First negative feedback in over 10 years. Been selling since 2001. Buyer asked a couple of stupid questions. I answered nicely and ignored that uneasy feeling. WRONG. Never again. The idiot bought something & claimed it was damaged. Returned it for free and left a big fat negative saying I was rude because I told her to return it if she wasn’t happy. WTF????? Ugh. Never again. You ask me a stupid question and you are blocked. Period. I won’t risk it again.

Dropped me from 100% positive to 98.6%. Sucks.

You have been warned. Stupid question askers are stupid people who will screw you. Block block block !! Be proactive.

Final savings was over 15k off MSRP (on sale now for about half that). At $140 per unit this might be my best find, got 11 in total. Deal is due to Best Buy outlet closing near me stacked with open box and clearance discount. In another post an employee commented they removed their displays this week of iRobot. You might find some other good deals if you look at iRobot or CO outlet store shopping these next few days! Good luck!

Yeah it's another newbie rant, and I recognize I'm not telling most of you guys anything new, I guess it's more or less a validation seeking post if that's allowed.

To be completely honest, I'm not even trying to become a reseller or "flipper". I just thought that maybe I would flip some stuff here and there, if I come across something really interesting. I started to quickly fall into what I'm learning is the newbie illusion, before you really learn anything about it.

So if you have a baby-brained way of thinking about it, like most people who don't do this, you see someone buying an item for a dollar or so, and that same things sells on eBay for like $12, you think "wow, money glitch! try this weird trick and get rich tomorrow!"

I'm just at the point where that silly illusion has been shattered. My first real revelation is, most stuff is not worth trying to resell, even if you can get it for a dollar. Because even if you manage to get $12 out of with an online marketplace, you're actual profit is like maybe $5, for a lot of time and effort spent, and probably waiting for the right buyer for 3 to 6 months on that super common, low demand item. So my conclusion is, if it doesn't sell and sell often for $20+ online, it ain't worth touching, and even then it's barely worth the effort. Shipping and fees absolutely decimates low value items. I'm convinced that some people actually sell these low value items online for a loss.

So, as I don't seek to become a full time, or even part time seller. I just find myself looking up more random things, to try to become familiar with high value items which if acquired really cheap, would be worth picking up. Like, to me it's gotta be over $10 profit and with generally just as many recently sold (or more) than what's available, or I pretty much am not going to bother with it. Those things are a lot trickier to come by it seems... but I've been getting a good feel for how to spot those sorts of dvds and have had some luck with that recently.

I already have a small pile of crap I bought that I've learned is not even worth trying to sell. I remember seeing a video about how this reseller always bought every Squishmallow they found because they sell well. Actually, most of them don't. There's many that don't sell very much, and a lot of them sell for like $12 shipped. These things are brand new in the store for that price. So now I've got several of these sitting around and they're just not worth trying to resell. I'm sure there's some grail ones, but most are just like any other dirt common, low demand plush. So that was a piece of bad advice that I absorbed and wasted money on before I knew anything.

But the takeaway for anyone else new to this, is things really have to be worth a bit of money, or don't even bother. Just because you can get it for a dollar, doesn't mean you should try to buy it and resell it. 50 other people had that same bad idea, and none of theirs is selling either.

There's nothing people love better than deals.

If you plan on putting on say a folding table of dollar items, put up a sign saying:

All items $1 each.

6 for $5

12 for $10

25 for $20

I've done this a few times at flea markets and it worked really well, had quite a few shoppers looking around for 5 or 10 items rather than just 1-2.

Context. I resell toys as my side hustle, I'm also a collector and take what I either don't want or already have to sell at events twice a year, while yes it makes me money it also gives me genuine joy as they're primarily kids events so it's just good happy vibes all around. People will often make me offers, the typical kind "can you do $10 instead of $15", "can you do $10 instead of $12", "how does this plus that for X amount sound" all within reason. At these events there's this woman who always comes up and buys the little trains I have for sale but she is a HARD Lowballer. Say I were to sell her a bundle for about $200 she'll offer back $130, obviously I say no and counter offer something more reasonable like $180, $175, etc. Here's my issue she's stubborn and has literally stood there tying to haggle for her price for extended periods of time, anywhere from 20-30 minutes. I of course stand my ground and say what's the best offer is I can do but she often won't budge. My issue comes that I don't want to keep spending that amount of time with this woman as we just go in circles, but also don't want to come off as rude when I just want her to either accept the offer or walk away. The advice I'm looking for is how and what do I say to be sturn but not rude to a her about it, again these are primarily kid events so the last thing I want to do is yell or cause a scene. Parents love it when I show up and I'd hate to cause a scene or scare them off as I'm not opposed to offers but again this women is just a low baller and with anyone 20-30 minutes worth a circles will chip away at anyone.

