A few minutes drive from my job is a fairly new "junkers" store. It is kind of a mish mosh of an estate sale, thrift store, and flea market. The owner gathers all of his stock from a plethora of sources. He does estate clean outs, store clean outs, and even advertises for people to dump off their unsold yard sale items at his store for free. How convenient that he wants to take stuff off of their hands!
Pricing is pretty simple with a color coded system. Colored dots represent a specific cost, ranging from 75 cents up to $10, and then some prices are as marked. The store carries a wide variety of items from actual antiques to shelves full of cereal and kitchen cleaners. Some of the stuff that is posted for sale is actual junk - broken and severely chipped items, damaged goods, etc. There are other items that are fairly nice but priced high and thus not good for someone looking to resell. I know that the owner sells on eBay because I have heard him discuss with his fellow employees about items that he has placed on eBay and how much cash he is bringing in.Keeping this fact in mind, when I shop at this "junkers outlet" in the hopes of finding items to resell, I try to look for things that he perhaps overlooked. Owning a store and doing clean outs takes up a considerable amount of time, so I get into the mind frame of finding the smaller, inconspicuous items that could have been overlooked but could still make a profit.
A few weeks after Halloween I stopped in before work to see if there was anything new on the shelves and if Christmas stock was being put out yet. I ventured to the holiday section and to my surprise, found an overlooked treasure. In a plastic container sitting amongst the Halloween items was a set of seven blow mold owl lights, the kind that were/are popular for patios and RVs. The container also had a set of seven packaged light bulbs and the electric cord that held the lights. I thought for sure that these were going to be priced over $10, considering that the store owner is an eBay seller. I was sticker shocked when the colored dot on the owls corresponded with the $3 dot. A quick look on eBay left me with little to consider - the owl lights were now going home with me.
There were plenty of sold owl lights on eBay, along with auctions and Buy It Now options that were currently running. Most of the owl sets were the red, greens, and darker blues while the set I had were of a pastel color. Taking a look at the ending bids for those that had sold in the past month, I decided to start mine at a price that seemed comparable with the starting bids of others: $28.50. Within a day, I already had a bidder and it was nothing but up from there!
I felt a little tinge of satisfaction that I was able to flip this item that Mr. Junker didn't see the value in. This goes to show you that people in the reselling business - including myself - cannot know everything about everything. These owls were an easy flip and Mr. Junker could easily have listed them on eBay and made more than the $3 that I purchased them for. However, his loss was my gain and that's how it is in the reselling business.
We all have a niche and have been able to fine tune our eyes to spot the treasure amidst the trash. However, we all pass by objects sitting on shelves that are just glowing with dollar signs and profits to be made because we don't know - or haven't yet learned - certain maker's marks, specific rare toys, and silverware patterns. That is one of the best parts about this reselling business: We can learn! We can research, study, and get to know what can make us a profit so that we aren't glancing over valuable objects as we peruse the thrift store shelves.
~ Flea Fact ~
Give a hoot & research! Dedicate a few hours a week to searching on eBay for hot selling items, learn about a specific glass company, research a toy manufacturer. Learn a little about a lot and watch your profits come flying in!
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