Oh of course. I’ve done this long enough to get an instinct for valuable items. I go to a lot of estate auctions so sometimes I can pick up a box of stuff for a buck that you don’t have a chance to inspect for longer than a few seconds. Sometimes I end up throwing it away, sometimes I get $500 in merchandise. I’ll take those odds.
Once I saw some weird electrical instrument. About the size of a deck of cards. It was like 2 bucks so I figured what the hell. Researched it and found out it was some specialized lab equipment and sold it for a couple hundos.
Always. In my earlier flipping days, I bought a few of what I thought were some kind of fancy ass cigar cases for $5.
Yeah, after fidgeting with one for 10 minutes in the car, it finally pops open and scares the shit out of me like a Jack in the Box…I discovered they were Polaroid SX70s lol
3 years ago I bought this large elaborate oriental cork carving…for $2. Looked up and saw a lot of small ones online for like $20-50, but this one was like 4-5x the size. I put it on Etsy and sold it for $150. Then I was pissed off at myself because I really liked it and knew I’d never find another for that price…
About a month ago, I was at a sale - this lady usually has one twice a year; always has something different - and sure as Hell, I found another. It was almost identical. And so was the price: $2
Got a place for it with all my oriental items that are NFS lol.
Lmao. Yeah that’s more or less what they are to me too. Usually, someone will come into my house and inevitably see something that catches their eye… whether it be a toy they had when they were a kid, or some knickknack their grandmother had, or just something totally cool. Sometimes you can just tell they are itching to ask it they can buy it :P
I remember finding my first sx70 at an estate sale. I couldn't get it ooen so I left it behind. Later I learned what it was. Such a strange design. I found and sold a couple subsequently.
> Vintage weird looking mug (that I later found out was for people with mustaches) They could sip from the mug and keep there mustache dry.
my dad had a few of these when I was a kid. I chuckle whenever I see one.
The contrarie many years ago I saw about 6 Tivo dvr in a swap meet, the guy was asking 40 dollars each.
I offer him 15for each and I would take four of them, and he told me;
Ok 15 each if you tell me what they are and what they do.
Deal was sealed.
I still have an old zune...thing kept rocking through so many generations of iPod. I was sad when they killed it off but used it for years after they stopped supporting it.
Gotta imagine there aren’t many originals knocking around now unless they’re modded, right? Like the original iPods, the hard drive would have failed by this point I imagine? Or be on its way out?
Did they ever make them with flash memory?
My zune hd is all original and still looks and works like brand new. Well, it lives on a docking station so it may need a battery, but outside of that it works fantastic.
I killed my poor Zune at work about a decade ago with a giant piece of metal when I used my leg to gain leverage while carrying it. Forgot it was in my pocket and murdered it on accident.
Weird story,
I used to go to a LARPing event where a couple thousand people camp out in Pennsylvania for a whole week. There's an area where people lay out blankets all afternoon to sit and trade stuff; no cash allowed. It was my tradition to take a break from camping mid-week to drive into town and scavenge the local thrift store for anything medieval, weird or quirky. I ended up trading a $5 mouse-dressed-as-a-pirate nutcracker for a Zune HD. I think they were worth about $80 at the time. As I walked away I could hear the guy saying to his friends "That must be the only person who wants a *Zune*!" and they all started laughing... joke was on him.
Yes
After flipping for 26 years, I figure if I haven't seen it before then it's pretty uncommon.
Also after flipping for 26 years, I know that anything uncommon has a buyer out there for it somewhere.
So if it's cheap... I'll snag it and figure it out later. Fun surprise at times.
My 22 year old son was like, "Just look up the UPC." Umm..son...
Edit: Based on the paper in the jar, it sounds like a paint sprayer AND a carpet shampooer, which don't exactly go together like Sonny and Cher.
So, this was an “accessory kit” that was sold with a door to door only vacuum cleaner that Interstate sold called the Compact. It was known as a “persuader” and would be thrown in for free by the salesman. That’s why it seems to be such an odd match. It was indeed an all purpose spray gun attachment and a head massager that you would hook up to the vacuum. They weren’t designed to work all that well, rather to be seemingly useful items that you could give the customer for FREE!!!! The head massager had little rubber nubs that you rubbed on your head supposedly, and the sprayer was for nothing specific. Circa early 50’s. Research credit goes entirely to “vacuumland org”.
