Like many of us, I go to yard sales, estate sales, estate auctions, flea markets, and occasionally second hand stores to source my inventory.
I am in my mid twenties and have been "flipping" since I was 13, taking after my father, who is "old school" and doesn't really do eBay, he sets up at flea markets.
When I first started going to auctions with my father, when I was about 8 or 9, he used to come home with an entire truckfull of stuff, not just junk, good quality stuff he could often double if not triple what he paid for it.
Fast forward a few years later and these TV shows like American Pickers, Pawnstars, Storage wars, etc put a huge wrench into the works.
You had people going out trying to earn a living and had little idea what they were doing. They followed TV, but let's be honest..TV is far from reality.
A lot of people who had been going to auctions beforehand could be narrowed into two groups: antique dealers and part-time eBay sellers. Part-time sellers had regular jobs, so they didn't buy as much stuff, they didn't have as much time to list things. Antique dealers bought well...antiques...so this left a huge list of things to make money on. Computers, electronics, trading cards, etc.
When the economy crashed in 2008, it become worse, because you had people literally trying to earn a living selling on eBay. Now granted, their were "full timers" beforehand, but not nearly as many.
Getting back to a "wrench in the works"...these people were desperate to earn a buck, and soon it became harder to make any money. To them, it was either buy a $100 item for 85 bucks and make $15, or go home broke, so profit margins soon started to evaporate.
That is when I received a huge upper-hand...a smartphone. I was one of the first people to have one that went to auctions and other events. It was 2010 and I became old enough to start selling on my own. The "low-hanging fruit" things like old toys, antiques, etc always went for more than it was worth messing with. I started looking at the odd and unusual. Stuff I had never seen before. Often, it was as easy as typing model numbers in. I remember buying some kind of computer for a John Deere combine. I got it for $5, I sold it in 3 days for $950. Then a week later, got a $500 widget for $20.
For the next 3 years, I quit working. I could turn more in a week than I could working a crummy dead-end minimum-wage job. I was hooked.
But that ended pretty soon. About 2 years ago. While the smartphone giveth, the smartphone although taketh away. I used to do quite well at estate sales with unusual stuff. If they couldn't find in in 5 minutes on eBay, they used to give up. But now they could just whip out their smartphone and can find it.
Estate sales became an utter joke. They idiotically never realized selling something in front of 100 people is a lot harder than when you have 100 million buyers. People aren't going to stand in line an hour, and give eBay prices or more. Of course...the next day when everything was half off, all the "good stuff" magically sold. Imagine that. The truth was.. the estate sale companies had their own eBay.
Auctions have become worse too. I live in the Midwest and you have retired farmers, ranch hands, etc with money coming out of their ears. Supposedly 63% of Americans can't come up with $500 in cash if their life depended on it, buy boy..you sure as heck would think otherwise at an auction.
As a matter of fact...of the past 12 auctions I've been too...I could buy stuff on eBay and sell it at an auction and make money, if they didn't charge 35-40% in fees.
The weird thing is....if you ask one of these people who didn't win the bid on something at a local auction if they would like to buy one you have, they won't. You would not believe how many times I've seen two old people run each other up to $100 on something, and I ask the non-winning bidder "Hey, I have one for $50, wanna buy it?" I have had this happen countless times, never had someone take me up on it.
Anyway..times are a changin'. Good quality estate auctions and estate sales that aren't insanely price are getting harder to find. People my age don't really collect stuff, and while I'm sure it's a generational thing, people my age range don't really have the money to collect things, and beyond that, so many people have collected stuff in the 70's and 80's, it will be a long time before that stuff becomes super-valueable. Try getting money out of a 1987 box of baseball cards. 30 years old and worth didly squat.
So in the next 20 years....a lot of people who collect will be dead. Just look at the market on a lot of stuff between the past 20 years. Stuff that was worth $500 in the 90's MIGHT sell for $50 today. Porcelain, glass and china took a huge hit along with other categories.
It will be interesting to see what the future of flipping holds.
penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
but your right postal history seems to appeals to all kinds of buyers world wide. I seem to have buyers in China I don't know if they are dealers or collectors?? With collectors they look for a specific postmark or stamp or they just like the envelope. Or they like the old letter from the 17th century. I recently sold 1690 Italian letters a bunch of them to China. You can't even read them but superb penmanship! I think more sellers having trouble with sales should look more closley at selling postal history. Many similar looking items but each are unique in their own way. For this reason you have more chances to sell. You can get home runs. You have competitors but they don't have the exact cover / letter that you have. And your buyers going to come to you if they like the item you listed. Everything sells in the end. What is more in years of selling on eBay I have had zero returns, and I get repeat buyers. Some buyers still buying something evey week for years. Number of followers on your shop. I see so many sellers of common goods with limited number of store followers. I currently have 285 following. Common goods your relying on one at a time buyers most of the time and hoping your item isn't returned. I find a mix of auctions and BIN I get somethings selling every day. And some days have been terrific. Check my listings on the ebay UK site, I use that site as I get 1500 free listings a month from there. Its a money saver. 
