How to succeed at flipping

NOOB GUIDE

To anyone starting new or thinking about it: the most important thing in the beginning is taking action. It's easy to sit in analysis paralysis for days and weeks and months watching YouTube videos, reading this subreddit, worrying about losing money, the returns, bad customers, etc. The best thing to do is JUST. START. This subreddit is here for any "along the way" questions and some extremely knowledgeable people are here to help you.

With that out of the way, we're off!

STARTING OFF

What are the benefits of reselling?

For starters, you can make a good living. That’s pretty obvious though. The freedom to work your own schedule and limited hours are the biggest benefit in my opinion. Living out of state, so far from my friends and family, it’s nice to take a few days off to go visit them. I also love travelling so I can go anywhere at the drop of a dime without worry of getting fired or using up PTO. You can also get health insurance through eBay. Lastly, because you are always finding deals and know how to buy low, you can usually get things you need for next to nothing!

There are two sides to every story. What are the cons of reselling?

There aren’t a lot of cons, but with everything, there are always a few. For starters, you really need to motivate yourself. With no boss looking over you, there’s nothing stopping you from skipping work for a day…..or 20. I found that out the hard way when I only made $500 last November. Too much travelling and not enough working! Another downside goes along with your health insurance. It can take a few months to get health coverage through eBay, so you’ll be insurance free until then. Lastly, you can’t prove your income until you file taxes. Don’t plan on getting any loans or leases or renting a new home until you get that tax statement next year!

If it’s so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?

That’s a valid question that I have to answer a lot. The truth is, everyone does it, and it really pisses me off! Every time you find a new niche item or unknown supplier, you need to milk it as much as you can, because soon enough, so many people will do it that it will either (1) flood the market and drop prices, or (2) people will buy it up so much that the product cost will skyrocket. DVDs are a prime example. I used to buy them in HUGE collections from people at $1 each and sell them for $3 each. Soon later I could only sell the rare ones and the common ones would go straight to the pawn shop for my $1 back. Within months pawn shops would only pay 50 cents per DVD. Then $0.25. No they don’t buy them at all. DVDs are almost worthless! I’ve seen it happen time and time again. In fact, every month or so I have a new product that I buy and sell primarily. This can really be a pain working in an ever changing industry!

How much does it cost to start flipping?

Depends on how deep you want to go from the start. Most people start out spending nothing and building your bankroll slowly as you acquire sales and additional products. NOTHING IS REQUIRED TO BE PURCHASED TO START.

FIRST STAGE

What should I sell?

Go around your house/apartment/domicile and find some items you do not need or want any longer. It doesn't matter if they are particularly valuable at this point, but bonus points if they are. The point here is to get used to listing and shipping the items and make some capital.

IMO 5-10 items should be extremely easy to find around your house so let's go with that.

What kinds of items sell best

This is a very broad question that I get asked a lot. You can sell just about anything if you get it at the right price. I don’t want to tell you any specific items, because this changes daily, but try to look for things that are in high demand. Search craigslist for things like video game systems and hot electronics. Find the people that need cash NOW and lowball the hell out of them. They get cash now and you get a profit later. You can also find people moving, trying to unload a ton of furniture. Buy it for one price and sell it later at higher prices. If you find a discontinued item that people love, buy it and wait until later. People were paying over $100 for a box of twinkies a month after stores were sold out!

I always like to find things that I can get for next to nothing that everyone just passes by. You’d be surprised what sells! I can get scrabble games for around a dollar and sell the tiles to crafters for $10/set. I find TV remotes and sell them in wholesale lots for $1 each. Broken video game systems sell really well for parts as well! Try and make your own niche. If you hit it early, you’ll get more sales before the market gets saturated.

What equipment do I need to start?

A computer or smartphone for listing and researching.

A decent camera.

Printer (laserjet preferred, ink jet will work as well, or if you're really not ready to invest, the local library's printer)

Shipping supplies

Products

Most importantly - TIME.

REQUIREMENTS

1. Smart Phone

2. Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel

3. Scale (Somewhat optional, but I'd recommend a small one if you can)

4. 5-10 Personal Items

Here’s what you need to get started:

First, a smartphone. Don’t have one? GET ONE! My iphone 4 costs me about $75 a month and it’s worth every penny! Download the “amazon price check” app and the “ebay” app. I use the former to scan items to see if it’s worth anything on a regular basis.

