Issue #31

Welcome to another Issue of Flip Weekly, we’re getting into the warmer months here in Sydney and I’m expecting garage sales to start popping. This week I hit up 4 small ones and was able to walk away with hundreds of dollars worth of listings. This week I also tell you exactly why testing is important when it comes to selling items with moving parts, especially when you deal with an impatient buyer who leaves negative feedback (this made me really angry). We’ve also now got a comment section here on Flip Weekly, for better or for worse. All that and more, but first!

In This Issue

• What I’ve Bought

• What I Sold

• Win a Free $200 Mystery Box

• Flip Weekly on Social Media

• 100% Free Resources to Help You

What I’ve Bought

I’ve found loose Care Bears plush in the thrift before but have always passed on them - not because they don’t sell well (they do) but because they didn’t really interest me. When I came across this next item I spotted the Care Bears logo and what looked to be a sealed VHS tape. Take a look.

A sealed VHS tape is indicative of an older toy and the fact this was still in the original packaging piqued my interest. If there’s 1 thing we know about thrift stores it’s that they don’t seem to differentiate between boxed and/or sealed vintage items and that’s where the value lies. I looked up some comps and it’s selling for over $80.00 with majority of the sales being overseas, there’s very few active or sold comps in Australia.

With this sort of data, I’m happy to pick it up and offer it to the Australian market. I’ve listed it up for $124.95 with free shipping which is cheaper for an Aussie to buy locally then from overseas - there’s a large Care Bears collectible market so we’ll see how it goes.

Let’s jump over to this weekends garage sales and I hit up 4 in total, there didn’t seem to be much around, hopefully it picks up now that winter is pretty much over. Besides seeing a copy of Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard in the wild for the first time, the sales were pretty tame and didn’t have anything that really interested me. I did come across a tub of Playstation 2 games and accessories which I was happy to go through.

I asked straight up how much they wanted for the tub. The lady thought for a moment and came back with $3. I was baffled, $3 for the tub? Yeah, just the tub. Not the games and accessories. Ohhhh, she thought I was wanting to buy the plastic laundry tub. Classic. After a brief moment of confusion she said she wasn’t sure but the prices were $50 for the console and $5 per game. I didn’t have too much cash on me so I decided to test out my video game knowledge and pick out what I thought was worth the most.

As you can see in the tub photo above, there was a whole bunch of EyeToy games, some Singstar and other miscellaneous games. I’ll show you what I pulled out (the tub photo was taken after I pulled these):

I pulled out 6 items, all $5 each. They were:

1. The Simpsons Hit & Run PS2

2. Sonic Gems Collection PS2

3. The Simpsons Road Rage PS2

4. Sony PS2 Controller Transparent Red

5. Sony PS2 Controller Black

6. Sony PS2 DVD Remote

Unfortunately the black controller didn’t work and I left behind the infrared sensor for the DVD remote. I didn’t know it at the time that the Playstation 2 remotes require a separate sensor, I just got the remote by itself - I remember seeing the sensor too, it was wrapped up with the EyeToy and I left it behind because I thought it had something to do with it. If I bought the entire tub I would have gotten it and could sell the remote but I’m glad I didn’t because those games left behind are all slow sellers and worth basically nothing.

Note: the remote usually sells for around $30 free post.

The things I did buy were good pick ups:

I paid $30 total and the total listed value is $224.80 in just 4 items. The reason I’m able to spot the better games is because of Flip Vidya - if you play it enough it’ll become second nature to you.

Flicking through the towels at Savers I spotted what looked to be the Australian Coat of Arms. My brain immediately flagged it as a potential sports towel so I had to stop and open it up and it wasn’t sports related, it was… a passport.

The tag looked old-ish and the fact the passport dates were back in the 80’s made me take a gamble on it considering it was only $4.99. After getting home I can see that there’s one other listed online (confirming it’s old) and it’s $55 + post with 3 people watching. We don’t have much in terms of sold comps but for the brand Tara we have some sold comps that go up to $65 for different patterns.

This could be a nice $5 into $50 flip which is totally unexpected (for me) when I’m looking at towels of all things. The next item is something I didn’t pick up, but I wanted to point it out just in case you guys run into it in the wild.

