Thankfully, you have someone who’s sufficiently lazy and cheap to have already come up with some low-cost solutions to these problems.

Boxes and Packing Materials

Buy Online or Wholesale

Packing materials are a significant expense – don’t underestimate them. If you go out and buy packing materials in retail stores (e.g., Target) on an incidental basis, you’ll find that it’s quite a significant cut of your profits, especially on “bubble-mailer” items: video games, small electronics, etc.

Whether you find a good local wholesaler or not, always check eBay for bulk deals on “light” shipping essentials (e.g. Scotch Bubble Wrap, for $3/50ft roll which runs $5-$10/roll retail).

Also, don’t skimp on the tape: I recommend using Uline Clear Industrial Shipping Tape with a Uline Tape Gun. Crappy tape is harder to apply quickly and makes your life more miserable than it already is.

Scavenge Materials

My current apartment building has a cardboard-only dumpster. To me, this = free boxes, and even better, free packing materials (cardboard can be used as spacing/padding material in lieu of popcorn, shredded paper, etc.). Give dumpster diving a shot, especially for really big boxes that can often cost $7-15 to purchase. Checking behind retail stores is also a good idea. I went behind Guitar Center in search of a box to ship a guitar in and, unsurprisingly, found one. If you feel that property issues may be at play (in some places dumpster diving is illegal), simply ask an employee. Usually, the minimum-wage guy will give you clearance and you’re good to go.

Free USPS Flat Rate Boxes

Being that you will primarily use USPS to ship your items anyway, you’ll be relieved to know that USPS will ship you free boxes to be used for USPS shipping services.

One such convenient service is the “flat rate” Priority Mail service which delivers to anywhere in the U.S. for a fixed price, irrespective of weight (though it has a maximum of 70 pounds.) The cost of this service for a small box is around $5, medium $10, and large $16.

UPS and FedEx also have some free packaging options, but they are considerably less useful on a regular basis.

Bubble mailers and other convenience packaging

Packaging stores also offer specialized shipping materials that can often simplify the packing process. My favorite time-saver is the classic bubble mailer: a large envelope lined with bubble wrap on the inside. They’re perfect for mailing books, DVDs, video games, cables, and even small gadgets safely. Even better, they can be easily purchased in bulk. My favorite bubble mailer is 8.5×11”, and it costs me about .35/mailer – well worth the packaging time and suffering it saves me.

Time and Money-Savers

PayPal Multi-Order Shipping

This service is truly the super-convenience to end all inconveniences in the shipping process on eBay. When your PayPal account is linked to your eBay account, PayPal automatically gathers all information from your sold items that have received a payment, and conveniently aggregates it into a shipping tool that allows you to print shipping labels straight from your computer. Postage costs are directly deducted from your PayPal account.

The tool allows you to choose your shipping service, select the item weight, add insurance and signature confirmation, and even alter the shipping address. However, PayPal automatically draws this customization from the listing if it is provided eBay-side, so if you take care of these things when you list the item, you’ve saved yourself some additional time.

Know your Carriers and Services

Unfortunately for the government, USPS isn’t the only game in town. It typically has the best rates for small items, certainly, and will provide the bulk of your shipping services. But a great many things which are valuable are not quite small or so convenient. It’s important to see how much shipping your items will cost with different carriers, taking into account value-added services included in the price (confirmation, insurance, etc.) and delivery time. In some cases, depending on the weight, dimension, and location of a package, USPS may offer inferior rates or delivery time.

Consider the example of the infamous Nacho Cheese Machine. The customer wanted it within 4 days guaranteed. I had to pack this puppy in a 30×20x20” box with a final weight of 27lb. USPS was going to charge me in excess of $50 for Parcel Post because of the ridiculous dimension of the box (other services, like Priority weren’t even available, and I don’t think I would have wanted to see the price anyway). UPS ground was in the ballpark of $40-50, and didn’t guarantee delivery within four days. But FedEx, on the other hand – a service which I thought I’d never use – charged me a mere $32 for 2 day delivery time (and $100 of free insurance).

The moral: know the comparative advantages of each service. How do you do this? Pull open the shipping calculator for each service and try different things out. You might be surprised, as I was with FedEx.

Carrier Pickup

Now, not only do you not have to buy your postage at the old grumbling Post Office, but you don’t even have to drop off your packages there. You can order a carrier pickup directly off the USPS website, and your regular mailperson will come by and pick up your packages. UPS and FedEx offer similar services.

