If you’re a fan, like me, of the popular show Flea Market Flip on TV, then you’ve seen one of the latest trends happening today.
Teams of 2 compete by going to a large flea market, find 3 used or vintage items, turn them into updated, chic furniture or home decor, and resell them for a profit.
Whoever makes a larger net profit wins $5,000, and millions of fans see themselves jumping onto the bandwagon to go flea market flipping for profit! But can you really make money?
There’s no doubt that fantastic bargains can be found at flea markets and thrift stores. For those who know how to recognize the value in them and the ability to restore and market those bargains, there is great profit to be made. But that takes experience and commitment beyond the enjoyable hobby most people see it as.
But what if you can still enjoy your bargain hunting as a hobby AND make money promoting it? We’ll talk more about that, but first let’s check it out whether you can really make money!
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What is Flea Market Flipping?
Simply put, flea market flipping is purchasing an item at a flea market and then reselling it for a higher price. Some items can be resold as-is while some need to be restored or refurbished to bring their value back.
But the biggest trend going right now is upcycling! Upcycling is taking an item and refiguring it to become useful for something other than the original purpose. An example would be a ladder that is cut to lean against a wall with shelves and used as a bookcase.
Upcycling an item is probably the way to get the most profit out of it at resale, especially for those items that are no longer usable for their intended purpose. But it usually takes the most time and hard work to recreate it as well.
Getting Started Flipping For Profit
It’s not difficult to start finding your bargains at flea markets, and it doesn’t require a great deal of money. But there are things you’ll want to consider before loading up the pickup truck at your first sale:
- Take time to become familiar with the different flea markets and thrift stores in your area. The merchandise sold and the asking prices can vary greatly. Time is money and that’s never more true than when you’re searching for bargains.
- Have a plan for how you will be reselling your items. If you find a great deal on a washer and dryer, you’re probably going to be reselling them locally, but smaller items can be sold online and you’ll have shipping costs.
- Take a tablet or cellphone with you at all times to research the value of items and see what they are being sold for online. My in-laws once bought a box filled with vintage postcards from around the world for $1. They looked up how much similar items were being sold for on EBay, and each postcard was selling for a minimum of $3-$5 each. While others glanced in the box and saw nothing of value, my in-laws were instantly able to verify that they had found a treasure!
- Always carry cash–while vendors may accept credit card payments, many only want cash and avoid the hassles of dealing with credit cards. You don’t want to find a fantastic bargain just to find it gone when you get back from running to an ATM–vendors won’t hold it for you!
- Bring the right vehicle and someone to help carry large items. Vendors aren’t going to deliver or hold items for you past their closing time.
- Ensure that you have storage space and work space available for everything you purchase. If you wind up having nowhere to refinish a fabulous vanity or the beautiful Chippendale chairs you found, things won’t go well.
Finding the Best Items to Resell
So how do you find great bargains? Experience is king! If you’re going to create an income from reselling your flea market finds, you need the experience and knowledge to look beyond torn cushions and broken drawers and see if there’s a true hidden treasure there.
Can you distinguish whether a desk is solid wood or covered in veneer? Do you understand what customers see as shabby chic or just shabby? Will you be able to recognize when a piece is a true antique? You can actually lower the value of an antique if it’s not restored correctly.
If knowledge is king, then creativity is queen! If you’re upcycling, you need to have the ability to truly think outside the box and see the potential of items in a totally different way. That can be easy to imagine, but hard to actually do as you’re walking past booth after booth with hundreds of items.
Reselling For a Profit
Once you’ve found your bargains, you’ll need to get them ready to resell. This can take quite a bit of time depending on how much work needs to be done for each item. Any upcycling projects may require skills that someone else needs to help you with as well. Those projects on Flea Market Flip take a lot of help from experienced craftsmen to complete!
Then you’ll need to list your items for resale. This usually involves taking pictures, writing descriptions, figuring out your prices, and uploading everything to a platform such as EBay or to your own website. Once you make a sale, you’ll need to package and ship the items to your customers.
