$1000s in Profit Buying Low and Selling High: Flea Market Flipping Case Study (Greatest Hits Collection)

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1:16Here's how one side hustler earns thousands of dollars a month and how you can too.

1:24What's up, what's up, Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because the difference between scarcity and abundance might only be one sale away. In this episode, I'm excited to revisit the popular side hustle of buying low and selling high with an inspiring guest, Stacey Gallego. Thanks to her part-time flipping business, Stacey's been able to scale way back at her nursing job. She's been able to travel more, to spend more time with her family. And what's cool about this income stream is it was actually inspired by a former Side Hustle Show guest, Rob the flea market flipper Stevenson, who we last heard from in episode 298.

2:04Stacey is one of Rob's star students, and I've loved watching her share some of her sales results over the last year or so. The ability or the skill to find a profit in your hometown is one way, I think, to really recession-proof your life. And if that appeals to you, I encourage you to check out Rob and his wife Melissa's free training at SideHustleNation.com slash FMF for Flea Market Flipper to learn more. That is my referral link for their Flipper University program, but it's all good stuff. And you'll see how Stacey has been implementing it in this episode. If you stick around, you hear how she consistently sources profitable inventory, how she deals with the logistics of transporting and shipping sometimes some pretty huge items, and her advice for new flippers to start making money.

2:50Notes and links for this episode, along with the full text summary with all of Stacey's top tips from the call, are at sidehustlenation.com slash flip it, all one word, flip it. I'll be back with my top takeaways from this chat with Stacey after the interview. Ready? Let's do it.

3:10I never dreamed that I could do this. I just kind of fell into it. I found Rob and Melissa on a blog and started listening to what their business model was, which was basically focusing on selling larger items for a lot more money versus where a lot of people just sell a lot of volume and ship a lot. And I just thought, I want to work smarter, not harder. So I figured if I could make a thousand bucks a month, that'd be really cool. And I pretty much consistently started that right away where I was making an extra thousand a month. And then it just moved into 4 ,000 up until last month, which is, I've been doing it almost two years now.

3:54And last month I was$4 short of$10 ,000. Wow. Is it sales or profit after your cost of acquisition? Sales. So my profit would be around$7 ,000. Okay. Still? Yeah. I was thrilled. I never really had it on my radar to quit my job. I love my job. I love the people I work with. So it was never really on my radar until I started realizing it was really everything I wanted. I had the freedom. I could spend time with my kids. My husband just retired at 56 from the federal government. And we can have breakfast in the morning, we can take walks, we can hang out. And it's just been really great. And I can travel for 30 days and make 4 ,000 bucks.

4:39It's not too bad. Not too bad at all. We're going to unpack some of the sourcing process, the constant hunt for inventory, remarketing, shipping some of these larger items. Excited to dive into all of that. But you draw an important consideration here. And Rob, who Stacey mentioned, has been on the podcast a couple times. They run fleamarketflipper.com. The idea, and this is in contrast to we've done episodes on flipping textbooks or flipping like thrift store clothing and selling on Poshmark, where it's like, I might make 10 bucks an item. Rob's idea is like, in the early days, it was like, if I'm not making 100 bucks an item, like, there's a lot of effort here in sourcing and photographing and listing and shipping the stuff, I want to make it worth my while.

5:23And it's very possible to play this volume game. But his argument, and it sounds like yours as well, is like, maybe I could do a similar amount of work up front for just one item and just make sure that item happens to be a home run where I double or triple my money. But let's dive into this inventory sourcing. Can you give me an idea of where you're looking for profitable inventory? What kind of stuff are you buying? Well, this is the thing that I tell people who are interested in getting into the business. Never stick to one way of sourcing. I really try to have several ways that I source. I source at yard sales.

6:04I go to thrift stores. My big finds are usually on OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, LetGo, just the local apps. And my goal really is to find those undervalued items locally and then resell them on a larger market. So I never really stick to one thing. I'm always looking for new ways to source. And my biggest new way, which is I learned from a private coaching group from Rob, and that was that to build contacts. I tell people what I do. At first, you kind of keep it to yourself because you don't want to bug people with your new business idea or whatever. And so you don't always say what you do. But I started sharing that with people.