Outsource

No, not overseas, but locally. By outsource, what I really mean is hire someone else to do your packaging for you. That’s what I do, anyway. To start, consider friends or family members who need some money and offer them hourly compensation or on a per-package basis. When you’re feeling more bold, post a job listing on craigslist, or search for someone offering personal assistant services. Naturally, trust is an important issue, especially if you’re dealing with expensive items that can be stolen; carefully measure the character of those who you hire and follow all of the common sense guidelines when using a service like Craigslist. Of course, all of this should be done in full compliance with applicable labor laws.

You should spend some time learning how to properly package items so that you can teach whomever you hire. After that, it’s really a matter of the time you save by not having to package yourself being worth more than what you pay. Consider paying higher amounts to someone you can trust and count on, as this is invaluable. Someone available and hard-working will ensure your packaging goals each week are met, giving you much greater capacity, as boxed items are much less cluttering and use space more efficiently. Then, come shipping time, you simply pull the box on the shelf from looking at its SKU, read off its weight, and print a label.

Considering that the value of your time that could be spent hunting and listing is, with proper experience, at least double $10-$15 per hour, this can really open up your business if your inventory is constrained by capacity. More importantly, you no longer need to spend 15 minutes hunting for a box that will fit the god-damn Dora the Explorer TV.

It’s not that hard to see the logic: all you need is one person to be interested in buying your item at the price you set, and you get that price. If you start your auction at .99, then you need lots of people interested and available to do some bidding to get you up to that price.

The Best eBay Listing Strategy for Garage Reselling

Fixed price has so many advantages over auctions that I have obliterated auctions altogether, especially since the recent fee changes in March. For one, with a Basic Store Subscription ($16/mo.), I get Fixed Price listings of ANY price for $.20 per 30 days per listing. This means I can slap “Good ‘Til Cancelled” as a default on my listings, put a high price on unique items, and wait for that one buyer I need to come around and pay out. The Final Value fees are a bit stiffer in Fixed Price, but ultimately the luxury of not having to sit around and micromanage my inventory so much, plus the lower insertion fees for high-price items, makes Basic Store + Fixed Price an excellent strategy. This is a weekend job; don’t pollute your week sweating auctions. Obviously, this strategy is primarily appropriate because of the more distinctive and high-value nature of the items you find at garage sales; if you’re spamming eBay with cheapo Chinese imports, you might think up a different scheme.

The Perils of Using eBay Auctions

The other day I decided to host my own local sale to dump off some of my items that I didn’t feel like reselling on eBay, and unsurprisingly another eBay reseller showed up and started poking around. Besides how obtusely she demonstrated that she was a reseller, she told me that she has to start her auctions at .99 so she needs a big payoff on her items to compensate for the risk of the item closing at a low price. I was completely baffled at how old-fashioned this listing strategy is and how much value it forced her to pass up. She, too, was using Terapeak and would be put off by how little an item sold for in auction, whereas if I were in the same situation, I would heavily discount the information conveyed by auctions and instead look at the upper end of the completed listings.

She complained a bit about how eBay’s “Best Match” system is hurting her exposure, hence why she needs the $.99 listings to be seen at the top. And sure, I can see how that can hurt you in the market of absolutely naive eBay shoppers who don’t know how to sort by price. But in my experience, by using Fixed Price and simply going a buck or so under the lowest other fixed price listing, I almost never fail to sell an item – in these times, people will definitely be thinking to themselves “how can I find the cheapest of these on the site?” It’s not a huge revolutionary step for them to see the little dropdown box that lets them sort from lowest to highest, and for them to filter to Buy it Now results only. Why struggle with eBay’s odd Best Match standards to get seen when all you have to do is sell a unique product for the lowest immediate price available? That’s all the “Best Match” you need.

Panasonic 5.8Ghz Gigarange Cordless Phone System – $10, normal price $50

Having finally installed a “house phone” using MagicJack, I needed a phone system that could operate multiple handsets through one line. These Panasonic sets make perfect resale items as they are truly industry-standard phones in high demand – they have great signal, handset integration, and features. Long before the MagicJack I picked up one set for $25 that I sold for $200. So if you need a cordless phone (or could use an upgrade), grab one of these sets and save yourself a lot of money.

SonicScrubber Motorized Grout Brush – $1, normal price $15

Not only is this useful for actually cleaning grouts, but it’s useful for cleaning up grimy stuff I find at garage sales. Put your favorite light cleaner on this thing and save yourself a lot of uncomfortable scrubbing. This lets me get a nice cleaning in deep crevices effortlessly, making the product seem much fresher and nicer to the buyer when he receives it.