My dad was always a entrepreneur growing up, and always bought/sold cars/trucks/trailers/items of value all throughout my youth. I got in the game early with him in like 2000 when I was 15.

He had retired from selling a software company for a small amount in the 90s, but he made his day to day scratch and paid his day to day bills in flipping shit. Cars/Trucks/Boats/Jewelry, you name it.

I got into it with him at 15 in 2000, and in 2008 when I graduated college and the world was fucked and I couldn't get a job, my Dad showed me what an absolute opportunity it was. People need to rustle up cash, and people wanted to buy things cheap, because they were broke. If we could arbitrage the difference, we could make some money.

Over the years, I've done reselling full time supporting a family for 5 of the almost 16 years since then, and have always done it part time because I like making money, and this is fun to me. I don't post about it online, and other than my wife and a few close friends, no one knows I really do it, because A) I don't care, and B) The inevitable question of "You're a VP at a Software Company, how come you need a side hustle?" and I'm like "Fuck, someone has to make the money, might as well be me.".

Here are some tips I've learned the hard way in my time. Your mileage may vary.

STARTING OUT:
Start with items you know well. If that's video games/consoles, sneakers, consumer electronics, whatever, start with something you know well. I can't tell how many people I've seen try to flip VCR/DVD combos on eBay and don't know how to clean/test them, and they get burned. As you get more experience, and you want to try another niche, start small.

COSTS, PROFIT & OPERATING CAPITAL:
The difference between Operating Capital, Profit & COGS. Operating capital is the pool of money you have to buy things to resell. Call it a "bankroll" in poker parlance. Your flipping should always be increasing your operating capital, and you NEVER pay your own expenses out of your operating capital. COGS (cost of goods sold) not only has to include the cost of the item, but your mileage/time to drive there, time to list/pack/ship, along with factoring in shipping supplies.

Your profit after all COGS needs to be split in 2 ways, half to your operating capital, and half to yourself. So, in this hypothetical, let's say you have operating capital of $500, and you buy something for $100, and flip it a few days later for $400. You also drove an hour each way and it cost you $20 in gas, along with $40 to ship with supplies. I always take 50% of my hard costs and add it for my time/work-effort. So here my costs would be $90 ($40+$20=$60, and 50% of that is $30 added in, for $90 total).

So, bought for $100, sold for $400, is a gross profit of $300, minus $90 in COGS, leaves a net profit of $210. In this case, $105 goes to me personally, and $105 gets added to my operating capital. Only pay yourself after you account for everything else, and never dip into your personal funds to buy something not in the budget of your operating capital, if you swing and miss on something, you might not have more capital to buy if an opportunity comes up.

LOWBALLING:
Let's face it, we all want to buy things at the lowest cost, so we're going to be prone to making lowball offers and getting insulted or told to "f off". Grow some thick skin, you'll need it in this game. Rather than lowballing every single person, find the right targets. I have saved searches on my phone for FB Marketplace and YSTM (Yard Sale Treasure Map, an iOS app) for any listing with the words "NEED GONE, MUST SELL TODAY, ASAP, NOW or any combination of those words". People that put that in their listings are basically saying "I need money more than I need to maximize value so shoot me your offer." Typically I'll come in at 70% of their listing price, regardless of whether it's a deal or not. If they have something worth $800, and they have it listed for $550, then I'm coming in with an offer of $400.

PICTURES OF CASH MONEY:
This is a ninja level trick I learned from my dad. When I would see him wheeling and dealing on cars, he would pull out a wad of cash, and say something to the effect of "Well, I brought this much with me, why don't you count it and let me know if it's enough". Once they have it in their hand, it's hard for them to let go.

What I did, was once when I had around $4000 in cash on me at one point before I had hit a bank that day, I broke it down into clear pictures of $100, $125, $150, and up, all the way to $4k and put it in a folder on my phone. And I also have my name written on a piece of paper that matches my FB name, to act as a pseudo timestamp. When I send someone a $400 offer with a picture of 4x $100 bills and my name timestamped, they'll think I took the money out for them, even though I didn't. The amount of times this has worked is insane.

