The Pro Flipper Show

The Pro Flipper Show

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The Pro Flipper Show episodes

  • How This Reseller Paid Off $30K In Debt With His Flipping Side Hustle. Interview with Jason Butler.

    Reseller Hangout Podcast - Jason Butler

    Jump into Jason's 5-day Thrifting Challenge:  https://mymoneychronicles.com/ThriftingChallenge

    Rob: What's up guys, today we are honored to have Jason Butler here withMy Money Chronicles, so excited to hear his amazing journey and some great tips that he has about paying down debt with his reselling side hustle. Jason, welcome!! 

    Jason: Thank you for having me. I'm looking to share my story. 

    Rob: Awesome. 

    Melissa: Awesome. Jason, we're so glad you're here. So tell everybody a little background about yourself. 

    Jason: My name is Jason Butler. [00:01:00] I run the website, My Money Chronicles, where I talk about side hustles, personal finance, and my personal debt story as well. I started out, graduated from college in 2008. I was excited, happy to get the degree ready to get into the real world and make that $50,000 with that first job.

    Unfortunately, when I graduated in 2008, nobody told me that the great recession was going to happen. It took me a year and a half to find my first full-time job, and during that time, I had to make a decision. Was I going to pay my rent and my cell phone bill? Or was I going to pay student loan debt and credit card debt?

    I had to have make the decision. And that decision was that I needed my phone for job interviews and for companies to call me back and I needed to pay rent because I needed a place to stay. Let's just say, well, I made the right decision on one hand. The other hand, it allowed me to get into of debt. And this actually happened for, I want to say the debt accrued for about two to three years [00:02:00] before I started getting a, before I got a better high-impact higher paying job.

    And literally I had years where I was going back and forth, doing good and doing bad. So around 2015, I decided to get serious. At that point I had $72,000 worth of debt, student loans, credit card debt, and like a couple of other small bills. And I had to figure out some different ways to pay it off because these jobs wasn't going to help me just do it by myself.

    So I started trying multiple side hustles and side hustle that I stuck with was flipping things online. I'm selling items on eBay and other platforms. And from here, from there every year, the income has been going up. 

    Rob: Awesome. And I know there are so many people out there that can relate to your story. You get out of college, it's not everything that you expected. You have to pay off that college loan to do it. So there are so many people out here who are in that same exact boat. So kudos to you. We give you credit, you kept working with what you had and you kept going. You found a [00:03:00] sweet side hustle that we all love. We love flipping, so a little passionate about, great job on that, for sure.

    So yeah, now let's get a little deeper with it. 

    Melissa: So you've been selling since 2015. Is that what you said? 

    Jason: Yep. Since 2015, I got serious with it around 2017. In 2015, I probably was making anywhere between a hundred to $200 a month. Now I'm making atleast $1,200 per month selling on my multiple platforms. And that amount is going to get a lot higher than that. 

    Melissa: Awesome!! I love it. So what are your platforms that you use to sell? 

    Jason: I think we sell on at least six different platforms. Ebay, Mercari, Poshmark, Offer up, Facebook marketplace,Craigslist. And actually recently I started selling on Next door and it's done does pretty well from time to time.

    Melissa: Huh? I haven't thought about selling on next door. They have a, so they have like a special place for marketplace? 

    Jason: Yep. They have a marketplace. This is actually called it's on a tab called Finds. And [00:04:00] you can just upload your stuff right there. Cause I do a lot of cross posting on that site. 

    Melissa: I love it! Yeah, that's really cool. I have the, the app, but I don't put it on like it's I just get an email notifications and I'm like, there's a lot of drama on this app, so I don't know 

    Jason: You are hundred percent, right. I stay clear from the drama. I go to the Find section. I either list my items. I actually find a lot of free stuff on there too. Like a whole lot of free items on there.

    Melissa: I bet there would be. Yeah that's pretty cool! That's awesome. 

    Rob: That's a great tip. So the Next Door app, that's what it is that you're, you're able to sell on. So stay away from the drama and stick to the flipping and finding. So that's cool for sure. 

    Melissa: What is one of your, maybe your most memorable or profitable items that you have sold over this whole time?

    Jason: I have a couple items 

     

    Jason: that are memorable for me, the first, the reason why, one of the items that I sold at the beginning in 2015, it made me get serious with, it was a Dwayne Wade, Miami heat, basketball Jersey. I found the Jersey in a salvation army store for [00:05:00] $3. I was able to list the Jersey, sold it for $45 within three days.

    That was a 40... $42 profit right there. So once I did that, it was on the top 10. So I was, I had pretty much been enrolled in. And since then, another sell that was pretty good for me, where it was, it was a great sale, but I realized that I might've undercut myself just a little bit and well under undercharged myself a little bit.

    I had a Bryant Reeves, Vancouver Grizzlies throwback Jersey found it in the thrift store for like $7. I sold it within two minutes for a hundred dollars. And if you guys know what things say are that fast, probably I probably should have raised the price. And to be honest, I could have got about $300 for that Jersey.

    So it was a lesson, but at the end of the day, I still made around a $94 profit. So I wasn't too mad, too mad about the situation. And I haven't made that mistake since then either. 

    Rob: Awesome. That's the best part about making mistakes in the business you learn [00:06:00] and you course correct. And you go along with it the next, the next time you actually have something similar to it and you do it.

    So, rewind a little bit though. What, what is your passion or what exactly is your, your main items that you sell? I see a pattern here, so, just let us know what you like to sell and kind of the majority of what you sell. 

    Jason: Definitely like, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm a huge sports fan. Now our sports teams are not always the best, but I love sports items.

    I sell a lot of jerseys, whether it's football, basketball, baseball, either hockey or soccer jerseys. I also sell tennis shoes, like a lot of Air Jordan, tennis shoes, running shoes. And then I will say like my third big meat niche games (like) boardgames like Monopoly, the cashflow board games, hero quest, just different types of games that you can make a decent amount of money on.

    Rob: I love it. I love it. And we're not big sports people, so I can't relate to that, but I know there is a lot of money in the sports and that's the thing. It takes me a lot to learn. I don't know a lot of players and I [00:07:00] don't know a lot of jersey and stuff like that. So it's harder for me to do that, but you do and you've capitalized on it.

    So kudos. That's awesome that you've been able to do that. And you find something that you. We love flipping and that's what we do. So you, you love the sports and this really, really works well into what you love, so that's awesome. 

    Melissa: I think it's awesome that there are so many niches out there that you can get into and you can find something that you do enjoy, and that helps you stick to it even more like it, because of course there's work involved in cleaning, taking pictures, you know, listing an item. But when you like enjoy the stuff that you're finding and listing, then it makes it even that much better. So, and there's so many things that you could sell. 

    Rob: And that's no joke, you know, a thousand bucks extra a month for being able to sell memorabilia and stuff that you like to look for and find and sell.

    That's no joke. That's life changing money. That's awesome. So that's sweet for sure. Yeah. 

    Melissa: So tell us how you've used your reselling side hustle to help you pay down debt. 

    Jason: Okay. You use it in a couple of ways. The first way, when I first got serious about this journey in 2015, started making the extra money. I was able to get current [00:08:00] on everything.

    My student loan bills were about 60 to 90 days behind, but I actually able to use this extra money to get me current with that. The same thing with the credit cards. And also now I make extra payments on everything. I currently only have student loan debt left. My regular payment for my student loan is about $162 per month.

    But right now, because I'm making this extra money, I'm throwing at least seven to $800 on this student loan per month. And this is where the magic is happening. I'm starting to see it go down by nearly a thousand dollars each month. So I'm halfway to the finish line, but I should be there sooner than later, because as I stated earlier, the flipping income is continuing.

    It's continuing to increase each year because I'm learning more. And I'm actually stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to sell other types of items as well.

    Rob: Awesome. I love it. Yeah, for sure. And that is, that is a game changer. When you started to see that debt, that mountain started to come down and it gives you more energy. It gives you more passionate about, okay, I'm throwing the money at this. I'm going to get rid of [00:09:00] this. 

    Melissa: You see that big fat zero. That's exciting. 

    Jason: I cannot wait to see that ZERO.

    Melissa: We have to celebrate with you, right. So what would you say are some tips? Cause people dealing like when you're dealing with debt, it's like is over your head, you know, it's really, it's something, it kind of eats away at you. 

    Rob: And be depressing. It can depress you because of it.

    Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. So what are some tips that you give people to maybe stay motivated to use their side hustle and how can they use their side hustle to pay down debt?

    Jason: First tip that I would give people when it comes to paying off debt and figuring out the side hustle. Number one, do not compare your journey with anybody else's journey.

    This I am I'm on year six of this journey. I didn't see any magic until around late 2018 and 2019. That's what, that was three years in, right there. Don't get mad. If you look on Instagram, you look on YouTube and you see that somebody has paid all their debt off within one year everybody's journey and everybody's story is different.

    So that's the first thing. [00:10:00] The next thing I would tell somebody is to just figure, just to just start, start with what, you know, like I stated earlier, I'm a big sports fan. So I ran to the sports items and from there just started branching out and trying to sell other stuff. Number three, when you have debt, make sure, you know, the numbers like don't, don't go blindly into it. Like I, I, when I first started, I knew some of the numbers, but I was kind of afraid to like get a hundred percent focus on it because it was so high. But once you get those numbers down, you can get a plan together and just start going from there.

    And it just started snowballing that day. 

    Rob: I love it. We are writing and, taking some notes on this. So, yeah, and I definitely, I don't compare yourself to other people. You guys, that is a key, you can't do that. That will put you in further depression because it will, like Jason said, you, you can't look at somebody else's journey and see what they're doing and expect you to be at the same place.

    Everybody is different. So I [00:11:00] love that advice. That's an amazing key takeaway from this, this interview with Jason, for sure. So, and then start with what, you know, we, we teach people how to flip. That's one of the things that we love doing, I love coaching, and that's the thing that we tell people as well. What you're good at, what your hobbies are, what your passions are, try to find that resell niche in that area, and it'll make it so much better in your life where, I mean, it just makes everything so much easier to do so.

    Definitely. That's a great number two. And then number three, know your numbers. I'm horrible at this. Melissa is better than me, but I a hundred percent, I, a hundred percent agree with it. You have to know what you're doing. You have to know what your numbers are and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah.

    Great, great advice. Three tips, amazing tips. 

    Melissa: If you don't know your numbers, then you would be surprised how much there's little profit sometimes, because you're going like, oh, this would be great. I can sell it for this, but then you've got your fees, your shipping costs and all that. And if you don't think about it, you don't write those down and see them like, oh, well, is that much really worth the time that. I just put into that for sure. 

    Rob: And knowing what your mountain, what your [00:12:00] mountain is, you gotta know what the debt is that you're paying off you. I mean, it's a hundred percent. Yeah, that's a that's that's for sure. That's an awesome tip for sure. 

    Melissa: Have you had had any, I just thought of this, have you had any like, flops the, of your flips that made that you learned a good lesson on?

    Jason: Yeah, I've had a few flops. Let me think of one. I haven't had any in a while, but I would say around two years ago before I purchased my scale. I used to just guess and estimate when it comes to printing and usually the jerseys I can sell those for anywhere between I ship those from between $6 to $9 with no problem.

    I per I forget what it was. It was either a big board game. It was kind of a large box and I guesstimated the shipment was going to be $18, got to the post office. The shipping was $32. Like I might've profited about two bucks off that item. Like I was hurt, but again, it's the lessons that I learned. And after learning that lesson, [00:13:00] I went and bought a scale and I haven't looked back since then.

    So that's one thing. Number two, when I first started off, I didn't have the eBay app and I wasn't, I basically wasn't like doing my research. So I would find I would purchase a couple of things, and just think I was going to be able to flip it for $30 or $40 because it was something old school. I purchased some Kentucky Derby glasses for like 50 cents a piece.

    And I thought that I was going to be able to sell those like this (finger snaps)I had those glasses in my store for about three years. And I ended up having to stay on them for regular price. 

    Rob: Wow. And that is a great tip. When we started eBay, you didn't have the option of a cell phone. I mean, a smartphone that you could look up and a lot of people look at what we do and they come from the old style of, Hey, I'm not a gambler.

    I don't want to go and buy something hoping that I can sell it. That's the cool thing about what we do now. You can look up every single thing before you buy it. Do the extra minute or two research on it before you buy it. So you have a good idea [00:14:00] of what it's selling for, what it's listed for.

    You can do all that comparison before you pay the person for that item. So that's a huge point. It's a great point to think about. 

    Melissa: So if somebody they're taking their, flipping money and they're going to put it towards debt. So for you, do you take all your like, because the money can be a little inconsistent.

    Like it's going to be, you're going to have high months and lower months. It just depends. But so do you take a percentage of that towards your debt? Or do you have like a set number hard or all of it? Or how do you do that? 

    Jason: But right now I have a set number. I was, I want to make sure that I make seven, make a $700 payment on the loan right now.

    So that's like the loan payment, that loan payment is about $160. So that extra $540 is applied to the loan. So I try to do that at least each month. And then everything else is either. I probably save a little bit. I reinvest the whole lot into the business because at the end of the day, i want to keep items in the store and the way, supply...the way the supply chain management system is right now.[00:15:00] 

    I'm trying to get as many items as possible because things are going great. Like people are purchasing and I need to make sure I have enough stuff in there. I need to make sure I have enough items in the store. So I'm reinvesting majority of the money 

    Melissa: I've see that going around right now, a lot too, like a lot of thrifted items are still, you know, not stuck cause you can still get them.

    Rob: That's a huge point right now is what we're doing is a resell hobby or resale side hustle, full time, whatever it is. We are seeing great sales right now, because what's going on in our economy and all around us. So, yeah, I second that to throw the money back into your inventory, get some more inventory in there and that's going to be the bigger payday for next month.

    You know what I mean? So that's awesome. That's a good point as well. 

    Melissa: Did you have any thing else you wanted to add to share with everybody? 

    Jason: Um, yeah. One more, couple of more things. I forgot to say earlier with the tips, your mindset, your mindset is very important. If you believe that you'll be able to make this money.

    By researching and finding the items you will, if you don't believe that you [00:16:00] can do it, you won't do it. So you definitely have the correct mindset because looking at $72,000 worth of debt, in the beginning...Ooh, it was tough. Like, by the time you guys see this, my, my numbers would probably be at 43,000. They should be under 40,000 by the end of the year.

    So that's, that's the journey. But the thing is I believed that I could pay it off. And of course I had bumps in the road. But I've been able to make habit. And then also when you start selling, don't look at it like you're going to be making $500 a day, a thousand dollars a day instantly because it doesn't happen like that.

    In the beginning, you have to work, you have to research and you have to basically just make sure that you get items that people are going to purchase. 

    Rob: Awesome. Yeah, that's, that's good. It having proper expectations. There's a learning curve to every single business. I don't care what business you're in.

    If you jump into it, expecting that you're going to do like somebody else, a thousand dollars a month that that's not, that's not logical or that's not a realistically going to happen. You have to learn, the key, the fundamentals of the [00:17:00] business, and you have to learn this stuff that Jason's talking about before you can get to that next level.

    So having great expectations of, Hey, I might start off here, but I know what my potential is to get up to here and to get to that income that I really want to do. But it's going to take me a little bit of time to get there for sure

    Melissa: Yeah, there's always a learning curve involved. And it's alot just getting experience doing it and doing it, for sure.

    Rob: For sure. Awesome. Awesome. Jason, thank you so much. Thanks for jumping on here. I've learned some amazing stuff. I'm so excited for everybody to see this presentation. I'm so excited for people to take what you, what you've taught us here in and put it into play for. You can, you can definitely do it so.

    Jason: You can definitely do it. Just, just to get started. Like that's what I told a lot of people. Asking me about flipping items just to get started and you'll have some bumps along the way, some speed bumps along the way. The longer, the longer you stick with it, the more, the better you'll get at selling and the more money that you awake you'll make.