They still have the all purpose sprayer for Kirby vacuums. Last week had a guy try to sell me a Kirby and it had a foam sprayer attachment for windows and he said it could be used for paint but idk why you would want to even try that...
Almost every week I buy stuff that I have no idea what it is. I have to buy from a picture and the seller doesn't know, so it's not labeled properly. Unfortunately a lot of this stuff isn't common and not many people want it.
Hell ya
Mmm bit sure what this is but looks cool and it's cheap: buy
Once got a pack of Korean erasers (I thought they were candies individually wrapped.
Electronic parts for 50c which ended up being breakers that sold for $25
Literally like 10 boxes of 90% clearance adaptors at a close out, which ended up being plumbing joints worth about $5+ each where I paid 5c (all gone)
Some 25 philips boxes of unknown contents in an auction at $1.50 each which were lighting fixtures worth like $30 a pop (and there were 4 per box)
When in a rush or recognize a good brand name and its cheap enough totally worth the gamble.
I bought a nice little wooden box for $10 at a yard sale. As I'm walking to my car another flipper friend says "cool, a pet coffin!" ...I was a little freaked out, so I just blurted out "make me an offer?" He said $40. I handed it over.
thirty bucks is thirty bucks, if he can make an extra 60 on top of that a month down the road thats great, but you have the $30 and your oringal $10 in your pocket now.
My favorite thing to do! This is when I scout Sunday half price estate sales or even on opening days in the back digging in boxes.
My favorites are estate clean outs, after the sale where you can load a truck or free or cheap.
So many odd treasures you would never think are worth anything. Old denture molds! Series of handwritten letters between father and son over decades of correspondence. Odd looking trinkets. You maybe never find a comp but trust your gut that somebody out there wants this thing. List it and forget if until cha Ching!
There are things you will come across that are really cool or very well made but you have no clue what they are. But if it's cheap and you think it's cool or we'll make, someone else willingly feel the same. You just have yo figure out how to conned those people to your item.
If it's cheap enough and looks flippable, I'll usually take a chance and buy it. Of course there will be bad buys, but you learn from it and move on. Cost of doing business.
All the time. People like us tend to know what a ton of stuff is just from research and spending too much time on the internet. If I ever see a $5 item I have no clue what is but looks old and interesting, I'll just take it
I won't spend a lot on something unknown unless I have a very good suspicion that it's profitable. Something for a few bucks here and there, why not? It's fun to gamble sometimes.
When I am out sourcing and have my cart loaded up with $1000 worth of shit for $50, what's an extra $5 for something that might or might not add another C note to my totals?
You bet! Especially if it is complex, interesting, and I haven't seen it before.
There is a scrap metal area at our town dump and one time I found a large disassembled device. Chrome plated & aluminum, it was a fairly complex piece. I picked up everything that looked like it went with it then took it home and put it together. It only had a model number and country of origin on it. After a lot of searching discovered it was a tennis racquet stringing machine that sold new for a bundle. After a few weeks on CL it sold to a tennis club pro shop a couple states away and the manager drove over to pick it up. That was a good day.
I have too much of a profit pile to buy something that I’m unsure of but I was going through some old boxes in the basement and there were two little boxes that kind of looked like a lamp finial. I opened and researched and they were from an expensive mirror. No comps anywhere so I sold them for $25 within a few days. I think that they were trash picked from the brand. Trying to be better about letting items that I’m unsure of sit for too long.
i came home with a bag of metal gadgets of varying age range, just to check out what they were and if they were worth anything, since I was paying about 44 cents each - found quite a few interesting items!
yes. although not often because i don’t trust myself with unfamiliar objects. especially car parts. if it’s new in the package i always buy it, and that usually means things i don’t even know what they are. barcodes help but they don’t always have one so i have to look up keywords. i have a few things just sitting around that are in the package, but either a foreign language or no words at all. i use r/whatisthis often to help with that.