Next, get yourself a shipping scale. You can get them cheap; for about $12, on eBay. Don’t just guess! It’ll cost you in the end!

You’ll want a USB barcode scanner. This makes listing a breeze, especially when you have hundreds of DVDs and books to look up. They are about $10 on eBay.

Order bubble mailers off of eBay too (noticing a pattern here?). #0 are best for DVDs and #2 and #4 are best for about everything else!

give yourself a dedicated office. I use my spare bedroom, but it might be smart to work out of a storage unit too.

What makes an item profitable?

An item is profitable if you make $0.01 over what you paid for it. For many flippers, we refuse to sell for less than a certain percentage over what we pay for an item (For example, some people only buy an item if they can sell it for double, or triple the original cost). When figuring profitability, you have to factor in the cost of the item, listing fees, final value fees, shipping costs, paypal fees (if applicable). This is all taken out of your final sale price to determine profitability.

For example:

Item sells for $9.99 - $0.50 (cost of item) - $1.00 (ebay final value fee) - $0.59 (Paypal Fee) - $2.25 (shipping) = $5.65 profit.

Some flippers go even deeper than this. They factor in mileage on their vehicle, gas costs, shipping supplies costs, and most importantly, time. These factors are up to you and are an optional part of flipping for some.

SOURCING

So where can I find merchandise?

There are all kinds of places to find merchandise! Soon, you’ll find yourself pricing every item you see in your head!

I find most of my merchandise in the following places:

• Craigslist

• Flea markets

• Clearance items at stores like Target / Walmart

• Salvage stores like Big Lots

• eBay

• Return business

Thrift Stores - Great places to pick up items. Looking on Yelp is a good way to find local thrift stores.

Retail Stores - Lots of stores have items that can be sold for more online. These items can be harder to find though and require some diligence.

Yard Sales, Garage Sales, Rummage Sales, Etc… - Great places to get amazing deals. Able to haggle on pricing at times. Check the Garage Sale section of Craigslist or visit EstateSales.net to find what's happening nearby.

Outlet Stores - New retail items sold at sometimes very high discounts to clear out inventory.

Local Auctions - Arrive early to look over everything and get an idea of what you want to go for. Head to AuctionZip to find auctions near you or look up local auction companies.

Dumpsters - Yes, you can even source items in neighborhood dumpsters. Many people throw away perfectly good items that could be sold to others.

I went to the thrift store every day this week and never found anything. What am I doing wrong? Does my store just not have anything worth selling?

Depends. Thrift store inventory can vary wildly, but I doubt that this is the case. If you took ten flippers and asked them to shop your local store, eight will walk out with a different item and two may walk out with nothing. We each have our own knowledge and specialties and even then, not every trip will come out with something.

I suggest something called the “touch everything” rule. Make sure you touch two to five items throughout the store in EVERY department. If your store has ten different departments and you check the value of five items in each and still walk out with nothing, you still learned about 50 items that will not sell. Sourcing is about learning constantly and continuously requires you to step out of your own comfort zone.

Another way to make sure you're aware of what you're looking at is to say aloud each item you see. If you're not used to buying to sell, it's incredible what you'll gloss over.

SOURCING

Pick an area of the thrift store, and start looking items up. It doesn't particularly matter what section of the store, but if you have a knowledge in shoes, clothing, books, electronics, etc. use that to your advantage here and start there. If you don't, and that is how I started, no problem! You have the tools and the above guidelines to help you find profitable items. I 100% recommend going through every section in the store and looking up as many items as you can. You never know what could be valuable. I am still learning different niches and find new ones almost every time I go out. I just sold a Merman Christmas Ornament for $40 I bought for $1.99 that had a crazy sell through rate. Who would've thought?

Try to pick a day where you have some time to really go through the store and can spend at least a few hours going through it. The more you do this, the more compounding knowledge you will have and be able to grab certain things without even looking them up.