    So just get started. 

    Melissa: Awesome. 

    Jason: Awesome. Couldn't have said it better ourselves, Jason. Thank you so much for jumping on here. Cannot [00:18:00] wait to see your journey. Cannot wait to see that $40,000 go. So we'll be celebrating with you. So thank you so much. Thank you for your time. 

    Definitely. Thank you guys for having me as well, and let's make this money by flipping y'all.

     

     

    19 min
  • How This Stay-At-Home Mom Makes $4K/Mo Flipping Vintage Items

    Reseller Hangout Podcast With Amy Powlison

    If you are interested to see if Flipper University is right for you - check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
     

    Other resources at www.fleamarketflipper.com

    Transcript:

    Rob: Awesome today, guys. We're so excited to have Amy Powlison join us. She is a Flipper U alumni. So we're very excited to dig into kind of her success story and her journey. So, Amy, thank you so much for jumping on here and joining us for the show. 

    Amy: Thank you so much. This is exciting. 

    Rob: Awesome. 

    Melissa: Welcome, Amy. We're so glad that you're here and that we could spend a few minutes with you today and yeah, learn about some of your business. 

    Rob: Cool, let's dive in, let's get into the [00:01:00] meat and potatoes of the interview for sure. 

    Melissa: So, we'll just start off with a little bit about your background and how did you get into this whole flipping thing?

    Amy: I mean, it's kind of crazy. So the, the short version is that, I have a master's degree in exercise science and at some point in my life decided that didn't work and family and all those things happen. We have one seven year old. That's plenty. I don't know how you guys do like, but congrats. That's awesome.

    One's plenty for us. But as that kind of progressed, we decided that, you know, it didn't fit and it wasn't as lucrative as it, I needed it to be, or we needed it to be. So then I started working in restaurants, which I always did on the side, so that I managed really small places. I bartended really small places.

    I managed places that did $20 million a year. So I've done, like I've done one end of the spectrum to the other with that world and loved it, and then the world shut down. So, you know, the world shut down 20 [00:02:00] months ago and things changed for everyone. And one day I had a job and my owner literally said to me, you need to go online and figure out what the process is to apply for unemployment, because there's a really good chance we're going to be closed.

    And it was less than 24 hours later and everything was closed. So in the interim, it was one of those things where, okay. I don't, now what? Like my husband's a fireman, so his life never changed. Actually, the only thing that changed is he worked more. We saw less of him because he went to work more stayed later there, like it was crazy. I say everything works out for a reason. Like he was able to do that because I was able to be home and take care of our little and provide that virtual, I call it home schooling, but it was like that virtual education. Because I don't know what we would've done if we both would have been working.

    So. Then as that kind of happened, I've been saying [00:03:00] forever, I could do this. I could totally do this. Like, I've been doing yard sales since I was kid. I go to, I love a flea market, you know, like love a flea market and love a yard sale. And I buy stuff secondhand and we resell stuff on Facebook marketplace and I'm like, I can do this.

    So my husband finally said, "You're out of reasons, not to. You're at home. You're not like, you're home." So that's kind of how it started. I mean, prior to that, you know, I'd throw something on and forget about it and then have to find it, or like I put stuff on Facebook marketplace and you know, that that's kind of a different breed, cause it was a lot of in-person versus not.

    And then it was like, well, you can't meet anybody. So, it really came out of like pick yourself up by the, pick yourself up, put on your big girl pants, pull up your bootstraps and like figure it out. And here we are. So it's been a crazy ride, but a great ride. 

    Rob: That's awesome. And yeah, we're so glad that you actually did.

    You, [00:04:00] you looked back on, you know, that you had done yard sales, you love flea markets and that's where you jumped in and you went feet first. So we're very, very, we're very excited for you and to see your journey for sure. 

    Melissa: Virtual school is no joke. 

    Rob: No, it's not. 

    Amy: Again, one is plenty. I don't like, I literally don't know how so. 

    Melissa: Our kids got behind for sure. Cause we, I could not put the time that I needed to, to help them on virtual school, so it was tough. Yeah. 

    Rob: I've got a hard enough time reading myself, much less trying to teach a kid how to read. 

    Amy: Right, right. And that's the issue, so our little is seven. So he was, he left school in March of kindergarten. And didn't return until this year in second grade. So all that like super formative, like, yeah, I can, I can sit and read with you, but to teach you how to do the... no. So it's been, it's been crazy, but. 

    Melissa: Our middle ones is the exact same age. So she was the same, left after kindergarten. So that was definitely a tough time that happened. 

    So how many hours a week, like, are you part-time, [00:05:00] full-time I know you're kind of you're at home. So like how many hours a week are you really? 

    Amy: I'm definitely full-time at this point. While he was home for virtual school, I was part-time trying to be full-time. But it was really tough and I spent a lot of nights staying up, super, super late. And then I spent a lot of weekends that I just worked the whole time.

    Like it was when my husband could be home, I worked. Or if I could get my, our son to bed, I worked until I was like falling asleep at the computer type of stuff. So, but you know, you do what you have to do, like, but I also have worked in the bar world for so long that being up till 2:00 AM is like my normal and that's my like, go time.

    So for me staying up and working late, like I know some people that's, that's crazy talk, but I've done it for 20 years. So for me, that's my bread and butter. So like, let's do like jam and do it. So I was part-time all of, all of while he was home and the [00:06:00] second he went to school, I was like, all right, we got to move. So it's definitely a full-time at this point. 

    Rob: Awesome. How many hours would you say you're full-time are you doing 40 hours? Are you doing over 40 hours? 

    Amy: It fluctuates a little bit week by week, but I would definitely say I'm at least putting in 40 hours a week. Some weeks it's more, some weeks it's a little less, I mean, you know, family obligations and all those things, but if you, in my opinion, if you want to make it work, you have to work.

    So it's it's around that time, it's around that 40 ish hours a week for me. 

    Rob: Yeah, that's awesome. And that, that's one of the beauty things about the business too, is when you do have family obligations, when you do have stuff, you're not going to lose your job by going out and taking care of your family or your kids, whatever it is, you can step away from it.

    And hopefully if you have stuff listed, it can be working for you while you are stepping away if you need to spend time with family, but a hundred percent, you get as much out of a business as you put into it. So if you're putting part-time hours into it, part-time effort into it. You're going to get paid part-time and when you [00:07:00] start developing the skills and going to that next level and putting full-time hours into it, that's where it'll start paying off for you.

    So that's awesome. That's super exciting. 

    Melissa: Yeah. And that's another point to that is the, you know, working late nights, we did that, especially when we were going full time. We're like, okay, we gotta figure this out. We had three little kids. So, nights where our really our only option. So they were late nights. And, but that's the great job, the great thing is it can be flexible. So, which is pretty cool.

    Amy: Right, there's a ton of flexibility, which has also been one of the reasons why I stayed in the bar industry was because my husband's a fireman. Like he can say he's done it whatever time, and that's super cute. But the reality is if there's a fire, car accident, or all these things, like he's not coming home.

    So, you know, like I have to be able to be resilient on the fact that if he's supposed to pick him up from work or from work that day from school and he's stuck, you can't leave your kid at school, you know, [00:08:00] or like if I'm supposed to go to work that night and he's stuck at a three alarm fire, like you can't go to work, you know. So thank God I worked for someone who had super, who super understood. And I was super good at minimizing that interfering with my work. But I mean, there were times when it just did, you know, and you can't take a four-year-old to a restaurant, so not when you're working anyway. So, you know, having the flexibility has been one of those things where I've been employable, I don't think I'm employable anymore. Like you, I don't think of employable anymore because it doesn't, it's not conducive to our lifestyle anymore. And I kinda like it. 

    Rob: That's awesome. And where else? I mean, I've gone and picked stuff out of the trash before when I'm on a walk and I have my nine-year-old, she's there with a camera videoing me and it's like, where else can you take your kid to work?

    Have them do a little [00:09:00] bit of work video on you while you're doing it. And you're still getting some work in. So no, it is. It's exciting what we're able to do with the kids right now. So, but I am curious, I'm curious. So you're doing this full-time, what is it that you are doing? Like, what is your expertise or what, what did you choose to hone in, in the reselling world to get the results that you're getting?

    Amy: So when I started, I started. I started by doing your Christmas challenge right in January, right before everything happened. And I was like, oh, maybe I'll make some money on the side. You know, like, who knows, who knows what'll happen, maybe I'll get rid of some stuff. And the Christmas challenge was $250, right.

    So we do this whole challenge and I was like, I'm making money. I'm doing this. And I didn't list a single thing on eBay cause I was terrified. So I did it all on Facebook and I was like, I don't care. I don't care. I'm just going to make this funny. I made $247.50. That's right. I came short and I was livid.

    I had played sports my whole life. I've been very competitive. I was in the straight a student. I have like you tell me no, that's, that's the [00:10:00] best thing you can ever tell me. So when I came short, I was like, it's my fault. Cause I didn't list on eBay. So then I went around my house, like we talked about and I listed anything and everything that we didn't use.

    And I was like, I don't care. Here it goes. And you want a piece of humble pie, go back and look at those photos a year later and see how horrible they were and who, who, would've bought anything from me, let alone that I was making money like atrocious, but it worked so whatever. So initially I was like, I don't even care.

    We'll figure it out. Like, we'll figure it out. Right? Like you just figure it out. I've decided that I'm better at stuff that's considered vintage, which I find a little funny because vintage stuff is like when we were kids, not what our parents were kids, which is what I think is actually vintage, but what do I know?

    Right. So I have found that I'm good at that. And I'm probably good at it because I lived through it. You know, like I know what music played [00:11:00] during that, that genre. I know what was cult classic movies. I know like that Barbie was it, you know, like, you know that stuff. And even if you don't. For me anyway, it sparks interests.

    Cause I'm like, man, I remember when whatever, you know what I mean? And then it goes down that road for me, or like your parents have that china or your grandmother had that sitting on her dining room table or whatever it is, you know, your grandfather had it in the shed and every time he opened the door, like you saw it on whatever.

    So I found that for me, That works. Now don't get me wrong. If there's something that I catch, you know, on the, on like the couple of platforms that I watch or from you guys or that I see or whatever, and I run into it, I'm getting it. Don't get me wrong, but like, if I can make money off of it, we're going to do that.

    But if I'm going out into the world, like in a nature search, searching and [00:12:00] sourcing by myself, it's probably going to lean towards those vintage items. 

    Melissa: That's fine. Cause other people are looking for it. Like they want it, they live through it and they want those items. So, and they're looking for them. So they find them on your store. 

    Rob: Yeah. Three huge points that I want to point out to your journey. So check it out. She started with the challenge. She actually got stuff listed. She did locally, but she made it a point to do it. She took that first step and you got paid, you got paid $247 to do that. Awesome. Totally awesome. You got results, but that next step you knew you saw that you were missing out on stuff that could be listed on eBay.

    Amazing. So you started where you were at and you look back on it now and you're like, what do they mean by these? These pictures were horrible. You know, how did I do this? The point is you just have to start to get results. You have to start now, you've grown through the last year, two years. You've gotten a lot better at it, but you stuck to it and you're getting results.

    And then the third point is definitely, you're doing stuff like I'm so surprised myself at the vintage stuff right now when I was a kid, the Nintendo, [00:13:00] the Atari. Those things are selling and they're selling like hotcakes 

    Amy: He-Man, Shira, birdie, gem. Oh my gosh. And I think like if I just had my toy box, right, like.

    Melissa: I'm sure we have boxes of stuff in the sh the one garage. I bet we can find some stuff. 

    Rob: But that points out that's stuff, that you knew, maybe not stuff that you were totally, well, it was stuff you were interested in when you're younger. So you had a, a foot up, or what would you say? Like a leg up? Are you, you know, you have a little bit of. 

    Amy: Like if I see something like there's a good chance that I know that, that's probably a He-Man toy that might be teenage mutant ninja turtle that I probably need to ask my husband because I was probably playing with a Barbie. You know what I mean?

    Rob: That's cool. You figured out in your journey, so you started and you got better and you figured out, you know, kind of what you honed in on is that vintage stuff from when you were a kid, which is the same for me. It's that, that stuff that is really selling hot now. So those are three key points, big big points in your journey that are really cool. 

    Melissa: Another part is that [00:14:00] you considered it a failure, even though you made $247, you were very upset, but you didn't let that stop you either. Like then you're like, okay. Game on. I'm going to do that. So, yeah. So that's fun. So what is your average? Obviously as a reseller, our income goes up and down like it fluctuates a lot. So, but what would you say your average income per month is from your reselling business? 

    Amy: Because like you said, it does, it definitely goes up and down. And there are months that I'm like, I listed the most amazing things in the world and nobody buys them and you're like, "What?" And then there's months that you put stuff up that you've found in your basement.

    And you're like, I don't know how that just sold, but awesome. Right. Like it's, it's, it's crazy. But I also, I appreciate that, you know, like that keeps me interested and I would say on average, I probably make like in gross sales, I'm probably somewhere between like the $3,000 and $4,000 a month at this point, which is, I mean, it's awesome.

    Again, you're you're, you're going to be mad at me again. Like for [00:15:00] me, I'm like that's below where I want to be, so I'm not happy, but I was unemployed. So I do try to keep perspective of that. Like, I could be sitting here every day going, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do, you know, because let's face it.

    The pandemic is still changing everything and restaurants are not the same and businesses are, unfortunately are not the same. And that's, that's long haul. That's not over, that's not even close to being over. So there are restaurants that I could go back to and work at right now and make a fraction of what I made and work twice as much.

    And not be available for my family. So I do like, I'm like, oh my gosh, you made like $4,000 this month. Like sit down, like, you're fine. But then I'm like, it's not where I want to be. So for me, like, I just see that there's potential to keep pushing and keep moving. And that's why when I get to that number, I'll let you know.

    But until then, you [00:16:00] know, I'm thankful so thankful that I'm able to supplement our income this way and that we're able to grow and that I'm able to do this and that, you know, I learned something new every day and I definitely learned different things aspects of everyday or what I did wrong and how to not do that again.

    And I, and I think that's part of the big thing that discourages people is that they make one big mistake shipping or one big mistake and you listed something and it sold. And then you saw somebody else selling it for three times as much. You really have to just be like, it's done. It's done, it's gone, it's over, keep going. Yeah. Yeah. 

    Melissa: Do you know about like how much you would have had to invested to make that $4,000? Like I, in your inventory, like on average on? 

    Amy: Oh, like all of it, like, like, so I literally sourced stuff from our house and I have a bit of a book [00:17:00] problem, so I sold. I mean, I made so little on them, but it didn't even matter.

    Cause it, it like, it serves such a dual purpose. It got books out of the house and I made a little bit of money and it funded the next thing and funded the next thing and funded the next night. You know what I mean? To the point where that I could actually go out and buy inventory and then sell that inventory.

    You know what I mean? I tried to be very specific at not spending money that I hadn't made. If I couldn't pay myself, that was fine, but at least I could roll it back in. And like, keep it going, you know what I mean? And that was really specific for me. 

    Rob: Yeah. On, on average, when you are like on average, you're probably saying that you're bringing in $4,000, how much are you actually investing towards that? 

    Melissa: In inventory. 

    Rob: Exactly. When you're buying per month, like, are you spending, you know, you know, a $1,000 and that's rolling you into a $4,000 or do you roughly know?[00:18:00] 

    Amy: I tried to buy stuff super, super cheap. I still, also, I would try to sell stuff out of my house that I keep finding. And now that it's, now that it's a thing, now that I'm just not like, oh, Amy's selling on eBay. Cause she doesn't have anything to do at home. Right? Like now that people like your family, your friends are now vested.

