount free stuff. So if you learn anything from this episode, you guys, go and find some free stuff.
If you're in need of making money quickly, this is the way to do it.
Melissa: You can also put in some wanted ads too for free stuff. If you can do it on, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist, you can just say, you know, free looking for, especially if you have a specialty or a hobby or a, some items that you know a little bit better.
And you could say, hey, you know, I'm looking for this kind of stuff. Or I'm, I put in an ad like, have extra stuff that you want removed? You know, you, and you can sift through that stuff. That would be how you have to get paid for it. But you can sift through and find the good stuff and then sell it. So.
Rob: Such a great point.
Back in the day, that is how I found, I did hot tubs. I used to flip hot tubs and I loved it because people would have hot tubs, they'd buy a house, they'd have a hot tub, on the back porch, and they didn't want it for whatever reason. The water got stagnant or whatever, and they're like, I just wanna get rid of it.
If you put an ad in for stuff like this, I did jet skis as well. I absolutely love jet skis. I love boats. I love that kind of stuff. I put ads in there, hey, free removal. I'll come and pick up whatever you got, hot tubs, oh, I did separate ads for jet skis for hot tubs, but anything you can think of that, you know, people might be getting rid of or you can pay a, a small price to go and pick it up. You can do that, put those into the wanted ads and be able to have people contact you, to be able to get stuff. And those hot tub hot tubs, when I did it back in the day, sold for good. They did. I used to make good money depending on what hot tub I would get if I got a newer hot tub.
Yeah, I could sell them, clean them up, get some pictures, and I could get 'em sold for well over a thousand dollars on one flip that I possibly got for free.
Melissa: You sell 'em locally too, wouldn't you?
Rob: Locally. Absolutely. That's where you sell 'em and OfferUp you sell 'em in marketplace, in Craigslist. You list in all three of those.
Melissa: Why don't we have a hot tub?
Rob: We do, but it's in storage. It's back in one of my storage lockers. So.
Melissa: Up and running. And you also used to do, signs, road signs too. Yes. That was another way. I don't, I mean, people still do that. So I, I'll see signs like, looking for appliances or whatever. Wanted, yeah, wanted appliances.
Rob: Used appliances, broke appliances, whatever it is.
You can put signs out, yard signs or street signs, not street signs. What do you call 'em? They're corrugated signs. We actually bought the, yeah signs.
Melissa: You see them for rent or we'll buy your house or.
Rob: Exactly. All that stuff. You can do that too, to be able to get stuff.
Melissa: So just another avenue.
Rob: Hopefully we've, we've got the wheels churning in your mind. You got some good ideas of if you de if you need to make a thousand dollars, the quickest possible way to do it. Hopefully we've given you guys some amazing tips in this process. This is stuff that we do guys, that we're not just throwing out thoughts that, hey, this might work.
It works. We've done it. We do it week in and week out. Like I said, we don't specifically go out and dumpster dive and look through the trash, but on our normal routines we see stuff, we pick it up, we turn around and we resell it. And, and that's just something you can do to be able to make money.
Melissa: Yeah. We know a lot of people are, you know, things are a little bit tighter with all the crazy inflation and all the money stuff, so if you are finding like you could use some extra money, like you could go find it, you could go find it for free and not have to invest anything. So Absolutely. Hopefully that gives you some encouragement and some motivation that you can do it. So.
Rob: So what if I wanna learn more? Where do I go if I wanna learn more?
Melissa: Freeflippingcourse.com. We have a five day intro course just going over kind of the five mistakes that resellers make that can cost them money. So we'd love to help you not make those mistakes.
Rob: So, yep, a free resource for you guys.
Go check it out. Cannot wait to see you guys later. We'll see you on the next episode.