6:48And instead of them throwing out their items, they give them to me. And then I sell them and I can either give them part of the profit or if they're going to dump them in the garbage, I'll take them and flip them and add to my inventory. And then when I have several contacts, just locally, one guy cleans out houses and then he sells me stuff very inexpensive. And then I have another guy that works at a thrift store locally. And he and I have a really good connection where he basically lets me shop at a store before he puts his stuff out. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it's really awesome. Shoot, shoot. Everybody else who's like going in there, you know, as the door opens, like, oh, the good stuff has already been picked up.

7:28Right. Believe me, there's plenty of really good stuff. There's all kinds of ways to get items and you can just make a really good living doing it. Is there a reason that somebody listing on Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp or LetGo or Craigslist isn't valuing their item properly? Or are you coming in with a lowball offer? Just kind of curious about the mechanics there. Well, that can be a lot of reasons why people want to get rid of something. Maybe they don't know what it is. I try not to play that game. I don't want to take advantage of anybody in any way. But there's people that are moving, so they may be just needing to get rid of their stuff.

8:12Otherwise, they're going to have to pay to have it moved, and they really don't want the item anyway. There's items, like for instance, I just purchased a piece of equipment for a person that's disabled. And the guy sold it to me very inexpensive because he had family members that were using it that were no longer using it, and he just needed to get it out of his garage. So those are opportunities that basically we can help them by instead of them dumping it somewhere in a landfill, we can pick it up and they get money and they're happy with it. And I just figure as long as they're happy and we can come to an agreement, it's a good deal for both of us.

8:51Right, it ends up being a win-win. Like, I don't wanna deal with it. And that's kind of been a lot of our stuff that I have sold or even maybe mistakenly given away or set out in the bulky item pickup for the garbage collector. It's like, I just don't want to deal with it. And you're like, look, I'm willing to deal with it, especially for the stuff that you think might be worth several hundred dollars or more. So equipment for a disabled person, any other home run finds that you care to share? Well, a couple of my favorites are, I found a, it's a town and country vintage skateboard. I found it at a yard sale.

9:29And I just looked up the name quickly on eBay, and I could see that some of them were selling for quite a bit. And this one was in mint condition. I mean, like it had never even been used. So I asked him, well, what do you want? He said five bucks. And I thought, I'll take a chance on five bucks. So I didn't even, I don't skateboard or anything, so I didn't know anything about it, which is kind of the fun part of the business. a lot of the things that I get, I have no idea what they are or even what they're used for, but I can figure out how much they're worth and be able to sell them. So I grabbed it.

10:03I took photos of it because I was really concerned because it was so nice that maybe it's not genuine or real. So I took photos of it and I sent a message to the company where it was made in Hawaii. And the guy immediately, they didn't even make the skateboard anymore. They only were making surfboards. So he sent me a message back and offered to buy it for 300 bucks. And I thought, okay, this is worth some money. So I listed it on eBay and sold it five days later for $650. Wow. I never even heard of it. A town and country vintage skateboard. All right. So if you're outsourcing, be on the lookout for those if you can find them.

10:41Yeah. So that was really fun. And then the guy was, he had one when he was a kid, wanted another one. So it was really fun to kind to connect him with something that he, nostalgia from when he was a kid. So that was really fun too. And another one of my favorites was, this is just a recent one that I sold. It was a motorcycle sidecar, which was so cool. It was from 2001. It was a convertible with a little, like a trunk in the back. It was such a cool little car. Rob helped me find that when I did a private coaching group with him and he found it for me. I went down and negotiated. The people just wanted to throw it out.

11:22They were just like, we just need to get it out of here. So we gave him$200 and I sold it for $3 ,300 on eBay and my husband and I shipped it. And that was one that I sold that while I was on the beach in Florida, enjoying my vacation. Nice little$3 ,000 profit there minus whatever eBay listing fee. Right. More with Stacey in just a moment, including how do you actually ship something that large and her surprising success with sleep number beds right after this. Whether you're a seasoned business or you're experiencing your very first Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you need a platform that can handle the rush.

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13:54More than 90 ,000 businesses are already running on Quo, from solo operators to growing teams. Try it free when you go to Quo.com slash side hustle. that's q u o.com slash side hustle you can even keep your existing number cool no missed calls no missed customers this kind of leads to the next question is like that sounds like not a small item it sounds like something that is going to have to go in a crate on a pallet i don't rent a u-haul and drive it to the seller like tell me about the logistics side of shipping some of this bigger stuff. Okay. Well, that's really what I loved about Rob when I found them on.