    Like people give me stuff, but like, hey, I was going to throw this away. Do you think you could make money off of it? And I'm like, I don't know, but if I can't then I'll donate it. So just bring it on over, you know what I mean? Like, so I do that and then I have this weird situation that doesn't happen for everybody. But I was super fortunate is that, so one of the guys that my husband works with his father owns a clean-out company and was like, hey, like we're looking for somebody that can help us do some more things.

    So I go pick through what they bring from their clean-outs and then we have our deal, you know what, like whatever that is. And, [00:19:00] I get a ton of stuff that way that I don't pay a penny for. So paying a lot for inventory and not paying a lot for inventory. What I've done though, because I don't pay a lot for inventory is I've paid for systems and processes and softwares and things and education to keep me moving forward.

    So like the Reseller Summit, I was like, yes, I'm going, and I'm paying for the, like the extras I'm doing that. Like Flipper University. As soon as I finished that challenge and didn't make the $250, I was like, bye. Like, come on that $250 is paying for this and we're going to keep it moving. You know what I mean?

    Like, so I do a lot of those types of things where I invest it back into, I say it's investing it back into the business, but it's investing it back into me being more capable of doing the business. So I probably, if I had to say like, give you a number, let's say I get, I get thrifty, and I decided I'm going to go to all the yard sales [00:20:00] versus just like going and getting stuff from the warehouse.

    Cause I just want to change. Let's say I spend $500 a month. Like that's, that's a lot for me, but if I do that, it's probably because I've sourced some ridiculous thing that you're going to help me put on a pallet at some point, you know what I mean? Like, hi, I'm like, I just want to, I went and bought a crazy stove because why would I not?

    And then I went and bought this like crazy this, because why would I not? And then like, I bring it home and then my husband goes "What?" And I'm like, fine. It's totally fine. We're going to make money. It's totally fine. You know what I mean? And, that's kind of what I do like, so I either spend very, very little, or I will spend specifically to either build the brand and my company or I know I'm going to make a serious amount of money off of an item. So, I mean, it's kind of all, I'm a little, all, [00:21:00] all over the place, but I feel like you have to be, and having those contexts is so good. 

    Melissa: We definitely believe in those, like you can. That's awesome. 

    Rob: Yeah. One thing that I wanted to go back to that you were talking about was definitely that you, you're appreciative for where you're at.

    A lot of people in this game can look at other people's even right now, seeing that you're making. $4,000 a month. Somebody can look at that and they're only making 700 to a thousand dollars and compare themselves to you. You can't do that. You can't play the comparison game. You have to get better than you were just like where you started out in that first month, you know, making $247.

    That's where you have to start and you have to look at these cents 50 cents and make sure the next month that you're getting a little bit better and keep comparing yourself to your, I mean, keep comparing yourself to who you were yesterday or last month and keep growing and getting better. So, and that's part of your investment as well.

    You're investing into your knowledge, you're investing into your business, you're trying to grow and get better at what you're doing. So you can make more money and get better at your craft. [00:22:00] 

    Amy: I mean, the other thing that I did too early on is that I would list anything. And I do mean like if I could make 50 cents, it was going up, you know what I mean?

    Like. That's because I wanted to create standards and platforms. Like I wanted to have the rating and I wanted the review and I wanted to knock your socks off with how I shipped it and how pretty it was and this, that, and the they're not pretty anymore. They go in a box. They go, I mean, they're well wrapped, but like I was.

    I was over the top. Like I was, I was running like a gift shop store on the side, like, you know, cause I just wanted it to, I wanted to wow people so that I would get good reviews and they would up my rating and it would up my visibility and it would up my, so I didn't care what it cost. Like I didn't care if I was making 25 cents.

    I just wanted the sale. So I think that's the other thing too, is that people get very caught up in like, you know, we live in a world where everything's so accessible, so you can see YouTube and videos and this and that and this and the [00:23:00] podcasts, whatever it is. And you see somebody doing whatever amount they're doing anything.

    Well, if I'm not doing that, then I'm not doing anything. And like, you just have to stay in your lane. Whatever that lane is, you have to figure out what that is and just be comfortable with it. And like, So for me, it was, I'm going to list everything under the sun and then it became, okay, my time and worth is a little more valuable than that now, only because I'm making money. So now I'm going to raise that level and I'm not going to list something if it's not, if I can't sell it at this price. And then when I started with this, cause like working with this guy, it was like, well, I'll say so, anything that's his at any price, just to show him that I can sell stuff.

    And then it was like, okay, well, now that I've proven to him that I can sell stuff, like now we're going to raise that bar. Now I've read both the bars. If I'm not going to make this number in my head, approximately it grows. I probably have other things I should probably be doing today. You know what I mean?

    And that's, and it's okay to not be there. Like it's [00:24:00] okay. If you make 5 cents on an item. Awesome. Roll that into something else. I mean, you know, Stacy, you started with 50 cents, you know, and she's crushing it. So it's not a matter of necessarily like, oh, I didn't my first item wasn't a pallet shipping of like a, you know, like $50,000 item.

    Yeah, no, it probably shouldn't be.

    Melissa: What was one of your most memorable flips? 

    Amy: I've had a bunch of both that have gone right and wrong. The wrong always sticks out more for me because I'm so competitive. Like I want to fix it and be better next time. But one that went really right for me, that was like, nobody believed it is that.

    So when everything, the world was shut down, right. Once in a while I could sneak into the warehouse and like sort stuff when nobody was there. And like, I didn't have to worry about seeing people and things. And I found an item and I was like, I think this is a chess set. And I was like a queen's [00:25:00] gambit, chess is up over a thousand percent.

    It's everywhere in the news. They're running out of chess sets, you can't even get them, can't even find them. So I like, you also have to keep your ear to the ground, like what's happening right now, you know? So. I brought it home and was like, all right, let's just, let's just see. Right. So I started looking it up and I was like, it is, it's a chess set, it's totally a chest set that, but it looked like nothing you'd ever seen.

    It was super long in this box that had like a blue apatite, like over the front of it. And it like slid back with like, a wooden drawer. It had spots in the back for a hook. You'd like, hang it on the wall and display it. Right. Like, they were like this big and they were very mid, modern, vintage word, right.

    That mid modern, like look to them. And I kept looking at I'm like, I know it's a chest set. So we started looking, we as an I'm looking and I'm telling my husband, I know it's a chest set. [00:26:00] Okay, whatever crazy lady, like you just brought home the most random thing ever, right? Yeah. That random things sold for a thousand dollars in two weeks, it was actually a mid modern chess set.

    As I suggested, made out of tin and each piece was made out of one piece of metal. It wasn't cut piece together from this particular artist who did a series of chess sets. And that's why they had the hooks in the back because you could hang them as display because he was an artist, not a chess maker.

    The only reason I knew that the only reason I even, well, for two reasons, my dad played, we played chess as a kid. I played chess young. So, you know, like when the chess thing became hip again, I was like, man, I totally know how to play chess. Right. And then w just happened upon this. And I was like, I think it's chess.

    We're going to find out. Like right then and there any. [00:27:00] It was the first big item I sold, like the first big dollar item I sold not size, but dollar item, I sold. And when I sold that, my husband was like, whatever we need to do. You know what I mean? Like after that, he's like, yeah, yeah, cute. Make some money.

    Don't be bored when you're not trying to teach your child, like do what you do get some stuff out of the house. I'm in. Get stuff out of the house. Yes. I came home with that thing and sold it and he was. Whatever we need to do it. 

    Melissa: Or you had, how much did you pay for it or you? 

    Amy: I sourced it for free from my contacts.

    Melissa: Awesome. 

    Amy: Crazy. Right. So. 

    Melissa: A thousand bucks. That's so fun. 

    Rob: But one thing that you did say about that is your ear to the ground. You know, what's going around you that's when the big series of the Queen's Gambit, is that what it was that was going on? People were on there looking for stuff we did. But even right now, there's problems in manufacturing for stuff that people can not get there [00:28:00] months and months on back order for stuff.

    That's where you keep your ear to the ground. Right now, you figure out what it is. Appliances are huge right now for us. You can get appliances and sell them for so much money because people can't get them they're on back order and they can't do it. So that's a very good point for everybody to take.

    What is going on around you take advantage of that stuff. That's going on around you and try to look in those areas. So to find stuff that you can resell. So that's a that's amazing point. Great point. 

    Amy: Wall Street Journal just released an article and I'm not a big, like, I don't read the paper, I don't watch the news. I like, I catch things. And then if they spark my interest, I, I vet them out. I source them. Right. So. I don't spend a ton of time doing that. I'm just aware of what's happening in the world. A little, you know, Wall Street Journal released an article. It was over the weekend that said, retailers are telling you if you have not already significantly completed your Christmas list, it's not going to happen. It's, it's what day is it? It's November eighth. 

    Melissa: They're going [00:29:00] to go to eBay. 

    Amy: I got you like vintage toys. Let's do it. You know what I mean? Like, whatever it 

    Melissa: It's Christmas. 

    Amy: Exactly. 

    Rob: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it. 

    Melissa: So, so have you had any, one last one, have you had any flops that you can think of? Everybody likes to hear the, you know, like it's all exciting and good, but what are some like maybe something that you learned from? 

    Amy: I like to sit in my misery and sort through it and figuring out how to fix it. If, if not for anything else, I mean, those are the things that stick out for me. I thought I was going to make a gazillion dollars off of selling books from the dollar store. Let me just, let me help you out, the answer's no, you are much better off to take whatever's on your bookshelf and make some money because you've already bought and paid for it. That was like, I knew I was going to get rich that way. Like that was the silliest thing I've ever done. You know what I mean, dollars. I have made enormous mistakes in [00:30:00] shipping, like enormous.

    I mean, we talked about shipping stuff as, as soon as yesterday, like I have made enormous mistakes in shipping and not always because you did something wrong, like they changed their prices. They changed the size, but like, and I say they is in the three big, like without doing freight, like FedEx, UPS and, and USPS, like they changed what their cost is going to be.

    They change what their measurements are going to be for whatever price range. They change availability, P.S. They don't have people working, so you can't get anything out. You know what I mean? Like I've had enormous flops because of that. And things that I've lost money on like significant money on where you literally have to make a decision that you're going to like sit and wallow, which okay, cool.

    And get up or sit and wallow and be like, I can't do this. It's too hard. Guess what? Every single job is [00:31:00] hard. I don't care who you work for, what you do, what it is. If you like 80 to 85% of what your job is, you've done well. If that 10 to 15% like, isn't great, guess what the rest of the world has that. So like you get to pick, what's going to be hard.

    Like, is it going to be hard cause you messed up or is it going to be hard cause you went to work and messed up for somebody else and maybe got fired? And now like you don't have a job. Like I didn't have a job, you know what I mean? Like, so it just, you have to pick your heart. So shipping has been probably my biggest. But it's my mistake it's stuff that I like. I've made mistakes and you just learn from it and you just move forward from it. 

    Rob: Yeah. That is a huge point because people do, and that is what hangs people up is they do make a mistake in whether it's shipping, whether it's listing, they listed something too cheap and then they figured out, hey I sold that too cheap.

    There's a lot of mistakes that you can make. But you have to go back on this business as a whole. Where else are you going to be able to have the control of your time? Where else are you gonna be able to take care of your kids while you're doing it? [00:32:00] And if you take those mistakes, just like you said, you're not wallowing. You're not sitting there and meditating on that mistake. You're figuring out what can I learn from this? How do I not make the same mistake next time? And that's how you continue to grow. So that's awesome that you've already realized that, and you're, you're, you're using it. You're, you're doing what you're, you're preaching you're you're not sitting in it and thinking about it, you're actually getting to that next level and you're growing, you're continuing to grow, which is huge in any business that you're working with.

    Amy: And I want to savor that. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to like that sucked. Like I messed that up and that sucked. Okay, cool. Have your moment do what you need to do. Walk away from it for a day. Well I've taken full weekends when I'm like, I'm not even opening Ebay app, like I'm not even like I'm turning off notification. If it sells over the weekend, I can deal with it on mine.

    Like I'm not even looking, but you're better to do that. And then refocus and go back then just walk away. 

    Rob: Absolutely. I totally agree. Well, cool. Well, Amy, [00:33:00] let's wrap this up. We totally appreciate you doing this. You've given some great, great information for people who are out there starting out and even going to that next level.

    A huge, huge list of amazing things that you're implementing in your business. So thank you for jumping on here with us. Thank you for giving this, amazing information to everybody. So, yeah. Thank you so much. 

    This has been awesome.

     

    34 min
  • Five Ways To Take Your Flipping Side Hustle To The Next Level. Interview With Nick Loper.

    Reseller Hangout Podcast - Nick Loper

    Download your digital copy of The Progress Journal here: https://nickloper.lpages.co/progress-journal-reseller-summit-bonus/

    Check out more flipping resources at https://fleamarketflipper.com/

    Rob: All right, guys. Welcome. We are so honored to have Nick Loper here with us today to give some awesome advice and nuggets in this realm of side hustling, side hustles. Nick has been doing this for over eight years. He's been interviewing all different types of individuals who have side hustles, and has done over 400 interviews.

    So he's got some great wisdom, some great knowledge on information that [00:01:00] he can, he can bring to all of us in the realm of side hustles and on the flipping aspect of it. So, Nick, thank you so much for jumping in here with us. We're so excited to have you today. 

    Nick: You bet. I mean, you were one of the early guests, I want to say 2014 or something. It was pretty early days for the show. 

    Rob: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That Nick was actually our first Flea Market Flipper, he was our first podcast interview. And I still remember talking to Nick on the phone before the podcast and not knowing what I was doing, but he pulled me on and it was awesome.

    Had a great time with him back in the day. 

    Nick: I love it. That's what brings me the most joy is like trying to like scoop these up and coming stories, of people like yourself who just have cool creative, interesting businesses. And, well, how does that work? You know, just play in playing the curious host and seeing where that takes us.

    Rob: That is awesome. And we're so thankful that you do do that because you give us so much great information and insight in all different side hustles. So, but today we are actually going to focus on, some key aspects of our side hustle, how [00:02:00] we can get more out of flipping and more definite about if you have a full-time job, how do you, how do you balance it?

    How do you balance that time that you're spending on the side hustle? And how do you, how do you keep your full-time job and without going crazy and throwing kids into the mix of it? So, yeah, let's go ahead and jump into it. We'll go ahead and ask Nick some questions and, get some, some great feedback from him, for sure.

    Melissa: Yeah, first, before we started, we wanted to ask you, Nick, what got you started in exploring sides hustles? 

    Nick: I mean in the very early days, I was the person who just knew they didn't want to climb the corporate ladder. It's like, there's gotta be, there's gotta be a different way. There's gotta be a way out. My original side business was a comparison shopping site for footwear.

    So I've been playing mostly in the online space. You know, for, for my entrepreneurial journey, but prior to that I painted houses. I was the kid like trying to sell candy to my fellow, Boy Scouts at summer camp, that kind of thing. But the house painting gig [00:03:00] definitely like solidified like, oh, you're, you know, it's a lot more fun to kind of like be in control of your own destiny in, in some way, more stressful, but more rewarding as well.

    So I started the shoe business while I was working corporate. It was three years of nights and weekends before I felt comfortable. Yeah. Giving my notice at work, turning the keys to the company car and said, all right, I'm going to make you go with this. I kind of thought like that could be my thing.

    Like, I'll just be the guy who sells shoes on the internet. Like a lot of businesses, they had a finite lifespan, and I'm really fortunate and grateful to have started a bunch of other side projects while the shoe business was running, most of which for full disclosure, you know, died a quiet death in some corner of the internet, but a couple of stuck around.

    And one of those was, the sidehustlenation.com blog and the Side Hustle Show podcast. We started in 2013. So it was like, you know, five years deep into being a full-time entrepreneur full full-time side hustler at that point. And so it was kind of a result of my own. And you kind of do [00:04:00] some of the questions that a lot of people will, will turn back to you.