Via Spiga Italian Loafers – $5, normal price ~$80

I needed some loafers for my consulting job and for semi-formal events, but was procrastinating because I didn’t want to shell out the cash. I was at an empty sale when a very aggressive garage salesperson brought them to my attention (actually  one of the few scenarios where this was less annoying than useful). They turned out to be my size and in great condition. It might as well have been $75 right in my pocket.

HoMedics Professional Percussion Massager-Model PA-100 – $3, normal price $20-$40

One thing you’ll find a lot of at garage sales are massage implements, footbaths, and other Homedics products that you know were exchanged at family Christmas Eve dinner. If they’re high-end enough they make good resale items. You also have the chance to get some “Sharper Image”-type massage action at a great price in your house. Just beware the cheapy stuff.

TecnoVap Tosca 100 Commercial Steam Cleaner – $50, normal price $300-$1000

That’s a pretty big range for price, but since this is a professional steam cleaner from an international company, it doesn’t really have a direct eBay market. I only found a retail price of $1000.

I was really thrilled to encounter this thing; in fact, I didn’t even realize how great it was when I was at the sale – I just told the owner I might be interested and ended up coming back later in the week to buy it after doing some research.

Now that I have this thing at home, it’s fundamentally changed the way I clean. For one, I’m far less reliant on chemical cleaners which I figured weren’t good for me to be breathing in for an hour at close proximity while I was deep cleaning. But besides that, its cleaning power is very strong. It took out stains that I thought were going to exist forever off my tiles and carpet. After cleaning my bathroom tile grout, I was surprised to see that my grouts were actually white. My house is now a disinfected paradise, without all the Lysol carcinogens floating around. Discovering just this alone almost makes the whole garage sale enterprise worth it.

Why You Should Import From China

Every day, Chinese wholesale companies sell enormous amounts of high quality merchandise to individuals, small businesses, and large corporations in the US and elsewhere. You can get a chunk of this action by importing Chinese goods and selling them for a profit. Often, you’ll be able to purchase these good for 80% to 90% off of the retail price. In addition, these goods can be equal in quality to what you might purchase within the US. This is because many goods sold in the US are made in China regardless of whether they’re wholesaled.

Financial Benefits of Importing From China

When reviewing why you should import from China, it’s important to note that enormous financial potential involved in the process. By selling products online for three times to six times what you paid a Chinese wholesaler, you can make a considerable profit. This holds true even when factoring in shipping and customs costs, which can be quite costly by themselves. Many people choose to start importing from China on a very small scale, and make the operation larger once they discover the enormous profits that are possible. If you’re willing to dedicate a lot of time and effort to Chinese imports, you can easily make a living by doing it exclusively.

Working from Home

Many people wonder why they should import from China given the amount of effort and uncertainty involved. One of the nicest benefits of importing from China and selling for a mark up is the ability to work from home. As an importer and reseller of wholesale Chinese goods, you’ll be able to make your own hours, give yourself vacations, and work when you feel like it. Of course, you will have to put in plenty of time if you wish to make a living by importing from China. Selling wholesale Chinese goods is the perfect income opportunity for anyone who wants the freedom to directly control their earnings and hours simultaneously. The more time and effort you apply to Chinese importing, the more money you’ll be able to make.

Choosing Your Own Products

Chinese wholesalers sell all sorts of products, from beauty supplies and clothing to computer products and cooking utensils. As an importer of Chinese goods, you’ll be able to choose whatever type of product you’d like to sell. By doing some research, you can decide exactly what types of products are most profitable to sell in your market. In addition, you’ll be able to sell products that you already possess some expertise in. This will increase your power as a salesman, and make your customers confident in your ability to accurately and swiftly field their questions.

For more information, visit http://www.learntoimportfromchina.com.

But why isn’t making low offers just as easy as understanding the above logic? The constraint is social – e.g., the risk of insulting someone, of looking like a sleazebag, and more importantly jeopardizing your ability to make a purchase at a price you would have otherwise achieved had you not looked like a sleazebag. While you should obviously modify your offers to fit these social considerations, I believe that people vastly overvalue shame, especially in financial issues. If there were one point I wanted to communicate in this article, it would be something simple: start making low offers and to hell with the shame.