I want to stress here again that TAKING ACTION is the most important thing here. REALLY go through the store and look as many things up as you can handle or have time for. Other flippers here will tell you they have times where they walk out of a thrift store with absolutely nothing, and that can definitely happen so don't get discouraged. You aren't in a sprint, you're in a marathon and taking the time to look up all these items is going to compound so quickly for you. You will get faster and faster as time goes on.

SECOND STAGE

PHOTOGRAPHY

Take pictures outside if/when possible. If you live where it snows like I do, take pictures during the day time with your windows open. You can use a free app like Photo Room or any background remover app if you want your pictures to look more professional, but this is optional at this point. Just pick an area with no clutter in the background and a clean surface.

LISTING

Your title should be as descriptive as possible with as many keywords as you can include. Think of what you would type into Google if you were looking for this particular item and start with that.

Take your time and describe everything in vivid detail. Every tiny defect, the history of the item (You owned it but rarely used, your dog chewed it to pieces, etc.) Describe the item like your customer isn’t looking at the pictures. Take pictures like your customer isn’t reading your description. It is better to highlight a defect upfront than to hear from a customer once they receive it and you did not describe it accurately.

Use the hashtags for any relevant details of your item. (For example, Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch: #animalcrossing #nintendo #nintendoswitch) You can do as many as you like and are relevant to your item.

Congratulations, you just listed your first item for sale!

Tell me about shipping

Anytime I buy anything, I save the bubble wrap and box. This comes in handy because I hate spending $16 for a small roll of bubble wrap. If I have to, I get boxes at walmart when they are restocking. I also use newspaper to pack boxes. It’s all about being green right?

Order yourself a ton of flat rate padded envelopes. They are about $5.70 to ship an item and you can pack them tight! Also, get yourself a shipping scale and make sure to pack everything tight! You see the posts on the front page about how fed ex and ups deliver items!

Post on Facebook/Nextdoor about needing boxes and shipping materials. I have had a ton of success with this and while you may get overloaded with boxes and material, it is better to have more than you need at this point in your journey given you have the space. I've had particular success with this on Nextdoor.

Buy a tape gun and packing tape.

If you cannot get any shipping supplies via the above method, or simply don't want to, your local big box store will have boxes, bubble mailers and bubble wrap you can buy. Keep in mind the dimensions you put in on Mercari for your items so you have the boxes/mailers you need to ship.

Item Sold! Now What?

My item just sold! What do I do now?

You box it up and ship it. Doesn’t sound too tough but there is more involved than that.

Where do I get my packing materials You can order them online (USPS will send you free Priority Mail boxes if you plan to ship using that service), buy them at office supply stores, or even dumpster dive. Boxes are usually in their own separate dumpster and flattened out. Furniture stores often have a dumpster full of bubble wrap or you can even go inside the store and ask if they have any lying around.

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WHICH ITEMS TO SELL?

I use eBay a LOT to figure out if an item will make money and to look for new items to watch out for when I'm on the hunt. For me, the history of sold items on eBay is an incredible resource and I'd advise even those of you who don't sell on eBay to use it for research. Here's an overview of how I use it.

Determining the value of an item while “in the field” (at a thrift store, yard sale or auction)

1. Open the eBay app or website and enter the item in the search field
2. Filter your results by “Sold” items only
3. Sort the sold results by “Price + Shipping: highest”
4. Look at the descriptions and try and match the item you are considering to the sold items as close as possible – make, model, color, size, condition, etc
5. Guesstimate an average sold price in your head based on a few of the sold ones– don’t assume you are going to get the same or more than the highest sold
6. Subtract 30% from the total price of the most similar sold item. I subtract 30% for PayPal fees, eBay fees and misc. (shipping materials or whatever) to be safe. For example, if I estimate its value at $90 + $10 in shipping, I subtract 30% from $100, giving me $70.
7. Decide if the amount of profit is worth it and either buy it or leave it and move on.