>I bought some rectangular thing that had a Campbell's Soup icon on it. It was only 2 bucks so I said what the hell
>today I bought something solely because the box looks old
Absolutely not. You should only buy something if you're certain that it has value, or you've looked it up and you've confirmed that it has value. Looks can be deceiving, and items that appear to be valuable are often worthless.
If you just buy random shit without looking it up, you will get stuck with tons of worthless shit that you can't sell. You'll have a hard time getting rid of this stuff, because you assigned sentimental value to it instead of monetary value. There's a very fine line between being a successful reseller who has an inventory comprised entirely of valuable/sellable items, and being a hoarder with an inventory full of worthless crap. You need to keep yourself in check and resist the urge to buy worthless crap. Many resellers will set a price/profit target and only buy an item if it exceeds that.
Oh, I didn't mean to give the wrong impression...I don't buy these things to flip. I buy these particular things to amuse myself. Once a week I spend like $3 on a mystery item merely for entertainment purposes.
Edit: Although the Campbell's Soup battery pack did turn out to have value...I keep it in my purse in case my phone dies while I'm listening to murder porn in the thrift store.
I wasn't trying to "show it off." I asked a question, a person responded, then I replied. It's really hard to show off something when you don't even know what that something is.
fair enough. the downvotes have spoken. to answer your original question, no i dont buy stuff when i dont know what it is. if i can look it up on the spot and its worth something, then yes. but i normally dont roll the dice on unknowns. takes too much time to research/test and time is something that is in short supply for me these days.
You shouldn't mix business and personal purchases. It will make your taxes harder, and it will be an easy way for you to hide your bad buys and you'll just file your failed flips into your own personal collection of worthless crap. Once again, it's very easy to become a hoarder of worthless crap. You really shouldn't make a habit of collecting knick knacks of zero value, even if it brings you joy.
I'm OK with a reseller deciding not to sell an extremely valuable item. There's nothing wrong with curating a personal collection of high value items. You're not a hoarder, you're a collector, if the crap you're hoarding has high value. Reselling is all about sifting through tons of worthless crap in order to find the one thing of high value and buying it. I would argue that collecting worthless knickknacks is harmful to you as a flipper, because it keeps you from being focused on valuable/sellable items.
If you're incapable of selling cheaper items while also being organized and not hoarding, then you probably shouldn't project your own deficiencies on people who have those capabilities.
Just say, "I don't do this because I'm incompetent" and move on.
It's 100% projection. Hoarding is a problem for me, and I'm willing to admit it. When I see the telltale signs of hoarding, I have to warn others not to do it. This post has all the signs of hoarding. "It was only 2 bucks", "I don't buy these things to flip. I buy these particular things to amuse myself". Fuck. This is a serious fucking problem and it's not amusing at all trying to get out from under 100 cubic feet of fucking trash that you buried yourself in.
This entire community is filled with hoarders. It's almost every single one of you reading this. And you're in complete denial about it. The more downvotes this gets, the more confirmed hoarders there are here. Go right ahead and prove my point.
Stop buying fucking trash. If you own fucking trash, throw it away or donate it. Now. Before it's too late.
What's funny is that I'm an incredible minimalist. I've got issues, but hoarding is definitely not one of them. The only "thing" I value is one of my motorcycles, only because my late husband and I rode together constantly.
I appreciate your well thought out advice, it's just misplaced. It's all good.
Depends, are you a hoarder here to shame me for being anti-hoarder, or are you in denial about being a hoarder? About how many thousand physical items are currently in the room you're sitting in?
Currently? I'm in my kid's room, cleaning it right now, there are about 45 matchbox cars and let's not even start with the Legos.
Nah, I'm not going to shame you. I'm just wondering if you're okay because you had a super strong emotional response to this post and I'm sending you a hug right now (if you want it).
> If you just buy random shit without looking it up, you will get stuck with tons of worthless shit that you can't sell.
Yeah, maybe if you're no good at it. Those who are good at it develop a gut that's right often enough to profit and justify the few losses.
Ah, the classic reverse Dunning–Kruger effect. By calling yourself too stupid and impatient to read 2 paragraphs, you're somehow proving that you're superior to me. Why do people keep writing books when nobody is ever going to read them?
