Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about what they sold last month to make $8,250 in sales.
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What We Sold Last Month To Make $8,250 In Just 3 Sales
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers? On today's episode we are talking about what we sold last month and guess what it is over $8,000 in sales.
Melissa: And we're gonna dive into all the eBay costs, shipping costs, and of course the profits.
Rob: What's up, guys, so on today's episode we are talking about what we sold last month. The best part is it's only three items and over $8,000 in sales.
Melissa: So if you are new around here, our business model is higher profit items, lower volume because we like to sell. spend less time in our business. And so we've kind of graduated over the years to this business model and it works for us because it does save time in the long run. So some of this stuff does take a little longer to ship out, but when you're thinking about one item to make $3,000, like it definitely makes sense.
So that's why we choose this business model because you really, you, we spend a lot more time in the coaching side of our business than we do and the content creation side of our business than we do in the flipping part of it. You, how many hours do you think you put in right now? It could be more. We want to be doing more, but.
Rob: I would venture to say, I mean, when we got these three sales last month, I only listed, I think like seven items the whole month and they were only like $15, $10 and $ 15 belts that I bought a whole lot of them just so I could do like a consistent listing program.
Yeah. That was my goal. And I got to, I don't even know, five or six of them and then we started having sales come in. So, yeah, these are some higher profit items and we're going to break down here exactly what we spent on them, how much we had to pay eBay for eBay fees and what we paid on shipping.
So you guys know exactly, and we don't do this to brag. We, we, we love people to, first of all, we love to be transparent. When you see somebody making $8,000 on three sales. And if there's profit, exactly. If they're spending $7,000 and $7,500 to make $8,000, that's not cool. And we want to be transparent with you guys, kind of what our business model is and how we do what we do.
So that's why we try to do these type of episodes and these type of videos, that we can kind of show you guys exactly what's going on. Yeah.
Melissa: And to hopefully encourage you too like what you can do. So I know like we're not doing as much as we want to, as far as volume wise, just cause we haven't been as much in that business. But to, for $8,000 in sales, like, to not have that much into it, that's pretty cool. So, we're going to dive in. Let's go ahead and dive into what the items were. The first item was that Jenn Air cooktop, and I think that was only listed for a couple of days.
Rob: Less than two weeks. Couple than two weeks, okay.
Two weeks. I think I sold it within a week, a week and a half, somewhere around there. But we bought this on a road trip, last year. Got it listed and it took me a little while to get it listed, but I, once I got it listed, like we said, a week and a half, it sold, we paid a hundred dollars for it, and then we sold it for?
Melissa: $2,200.
Rob: $2,200. So not bad. You can see a hundred dollars and the $2,200, but those aren't all the fees. So we had to pay eBay to sell it on their platform, and we had to pay to ship it out because I shipped this. It was a 45 inch, so it was a big cooktop. It was a nice one. It was a very, very nice one.
Definitely, a vintage. I, I believe it was probably in the nineties, maybe. That wasn't last year's road trip. That was this year's road trip. Yeah, that's what I said. Oh, I thought I said last year. No. Okay. On the road trip this year, we picked it up. It took me a little while to get it listed. Yeah.
But once it was listed, it sold fairly quick. So, $100 spent for it. That's what we paid for it on the road trip. Sold it for $2,200. So what are our fees and our shipping?
Melissa: So eBay fees were $293 and shipping cost was $262, which brings our total profit to $1,545.
Rob: $1,545. Not too shabby. And to be honest with you guys, on this, hour spent on this. Picking it up was quick.
I cleaned it up I would say less than three hours time to make $1,500 total time to finish maybe three and a half if you think about shipping, but shipping wasn't even that difficult either. It was a very very quick.
Melissa: Take more time because you do videos or you did videos with this one cleaning it you do videos for our group.
Rob: You're right. You're right, and that kind of, if I hadn't done videos, this would have, the whole process from start to finish, even shipping would have taken me less than 45 minutes.
