Ep 283 || Sourcing Higher Value Inventory and Shipping By Freight

[podcast_team]

Rob and Melissa Stephenson of Flea Market Flipper fame join us this week to lay out the how and why of sourcing larger, high dollar items and how shipping via freight is not as complicated as some might think. Griff, Brian and Kayomi answer questions about buyer return snafus, the eBay drop shipping policy, and providing USPS First Class Envelope as an option for buyers. Finally this week, we bid a fond farewell to our esteemed colleague and dear friend, Brian Burke, as he retires from eBay after 25 years of working with sellers. Please join us in wishing him all the best!

Episode Links:
March 7 Seller Check In
Rob and Melissa’s eBay Store
Flea Market Flipper
Pro Flipper Podcast
Drop Shipping Policy
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: I'm Brian.

Kayomi: I'm Kayomi.

Griff: I'm Griff. And this is the eBay for Business Podcast, your source for information and inspiration to help you start managing, grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 283 and this is also our last episode with Brian.

Brian: Unless I become a really big seller. And then you'll have me back.

Griff: Yeah. Then I'll have you back as a guest. That'd be fun.

Brian: Yes. Mm-Hmm.

Kayomi: Special appearance.

Griff: Why do I think that's not gonna happen?

Brian: I don't think it'll happen either.

Kayomi: Retirement could change you, who knows?

Griff: You'll be too busy on the golf links anyway. We'll have a lot to talk about in the last half when we sign off with Brian and put him in the boat and push him off to sea to his retirement.

Kayomi: And I will say we did have a meeting where we kind of did a couple of informal goodbyes and there was not a dry eye in sight. So we'll see how this round goes.

Brian: That was at a meeting that was an emotional train wreck.

Griff: We had a zoom meeting with literally every employee that knew Brian showed up to the Zoom meeting and it was emotional. So anyway.

Brian: This is a special place. And it's a special place because of the people who work here and for the people that we work with who use our platform.

Griff: Exactly.

Brian: Well this will be the last time I ask you this, Griff, who's our guest this week?

Griff: Our guests this week are Rob & Melissa Stephenson of Flea Market Flipper. And the topic is mainly about sourcing higher ASP items and shipping them via freight. I'll also ask them about their side business as eBay coaches on their social media channels 'cause they have quite a following. But first, Brian, any news?

Brian: Well, besides the fact that today the day we are recording is my last day at eBay. No news this week, but Kayomi does have a reminder.

Kayomi: That I do. We're only a couple days away from Spring Seller Check-In. And I really, really, really want to encourage everyone to attend on Thursday, March 7th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time. eBay leaders and sellers will be showcasing ways to make your eBay businesses more efficient. This Check-In will include product announcements, feature updates, Terapeak product research, support from Tax Act and much more. There's no other way to say it. Spring Seller Check-In is not to be missed. And I feel a bit biased because I've been working on a lot of this behind the scenes. But truly like a lot is coming your way and we highly encourage you all to tune in. You can sell RSVP now at sellerevents.ebay.com or by clicking the link in the episode overview.

Griff: If you're listening on launch day, which is Tuesday, you've got two more days, take advantage of this opportunity. It's free. It's virtual. You can have coffee and be listing and doing whatever it is you do there alone in your little selling station. And be participating in this Spring Seller Check-In. Thanks Kayomi.

Brian: And I've registered because I can register as a seller and go ask questions.

Griff: Oh brother. The tables have turned.

Kayomi: I know we may have to report his name.

Griff: Keep it on you on that Burke guy. He may have an agenda. Well, Brian and Kayomi, we will be back after I talk to our guest for the week and we'll answer some questions, some very interesting questions, and then we'll give our final salute to our colleague and co-host.

Griff: One of the things I love about eBay is that it's not just one type of seller. There are all types of sellers selling on eBay. Some people have inside connections with manufacturers or liquidators and they find product that they can SKU. And that's great, that's a whole business model. But most of us here have a one of a kind kind of marketplace where we may occasionally find mass quantities of a single item. But mostly it's just, you know, the one-offs that we find while we're outsourcing as we do. Whether that's at flea markets or estate sales or online or offline or at thrift stores. Our guests this week are returning to the podcast. You may know them as Flea Market Flipper. They also have a podcast called the Pro Flipper Show. They've been featured in many publications including Forbes Magazine, Flea Market Flipper, Rob and Melissa Stephenson. Welcome back to the podcast.

Rob: Thanks For having us.

Melissa: We're so excited to be here and talk with you.

Griff: Since the last time we talked And I did a little online research as I am want to do. And I find that wow, you guys have really grown since we've spoken last.

Melissa: Yeah. Constant growth and work for sure.

Griff: I ran across your page where you have a, a paid product that you can get coaching from and you're still selling on eBay. Where do you find the time? How can you do all this? I know there's two of you, but still!