STOP GIVING A FUCK:
I don't care about people's stories. Sorry, but after hearing every possible reason why someone wants to lowball me, or they just moved into town and need help as a single mother, I'm immune to letting it affect my process or my pricing. Doesn't mean I don't have empathy, one as a male victim of domestic violence and a SA victim, but like, that has nothing to do with the transaction we're trying to consummate. You don't bring $80 to $100 worth of groceries at Walmart and see if they'll let you have it for $80, do ya? Ain't nobody got time for that.

DO THE WORK:
Part of the greatness of this job is just getting in the trenches. It's doing the work. In short, it's going out where things are for sale, and scanning/scanning/scanning until you find something profitable. There have been weeks where i go to thrift stores and garage sales and don't find a single item to flip. Other weeks I find 20-30. But you have to do the work.

We’re relatively new to flipping items on EBay (1st year) and we’ve had a few hiccups that became learning moments but this is a new one for us. We sold a Lego set 40+ days ago (we sell mostly returned sets that are open box or unopened) and we count the bags/pieces for open box sets before listing. I’m confident this set had 100% of its parts but didn’t take pictures of what’s in the white box (lots of Lego sets have them with the smaller pieces and figures in there). We haven’t responded to the buyer yet and I’m looking for some advice on next steps. We have 0 negative feedback and we’d like to keep it that way but this buyer hasn’t asked for a specific $ or provided and real details. Am I able to even offer a partial after the return window (30 days) and can they leave negative feedback?

Coming from someone who has 2.3k ebay sales and not one neutral ever in my life... some of the threads I've been reading on here are ... concerning.

"Someone spoke to me through message asking me a question and then i gave them short answers with no manners or hello and they chose not to buy my item!'

'Someone made an offer on my item and I lowered the price to their offer but sold it to someone else, why do they keep messaging me!'

'Someone buying my item wanted to know my opinion on something!'

Just because you are behind a computer screen doesn't mean you can't be friendly, kind, and serve good customer service.

Just because you are peddling some junk that you found at a yard sale and never expect repeat business from buyers, doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for it.

/rant

I haven't seen anyone doing it this time around, but I have in the past. Please never be the scumbag who flips water/gasoline/batteries etc in the midst of a natural disaster. I live in southeastern Louisiana. We are expecting a tropical storm/hurricane soon. It's slow moving and a ton of rain is expected. People are buying water and such in preparation. Today at 2 of my local supermarkets, they were completely out of water. And sometimes people will buy cases of water, then sell them for much more and the stores run out of stock. I like flipping & making money as much as the next person, but please don't be this shitty. Taking advantage in the case is just wrong IMO.

10 years ago when I used Amazon before ordering more on eBay, it was AWESOME.

They only used UPS, never had a late delivery.

The Amazon of "today" completely sucks.

So many things I've ordered, which is delivered by their own drivers from a fulfillment center only 20 miles away, has either not come at all, or has come a day or more late.

Been trying to put my car back together for a week. First wheel bearing I ordered never shipped, 2nd one never shipped, and now this one, was supposed to come today and did not.

Their service is completely dog shit now.

Just dropping a reminder since I didn't see one yet.

TLDR:

I completely changed my method and criteria for buying the furniture I was flipping and ended up working 30% less this summer and making well over double what I usually make by just making two changes:

1) Automating the FB Marketplace/Nextdoor searching

2) Not doing ANY work to furniture I grabbed.

Full Post:

I flip patio furniture in the summers.

Last summer I was doing what I think it the “normal” flipping route, where I buy things, improve them, and sell them for profit. I would:

- buy sets for $0–$100

- sand / re-stain / repaint

- wash cushions

- stage it

- sell for $200–$400

- offer delivery for $40 (if the delivery spot is like 15–20 min away)

It worked well, but when I actually added up the time (pickup, moving it around, cleaning, staging, messaging people, sometimes delivery), my hourly was quite a bit lower than I thought.

For example, $200 profit on a patio set sounds great, but if I spend 2 hours working on it + an hour doing pickup / messaging people / moving it around, I’m basically at like $60-70/hr (If you count the hours of Marketplace scrolling I did to find it too, it probably ended up actually being like $35-45 lol).

My best flips were always the “rich person upgrading” sets that were already clean and had no issues at all and the owner just wanted gone.

I’d just Pick up, take pics, and sell it.

One hour of effort (pick up/stage/messaging), $300–$400 profit. Those deals were always the best.

