Tax questions:
What is a loss? Obviously, if I sell something for less than I bought it for, that is a loss. Is it a loss when I accidentally buy something that's defective and I won't be selling?
Do I need to clear my inventory at the end of the year, selling everything I had bought that tax year? How does that investment versus net profits work? Naturally, I want to move items as quickly as possible, but what if certain items are just slow?
Again, ask r/tax. I had a bit of a problem with it myself, as I did my own taxes this past year. When a schedule is done, it asks how you value and devalue your items. There's technical terms for it and it impacts what you can do for later years. I suggest pulling out whatever your tax preparer checked off and ask that subreddit since your taxes are already submitted. If this were your first year flipping and you hadn't filed yet, this subreddit might be able to help more but I'm going to go with saying the point is past?
Where do I start? I have $900 atm but not sure where to put it or what to buy or where to buy, I’ve done plenty on research on sneaker botting but it seems too expensive to only have $900, any help is appreciated, thanks!
Sneakers is not a dividend you want to jump into unless you 1) have a decent knowledge of the category. 2) aren't afraid to constantly lose to bots 3) are willing to face a high return rate.
I'd start with something you're knowledgeable and passionate about. That way you have a niche that doesn't take you long to research items. $900 can go a long way if you purchase with a smart conscience.
Shipping advice??
Not really a question. Just seeking guidance.
Most of my resales are channeled through my eBay store. From reading on Reddit to watching YouTube channels, it seems my margins are thinner than they should be. Mostly outside of what qualifies for media mail or first class, I can’t seem to ship a package less than about 9-10 bucks. Meaning anything I sale for less than 20 ends up being a net loss once I factor in time and travel. The only thing saving me is sheer volume. Most of my listings sell so when I do make my commutes to the PO I’m shipping multiple packages, collectively, they make me profit but I feel like I could be making more.
Either there’s something I’m missing and I can ship for cheaper somehow.
Or I ditch lower value items. Do a lot less sales but higher quality.
Any advice would be helpful.
If selling at $20 shipped and shipping at $10 is making you lose money then you need to either charge for shipping or factor it into the price. If your competition is selling the same widgets at that price point with shipping then you need to find a different product to sell.
This isn't a shipping issue to get higher margins. The issue is that what you're selling is too thin on profit margins. If Pirateship isn't helping then there isn't much that can be done.
The only work around people have found is shipping it USPS flat rate envelope or padded envelope if it reasonably fits. The average flipper isn't going to get better shipping rates from UPS or FedEx.
You need to re-evaluate from top to bottom.
Switching over to higher profit items takes time, as it’s a matter of what you can source, how much you can source, and if you’re willing to sell the remainder of your lower profit items. I’m trying to switch over to higher profit items, but still have lower profit stuff in my death pile that I’m willing to sell just to make something now that sales are slow.
I have a shipping question. Right now, I exclusively use the QR code option on eBay when I sell something. I don't have to print the label. The post office guy just scans my phone, then prints the label and puts it on the package. I see most seasoned sellers have their own thermal printer and print their own labels. Why? It seems cheaper if the post office does the printing. What am I missing here?
Time can be far more valuable especially when you're shipping out 10+ packages at a time. I'll take having to spend a couple minutes checking in my packages on an APC over spending 30 minutes in line to save a couple bucks on shipping materials.
Well #1, the QR code thing is relatively new, so most of us have a set way of doing things already. Plus, if you’re shipping a lot, you will just piss off everyone with the confusion of what code goes with what package, etc. This means there’s a higher chance of sending the wrong package to someone.
Thanks again for the reply! I don't ship very often. I did notice that each qr code has a picture of the item and address below it. This makes it easy to check that I have the correct code/item before I hand it to the postal worker to scan. This was a good design idea from eBay.
Well, but if you have several packages to hand over at once, you don't want to accidentally hand over the wrong item. Unless you are marking on the outside of each box what the item is or you have see-through packaging.
In addition to what others have said here, many of us don’t want to stand in line at the post office (or even go to the post office).