Melissa: That part does help that there's two of us and he's more of the eBay, find the stuff, loves to do it, we'll never stop, we'll do it into retirement till he can't move anymore. Like he'll be finding items and flipping them. And then I am more of the tech stuff on kind of behind the scenes.

Griff: A lot of the people to tune into the podcast follow and they admire different, for lack of a better word, influencers. What do you call yourselves?

Rob: I have no idea.

Melissa: I I wouldn't say like we ever set out to try to be influencers. We had a passion. You definitely had a passion for flipping and selling on eBay and we wanted to share that with others and help them be able to grow a side hustle. So like that was our business and we just wanted to grow that. We never really set out to be influencers I guess.

Rob: I think we've been doing it for so long now. I've almost been at it for 30 years flipping and then when we started coaching people about nine years ago, we are just trying to help people, help people grow and grow an income.

Griff: With all this business going on. You also have a home life, you guys have kids?

Melissa: Yep, we have three kids, eleven, nine and seven and yeah, they do keep us busy.

Griff: Do you keep them busy with the business ?

Melissa: Yes. Actually our seven year, well all of them are excited to sell on eBay, but we open an account that we run for them, but they find stuff and sell stuff and it's been fun. Our seven year old's the most like, I wanna make more money.

Griff: Well you're teaching them well. Rob, how did you start off? You said you've been doing this for 30 years. What, how did you get into this business?

Rob: Yeah, so I grew up in a big family. I have six older sisters. I'm the youngest and only boy in my family. Coming from a big family. My parents had a side hustle. They'd go to yard sales on the weekends and they'd come home and they would, uh, find stuff from the yard sales. And this was their part-time gig, uh, side hustle where they would buy stuff at yard sales, bring them back and then sell it in the classified section. So I got modeled this resale business at a young age as a side hustle. And then as eBay came out, that's where my mom jumped into it and started selling baby clothes on eBay. And I got an intro introduced into that when I was 16 years old and ever since then, yeah, part-time, we went full-time into it, uh, nine years ago. But from 16 to 30 something years old, I did a part-time and had a blast doing it. It was just so much fun to be able to do it.

Griff: So were you doing this when you met Melissa?

Melissa: Yeah, He did it on the side. I think that's all you were doing at that, that point. So it was full-time for you then? So yeah, I tried to explain to my mom when he met my mom for the first time. She's like, wait, he just sell, he sells on eBay? It is like, you know about it, you hear about eBay. I don't think I had ever bought anything on eBay at that point, but I was like, that's a real thing.

Rob: I also was doing house flipping and eBay flipping and I was doing some stocks as well. So that was what, when we first met, that's what I did. But full-time, we jumped in nine years ago.

Griff: Melissa, what was your plan for your life before you you met Rob?

Melissa: I don't know. I was a horse rider so I'd love to ride horses. So that was my passion. Um, and hopefully we'll get to get back to that soon, but I didn't really, I don't know.

Rob: She worked at a local dinner show here when we first met and she was riding horses, standing on horses, doing jumps on horses and really cool stuff. And then she went into personal training shortly after we got married and she did that for a while. She has a bachelor degree in health science.

Melissa: And then we, once we had the three kids and they were three and under, I was like, I can't do anymore. Like I gotta be home with the kids. And then his job was cutting health insurance at the same time and so we're like, well do we just go all in on this eBay business? I mean if we put more time to it, at that point we, we had recorded, at part-time we were doing $42,000 a year. So we're like okay. And that's in part-time hours. I can help out a little bit. I got these kids, but what if we both do it? Like we could probably make it work. So that was kind it.

Rob: Jumped full-time in and on our first year full-time we hit $130,000 working together with it.

Kayomi: What were some of the uh, obstacles or roadblocks that you ran into that first year while you're trying to ramp the business up that to that amount?

Melissa: Once it's not your side money anymore and it's your full-time money, you have to be a little more like you have to pay the bills. So it's a little more stressful. So you're not, it's not just like before it had always been our extra money to go on vacation 'cause he likes to do vacation and he would come to me and be like, Hey, I found this cruise, let's go on it. I'm like, okay great. Go flip something and pay for it. And we did that multiple times. But now it's like, okay, we got a pay a mortgage, go make some money, go flip something. So it's just a little more stressful. But I mean the flexibility is still our favorite.

Rob: Our dynamics also, husband and wife working together, you have to learn that that was something that we threw into the mix. It's challenging in some aspects of it, but for the most part, yeah, it's been really, really fun and great for our relationship.

Griff: What started the idea that now we're going to coach others and building a ancillary business doing so how did that work and where is it now?

Melissa: Our friend actually was the motivator behind that. She started teaching people in 2014 how to proofread as a side hustle. And she came to the flea market with us a couple times and she loved thrifting and she's like, you are good at this. You should totally teach people how to do this online. Like, and she taught us how to start a blog and we bought our domain in 2015. So she kind of motivated us to start this thing and it was just kind of a fun like side project. And then it's grown since then.