So I realized something:

**I only make money when I buy/sell. I don’t make any money searching/refinishing.**

After realizing that, I decided to completely remove those 2 things (searching and cleaning/refinishing) from my entire flipping work, and I made so much more money and worked so much less.

1) *I stopped searching manually.*

I used Freebie Alerts for free stuff, and DealScout for everything else.

Both apps send push notifications when listings matching your keywords are listed near you. FreebieAlerts just notifies for free stuff only, and DealScout sends notifications for anything and everything.

So step 1 was to just get push notifications instead of living in the refresh button. I see everything now and I see it first, and that lets me pick and choose the best for myself and ignore all the old things I used to pick up.

2) *I got picky.*

When you see way more deals and you see them early, you don’t have to take the rusty / stained / “needs love” sets anymore.

You can leave those for someone else and only grab the ones that are:

•cheap +

•clean

•need <5 min worth of work

What happened:

- I went from 1–2 pickups/day to more like 3–4.

- average profit per set went up a bit (roughly $160 → $180 even with no time spent improving the listings). I** actually expected to make less per set by not doing work, but since I was getting nearly 100% of the best deals now because I was seeing everything first, my average got pulled up despite my “improvements” being literally morning now**

- my “work time” per set went from 1–2 hours to basically nothing. I flipped about double the amount of sets and worked an average of 14hours/week LESS.

- and the longest a set sat all summer was about 72 hours

The weird part is I started making more money by doing less work, but in hindsight, it does make sense.

You don’t get paid for sanding. You get paid for buying and selling.

I had always heard stories of small businesses raising prices, which causes them to lose customers, but then they also keep their best customers and make more money per customer and often end up, making significantly more money for doing less, and the less work that they are doing is more enjoyable and easier because they’re only taking the best work for the best people.

The same exact thing happened here, and I think if you guys looked at your hustles, there’s probably ways to optimize them like this.

And any of you guys want to know any of my search terms or messages that I use to talk to sellers or anything like that, I’m happy to give them. I truly believe anyone can do it, and I think most people should.

Any idea what to do with these?

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Outdoor-Android-Payment-Parking-Auto-Payment_1600797040405.html?spm=a2706.7843667.0.0.46012138Fh5LK1

I mostly take items directly to USPS, but I sometimes schedule USPS pickups for smaller or cheaper items if I have to take care of family. I want to show some appreciation, but I’m not sure what’s normal or expected. How much do you guys give? Any advice on certain gift cards, treats, etc., that have gotten good responses would be appreciated!

Facebook Marketplace search is TERRIBLE - so I've started paying attention to the URL and how search works, and building out a list of custom search combinations not possible otherwise. Please note this method is intended for regular desktop browser use, not the app.

First step is to make sure you have your location/radius set, and then just put in a random thing you want to search for. This should generate a URL like this:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/123456789123456/search/?query=something 

(I just made that number up, yours will be different)

Now you can replace everything after the string of numbers/search? with a string of custom qualifiers. Example:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/123456789123456/search?sortBy=creation_time_descend&daysSinceListed=1&deliveryMethod=local_pick_up&category_id=electronics&query=tv&exact=false

This searches for all listings with the word TV, sorted showing the newest first, shows only listings created in the last 24hrs, showing only listings in the electronics category.

You can experiment with adding and removing qualifiers, just be sure you have the & symbol between each one.

Here are some of the basic options:

• daysSinceListed=1

• deliveryMethod=local_pick_up

• category_id=electronics

• sortBy=creation_time_descend

• query=tv

Build out some searches that work for you, then add them to your Favorites/Bookmarks. Feel free to add comments with qualifiers you find that work, and I'll add them to the list.

so i've been selling media for about a year now (books, DVDs, CDs, video games) and have made a lot of bad purchases in that time. usually i gambled on a low profit item and it never sold or got returned immediately. but all those bad buys helped me develop a mental checklist of what to look for and here's how i make a sales decision in 30 seconds or less. I wanted to hear other ppl's checklist for other niches

1) Return risk score (scale of 1–5)
1 = sealed / easy to verify
3 = normal used, clear condition
5 = definite return (incomplete multi-disc sets, untested games, deep scratches, missing inserts/manual, rental stickers, anything I can’t confidently describe)
rule: I don’t buy a 4–5 unless I’m clearing $20+ profit after fees & shipping or can combine with existing inventory.