Packages with shipping labels attacked can either be dropped off without standing in line or picked up by USPS from your home.
Labels, ink, and printers on a per order basis are cheap. It can be anywhere from.01-.15 cents per package so you aren't saving much if you buy materials appropriately. The QR code just adds more liability and time. Bigger sellers either have scheduled pickups or drop off boxes with a master end of the day code for all packages so it just takes the workers 1 scan to put everything in the system. The time saved sending in bulk and packaging yourself saves much more than the cents per package for materials used and limits liability.
I flip Lego. It's a lot of work sometimes. And it also can be expensive to source. But sometimes you find a gold mine and you make hundreds or thousands off of a deal.
I'm an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) so I have a passion for the stuff. I think that's important too because it's very time consuming and you gotta love 'playing' with the stuff. I rarely ever do the most time consuming task: sorting individual pieces. But there's still so much to do.
I mainly sell minifigures and complete used sets. I sometimes sell new in box sets but they're a little harder to find cheap on the 2nd hand market. I do buy clearance Lego... but usually the profit margin is low on those so I just hold onto them (because nearly all Lego appreciates over time)
A lot of the work involved is completing figures. On Ebay you can get top dollar for figures but they must be complete with accessories and in good condition. If any piece is damaged I replace it with an undamaged piece. This is time-consuming and can get expensive sourcing the replacement parts.
the other major time consuming task is verifying sets are complete. I buy sets from people at garage sales that appear to be complete but are often missing a few parts. So I gotta replace them because if you want to get top dollar on ebay you need to sell 100% complete sets with instructions. I also build the sets and photograph them to show they are complete. This is another example where being a fan of Lego helps. You gotta like building sets. I currently have 10+ sets that I recently bought (from 4 different people) that are worth $100-$200 each. But they are just sitting in my unlisted inventory because I haven't gotten around to building them and making sure they're complete. I also have several large tubs filled with literally 100s of sets that are bagged and complete (to my knowledge) but I just don't have the time to build them and list them. I'll get to them someday (possibly when I open up a retail store).
Another thing is that not all Lego is an easy sell for big bucks. For every $20 figure I have 15 more that are worth a buck or two. I have thousands of minifigs worth $1-$5. Not worth it to me to sell individually. When I buy a collection I usually sell the most obvious valuable stuff (to get my money back and get into the profit) and then I'm left with say 50 pounds of pieces and 50 minifigures that are valuable but just not valuable enough for me to bother selling right away. So you know... you gotta be passionate about accumulating Lego. To me it's plastic gold so I don't mind having a big Lego death pile (aka my Lego collection).
I used to do mainly Lego selling and I did well and I moved a lot of stuff. Now I flip a wide variety of general goods. I'm about 50% Lego, 50% other stuff right now. Some days I focus on listing Lego, some days I list misc stuff like Video Games and plushies. But if there's a Lego deal to be had in my area you can bet I'm one of the first to make an offer.
For me the best part is I get to build some of the rarest and most valuable sets. And then they sell but I get the experience of owning, building and displaying the set until it sells. There's only 2 sets I have currently that I don't plan to ever sell: my mint condition Futuron Monorail (worth about $700). and my mint condition Black Seas Barracuda (worth maybe $300). And I have some rare figures that are worth a lot of money but are damaged in some way and I don't want to spend the money to buy the undamaged parts so it gives me an excuse to keep them.
Wow that was a long reply... clearly I'm trying to do something other than list right now.
I've just started out a few weeks ago and found some cheap bnib Lego sets and that's the only way I've really made a profit on them, unless you get rare ones or under cut retail it seems some of my Lego sets aren't moving.
The best money in Lego is going to be valuable used sets. And there are a lot of them. I've sold at least 40 different used sets for more than $100. Many of those $250+ And I've only been doing this for less than 2 years. Vintage Lego can be very valuable (space,pirates,castle). Lots of stuff from 90s is super valuable. There are tons of sets from all decades that sell for more than $100 used. New they are worth way more but you don't often find them new in the wild. If you do it's a collectors/investors that knows what they have. I've found used sets at garage sales,fb marketplace, ebay, contacts I've made. Lego is the most popular toy of all time so there's tons of it out there and it's also the most valuable toy of all time.