14:35I was searching around. I thought, well, how can I get this$20 ,000 for the RV? I had signed up for WAG, like a dog walking. And I thought, I'm going to have to walk a thousand dogs to even get close to, that's not going to cut it. And so I saw him and his wife, Melissa, talking about how they freight shipped. And I said, this is it. I can do this. I know I can do this. So I told my husband, this is what I'm going to do. And he's like, we are not doing that or anything like it. And I thought, oh, well, that didn't work good. So I thought, my husband's the type of person that if he sees it and he understands what's happening, he'll figure it out and say, okay, yes.

15:18So that's what I did. I started buying larger items that I wouldn't normally have bought. And I was making a really, really good profit. Okay. But meanwhile, he thinks this is an awful idea. Like you brought this into our garage. Like what is going on here? Exactly. And that's when I kind of talked him into doing a freight item. I just said, you know, let me just try it. And so that actually was my first experience, I bought another disability machine. I got it for$125. And I sold that one for$3 ,100. And that was our first experience. And Rob was amazing. He actually called us up on the phone, walked us through it.

16:00And then after you do the first one, it's not very hard. Of course, my husband's very valuable to my business. And he is great at putting the pallets together. But it's not as hard as one thinks. And it's way better to make$3 ,000 off of one sale than ship out 300 things. Because it's just the time, I didn't want to spend that much time. So that's kind of how we got started. Yeah, walk 300 dogs. So when you're comparing it against these alternatives, like, yeah, there's some stuff that I haven't done before, but I can figure it out. And if that involves freight shipping, so it sounds like you're building a pallet in the garage.

16:41So it was a trip to the lumber yard, trip to the hardware store here. And then who do you call to get quotes for that? You can't, you can't roll up to the post office and say, I need to send this motorcycle sidecar across the country. There's free pallets everywhere. You can go grab a free pallet from any grocery store or places that people are giving them away. And you can measure it. If it fits, you can use it. Just strap the item down to the pallet and cellophane it. put the plastic wrap around it. And then our personal, the freight company that I use, they require that you put sides on it, sides on the pallet.

17:19So basically it's more like a carton or a crate. Yeah. It's not as hard as you think. You just get a few nails and put it together and pretty soon you're shipping it out. And then I personally use YRC Freight. It's a really good company. They're very reasonable. And then I just take it down to the freight terminal and I set up the pickup for the person who bought it and we communicate until they receive it. I follow it all the way to them, make sure everything goes smoothly. And we've sold quite a few things that way and it's gone really well. What did it cost to ship this thing? The motorcycle sidecar?

17:57Yeah. What did it cost to ship the sidecar? No, that one was a little bit more expensive because this one was going to New York, which is the furthest placed from me. So I think it was$550, which that's not the norm. I would say I can ship anything across the US for$300,$350, if it's huge. But I'd say the average is around$150 to$200. So it's not that expensive. Yeah. I mean, if you have$3 ,000 worth of margin built into your product, you're like, shoot, yeah, I'll pay$500 for shipping. Right. Do you list it as free shipping on eBay or is it like TBD based on the quote that I get back? Sometimes I try to do free shipping with my items just because it opens up.

18:43People get nervous. Believe it or not, people who buy from you with freight shipping are as nervous as the person shipping it. We think, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to figure this out. But they're actually as nervous as we are because most people don't deal with things don't get freight shipped to them very often. So I try to do free shipping because that just gives them a little bit more security that they're not going to... Some people won't even bother with it if they just see, call me for a freight quote, because they'll assume it's going to be very expensive. So I try to build it in into my price.

19:15Do you have a buy it now price in mind or that you set versus auctions? Right. I don't deal with auctions unless there's something that's like a specialty item or something like the skateboard, you know, where you just don't know how much it could go for. Those kinds of things I'll do in auction, but most of the time I do a buy it now. Okay. So you're arriving at that buy it now price from just looking at what comparable products have sold for? Yep. I do the research and I find out what, I kind of compare the condition of my item compared to the other condition, you know, of the item sold. And then I just put together a price.

19:55And sometimes people will send me a message, would you take$100 less? Or I have that option. If I want to do that, I can do that or not. Yeah. So there is some built-in negotiating that can happen on the eBay platform. Is that the primary sales outlet? It's like, this is the overarching strategy, find undervalued items locally, and then resell them to a nationwide audience. Yep, that's it. Because, you know, I think eBay has 180 million users. The local market here, I think, maybe 60 ,000 people could see it. So I mean, if you want to get it sold, you know, that's the way to do it. And they just have so many people that are willing to pay for it, because maybe they can't get it where they are.

