OK, we're not talking about this kind of flipping in this post. BMX rider Tucker Smith, with a big backflip at Sheep Hills, in Costa Mesa, California, 2022. #steveemigphotos
When I was a kid in small town Ohio in the 1970's, people usually called it "wheelin' and dealin." Times were different then, most people had traditional, 40 hour a week jobs that paid well, and buying and selling things was a weekend hobby. From an early age, I watched my dad bargain for all kinds of things at garage sales, flea markets, and later at gun shows. But I'm old now, many more people buy and sell to actually earn part, sometimes all, of their income. The rise of computers, the internet, and smartphones has completely changed the game in some ways, and kept it much the same in others. Today, buying and selling merchandise is usually called "flipping." And while I'm a homeless blogger these days, this was my side gig in the mid-2000's, while I was working 60-100 hours a week as a taxi driver. I made some extra money form time to time, buying primarily at storage unit auctions. That was 3-4 years before TV shows like Storage Wars first appeared. I tried to escape taxi driving and make that my full time work at one point, but I didn't have the initial money to fully make the transition.
I only lost on one purchase. The one deal I lost money on was a boat that I bought for $95 (really... that one still pisses me off). The rest of the time, I made decent money. Not a lot, but always a good return for time and energy invested.
This is a 1976 Sleekcraft by Nescher 23 foot jet boat, nearly identical to one I bought at a storage unit auction for $95. For real, $95, for a jet boat with an inboard Olds 455 and a double axle trailer. I still managed to lose money on that deal, a story I will tell before long.
Let's start with the basics. There is one main point to flipping merchandise to make money. MONEY. Yes, it's fun much of the time, and you can collect some interesting things along the way. But the point is to make money. So I'm going to let you in on this secret ancient formula to make money flipping merchandise.
Buy Low... Sell High
Buy low and sell high. In a nutshell, that's it. Whether you're buying and selling Pokemon cards or $500,000 Lamborghinis, the basics are the same. Here's the trick to that formula. Most people focus on the "Sell High" part. But the really important part is to "Buy Low." Don't believe me? Ask anyone who bought a house in 2020 or 2021 how they feel about their house, in early 2023. Yeah, they got a great interest rate, but they all bought at near the peak of the market, which had been rising since about 2009-2010. The U.S. real estate market has just started to drop, and already prices are down in 180 cities. Young people got caught up in FOMO, didn't look at long term trends, and bought houses when prices were high.
Many have good jobs, and they'll lose some equity, but be alright in the long run. But a number will sell those houses at losses in the next year or three. When you're flipping items to resell, buying low is the key. If an item has inherent value, and you get it at 20% of what the price usually is, you're going to make a profit nearly all the time. If you buy an item at 60% of what the average price usually is, you may make a profit, and you might not. Nothing beats getting a great deal on something that has inherent value. Buy low, as low as possible (without scamming people). With that in mind, here are some places to get items to sell For FREE.
Places to legally get FREE merchandise to sell
-Check out the FREE section on Craigslist. Here in the L.A., there's a lot of great stuff that gets given away, and a lot of junk. Things people give away tend to be big and/or heavy much of the time. Lots of couches on Cragislist here, for free, right now, for example. There at least 15-20 on the first page alone. Call the people, go pick up the item(s), ask if they have anything else to get rid of. Take it home, clean it up, find a place ot resell it.
-Curb finds- Drive around and look for items in front of houses, on the curb. Always ask first, before taking things. They might just be cleaning the garage or something.
-Alley/dumpster finds- People, particularly in apartment complexes, put unwanted items near the dumpsters, or in the back alley, by the dumpster, for small apartments and houses. There are a lot of people who make their whole living picking up and reselling these items.
-Moving sales/estate sales/garage sales- Roll by sales, and ask what the people are going to do with the stuff that they don't sell. If it's a family that's moving, there will almost always be a bunch of stuff they will give away free at the end of the day. If it's not just garbage, offer to pick that stuff up. The same goes for estate and garage sales, just less often. Many times an estate sale is being held by family members from out of town or out of state. They want everything gone at the end, with as much money in their pockets, as possible. Often they overpirce stuff, and get stuck with items they can't take back home. Talk to them, pick up the leftovers.
-Dumpster area in storage unit facilities- My best free item flip came from my own storage unit's dumpster area. I drove by an old kitchen table two or three days in a row. Since I had been a furniture mover for years, I knew it was old and well built, from a distance. I finally stopped to check it out, and immediately grabbed it. It turned out to be solid oak, and handmade in France, around 1870-1880. I sold it in about 4 days for $150, to an antique shop, even though it was broken and in two big pieces. It looked a lot like this table below.