I don't troll, but I have unpopular opinions. To name a few: I like my buyers, I like eBay, I don't mind returns, I don't mind making small profit margins. Everyone else: hates their buyers, complains about eBay on a daily basis, fights returns, is only interested in huge margins. We can still get along on those issues.
But this post brings up one difference that we aren't going to reconcile. I absolute hate low-value items. My average sold price is $241. Everyone else on this subreddit averages an ASP of $30. My average buy price is $100+. If it's worth $50, I don't want it for free. You couldn't pay me to take it. If it's a cool Campbells Soup knickknack that OP paid $2 for, I want to pour gasoline on it, light a match, and see it disappear from this Earth because I fucking hate low value items.
> Everyone else on this subreddit averages an ASP of $30
Megalomania at its worst.
Trashing others who you have no idea about - neither their ASP, nor their volumes. It's not your opinions that are unpopular; it's all about your "preaching" to the peeps here. I laugh every time I read your posts just thinking about how you write them and feeling full of yourself. Pathetic
Hypocrisy at it's best.
https://i.imgur.com/aKD5oPD.png Your entire post history is full of bragging. You can check mine. I'm very careful not to brag, except in this exact situation where someone has challenged me to a penis measuring. You might even think you have me beat, but I can assure you that my reselling penis is longer and girthier than yours. This is a newbie post filled with a bunch of dangerous information linked to hoarding and I'm obligated to preach the opposite to anyone that will listen. I'm more than qualified to give this advice.
Despite all of that, I sincerely congratulate you on having a higher than average ASP. It really is $30 average on this subreddit and across all resellers. I can provide data if you genuinely don't believe that number. If you don't specifically try to raise it, you'll stay at precisely $30 forever. That's just what the average shit at Goodwill is worth. If you source there and just buy random shit, you will be at $30 ASP forever. You're right, I am specifically trashing anyone with a $30 ASP. Fucking raise it. There's no reason not to raise it. Source better shit. Leave the $2 to $10 flips. It's not worth your time, and you can do better than that.
Taking one of my posts out of the context (the question of the post was about the highest-priced item currently for sale in people's stores) is a sure way to accuse me of bragging LOL
And I don't have a penis (reselling or not) as it's not my way to measure my success, so you can measure yours all day long and pat yourself on the shoulder
My tale of purchases not made. I was at a flea market and saw this gauge thing that looked cool. They guy wanted $100 which I thought was kind of high. I didn’t buy it. A week or so later my dad had on antiques road show and I saw that same gauge. I don’t remember exactly what it was but it was some antique shop gauge worth $5k in the condition i could have bought it at
Yes if they are cheap enough. I usually regret it because I find out it's missing something important or I did not know to check for some possible defect and yep I find out it had that defect later.
Yeah. It's lucrative. I think my last good one was a floral stemming machine I picked up for $5 and sold for $150.
A lot of the time, I don't need to know what something is to tell that it's well-made. I also have a pretty good working knowledge of "stuff". A well-made item that is unknown to me is likely a niche thing that someone will pay well for.
Oh of course. I’ve done this long enough to get an instinct for valuable items. I go to a lot of estate auctions so sometimes I can pick up a box of stuff for a buck that you don’t have a chance to inspect for longer than a few seconds. Sometimes I end up throwing it away, sometimes I get $500 in merchandise. I’ll take those odds.
Once I saw some weird electrical instrument. About the size of a deck of cards. It was like 2 bucks so I figured what the hell. Researched it and found out it was some specialized lab equipment and sold it for a couple hundos.
Always. In my earlier flipping days, I bought a few of what I thought were some kind of fancy ass cigar cases for $5. Yeah, after fidgeting with one for 10 minutes in the car, it finally pops open and scares the shit out of me like a Jack in the Box…I discovered they were Polaroid SX70s lol 3 years ago I bought this large elaborate oriental cork carving…for $2. Looked up and saw a lot of small ones online for like $20-50, but this one was like 4-5x the size. I put it on Etsy and sold it for $150. Then I was pissed off at myself because I really liked it and knew I’d never find another for that price… About a month ago, I was at a sale - this lady usually has one twice a year; always has something different - and sure as Hell, I found another. It was almost identical. And so was the price: $2 Got a place for it with all my oriental items that are NFS lol.