Pro-tip: The phone apps usually only show you the last 30 days of sold items, while the website shows you 90 days… I always use the app first cause it’s faster, and then switch to the website if I don’t find enough info

Using eBay to research new items to look for

1. Open the eBay website and do a search for something you already know is valuable – let’s search for “vintage calculator”, as an example
2. Filter the search for “Sold items” and then sort by “Price + Shipping: Highest”
3. Now, go through and research each seller in the top 40 or so and see what else each of them has sold, looking for items that interest you

• Example – the first one at the top right now is a vintage HP calculator watch that sold for $2399 bucks (wow).
• I click on this auction and see that the seller has over 3000 feedback, so I then click on “Seller’s other items”
• I see that this seller sells a decent variety of stuff, including old cameras, etc.
• I then filter this seller’s items to show his/her “Sold” history and I sort by “Price + Shipping: Highest.”
• I see that he/she sells a lot of older camera lenses – this is interesting to me because I see a lot of lenses when I’m thrifting, but have never tried to buy/sell cause I don’t know how to choose… Yet.

1. Now I’m going to enter “vintage camera lens” into the search, filter by “Sold” and sort again by “Price + Shipping: Highest”
2. Go through the sold items, noting recurring makes, models, etc.
3. Spend a good hour or two doing this every week or whatever and you’ll soon find your areas of expertise expanding like wild, and you’ll find yourself scoring/profiting more often!

Good luck! Questions, comments, tips from others, concerns, etc. always welcome cause I’m here to learn too!

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THIRD STAGE

YOU SOLD AN ITEM!

Congratulations, you took some action, pulled some junk from around your house and you sold your item! Try to ship same day or next day if possible, it really goes a long way for your customer's experience and receiving good feedback from the buyers. Wouldn't you appreciate same day shipping when you ordered something?

If you have a printer: you can print directly onto standard 8.5" x 11" paper and cut or fold the paper, then tape directly onto your box or bubble mailer.

If you do NOT have a printer, you can simply use the QR code option on Mercari, have it scanned at the post office and they will do all the printing for you!

BOOKKEEPING

Create a basic Spreadsheet for tracking: What you paid for the item aka Cost of Goods Sold(COGS), Sold Price, Shipping Costs/Fees, Mileage Tracking, and expenses(Like the boxes, bubble mailers, tape, etc. you got earlier!). Don't make this overly complicated. It is important now to keep track of everything and, more importantly, it is pretty exciting to look at as you grow and see how successful you are!

I have a separate bank account for strictly reselling transactions, but as long as you keep track via a spreadsheet, and especially at an early stage, this isn't 100% necessary.

I HAVE MONEY, NOW WHAT?

Congratulations, you can now source some new items to sell!

Much like the selling platform choice, there are a lot of options here on where, how, what to source. We are going to go your local thrift store for this exercise.

A QUICK NOTE ON HOW TO FIND MARKET VALUE AND SELL THROUGH RATE VIA EBAY

To find the market value of an item, type the item into your eBay search bar. Be as specific as you can. Hit filter, and click sold listings. This is what the item has sold for in the past 90 days. If you are unable to find it in the sold listings, as GENERAL advice, leave that item in the store.

Sell Through Rate is a gauge on how quickly an item will sell after you list it. You can get this information by looking at the number of Active Listings, and comparing it to Sold Listings. If there are 100 listings active on eBay, and only 2 have sold, leave that item. You can gauge how long you'd like to hold onto items, but my recommendation at this point is to try and get an equal number of actives vs solds, or even better more solds than actives. This is another rabbit hole and opinion-based subject that could be discussed in a lot of detail, but for now try to focus on high sell through rate items since we are just getting started and want to get our bankroll going.

CLOSING

Despite how long this ended up, there are still a lot of things I could say here but I want to keep this as a somewhat simple if not lengthy guide on how someone could get started with no knowledge and very little/no money for flipping. If you have any questions I am happy to help. I hope this is helpful to some of the new flippers coming to the subreddit.

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1. You have to spend most of your time in front of the computer. I spent several months thinking I was doing great, out and about, buying up all this stuff to flip and thinking how great flipping was and then realizing that I had bought a bunch of middling junk that wasn't easy to sell, wasn't easy to ship, and wasn't easy to store. The hard links in this sub-reddit (read those) have one of the golden rules which is don't buy something you don't have a good way to sell, regardless of the value. When I finally realized I had enough stuff to spend months listing it, I forced myself to STOP GOING OUT. I started spending 8-10 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week just listing. Which leads to...