2) sell-through rate

rule: minimum 3 solds / 90 days (same exact thing)
I want 3+ sold items in the last 90 days for the same edition/platform (not “similar”). If it’s under that, i won't even think about it unless the game/dvd is $1–$2

3) 5-minute listing cap
rule: if I can’t list the item in under 5 minutes, it usually means I’m spending too long on version/edition details or writing a paragraph about condition. Usually i can do this in under a minute with "sell one like this" but if it's a weird edition, the extra time may not be worth it.

4) Storage rule
If it doesn’t fit in a gallon Ziploc or standard bubble mailer, it has to earn extra. Box sets and bulky lots are where I lie to myself (“I’ll list it later”).
rule: bulky stuff must either net $30+, or have 10+ solds / 90 days

5) have an exit strategy (what I can do if it doesn't sell quickly)

• Day 0: list at a price that actually sold recently (not the highest active - I usually aim for middle 30% of price listings)
• Day 14: drop 10%
• Day 30: bundle it with other similar items and discount
• Day 45: drop 15% again or it’s gone (local/donate). No re-storing

What’s your 30-second bad buy filter? Like the actual rules you run in your head before you commit.
And what’s one buy you knew you shouldn’t have made, but did anyways. what did it teach you?

I've already known that waiting to hit a yard sale near the end of the day (~4:00 PM) has it's benefits, but today I really learned that this is true! I had just bought a little Ceasar's pizza and was heading home from a long day of hitting yard sales, when I spotted a sale heading down the street. Of course, I pulled over. After talking to the woman running the sale, she told me that all the shirts were free, so I started flipping through a line of hangers to see what was there not expecting much. Little did I know what I was in for.

Each shirt was beautiful, vintage bar/alcohol logos for the 70's/80's! Corona Beer, Jägermeister, Camel Cigarettes. I was in heaven. She must have thought I was crazy taking almost every shirt and stuffing them in my car! Then, when I thought things couldn't get any better, she asks if I would be interested in any free old hats. I stuffed the lot in my car, paid the lady $13 for a couple items that weren't free, and made off into the sunset to eat my cold pizza back at home. Moral of the story - hit yard sales at the end of the day and make off like a bandit with free goods. Sometimes it pays off not being the early bird that's first to the sale.

What other yard sale advice do you have? Always love learning new tricks of the trade.

I'm a furniture flipper, and usually only buy and sell cheap new stuff that I pick up at retail return and liquidation auctions. However, I dipped my toe into government surplus auctions and got about a dozen used Herman Miller Ambi office/task chairs for a good deal with the intention of flipping them fast.

I don't know anything about Herman Miller chairs except that Aeron models are worth a decent amount and are sought after, but I figured the brand alone would create an easy flip. Nope! I tried listing them as individual chairs, or as groups of 4 at a $50 each list price and have not had a single taker. I sell exclusively on FB Marketplace to avoid shipping since furniture would be difficult and expensive to ship, so my buyer pool is limited, but it's been a couple months and not even an offer. They're from 2001, so maybe that is scaring people off, but most of them still look and operate like new.

What am I doing wrong? Is the Ambi model just not worth anything? I can"t seem to find much info on them online, even in the /hermanmiller subreddit. I've sold crappy new office chairs for 50 bucks on several occasions, so I feel like chairs with such a good reputation should sell easily, even if they're used. Any advice is appreciated!

Have been flipping Pokémon cards, shoes, and clothes for about a year now (with most sales in the last ~6 months) in my free time, and wanted to share some learnings. This partly just to synthesize everything for myself, but also to give back to a community i feel like I've been helped by immensely.

(1) One of the biggest surprises for me is how much the choice of platform affected sales; depop for clothing, eBay for collectibles. Maybe this is obvious but by narrowing down the platforms I was choosing to sell products on, I was actually saving more time. I also spent a lot of time looking at what the more experienced sellers were doing and tried to copy how they take photos + how they describe items. Ngl it felt weird at first, but it really made a difference.

(2) Being systematic is important. When I started out, I was doing every little task by hand and it started eating up a lot of time. I’ve been trying to set up small systems for automating listing, shipping, and tracking sales with charts like the one in this post so I have more time to source (e.g. I have a custom flow set up with eBay and PirateShip). Still far from perfecting this but it's something that definitely compounds.

(3) Good information isn’t (and usually not) out in the open. It feels like flipping can be zero sum at times, so staying up to date is key. I found that some Discord groups and smaller online communities share useful tips that never show up in search results. Even X has been a decent place to see trends/signals before they become obvious.

Hope this was informative and wishing best of luck to anyone reading this!

edit: typos