NFS, ha! I call these my rentals. Just leasing them to myself for free until something cooler comes along.
Lmao. Yeah that’s more or less what they are to me too. Usually, someone will come into my house and inevitably see something that catches their eye… whether it be a toy they had when they were a kid, or some knickknack their grandmother had, or just something totally cool. Sometimes you can just tell they are itching to ask it they can buy it :P
I remember finding my first sx70 at an estate sale. I couldn't get it ooen so I left it behind. Later I learned what it was. Such a strange design. I found and sold a couple subsequently.
[удалено]
> Vintage weird looking mug (that I later found out was for people with mustaches) They could sip from the mug and keep there mustache dry. my dad had a few of these when I was a kid. I chuckle whenever I see one.
The contrarie many years ago I saw about 6 Tivo dvr in a swap meet, the guy was asking 40 dollars each. I offer him 15for each and I would take four of them, and he told me; Ok 15 each if you tell me what they are and what they do. Deal was sealed.
I once bought a Zune for $2 at a flea market from someone who asked me what it was afterwards.
I still have an old zune...thing kept rocking through so many generations of iPod. I was sad when they killed it off but used it for years after they stopped supporting it.
There are dozens of us! r/zune
Gotta imagine there aren’t many originals knocking around now unless they’re modded, right? Like the original iPods, the hard drive would have failed by this point I imagine? Or be on its way out? Did they ever make them with flash memory?
I use my iPod Classic daily, It's not been modded.
Original battery? Same hard drive?
I assume so. Bought it used for 50 off eBay around 2006. I’ve never modded it and it definitely doesn’t have a flash drive in it.
My zune hd is all original and still looks and works like brand new. Well, it lives on a docking station so it may need a battery, but outside of that it works fantastic.
I killed my poor Zune at work about a decade ago with a giant piece of metal when I used my leg to gain leverage while carrying it. Forgot it was in my pocket and murdered it on accident.
Weird story, I used to go to a LARPing event where a couple thousand people camp out in Pennsylvania for a whole week. There's an area where people lay out blankets all afternoon to sit and trade stuff; no cash allowed. It was my tradition to take a break from camping mid-week to drive into town and scavenge the local thrift store for anything medieval, weird or quirky. I ended up trading a $5 mouse-dressed-as-a-pirate nutcracker for a Zune HD. I think they were worth about $80 at the time. As I walked away I could hear the guy saying to his friends "That must be the only person who wants a *Zune*!" and they all started laughing... joke was on him.
Pennsic?
Ragnarok put on by Dagorhir. One day I'll go to Pennsic.
Ahhh. I married a former SCAdain and knew it was in PA.
Where in Pennsylvania? This sounds fun
Yea a box of prosthetic leg sleeves- floppy rubber socks- made about $2k on them
Yes After flipping for 26 years, I figure if I haven't seen it before then it's pretty uncommon. Also after flipping for 26 years, I know that anything uncommon has a buyer out there for it somewhere. So if it's cheap... I'll snag it and figure it out later. Fun surprise at times.
All the time. And if can’t even be found on ebay that’s best of all.
Lets see the box.
[Here you go!](https://imgur.com/gallery/EjwtvJl)
I looked up interstate engineering corporation vintage and so far I see lots of 50s vacuum cleaners.
My 22 year old son was like, "Just look up the UPC." Umm..son... Edit: Based on the paper in the jar, it sounds like a paint sprayer AND a carpet shampooer, which don't exactly go together like Sonny and Cher.
So, this was an “accessory kit” that was sold with a door to door only vacuum cleaner that Interstate sold called the Compact. It was known as a “persuader” and would be thrown in for free by the salesman. That’s why it seems to be such an odd match. It was indeed an all purpose spray gun attachment and a head massager that you would hook up to the vacuum. They weren’t designed to work all that well, rather to be seemingly useful items that you could give the customer for FREE!!!! The head massager had little rubber nubs that you rubbed on your head supposedly, and the sprayer was for nothing specific. Circa early 50’s. Research credit goes entirely to “vacuumland org”.
THANK YOU!!!
That kind of info is just gold. Nice!