2. To be good at anything you have to do it over and over. I struggled with listing because I'm lazy and ebay sucks. I felt like there had to be a better way, an easier way. Where was turbo lister? Where is the guy overseas who will list stuff for me for pennies? In the end the only thing that worked was me, grinding away, until there is almost no way for me to list stuff any better any or faster. Yes there are tools that help. There are helpers who can help. But I didn't do well until I learned to just sit there for hours and do old fashioned listings one by one until it has become second nature to do so.

3. You have to get "on top of your pile" where you have a shitload of stuff listed at one time. This is weird and I can't fully explain it, but once you started listing a lot of stuff all the time and you have a large $ amount listed, things just start to happen.. maybe ebay gives you better placement.. maybe just having more listed means someone looking for one things ends up buying something else.. or they buy two or three things at once. It seems more like an exponential jump in sales rather than a linear one you might expect. I don't question it, I just try and keep adding more listings.

4. Have a $ goal. I didn't do this for a long time and the difference it made was huge. Before I would say "I really have to get these movies all listed today". Now I say "I want to sell $200 today, how can I make $200 today?". I hit the daily goal and then I made weekly goals. I put my weekly and monthly goals in a spreadsheet with all the sites I sell on + local and have a % of where I'm at. If I'm coming up short I have to work harder and faster or maybe get creative like do a promotional sale on some old stuff or put some crappy shit together in a bundle and sell it.

5. Stay in your lane. When I met some other flippers out and about they said "What do you sell?" I said "Oh I'll sell anything". They said "You gotta specialize in something". I think I wanted to prove them wrong and be able to sell anything but I learned the hard way I don't know how to sell vintage clothing or shoes. I don't like fixing and testing electronics. I know absolutely nothing about jewelry or precious metals. I don't know anything about pokemon other than you have to catch them all. Trying to get in to other niches was just a waste of time and (8.) time is the only limiting factor when it comes to flipping. It was sadly ironic when me finally breaking through to my best numbers came from selling the things I knew best (movies, music) that I had started off with and abandoned in pursuit of what I saw other people selling that seemed more lucrative.

6. Expand adjacent to your lane. You can get into other areas that are adjacent to what you know best. I started with mostly records and some blu-rays but now I know a good bit about VHS, CDS, DVDs, 8-Tracks, and books. Because I do VHS I started picking up some CRTs to watch them on and now I know what CRTs are valuable. So I'm expanding to other lanes slowly in a way that I can keep making good flips and not trying to jump 6 lanes over like a typical driver in Houston traffic.

7. Time is your limiting constraint. Maybe this is obvious. There is no shortage of things to buy and sell. You should be able to find a place to store it. You'll learn the brand of zebra labels and packing tape you like best. In the end it comes down to YOU versus the CLOCK. You have to budget your time between listing/shipping/digging/leisure. And for the 3 flipping activities you have to learn to do them efficiently as possible. Digging used to be my leisure time but now its work. I have a route, a plan. I get in and get out of sales and go to the next one and then get back home. I'm on the clock because I need more time to list. You get your shipping to be as efficient as possible so you have more time to list. You get your listing down to be as efficient as possible.. so you have more time to list.

8. Take some chances. This might be somewhat controversial but I think at least when you are 'on top of your pile' and your running efficiently then you have some breathing room to take some chances. I try to have a rule that I don't buy anything without knowing what it sells for but sometime time is short and I go with my gut and grab something if it's cheap. The more experience you gain the more often you'll be right. If it's a bust, throw it back. If it sells, you learned something new. Also it doesn't hurt to try different things when selling also. Try a different platform. Try a different listing style. Put some weird stuff together as a lot. Take a lot apart and sell parts of it. No one is going to tell you what works for you, you have to learn by trying it.

9. Don't be a dick and be cool to people and other flippers. I'm not the most social person and I have almost no friends in this huge city I moved to 3 years ago but I've met some good people flipping and they help me out and I help them out. I'm starting to know people who run sales or work at stores and they know me. As in life, investing in social capital is going to make your flipping life better in the long run.

OK, that's all I got.