Griff: And I went to the website, by the way, we'll put a link to the website, but if you go to FleaMarketFlipper.com, you can see the page where they, uh, provide coaching and other services. How big is that business as a well as a percentage of what you guys do now?

Melissa: As far as time? It takes up a lot more time than the flipping does.

Rob: On average, we probably spend between five and 10 hours a week on the flipping aspect of the business. The rest is between our kids, videos, coaching, all that other stuff. That's where the majority of our time comes in.

Griff: So how important has that aspect of your business been in driving sales?

Melissa: Our like social media and our online presence really has nothing to do with our eBay sales. And we don't even, we don't promote any of our stuff on eBay. They're pretty separate actually. Because we don't do clothes, so we're not doing stuff like we could do a pop-up live show. So our following really doesn't have anything to do with our eBay sales. We're selling more commercial equipment and stuff that people are just going on, they want shipped to them.

Rob: And we have a little twist on our style, what we do. So we do higher profit items and lower volume. So like last year we sold a total of like 46 items, but it was just under a hundred thousand dollars. So that's what our real niche is, is really going after high dollar high profit items. And that's what we like to sell on eBay.

Griff: Are these easily shippable items or are they tend to be industrial or electronic and big?

Rob: Typically that's what our, our market is, is going for something that's gonna go onto a pallet and then we ship it across the country on a pallet. And not very many sellers are willing to do that. But the catch 22 on this is typically these items in a local market don't sell as well because you're limited to that local market. Now when you provide that on an eBay, a large nationwide or global market, it opens up the buyers like insanely. You get a lot more buyers who will pay more money and what the item is actually worth because you're willing to ship it to them. So that's what we've honed in for the last nine years is, I mean we've done hundreds of freight shipments and really learn how to.

Melissa: Furniture, ovens, cook tops, like lots of different stuff.

Griff: Does part of your coaching on flea market flipper or even your social media short term videos, do any of these address that particular aspect of shipping freight?

Rob: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we do a lot of posts. We do a lot of stuff showing freight items that we're shipping. So yeah, that's, that's the majority. Like what we have, kind of like what you were saying about time, there's only so many hours in a day. What we found out is if we go after these higher profit items, I can do one item and make $2,000. Last year average was $2,000 per item. I can do one item at $2,000 or I can do 200 items at $10. When you're doing 200 items at $10 your profit on that, you're having to find 200, 200 items to source them. You're having to picture 200 items you're having to fulfill and ship 200 items. When I can do a $2,000 item, typically like three or four hours, that's it. It takes me three or four hours to totally from finding, picturing, listing and then even fulfilling shipping on that three to four hours is what it usually will take me to do that. And that for us, we need that time to be able to spend with each other and spend with our family.

Griff: What about facilities? If you're taking possession of these items and then reselling reshipping them, you have to have a place to put them.

Rob: We have a warehouse and we didn't start with a warehouse. I started out of a spare bedroom that I had and then I moved to a shed and then I moved to one storage unit and then I moved to 2, 3, 4 storage units and then finally we're like, all right, it's time for a warehouse. But yeah, so that's what we use for our workshop of where we bring stuff, picture stuff and do stuff. It's out of a warehouse.

Griff: When I talk to sellers who are interested in getting into the high ASP low volume merchandise, that is the big obstacle for them is how am I gonna ship this stuff? Is it that difficult to figure out?

Rob: We've been honing in our skills for nine years now and we've dealt with tons of different freight carriers. There's freight carriers that have come and gone. So it does take time and effort, like I said, out of after hundreds of shipments, it's worth learning. And it's not super difficult if you're willing to move something out. And I'll give you like another example. Some people think when you're dealing with a shallow, uh, a pallet or freight shipping, you have to have a forklift and you don't have to have a forklift. Out of those 46 items we sold last year, I do have a forklift. 'cause I've been in the business for a long time. I might have used my forklift one time out of those 46 items. The rest of them I'm using a dolly. I'm picking the items up, putting 'em on the pallet and then moving the pallet, around with a dolly or something like that. So these are items that are unmovable for somebody. And sometimes Melissa and I might move an item together. An extra body helps sometimes, but the majority of them are not monster big items that you, you can't handle by yourself or with one other person.

Griff: What was your biggest sale in the last year?

Melissa: Well I just ran the numbers for the last year and it was actually one lot of items that you bought.

Rob: Yeah. It was a single sale, but those items that brought in the most money. What about the Turbo Chef? That was single sale.

Melissa: That was a single item.

Rob: A real quick, funny, fun story for you if you, if you're alright with it.

Griff: Oh yes.

Rob: So I found a cruise a year and a half ago. I found a cruise and I brought it to Melissa like I always do. And I say, Hey, this looks amazing. It's gonna be an epic cruise. And she goes, okay. We don't have the money for that, so if you find something to flip or find the money through flipping, we can do it. So it was a Hawaii cruise.

Melissa: That is not the first time that's happened.