    If you're like, well, how do I figure out, you know, what to do? And so the questions would be like, well, you know, what do you never get tired about talking about? What lights you up? What do other people come to you for advice for? And, you know, since I'd already done the thing and quit my job, people were naturally at well, how did that work?

    You know, how are you able to stay at home and do it and stuff? I found, I really enjoyed, you know, deconstructing other businesses like you know, where does, where does the money come from here? You know, how did you market that? Like, you know, all that stuff is, was instilled is really fascinating to me.

    So that's kinda how the, the podcast got its start. 

    Rob: Awesome. I love it. I love it. And one of those big things is what lights you guys up? That is the big thing. Most of you guys that are here right now, you are lit up like me when you're out there searching for awesome stuff. You're looking for those deals, whether it's in a flea market, a thrift store, whether it's retail shops, wherever it's at, wherever you can find those deals. That's what lights you up. And like Nick said, that makes it [00:05:00] awesome. That makes your profession or your side hustle is so much better when you actually have a great time doing it. 

    Melissa: Because there's always going to be something about it that you don't like, but if you really love, you know, the most part, what you're doing, you're slightly passionate about flipping.

    So, Nick, what would you say, what makes some people successful with their side hustle while others might struggle to make it work? 

    Nick: Oh my gosh. I mean, there's lots of different things that we can, we can get into, but one of the biggest at the very start is this willingness to step off of the ledge, or maybe, you know, that, that connotes a following.

    So maybe like taking that step first, step up the mountain, you know, not necessarily knowing the rest of the path, because it's, it's so easy to stay stuck, kind of on the entrepreneurial sidelines with the side hustle sidelines, like trying to map out the entire route, trying to map out this entire path.

    And I just, I don't know if that's super realistic in getting started. It's like, okay, choosing what's next doesn't mean choosing what's forever, but like, you gotta be [00:06:00] willing to do that first thing and seeing, okay, what kind of reaction it gets? Do you find it something that you enjoy doing? I mean, that was, that was the podcast. It was, you know, $50 mic in the corner of the living room. Is this thing on? Yeah. I was like, am I going to run out of people to talk to? What did I just commit myself to? But it was something that I found that I enjoy doing. It was seeing just enough traction to justify, continuing to do it.

    And I think you either find that or you or you don't and then you say, well, luckily it wasn't a life-threatening experiment. I can kind of go back to the drawing board and try something new, but that hesitation to get started for fear of failure or fear of not knowing steps two through 10,, I think holds a lot of people back.

    Rob: Great point for sure. That's awesome. And you have to, like Nick said, you have to be willing to take that next step. Even if you do have some failures in the business, I've had tons of failures myself, but it's one of those things that you're willing to do. You're willing to course correct along the way.

    And yeah, I think that's a huge point, Nick, that you'd have to be willing to go that next up the mountain, [00:07:00] take that next step in. And it, the pay off is huge when you find it and you get there, but yeah, that's an awesome point. Yeah. 

    Nick: Did you guys meet Todd Tresidder at one of your fin cons over the years?

    Melissa: I don't think so. 

    Nick: So Todd is kinda like my dad's age, so he's kinda, and he's like a long lean guy and like a really good skier. So I like, he reminds me of my dad in a lot of ways, but when Todd was on the show, he kind of, and I'm going to butcher this quote, but he's like, the of, you know, wealth creation is, you know, probability times, outcome or, you know, so he had some weird formula for it, but what he was trying to say was, you know, if you minimize your downside risk and you have positioned these, you know, side hustles or businesses or startups in such a way that the upside is large enough, it just becomes a matter of taking enough swings. Like it's like your, your wealth almost becomes inevitable as long as you, you know, minimize that downside on each one. And same thing, you know, [00:08:00] starting flipping it's like, well, what, what are you comfortable with investing in initial inventory?

    You know, for, for all my online stuff or a lot of my online stuff, it's like, well, domain name and hosting. It's like, you know, a hundred bucks, you know, you'd get stuff off the ground really, really affordably. So kind of managing, you know, managing the risk and then, you know, positioning it. Well, how does this scale, like three to five years down the road, if it hits.

    Is that a win for me? And sometimes yes, sometimes. No. And so that kind of, align that with your goals. 

    Melissa: Yeah, that's awesome. 

    Rob: I love it. I love it for sure. 

    Melissa: Would you say there's any common traits or characteristics or habits like of all these people that you've interviewed in your that are doing a successful side hustle?

    Do they have any commonalities among them that you've picked up?

    Nick: I think. Well, let's talk about the, the time aspect first. And then, and then we got five traits that I think, will make you more effective in your side hustle and, and some of the common threads and themes that we've seen from, from the years of the interviews.

    First off, like at the time, and I don't [00:09:00] know about you, but I have found myself guilty yet. I didn't have enough time. I would do that if I just had the time and what I have been trying to force myself to reframe that as is I prioritized something else. It's a little more honest. It's a little more brutal, but I prioritize something else.

    I've got this post er, you know, we just moved. So it's still like sitting on the floor. We haven't hung it up yet, but it's a little artistic print and it says, you know, everything in life got so much easier once he realized there was exactly enough time for the priorities in his life or for the most important things in your life.

    And it's like, we kind of know that instinctively where we, we vote our priorities with our time and you know, I'm not faulting anyone because there's, there's different seasons in life too. Like we were just at the park with a couple of friends of ours. They've got like twin one year olds. It's a different season in their life side hustle.

    Not really on the radar right now. And that's, that's totally fine. But, being honest with yourself, so 168 hours in the week, asking yourself, well, where is that [00:10:00] time going today? Do you really? Cause I've been there too. Like, there are days where, like I did not have you know, a minute to just like, you know, breathe and focus in like, you know, do this.

    But if you zoom it out over the course of a week, 168 hours seems a little bit more manageable, more doable. And so what I've recommended in the past is like to do this time tracking, audit in there, you can do that, like on your phone. I think a time of blogger was an app that was recommended. Toggle is another one T O G G L.

    I was, you know, if you're working from your computer, you might find it, you know, just have an Excel file. Like start time, stop. What were you doing? And just being able to tell you that up at the end of the week to say, oh, you know, I spent, you know, three cumulative hours, like getting kids ready to go out the door or, you know, on some sort of like, maybe it was my commute or maybe, you know, trying to get a log of like, where, where those hours are actually going.

    And it doesn't mean I'm, I think you guys are like the examples of like multitaskers extraordinary, like [00:11:00] with your morning runs like, oh, we got we're working on our fitness and we got, you know, we got the kids with us. We got some family time going on. Oh, we're listening to a podcast or like doing the entrepreneurial education thing.

    Oh, by the way, we might, we might spot something that's worthwhile to source while we're out there. It's like the ultimate multitask. But, but starting there, you know, with this time audit and getting honest with yourself, like, okay, if it's a priority to me, I will carve out the time and make it a consistent habit.

    Even if it's 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, like something like that, because it's easy to. It's easy to build positive momentum, but it's just as easy to build negative momentum. You skip it for a day, skip it for two days. I think that's James clear to roll. Like don't ever take two days off in a row.

    Cause then it's like, oh, it's a slippery slope to go down from there. But I've got five habits that I think will make you a more effective side hustler, more effective flipper, more expective, entrepreneur. And the first of those, I'm bringing my list here, but the first of those is like [00:12:00] tracking.

    Your, your key performance indicators, like identifying your, the metrics that matter in your business. And those, you know, are the levers that you have some influence over that you can test different things and maybe it's. You know, the hours I've spent scrolling on, on offer up, or maybe it's like the offers made.

    Maybe it's like the percentage take rate on your offers and maybe it's the target margin that you're shooting for. Maybe it's, you know, the ROI on certain flips. 

    So the second thing that I think will make you more effective. At least I've found it to be helpful for me is instead of, you know, year-long goals or even like, oh, here's my five-year goal.

    I think that it's good, but it's, it's kind of just a wild guess at that point. So I like to set what I'll call like sprint goals, short-term sprint goals. These are maybe, you know, four weeks, eight weeks, something that has a, a tangible deadlines, kind of like, you know, registering for a half marathon.

    That's two months out. Like, okay, I [00:13:00] better get training for that. Versus like, if I registered for something next year, I got some time I'll figure that out. So like an urgent deadline with some urgency or a goal with some ideas, especially for like project based stuff. Like I want to get this book done.

    I want to watch this summit. I want to launch this podcast. I want to hit $5,000 in eBay sale, whatever it is. So kind of these shorter term goals. 

    The next thing that I have, number three, is this habit of writing down your top three priorities for tomorrow the night before. And I feel like when I get up in the morning and I have done this, I know exactly what to work on.

    And in what order, before I dive into reactive mode, someone else's agenda, I want to be moving my own life forward my own goals forward. Before I dive into Facebook, dive into email and start like this. You're putting out fires, right? It's like, okay, if I can, if I can get, you know, one, maybe two of those done, you know, before going into seeing what the rest of the [00:14:00] world has going on.

    I, I know that's going to be a much better day. And so that's kind of the, the third habit like this, you know, writing this down and like, and then trusting that. You know, cause it's easy to be like, oh, that's what yesterday Nick said like, is that really important to do that? And then at the end of the day, I try and do kind of like, I called it, my I'd done this habit for a lot of times. There was, I think there was a service that maybe still is called, I'd done this, which is just like it sends you an email, or it did, and you just reply back with like, what'd you get done today? So that I had rigged up a system with like Google sheets.

    And so you could kind of combine all that, and say, well, what did you get done today? Like recorded this episode. And I updated this thing and I, you know, met with resellers, you know, all these different things, but like, it's easy to, because that's the, that's the like, look in the mirror, honesty, honesty question.

    Like, did I do work [00:15:00] that mattered today? Did I make progress today? And sometimes, you know, you spend a lot of time on maintenance mode or, you know, things that kind of feel productive, but if you have your short-term sprint goal in mind and this, you know, I've done this habit, you know, you kind of have to be honest, did I, am I making progress toward that goal that I said was important to me and, and go from there?

    Number four is, something that I have found like personally beneficial, for, you know, habits that I want to change because I was, I would be the person, you know, who, who would look at, you know, December 31st and say, okay, new year's resolutions, what are we gonna do? Like, okay, well, I'm gonna, you know, get up at 5:30, I'm gonna drink a healthy smoothie.

    I'm going to journal and meditate and I'm going to eat no sugar, no carbs. And, you try and change too many variables at once and you do it for a day, you do it for two and then kind of fall off the wagon. So the fourth thing is what I call like micro habits. These are like one small tweak [00:16:00] to your day that you want to experiment with that, that you think might be meaningful for you.

    And so this could be starting a meditation habit. This could be, you know, doing 10 pushups, doing 10 burpees. This could be making the bed, this could be, you know, a dietary change of, you know, avoiding processed sugar and stuff like that. It could be a reading. I'm going to read a chapter of the book, you know, of some book every night, I'm going to write a chapter of my book every night, or I'm going to write 500 pages, one page, you know, kind of this, you know, building this daily habit, positioning it as, as an experiment, like, okay.

    And if I try and make it too small to fail, like one of the first ones I did was, just pushups and it, you know, the, the micro examples, like, well, if I just do one push-up, I can check the box and make that away. And if I just floss one tooth, I can check the box and make that a win. But what I ended up doing was like, well, how many pushups can I do?

    You know? And I think I did like 27 on day one. And then every day we'll try and do one more kind of could I beat yesterday's [00:17:00] record? And by the end of the month it was like 70 something. So I was like, oh, okay, just trying to stack up these, these little incremental improvements. And so that's kind of the, where I think you'll find there is like this slight edge or this compound effect of, you know, stacking up these marginal gains, you know, establish one tiny habit at a time until it becomes ingrained and then on to the next thing and onto the next thing.

    And it kind of comes from Amazon. I read at one point, Amazon is testing like a thousand different variables. They're running like a thousand different split tests on their site. You know, the position of this button, the shape of the size of this text, all of these different things like trying to eke out an extra point, zero 1% of conversion rate or something, because like, you know, with the volume that they're doing, that would be significant to the bottom line.

    And I think you can apply that same. Always be testing mentality to yourself, always be experimenting on, you know, one little, one little thing. And then the fifth thing, and there's a lot of data to back this up is this gratitude, practice, [00:18:00] gratitude, journaling, you know, what were you, what are you thankful for?

    Because I find when, there's always fires to put out. There's always stuff that goes wrong. There's always like, you know, one brother kicking the other brother in the neck. It's like easy to get, like today was just nuts, but a little bit of a pause to say, What am I grateful for? And I kind of combine this with the priority task for the next day.

    I say, what I get done today? What am I grateful for? What do I need to tackle tomorrow? And I find that that leads to a happier and more effective, Nick for sure. 

    Rob: I love it. I love it. And I like how you break down and it's not, it's not about that thing. Like you said, creating those goals that are unattainable.

    It's not like doing that a year in advance. You're making these small incremental, wins that you guys can stack up. And I relate it more to, I mean, something that came to my mind while you're talking is Dave Ramsey talks about, getting out of debt and stuff like that. But one of the keys he always talks about is taking your credit cards and paying off [00:19:00] the lowest credit card first or the lowest balance.

    And then go to the next balance and then the next balance and the next balance. And when you do that, you get this quick win. It's a quick win, but it's also this feeling of accomplishment. I just did one, man. I can go do another one. And then you just start getting that. And the same thing that Nick saying, you're getting these accomplishments because they're not unattainable, they're micro, but at the same time, that's what's going to push you to the next level. You get those successes and then you keep going and you adjust and you keep going with it. So excellent, Nick. That was awesome. 

    Melissa: We both took good notes too. 

    Nick: So I'm like, I I've been back and forth on this. I'll get your guys' take on it too. Here's like process oriented goals versus outcome goals. Like the outcome goal is I want to have a billion dollar business. The process oriented goal is like, I want to do the thing that will maybe, hopefully get me there. It's like, I will write. 500 words a day. I will ask for raises from my affiliate partners.

    I will, you know, make sure I list 10 items a week. You know, it's [00:20:00] kind of this process oriented goal versus this. Cause you have more control over like, you know, I dunno. So I've gone back and forth on that because I think you need maybe a combination of both, versus. What do you, what do you guys think?

    Melissa: I like the process oriented just because you can, I can control that then the other one, but then it usually leads to the other one. But when we are talking about goals, we usually go to the outcome goal, which it should be more of a process oriented. 

    Rob: I think of it as people want, they get into a side hustle, they get into a flipping and they want to make an extra thousand dollars a month.

    But exactly how is it going to be? And then that's where you make the commitment of okay, money comes in when I list stuff, whether it's offer up whether it's Facebook marketplace, whether it's eBay, wherever it's going. So what can I do to get to that thousand dollars? I need to list one thing a day. I need to make sure I list one thing a day, at least one thing, maybe two things a day, and you have to get to that.

    And that's the goals that you have to set and then you have to stick behind them. But I agree with you, Nick. You're the more that you do that and you start to get those [00:21:00] wins. Also, the habit is building of you listing one thing a day by the end of the day. Just like your push-ups, you're going to be there because you're making the commitment and you're following through with it.

    And it's not something that's unattainable. So I a hundred percent agree that. 

    Nick: Yeah, I think if you're trying to reverse engineer, like the revenue flow in your business, and maybe that's where your, you know, your KPIs, your key performance indicators come into play. Maybe it is this, listing one, you know, one item a day. Again, the painting business, it was, you know, leads to estimates, to sales, to

    we're doing the work, like going and painting the house. And so like really the top of the top of the funnel, so to speak was leads. And those were mostly cold calling like door to door. And so hours spent cold calling was kind of the lead domino for a lot of this. A lot of everything that came after.