Zoids started out in Japan in the 80’s as a plastic model kit which then turned into video games and animated shows. I found volume 1.1 in a thrift store for $1 and after looking up the comps, I frantically looked all over the store for the rest of the volumes because if you find them…

You’re in for a payday. I wasn’t able to find anymore but remember some of these DVD’s are like the little German Cockroaches, if you find one, there’s pretty much guaranteed to be more lurking in the dark. If you collect the set you can basically ask for whatever you want…

I saw these brand new and sealed Sony headphones in a Vinnies thrift store for $10.00 and wasn’t too sure whether or not to pick them up. The copyright on the back was from 2009 so they’re dated, they have the old headphone jack and the promo sticker on the front is promoting “MP3, iPod, Walkman“ … walkman! I had my hands full with the next item so I couldn’t look them up but I took a gamble because I mean, it’s a sealed Sony product; Sony is a killer brand that at times can hold its value.

The comps surprised me. 14 active, 22 sold. Using the magical processing power of Flip Weekly’s eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator we can see that’s a 157% sell through rate which is really good. Let’s take a look at the sold comps.

That’s an insane amount of money for an old pair of headphones. I don’t think these are collectors, I think these are just older folk who want a good, reliable pair of headphones and they know that this Brand or this Model does just that. Now I’m not going to tell you guys to keep an eye out for Sony MDR-210LP headphones because I mean… who’s going to remember that… but I will say if you see a tangled mess of headphones at a yard sale or thrift store, look for any that are branded Sony and pick them up. I can’t imagine anyone charging me than a couple of dollars for an old pair and even loose, if you happen to luck out on a good model, you’ll make money (a loose pair of these are listed at $70).

I have VHS players just falling into my lap recently. This was $25.00, it’s a really good brand (LG) plus it came with the remote and the user manual and all cords. Usually when an item is well preserved like this I tend to assume it’s working so I’m happy to pick it up. When it comes to selling VHS on eBay, my general rule of thumb is that:

1. If it’s just the player, and it’s not the best brand assume a selling price of around $80.

2. If it’s just the player, but a well known brand assume a selling price of around $100.

3. Postage is around $20 so you have to take that into consideration.

So if we assume it’s a good brand, you buy it for $20, sell for $100, post costs you $20, eBay fees around $15, you’re left with a $40 profit. In the case of the one I picked up, we have the remote and the original user manual - we can add a premium onto it and that’s why I’ve listed it for $149.95 free post. It’s already got plenty of interest and if it sells, after all fees I’m left with an $80 profit.

Remember, you’re going to want to keep a VHS that you know works at home so you can test out the player. You’ll also need a TV that you can plug the AV cables into - most modern TV’s don’t have them they have HDMI inputs. You can of course buy AV to HDMI converters but yeah, you’ll want to test these out before listing them for sale. Why exactly? Besides the obvious reasons, let me tell you what happened this week.

In last weeks Issue of Flip Weekly I sold an alarm clock. No big deal, a small sale but a sale none-the-less. I tested to make sure that it worked, that it powered on, none of the buttons were sticky and things like that and it was completely fine. I bought it, I think, from a garage sale and it was brand new but with an opened box.

The buyer asked a few questions after the sale and I responded promptly:

I thought it was a bit silly to ask questions after purchasing and it should have been a red flag. I posted the item so that it was fully secure, complete with bubble wrap, butchers paper and inside of another box - it wasn’t the alarm clock box in a satchel or anything, it was a box within a box.

A few days later the buyer sends me a message, and he isn’t happy.

He says it’s faulty. I know it’s not. A few things he says in his message make me think he’s just having trouble with it.

“Does not work as required“

“Followed the instructions“

He also accuses me of not packaging the unit properly which makes me a bit angry - I take a lot of pride in my packaging. It’s not unusual for me to wrap items like little Christmas presents (especially books as they’re easy to wrap!) because I feel like ordering items online is like getting yourself a little present and you should be excited to open it up.

The reason it took 20 minutes to reply was so that I calm myself down and not reply aggressively. I tested the item out prior to listing it on eBay so I knew it worked, it gave me confidence to ask if he was having trouble with functionality.