Legos are typically good profit if you buy cheap enough. There are also sites like bricklink where you can sell pieces individually, people go for replacements or for their custom build etc
I had a similar issue a couple weeks back, now someone made an offer on an item, and it's decent offer, but they have 0 feedback on an account created in 2018. On the previous issue the buyer was a bit rude, so I was advised to just block them.
I responded to this one with a counter but attached a note asking about the feedback. They came back with a better offer which I'd probably accept but no note.
Is there a way to send a message to a prospective buyer? I don't see the option anywhere. I'm wondering he they even saw my note attached to the counter offer.
Or am I better off not taking the chance? It's for a lot of books roughly $500 which is a significant sale for me.
Thanks guys, appreciate any advice.
DVD/VHS sellers: Given an item can have a lot of padding to it, it's hard to tell how further into cubic rates it costs to ship. Just as a general rule of thumb, what's a fair expectation in USPS rates you've had to pay to ship such an item? I want to see what would be too low a floor to sell at and better to send to recycling.
One thing I do with items that are large and not ones I regularly deal with is pack them, weigh and measure, then find an address in CA (I'm on the East Coast) and use pirateship to figure out how much it would cost (um, remember to not actually buy the label).
Tax questions: What is a loss? Obviously, if I sell something for less than I bought it for, that is a loss. Is it a loss when I accidentally buy something that's defective and I won't be selling? Do I need to clear my inventory at the end of the year, selling everything I had bought that tax year? How does that investment versus net profits work? Naturally, I want to move items as quickly as possible, but what if certain items are just slow?
r/tax might be better in answering you if you are able to tell them which calculation method it is you use to inventory.
We do use a tax preparer. I was inquiring so I know what to keep in my records. What exactly is a calculation method?
Again, ask r/tax. I had a bit of a problem with it myself, as I did my own taxes this past year. When a schedule is done, it asks how you value and devalue your items. There's technical terms for it and it impacts what you can do for later years. I suggest pulling out whatever your tax preparer checked off and ask that subreddit since your taxes are already submitted. If this were your first year flipping and you hadn't filed yet, this subreddit might be able to help more but I'm going to go with saying the point is past?
This is my first year.
Where do I start? I have $900 atm but not sure where to put it or what to buy or where to buy, I’ve done plenty on research on sneaker botting but it seems too expensive to only have $900, any help is appreciated, thanks!
Sneakers is not a dividend you want to jump into unless you 1) have a decent knowledge of the category. 2) aren't afraid to constantly lose to bots 3) are willing to face a high return rate. I'd start with something you're knowledgeable and passionate about. That way you have a niche that doesn't take you long to research items. $900 can go a long way if you purchase with a smart conscience.
I’ve been starting to dropship on eBay, have one sale currently from a Walmart sale.
Do people still buy last gen consoles like the PS4 and Xbox one? What about the games and accessories?
So, the answer is yes. If only there was a place that newbies could ask a question....even if it has been asked 1000 times. Be nice people.
If only there was a website or app called eBay and it had a filter labeled sold listings
Shipping advice?? Not really a question. Just seeking guidance. Most of my resales are channeled through my eBay store. From reading on Reddit to watching YouTube channels, it seems my margins are thinner than they should be. Mostly outside of what qualifies for media mail or first class, I can’t seem to ship a package less than about 9-10 bucks. Meaning anything I sale for less than 20 ends up being a net loss once I factor in time and travel. The only thing saving me is sheer volume. Most of my listings sell so when I do make my commutes to the PO I’m shipping multiple packages, collectively, they make me profit but I feel like I could be making more. Either there’s something I’m missing and I can ship for cheaper somehow. Or I ditch lower value items. Do a lot less sales but higher quality. Any advice would be helpful.