Rob: Yep. It was a Hawaii cruise. It was going out of LA over to Hawaii around the islands. We stopped in ports and came back. I said, okay, I'm gonna do you one better. Instead of finding enough items to flip, I'm gonna do it with one item. We found a Turbo Chef item locally. It's a turbo chef is an oven, like a oven that would be inside.

Melissa: It is not that big. They sit on the counter.

Rob: A sub shop. Yeah, just a countertop oven. Retail on them was like 30 some thousand dollars. We ended up finding that item and paying $150 from a guy who was redoing a kitchen that he had a commercial kitchen, a brewery or something like that. And he didn't wanna deal with it, put it on Facebook marketplace for $300. I offer him $150. He took it. I went and picked it up. We sold it for $6,200 and paid for our whole entire family cruise. 17 day cruise with one flip off of eBay.

Griff: Well if that isn't an incentive to get into this business, I don't know what is And how is the cruise by the way?

Melissa: Best trip we've ever done. It was awesome. It was amazing.

Griff: When you started out, I'm assuming that you didn't start off with high ASP low volume items, Rob what kind of items were you looking for in reselling when you started on eBay?

Melissa: Your fist eBay sale...

Rob: Was was a NordicTrack. A NordicTrack ski machine. One of like an exercise machine.

Griff: That's not small.

Rob: It's not. That's the crazy part. But it did ship in a box so it wasn't free shipping. It actually. And since then I've done hundreds.

Melissa: They still sell people still sell.

Rob: To this day. They, they still sell really well on eBay. But I got modeled kind of from my mom. My mom started with baby clothes. She had a passion for like finding high-end baby clothes and dolls and then she started moving into like, car seats and strollers and doing some more stuff like that. And then that's when I jumped into exercise equipment. Previously, like through my years of doing it on the side I would buy bigger pieces of equipment because I liked the profit on those, but I would sell them locally. I didn't do free shipping back in the days when I was uh, really learning eBay and doing stuff. I did 'em locally and I made really good money doing that. I high profit on them because we'd get them cheap and then sell them locally. But then when we learned how to do free shipping, it just opened up the doors to a mass amount of buyers that were willing to pay the money for the items.

Melissa: It was literally that one flip that started it and it was the a dining room table set. He bought at an auction for $350 and he listed it on Marketplace for $750. I think he wanted to just double your money. Yeah. And then it didn't sell for a month. And so then he's like, I'm gonna list it on eBay. You looked at some of the other stuff that was listed. He is like, well there's stuff on there that's listed and if it sells on eBay, I'm gonna just figure out how to ship it. Like I'll figure it out. And so in less than a month up it listed on eBay, it sold for $2,250. With $500 shipping. So he's like, all right, we're gonna figure out this shipping.

Rob: That was it. And that was our all in on free shipping. And then we got better and better and better. We just hones our skills since then and found the best companies to work with the best way to ship items and that's just been an ongoing process for years.

Griff: And finding the best company is dependent upon where your business is located, I assume.

Rob: Yeah, there are definitely different freight carriers are out there and little bit it's also not just where you're located but where your item is going. So they might have closer freight hubs to the buyer's address that's gonna throw it to a different, cheaper rate from a different company. So yeah, definitely depends on where you're at and where your buyer's at to get the best rate.

Griff: So sellers ask me all the time, who want to do this? How do you figure out what the shipping's going to be? So you're listing this on eBay, say it's the dining room table set. If you had to redo that now, how would you include shipping?

Rob: The cool thing about where we're at is I kind of know if I'm shipping something from where we are in Florida to California, typically on a standard sized pallet, it's gonna cost me about 200 bucks. And that's what I would average. Now I flip around what I'm gonna do. Sometimes I'll throw free shipping in there, which is pretty much unheard of for somebody shipping free. But I know because I've done it so much, I know I can build $200 into my price and I know it's gonna go from us over to, and it's one less obstacle for that buyer to come through. But I know if that's the case, if I put free shipping in it, the buyer's gonna see it and say free shipping. Look at our feedback and see we have a hundred percent feedback and we sell high profit items normally. So he's gonna jump in, they're gonna buy it without any hesitation and then we get it shipped out to them. But previously knowing that I charged $500 flat rate.

Melissa: We had no idea. .

Rob: Because I had no idea how to do it and I saw other, what I did is look on eBay and saw the other tables and chair sets like that and what the sellers were selling them for. And I thought if they're able to do it, I should be able to figure it out. And we did, we shipped it for, I think it was $400 for that table and chair dining room set that we sold. Ever since then, yeah, it's just really trying out different companies, really figuring out which of the best companies handle the items the best and don't break items and stuff like that. So it's just been an ongoing process.

Griff: With something like a dining room set that you sold when you first started, did you have to pack that? That's another question we get from sellers all the time. Well, how am I supposed to pack this and do I have to supply the pallet? And it's just overwhelming. And what do you say to someone who says that?