    Rob: Yeah, I love it. 

    Melissa: Yeah. So for us, it's like sourcing those good items and getting them listed is always the bottle for most, most people, it is, and then get them listed and then, cause they can't sell if they're not listed. 

    Rob: For most people who like [00:22:00] reselling the problem is not finding items. We can get out there and we can find some great items and we can find lots of them.

    It's the bottleneck is they're sitting up in that death pile of stuff you bought and you don't have it listed yet. So you got to get a list of, to make that money. 

    Melissa: So get those KPIs going, exactly. One thing that I really love that you said, Nick, was the top three priorities the night before, because I think that is so important because it's so easy, especially now in to get distracted, like there's so many distractions in our life, you wake up in between emails, social media.

    I look at this screen time. Pop-up you spent this much time on screen time, like, oh yeah, it was all work. It was all work that I was on my screen. 

    Nick: That's what I try and justify too. It's like you spend an hour and 20 minutes on your phone, you know, last week or something and you know, a per day per day.

    Melissa: Yeah, I try to justify it, but yeah, I know a lot of it was not, so that was that's wasted time and I should have been doing something else and getting my priorities. Then if you work on those top three, because I have a tendency to go, well, what's my top 15 priorities for the day. Like, and then too [00:23:00] big it's too much.

    And I get overwhelmed and then I go to social media. So, so having three it's very good. 

    Nick: And breaking them down into like the smallest actionable steps. Cause I've been the person, you know, where the item, it just sits on the to-do list for. For weeks and for months. And you're like, why, why is this not getting done?

    And then again, you look in the mirror, well, it's on you dummy. You know, if you don't take action on it, nothing's going to happen. But it, it sits there because you never going to have this uninterrupted 37 hour block of time to tackle it. And so it's like, okay, if I were to chip away at this, okay, what could I do to, you know, start working on this?

    I had a book project this summer and it took like nine months, 10 months. Like it took way longer than I ever expected it to. Cause it was, it was a really intimidating project to tackle it. So I never felt like, well, I don't have time. I don't have the bandwidth to deal with this right now. But you know, there was a hundred stories in the book.

    Like I could have made the habit. Well, let me just do one a day. Let me just go through edit one a day. [00:24:00] And, you know, I would have been done in three and a half months instead of 10. So, it's a, it's a do, as I say, not as I do kind of thing with that example. 

    Rob: I love it. Good, for sure. 

    Melissa: We just had a couple quick more questions, was, so you've interviewed a wide range of resellers. So what are some of the different niches of sellers and flippers that you've had come across that you've seen? 

    Nick: Oh, my gosh. We've had people doing, phones, doing books, doing, cars. That wasn't a, that was just a post on the site doing sneakers, doing appliances, which, that was one of the earliest ones that we did that was Ryan Finley from, Re Craigslist.

    I don't know if he's still active, but it really opened my eyes to the possibility of what was available. And it's like, could you imagine like a heavier bulkier, more difficult to transport type of item to, to go out and flip, but he was doing well, supporting his family, doing that stuff. And in a couple of things that he stood out, in that call that were really interesting [00:25:00] was, you know, in the early days set yourself a daily goal, I'm gonna go find 50 bucks where the profit today I'm gonna go find a hundred bucks worth of profit today.

    And I think he did that until he had erased his debt. And then. It's like, oh, if I can do this consistently, this could be a full-time thing. And the other thing that he said was, you know, opportunities become visible once you're in motion. And at that time, you know, going back probably 2014 timeframe, I kind of dismissed that as like, yeah, that sounds like kind of hippy-dippy advice.

    But I have seen it to be 100% true. Like the conversations that you have, the ideas that get sparked while you're out doing the thing. Those, those are sometimes worth way more than the thing itself. Like I was working on a failed one of my failed side hustles or like this wine related site and no reason to exist.

    I have no, I know nothing about wine. And it was just kind of a garbage site while I was doing research for that, I happened upon this website that was reviewing wine clubs as an affiliate, like an affiliate model site. And I was like, well, that's kind of cool. Like, what else can I pivot that to? Like, what else could I [00:26:00] start creating your crowdsourcing reviews for?

    And one thing that had come up in my. You know, personal, pains and struggles as an entrepreneur was hiring help. So I started the site called virtual assistant assistant, which just sold about a year ago, but ran this thing for nine years, it was one of my most successful side projects that was clearly a result of this idea that was sparked while I was working on something completely unrelated, but it was just like, okay.

    Opportunities become visible once you're in motion. So that was one that definitely stood out from that call with. But we've seen people flip. I mean, all sorts of things. I don't know if anybody goes any bigger than you guys in terms of the industrial equipment, but we talked to Stacy Gallego, student of yours who was doing sleep number beds, like sometimes kind of bulky stuff.

    She's like, yeah, freight shipping was, you know, it's intimidating until you do it once and then it's not so bad. And w you know, we're finding as new homeowners, we're finding the same thing with home improvement projects. It's. [00:27:00] Until you do it once. And you know, it was so bad. We just swapped out the sink and dishwasher this weekend and like, Okay.

    You know, of course it took a few more trips to the hardware store than we had originally planned, but we'll feel more confident for the next one. Every, every step of the way it kind of builds up. 

    Rob: It is for sure. And with YouTube out there, you can do almost anything. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

    Melissa: So, people always ask how he can like fix a lot of stuff and yes, you're handy, but you, he looks up a lot of stuff on YouTube. 

    Rob: But I am handy because I've done it. I've done it over and over. Swap out a sink once, you swap out a sink twice, three times, four times, by the time you do, I mean, you're pretty much a pro.

    Same thing for dishwashers, probably 15, 20 dishwashers. So it's not that it's anything. That's the thing with anything, the repetition, the more that you do it, when you're listing items, it takes you 10 minutes to list your item. The first time, one item, by the time you do 100 of them that you're doing it in like two or two minutes, you know, a minute and a half to get an item listed.

    So that is, it's a good point that the [00:28:00] more that you do something, the better you get at it, for sure. 

    Nick: Like thrift store finds, you know, vintage clothing, like all that type of stuff, but where you got to make it worth your while, or it's like, you know, this was the guy who was, you know, flipping sneakers.

    And he was like doing like the limited edition, you know, super rare sneaker drops. And sometimes like I was, you know, it was like reselling t-shirts. He's like, okay, that's great. But I make 10 bucks. It's like, I could resell this pair of shoes and make 200. I was like, okay. So it's like the same, same amount of effort really required to do both. And so, you know, trying to aim him a little bit higher as your, as your budget allows, I had a guy who, this is an interview that's just coming out on the side hustle show who was, you know, kind of specialized in flipping iPhones. And it was, you know, you might have several thousand dollars worth of inventory.

    At any one point before you go out and sell those or resell those, but it was like, you know, pretty clear metrics here. You know, you had a little price sheet. Here's what these phones [00:29:00] are worth in this condition, you know, kind of like. Grid matrix type of thing. So he knows what kind of offers to make aiming, to make a hundred bucks a flip and just kind of was go into town.

    How do I go out? And his goal, his KPI was to have one deal lined up. By the time he leaves the house in the morning, it would be time by the time he wakes up in the morning, just like, okay, I'm going to go meet the seller over here. I'm gonna meet this seller over here. And he was getting it done. 

    Melissa: Awesome. 

    Rob: Huge nuggets, guys. You guys should be thinking about your business right now and how you can set those KPIs, how you can do that, that next step, because those are great notes. 

    Melissa: Make them watch the replay, too. 

    Rob: Sure. 

    Melissa: Did you have any other tips or advice you want to give the attendees? 

    Nick: The question that, that comes up a lot is like, well, how do I know when it's okay to go full time into this?

    And that's one question that I always ask you, Rob, it's like, well, you ever worry about the deals drying up? Like it's very much a, you know, a eat what you kill kind of a business. So you gotta always be out sourcing and hunting [00:30:00] for profit. You know, once you develop the skillset and you build the confidence, you kind of understand like the deals aren't going anywhere.

    Like there's, there's more than enough inventory to go around, but it's like having that, having that practice. And so what I tell most people is I want to see a track record of revenue, you know, going back six or 12 months, like just making sure maybe it, maybe it doesn't fully cover your day job income, but hopefully, you know, you're living below your means and it covers your fixed expenses.

    So you're, you're not, at least you're not dipping into savings. You're not taking on more debt if you do, make that leap. So you have, you've kind of built it up on the side using these effectiveness habits and, you know, time prioritization habits to the point where it's like, okay, you know, if I had another 40 50 hours a week to dedicate to this I think I could get it to the day job income level and beyond in a lot of cases, what people find. So just trying to, you know, I hear a lot of people, you know, an entrepreneur is, somebody [00:31:00] who jumps out of the airplane and figures out how to build their parachute on the way down. And this is a, a Reed Hoffman quote from LinkedIn.

    It's like, that sounds terrifying. Like don't do that, you know, proof of concept on, on a low risk scale and, and build it up from there. 

    Melissa: Yeah.

    Rob: I love it. 

    Melissa: We need to get to get that question a lot too, because people jump in. They're really excited and it's great that you're excited, but get the side hustle going first.

    So don't just go quit your job. 

    Rob: Nick just gave you the formula guys, if you're at that point where you're trying to figure out if you're ready to scale, ready to get rid of your daytime job, because you love this so much more. There's the formula right there, guys. So you definitely want to be that level.

    Yeah. Yeah. So where can everybody find you? 

    Nick: Okay. Of course would love to have you tune into the side hustle show where we cover. Not just flipping, but, any variety of a side hustle under the sun through the last eight years, tons of good stuff in the archives. If you don't know where to start, I put together a free Spotify playlist, greatest hits playlist.[00:32:00] 

    If you want to dive in there. Sorry, Sidehustlenation.com/RSSbonus, reseller summit bonus is where you find a free digital copy of the progress journal. This is my personal productivity tracker. That incorporates the five habits that we talked about today. So you can get a free digital, six month version of that over there at sidehustlenation.com/rssbonus.

    Awesome. 

    Rob: I love it. Awesome. 

    Melissa: Well, thanks so much for Nick. 

    Rob: We greatly appreciate your time. We greatly appreciate all your wisdom and your knowledge in this arena. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We can't thank you enough for doing this and, and helping everybody out with this side hustle. So you rock.

    Thank you. Have a great day. 

    You guys are awesome.

    34 min
  • How This Retired Couple Makes $12K/Mo Flipping Large Items Online

    Check out our FREE workshop to see if flipping high profit items would be a good fit for you: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar

    TRANSCRIPT:

    Rob: All right today, Jack, we're so happy that you're jumping on here to give us some great information about your reselling business. So Jack, welcome to the podcast. Please give us a little bit of information on your background, and kind of where you're at in your reselling business right now. 

    Jack: I can do that, Rob. Welcome, everybody. Let's go back a ways. Very early in, in my life and career, I was a dairy farmer. Okay, [00:01:00] that's getting up and milking cows, feeding animals, doing hay. That, that whole bit, I did it through high school, did it through college, did it after college for full-time for a while. It was family. It was my single uncle.

    And that really is the compass that set my direction in life. I knew, at college, if this man could get up at five o'clock and milk cows, I could get up and study and be a better person. So, it's made my compass throughout life. College was environmental studies. After college working on the farm, I was also a regional writer and conservation periodical.

    And over the years, it morphed into me starting up working in the horticulture industry, getting away from animal husbandry into horticulture. And that's what I've done for the last 30 years. I started a national employment newspaper for horticulture employment back in the [00:02:00] mid nineties called Farrell's Jobs In Horticulture. I sold it in the late, late nineties and in 2000, my largest advertiser asked me to come to Florida. They were executive recruiters for the horticulture industry. So in 2000 we left Pennsylvania moved to Florida, and work with a Sanford company called Floor Search, retiring the very last day of 2018.

    And I'm married to my life partner and partner in the flipping business, Joan, and I cannot say enough about how genuine a person Joan is. We have two daughters, Jacqueline and Gina and two son-in-laws, Joe and Mark, and now we have three granddaughters. Abigail is three, Ellis two, and little Weston's 10 months, but he'll turn one in January. So we'll have a 3, 2, 1, and maybe it's done. We don't know yet. [00:03:00] So that's a little bit about me and a little about, about the family. 

    Rob: I love it. I love it. And the cool thing about this is your story is totally different than our story I've been flipping for over 20 years. Now, you don't have any experience in the flipping industry. So how did you go to that next level? What caused you, a little over a year ago, what caused you to, to jump into the flipping industry? 

    Jack: Well, it's partially right and let me add some, some depth to it. Flipper University, yes. We're alumni 12 months, now. How do you like that term? Alumni?

    But I would look back over the years. We've flipped various items. I'm the only person I can think of that I've had two open houses and I've sold two homes by having open houses. And I just have the feeling if you can make things look good and of course need to be good that somebody will buy it.

    So we did that, Joan [00:04:00] and I rehabbed three mobile homes, two single-wides and a double-wide. So we sold those. We also have flipped five RVs. We had three class B units, the van type RVs and two travel trailers that we've used and sold. And I guess lastly, I've had six maxi motor scooters, Suzukis, Hondas, and have sold those. So we have flipped things.

    But never with the continuity, the uniformity that you all have put together in the Flipper University. And I heard about it and I called Joan, and I was traveling said, Hey, you know, we need to listen to, to this and, and track it out. And we did, and firm believers that education is cheap compared to ignorance. So we got the education. 

    Rob: Awesome. So you do have some history [00:05:00] and it's actually larger stuff, houses, RVs, motorcycles, and stuff like that. That is you have some experience on the flipping realm. 

    Melissa: And I know Joan's very thrifty too. Like she likes to save money so that the two of you together are good, are an awesome pair.

    Rob: Exactly. That's really, that's really, really cool. So. Cool. Good, good. So now we have a little bit of background. 

    Melissa: And so right now, are you flipping part-time or full-time? 

    Jack: Right now we are flipping full-time. However, once the school year started, we are taking care of our infant grandson. So we're trying to figure that one out, and we've come up with a strategy. I would work mornings, Joan would take over and work the afternoon. So she would have Weston during the morning, I have him in the afternoon, and for the most part it works, but it sure slows down momentum. Now I'm not saying it begrudgingly, family comes first and we're glad to have the little guy in our life. He also brings some possible [00:06:00] germs with him because Joan has been ill, I've been ill, Joan's ill again. So it's just one of those things where it could be related. It could not be, but we're working through it. 

    Rob: That's it. That's awesome. And I want to definitely point out one key point you said: family comes first. Melissa and I are strong believers everything that we do in this business is so we can spend time with each other and with our kids. So that is one of the main reasons why we flip, so kudos to you. Yeah. You guys, you have our schedule, you could take it the wrong way and say, oh man, I don't want to take care of my grandkids, but I applaud you. That is amazing that that is your outlook on it. And I agree a hundred percent. That's why we do what we do as well. 

    Melissa: It gives you the flexibility to be able to make those choices, which is pretty cool. 

    Rob: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

    Jack: Yeah, I said to Joan last evening if I had some type of job or part-time job, I don't have the flexibility that this provides. And here we are, we can take care of, we can help our daughter and son-in-law, taking care of the little one. Supposedly beginning of [00:07:00] the January, he'll be old enough to go into a daycare where his sister now attends. So that should be, should be happening early January. 

    Rob: Awesome. Awesome. 

    Melissa: Give it a little more time.

    Rob: Cool. 

    Melissa: So what right now, where are you selling? What platform is your platform of choice to sell on? 