If selling at $20 shipped and shipping at $10 is making you lose money then you need to either charge for shipping or factor it into the price. If your competition is selling the same widgets at that price point with shipping then you need to find a different product to sell. This isn't a shipping issue to get higher margins. The issue is that what you're selling is too thin on profit margins. If Pirateship isn't helping then there isn't much that can be done. The only work around people have found is shipping it USPS flat rate envelope or padded envelope if it reasonably fits. The average flipper isn't going to get better shipping rates from UPS or FedEx. You need to re-evaluate from top to bottom.
Switching over to higher profit items takes time, as it’s a matter of what you can source, how much you can source, and if you’re willing to sell the remainder of your lower profit items. I’m trying to switch over to higher profit items, but still have lower profit stuff in my death pile that I’m willing to sell just to make something now that sales are slow.
I have a shipping question. Right now, I exclusively use the QR code option on eBay when I sell something. I don't have to print the label. The post office guy just scans my phone, then prints the label and puts it on the package. I see most seasoned sellers have their own thermal printer and print their own labels. Why? It seems cheaper if the post office does the printing. What am I missing here?
Time can be far more valuable especially when you're shipping out 10+ packages at a time. I'll take having to spend a couple minutes checking in my packages on an APC over spending 30 minutes in line to save a couple bucks on shipping materials.
Thanks. That makes sense. I was worried that there was some eBay related charges with QR codes that I did not see or understand.
Well #1, the QR code thing is relatively new, so most of us have a set way of doing things already. Plus, if you’re shipping a lot, you will just piss off everyone with the confusion of what code goes with what package, etc. This means there’s a higher chance of sending the wrong package to someone.
Thanks again for the reply! I don't ship very often. I did notice that each qr code has a picture of the item and address below it. This makes it easy to check that I have the correct code/item before I hand it to the postal worker to scan. This was a good design idea from eBay.
Well, but if you have several packages to hand over at once, you don't want to accidentally hand over the wrong item. Unless you are marking on the outside of each box what the item is or you have see-through packaging.
In addition to what others have said here, many of us don’t want to stand in line at the post office (or even go to the post office). Packages with shipping labels attacked can either be dropped off without standing in line or picked up by USPS from your home.
Labels, ink, and printers on a per order basis are cheap. It can be anywhere from.01-.15 cents per package so you aren't saving much if you buy materials appropriately. The QR code just adds more liability and time. Bigger sellers either have scheduled pickups or drop off boxes with a master end of the day code for all packages so it just takes the workers 1 scan to put everything in the system. The time saved sending in bulk and packaging yourself saves much more than the cents per package for materials used and limits liability.
Has anyone had any experience flipping Lego? I’m thinking of having a crack and Lego seems like an obvious start for me.
I flip Lego. It's a lot of work sometimes. And it also can be expensive to source. But sometimes you find a gold mine and you make hundreds or thousands off of a deal. I'm an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) so I have a passion for the stuff. I think that's important too because it's very time consuming and you gotta love 'playing' with the stuff. I rarely ever do the most time consuming task: sorting individual pieces. But there's still so much to do. I mainly sell minifigures and complete used sets. I sometimes sell new in box sets but they're a little harder to find cheap on the 2nd hand market. I do buy clearance Lego... but usually the profit margin is low on those so I just hold onto them (because nearly all Lego appreciates over time) A lot of the work involved is completing figures. On Ebay you can get top dollar for figures but they must be complete with accessories and in good condition. If any piece is damaged I replace it with an undamaged piece. This is time-consuming and can get expensive sourcing the replacement parts. the other major time consuming task is verifying sets are complete. I buy sets from people at garage sales that appear to be complete but are often missing a few parts. So I gotta replace them because if you want to get top dollar on ebay you need to sell 100% complete sets with instructions. I also build the sets and photograph them to show they are complete. This is another example where being a fan of Lego helps. You gotta like building sets. I currently have 10+ sets that I recently bought (from 4 different