It was very, very quick, to do it. So I'm not too shabby, $1,500 over $1,500 profit in this. We love those types of flips.
Melissa: So I wanted to add to somebody, I think we did a reel on this one not that long ago and somebody commented, nobody buys those old JennAirs and stuff, but guys, this. The, the old appliances, they hold their value because they're so much better.
Well made, so much better made than some of the new stuff is just junk.
Rob: So they don't build them like they used to. And that's what people know. People know that these things are built to last and they do they'll last 20, 30, 40, 50 years because of how well, how well they were built back in the seventies, eighties, nineties.
So that's why people really sought to seek out these type of cooktops. So yeah, amazing deal. Amazing flip. We absolutely had a great time with that one.
Melissa: All right. The next one was a fun one. Cause it was the last of the stretchers. So.
Rob: Bittersweet, our last stretcher finally sold and we sold this one.
This one's pretty cool, paid $182. Is that what we figured out? $183. We bought 12 of them together and I bought them in one lot. And I think it was $2,200 is what I spent on all of them, on that lot. This was the last one we sold and believe it or not, this one was missing handles. I think the guy who bought it was a training facility.
And the cool part is he was in Puerto Rico. I didn't know if that was going to work out. I did not. I shipped this to Puerto Rico with freight shipping, and I had no idea if it was going to happen. I mean, I had no idea how expensive it would be and everything worked out. It worked out really, really good.
So, we actually sold it, paid $182 for it, sold it for.
Melissa: It's $3,650 and you charged $650 for shipping.
Rob: $650 for shipping. So what was the total for over $4,000 is what we did total with including shipping.
Melissa: And usually we do, I do the totals together because we offer free shipping on a lot of our items, but not on all of them.
And this one was going out of, or it had to be a little different. So you charged more. Overseas, yeah. Yeah. So you charged more for shipping. So, but normally, it's built into the price. So that's why. Yeah, in the sale price, so.
Rob: So $182 or $183 to roughly $4,300 was the sale price on this overall, what are our fees and what are our shipping for our profit?
Melissa: So shipping cost was $482, so.
Rob: $482, which, let me stop for a second. $482 Going out of the country. Well, I mean, Puerto Rico's part, you know what I mean, though, but it's overseas.
Melissa: We are in Florida, so that does help.
Rob: Yeah, but it had to go on a ship and it had to go overseas to get to Puerto Rico, which, I mean, that's no joke.
And we still got shipping for $482. That's insane. That's awesome. So I was excited about that one.
Melissa: And it's under what you charge, but we also, like, you have to take into account wood and time and stuff like that. So you do have some handling in there, too.
Rob: Yep, absolutely. And I love it when I can charge handling on this.
And I knew this one was going overseas, so I knew I could charge a little bit more on handling. And that, like Melissa said, it pays for our wood, it pays for our materials, it pays for our time that we spend on doing it. We don't always get to do that with our stuff, but this one I knew that I could.
And to be honest with you guys, I had it listed, I think for $4,500. He came in with an offer at $3,650 and I told him that I would do it because I wanted to sell it quick. So I told him I would do it, but I knew that I could, I could ask that extra money on shipping and make, my money for my time that I actually freighted this thing up.
So.
Melissa: eBay fees were $362, and so total profit was $3,273.
Rob: $3,200! I love it! Over $3,200 profit on this. Killer, killer deal. I love it when we make those type of flips, but that's what we live for. We love doing these type of flips, and that's what we really seek out when we're searching.
Melissa: And I have to add that I was against this purchase at the beginning of the year.
So you bought 12 and you sold all of them very quickly except for this one like within two months pretty much. Because you didn't have this one listed because it was missing something So you waited a while you just got it listed. I think it was less than a month.
Rob: It was definitely less than a month. Probably another two weeks. We got it listed but it was missing the armrest on it and I disclosed that to the buyer and he knew it, but I, like I said, I think he is a training facility was buying it for training.