Keep in mind that all of these expenses–packaging materials, selling fees and more–need to be accounted for when figuring out your pricing.
The Verdict–More Than One Way to Make Money!
Yes, those with experience, passion, and drive can definitely make money. But, if you love finding great flea market bargains as a hobby without a lot of the hassles, there is another great way to earn an income–through affiliate marketing. This is where you’ll be promoting products related to your hobby on your own blog!
If you’ve ever been reading an article on a website and clicked on a link to a product or service, you have experienced affiliate marketing. If you purchased anything, an affiliate marketer received a commission–but you didn’t pay anything extra, so it’s a win-win!
Here’s how it works–from your own site you write articles about your hobby just as if you were talking to someone about it. You can promote products or services in these articles to let people know about the ones you find useful or enjoy. If someone links to them from your site and makes a purchase, you earn a commission!
You may be thinking what I did when someone suggested it to me, “Whoa! Now we’re getting into something complicated!” But what I found is that technology has made it easier than I had ever imagined. Creating your own website can be done with a few clicks of your mouse in under two minutes.
Most people enjoy discussing their interests and hobbies–what they like, what they use, how they do it. If you can communicate those things, you can be a success with affiliate marketing!
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When I started out, I had no experience at all and benefited from some training. So I started my blog through Wealthy Affiliate and learned everything I needed to in order to become successful–I have 6 websites with them now!
Their community based platform was just what I needed to get the support of experts in the field and answer all my questions. If you’re interested in checking them out, you can sign up for a free membership to see everything they have to offer–no credit card required!
Have fun finding those great flea market bargains! If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to leave them below. We love hearing from you here at Build Your Early Retirement!
Such a simple in essence yet profound idea to find stuff improve it and sell it. 🙂
Sadly, I feel this might not be that great for me as a business opportunity as I’m really no good of a craftsman. Or should I rather say, craftswomen. Well, but I know a few people who would probably benefit greatly. Will forward this to them. 🙂
It was a fun read, in truth, beforehand I had no idea about upcycling or just in general that the idea of buying and upgrading simple items and products can make for a good income if you get a hang of it and have some innate skills or talent for doing the necessary improvements, thus, increasing the value of the object.
Thank you for all the information shared. <3
Have a Wonderful Day!
You’re very welcome and have a wonderful day as well!
For me upcycling sounds like something extremely sophisticated. Was happy to learn that it sort of actually is a sophistication of an item. I really love the concept. I bet people who are genuinely creative in their essence can make a big buck doing this (as you also implied).
The term “flee market” I do, however, find a bit confusing. Probably because English is not my native tongue. 🙂
Either way, I completely agree with you the experience being the biggest contributor to finding bargains. I mean, where inexperienced people see a bunch of junk that can’t be used for anything, I bet there is some hothead who can find a way how to upgrade it and make a good profit.
Enjoyed the read, thank you!
Cheers, and have a Great One!
Matiss
I’m glad you enjoyed the post! For those who can spot a great bargain or have a creative flair for seeing the potential in items, this is a great money-making hobby or business. Cheers to you as well!
Thanks for such informative post, I really didn’t know much about flea market flipping until now. Reading your post best explains it to my understanding finding items at low prices which you can then resell online or locally to make a profit. It’s such a simple concept, buy low and sell high so you can make money. Thanks for this interesting post, I hope to use it generate good income.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post! Keep in mind that there is a lot of work to be done between buying low and selling high. But if you are willing to put in the time and effort, it can be a great way to turn your hobby into a business!
Hey Janelle,
I read your article on flea market flipping for profit, this is an impressive article. This article gives very good ideas to implement the ideas. you said that, it can be profitable. To my opinion, this platform would be a great deal for someone who is really creative . I have to say that this can be a total legit business model with a bit of creativity. This would make an excellent complementary way to earn some extra money because it can be worked on at any time of day or night. Thank you so much for such a helpful review.
You’re welcome, and I’m glad you found it helpful!