    Jack: Yeah, I think, eBay is definitely our, our platform of choice. Normally we can achieve higher profit margins with the items that we sell and, you know, either palletize package, the items for boxing, FedEx, or YRC shipments. The item's out the door. It's pretty much handled on our timeline with our ability to be flexible. We do sell things locally. Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist, and you're coordinating schedules. You're, you know, you have scammers, you have low ballers, you have no shows. You, you have a lot [00:08:00] of things. You meet a lot of nice people, I'm not bashing it, but you have to be a little more diligent and, less flexible. And I know that, Joan recently got us set up on Amazon, so we'll be on Amazon. We were approached by a gentleman that we know that manufacturers automotive detailing products, and he talked to us about selling those on eBay and Amazon, so we're in the process. Not sure if that'll come together, but that's a possibility. But eBay is our go-to thing with items that justify being on eBay. 

    Rob: I love it. I love it. And you're not limiting it to eBay, so you're actually looking other avenues. And if they come through, they do, if they don't, they don't. But that's, that's us as well.

    We love eBay. We use eBay for probably 90% of our sales, so, but don't ever close your mind. There could be something out there and when you close your mind, that's when you miss it. So you have to be able to look at those other avenues, look at other, other opportunities that that approach [00:09:00] you, or that come into your, your path that you're able to take advantage of. So that's awesome for sure. 

    Melissa: And so what are some of your favorite items that you guys sell? Like what are, what are some of the things that you like to sell? 

    Jack: I would say that our categories right now, Melissa, would be automotive, exercise equipment, restaurant equipment, recreation. And I'm wanting to know if I could possibly interest any of the listeners into a rotisserie.

    Now the rotisserie I'm talking about, it's not for pigs, it's not for chickens. This thing is a massive thing that you put up like a pickup truck on or a car on, and you can rotate it around to work on it. We had a, a neighbor in our warehouse development that moved recently, and he was not going to take a lot of items that didn't apply to his business. His business model had morphed about 10 years ago and he had a lot of stuff that he inventoried. So [00:10:00] I don't how many pallets of stuff he brought to us, maybe 8, maybe 10. It's a lot. So we're working through that now, but one of them is this giant quote, unquote rotisserie is what you call it.

    Rob, you may have seen, seen a rotisserie before, but, it's a big old thing that hopefully we'll make some decent money on it. And likewise, we've sold some other things that he's brought already, but we're working through that, you know, have a food warmer, it's really nice. You've been to a buffet meal where the you're sitting there and these servers bringing a full plated meal and take the lid off and put it in front of you, well I have one of those that we cleaned up and looking good.

    It's listed on eBay. I even have a two-wheel golf cart. Don't know if you've ever heard of a two-wheel golf cart, but there is such an animal. It's essentially a scooter that the manufacturer puts up place where you put your golf bag on the back and all the other accoutrements you'd [00:11:00] find in a four-wheel golf cart.

    So those are some of the things we chose the scale up early on to bigger items. Find that there's more profitability trying to find if there's demand on eBay. And so, you know, I've sold a Bowflex to a gentlemen in Colorado and there's plenty of Bowflexes out there, but man, that time it took to tear it apart and wrap it and palletize it and then ship it.

    I haven't tackled another one of those again. So some things we make mistakes on too. I have a Baskin and Robbins ice cream cooler, big, old thing that you would walk up to any Baskin and Robbins counter and be looking through the glass at the various ice creams inside. I was giving it a good cleaning. I think I messed up the little thermostat on it. It's a little controller, tell it when to turn on and when not to. No big deal, $75 plug a new one in. Well found out [00:12:00] that they don't log, they no longer, make this particular controller, so I've been struggling to find used or even a new one. So things that, that happened, some things go sideways, but most things don't, and that's the, the point I want to make, not everything's going to be peaches and cream.

    Rob: 100%. We would agree with that. Yeah, but you're learning from it. So you're learning you're from your mistakes and you're learning from the process that you're going through, which is awesome. You always want to be learning in this business. And you have to have the outlook on it. Okay, what can I learn from this situation rather than getting bitter at it and being like, okay, that's it. I had a bad experience. I'm I'm not flipping anymore. Right. You know, I'm not reselling anymore because of this bad experience. So yeah. That's an awesome mindset. I applaud you on that as well. Because that is how you become successful. You have to be able to take the good with the bad and realize, okay, what can I learn from this situation, which is totally awesome. For sure. 

    Melissa: So what would you say was one of your most memorable flips or biggest flips that you've had? 

    Jack: Well, it's somewhat [00:13:00] of a circuitous story, but I'll try to hit it straight on. We purchased seats out of a 15-passenger Ford transit van. This person contacted us because we'd purchased Mercedes seats from a conversion van company.

    So anyway, there was a connection there. So we bought his seats and he came, I took them out. We bought the hardware, everything associated with it. He's a lawyer he's going to travel the U.S. converting it into a mobile office, and I hope he's out there having a big old time. He should be. And so we advertise the seats on eBay, advertise locally, get local call when we were traveling the, the SunRail for, to celebrate Joan's birthday in Winter Park, which to everybody listening to it, it's a local commuter train in the Orlando area.

    And anyway, this lady said her husband wanted to buy a particular seat, so [00:14:00] son came to pick up the seat a few days later. Showed the son, you know, we have more seats. We had hardware and the son comes back, well, he said he may, his father may be interested in the hardware. So I follow up a week later and they got back to me and said, yeah, we are interested in the hardware to hold the seats to the floor of our van.

    So they picked that up. And a couple of weeks later, the son calls and says, hey, we have some things we'd like for you to look at. Could you come over in a, not too far away, 15 miles away. So we drive over, didn't ask what they were and we walk into one room and there's this tall, it's called a turbo air. It's something you would see, like in a row, in a airport where you walk by, reach in and grab a sandwich or fruit. There's no doors to open. It's an open air thing, gleaming brand new, never used. It turns out they'd been in the restaurant business for a long time, [00:15:00] eateries all over the United States, food service. And for whatever reason, this one never got implemented.

    Of course, they wanted a decent dollar for it and they sell for $5,500 well, they sell for about $7,000 new, can resell a new one for $5,500. We ended up buying it for $3,500, a little more than we surely would like to but we, they had a lot of other things. We offered pennies on the dollar, and got those. The keystone thing was getting this cooler off their hands, which they wanted, but we got the other stuff cheap and we've been selling it.

    Next phase. We have it on eBay. The cooler sells in a couple of weeks to a gentleman in Brooklyn. I think he's English was his second language. Got it shipped. It was a challenge to lift this heavy thing around and call it, ties it, but that all got accomplished. It got shipped up there by YRC freight. Fine. Let the man know that it's sitting there on the terminal and [00:16:00] in Brooklyn and he's and I said he can go get it now. He's coming back to me in his broken English corresponding. How do you mean? I said well you need to pick it up and he didn't get upset. I gave him options and how I could get it, rent a truck, know somebody who has a truck anyway, he picked it up. He got it unwrapped at his place uncrated. And then he's coming back to us saying, I'd like to buy another one, just like it. And of course, in the flipping business you usually don't have another one just like, but the point is, if you're doing right by people and getting them the right things at a good price, you know, you'll have people, very happy with you and that's what builds your business.

    Melissa: Yeah, 

    Rob: So many great nuggets in that story, for sure. So, I mean, you could dissect that yet. You created a contact by selling something to somebody, which is amazing. We always 

    Melissa: Now you know somebody who wants one. 

    Rob: That's right. We [00:17:00] always love making contacts. And at the same time, once you sold this one, you made another contact of a gentleman who wants more when you come across them if you can come across them. Yes, so many great nuggets in that story. Absolutely love it, Jack. That is the key to this business is, is making your customers happy, and creating those contacts and creating that more of a, what would you call it like, relationships with, you know, just other people that you can, and you have that relationship with that you can talk to, and sell other stuff too, or buy other stuff from, so, yeah, that's awesome. That is a huge point in this business for sure. 

    Melissa: That's helped our business a lot. It's fun to create those contexts and it doesn't come naturally at first, but then if you're just nice to people, you, it's amazing what a friend of a friend wants to give you. It's kinda crazy. 

    So I know, you jumped in, you guys jumped in feet first, like ready, like hit the ground running didn't even like stop to breathe, like you were going for it. So the first three months you guys hit about $6,800, I think it was in sales your first three months. Since then, what has been your [00:18:00] biggest month? Do you know? On eBay? 

    Jack: I know about two months ago before we started taking care of Weston and I looked and Joan might know, but we were on a 90-day average at $36 or $39 thousand. 

    Rob: Wow.

    Melissa: That's awesome. 

    Jack: I know it's come down. I have it. That's I think it was 36, maybe it was 39, but that was back two months ago.

    Melissa: You posted it in the group. I can't remember what it was either, but I knew it was up there. So that's a that's awesome. 90 days time. 

    Rob: That's amazing, not 3,900, not $3,500, $35,000, $39,000. Jack is moving some inventory. 

    Melissa: In three months time. 

    Rob: In three months time, which is awesome. That is amazing. And again, he's only been doing this for the last 12 months, and he's really learning a lot as you guys can hear from his stories. He's learning a lot, he's taking all this in and it's amazing to see his progression. So that is awesome. 

    Melissa: So what would [00:19:00] be three things that you've maybe would attribute to the success of your business?

    Jack: I think one thing is division of duties and, you know, Joan does administration side of the business, the listings, and bill like, you know, paying bills, sourcing product. She's good at that. I focus on operations so I refurbish and clean, I photograph, I do the boxing and the shipping. So trying to stay off, trying to stay out of each other's hair as much as possible. Small businesses, it's impossible, but as much as possible. And I think the work ethic, you know, bring that full circle. Farming, those 5:00 AM milkings, it's just, as I said, it's been a compass, my approach to work and you've met Joan, but most of you haven't. Joan is a dedicated person to anything and everyone, family, friends, community, and this business. So she's this extremely [00:20:00] dedicated, course she's dedicated to me, which I'm not sure sometimes she gets the best end of the stick, but she's just a great, great person to be in with. And we have fun. And I guess the third thing is exceeding the expectations of customers.

    I sold something just short story sold an LG Sidekick. If anybody knows what that is, because five months ago, I didn't, but it's a, it's a little pedestal washing machine that fits under a standard size LG washing machine. So if you have a small load of whites or something, you can be pushing up through while your big machine on top is running it.

    So it takes the place of a pedestal that a lot of machines are on. One evening a lady inquired from Mississippi about it, and we were on it. And within an hour it was sold to her, and by the time I got done out at the warehouse at say nine o'clock that night, she had the [00:21:00] pro number so she could track it through YRC.

    And she's saying all these accolades, "Nobody's ever done this with me on eBay. And this is so wonderful. You guys are such great." And at one point I said, "You're gonna have to stop saying this Trish, because you're gonna make me blush," all laughing, but you know, that's our approach. Try to exceed expectations, try to have things clean and look good. It goes back to the flipping those houses years ago. You know, just make it real. 

    Melissa: Yeah. 

    Rob: I love it. Those are a great three tips. Jack, thank you so much for those business duties and in Jack's case, he is working with his wife. They both are retired and they're doing this full time. So they're able to delegate who does what and try to stay out of each other's hair, which is awesome, and then ethics. Work ethics is huge. Guys, this is not a get rich quick. All you resellers know this, you know that it takes work at this. You just, hopefully you'll love it. I love sourcing items. That's what I'm really good at.[00:22:00] 

    So hopefully you guys, you guys understand that. And then the third one is definitely, and that's a big one that Melissa and I always say is under promise and over deliver. You want your customers to be happy. If they're happy, they come back to you. They give you other contacts, they give you other stuff. So that is the biggest thing is you want to make sure that item is meeting or exceeding the expectations that your buyers have. So, Jack amazing, amazing tips. We love them. Thank you so much for jumping on here. Do we have any more questions? 

    Melissa: Just some fun questions. Like, so just to get to know Jack a little bit. So what is one of your hobbies besides flipping or is flipping your hobby really, at that pace? 

    Jack: I created an edible landscape at the house we lived in, so I had this bonanza of oranges, grapefruit kumquats, limes, pecans, mulberries, figs, blueberries. And then we sold our home and moved into a condominium. So I pivoted and, you know, [00:23:00] hiking, kayaking, bicycling, things that I had done, but I do more of now.

    And Joan loves fishing. She's just passionate, always has been. I don't have her passion though. I fished a lot. I don't have her passion for that. And the things I mentioned, she enjoys doing this well. So we're, you know, really a well-matched team in the harness. We really enjoy doing a lot of the same things.

    Rob: That's awesome. 

    Melissa: We talk about that a lot, because it is important to do stuff, even if maybe your fishing's not your thing, but you enjoy doing it with her. So like, that's the same thing that we like to do stuff with each other. Like, I don't really love the water, surprise, because we're on the water almost every week on the lake, but I like to go out there with you. And the same thing with running, he hated running, but he likes to do it with me. So now it's, we've learned. Now we like it. Now we really like each other, what we do.

    Rob: It helps to grow each other together. So, yeah. That's awesome that you in general like that, so, [00:24:00] yeah, that's, that's really cool.

    Jack: We have a tandem kayak and it's pedal driven and it only has one pedal drive. So I sit in the back and I pedal this sucker and she's up front and she's casting and doing, doing her thing. And it's funny, we were in the think was the Dead River over near Leesburg, and these boats were going by and, you know, pontoon boats full of people and they were laughing, making fun of her, "She's not doing anything up there and he's doing all the work back there." So, but you know, it, it works. I I'm getting exercise and she's having fun. 

    Rob: That's awesome. I love it. 

    Melissa: Last fun question. So your favorite vacation destination, I think you guys like to travel, don't you and then this whole craziness hit, but you, before that you liked to travel, I think. 

    Jack: Yeah, we, we love traveling, I would say if it's a destination, Key West is pretty cool. Pretty cool place to go [00:25:00] to. I guess our point of view is there's so many places to explore that we're not one of those couples that would go to the same place year after year standing reservation. We're going to be going somewhere different. You know, we had a chance to, to go to Paris with our daughter and son-in-law, and they had a two-month-old at the time. That was a couple of years ago, right before COVID hit. So we're going to West Virginia this weekend. Friends are celebrating an anniversary up there. And so we're going to hop on a plane and do that thing, but we're talking about that yesterday. Once we get around the corner of this year, do a little bit more traveling. 

    Melissa: And always a stop in at the thrift stores and stuff nearby right? 

    Jack: There's always something to look forward to. 

    Rob: We totally agree. We love traveling and sourcing while we're on the road. It's fun. It's a, it's a good time. And we're like you as well. We, we don't like any specific destination, but it's fun to see new things. We have so many [00:26:00] things to be able to see. So we're always trying to find new things and do that. Awesome. Well, Jack. 

    Jack: I was living vicariously through you two last summer, when you were on your marathon trip, it was great. 

    Rob: It was a blast. Yeah. Thank you, so well, cool. Well Jack, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your value bombs that you've been dropping through this interview. We're so thankful for you, thankful to watch your growth and help you along the way as well. So, like I said, we, we, we greatly appreciate your time that you've taken to come on this interview with us and, and give some great, great value bombs for, for the audience. 

    Melissa: Yes, thank you so much. 

    Jack: Hats off to you and Melissa, keep up the great work. We're listening. 

    Rob: Thanks, Jack. Have a great day, guys. See ya! 

    28 min
  • How This Entrepreneur Made $2K Her First Month Flipping Pallets

    Download Meredith's 20 Pallet Vendor list (Use the code FREE1 to get your free copy!) : https://meredithandbiz.gumroad.com/l/GjcMwy

    Follow her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/meredith.the.entrepreneur/

    Rob: We are so excited to have Meredith The Entrepreneur here to talk to us about pallet flipping. 

    Melissa: It's a really cool topic. 

    Rob: It is! We're super excited to have her here. She's given some time up and now super excited and appreciative for her to jump on here and answer these questions. 

    Melissa: So thanks, Meredith for being with us.

    Meredith: Thank you guys for having me. 

    Melissa: So tell us a little bit about your backstory, how did you get into, flipping pallets? [00:01:00] And we're going to dive into a whole bunch of questions that I'm sure everybody has about how, how this whole thing works. 

