Issue #22

We are back to our absolute best this week! I head out to New South Wales' one and only Savers MEGA thrift store, there's a brand new tool designed exclusively for Flip Weekly subscribers, we've got some eBay drama for the first time ever, I let you in on a secret for something I look out for when checking puzzles, ornaments and decorative items (it could make you hundreds) PLUS if you make it to the end I've got a free to enter Instagram contest just for you guys. But first!

In This Issue

• What I’ve Bought

• What I Sold

• Resources

• New South Wales' One and Only Savers MEGA Thrift S …

• Instagram Competition, Win A $50 Savers Gift Card

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

What I’ve Bought

This week of sourcing started out with 6 garage sales on Saturday morning. To tell you the truth, it had been a minute since the last time I got up before the crack of dawn to go to a sale. A combination of moving homes plus Australia’s wet winter kept me in bed but this week I was determined to get some bargains.

At the first sale I picked up some electronics that were overlooked by other resellers (maybe for good reason)

We have a VCR Recorder and a Sony Blu-Ray player. Not everything is a win, I paid $10 for the VCR and $5 for the Sony Blu-Ray player. I legit thought the VCR Recorder was a VHS player which is why I picked it up plus a copy of Aladdin on VHS (to test) and I thought a Sony Blu-Ray player would be worth a bit. It was only last Christmas that I gifted a Blu-Ray player and I shelled out over $200 brand new. I must have overpaid because I’ve listed it on Marketplace for $30 and the VCR for $20. $15 into $50 isn’t what I usually aim for, but if both sell at least I get my money back. Take note: when you buy these sort of electronics always ask if they have the remotes.

This is the next item from a garage sale that cost me $35:

$35.00 on 1 thing at a garage sale is a bit iffy - especially when it’s missing items. This dude was getting rid of a ton of collectibles and other resellers passed on this (he told me that his LEGO was first to go that morning) so I was hesitant to pick it up but I mean, $35.00 for a pretty detailed video game statue is okay. I thought at least on Marketplace this could sell for $50. When I got home I looked up comps and they ranged from $50 up to $100 (without the discs) so I’ve put it up on Marketplace for $75.00 and someone has said they’ll be picking it up on Friday but who knows with Marketplace.

Leaving the garage sales for thrift stores for just a moment, here is something that went insane on eBay and resulted in some… interesting messages.

This is a 12 inch Sonic the Hedgehog plush. Here’s how popular Sonic was in just the first 24 hours:

I picked him up for $3 after he was behind the counter without a price tag. I asked to see him and after Issue #8 I knew to always pick up Sonic/Sega items. Anyway, he gets a lot of attention on eBay and within a few hours someone accepts the $94.99 best offer. Great, an awesome sale is what I think. Wrong. Cue the messages.

This person has decided to buy the product for $94.99 and then attempt to negotiate the price down. They knew it was out of their budget but wanted it off the market so others didn’t get a chance to buy. This is the worst kind of buyer. If you’re ever in this situation, jump on live chat with eBay and explain the situation. I’ve found their support to be helpful and they’ll guide you in what to say or when to cancel and relist without getting any defects on your account.

Moving past horrible buyers, next is something a bit morbid. For a few months now I’ve been trying to create a series based on reselling puzzles called “Profiting From The Most Boring Category“. I’m not a puzzle guy and the aim was to obviously resell them for a profit but I found it a lot harder than I thought it would be. I honed down on brands, researched themes and niches and even came to know box shapes. After a few months I reached my breaking point when I thought I spotted a massive home run only to reach the counter and see a “2 pieces missing“ scribble on the side. I almost lost it when the cashier asked “do you still want it?“.

I’m rambling, but one of the areas I found that did really well was these 3D puzzles of New York City pre-9/11. Every-time I was in the puzzle section and I spotted New York City I would check to see if the Twin Towers were visible.

I never did find that sort of puzzle but this week I found…

We don’t get many snow globes in Australia because it never really snows so when I saw this sitting on the shelf and I could make out the Statue of Liberty I had to go over and check it out. On the far right side of the snow globe we have the Twin Towers and this particular snow globe has a wind up music box feature and… was manufactured prior to 9/11.