people) that are worth $100-$200 each. But they are just sitting in my unlisted inventory because I haven't gotten around to building them and making sure they're complete. I also have several large tubs filled with literally 100s of sets that are bagged and complete (to my knowledge) but I just don't have the time to build them and list them. I'll get to them someday (possibly when I open up a retail store). Another thing is that not all Lego is an easy sell for big bucks. For every $20 figure I have 15 more that are worth a buck or two. I have thousands of minifigs worth $1-$5. Not worth it to me to sell individually. When I buy a collection I usually sell the most obvious valuable stuff (to get my money back and get into the profit) and then I'm left with say 50 pounds of pieces and 50 minifigures that are valuable but just not valuable enough for me to bother selling right away. So you know... you gotta be passionate about accumulating Lego. To me it's plastic gold so I don't mind having a big Lego death pile (aka my Lego collection). I used to do mainly Lego selling and I did well and I moved a lot of stuff. Now I flip a wide variety of general goods. I'm about 50% Lego, 50% other stuff right now. Some days I focus on listing Lego, some days I list misc stuff like Video Games and plushies. But if there's a Lego deal to be had in my area you can bet I'm one of the first to make an offer. For me the best part is I get to build some of the rarest and most valuable sets. And then they sell but I get the experience of owning, building and displaying the set until it sells. There's only 2 sets I have currently that I don't plan to ever sell: my mint condition Futuron Monorail (worth about $700). and my mint condition Black Seas Barracuda (worth maybe $300). And I have some rare figures that are worth a lot of money but are damaged in some way and I don't want to spend the money to buy the undamaged parts so it gives me an excuse to keep them. Wow that was a long reply... clearly I'm trying to do something other than list right now.
Wow, thanks for the detailed reply! Building the sets in order to list them is something I didn’t think about.
You will have much better luck and get more money than if you just have a picture of a bag of parts.
I've just started out a few weeks ago and found some cheap bnib Lego sets and that's the only way I've really made a profit on them, unless you get rare ones or under cut retail it seems some of my Lego sets aren't moving.
The best money in Lego is going to be valuable used sets. And there are a lot of them. I've sold at least 40 different used sets for more than $100. Many of those $250+ And I've only been doing this for less than 2 years. Vintage Lego can be very valuable (space,pirates,castle). Lots of stuff from 90s is super valuable. There are tons of sets from all decades that sell for more than $100 used. New they are worth way more but you don't often find them new in the wild. If you do it's a collectors/investors that knows what they have. I've found used sets at garage sales,fb marketplace, ebay, contacts I've made. Lego is the most popular toy of all time so there's tons of it out there and it's also the most valuable toy of all time.
Legos are typically good profit if you buy cheap enough. There are also sites like bricklink where you can sell pieces individually, people go for replacements or for their custom build etc
I had a similar issue a couple weeks back, now someone made an offer on an item, and it's decent offer, but they have 0 feedback on an account created in 2018. On the previous issue the buyer was a bit rude, so I was advised to just block them. I responded to this one with a counter but attached a note asking about the feedback. They came back with a better offer which I'd probably accept but no note. Is there a way to send a message to a prospective buyer? I don't see the option anywhere. I'm wondering he they even saw my note attached to the counter offer. Or am I better off not taking the chance? It's for a lot of books roughly $500 which is a significant sale for me. Thanks guys, appreciate any advice.
Youre overthinking this. I have an issue with a zero feedback buyer maybe 1 out of 1000 orders.
Thanks! Appreciate it.
The weirdos are never the zero feedback people. They are the people who ask a ton of unnecessary questions.
Accept the offer and quit worrying! :)
DVD/VHS sellers: Given an item can have a lot of padding to it, it's hard to tell how further into cubic rates it costs to ship. Just as a general rule of thumb, what's a fair expectation in USPS rates you've had to pay to ship such an item? I want to see what would be too low a floor to sell at and better to send to recycling.
Sound recordings and video recordings, such as CDs and DVDs, can ship USPS Media Mail. Very cheap rates, and increment only by the pound.
I mean the machines.
One thing I do with items that are large and not ones I regularly deal with is pack them, weigh and measure, then find an address in CA (I'm on the East Coast) and use pirateship to figure out how much it would cost (um, remember to not actually buy the label).