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Transcription Of Show Notes:
Melissa: [00:00:00] The Reseller Hangout podcast is all about helping you grow, scale, and thrive, in your reselling business.
Rob: We’re Rob and Melissa with Flea Market Flipper, and have been in the resale biz for over 20 years. Not only do we buy and sell awesome items on a weekly basis, we also coach other resellers how to take their business to the next level.
Melissa: In this podcast, we are committed to bringing you great guests, who love to share their tips and tactics that will help you level up in your current reselling business. So let’s go!
Rob: Whats up guys, super stoked to be in front of you for the first episode of the Reseller Hangout podcast.
Melissa: It’s been a while in the making and being on a podcast is a little bit different, just talking audio because we are usually used to video. So this is going to be really fun, having conversations.
Rob: So, we are Rob and Melissa with Flea Market Flipper.
We have been full-time flippers for the last five years. Part-time, [00:01:00] almost 20 some years before that.
Melissa: Your going on 25 years because you’ve been doing it since you were 16 So
thats a while ago.
Rob: 25 years, experience, which is totally insane. But we’re super, super stoked. We’ve talked about this for years now.
The main goal is actually just to be in front of other resellers who think that this is the greatest career ever. We agree that it is, we do. And we want to give you guys great tips from all different avenues of the resale business. Pretty much 90% of our sales come from eBay.
And we sell larger items and we know there’s so many other resellers out there who don’t do what our business model is, that have great tips and great advice that they can share with everybody. So we all can grow together.
Melissa: So, Thank you for listening to this podcast, and we’re excited to bring you some awesome people on it in the future episodes
We just wanted to start off the first episode, just kind of talking a little bit about our background and a little bit of our story. We’ll, keep it short. And just to kind of talk about why we’re here. So yeah, like you said, Rob’s been flipping since he was [00:02:00] 16. I married into it. So, 14 years ago. So it’s always been our side hustle.
So, for until five years ago, it was always our side hustle. It was always our extra income for vacations, for if medical bills popped up or any extra expenses
Rob: came in, fix a car, or buy a used car. This is how we did it. We were able to create quick income and pretty substantial, quick income fast. And then we never really put two and two together to realize, Hey, this could be a viable
full-time gig for us, until we had something happened in our marriage and in our life that that pushed us into this direction.
Melissa: We’ll talk about that in just a second. But, before that, vacation was definitely your motivating factor for selling stuff. So, if anybody doesn’t know, Rob loves going on vacation and I
was of the mindset of don’t take a day off ever hardly from work. And so when I met him, I had never taken a sick day. I wasn’t sick. And so he’s like, you have sick days, take [00:03:00] them, like, you can totally take them, so take off a day of work. What’s that? So, I mean, he does work very hard, but if you can take a vacation, then take the vacation.
Rob: I am a party waiting to happen. We worked just enough. I personally worked just enough to be able to take vacation and spend time with Melissa and our kids. That’s kind of my motto. I absolutely love having fun. If you guys don’t know that about me, That’s kind of what I live for is to being able to have some fun.
And that’s kind of
Melissa: what was actually something to get the money.
Let’s go on a two week cruise. Okay. Go
Rob: find the money. We’ve been able to do, it all from flipping money. We’ve been able to see Europe. We’ve been able to see Ireland. We’ve been able to do all kinds of crazy things. Alaskan cruises. It’s been amazing what we’re able to do just from our flipping income. And then five years ago, we went full-time into it.
And we have never looked back. It’s been an amazing experience for us. So
Melissa: just a little bit. The transition to go to full-time was not an easy one. Like, okay, we’re making this much money part-time let’s go ahead and go full-time, [00:04:00] we were actually at the point I was pregnant. I was eight months pregnant at the time and our baby was due April 1st.
And, Rob got the phone call from his employer that they’re going to cut health benefits March 31st. So, and that was the beginning of March or February, and they’re going to cut them. I’m like, okay, well that’s not gonna work so
Rob: well. Yeah, Melissa was pregnant with our third child. So she was planning on quitting her training job. We had already
Melissa: discussed this, that I was going to quit personal training where I’m going to be home with these three kids. We had three kids, three and under, so at that point it would be three kids three and under, which is a little crazy.
Rob: So when my job told me that they were cutting our insurance, I made more money flipping than I actually made in my full-time job.
Because the only reason I had the full-time job was for our insurance. So when they cut the insurance, there was no really no real reason for me to continue the job. And that’s where we had to make the decision. Okay, what are we going to do? We need to transition. We need to do something else.
And that’s where we realized what flipping [00:05:00] has provided in the past. And if we really threw full-time hours at it, what it really could do for us. But,
Melissa: it was definitely scary to think about that. Our extra money now is going to be our full-time income. And also we have to provide for three little kids, which puts an extra stress than when it’s just us
that’s one thing. Like, we can suffer if we have to, but when you put the three little kids in the mix, they cost money and you want to be able to provide for them. There there’s a big responsibility with that.
So,
Rob: and it did work out. It worked out great. Our son was born on March 23rd.
And he was fully covered under my insurance policy at the time. But shortly after that, yeah, we actually went full-time into the reselling business. So, super super stoked about it. When you were able
Melissa: to, it was something that even though I was, I was home with the baby, obviously. I could work with him even on our like little bits
we could work together on this business, which was very, very awesome to be able to do and dive in together. But there was one point where [00:06:00] Rob thought, okay, I have all these little kids to be responsible for. So how can I, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like make, make more money in the time that I have.