I have an easy answer to feeling ashamed at making a lowball: it really doesn’t matter that much. You probably learned the old-fashioned behavior of fearing the disapproval of strangers from all those times at the supermarket when your mom told you not to touch something because the clerk was watching and she was worried what they might think of her as a parent. Surely there are moral norms that should always be respected among strangers, but fear of personal judgment – that is, of your nonviolent decisions in the domain of your property and person – is a relic of past times where society was believed to be morally justified in interfering with personal lives. Don’t let others’ arbitrary values interfere with your ability to pursue your own happiness. Just like mom prioritized the clerk’s judgments over your childlike innocence, it’s all too easy to prioritize someone’s judgment of your behavior over the accomplishment of your financial objectives.

Your price offer is an expression of your willingness to pay for something in a mutually consensual setting – you are never forcing someone to take a price at gunpoint. Whatever someone thinks of your offer (and what it says about you) is an opinion to which they are entitled, and an opinion about which you shouldn’t give a damn. It’s hard enough to make a case for managing other peoples’ expectations for people you see all the time. For people you see at garage sales, whom you will generally never see again, you certainly don’t have to worry about managing their expectations at all (unless such a route is financially beneficial to you for some reason).

If someone has a sticker price of $20 on an item and you offer them $5, what could possibly happen? Best case scenario, their expectations have changed since they first put the sticker on and they say “OK” right there, and you’ve just bagged an amazing deal. Or perhaps they might offer the item to you for $10. Worst case scenario, they’re a bitter price Nazi and they say no, look insulted, and call you a cheapskate. And then you drive away in your car to greener pastures and never see that person again in your life.

So when you’re out haggling at garage sales, make sure to put things in perspective. Every buck you save on what you buy is one more buck you make. In the moment, the $5 you might save with a low offer seems small compared to the disaster scenarios you’ve concocted… but once you leave the situation, you will often find yourself saying “wow, I could have probably paid $5 less!” Most of the time, making a low offer doesn’t paint you as a cheapskate. In fact, a lot of the time, I find that I’m the first person to show interest in an item altogether. That’s buyer power for you. Use it.

When you have to drive a lot, it’s easy to lapse into a habit of routinely speeding, making illegal u-turns, etc. as a means of reducing the time you spend on the road. I don’t believe that road rules always necessarily correlate with safety, so I have no ethical qualms with doing this. My only advice when breaking street laws is to stay alert for any potentially dangerous situations and, of course, police officers.

As long as you do that, the majority of the time you will get away with your freestyling, as your adventures will often take you to areas with empty or unpoliced streets. What I’m going to address today is an even more insidious threat to your pocketbook on the road: red light cameras.

The last decade has been punctuated by petty local government officials stomping their feet about public safety and getting on the soapbox about red light cameras. The idea is that red light cameras will make sure to catch those nasty people who run red lights and put everyone in danger. Unfortunately, the reality is that 90-95% of red light camera infractions involve a mere technicality: you must stop for 3 seconds before the stop bar before making a right turn on red.

I recently got a $125 infraction for stopping for 1.5 seconds instead of 3 before a turn on red. Watching the video that they show on the infraction website was hilarious: in the 11-second video, not only did one person in front of me also get an infraction, but THREE behind me also rolled the red light turn. Who would have thought that there would be five hardened criminals all lined up in a row in traffic?

The simple truth is that this is a cash grab by local governments. DON’T fall victim to this. If you think that it’s unfair, it’s because it is. And don’t assume that unfair things will not happen to you, because they will. While you won’t get any points on your license or anything of the sort, in most cases it is impossible or extremely difficult to dispute the ticket and you will be forced to pay the charge, at risk of a collection agency picking up the ticket and hurting your credit score.

So how do you avoid this kind of stuff? Naturally, your level of alertness while driving goes down as you progress throughout your tour, so make sure to develop good stopping habits at both stop signs and red lights. If you plan to turn, make sure to stop clearly before the stop bar and give it 3 seconds. Remember that garage sale hunting will take you on a tour of your state, which means lots of different townships with their own petty local governments and annoying idiosyncrasies. Google city names plus “red light camera.” Be extra cautious at major intersections, as they are more likely to both have red light cameras and police watching.

Hopefully this warning will reach you before you get your first traffic violation while on the hunt. Given the size of the fine, it can be a huge damper on your weekend. On a final note, also beware multiple infractions: in my area, a first infraction is $125, a second $250, and a third $500 – all for a mistake that is very easy to unconsciously make.

In this article series, I catalogue my big scores, my bread & butter item resales, and the items I regret buying.]