TLDR: Love flipping, be listing all the time, repetition is key, have a lot of $ listed at one time, make a $ goal, stay in your lane, eat our vegetables, time is of the essence, dude, take chances, don't be a dick.

SEARCH TIPS

In response to the I hate Pinterest post that is getting traction here, I like to give you my search tips that produces way better results for background info for your eBay or other platform product resell, pricing search and images search than just typing in a word or two in Google and filter out that pesky Pinterest.

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Tip 1: -inurl

First of all, yes Pinterest does suck. It pollutes the search results of Google. With these search operators you get rid of pinterest for good: -inurl:pinterest is the superior search operators. Add more with a comma and a space, so -:inurl:pinterest, -inurl:worthpoint, -inurl... etcetera to get a more in-depth search result.

With the search operator '-pinterest', Google filters out pages/websites that contain that word. This gives a better experience as sometimes a blog describes the item, but mention pinterest somewhere on the same page.

Max I believe is 15 search operators (and I often need more) and with background information research, I often have to filter out all the major retailers & sites (eBay, Goodwill, Amazon, Worthpoint, etcetera), second hand sites (eBay and country specific market sites) and of course Pinterest to get what I want.

With that amount and repeat searches strung together, you might get asked to do a Captcha by Google or confirm 'I'm not a robot' checkbox, as Google algorithm flags this behavior as odd.

Annoyingly, the more you use it, the more Google ask you if you're not a robot.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Tip 2: inurl

Other method is using the inclusive 'inurl', so minus the minus. For instance 'inurl:blogpost, inurl:forum, inurl: wordpress, etcetera' to look exclusively for sites that normally don't show up in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

It also works amazingly to look exclusively in the sites we filtered out in the first tip. It all depends on the intent of the search.

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Tip 3: Facebook

Another treasure trove is Facebook, although its search algorithm and functionality sucks real hard. It only works if you know in which groups to search for, be a member of that group and filter to search within 'your groups and pages', in case if the first two search tips doesn't produce useable search results.

Naturally this means it only works for objects that have groups for it, like old typewriters and other vintage items.

If also helps just to post a picture of an item and ask what it is. Most groups don't like flippers as they pollute the group posts, so they often have rules against Facebookers asking for 'what is this worth' posts.

To circumvent that, post the image and ask in the comment what it might be worth. Usually admins monitor and moderate comments not that strictly.

Being a member of a group also helps to find and connect to other resellers and built relationships with them. I have a few resellers that help me out now and then.

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Tip 4: eBay through Google

Although I often filter out eBay, sometimes searching exclusively within eBay produces helpful results when using Google. Google indexes more pages than eBay itself. Use 'inurl:eBay'.

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Tip 5: Worthpoint alternatives

'inurl:picclick' sometimes helps. It is a site that mines eBay and helps when you know the name of the item and want to have an idea what it might sell for.

Although Worthpoint is much better in that regards. Unfortunately a subscription of Worthpoint costs you 20 USD/EUR per month.

I've had a subscription, but prices vary so wildly for my niche, that it often confuses more than it helps. Regardless, there are flipping groups on Facebook that share accounts for a tiny sum in comparison, but never tried or looked into that.

I assume the lot of you know how to use eBay to find what a previous item sold for by using the filter option 'sold items'.

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Tip 6: image search

When I find a picture of an object, say an unhelpful search result that links to a Pinterest post, I right-click the image to view it separately and drag it into another tab that has the images page of Google to do a reverse image search there.

It sometimes produces the original post or the algorithm produces the same item in different photographs. But more often it produces nothing useful. Hit or miss.

If you use Chrome, it is part of the right-click menu when right-clicking an image.

When using Firefox, there is an add-on or extension that gives the same functionality as Google's Chrome browser right-click function.

From /u/icyhotonmynuts:

I actually use images.yandex.com more for my image searches now. It's the Russian search engine. I find their algorithms a lot better, even for video reverse searches.

I use a Firefox or Chrome Extension for quick reverse image lookup from the right-click context menu. One is called Search by Image, it has lots of reverse image search engines in its list that you can select from, and customize in your context menu. It also opens up the search engines right after the current tab where the original image resides. The other is RevEye Reverse Image Search, which has just 4 search engines to choose from - Google, Yandex, Bing and Tiny Eye - the search engines open at the very right of all your tabs open.