Rob: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find somebody who is experienced and pay them to pallet it or package it for you and for us, I enjoy that. It's kind of therapeutic for me to figure out how to put something onto a pallet, get it all into a pallet, or build a pallet that it's gonna fit on, strap it to it, make sure it's all done properly. I enjoy it. So if you don't enjoy it, you definitely can find, and it doesn't have to be somebody like a specialized pallet builder, it can just be a handyman. A handyman who knows how to package stuff or, move stuff in and strap it so it's nice and tight on a pallet. That's all it has to be. So you can hire somebody to do it, it just will cut into some of your profits as well.

Griff: Do any of the freight companies offer that service?

Rob: They might, but I never used one for that, so I'm not a hundred percent percent sure.

Melissa: It would be expensive.

Griff: It would wouldn't it?

Melissa: That's like even like when people do FedEx or they go to FedEx or UPS to package their item and it's like, don't do that, they're gonna charge you so much money.

Rob: But the cool thing about like what you asked about a pallet, there's so many pallets everywhere that you can get for free. So we find pallets. We don't buy pallets. Sometimes if I have a weird item, I'll build a pallet out of just regular lumber, two by fours and four by fours or whatever I need. But the majority of the items that will fit on a standard sized pallet, a 40” by 48”, I just go and get one the day that I need to ship something. I can drive around to multiple places and they'll just give you pallets for free.

Griff: Okay. The third question I get from sellers, when it comes to freight-able items and going into that line of business, how do you handle returns?

Rob: Love it. This is a really cool question because I really love this one. The cool thing about this is, so when you're thinking about freight items, typically the item has to be priced right. For us to ship something freight, the price has to be $750 at the minimum, about $750. It has to make sense to that buyer who is going to buy it. They're gonna pay a little bit for freight shipping, which is roughly 200, $250. It has to make sense. So if I'm selling an item for seven 50 retail on that item's probably gonna be more towards $1,500, $2,000 on retail on that item. It has to make sense for them to do that. The cool thing about doing high profit items is, and a lot of people this hangs up a lot of people, is I don't wanna take a return. Somebody might say, I've been selling items for years and 50% of my items that I sell come back in returns for whatever reason it is. The cool thing about high profit items is that's not the case. When somebody spends $750, $2,000, $5,000 on an item, they're not a tire kicker. It's not like an Amazon buyer who's gonna buy something and then try it out and be like, uh, yeah, I don't like it. I wanna send it back. When they're spending that kind of money on something, typically it's a qualified buyer who just needs the solution to their problem. If it is a cooktop, if it's an exercise machine, they're not just trying this out, they're investing money in it because they're keeping it. So, last year we didn't have out of those 46..

Melissa: We didn't have any returns. We had one that you had to troubleshoot with her 'cause she couldn't get the hood to work and it was just a loose wire or something that came out in the shipping. So, but it was just being, you know, having good customer service with the customer and good communication and you worked it out.

Rob: Typically we don't get a lot of returns. But there's one thing that I tell everybody, and if you learn this, I didn't learn this in my early years and it's something that I learned through all my years, is if you are under promising and over-delivering on your items, then you shouldn't get return requests. People know what they're getting, you're giving 'em a better item than they thought they were getting because of how you described it. And they will be happy and they will keep the item.

Rob: That's a very good bit of advice no matter what you're selling, but especially if you don't want to have to take back a freight-able item. Well you're convincing me, I should move out of perfumes. Which are really easy to, you know, store and ship, but they're I'm sure definitely low, kind of lower profit margin I would say than what you guys are doing. Where can people find you? We'll include all the links in the episode transcript, but I wanna make sure people can find you.

Melissa: FleaMarketFlipper.com is definitely our hub, but we're on social almost every social channel. Instagram is a good place to find us Flea Market Flipper and we're still working on growing our YouTube channel. So we're out there.

Griff: And, on eBay, is it Flea Market Flipper as well?

Rob: No. Uh, so our eBay name is actually AmazingViewsOrlando. It's three words.

Griff: With spaces or hyphen?

Rob: All straight AmazingViewsOrlando. Altogether.

Griff: Do you find a lot of product in the Orlando area?

Rob: Oh my goodness, yes. I feel like anywhere you are nowadays. Well definitely, you have to remember, I'm not really going after the low profit. I'm not going after shirts, shoes and stuff like that. But where we're at, like I said, the big thing about what we do is the items are big in the local market and they get to the point where people try and sell them and they can't sell them because they can't find that buyer. So they start discounting those items just to move them because it's a bigger item.

Melissa: Next to nothing. Pretty much.

Rob: That's the thing. So the majority, like what we do is at least 10X. If I'm paying a hundred dollars for something, I want to make at least a thousand to $2,000 on that item. And that's standard what we do. And a lot of times we go way way over that on our profit margins.

Melissa: But we do get the question like, okay, well you're just in a great area, that's why you can find that stuff. And so we we're like, okay, we're gonna challenge this question. So for the last three years we've taken a road trip across the country. Well last year we did the California cruise, but we take our trailer with us and he looks on, it's just the apps. You go on marketplace and offer up and sees what he can find and we fill our trailer, come back, we've got 15 to 20 items of inventory.