    Meredith: Well, initially I got started due to the pandemic and having a baby and not being able to go back to work.

    So I came across Ashley Jane on Instagram who has a pallet flipping course, I took her course. And from there I kind of took off with it. I learned how to pallet flip, where to pallet flip, and that's how I created my liquidation pallet vendors list and I'd never gone into it at that point, I had never gone into a warehouse to purchase a pallet.

    I ordered online and the pallets came right to me within three or four days. I sold my products on eBay, Facebook, and OfferUp, and I made thousands of dollars within weeks just taking products [00:02:00] from the pallets and reselling them. 

    Rob: Wow. I love it. I love it. So many great questions spark in this. So we've never done pallet flipping.

    It's very exciting. 

    Melissa: We get asked that question a lot. So it's definitely, it's a cool niche to get into. 

    Rob: So Meredith, let's break down a couple of questions for you. Definitely and we'll walk through some of these, exactly the key questions to anybody who might be interested in getting started in pallet flipping, where to start, all that kind of stuff.

    Melissa: So, what exactly is it that you're doing with flipping pallets, like what are we doing with this? 

    Meredith: So what pallets are, maybe people think that it's the products that come on the pallet, that's the pallet. The only thing that's a pallet is the wood that everything sits on. So, what pallet flipping is, is taking products that a customer returns from big brand stores, like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, they get customer returns [00:03:00] or they get items that are overstocked on shelves and they can't sell them quickly enough because they're getting more in and not enough is going out. So they put these items on pallets and sell them to warehouses for literally nothing. So what those warehouses do is then resell to the public, which is us, for dirt cheap prices.

    So you can get thousands of dollars worth of items that you only pay $300 or $400 for thousands of dollars worth of items. So that's basically what a pallet is, what pallet flipping is. Taking those customer returns and those overstocked items and then reselling them for profit. 

    Rob: Awesome. Awesome. So, okay. So if I am a customer and I take something back to Walmart, and some people maybe have never even thought about this is where it comes from, but now if I take it back to Walmart, if it's broken, whether it's just, I don't need it anymore. [00:04:00] Those are the things that are going onto the pallets. Are you dealing with broken items? Are you dealing with items that are perfectly okay? What kind of items are coming on these pallets? 

    Meredith: So you can get new items. You can get items that may be broken. You can get items that may be missing a cord or may be missing a remote, or, they may even be missing the packaging, the box.

    So, because they can't put those items back on the shelves they resell them on pallets for a cheaper price. A way to tell whether you have broken items or whether you're buying a pallet that has items that are not brand new, there is something called a manifest. The manifest will tell you what grade those items are in.

    So for example, if you had a Grade A pallet, those are all new items. They have all of the packaging. All of the cords, all of the remotes, anything that comes with the packaging, that's all there. [00:05:00] Then it goes from Grade B to Grade C and Grade D whereas if you get to Grade D and E that means there's something missing.

    Either something doesn't work or something is missing from there, and I tell people all the time, Read the descriptions and read the manifest, know what you're purchasing before you purchase it. 

    Melissa: That's really good. Cause I was wondering the same thing. Like you just like, do you know what you're getting? But if you read it, then you should know that you can have an expectation. These are not, need work or whatever, whatever, better items 

    Rob: That sparks another question to me. So are you going in, are, are these like if I went to a store, are you paying, they have a certain price for this pallet? Or are you bidding like an auction? How does it work in correlating with a Grade A, Grade B, Grade C, whatever the different grades are. What are the prices? How does that vary on that? 

    Meredith: Well the higher the grade, Grade A, Grade B, the higher the amount of the pallet will be the [00:06:00] better the products are. A way to kind of determine that would say is, like I mentioned before to read everything, don't purchase anything without reading it.

    I'm trying to see most places when I purchased pallets personally. They will try not to give a description, which you don't want to purchase from anyone who won't give you a description of what's on the pallet. If you're purchasing Grade A or Grade B items, you should expect to have new or close to brand new items, with you purchasing Grade C or Grade D, you know going into it that either something is not working on the pallet or something is missing from it, but they should itemize each package that's on the pallet and should have an itemized description of its condition.

    Melissa: Okay. Do you know on the [00:07:00] pallet I'm like I'm getting 20 vacuums or I'm getting like a D, is that in the description or no, you don't really know that? 

    Meredith: Yes. You will know that as well. Some places as well have barcodes on each box, or you can use your phone to scan the barcode. Then it'll tell you where where the item came from. 

    If it came from Amazon, if it came from Home Depot and it'll tell you the MSRP price, the price that it should be sold for. 

    Melissa: Wow. Okay. That's good to know. 

    Rob: Yeah. So much great information. So much more. I want to know. So if I go to one of these warehouses or I try and buy this, am I going to bid on this pallet? Or is it going to be listed for, this is a Grade A that we want $300 for this pallet. How does that whole process work?

    Meredith: Okay. Now some places do offer bidding and they do offer, outright purchasing. I personally try not to bid because you have to be extremely, extremely consistent and on it to bid on the the great [00:08:00] products, and they go very quickly.

    And with bidding, sometimes you won't win. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people we wanna win. We wanna win that. Some places do offer only auctions and some places do offer outright buying. Some places offer both. There are websites that are on my list that offer both as well. But with auctioning you have to really, really be consistent and constantly checking the prices.

    But with auctioning, it is, I would say a cheaper route. If you do choose to auction over purchasing it outright.

    Rob: Cool. Awesome!

    Melissa: So what's an average cost that you can expect to pay for the different grades? 

    Meredith: I would say for Grade A to grade B? You're looking at, I would say about over $800 for a pallet. 

    Rob: And even further into that, I [00:09:00] was going to say that you said MSRP, what it actually retails for. If you're paying $800,what are you expecting to MSRP? I mean, you've done this quite a bit, so you probably have a good idea. 

    Meredith: So if I'm purchasing a pallet for $800, I'm expecting to make at least $2,500 or more from the $800 pallet. They have pallets where you're getting all brand new TVs, but you're paying $11,000 just for that pallet. But you can make $50,000 to $60,000 once you sell all of the items on that pallet. So I would say Grade A, Grade B items, you can expect the MSRP of $2,500 or more, off of that pallet.

    Rob: Awesome. Cool. Now my wheels are still spinning, so I might've missed this. And you did say this, I think you did. Can I just go to a warehouse and like, are there warehouses that just sell the pallet? I can walk in. I can look at the manifest. I can check on my iPhone or whatever. I can do [00:10:00] that. And then they'll have a price that I can just go. I can pay that price. They'll put it in the back of my truck and I go away with it. Is it that easy to do a pallet sometimes? 

    Meredith: Yes, most warehouses, especially on where it goes to physical locations that have a set price, where if you spend $450, you can choose any one of these pallets that you like. You know, they have certain deals where they don't want you to auction.

    They have a set price that you can pay or a price that you can negotiate, it just really depends on the warehouse that you're going to.

    Rob: That's so exciting. You got me sucked in, so I'm excited. We've never done pallets before, but I love finding deals and that's kinda what it is. You're jumping into these things. You might find a sweet deal inside of one of the pallets, and you have a great chance for markups on it. You can make your money back easily and then make, you know, double, triple, quadruple your money, your investment. So that'sexciting. 

    Melissa: So, where are you? You talked about the warehouses, but, do those stores actually do these too, or do they always have a warehouse that takes care of all [00:11:00] this, like to get rid of their stuff?

    Meredith: There are sites where you can specifically go to, there is a site called direct liquidation. Where you can go to this site and they have direct links to Walmart, direct links to Target, direct links to Home Depot, Amazon, or you can purchase pallets from them, but not necessarily going to amazon.com and purchasing a full pallet.

    Melissa: Yeah. Oh, that's cool. So where do you sell a lot of your items?

    Meredith: I sell the majority of my items locally. I'm using Offer Up or Facebook marketplace. If I am selling online, I do so, via Poshmark or E-bay or Amazon. 

    Rob: Awesome. Cool. Now, when you're doing this, are you buying like some of these places and maybe, did say this too. I can just buy one pallet. I don't have to go and buy 15 pallets or 10 pallets. I can go and just buy one pallet. If I want to get started in this to see if I really like it, I can go pay the price. You're asking me to put it in the back of your truck. You can go and try and sell all that stuff. Then if [00:12:00] you make good money on it, you can come back and buy multiple pallets or whatever you want to do. Is that correct? 

    Meredith: Yes, you only, you can only purchase one. If you only want to purchase one, you don't have to buy a truckload of pallets if you don't want to. But, if you want to go even smaller than a pallet, you can get on what they call a big box. And a big box is smaller items like headphones or books or something like that.

    It's smaller items that can be put into a big box and they sell those boxes for people who don't necessarily want to get started with having boxes all over their house or boxes all over their apartment, you can start with the big box of smaller items. 

    Rob: Okay. And maybe I missed it, or if I misunderstood it, you can buy one pallet. Can you buy multiple pallets as well? Or you have to go from one to a truck. Okay. So you can 

    Meredith: buy as many as you like.

    Melissa: Yeah. The boxes too, because some people are probably thinking, oh, I need a truck and trailer to go do this. And you [00:13:00] don't really. 

    Meredith: Yeah, no, off with my Ford Taurus and loading boxes in the trunk, backseat, everywhere that I can fit a box. We loaded our car up. Sometimes we made multiple trips when we had bigger pallets or more than one pallet, but I used a Ford Taurus starting out to get my pallets. 

    Rob: I love it! That is great. Great information to know, because that's what we get asked a lot with what we do. Hey, do I have to have a truck? Do I have to have a trailer? And you're thinking of pallets, you got to have a truck in the trailer, but you don't, you can start where ever you're at. So that's very, very exciting for a lot of people because people don't want to go out and, buy that truck. And we always recommend people don't go out and buy a truck and a trailer.

    Start where you are at. If you enjoy it and you start making some money, that's where you guys can upgrade and go into, you know, a truck and a trailer and that kind of stuff. So thank you, Meredith. That's definitely a great clarification that we can start anywhere, wherever we're at right now. We can start buying one pallet, one big box, [00:14:00] to get the entry-level into this pallet flipping.

    Melissa: Yeah, that's really cool. What would you say somebody could expect if they're getting into this, that they could make a month doing. Like on average. I mean, I get it all depends how much time and what they get and all that stuff. 

    Meredith: Well, for me, from personal experience, being dedicated and consistent with doing it constantly, I made, over $4,000 my first month with flipping pallets and that was just purchasing the one pallet.

    Reselling my items consistently, constantly, checking the websites and constantly checking the warehouses for the best pallets. I made personally $4,000 my first month, but I feel like it's always whoever is selling. You have to be very consistent. It's not a get rich quick scheme that you can just pick up [00:15:00] and, you know, you'll be successful at it.

    You really have to put in some form of work and dedication into reposting and selling these items. And a lot of people say, well, I don't want a million things around my house. Well the point is to sell those things and not to keep them in your home. You know what I mean? So, I would say if you're consistent, you can make over $2,000 a month flipping pallets.

    Rob: Yeah, I love it. That's awesome. And thank you for clarifying that because that people need that clarification. This is not a get rich quick guys. We work, we work as flippers, whether you're a big item, small item whatever you got, whatever you do in this industry, nobody comes in knowing this. Pay a little bit of money and you get rich quick. That's not how it works. We worked and it worked for what we do, but we love it. 

    Meredith: Exactly. 

    Rob: It's so much fun. I'm one for the hunt. And so I totally get that. We are, you know, we're right next to you on that. So, I had another question [00:16:00] about the pallets, my mind, is spinning like crazy.

    If I do want to go and buy one of these pallets, do they designate in. Are they going to put a vacuum with a blower? Is it like items in there that are just maybe related? Electronics and then yard equipment, do they designate different types of pallets? If I go and pick one, I can say, I really love electronics. I love DVD players. You know, I love MP3 players. I love all this kind of stuff. Do they do that in certain pallets or is it all mixed together and you just have to check the manifests. 

    Meredith: That's a really great, question. They categorize each pallet. So, going into it you'll know, well, this is an electronics pallet, or this is a home goods pallet that has,blenders and microwaves, or this is a clothing pallet that has majority clothing, or you have a shoe pallet that has all shoes, but they tend to categorize each pallet. So, you will know what you're getting and what category [00:17:00] you're getting.

    Rob: Awesome. That's exciting because we recommend people doing stuff that they love. If you don't love doing shoes, don't go buy a shoe pallet. And if you love electronics toys, kid's toys, stuff like that. If they are designated in different, categories. That's awesome. That's very exciting as well. 

    So, one other question, like I said, my mind's running a million miles a minute. One other question is, when you go into these warehouses, you probably have some warehouses that you are enjoying buying from more. Do you create relationships with those people that are in there that might benefit you to where, you buy a couple of pallets from them?

    Exactly. Like, do you go in and you're like, Hey Bob, how you doing today? Yeah, I'm looking for this. Do you have relationships like that? Or it doesn't work that way with pallets. 

    Meredith: Yes, you definitely build relationships when you're going to physical locations. And they're used to seeing you and used to you purchasing from them.

    They tend to give you discounts. They tend to want to help you more. If you need help unloading. First, starting out you know, you [00:18:00] look around and it's like, who's going to help me. Who's going help me put this pallet up here. But the more you go, the more they're like, okay, she's consistent.

    She's purchased from me every week. They tend to have better relationships with people like that. They know me now by name, just going in there. Hey Meredith, what are you buying today? What category can we show you today? So it's great to go to physical locations. Build relationships with the owners. 

    Rob: That's really cool. That's awesome.

    Melissa: Go ahead. I thought of one question too earlier, when you were talking about, you know, an obstacle people have is, having things all over their house, like you said, on the object is to sell it. Like, that's what you want to do.

    But also if you think about it, you start where you're at. If you have an extra bedroom in your apartment, maybe that's where you start. And then you get to a point where maybe you do get a storage unit and it makes sense, and you're making the money, you're making more money. So it makes sense to maybe have a storage unit. So then that's your business right there, but you can always start where you're at. We started with just putting stuff in our [00:19:00] closets. We had extra, like an extra closet, and then we got a shed in the backyard and then it started where we were. 

    Rob: And one thing that you did say that I want to touch on, was consistency guys. We're the same way we build relationships with people with the flea market. It's one of those things that when you're consistently in front of people and consistently running this business, that's when stuff pays off. Meredith just said, when people start to know you and start to see you week after week, it's hard not to build a communication or relationship with somebody that you're dealing with weekend and week to week out. And I know you, so that's really, really cool to build relationships and create that consistency in your business. So that's awesome. 

    Any other key points or any other key things you want to touch on about pallet flipping or anything like that? Before we jump off?

    Meredith: I would say, there will be wins, big wins, and there will be losses when it comes to, flipping pallets.

    Don't let the losses steer you away from picking it back up going in there, getting another pallet and trying it again. I would [00:20:00] say, educating yourself on the matter and knowing that, knowing what you're doing when you're going into it, but I will say start, that's the first thing. Just start, even if you're nervous, even if you're scared, just start.

    And I promise you once you start, whether than this is anything, not just pallet flipping once you just start, you'll get it. You'll consistent, you will start and be consistent. It'll come to you just don't quit. 

    Rob: I love it. Two great points out of that is the starting, no matter what gets started. The other one was, don't let any failures or any losses get you down. I was going with that... It's the growth you guys grow in those losses, there's losses in every business. There's, things that you don't like about every business, but grow from those, learn those mistakes. Like Meredith is saying, I'm sure buying a pallet, you know, you might get something you're expecting a bigger return on it than you got...

    But you're able to liquidate it and you just learn, you learn for next time around. Okay. Well, I can't do the,I'm not going to make as much [00:21:00] money on this or, you know, I, got a bad pallet, I tried a low grade pallet and it didn't work out for me. You guys got to experiment, you have to do it. And you have to learn from those losses.