Out of the two, I prefer Search by Image because of the extensive list and fact that the engine opens up to the very right of my search (I'm a huge multi-tab user and I group things for organization's sake. However, I found RevEye will open on some very few sites that Search by Image will not, very very few.

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Tip 7: other search engines

There is more to Google than just Google. Use Duckduckgo and Bing. It is sort of a last resort measure, as these algorithms and functionality are not up to the same level as Google. But, it might surprise you.

Search operators for Bing:

https://help.bing.microsoft.com/#apex/18/en-US/10001/-1

Search operators for Duckduckgo:

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/syntax/

Duckduckgo uses Bing + its own data.

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Tip 8 and 9: Google Books and other languages

I recently find myself using Google Books more and more for background information. It often helps me dig up more info about the item than normal Google search results produces.

And coupled with item specific words translated to other languages (German and Spanish, French and Italian being the main ones) it produces way more background information.

Using alternative languages is surprisingly effective, especially when used with all other tips.

Use deepl for superior translation and Google translate for languages that Deepl doesn't support yet.

So search eBay.de, eBay.it, eBay.fr, etcetera to find more info or pricing history, coupled with the accompanied native language (German Italian, French and the rest).

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Tip 10: change your Google location:

I find myself changing location of my Google account as I am not a citizen of the US. Google tailors your search result based on your previous searches and your location. Often my 'local' search result are mediocre, so to change it to the US, use this link:

Android:

https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7394009?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en

Desktop: If logged into Google, use this linl, scroll down to 'region settings' and select your preferred country. For instance if I need to research a German made vintage typewriter, I change the region to Germany, go to google.de, translate the word typewriter to German and use that word together with the specific typewriter to find more information.

Best practise is not to change the location of your device, but change it in your Google account. I often find myself switching between locations (United States, Germany, France, etcetera) and have a dedicated link in my bookmark bar.

Tip 11: nuclear option

The good old time of Google serving real people's opinion on their non-commercial websites is long gone. The last decade the SERPs are being dominated by websites that exists purely to generate income by on-page advertisment, or worse, affiliate links.

These two are the major polluters of Google SERPs. They do all kinds of optimalization to make you click that link (click is what they want and what generates the affiliate income).

Wirecutter and Nymag are multi-million income generating websites that seem to produce perfectly legit pages, but are tailored to perfection (using big-data, human psychology and loads of A/B testing) to make you click through to Amazon or other affiliate networks.

And often the items they promote in their pages are ultimately garbage when one does it due diligence and research the shit out of an item or product.

Now imagine millions of sites gaming Google and you....

My point: use the nuclear option '-affiliate' search operator to filter out 90% of the crap of internet. Use it to effect with tip one.

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Tip 12: most used title words of sites:

Advertisment and affiliate sites often use these two words to rank in Google, best & top. As I find these sites, in general, utter crap, they are easily removed with just one single search operator: '-intitle:top', -intitle:best'.

Google now filters out the ad-infested and sketchy sites. Add in the other search operators to tailor your intent and to optimize your search results.

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Good luck and if you have any tips to add, comment below and I'll add them to this post.

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TIPS & TRICKS

One tip I got recently that I've found some success by following is to try to find a new "thing" to flip every once in a while. I happen to specialize in selling clothing, but it was suggested to me that I might as well glance around the hard goods section of the bins while I'm there anyways, and check random comps on things.

I've found a few decent flips this way, and its helped me branch out a little. It's good, because there typically a slow time for all types of retail- if you have a couple niches you're familiar with, you have a few options to fall back on when one area slows down a little :)

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• Dont get locked down into 1-3 categories! Sell over such a wide spectrum that one day you are selling a vintage hat one hour and then 45 minutes later you sold a part off a broken radio, and then you find out you sold a lot of video games!

• The real steady money is not with the "cool" items. Lots of power flippers will leave an estate sale with nothing because their one niche had nothing for them. I leave with 500 dollars in profits because screw my niches, here is a box full of odds and ends that some people are paying 35 dollars for PER ITEM (True Story).