It was actually manufactured by the city and is so rare that it warrants a listing price of around $300. It has watchers on eBay and Saves on Marketplace and even if it doesn’t sell it’s still a nice piece to display.

Now for some nostalgia, who remembers these?

You HAVE to check the tubs at thrift stores, you’ll come across these sort of finds. These are Knuckleheads made by Moose, the same company responsible for Crazy Bones. Massively nostalgic and collectible, especially for Aussies. I picked these up for just $4 and they’re listed on Marketplace for $30 and eBay for $34.95 with a fair amount of interest.

A few other items I bought this week include:

What I Sold

Surprise, I relisted Sonic over the weekend and he sold, was PAID FOR and is now off to the United States. $3 into $94.99 in just a few hours. You should definitely pick up anything Sonic you find in the wild as long as it’s not counterfeit or a rip off. I don’t have too many tips for determining if it’s a genuine or fake product but I will say that the determining factor for me is quality. For ANY category, genuine products are high quality. Does it feel heavy? Does it have good stitching? Do the tags look genuine? Trust your gut.

Here’s something I didn’t get a chance to tell you guys about. I bought this from a Vinnies for $40 about 2 weeks ago:

It’s a collectible action figure, but one of the ones where it’s very detailed and somewhat life-like. Vinnies had it for sale for $40 so I assumed it was missing parts or something was wrong. I opened it up in-store (to the harsh cry of “make sure you put it back the way it came”) and surprisingly it was complete. Good enough for me, it went on to sell 2 weeks later to a bloke in China for $180.00:

The next sale price was… wow…

You’ll remember in Issue #21 that I picked up a bundle of Warhammer books. This copy of Warhammer 40,000 - The Regent’s Shadow went on to sell for $185.00 and it only took 8 days. Don’t forget, it was bought for $4. You should definitely familiarize yourself with the Warhammer logo so you can spot it on the spines in the book section.

Going back even further, in Issue #8 I bought this:

I was still somewhat new to the game and bought Steve Irwin without checking out any comps and on a whim because he was behind the counter. He was too cool to not buy and now he’s finally sold for full asking price.

It was only July 3rd that I listed this pretty cool bobblehead for sale:

I have no idea why it was only $6 considering the comps and that it had a 100% sell through rate. Regardless, I’m happy with the sale that only took 3 days which turned $6 into $40. Not much advice for this besides keep your eye out for items that don’t usually pop up. This is the first time I’ve ever seen an MLB (baseball) bobblehead in Australian thrift stores.

Resources

When you’re sourcing items to sell online, it’s important that you pick up products that have a high sell through rate. The idea is to turn over your inventory so that you aren’t getting stuck with slow moving products.

It’s all well and good to find an item at a sale that’s only $2 and sells for $20 but do you know how fast it sells? For me personally, I’m looking ideally for a 1:1 ratio; a 100% sell through rate. That is, if there’s 10 of my item available on eBay, then there’s at least 10 sold. That gives me a 100% sell through rate and I know for a fact that my item will sell.

Let’s use an example from Issue #16. Back in May I found this book for $4:

If we take a look at the active listings we see 9 results.

Now if we take a look at the Sold listings we can see there’s 93 results.

We plug that data into the eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator and we get a sell through rate of 1033.33%.

A sell through rate of over 1,000% is exactly what you want to see when sourcing items to resell. This means that for every book listed, there are over 10 times as many that have sold. If you focus on a high sell through rate it means that you're not just buying items that will eventually sell, you're picking up inventory that moves rapidly which frees up your bankroll for your next sourcing adventure.

If you’d like to use the calculator, you can do so by clicking here or visiting Flip Weekly’s website and clicking on eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator under the Free Resources tab.

New South Wales' One and Only Savers MEGA Thrift Store

I’m a creature of habit. Vinnes, Salvos, Save The Children, Missions and a few independents. Rinse and repeat. Besides the occasional garage sale, these thrift stores have been responsible for the bulk of my inventory. I would see Savers on YouTube and not think twice about it. These YouTuber’s all lived outside of my State so their thrift stores are obviously different to mine. Or so I thought.