So the arms didn't, the arm rest on it. Didn't matter that much still in beautiful worked. Everything worked perfect. No issues with it other than those armrests were missing. And he was okay with it. So, yeah, super quick sale. Once I got it listed and we'll actually, you know, that's where our bottleneck is.
We'll also do another podcast and another, video on kind of the whole progression of those 12 stretchers because I think really to be honest with you guys I think it accounts for like $40,000 or $50,000 in one investment, one $2,200 investment I think it was $40,000 or $50,000 that we made on all those so that stay tuned we'll have another podcast down the road that we'll be able to lump those together and give you guys kind of a start to finish up on how that whole process went and what our profits were on that.
Melissa: But I was against it and I said, no, you shouldn't do it.
And you went with your gut, which usually when you go with your gut, it usually do, it usually works out. And I'm glad that you did because it definitely helped out our, our money.
Rob: This was definitely a good chunk that it accounted for. So we're happy about that.
Melissa: It was a good chunk. And we will talk more about that probably in another podcast, but I do want to show touch a little bit on the fact that buying stuff in in big bulk amounts has helped us a lot over the years.
You've sold how many of those remember you bought, was it 15 or 20 of those? They they were our money maker last year. You couldn't get them. They were back ordered. Those things, the boxes, they're big boxes, no idea. We made like $20,000 on those things or more.
Rob: She's talking about breaker boxes, breaker boxes.
So with COVID, they had problems with manufacturing and getting stuff into the country. And we had a whole bunch and I bought them in a lot for like a hundred bucks. Didn't you? Think I bought four. And it was somewhere around there to something. It was like 40 of them and, construction builders could not get these and that's where we even sold them way, way cheaper than I should have.
They were brand spanking new, never used. And then I tried to up the price a little bit, but the first ones that I bought, I didn't realize that manufacturing was at a halt and nobody could get them. And I was selling them for half of what retail was when I should have been selling them for retail because they were new. So we lost some money, but we still made a ton of money on them.
Melissa: But that's buying stuff in bulk, like that can really help. It's huge, it really helps a lot. So anyways, just wanted to point that out. Alright, number three! Last one, we just, was at the end of the month, was the vacuum lifter.
Rob: This was kinda cool. Is it? I think it is, I mean that's a good definition of what it does.
So it's an industrial or a commercial vacuum lifter. So it hooks to a compressor. It's got suction cups on it, and you put it down on either glass or marble or granite or something like that. And you press a button and it sucks, suctions it to it. And then it actually will lift it up so you can move it around.
And it's, it's industrial. Yeah, it's industrial. So it probably lifts, I mean, I knew it when I listed it because I did the specs on it, I found the specs. I think it listed lifted like. 2,000, 2, 500 pounds is what it did. So yeah, really, really cool. I didn't know how fast it would sell because it's a specialty thing, but when we bought it, I bought it in another lot like Melissa's talking about.
Melissa: It was not lots of those, but it was, you bought it as a bundle of a whole bunch of stuff.
Rob: A bundle of things that a lady was trying to get rid of that was in a storage unit, and she gave me a deal on all the stuff that I bought. I bought, I think, four or five items from her. It ended up working out to be like 42 is what we paid for this.
And retail on this, I'm sure is, you know, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000. We actually sold it for $1,750. I had it listed for more. I had it listed for, I think, $2,200 or $2,500, and they, somebody reached out to me. I didn't have offers accepted on it, but they, they reached out to me and said, would you take $1,500? And then I messaged back and said, hey, if you can help with shipping, I'll do $1,750 and which that really helped.
It was, it paid for the shipping price on, and I didn't make a lot of extra on my, my time. But we made extra money on the shipping. And so we sold that one for $1,750 and it was only a $42 investment. Love those. And if you guys don't know, we like small investments. Our, our goal is not to be gamblers, we don't gamble in this business and we try to get things as cheap as we possibly can.
So if we do have to sit on them for a little while, it doesn't hurt our pocketbook. It's, you know, we're not sitting on thousands of dollars, in a single item to make a thousand dollars. That's not what our, our, our. Our goal is to pay very little for an item and then turn around and be able to have the high markup on it because we might sit on it a little bit longer than when it takes somebody else to sit on it.