He doesn’t reply to my message but he does decide to leave me negative feedback:

It annoyed me more than he wrote that it was not packaged properly. The irony is that the very next piece of feedback I got after this negative was this:

After he decided to give me some negative feedback he sends me the following message:

So it turns on but doesn’t allow him to set the time or the alarm. Now it “appears“ the buttons aren’t working. He tried several times but it’s “obviously faulty“. I tell him to open a return request so that I can get this thing back to me and test it out again myself. Then I get the following:

So it worked all along and the guy was just too impatient to figure it out. Instead of asking for help he thought the best course of action was to leave negative feedback and jump straight to refunding the item. I’m not sure if this guy was legitimate or trying to hustle me, but either way, if I didn’t test this item prior to listing, I’m sure Lazy Mat™ would have been like oh crap I should have tested, I’ll just give an immediate refund and you can keep the item.

By the way, after receiving the last message I requested eBay to remove the feedback. Their automated system declined the request because it didn’t go against their policies (apparently). I jumped onto live chat and explained the situation to an eBay employee and 5 minutes later it was gone. The moral of the story is to test your items and if you receive negative feedback, don’t be afraid to contact eBay if you know you’re in the right.

What I Sold

You know Summer is approaching in Australia when you’re selling a Super Soaker for $72.85 on eBay (including post). I picked this up in a thrift store for just $5 and I guess the staff didn’t know that these old school 90’s Hasbro Super Soakers are still super popular with comps of this model ranging from $80.00 all the way up to $115.00.

I’m pretty sure the very first time I heard about these Super Soakers being worth picking up was from Retro Rescuers. They’re a couple on YouTube and Instagram who find some really cool nostalgic items here in Australia - you can find out more about them on Flip Weekly’s Ultimate List of YouTube Reseller Channels here.

In Issue #29 when I ran a thrift store marathon, I also bought this singing fish from a garage sale. It was in a bulk deal that ended up with a buy cost of just $1.15 per item. The fish was listed on August 26th and sold on Marketplace 10 days later for $50 + post. In terms of the item, I sort of get it but I sort of don’t. It’s something you obviously hang in a bar area or a “man cave“ but are you really going to keep it on 24/7? I turned this thing on twice: once to test and once to record and send a video and honestly that was it for me. I don’t know if it’s the poor audio quality or the fact it’s a dumb fish hanging on a wall singing that I just don’t quite… understand. With that said, we’re reselling items for a profit, we don’t have to like everything we buy just as long as it lines our pockets.

Note to you guys: if you find these at a sale they’re worth picking up if you can spend less than $20. If the fish has some sort of novelty about it (think like a Christmas outfit or a Halloween costume) than they’re potentially worth more than the standard singing fish.

In Issue #26 I told you exactly what you should look for when buying Disney clothing and that’s Spirit Jerseys. In Issue #27 I sold a Toy Story Pizza Planet Spirit Jersey for $70.00 and in Issue #31 I sold this Glow in the Dark Halloween Spirit Jersey for $80.00 + postage on Marketplace when it only cost me $15.00. That’s a $65.00 profit margin on an item that sold in just over a month. To reiterate though: not all Disney clothing is worth picking up.

A few other items I sold this week include:

If you see this logo in the wild:

You know that the item is:

1. Going to be quite old.

2. It’s going to be a decent pop culture collectible.

I pick up pretty much every Playworks item I find and they’ve all been great sellers for me.

Somewhat surprised that this sold so quickly. It’s a Magic the Gathering t-shirt and I was unable to work out exactly what year it was from. I picked it up in Issue #29 for $8 and it went on to sell just over 2 weeks later for $75 + $30 in postage to the US. Something to keep an eye out for?

I’ve talked so much about signed books, but for newcomers my rule of thumb is this:

1. The copy must be in good condition (obviously)

2. It has to be of someone relevant and popular. No point buying a signed copy of an obscure author who no-one cares about.

3. My standard price for a regular signed book is $50 free post.

4. If the person has passed away the price changes as often the demand outweighs the supply (like in Issue #18)

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!

Flip Weekly on Social Media

If you want more Flip Weekly content, don’t forget to follow us on both Facebook and Instagram.

• Flip Weekly on Facebook.

• Flip Weekly on Instagram.

100% Free Resources to Help You

Flip Weekly have created the following resources to help you become a better reseller.

• Ultimate List of YouTube Reseller Channels

• Google Sheets Reseller Spreadsheet

• Memorize Video Game Prices with Flip Vidya

• eBay Sell Through Rate Calculator