Rob: Is it ranging about 30 some thousand dollars they will pick up all across the country. Bring it back and we only spend $1,500.

Melissa: This year you did it even better before we would have to like go off our route. Oh, it's only 30 minutes out of the way. I am like, come on. But now you are, you made it really a lot the road. Right on the road. We're going You're like 10 minutes. All right. Okay. We got it. We got it.

Rob: It's like anything, if you do it enough, you refine it over time so that it becomes more efficient.

Melissa: Yep. Yep.

Griff: Do you have a road trip planned in the future?

Melissa: We don't have one for this year.

Rob: Okay. This Is good. Griff are you ready for this ?

Griff: Yeah, I'm ready.

Rob: Alright. So we planned a cruise for 2026. It's a world cruise. It's going around the world. It's 30 countries, it is 116 days. And my income in 2025 is we're gonna try to pay for the whole cruise just off of our flipping income. So what we're doing, flipping.

Griff: That is one third of a year, you're gonna be away. And who knows, you might pick up a few things.

Melissa: Yes. A little harder on a cruise.

Griff: Can you get a agreement that you can tow a little barge behind you and fill it with containers?

Melissa: That would be great.

Rob: Well, we went to Hawaii. I bought stuff in Hawaii from the thrift stores. Brought it back into our ship. Into our room. So I could actually.. Melissa : We just got records.

Rob: Well they weren't records. They were laser disc, laser discs.

Griff: Oh well, laser disc.

Rob: They were cool. So I found them in a thrift store in Hawaii so we brought them back as well.

Griff: Okay. So you guys will dip into the thrift store occasionally. Melissa : Absolutely. No, we will, we will. Let's stop there.

Rob: Flea market is where we started our business and I started relationships at the flea market. But I love yard sales, I love thrift stores, the apps. We find really good stuff on the app. So we're everywhere. Wherever I can find a deal, that's where I'll be.

Griff: I understand completely being a lifelong flea marketer and dealer. So good luck to both of you on your cruise in 2026. Let's see you get there. If you want to help Rob and Melissa get to their cruise. You want to get right to their eBay store. It's AmazingViewsOrlando. There may be a pizza oven it or some other big piece of equipment that you just can't live without. You should go and get your deal there. If you want to learn more about their coaching business, you can visit FleaMarketFlipper.com and their podcast. And again, I recommend everyone who listens to this podcast regularly. It's only less than an hour a week. There are other podcasts we want you to listen to them. Visit Pro Flipper Show, that's Pro Flipper Show. You can find it on any podcast app that you're using. Just search for Pro Flipper show. Give it a listen, subscribe and become a regular follower and fan of two of my favorite sellers, Rob and Melissa Stephenson. Thank you so much to both of you for being on our show. We love it when you're here.

Rob: Thanks Griff. That was so much fun. Thank you so much.

Griff: We'll put the links to Rob and Melissa's website, FleaMarketFlipper.com, as well as their eBay store in the transcript for this episode. Episode 283.

Brian: You got questions. We,

Griff: That's Brian, Kayomi and myself have answers. And our first question, Brian and Kayomi is from a longtime podcast listener Mary of Appealing Finds. I think Brian, you'll remember her.

Brian: I do.

Griff: So in honor of your departure and by sheer dent of habit, 'cause we do it every week anyway. Would you like to read the first email, Brian?

Brian: Of course, I'd love to. Hi Brian and Griff trying to get some points in there for Brian. Thank you Mary. Especially on my last day. I'll take 'em. This is what Mary says. She, she writes two of the last seven items I ordered on eBay were drop shipped from Amazon. I looked it up and found as I suspected that drop shipping is against eBay policy. On one hand, I'm thrilled for the next day shipping, but on the other hand it doesn't feel right if it's against eBay policy. And the other sellers don't have this advantage. Do I report them? What is your recommendation? Brian, I've enjoyed listening to you on the podcast. All the best to you and your new venture to Kayomi. Great job on the podcast. Look forward to hearing more from you Mary from Appealing Finds.

Griff: Thank you Mary.

Brian: Well Mary, this is a violation of the drop shipping policy and you can report the item to eBay through the report. This listing link on the listing page.

Griff: Okay, well the other thing you can do, and I've done this in the past, is you can leave appropriate feedback to inform future buyers. And it should be feedback that reflects your experience with the transaction. If you're not totally happy with it, you can let others know. And also, as Brian says, you can report directly too.

Kayomi: Mary. Well first thank you for the shout out and the message. I think that was my first shout out that I've gotten. So thank you. I appreciate it. Also, you have a strong moral compass and if you're interested, I think you may able to return the item.

Brian: She could, she definitely could return the item, although it might be more hassle than it's worth depending on the value of the item and things like that.