I’m not sure how it came up, but I realized that the thrift superstore Savers actually has a location in New South Wales. From my understanding, Savers is big in the US and Canada and I was honestly surprised when I didn’t have to jump on a plane to visit, it just required an hours drive outside of Sydney.

I set my expectations to be that of a decent sized thrift store. Maybe twice the size of a Salvos. I wasn’t ready for what appeared when the doors opened up. To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.

Like I said, I didn’t have to jump onto a plane to get here, but it sure felt like I was walking into an airplane hangar. This place was legit massive. At most thrift stores around me, I know the layouts so well that I’m in and out quite quickly. Not here, this place is too big to rush and after visiting once, I honestly don’t see how you could leave empty handed which I often do at thrift stores. From what I can tell every category is represented.

From soft toys…

To appliances and electronics…

To figurines and homewares…

To clothes…

To even VHS…

In terms of pricing, they seem to be okay. The impression I got from this Savers location was that they’re operating on a faster schedule than the other thrift stores, they’re churning out mass amounts of product so less research goes into each item. There were hundreds of grab bags and sometimes they would be filled with items that were relevant to each other…

But in most cases it seemed that the grab bags were a result of an employee closing their eyes and reaching into a huge bucket of toys and putting the result into a bag. I mean… I saw a grab bag filled with a plush toy and 13 Boggle letters. I’m not complaining, this is where we can find the hidden gems.

With that said, this place seemed to attract a lot of resellers. Whenever I’m in a thrift store I’m always aware of the other customers and in most cases don’t seem to get the vibe of resellers however here was different. This place is incredible in size when you compare it to the regular Sydney City thrift stores so it makes sense that people travel to it. Not to dissuade you from visiting, because of the size it can be easy to overlook items and walk past potential gold.

Let’s talk about the categories I think Savers NSW excels at.

1. Electronics

2. Jeans

3. Women’s Clothes

4. Books and Media

5. General Homewares

If you’re a clothing reseller you’re in luck and you’re destined to spend hours sorting through the clothes. Jeans, shirts, jumpers, dresses… there’s a lot.

Books and Media resellers - there’s a whole wing dedicated to VHS, DVD, books, CD’s, tapes. The photos I shared earlier make the place look like it’s just a rectangle building, it’s not, you go to the back left and there’s a whole section back there hiding. The prices are good and you might get lucky like me when I spent $2.99 on this book only for it to be worth $100 on eBay.

For those that sell electronics, Savers is putting out a lot more than Salvos and Vinnies combined. You have the regular toasters and kettles, but you also have DJ lights, microphones, VHS head cleaners, game controllers and more. It feels as though they’re putting out the items that are donated and not keeping them in the back.

Let’s round this out with some positives that I’ve found with Savers over the others:

• They seem to offer a lot of deals.

Plastered on the walls were deals for 20% off on Sundays for Students, 20% off on Mondays for Seniors and 20% off when you donate some items.

• Self Checkouts

They must be making some decent coin because this mob have fully self-checkouts. Vinnes and Salvos can only dream of automating that part of their business.

• Open Late

As someone who is definitely more of a night owl, having the store open until 9pm on some nights is amazing.

• 2 for 1: There’s A Salvos Right Next Door

Thanks to Flip Weekly reader Kylie I was made aware that just a few doors down there’s a Salvos. If you like saving fuel, hit up the Savers and then hit up the Salvos immediately after. After visiting the Savers the Salvos feels so small in comparison.

Instagram Competition, Win A $50 Savers Gift Card

It’s only taken 5 months, but Flip Weekly is finally on Instagram and to celebrate we’re giving away a $50 Savers gift card. All you have to do to enter the draw is follow Flip Weekly on Instagram and like and comment on our announcement post. You can do all of that by clicking:

This Instagram Link

The contest will close on 17/07/2024 5pm AEDST and the winner will be announced in the next issue of Flip Weekly.

The entire point of starting up an Instagram account is to connect with you guys throughout the week. When I’m visiting sales and thrift stores there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes and this is your chance to see it. Just to let you know, I’ve never posted on an Instagram account before so I have no idea what I’m doing.

Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

What’s this? Click here for more information on how you can score a whole bunch of free prizes including a $200 Mystery Box!