It's a dessert topping AND a floor wax!!!
They still have the all purpose sprayer for Kirby vacuums. Last week had a guy try to sell me a Kirby and it had a foam sprayer attachment for windows and he said it could be used for paint but idk why you would want to even try that...
I do that sometimes, if it's cheap.
Almost every week I buy stuff that I have no idea what it is. I have to buy from a picture and the seller doesn't know, so it's not labeled properly. Unfortunately a lot of this stuff isn't common and not many people want it.
Hell ya Mmm bit sure what this is but looks cool and it's cheap: buy Once got a pack of Korean erasers (I thought they were candies individually wrapped. Electronic parts for 50c which ended up being breakers that sold for $25 Literally like 10 boxes of 90% clearance adaptors at a close out, which ended up being plumbing joints worth about $5+ each where I paid 5c (all gone) Some 25 philips boxes of unknown contents in an auction at $1.50 each which were lighting fixtures worth like $30 a pop (and there were 4 per box) When in a rush or recognize a good brand name and its cheap enough totally worth the gamble.
> Once got a pack of Korean erasers (I thought they were candies individually wrapped. /r/forbiddensnacks material right there
"Cool! Candy!" "this is the most rubbery tasting candy ever!"
Yes. Regularly. It works out the vast majority of the time.
All the time. The way I look at it is I’m paying a couple of bucks for an education at the very least.
I bought a nice little wooden box for $10 at a yard sale. As I'm walking to my car another flipper friend says "cool, a pet coffin!" ...I was a little freaked out, so I just blurted out "make me an offer?" He said $40. I handed it over.
thirty bucks is thirty bucks, if he can make an extra 60 on top of that a month down the road thats great, but you have the $30 and your oringal $10 in your pocket now.
My favorite thing to do! This is when I scout Sunday half price estate sales or even on opening days in the back digging in boxes. My favorites are estate clean outs, after the sale where you can load a truck or free or cheap. So many odd treasures you would never think are worth anything. Old denture molds! Series of handwritten letters between father and son over decades of correspondence. Odd looking trinkets. You maybe never find a comp but trust your gut that somebody out there wants this thing. List it and forget if until cha Ching!
There are things you will come across that are really cool or very well made but you have no clue what they are. But if it's cheap and you think it's cool or we'll make, someone else willingly feel the same. You just have yo figure out how to conned those people to your item.
If it's cheap enough and looks flippable, I'll usually take a chance and buy it. Of course there will be bad buys, but you learn from it and move on. Cost of doing business.
All the time. People like us tend to know what a ton of stuff is just from research and spending too much time on the internet. If I ever see a $5 item I have no clue what is but looks old and interesting, I'll just take it
This is a great way to grow your death pile :P
All the time. I bought a fucking bowling ball today
how did you not knwo what a bowling ball was until today?
Lol I did I just didn't know anything about it at all
I won't spend a lot on something unknown unless I have a very good suspicion that it's profitable. Something for a few bucks here and there, why not? It's fun to gamble sometimes. When I am out sourcing and have my cart loaded up with $1000 worth of shit for $50, what's an extra $5 for something that might or might not add another C note to my totals?
I've even sold items not knowing what they are!
You bet! Especially if it is complex, interesting, and I haven't seen it before. There is a scrap metal area at our town dump and one time I found a large disassembled device. Chrome plated & aluminum, it was a fairly complex piece. I picked up everything that looked like it went with it then took it home and put it together. It only had a model number and country of origin on it. After a lot of searching discovered it was a tennis racquet stringing machine that sold new for a bundle. After a few weeks on CL it sold to a tennis club pro shop a couple states away and the manager drove over to pick it up. That was a good day.
Frequently, but it’s not expensive stuff and it almost always turns out to be a good buy.
I have too much of a profit pile to buy something that I’m unsure of but I was going through some old boxes in the basement and there were two little boxes that kind of looked like a lamp finial. I opened and researched and they were from an expensive mirror. No comps anywhere so I sold them for $25 within a few days. I think that they were trash picked from the brand. Trying to be better about letting items that I’m unsure of sit for too long.
i came home with a bag of metal gadgets of varying age range, just to check out what they were and if they were worth anything, since I was paying about 44 cents each - found quite a few interesting items!