Griff: Yeah, and just a little knowing how this works, 'cause we, Brian and I have been exposed to this in the past. If you return the item, it's not easy for the seller because it gets returned in a very roundabout way back to Amazon and it's a hassle for the seller as well. And you know, when we say that it's a violation of the drop shipping policy, there is a policy that allows for certain types of drop shipping, right, Brian?

Brian: Correct.

Rob: So if it's from a manufacturer or from a liquidation center.

Brian: Or even from a large seller who's made a choice to use a third party, and it doesn't always have to be Amazon, right? There are other third party distributors out there who someone may be using to ship their inventory, then that's their business model. But if it's, let's say someone, oftentimes you can tell the person who's truly drop shipping and they're just purchasing from Amazon. One thing that I do, like if I ever get the package from Amazon and it says it was a gift, I leave a negative feedback every single time now and I have been doing it for years. And you know what my comment is?

Griff: What?

Rob: This is the first time I've ever had to pay for a gift because I'm a little snarky.

Kayomi: Sound advice.

Griff: We understand that. Hey, people are trying to make money. So if no one's familiar with this and we don't encourage you to do this 'cause it's a violation of policy. It's the kind of drop shipping where you don't have any inventory. You list something that's listed on another marketplace. And that's not just Amazon, it could be Walmart, it could be Best Buy, it could be any, any other retail site. And then once it sells, you go and purchase it off that site and have it shipped directly to the buyer. That's the kind of activity that's not allowed on eBay.

Brian: Yes. Which is why I I have no guilt in leaving those negatives.

Rob: Anyway, that's the answer to that question, Mary. As we said, you can leave feedback, you can report the item, probably not worth it to return the item. So, Kayomi, would you take this second question?

Kayomi: I'd be happy to. This is from seller Sharon and she sent the following to podcast@ebay.com. Hi to you both. I'll ignore that for now. What is going on with the Shipping calculator?

Brian: I think you're the both now.

Kayomi: Maybe she thought your retirement was last week.

Brian: I think so.

Kayomi: And so she's referring to Griff and myself.

Brian: Yes.

Kayomi: We'll go with that Brian.

Brian: That's what I'm going with.

Griff: Hey Brian, here's your hat. What's your hurry?

Kayomi: Sharon writes Hi to you both. What is going on with the Shipping Calculator? When I enter size of the package, say nine by six by one in the weight of four ounces, it gives me the option to choose USPS First Class Mail large envelope for $2.11 cents. However, when the item sells, it allows the buyer to choose that service, but it will only let me purchase the USPS Ground Advantage at a higher price. I have talked to two people about this issue and receive two different answers. One insinuating that I should know that First Class service isn't available to me. If it is an option to choose, why would I know what isn't available to me? Any help? Thanks Sharon. So Sharon, yes, you can provide that option for USPS First Class mail as a shipping option when you list your item and your buyer can select it as an option when they check out. But it's important to note that eBay does not provide postage purchasing or printing for USPS First Class Mail. You would have to purchase it at the post office or use stamps on the envelope itself.

Brian: That's correct, Naomi. So Sharon May be wondering why we give buyers an option for First Class Mail if we don't provide the option to purchase the label.

Griff: Indeed.

Brian: Well, we provide the first class mail option for sellers who don't want to use a trackable service like USPS Ground Advantage or the eBay Standard Envelope service, which is only available for certain categories.

Griff: Sharon all is not lost. If you do a lot of volume in this type of merchandise and you want to use United States Postal First Class Mail postage, you can go to a site like stamps.com and there's a few others out there that do provide the option for purchasing First Class Mail postage. And then that way you, you don't have to buy a roll of stamps, you don't have to go to the post office. But yeah, eBay doesn't provide that purchase option.

Brian: And though Sharon didn't ask it, others may be wondering if eBay will provide a label purchase and print option for First Class Mail sometime in the future. And we could say that there are no plans currently to do so, especially as we continue to add new categories to the eligibility list for eBay Standard Envelope.

Griff: Yeah, a lot of sellers are perfectly happy shipping items in, uh, in an envelope with stamps or First Class Mail postage. And it can be a viable way to do a business. It's right now it, I think the one thing that it, it prevents because of the tracking requirements needed for a Top Rated Seller, you miss out on becoming a Top Rated Seller

Brian: And you lose the protections that tracking services give you because we can actually see did the item arrive.

Griff: So, Sharon, that's the answer. I hope it is an answer for you. If it not, just email us again. Let us know. Uh, more details. Now our last question folks was asked on our eBay for Business podcast Face GroupPpage by Seller Ling who has an unusual but maybe not uncommon return shipping situation, here's what she posted. eBay return label USBS Ground Advantage buyer replies it to a Priority box. USPS wants us to pay $14 in order to get it. How does this work and what is the best way to ensure it doesn't happen? Should I drop a note in the package? This could be a great question for the podcast and yes, thank you because it is indeed a great question. And the problem here when it comes to return shipping is most buyers are clueless about the free boxes they can get from USPS Post Office specifically how they they can and should be used and how they shouldn't be used. All they see is, hey, I can walk in and get a free box and they don't read the fine print because a Priority box can't be used for a lower class service like USPS Ground Advantage. Now the post office should refuse the parcel on dropoff if the label is not a USPS Priority label, especially if it's a desk dropoff, they can look at it and say, Hey, this label is, this isn't enough postage but many will simply drop it into the parcel box in the post office with other outgoing shipments. That happens a lot.