The show looks a whole lot like a TV series i enjoyed some years back.But these days, i don’t spend much time on TV, probably why the name “flea market flipping” looks foreign to me.I must confess, you found a way to make this somewhat interesting, even though i’ve observed that most reviews are downright boring,In the case of upcycling, do you think, it still possible to make quality products out of the one at hand; knowing fully well that quality is a great determinant when building for profits
I think it’s definitely possible to make quality products that people will buy out of the things you can find at a flea market. If you make items that have a purpose that people are looking for, that will look attractive in their home, and offer them at a good price, you’ll make money–especially for the one-of-a-kind pieces that everybody loves!
Thanks for this great informative and educative article I love the idea of creative reuse and refurbishment of old stuff. I think this platform would be a great deal for someone who is really creative and can bring life out of a product. This can be a totally legit business with little creativity.I will not recommend this for anyone looking for quick cash, because some items might not sell!
You’re right about things not selling the way you planned. If you’re looking to do flea market flipping to earn money, you have to be able to spend a lot of time without any guarantee of making the profit you hoped for. But experience is key, and soon you’ll know what sells and what doesn’t!
Flea markets can be a great way to make some extra money, especially if you make your own goods. Knowing how to get approved as a flea market vendor, the best way to set up your booth, and how to get the most of your selling time are all important parts of becoming a flea market vendor and many more. But have not use it before but I start soon since it profitable from what I go through in this article
There are so many things you can do with flea market finds and ways to make money. But for me, I only enjoy it as a hobby. I absolutely love to see what other people do with what they find, especially those who are good at upcycling and turning things into unique art and furniture pieces!
What a great article with loads of sound advice. You give that kind of advice that only experience can earn. I have never heard it called Flea Market Flipping, and have never seen the program however the idea of seeking a used bargain and passing it on for profit has to be one of the oldest extra cash schemes in the world.
I absolutely love finding unique things at a flea market, but it’s no fun for me trying to make a business out of it. Now I have the best of both worlds–an online business and a great flea market hobby!
I like something like this Flea Market Flipping because of the challenge it requires. Things like this are not actually scam to me because there is nothing there that promises mouthwatering money with little or no job to do. The upcycling stuffs is what really interests me most. I think it is a goo way to go for me
If you’re handy and creative, you could definitely make some money flipping flea market finds–good luck!
To be honest flea market flipping sounds like it could work, but as you’ve said knowledge and experience is important and probably is the key to making it work. Regular people like me wouldn’t know just by looking at a desk whether it’s worth $100 or $1000. I would probably lose a lot of money doing this and have lots of unsold inventory. Maybe I could try to find free items instead that way there’s nothing to lose, have you heard about people who dumpster dive and earn money that way?
Definitely! In fact, there’s a retired man in our town who drives around every day looking for things that people put out on the curb for trash. He loves finding all sorts of things that he can refurnish, restore, or even just fix and resell. He posts the items for sale on Facebook and has a great hobby that makes him some money in his retirement!
Flea market flipping sounds like a bit of fun. I love this topic and you have divulged some really good tips A friend of mine makes a lot of money sourcing old knitting and crochet books in all the op shops she visits. She then sells them on Ebay.
I would think it would be best to go for the smaller articles unless you have a ute or a trailer. Larger items would cost more to post as well as being more cumbersome to handle. I love the concept and think it would be a great way for students or retirees to earn a few extra dollars.
You concluded with a bit about affiliate marketing. and being part of Wealthy Affiliate. This would make an excellent complementary way to earn some extra money because it can be worked on at any time of day or night.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. Thank you.
After my in-laws retired, they loved going to farm auctions and estate sales to find items to sell on eBay. You are right, items that are smaller and easier to handle worked best for them and were a lot less hassle!
There are many people who love to do the same thing, but as a hobby and not a full-time job. Those are the people who may be interested in Affiliate Marketing. It’s a great way to immerse yourself in a hobby and connect with others who share your passion–and make money while you’re at it!
Hi Janelle,
I love the idea of up-cycling and even just refub the old stuff. Although, I am not a massive fan of buy-sell business model. I mean we are now in a 21st century. The model of buy cheap sell expensive doesn’t work anymore. People want to be the part of the story of the product.