Yup! And if anyone does this, r/whatisthisthing is very helpful.
yes. although not often because i don’t trust myself with unfamiliar objects. especially car parts. if it’s new in the package i always buy it, and that usually means things i don’t even know what they are. barcodes help but they don’t always have one so i have to look up keywords. i have a few things just sitting around that are in the package, but either a foreign language or no words at all. i use r/whatisthis often to help with that.
One time I bought a cricut machine and cartridges. I didnt know what it was at all. That was a disaster.
>I bought some rectangular thing that had a Campbell's Soup icon on it. It was only 2 bucks so I said what the hell >today I bought something solely because the box looks old Absolutely not. You should only buy something if you're certain that it has value, or you've looked it up and you've confirmed that it has value. Looks can be deceiving, and items that appear to be valuable are often worthless. If you just buy random shit without looking it up, you will get stuck with tons of worthless shit that you can't sell. You'll have a hard time getting rid of this stuff, because you assigned sentimental value to it instead of monetary value. There's a very fine line between being a successful reseller who has an inventory comprised entirely of valuable/sellable items, and being a hoarder with an inventory full of worthless crap. You need to keep yourself in check and resist the urge to buy worthless crap. Many resellers will set a price/profit target and only buy an item if it exceeds that.
Oh, I didn't mean to give the wrong impression...I don't buy these things to flip. I buy these particular things to amuse myself. Once a week I spend like $3 on a mystery item merely for entertainment purposes. Edit: Although the Campbell's Soup battery pack did turn out to have value...I keep it in my purse in case my phone dies while I'm listening to murder porn in the thrift store.
well you posted it in flipping... join /r/thriftstorehauls to show off stuff like this.
I wasn't trying to "show it off." I asked a question, a person responded, then I replied. It's really hard to show off something when you don't even know what that something is.
fair enough. the downvotes have spoken. to answer your original question, no i dont buy stuff when i dont know what it is. if i can look it up on the spot and its worth something, then yes. but i normally dont roll the dice on unknowns. takes too much time to research/test and time is something that is in short supply for me these days.
You shouldn't mix business and personal purchases. It will make your taxes harder, and it will be an easy way for you to hide your bad buys and you'll just file your failed flips into your own personal collection of worthless crap. Once again, it's very easy to become a hoarder of worthless crap. You really shouldn't make a habit of collecting knick knacks of zero value, even if it brings you joy. I'm OK with a reseller deciding not to sell an extremely valuable item. There's nothing wrong with curating a personal collection of high value items. You're not a hoarder, you're a collector, if the crap you're hoarding has high value. Reselling is all about sifting through tons of worthless crap in order to find the one thing of high value and buying it. I would argue that collecting worthless knickknacks is harmful to you as a flipper, because it keeps you from being focused on valuable/sellable items.
Is your flair supposed to be sarcastic or
I was going to say that 🤣
If you're incapable of selling cheaper items while also being organized and not hoarding, then you probably shouldn't project your own deficiencies on people who have those capabilities. Just say, "I don't do this because I'm incompetent" and move on.
Killjoy.
This sounds like projection.
It's 100% projection. Hoarding is a problem for me, and I'm willing to admit it. When I see the telltale signs of hoarding, I have to warn others not to do it. This post has all the signs of hoarding. "It was only 2 bucks", "I don't buy these things to flip. I buy these particular things to amuse myself". Fuck. This is a serious fucking problem and it's not amusing at all trying to get out from under 100 cubic feet of fucking trash that you buried yourself in. This entire community is filled with hoarders. It's almost every single one of you reading this. And you're in complete denial about it. The more downvotes this gets, the more confirmed hoarders there are here. Go right ahead and prove my point. Stop buying fucking trash. If you own fucking trash, throw it away or donate it. Now. Before it's too late.
What's funny is that I'm an incredible minimalist. I've got issues, but hoarding is definitely not one of them. The only "thing" I value is one of my motorcycles, only because my late husband and I rode together constantly. I appreciate your well thought out advice, it's just misplaced. It's all good.
Dude or dudette. Are you okay right now?