Dozens of people drove by a broken table, much like this one, in need of some love, that was in two pieces, by a dumpster. I grabbed it and made a quick $150 cash selling it to a local antique dealer.
Places to buy items to flip and resell
Online platforms-You know most of these already.
Craigslist,
eBay, Etsy,
Facebook Marketplace, PoshMark,
Mercari. Tradesy, Overstock, and
Nextdoor. There are several more, less popular classified ad and personal sales sites out there, if you search. I'm sure you already no the basics of buying on these. If you meet in person, meet in a public place, take a friend, and be safe. Don't send deposits, or other money to people outside normal payment methods.
Personal sales phone apps- LetGo, Wallapop, OfferUp.
Physical personal sales- Garage sales, yard sales, moving sales, estate sales, indoor sales (garage sales for people in apartments), flea markets, swap meets.
Brick and mortar specialty stores- Thrift stores, pawn shops, antique shops, junk shops, comic shops, Sneaker shops, collectible shops, coin shops.
Auctions- Bankruptcy auctions, storage unit auctions,
gotoauction.com, police auctions, state government auctions, GSA auctions (online- most, if not all, federal agency auctions are under GSA these days). While researching this, I scanned through some GSA sales. There is a lighthouse for sale in Chesepkeake Bay. For real, a lighthouse, 4 miles offshore, just sticking out of the water. You can find all kinds of crazy deals at auctions, both physical and online.
In one storage unit, after selling several pieces and making my money back, I had a two person, inflatable kayak, much like this one, left over, as a bonus. I never got to try it out, and wound up selling it later. Looks fun, though.
Places to sell items to buy to flip
Physical sales- Garage/yard sales, flea markets, swap meets, consignment shops.
Online places to sell stuff- Craigslist, eBay, Etsy, LetGo, Wallapop, OfferUp, your own online store, and any of the other places I mentioned above, or any others you can find.
Basic advice for flipping
-What you need to start: A little money to buy stuff. A place to store stuff. A phone or computer to buy/sell and communicate with people online. Transportation to go find, buy, and sell stuff. A willingness to work, and to learn the parts of the equation that you are not good at yet.
-Flipping is one of the most flexible side gigs there is, you can pick and choose where and when to look for deals, and where and when to sell them, to some degree. There are so many different places to find deals, now, and so many places to sell items, that everyone finds a niche to work in as you get going.
-Start with items and platforms you're familiar with, and then expand. If you were huge into 90's video games, and you've done some eBay selling. Then go to garage sales, thrift stores, and check Craigslist for cheap 90's video game consoles and games. Double check what they're actually selling for before you buy, Buy them, then try to resell them on eBay. See how that works, Then start to experiment, and learn other areas to buy and sell, and other platforms. Start with where you're most familiar, or what seems most interesting, don't spend too much money, make a few sales, the evolve form there.
-Check what items actually sell for on your phone, before you buy, whenever possible. The easiest way to find recent sales prices is to look the item up on eBay, and on the lower left of the screen, scroll down, and there's a box that says "Sold items," check that box. That will change the search to show only items actually sold and completed. This gives you actual sales prices. That's one really good way to find a current value of any item that's been sold on eBay, which covers A LOT.
-Don't get caught up in the hype. That's what I did with the boat, which I mentioned above. "Nobody wants to buy a huge boat? OK, I'll bid on the boat." I had no way to move it. It had flat tires, and was full of junk people had thrown away. I pictured myself in the boat, out on the water, then selling it and pocketing several thousands dollars. I bought into my own hype, and it cost me on that deal, a $500 loss on a $22,000 boat that I paid $95 for. I just didn't have the time and money to fix the boat up, and pay to store it, until I could make the sale. I learned a lesson to just stand back when things are too far out of my lane, and let the deal pass by.
-Keep track of your sales and expenses. By now you probably heard that the IRS is hiring 87,000 more IRS agents. Everybody expects them to be digging into the lives of relatively "normal" people who are making money in crypto, side gigs, micro and small businesses, and indie online stores, and other non-traditional income sources. So take the time to get your records straight, keep things organized, and pay the taxes you need to pay. There are enough headaches in life these days, no need to get the IRS involved as well. So keep your records straight.
That's the basics of flipping merchandise, buying items low and hopefully selling them at a higher price. Then do it again. Along the way, you find cool little items to hang onto, and add to your personal collection.
I'll be writing more posts, going into more detail on different aspects of flipping, as time goes on. Hope this post helped answer questions and give you some ideas for your own life. No go find some cool shit to sell and earn some money to do cool things with.
And if you found this blog post helpful, you can throw a couple of bucks my way in my cyber tip jar below, if you like, to help keep good content coming. Thanks.
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