20:42I was going to ask, I have a guess at your answer, but I was going to ask if there's any areas of specialization here where it's like the motorcycle, sidecar, automotive accessory type of stuff, medical equipment, sporting goods? Have you found a category of products to be better than any other? Well, I think one of my favorite things that I like to sell are sleep number beds. That's probably my favorite thing. I can get them very inexpensive here. People in Tucson move quite a bit. People are just trying to get rid of their stuff or they upgrade to the next greater sleep number bed that's$5 ,000 and they now don't care about their bed that they've had for 10 years.

21:23But for me, I can sell it. I split the bed apart and I sell the parts and I do very, very well. Very well with that. And I enjoy very much selling them. They're really fun to sell. And I also like cooktops or commercial equipment or anything weird like I just recently found. And it was like a money counter. That was fun. A money counter and then a coin counter. The guy sold me both of them for$75. And I sold them each for$600. Wow. So I just find strange stuff. I've, through working with Rob and watching him and learning from him, I've developed that eye for very expensive things that are undervalued.

22:07and I'm learning to take some risks too, you know, and just learn as I go, which has been, you know, and that's part of the business too. This is fascinating. Sleep number beds. I found a niche in sleep number beds. Again, a super bulky thing, but if you've got a system to figure out how to sell those, I mean, same thing with all of this stuff is looking for something that is pretty specialized and it's going to have a hard time selling locally. And so it makes sense to open that up to this nationwide audience. I don't know if you do anything internationally, but this nationwide audience that if they're going to find it or if they're wanting to not buy it new from the manufacturer, then eBay is the place.

22:46Right. And believe it or not, with sleep numbers, they come apart. You unzip them, take the air out of them. I fold them up and put it. People are shocked. I come to pick one up and they say, oh, you didn't bring a truck? Because, you know, it's all inflated and everything. And I come in, unzip it, take it down. They're like, we had no idea that you could actually do this. They're like, you have done this before. Right. They're easy to ship. They're easy to store. And they're really fun. Really, really a fun little niche. And I enjoy it. That's awesome. Now, I imagine that some of the stuff doesn't sell right away.

23:20Like you're waiting for that perfect specialized buyer to find your listing on eBay and say, yes, I need that. But in the meantime, you have collected a garage full of random assorted sleep number beds and commercial cooktops and stuff. Is that it? Is it the garage stacked to the brims or is there a different storage solution? Well, when I started out, it started getting a little stacked up. But then I realized with these specialty items and the larger items, it does take a little bit of time for people to buy them. So you might hang on to them 30, 60, even 90 days. But the way I figure it for if I paid$100 for something and I'm going to make$3 ,000, it's worth keeping it around.

24:02But as I got started and started accumulating more things, I just went and got a storage unit. And that was just because my husband likes to have things tidy. Well, I do too. And I don't like my garage filled up with stuff. I can't fit my car. And it was worth it for us to invest in that. It's very close to my house, when I sell something, I just go grab it and ship it. If it's a large item, we take the trailer over there, go pick it up and put it on the pallet and take it down to the terminal. So it works really well for us. Although I don't recommend people starting out that you just go right away and get a storage unit because there's so much you can do on smaller items just to kind of get your feet wet and get a little experience before you invest in a storage unit.

24:44But do you need a truck to do this business? You don't. We didn't have a truck. We don't have a truck, actually. We have, for the first year and a half, we just had friends that would help us out. I'd give them 40 bucks to let me use their truck and I'd take it down to the terminal and it worked out good. Or we'd do trades. I'd do something for them and then they'd let us use their truck. But then as we started really doing some freight shipping where it was getting more and more common, we just went down to Harbor Freight. We bought a$300 trailer. My husband put it together and we went and took one of our vans and put on a tow package and that's how we do it.

25:20Very inexpensive to get the job done. Yeah. I'm always curious about like, well, now I got to move this giant thing and I've got a small SUV, but okay, here's the trailer attachment. I don't know. I might have a tow package. I don't know. It wouldn't hold very much, but it might work. Have you had any inventory that's sitting at this storage locker for six months, nine months? It's just not selling the way you thought it would. You're like, I got to get my money out of here. Curious if there's any goal metrics on inventory turning. Right. It doesn't happen to me very often, but it does happen.