Flea Market Flippers taught us how to turn junk into Jewels and sell it on ebay for a nice profit
This is a guest post from Russell Barbour
I recently decided to try a new side hustle; selling items on eBay for a profit. Until this last month, I had never even used eBay, so it was quite a learning curve.
I found a great course called Flipping University. The course is relatively new, but it was developed by two friends that are experienced eBay sellers. They make over $100,000 a year buying and selling items on eBay!
Who are Rob and Melissa aka the Flea Market Flippers?
Rob has been buying/selling stuff since he was a kid. His mom would take him and his 6 sisters to garage sales and thrift stores to save money on clothes.
It sounds like Rob’s family was very serious about finding bargains at garage sales, thrift stores and yard sales. His mom would supplement the family income by reselling some of the bargains that they found. This is where Rob got his start in flea market flipping.
Rob and Melissa got married in 2007, and flea market flipping for profit was something that resonated with Melissa, too. She joined Rob in the hobby, but she was mainly focused on her personal training business.
Life changed dramatically for them when they had kids, with Melissa reducing her hours down to part-time and using the extra time to look after the kids. Melissa start selling more items from home to try and maintain the family income.
These days they spend about 25 hours a week on their flea market flipping business. This is a good thing as they recently had a third kid! Luckily, their flipping business had the best year ever with profits of over $130,000.
They started a blog to help other people learn how to buy stuff at flea markets and sell it for a profit on eBay. This led to their course called Flipper University.
The Flipper University – My Experience
We decided to purchase Rob and Melissa’s Flipper University course as we had a bunch of stuff to sell on eBay. As neither of us had any experience selling on eBay (and we had to sell the stuff quickly), we decided to invest in the course.
The stuff we sold was acquired from an old company that went out of business, so we got all of the items for free!
How much does the course cost?
You have two options:
- The Pro-Flipper Package ($497)
- The Pro-Flipper PLUS Package ($597)
This might seem quite high, but we made $6,000 selling stuff on eBay within 4 weeks of completing the course. This is not a typical result though! They mention that you can expect to earn somewhere between $500 – $7,000 a month using their techniques if you work hard.
The only difference between the PLUS package and the regular one is that there is an extra course about freight shipping included in the PLUS package.
I think it is important to invest in your education if you want to develop new skills and improve your financial situation. I recently wrote an article that features dozens of freelance bookkeepers that purchased a course on the subject for $2,000.
This freelance bookkeeping business launch course is expensive, but all the students I interviewed were able to recoup the investment with their new businesses within a month or so.
Anyway, we decided to go with the Pro-Flipper PLUS Package, and here is what we found.
Overview of the Pro-Flipper PLUS Package
The course is primarily in text format, but there are several video lessons as well. Overall, the course is professionally done, but I did spot some typos. No big deal.
What do you get in the course?
The course is split into sections. Here is an overview of the different sections and what you will learn.
The Beginner Section
This section covers all the basics of selling on eBay. Here are the key topics covered:
- How to find free items to resell
- What items to look for (10 Things That You Can Flip on eBay)
- How to setup your eBay account
- How to setup PayPal
- How to get positive feedback quickly and why this is crucial
- How to price an item properly on eBay
- How to write your listings to sell fast and for maximum profits
- When to try auction versus fixed price listings
- The secrets to shipping efficiently and as cheaply as possible
This section of the course was very useful for me. I had never sold a single thing through eBay, so it was all new.
In this section they also encourage you to join the private Facebook group for students of the course. I did this, and it is a SUPER VALUABLE resource.
There are lots of people that post what they are flipping, where they got the items and their profits. You can get tons of ideas for flips in the group and all your questions are answered quickly.
Overall, this section of the course sets a great foundation for the rest of the course. The basics are well covered, and there are some golden nuggets that can take your eBay selling to the next level.
The Intermediate Section
The second half of the course is the real meat. This is where you will find the most valuable lessons for starting your flipping business.
Here is an overview of what the second half of the course teaches you.
Sourcing Items
This module covers everything from how to find the best items to flip to those that are valuable. They teach you how to negotiate and make sure you maximize your profits. You also learn how to find items and sell items on Facebook and OfferUp.
How to Get Items Ready to Sell
If you are interested in refurbishing free items and selling them for a nice profit, this section is for you! Rob shows you how to take some common items that you can find for free, clean them up quickly and easily and then take great pictures of them.
Advanced Selling on eBay
Although this was discussed in Section 1 of the course, it is revisited here. They give you some more in-depth advice, tips and tricks. You will learn about how to use eBay SEO to maximize your listing visibility. There is nothing worse than listing an item, just to have no viewers!
They also deal with customer interactions in this module. They have a lot of experience with communicating with customers, dealing with refunds and negative feedback. They give you their experience to fast track your path to success.
Packaging and Shipping Your Items
Shipping is one of the pains with selling stuff online. You have to figure out how to pack it so that the item is protected but it doesn’t cost a fortune to ship.
Luckily Rob teaches you all about packing, shipping and insurance in this module.
Business Stuff
Finally, you will learn all about the business aspect. Boring, but crucial things like taxes, incorporating etc.
Freight Shipping Section
Shipping large items is intimidating to many people. This has its advantages though, because if you can learn this skill, you open up a whole new market on eBay that has a lot less competition.
Large exercise equipment is something that Rob specialized in and makes a lot of money from this. The majority of people will not know the way to ship these large items across the country, which means you will have a large audience compared to them!
Shipping a few large but expensive items is the secret to scaling a flipping business. It is well worth learning if you want to increase your profit margins and reduce your work.
Here are some of the things that you will learn in this course:
- How to list your item with freight shipping
- How to palletize, box or crate your large item and deal with Fed Ex or UPS
- How to make a crate
- How to get shipping quotes and dropping off your freight
- The secret that they use to get massively reduced freight shipping
Those are the main sections of the course. I learned so much by completing the course.
Many people will be worried that they might buy their first item to flip, and it won’t sell on eBay. Melissa addresses this early on in the course.
Her suggestion is to simply purchase an item that is a bargain at a thrift store or garage sale. Make sure it is something that you like – then if you don’t manage to sell it you can just keep it! This is a simple solution to getting over the fear of getting started with flipping.
Rob and Melissa also share many different examples of successful flips that they have made over the years. It is pretty inspiring to see items that they purchased for $10 and then sell for $300 online!
Flea Market Flipping Video on Flipping University
If you’d like to meet Rob and Melissa, check out their video below.
Final thoughts on Flea Market Flipping University
Flipper University is a great course if you want to learn the art of flea market flipping. Rob and Melissa have done a great job explaining the basics and giving the student some amazing insider secrets.
If you are considering flipping items online, I highly recommend taking the Flipper University course to get started in this exciting business.
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