So, that's kind of what we do.
Melissa: And it works too, cause the person's getting a great deal. So they're getting about 50 percent retail on most of the, most of the time. So absolutely. So that's why it works for all parties, which it's pretty cool. And it's fun and you get to treasure hunt.
Rob: So break down these fees. $42 we paid, $1,750 we sold it for, which including shipping.
Melissa: $229 for eBay fees plus $93 for promoted listings. Oh, that one hurts.
Rob: I hate when it's promoted. And I don't know why I had promoted on this. Some things I do promoted just to try it and some things I won't, but I probably did it on this because it's more of a rare item.
So it's more of something I was hoping that eBay would put. Pitch it to people and that's how I would be able to sell it quicker. So, but not a big deal. We still, we made a, a lot of money on it. So we're okay with that.
Melissa: So total profit, wait, shipping cost was $231. $231. Total was $1,155.
Rob: Over $1,100
I still love it. So those are amazing profits for those three items that we flipped this month. Yeah, love, love, love when we can do those types of profits on these items. And like I said, you break these down each individually. I probably did not have over three, the structure might've been a little bit longer, maybe four hours in time.
So you say three hours in the last one, the vacuum cup one, that definitely would have taken me like 30 minutes to pallet that thing up and get it all taken care of. So you average three hours per unit, is, is on the conservative side of it. So three, six, nine, maybe 10 hours total this last month, to make over what was our total profit.
Melissa: So the total sales was $8,250. Okay. Cost of items was $325. So we only had $325 into making this. Love it. eBay fees were $977. Okay. And that included the promo. And shipping was $975, which brings our total to $5,973 in profit.
Rob: Almost $6,000, guys, in 10 hours of work for myself. Now, remember, I'm experienced. I've done this for a long time.
I'm not saying that you're gonna go out and do the same exact thing. We've done it. We have the experience to do it, but it just shows you what the potential is. When you really apply yourself, learn the skills, how to do it and get to it. I mean, 10 hours of work for me to make almost $6,000. I love it.
Absolutely love it. I'll take it all day.
Melissa: I wanted to add also that some people, one question that we get often is, you know, your stuff is bigger. So what about storing it? And we've talked about this just recently. I feel like in a podcast, I think we did. But like, if you think about these items, a cooktop, the stretcher is a little bit bigger.
And then the, that little, that machine was not that big. So the three of those things made $6,000 in profit in profit. So $8,000 in sales, what would you need? How many small items would you need to fill up that same amount of space? So space is not like you need tubs of items. If you're selling 10, 20 items, you need.
Several tubs. It'll take about just about the same amount of space, if not a lot more.
Rob: That's 3,000 items. You would have had to store 3,000 $20 items. I hope my math is right on that. That was quick on the fly. So I don't know. I think it's more than that.
Melissa: 3,000. No, it's 300.
Rob: 300 items? Yeah. Okay. So, I'm not a mathematician.
Don't hold me to that. Anyways, so 300 items, but versus 3 items. That's what we had. Melissa's going to do it on the calculator just to make sure. I'm going to just double check. But yeah, that's just what we had. And if you think about how many of those 300 items, how many of, how big would those have been?
And I guarantee the 3 items that we had. We're nowhere near the size or the footprint of what you'd have to store for three, 300 items. So that's cool. I mean, it's cool for our business model. We love it. And plus I love to do a lot less work. When you think about 300 items of pictures, listing, we do videos on our, some of our stuff to sell them quicker.
But if you think about all that work, good pro tip. And if you think about all that time that goes into each individual item and do that times 300 versus doing it on three, and that's a, it's a no brainer is for us. It's a no brainer. And that's why we love what we do.
Melissa: Yeah. We have a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun sharing with everybody.
So hopefully, you got some encouragement, motivation and ready to go get to work and yeah, we'll see you on the next episode.
Rob: You guys rock. Have an amazing day and we will catch you on the next episode.