From my point, this platform would be a great deal for someone who is really creative and can bring a second life to a product. I wouldn’t even be afraid to say that this can be a total legit business model with a bit of creativity.
I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone looking for some quick $$$.
Why?
Simply because you might end up buying lots of stuff you wont be able to sell afterwards.
Cheers,
Eugen
There are definitely people making a living flea market flipping! I’m one of those people who loves to go to flea markets and estate sales as a hobby, but not as a full time job.
So if someone has the passion and creativity, they could make a big success upselling flea market items. If they’re like me, they could make money blogging about it!
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!
This is an awesome article my wife and I are huge fans of Flea Market Flip. It’s so interesting to see how they turn a $20-$30 item into something so amazing and sell them for $300-$400 for turnkey profit. I enjoy reading the outline process of finding my own products using the technique mention in your article. I appreciate your tips in finding my own Flea Market Flip to make some money.
I am a big fan of the show as well, good luck with your flea market flipping!
I was looking for this kind of program and I heard success stories all over the internet. I also think that it can take a lot of time to get them ready to sell. However I have question about the training. How long does it take to learn all the necessary stuff about it?
How long it takes to learn it all depends upon how quickly you can get through the lessons and implement them on Hoyt website. Those who have more time, are more committed, or are more computer savvy will be able to get thru all of the lessons quicker.
Anyone can do it, they just need to know it will take time and is not a make money tomorrow program, those don’t exist! Thanks for stopping by!
Hey Janelle:
For a while, in my younger days, I had a lot of fun being a vendor at the Maui Swap Meet. It was a family affair. My husband and our two kids came with.
The kids learned about making money and marketing, my husband got interested in becoming a serious artisan (he carved Hawaiian stone implements that ended up being sold in art galleries) and, me, I got early lessons in building a hands-on, direct sales business.
It really was a lovely learning experience for all of us.
Thanks for the memories….
It sounds like a wonderful experience for your whole family where everybody got to learn a lot! Thanks for stopping by!
One of the challenges people encounter is having good ideas and no vehicle to implement the good ideas to convert them into real results.
This article gives both good ideas and a vehicle to implement the very ideas. I strong feel that, the flea market option coupled with Affiliate marketing approach, is such a powerful combination worth exploring.
These are very great ideas on getting the retirement plan well laid out with something that can easily be managed.
The advantage of the affiliate marketing recommend here, is that it is well structured and easy to follow, which makes it more practical and enjoyable too.
Thank you for taking the time to visit my site and comment! After my in-laws retired, they loved going to farm and estate sales and finding items to resell on EBay Their profits gave them the money to travel more than they otherwise would have been able to, and they connected with people who shared similar interests from all over the world.
They loved it so much that they enjoyed all the effort they had to put into it, but a lot of people don’t have the same kind of time. That’s why I love affiliate marketing so much–I can enjoy my hobbies and still make money blogging about them without all the hassle of doing any selling, shipping, deadlines, etc.
Thank you again for stopping by!
It’s a good story of what you said about the Flea Market Flipping about the disadvantages and sub-ways that involve it besides the fact that if you have enough stuff about it, it can be profitable, but whoever engages in the Flea Market Flipping from now on will guess twice if he invests in it. Janelle, is a good article, in which you have written about it, it is well pretended and useful for those interested.
I was very interested in trying to do flea market flipping because I love to restore and refinish furniture. But when I looked at what it really involved, I realized that my hobby may not be so “fun” anymore and wanted to keep doing it when I wanted to, not when I had to. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment!
I honestly haven’t seen the show “flea market flipping”, but it definitely sounds like something I would like to see. Who doesn’t love a good flea market right. It is the perfect place to look for something antique or something that has character but needs a little TLC.
I would think that there would be a ton of people into this. I know If I come across something to make it worth my while then I might have to give this a try. Thank you for the tips on getting started and finding the best items.
You are welcome, and thanks for taking the time to comment!