Kayomi: Well Ling, great question. I think, I don't know if I had seen this in the community before, but I had seen this topic elsewhere. So you are not the only one thinking this. Back to what Griff was saying, in those cases, I believe USPS will often ship it out and require the recipient, in this case the seller to pay any overages in order for them to deliver the parcel.

Griff: Yeah. And that can be annoying because it's an unnecessary additional cost. So you know what I do?

Brian: what do you do?

Griff: So I always include a note in the actual first shipment suggesting that the buyer save the box and packing material to use in case they need or want to return their purchase. And I will remind the buyer of this if they start a return. So my first message back to a buyer that has started return before I send them a label, I'll message and say this is a Ground Advantage. Don't use a Priority box if you don't have the box that I've shipped in. Just find some small box that you have around and it'll be fine. But don't go get a free box at the post office. You could find that they won't take it. Something like that.

Brian: Good advice. And Ling does have the right idea though. I would definitely include a message to the buyer at the point of sending the them a return label to make sure they do not use a USPS Priority or Priority Express box.

Griff: Informing your buyer to the extent possible of how to do a return will make sure that one, the return if there needs to be one, will be handled properly on their end. And number two, it also reassures the buyer that if they're not happy for any reason, that you're not gonna put up a fight, you're gonna take the return. It's another reminder that you have a return policy that says ship the item back. So it's a way of instilling a little confidence in that buyer as well.

Kayomi: Great advice.

Griff: Well that's all the questions for this week.

Kayomi: Think It is that time.

Griff: It is. I'm not looking forward to it.

Brian: You're not?

Kayomi: Are you surprised?

Brian: You know, it's so interesting. I was worried that we weren't gonna find a person who could be the co-host and I think we ended up finding someone who is stellar.

Griff: I agree.

Kayomi: Well, thank you.

Brian: So I'm like excited to be listening to the podcast and not having to hear my voice and hearing how it goes. So I'm excited.

Griff: Me too. I'm gonna miss you terribly. But yes, we do have some capable talent filling your shoes. And I look forward to watching this grow over the the next year.

Brian: I do have to say one thing. So there's been some things that have happened in my career that have surprised me that they occurred and that I got the opportunity. You never know where your path is gonna take you. And I'd never imagined in my earlier self that I ever would've A, been on a podcast and B, enjoyed it so much. And I think that's a testament Griff to you and how easy you make it for me as the co-host to come on and feel comfortable at the beginning and just be part of it from the get go. I just felt welcome. And so I have to thank you for that because I really enjoy these last couple years being co-host.

Griff: As did I really loved having you on the podcast. We've had a few co-hosts obviously you are my favorite, so.

Brian: Well, thank you.

Kayomi: You've both done an amazing job.

Brian: Thanks Kayomi. And I know you're gonna just crush it. I mean you already have over the last three weeks. It's like I was going, wow, we should have had you in here like six months ago.

Kayomi: To be fair, when I go back and listen to these, I kinda skipped through my parts because I don't like hearing myself, but I'll take your word for it. Thank you.

Griff: So, you know, that's, that's very common. Most people don't like to hear the sound of their own voice.

Brian: Well, with that note, I can't believe this is the last time I will solicit them, but here it goes. If you have a question and you'd like us to answer it, you can always call us at (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That is (888) 723-4630. You can call that hotline anytime of the day, any day of the week and leave a question or comment. And if it's appropriate and we have the answer, we'll put it on the air.

Kayomi: And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: And now another last time, your Three Point Podcast Checklist with Brian.

Brian: Check the Announcement Board. In fact, check the entire community.ebay.com forums and Announcement Boards at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate Seller News every day.

Kayomi: Great plug in. We appreciate it here at the Community Team. Are you stuck in a rut with low ASP sourcing and the volume of sales needed to make a worthy profit margin? Maybe you might consider sourcing higher ASP items.

Griff: Exactly.

Brian: Need to review anything in this episode. It's easy. Check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to find the links we reference during the episode.

Griff: On our next episode, we'll visit with eBay Product Manager, Shelley Ball, to talk about some coming improvements to the eBay Product Research App for mobile.

Brian: We'd like to again thank our guests this week. Rob and Melissa Stephenson of Flea Market Flipper.

Griff: Yep. And with that well goodbye Brian.

Brian: Adios, Griff.

Griff: It's been a great pleasure.

Brian: It has been.

Griff: And welcome Kayomi to the fold.

Brian: Yes.

Kayomi: Thank you.

Griff: And this time and only this time, the last time, I would ask you to do the honors for the sign off.

Brian: I would love to. The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.