Tips for Flipping Products on Facebook Market Place to Make Money
Whether you’re a stay at home mom looking to make money on the side or trying to find a little extra money to pay off debt, flipping products on Facebook market place can be a great way to make a little side income to pay the bills. Let’s chat on how I use it to make side money. While this post is primarily focused on marketplace, it can be applicable to many other platforms, however you may also need to learn shipping to leverage other platforms.
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Finding Products to Flip on Marketplace:
As with anything new, I recommend learning the cheapest way possible. Start with things you have in your home that you no longer want or need before you go looking for things outside your home.
Look for things that have value, generally don’t list things that are broken (unless when fixed it has a high value) or that need to be cleaned, etc. You want to post desirable items.
If items are worth less than $5, you can list correlating items in a group listing to entice people to feel like the listing is more “worth it” in terms of picking up (cheaper listings aren’t always better). So don’t pass up small items too quickly, you can always make them a package deal and list seperate prices in case others want to purchase just one item.
If you have exhausted all of your items at home, here are a few of my favorite places to pick up items to flip:
Thrift stores (I really like small, locally owned stores or charity based stores that are not for profit, because you find the best deals and contribute to the best causes).
Auction sites — I like ctbids.com and hibid.com, but there might be other local auction sites in your area.
Garage Sales — Not the best use of time efficiency, but you can find some good pieces. I recommend hitting community rummages so that you can check out a lot of rummages at once.
Bin stores — I love bin stores. You can to have a lot of grit to sort through them, but the price per pound you’ll pay for your treasure can really be worth it.
How to List Your Products on Facebook Market Place
This is probably the hardest part. Your listing will be important to getting eyeballs on your product and ultimately, getting it sold.
First, you want to take well lit, clear and clean photos of the product. Find a place in your house that ideally has great natural light or overhead lighting. If you don’t have one of those, you can invest in a box light like this (especially if you end up flipping a lot of products, this will allow you to take pictures at any time of day, looking at you moms).
Next, make sure you take good measurements of your piece. If size is very important, you can take pictures of the product with a measuring tape in the background. I highly recommend this for things like furniture, clothes (at a minimum the brand size, but things like inseam, pit to pit length, etc helps), etc.
This will help the buyer and also help you in not answering the same questions a million times (hopefully). You will still probably get “is this available” and ghosting more times than you can count, but that comes with the territory.
Be as descriptive as possible. Try to envision any question someone may have. It helps build trust with the buyer and again, helps save you headache of too many questions and also gives confidence in the buyer that they will be getting what they are meeting up for. No one wants to waste their time, so being clear and upfront about any potential dents, dings and stains is important to.
Consider looking into a crash course on SEO (read some articles, I don’t recommend paying for anything quite yet). Search Engine Optimization will be important for helping you show up in people’s searches. Here’s an example: You’re listing a dresser. Well a dresser can be called a chest of drawers, armoire, etc. Creating your listing alternating those words (given they are accurate) will help you show up no matter what term someone uses to search.
Price it right. Look at what others in your area are listing a similar product for in your area. Figure out if you’re looking for a quick flip (price lower) or willing to wait for a buyer (pricing higher). You can also reference Ebay and other online sites, as people will consider all their options if their willing to buy something used, so those can be good references too.
What Should My Profit Margin Be?
Did I mention I was a CPA in another life (before having kids and being a professional boogie wiper and diaper changer)?
What your profit margin should be is all going to be different based on what you value your time at, and how much effort you want to put into getting items sold.
Some people are okay with just making a quick $5 or $10, and to be sure, you can do really well with high value, lower priced items. In those cases, you will likely want to be comfortable with people picking up at your home or meeting you while you’re already doing errands so that you don’t accumulate the cost of gas (and more time). This may depend greatly depending where you live. I’m in the boonies about 40 minutes from a Walmart, but when I lived in the city, I may have been more willing to meet people.
For larger profit or bigger sized things, consider offering delivery for a fee if it adds more convenience for the buyer. When I flip furniture, I always offer this because not everyone has the means to transport, and is happy to pay someone to do the leg work instead of finding a truck, finding a friend, etc.
In retail, the standard markup is usually 3X cost. This isn’t a hard a fast rule, and you should use your judgement. I.e. If you pick up an item worth $50 for $1, you would want to price it higher than $3. Similarly, if you have an item you know will sell quick, and you bought it for $15 and it’s worth $40, maybe $25 is a better price but you know it will be a quick sell.
It truly is all about what is worth it to YOU, and you will discover that more and more over time, and it may change depending on what stage of life you are in too.
Join Local Garage Sale Pages
Don’t sleep on posting your listing in local garage sale pages. Typically, you can cross post your listing in at least 20 garage sale pages, so find as many as you can in the surrounding areas.
It actually helps me sell things a lot being in a more rural area. I will post my item in the local biggest city as my location, so that it is seen by more people, because I do errands there often, so meeting someone there would be no issue. But I also cross post in all the local cities and towns around me, so that if people are near me and are interested, they will see it too.
Plus, sometimes people aren’t always actively searching for something, but when they see your posting, they get interested or reminded that is an item they were looking for. It can also allow people to tag your post to other people. This is great because sometimes our friends can be on the lookout for us i.e. you told your best friend you want a blue dresser, she sees a Facebook Marketplace Post in her local garage sale group and tags you. Now you are seeing that listing too.
Be Patient, and Re-List When It’s Not Working
Sometimes it takes patience finding the right buyer. It can take weeks or longer to sell an item, so it’s important to stay patient. Having a large inventory can help you continue to get sales (and can also mean a larger investment up front).
When something isn’t selling, consider re-listing with a different description and new photos before you adjust price. If that doesn’t work, consider adjusting your price or grouping it with other items.
You are essentially a marketer now, so you need to be creative to get your products sold.
Anything I missed? Comment below with your tips or follow up questions.