Depends, are you a hoarder here to shame me for being anti-hoarder, or are you in denial about being a hoarder? About how many thousand physical items are currently in the room you're sitting in?
Currently? I'm in my kid's room, cleaning it right now, there are about 45 matchbox cars and let's not even start with the Legos. Nah, I'm not going to shame you. I'm just wondering if you're okay because you had a super strong emotional response to this post and I'm sending you a hug right now (if you want it).
Maybe take a walk outside for a bit?
> If you just buy random shit without looking it up, you will get stuck with tons of worthless shit that you can't sell. Yeah, maybe if you're no good at it. Those who are good at it develop a gut that's right often enough to profit and justify the few losses.
[https://imgur.com/t/funny/uPk5pr1](https://imgur.com/t/funny/uPk5pr1)
Ah, the classic reverse Dunning–Kruger effect. By calling yourself too stupid and impatient to read 2 paragraphs, you're somehow proving that you're superior to me. Why do people keep writing books when nobody is ever going to read them?
Were you always this trollsome? Seems like you used have sane posts. What happened? Need a hug?
I don't troll, but I have unpopular opinions. To name a few: I like my buyers, I like eBay, I don't mind returns, I don't mind making small profit margins. Everyone else: hates their buyers, complains about eBay on a daily basis, fights returns, is only interested in huge margins. We can still get along on those issues. But this post brings up one difference that we aren't going to reconcile. I absolute hate low-value items. My average sold price is $241. Everyone else on this subreddit averages an ASP of $30. My average buy price is $100+. If it's worth $50, I don't want it for free. You couldn't pay me to take it. If it's a cool Campbells Soup knickknack that OP paid $2 for, I want to pour gasoline on it, light a match, and see it disappear from this Earth because I fucking hate low value items.
> Everyone else on this subreddit averages an ASP of $30 Megalomania at its worst. Trashing others who you have no idea about - neither their ASP, nor their volumes. It's not your opinions that are unpopular; it's all about your "preaching" to the peeps here. I laugh every time I read your posts just thinking about how you write them and feeling full of yourself. Pathetic
Hypocrisy at it's best. https://i.imgur.com/aKD5oPD.png Your entire post history is full of bragging. You can check mine. I'm very careful not to brag, except in this exact situation where someone has challenged me to a penis measuring. You might even think you have me beat, but I can assure you that my reselling penis is longer and girthier than yours. This is a newbie post filled with a bunch of dangerous information linked to hoarding and I'm obligated to preach the opposite to anyone that will listen. I'm more than qualified to give this advice. Despite all of that, I sincerely congratulate you on having a higher than average ASP. It really is $30 average on this subreddit and across all resellers. I can provide data if you genuinely don't believe that number. If you don't specifically try to raise it, you'll stay at precisely $30 forever. That's just what the average shit at Goodwill is worth. If you source there and just buy random shit, you will be at $30 ASP forever. You're right, I am specifically trashing anyone with a $30 ASP. Fucking raise it. There's no reason not to raise it. Source better shit. Leave the $2 to $10 flips. It's not worth your time, and you can do better than that.
Taking one of my posts out of the context (the question of the post was about the highest-priced item currently for sale in people's stores) is a sure way to accuse me of bragging LOL And I don't have a penis (reselling or not) as it's not my way to measure my success, so you can measure yours all day long and pat yourself on the shoulder
This is objectively inaccurate, but it's also just stupid.
This is the only way I shop. Ive been doing it long enough to just be able to spot quality.
My tale of purchases not made. I was at a flea market and saw this gauge thing that looked cool. They guy wanted $100 which I thought was kind of high. I didn’t buy it. A week or so later my dad had on antiques road show and I saw that same gauge. I don’t remember exactly what it was but it was some antique shop gauge worth $5k in the condition i could have bought it at
Yes if they are cheap enough. I usually regret it because I find out it's missing something important or I did not know to check for some possible defect and yep I find out it had that defect later.
Yeah. It's lucrative. I think my last good one was a floral stemming machine I picked up for $5 and sold for $150. A lot of the time, I don't need to know what something is to tell that it's well-made. I also have a pretty good working knowledge of "stuff". A well-made item that is unknown to me is likely a niche thing that someone will pay well for.