    So, great, great points for sure. Meredith and you also, wanted to end with this too. You put together a list of vendors or pallets. A warehouse vendors list? 

    Meredith: Yes. Liquidation pallets 

    Melissa: Awesome! We'll link to that. And then also, if you do have the Reseller Pro Power Pack, she has a list of 170 in there.

    But for everybody here, that's watching, we do have the 20. 

    Rob: Awesome! to get you started and then that's when you go to the next level. So, that's awesome. Meredith, thank you so much. You provided so much value to us today. I've never done this before. I'm excited about it. I'm super excited about it. So thank you for bringing the energy and getting me excited about this and all the great, great information that you actually provided for everybody who's here watching this. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

    Meredith: Thank you guys for having me. Thank you for asking me to be a part of the [00:22:00] summit. This is my first time to be a part of anything, so I really appreciate it. And, I look forward to you guys getting all the information that you guys need from watching everybody on the summit.

    Rob: Awesome. Sweet, have a great day. We'll see you guys soon. Thank you. Bye guys.

    24 min
  • Selling on eBay: Is it worth the fees?

    Rob: What's up, guys? Today, we are talking about eBay fees. 

    Melissa: It's not super exciting to talk about fees, but we are going to dive into is it worth it to sell on eBay with the fees that they have? 

    Rob: That's right, nobody likes fees. Nobody likes to have to pay extra on top of a sale when you're reselling stuff, but we're going to give you three reasons why these, eBay fees actually, work in our business and why we choose to [00:01:00] pay eBay fees. 

    Melissa: And if they would work in your business as well.

    So before we dive into those reasons, let's dive into what the fees actually are and how to compare them to other platforms too. So there are several other reselling platforms. We don't sell on them all at all, but we do cross posts on a couple. But the biggest ones, so, OfferUp fees are 12.9%, so a flat rate of 12.9%. Mercari fees are 10% flat and then 2.9% processing fee, which is 12.9%. So they try to tell you that it's 10%. 

    Rob: And we'll even set back these fees for OfferUp you only have to pay fees for shipping items. So if you sell an item locally on OfferUp, you do not have to pay fees.

    I mean you are listing an item, somebody is coming in and paying you cash for it. But where there is a transaction that goes through online, whether it's a processing fee through OfferUp, that's where they will charge you the fees on top of it, Poshmark is more of an online platform. So I think everything that you sell in Poshmark will get fees, or sorry, Mercari will, will be fees that you will have to pay.

    Melissa: [00:02:00] Yeah, and then OfferUp and Facebook you can have a local option. So the Poshmark fees are $2.95 for, for anything under $15 and then a flat 20% anything over $15. And then Facebook fees are, this is again, not local, this is shipping is 5%. So they are actually the lowest of all of them. 

    Rob: They're trying to suck us in and get us to sell on their platform.

    Melissa: Yeah. And we'll talk about that in just a minute, but why we don't ship through them right now? 

    Rob: Yeah, so one of the biggest things is traffic. Now, when I was younger... 

    Melissa: I didn't talk about eBay fees yet. 

    Rob: Oh, jump in. Let's hear it. 

    Melissa: eBay fees vary depending on the category that you're in. So there's going to be many different categories, and if you have a store, but we haven't paid more than 11.7% since managed payments took over. So it used to be eBay plus PayPal was around 12% to 13%, depending on if you had a store. So now 11.7% is the highest we've paid. We have paid as low as 8%, on some categories. 

    Rob: Industrial stuff, larger items. Yes. 

    Melissa: Yeah, because they have a different category, so a [00:03:00] different percentage. So right now, 11.7% is lower than 12.9% and 20%, so it's lower than all of them except for Facebook right now. So it does make sense for us in that respect. And then we'll get into the first reason. 

    Rob: And it is traffic. When I was younger, my parents would go to yard sales. They would buy stuff. I love yard sales. At 11 you're going to garage sales, flea markets, thrift store, stuff like that. But when I was younger, I specifically remember this and this is before eBay, my parents would go to yard sales, they would buy cool stuff, usually commercial items. I, I specifically remember an orange juicer, a commercial orange juicer.

    This sucker was big. It was like six foot tall, three or four foot wide. It was a big stainless steel juicer. I still remember them buying that at a yard sale, bringing it home, cleaning it up. We had an orange tree in the front yard, so my parents threw oranges in and we got to use it, make sure it was working right.

    And then they sold it in the classified section. Now the whole thing with traffic is at a yard sale. You're only going to be able to see, probably depends on your area, but on average, maybe 100, 200, 300 people come to a yard [00:04:00] sale on a given Saturday or Sunday. And my parents there, what they did was buy stuff from the yard sales, and then they would turn it around and they would sell it in the classified section.

    Like I said, this was pre eBay, so they would take it from a smaller venue, which was a yard sale and bring it to a bigger venue, which was the classified section. The classified section, we grew up in Orlando, the classified section had the potential of reaching 20,000 to 30,000 people that might look at that classified section on a weekend.

    And then you would bring that item from a smaller venue to a bigger venue and be able to sell it for more money. So that's kind of what it is with eBay. Now, eBay is one of the venues that has over 187 million registered users. Now all those users will not be looking for your specific item, but that is a bigger pool of people who actually are together and looking, you'll have more people looking for that specific item.

    So our business model is to buy in the local venues, OfferUp, Craigslist, flea markets, yard sales, all in the [00:05:00] local local venues that reach less people. And then we pull it back and we sell it on eBay because it reaches so much, so many more people, that you're able to ask more, what the item is actually worth. You're able to ask that when you're able to get it in front of more people. 

    Melissa: Yeah. So they are the biggest used online retailer. So I mean, Amazon is bigger than them, but they deal with mostly new items and not very many used items, but they are the biggest out of all the platforms with the most users and most people who know it and are comfortable with it. So that is one of our favorite places to sell, and one thing that sticks out in my mind was that dining room table that you tried to sell locally. It was, this was a hutch and a table and six or eight chairs. 

    Rob: Eight to 10 chairs. It was a beautiful set. We bought it at a auction, beautiful, solid wood set, and actually was name brand.

    I think it was Art was the name of the A-R-T. If I remember it was an abbreviation. Anyways, I don't remember exactly, but I think that was the name brand that it was, but it was like a $10,000 or $12,000 set, snagged it for $350, [00:06:00] listed it in our local venues. We listed it in Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp, had it listed for a month for $750, $800, and we could not sell it. We could not sell it in the local market. So I started doing some research on eBay. Never had shipped anything like this before. And I was like, man, this is kind of, I mean, it's kind of crazy to try and ship something like this. But I started doing research on eBay and I saw, something that was in common, the people who were selling tables and sets like this.

    They were offering shipping, freight shipping. Those were the people that were moving these items that were actually selling them and they were selling them for some decent money. So I told myself, okay, if I can sell this thing, I am going to learn how to freight ship. And we did, we actually put it on eBay.

    We listed it for $2,200, not $800, $2200, and we sold it in less than a month. And then we charged an extra $500 for shipping, which we were able to pallet it up and we were able to ship it. But that just goes to show you, when you get your items in front of more people, you'll be able to ask more money for them and they will be able to sell [00:07:00] quicker because you're in a bigger pool of people, that might be looking for that specific item. So, that was kind of our aha moment, you know, shipping larger items. But it also was, you know, the items that you get in front of more people you'll be able to sell quicker and for more money.

    Melissa: And didn't we figure that eBay fees for that were close to $300, like $290 something? 

    Rob: Yup, $286, I think it was. 

    Melissa: Ok, $286. So that, and plus the $350 that you paid, you still profited and the shipping was paid for. So you still profited close to $1,600. 

    Rob: That's right. And if we had sold it in our local venue, we would have not profited... less than half. Yeah, exactly. Or right around what we actually paid for that would have been our profit on the item. So, yeah, it totally, totally made sense for us to, start selling more items on eBay because it reached more people. Now, like I said, the, the retail on that table, was $10,000 to $12,000.

    But we could not get the money because there were not enough local people looking for that table. When you get it into a bigger audience, you can ask more money for it. So it [00:08:00] absolutely made sense for us to pay an extra $300, $286, $300 for the fees on that, because we made more money on the back end because we were able to ask more money for that table.

    Melissa: Yeah. So the second reason is more of a business accounting type of reason is they handle the sales tax for you. So, just recently in the last couple of years, online sellers have been required to report sales tax to every state that they sell in. If you hit certain thresholds and while we might not hit those thresholds necessarily, it would be a pain to know all of the state laws and file for all 50 states and not just your own cause in the past, it was just, you have to file in your own state. So that would be a big pain in the butt for all resellers. And we were a little worried about what was going to happen when that whole thing went down a couple of years ago, but eBay does collect the sales tax for you and they submit it for you to each state that it's supposed to go to, so you don't have to worry about it.

    Rob: That's right. So convenience wise, eBay makes sense to be able to do [00:09:00] all that backend stuff that you do not have to worry about as a reseller. You can just sell your item. eBay keeps track of it. It takes the money out for the sales tax and then they file that for you on your behalf. So that is a very, very big plus when you're actually selling on eBay, is that correlates, with eBay fees, for sure. 

    Melissa: Yeah, and that's not income tax that is sales tax so it is different. State sales taxes are different for every state. So you have to know your own, but eBay handles - I'm pretty sure they're close to handling almost all the states. Now, Florida was one of the last ones, so we still had to remit our sales tax, and, and pay it ourselves, but now eBay does it. Now for income tax that's a whole new ball game and we are not tax experts, so go talk to your accountant. 

    Rob: Seek your CPA out. 

    Melissa: Your CPA, and ask them what you should be doing in your business. So just a little disclaimer, we're not tax experts at all, but you do have to still keep track of your income and your expenses for your income tax every year. 

    Rob: [00:10:00] Absolutely, which brings us in to the third reason. 

    Melissa: So the third reason, your money is made in your purchase. 

    Rob: That's right.

    Melissa: So kind of elaborate on that. 

    Rob: Well, definitely. If we had bought that dining room table for $2,000, and then we were going to sell it for $2,200. Absolutely not. It does not make sense to sell your item on eBay. So, in our business, our money is made on the buy when you're getting items that are cheap enough that you're getting for a very, very low cost, or free, and then you're able to sell them for higher profits, that's where the money makes sense. That, I mean, that's where it makes sense for you to sell on eBay because there's more money to go around. You can pay those fees on top of the selling price. You can pay those fees and still make a good profit. But if you're investing in a $100 item, you pay $100 for it, and then you sell it for $150 and then you're gonna pay whatever it is $15, $20 on eBay fees, it doesn't make sense. There's not enough money to go around. So that's one thing you have to keep in mind. When you think about eBay fees, [00:11:00] are they really worth it, is if you're buying your items or you're getting your items cheap enough, that there's a big enough profit on it, that you can afford to pay those fees out of it. So, we definitely look for very reasonable priced items that we can actually buy, undervalued items in the local market, and then we can bring them to a bigger market, which is eBay and be able to sell them.

    Melissa: And it is tempting to you, like if you find something on an app and you're like, okay, this is for like $200. I can go buy it for $200 and it's selling for $300, but your profit's not really there with, after your fees, after shipping, it's not really there, so it has to be worth it for you. And we do buy a lot of stuff on Facebook Marketplace, and OfferUp, and our thrift stores, and our flea market.

    So, and the curb, we find a lot of stuff in the trash. 

    Rob: Free stuff. 

    Melissa: People get rid of stuff all the time. And if you do come up on one of those items that you know, could be a good deal, or could make you some money, but they don't want to go down, like it's fine. You can walk away from those items. 

    Rob: Absolutely. 

    Melissa: Know that you have, you have that ability to walk away.

    Rob: The biggest thing you have to know is the [00:12:00] money is made in the buy. So you always remember that and you get your items as cheap as you possibly can compared to what you can sell them for. And typically when we're selling something, we try to stick at 50% of retail. So if we're investing in something, we know what retail is, we can check and see what it's selling for on eBay, know that we can get probably 50 anywhere from 50 to 70%, depending on conditions and the desire, desirability of that item, is typically where we're doing. So even on top of that, we're able to make the money, to be able to pay for the eBay fees. For sure. So.

    Melissa: And a little bit back to the business aspect of it, we also don't have to handle, the whole processing part. We don't have to handle, the like getting traffic to it, cause that's the great thing about having the marketplace is everybody already knows it. Cause we could save those fees, put them on a website and drive traffic to the website, but that would be a lot harder to do and it would take a lot more time.

    And so it's just convenient to have eBay, and your item gets in Google too. If people are [00:13:00] searching for that item, it can go into Google. 

    Rob: That's a huge point. If you type in an item that you're looking for right now in Google, eBay listings should pop up. So that kind of goes back to why eBay is charging for fees.

    They're putting time and effort into selling your items. Now if you put something in Facebook Marketplace, chances are you typing into Google it's not popping up now, not to say that it never will, but right now, it is not popping up. You have Amazon and you have eBay. Those are the two platforms that will pop up in Google, Google when you are looking for something.

    Melissa: Disclaimer, we are not paid by eBay. 

    Rob: Absolutely not, or Amazon or Google. We are not paid by any of those. So yeah, don't, don't take it the wrong way, but this is a platform that we use. We sell 90% of our items through eBay because of the convenience, because of the traffic, and because we get our items cheap enough to be able to sell and pay for the fees that they charge for the items. 

    Melissa: And we did mention that, we don't ship through Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp. And the reason for that is because right now they don't have the customer service in [00:14:00] play that they need to have in order to fulfill something if something goes wrong. You get a buyer who claims they didn't get the item or, you know, whatever, and claims it's not working when it does work. So all that stuff that you deal with as a seller, you can't get ahold of anybody in customer service. 

    Rob: It's all through emails and it's a lot harder to do stuff through email versus getting, picking up the phone. Almost any time of the day you can pick up the phone and you can get somebody to all from eBay on the phone to work you through a situation that you're having. So the ease of being able to do that, that's another reason why eBay has to charge fees. They have to be able to facilitate these sales and be able to have the customer service to take care of them.

    Melissa: And not that customer service is always pleasant to talk to. We've had our fair share of those, not fun times. But they are there and you can usually get to somebody who you can talk to, who you need to talk to you like a supervisor or something, and you can't talk, talk to a human on Facebook or OfferUp.

    And if you're selling smaller items like $20, $30 items, and you [00:15:00] know that maybe one out of 20 might go south, then you're still in the positive and it still make, might make sense. For us with our items that are a couple hundred dollars, it's not worth, 

    Rob: the thousands of dollars. 

    Melissa: It's not worth the risk for us to sell and add and add shipping. So, but it could definitely, we know some of our members do very well, with the smalls on Facebook Marketplace and shipping on Facebook Marketplace. So it definitely, and it's only 5%, which is super nice because that's a low percentage. So just know that if something happens, you might have to eat an item, like a cost of an item.

    Rob: So to recap: traffic, this is what makes sense for us to use eBay is because the traffic that they're able to get to our items, the ease, the ease of have taking out, the sales tax and taking care of all that bookkeeping. 

    Melissa: The back end. 

    Rob: Exactly. That we don't have to do. That is the other, the second reason why it makes sense for us to sell on eBay.

    And the third one is definitely because we're buying our stuff cheap enough that we have money. We have profit into the item that we can afford to pay that money that eBay's charging, charging to us for the fees, [00:16:00] allocated with the sale of this item. 

    Melissa: So the profit's still there. 

    Rob: That's right.

    All right, guys. Thank you so much. 

     

    17 min

About The Pro Flipper Show

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The Pro Flipper Show is all about helping you grow, scale and thrive in your reselling business. In this podcast we are committed to bringing you great guests who love to share tips and tactics that…

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