Mistakes happen, and a recent one almost cost us $1,000 on a flip. We’re going to share where we went wrong to help you avoid expensive mistakes on your flips.
Even being in the business for almost three decades now, you still can make mistakes. And I did make mistakes on this flip, but it actually worked out okay.
What Item Did We Make A Mistake On?
We were at a flea market and picked up a big drum, a Timpani. It was a cool looking drum that was almost 30 inches wide and about three feet tall. It had a pedal that you could adjust, and it made different noises while you played it. Retail on it was between $2,000-$5,000 for a new one. I paid $100 and sold it for $1,000, which is what we teach — to 10x your profit. I thought I would’ve made a bit more on this item but I made a couple of mistakes. We still made some profit though.
Mistake #1
The first mistake was that I didn’t list it with a shipping cost. Typically when we list an item with free shipping, we build the shipping into the listed price, or we list it with a shipping cost, but I forgot to do that. Mistake number one was I rushed to get it listed and didn’t list shipping on it. I would’ve charged $300 for shipping and it ended up costing us $296 for shipping, so that was my first mistake. It wasn’t a huge ordeal because we still have a lot of profit built into this flip.
One thing to note is if you list something and shipping ends up being way more than you expected, you can cancel the transaction. eBay doesn’t like it, and we don’t recommend doing it frequently, but we have done that in the past. If it’s a rare occurrence, it’s okay to do that if you’re going to lose money. You can cancel the transaction, be apologetic, and have good customer service. Just don’t make that a habit because eBay will frown upon that if you do.
Mistake #2
After the buyer purchased this item, he messaged me immediately and asked if I could ship it to a school. Sometimes scammers will buy something and ask you to ship it to a different address. I played this out in my head and considered the risks. I thought, “Okay, this guy is buying this. He’s probably a band teacher and he bought this for a local school. He’s shipping it to the school because it’s going to be on a pallet and he doesn’t want to try to transport it.” In this instance, I decided to ship it to the new address he mentioned, not to the address that eBay gave me, which was his house.
We always tell our students the safe thing to do is to go with the eBay location. Ship it to the address that eBay tells you to ship it to because you cannot have problems. You’re protected. If something does happen, you have proof that you shipped it to that address.
If this guy came back and said he didn’t receive it, I will have an uphill battle because eBay will ask why I didn’t ship it to the address they provided. I tell my students to refund the purchase and ask the buyer to repurchase it and change the address at checkout so it’s safe and goes through eBay correctly.
The only issue is it would’ve taken a couple of days for eBay to issue the refund and then I’d have to wait for the buyer to repurchase, and then ship it to him. You can also run the risk that the buyer decides not to repurchase it. Since it wasn’t changing the shipping address from one state to another, I did it against my better judgement.
Mistake number two, I didn’t ship it to the address that eBay gave us.
Mistake #3
The third mistake was that I shipped it to an address with the wrong zipcode. When the buyer gave me the school address, he put the wrong zip code. This is very, very bad, because a lot of times when you put a zip code into a shipping quote, zip codes can be close but one number off. I created the label the way he sent it to me and they gave me the quote for that zip code. Once it got from our location to the terminal, they found out the zip code was wrong and numbers got switched. It was like 150 miles away from the correct zip code and was going to be an extra $290 to get it delivered.
The problem was that I didn’t make this mistake, the buyer did. If I made the mistake, I would’ve had to eat the cost, but in this case I messaged the buyer right away and explained what was happening. I actually had to get on the phone with him to get it straightened out and he was upset at first. But the problem was that it wasn’t my mistake. He ended up covering the charge and paid me via PayPal and we completed the transaction. Had I shipped it where eBay told me to, I would’ve been protected and not had to deal with this issue.
Sold: $1,000
COGS: $100
eBay fees: $111
Shipping: $296
Total Profit: $493
We made just under $500 in profit and I had minimal time into this. The kids had a blast because they played with this drum while it was in the house for pictures. We made roughly $250 an hour after everything. It’s a bit lower than I would’ve hoped, but still okay and we got a story to share.
Mistakes happen. We still made money and got a lesson to share. Don’t get upset when they happen because they will. Instead, try to learn from them. Grab our free PDF of 5 Mistakes That Resellers Make That Could Be Costing Them Money.
Show Notes
Check out our free workshop: https://learn.fleamarketflipper.com/flipping-workshop-new–0b9f0
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FURTHER RESOURCES
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