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I don’t use anything special as far as a camera goes. However there are two tips here that will make your pictures pop and save you a lot of time.

1. I would highly recommend using a roll of white paper and some decent lights to get some amazing pictures of your product. Here is a typical eBay picture I see

http://imgur.com/u20vS7f

Here is what our picture station looks like

http://imgur.com/eaw06Ze

Here are some pictures, no edits right from the camera.

http://imgur.com/GEW1W0w http://imgur.com/aOW7rx6 http://imgur.com/zuplhxx

2. EYE-Fi, Most amazing thing in the world. http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Fi-Wireless-Frustration-Packaging-MOBI-8-FF/dp/B00CS4WPD6/ or buy a camera with auto wi-fi transfer in it. This has been a life saver.

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Think like a first-time buyer.

They're going to be stupid about descriptions, pictures, sizes, measurements, shipping costs, shipping times and returns. They're not going to understand the policies & procedures for the site you're using

Make sure your listings are created with the dumb customer in mind

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This seems super obvious when selling electronics put in the few minutes to show that it works by taking photos that it powers on using built-in features. This is far more likely going to make a sale. I hard pass on listings that don't bother on this.

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• Clean EVERYTHING. It does not matter what it is, clean it. There are exceptions of course with things that decrease in value when cleaned like certain kinds of antiques or finishes. It's astounding how many people will list items caked with dust and grime that could have been cleaned up with pretty minimal effort.

• Test everything you can test, and show it working in your photos if you can. Try to set the photos up to show the buyer what it could look like in their homes.

• Describe your items as though you are describing them to the world's stupidest person. You will get more sales than the people who put basically nothing other than the default "item is used condition shipped USPS Mail"

• Use all 12 eBay photos. They are there so that your buyers know what they are purchasing, so utilize them. Never use stock photos, always take your own. You don't have to get fancy or use expensive cameras. eBay suggests solid white backgrounds, but I personally pay no mind to that. I used to do solid white photos but really never saw any difference in sales, in fact, i think I have better sales now that buyers can see that I am just an average guy selling things. Some may argue that solid white backgrounds lower your sales since they tend to look like stock photos and turn off buyers, but I don't think it matters one way or the other. It's a debatable topic.

• List EVERY DAY. List 3 items a day at a minimum, more if you have the product. eBay's algorithm rewards consistency, and your sales WILL reflect that. That is one of the universal truths that almost every seller can agree on. Not only do you have more listings, but you show up in the search results better.

• Cast a wide net when sourcing. Source everything and anything. I know that there are benefits to having a niche and for some it may work, but I chose to not limit myself. While everyone is looking for those specific things, I am the guy coming in behind a dozen other flippers and spending a $1 on the $100 things they missed while looking for their specific niche items.

• Over Package your items. When you ship something out, use more protection than you think you will need. I think it's better to use 20 cents more worth of bubble wrap to avoid losing $75 on a broken in shipping item. It's worth the small cost to avoid the larger costs.

• Spend a little money on your listing set up. It's worth it to streamline things to make listing easier and more efficient. I personally use a duel 32" mounted monitor setup with a 71" L shape desk that I keep a backdrop behind on one side, with a light above for photos. I can easily transfer from listing to photos with no set up or breakdown. All of my cleaning and testing tools are contained in it, and I have a rolling cart under one side for product that I am working on. The monitors are great for researching on one screen while listing on the other without needing to jump tabs. My personal listing and photo set up Sample Listing Photo

• Have a dedicated shipping station and inventory storage space. I know mine is not the best and needs some additional work, but it's a process. When you know where everything is, have your materials on hand and a place to work, it makes for fewer mistakes, quicker shipping and overall just makes the job of packaging orders way more appealing. Eventually I am considering moving into a small warehouse setting for storage and order fulfillment, but at the moment, this is one of my storage spots and where I package orders. I like to use a standing desk with a cheap PC and mounted monitor, and I keep a laserjet for the times I need to print a packing slip or anything else. Most of the stuff is thrifted such as the desk, PC, printer, paper dispensers, rolls of paper. I got the shelving from Home Depot on sale, the 4XL label printer half price new. I know it aint all that, but one of my personal setups