Rob:
And that’s where kind of our large items came at. Exactly. Our journey went from you know, just reselling, to actually jumping into larger items, and the one game changer for us, the one eye-opener was an actual dining room table that we bought. It was a beautiful wood dining room table. Had 10 chairs with it.
Big, big set. I had a buffet that went with it that actually had a top on it that you flipped up, put all your silverware, China and all that kind of stuff inside of that, had doors on the back sides to put the leaves of the table in it. So very, very fancy set it was beautiful. We bought it at a local auction.
We paid $350 for it. And I was planning on selling it locally for $700. We listed it for a month or two for $700. We could not get any bites on it. I started looking around on eBay for similar sets that were selling for quite a bit of money on eBay, but there was [00:07:00] one thing that was in common with a sets that were selling, they’re all offering shipping.
So either had a flat rate shipping, or a freight that you could actually reach out and ask them how much to ship it to you, or free shipping. All those items, all those dining room sets were selling, were offering shipping. So I thought, well, there’s gotta be something to it. I’m going to go ahead and list it on eBay.
I’m going to find out if I can sell this and then if I can sell it and make money, I’m going to learn how to do this large item shipping and figure it out. That’s it. We weren’t new to
Melissa: eBay. But you’ve never shipped something that big.
Rob: So, that was our first go at it. I put it on eBay and sold in less than a month.
Mind you, that we actually had it listed for a month or two locally on the local apps, Facebook Marketplace, Offer Up, Craigslist for $750. We had them on the local apps and could not sell it, put it on eBay less than a month. We sold it on eBay for $2200 plus $500 shipping, $2,200, which is way, way over what we were asking for locally.
And then we charged another $500 for shipping [00:08:00] and handling on it. So that was our aha moment of there’s something to these larger items, there’s something to being able to ship these larger items. And that’s what we started diving in for the next couple of years, figuring out the best way to pallet items, how to get the best free quotes, how to get the best possible freight shipment, experience learning how to do that.
And we dove into that and we’ve mastered that for the last couple years. So that’s
Melissa: definitely how we get into the larger items. So, it’s definitely something that not a lot of people want to dive into, but it’s really not as hard once you jump in, but it’s been a game changer for our business, for sure.
We can do less items and still make the same amount of money. Just fewer items. So, which is pretty cool, that’s it?
Rob: That’s our business model. It’s not right. It’s not wrong. It’s just what we do. What we found out that works for us to be able to spend more time with each other and with our family.
So super, super excited about that.
Melissa: But, one thing I wanted to add too, is we have one way of doing things, but there are so [00:09:00] many different platforms, and so many different niches and so many different ways to do things. And that’s why we were really excited for this podcast, because we want to interview, we want to bring you interviews with other resellers, doing amazing things on other platforms, or
other business models so that you can see there’s so many options so that you can have in this business. It’s an amazing business.
Rob: It is, we are partial, but we believe this is the greatest career ever. And if you guys are like me, you probably are listening to this podcast. You absolutely get jazzed up to go out and
find those deals, whether it’s on apps, whether it’s on flea markets, yard, sales, thrift stores, whatever it is, you guys probably get super, super excited to find those deals. That’s exactly who I am, and what I love doing. So yeah, we’re excited to bring you those guests in this podcast. Interview them, get some great, great tips on you know, how we all can grow together to get better at this business.
Melissa: I can definitely testify that on Saturday mornings when the flea market is coming around that [00:10:00] morning. Like it’s, you know, it’s harder to wake up in the mornings with the kids have school, but then the flea markets there and all of a sudden you’re out of bed, like ready to go. Like, let’s go to the flea market.
Rob: A lot of people will sleep in on the weekends.
That’s their day to sleep in. Me, I’m waking up super early, super excited for the day. And to get to that flea market, this. Find some amazing deals. So that definitely gives me a little extra pep in my step Saturday and Sunday for the flea market. I mean, if you can
Melissa: treasure hunt and make money at the same time, like
Rob: who doesn’t want to do that?
I related it to Christmas as a kid, who would not want to be able to go buy any present or anything you want. And a lot of the stuff that we do, we find some sweet, sweet, cool, fun items that we’re able to use and take advantage of before we sell. And that’s kind of how I look at going to the flea market.
You never know what you’re going to find, what you’re going to get to play with, what you’re going to come across. And then you’re going to be able to have a great time with it and then still turn it around and make a great profit on it. So
Melissa: know you could always buy a hovercraft. So we did buy a hovercraft recently.
You got to get that ready to go so we can play with it [00:11:00] and
Rob: resell it. Right? We are super, super excited to be in front of you guys and to bring you some great, great tips to be able to better this reselling
Melissa: business. So definitely be bringing you some episodes with us, and just bring you some content that we want to be able to help you with.
And then we are super excited to be talking to some amazing resellers that are doing some awesome things because we can learn from everybody. And that’s one thing that’s great is like we all help each other out, so we can all grow and learn from each other and take a tidbit and, and grow your business and grow your income.
Rob: That’s it. So you guys it would mean the world to us if you could leave a five-star review, subscribe, like this podcast. We are trying to grow and we’d love it if you guys would do that immediately.
Melissa: We greatly appreciate you and we thank you so much for listening to us, and we can’t wait to bring you some more episodes.Rob: You guys rock have a great day. See ya. Thank you.[00:12:00] .
FURTHER RESOURCES
Download These 47 Household Items To Resell TODAY!
FREE Workshop How To Turn Your Passion of Flipping Items Into A Profitable Reselling Business
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