This week, we take a look at some of the first items I ever resold – the ones that motivated me to take this nifty income source seriously.

Big Scores:

Green Power Twin-Gear KP-E1304 Juice Extractor

Purchase Price: $5

Sale Price: $240

Notes: My wife bought this one while out on her own. The woman she bought it from said she picked it up at an estate sale for $2 and was quite happy that she made $3. This item wasn’t exactly a breeze, though – we opened it up and found tons of old, impacted vegetable inside the juicer (probably avocado). It was quite gross and required some serious scraping, cleaning, and sterilization. After one hour or so of struggle, we listed this puppy and sold it within a day. In retrospect we may have listed it for too little (this is a $400+ retail juicer), but sometimes it’s a relief just to be moving your products.

Total Transformation Child Behavior Modification Program

Purchase Price: $2

Sale Price: $180

Notes: This item is a perfect example of just how little someone can value something that someone else would value a lot. Someone picked this up as a free trial that they never returned and sold it to us for a measly $2. Within 3 days, we had turned this into $180 in our pockets. When I first passed this at the sale, it didn’t even catch my eye because it looked so infomercial-y. Now, whenever I see some sort of “program” for self-improvement or dealing with problems or growing your business, I make damn sure to look it up.

Bread & Butter

6 Nintendo DS games. In order of sale price: Super Mario, Mario Kart, Pacman World 3, Pokemon Diamond, Yoshi Touch & Go,and Big Brain Academy.

Total Purchase Price: $10

Total Sale price: ~$100

Notes: At one of my first sales, I saw these DS games lying on a table and I made a bee-line for them. I paid the price I was quoted – $10 takes them all. Sold them separately on eBay. DS games make great items for several reasons: they’re of uniform quality, so you don’t have to worry about bad condition (DS games rarely fail to work); they’re small and light, so shipping is very cheap (<=$2.50); and they’re very easy to list (even just the game title and a picture is enough, with a cursory description of the condition of the game box).

Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring Chess Set

Purchase Price: $1

Sale Price: $30

Notes: Another one of my very first items, I didn’t even look this one up when the seller told me they wanted only a dollar for it. It was too cool to pass up! Generally, board games are not worth it (see the regrets section), but because this was a collectible set in a nerd-powered genre, it held its value very well.

Onkyo 5.1 Surround System (HT-S650)

Purchase price: $20

Sale price: ~$100

Notes: This one I picked up on pure instinct, as a full 5.1 set for $20 didn’t seem like a bad way to experiment. The feeling of too good to be true always happens, but I realized that it was simply sold to me by a woman who wanted it out of her house. (There’s a lot of that in this biz). The system sounded great. In actuality, here’s the total amount of money that the person who bought this on eBay paid: $272.79. Shipping this monster cost around $170!! The paradox is that I couldn’t have reached someone willing to pay that much without using eBay, which necessitates shipping it. As a one-time thing, I would definitely say that the difficulty of setting the system up and testing it, and then packaging and shipping it was not worth it. But it was definitely an important part of learning – I now can “process” a surround system much faster and I routinely buy and resell A/V receivers and speaker systems.

Regrets

HP All-in-one Printer/Scanner/Copiers

Purchase Prices: $10-$15

Sale Price: Zippo

Notes: You have to give credit to HP’s marketing techniques by making their products look high-quality, high-tech, and thus expensive. But as resale items, they are very weak – there is a massive glut of all-in-one PSCs on the market and the result is severely depressed eBay prices. Moreover, these guys are not cheap to ship, usually in the ballpark of $20.

That said, with refillable cartridges, these PSCs are not a bad addition to your own home computing. I ended up giving away all three of the PSCs I bought to family and friends who now use them quite happily. They’re certainly useful, but just not good for resale. Note that if you do want to buy one, make sure to open it up and check inside for the cartridges, as HP cartridges are notoriously friggin’ expensive, and also inspect the condition of the printer. I didn’t do this with one of the PSCs I bought and it turned out to not only not have any ink, but to have a massive ink stain from a leak. Not a good use of $12.

Board Games, Board Games, Board Games

Purchase Prices: $.25-$2

Sale Price: $7-$15

Notes: When I started out, one of my “go-to” items at sales was board games, simply because they were so pervasive. In a lot of ways, the concept wasn’t that bad: people ARE quite willing to just toss their board games, but new ones in stores aren’t exactly cheap ($20-$30). The dimension that I missed that I came to learn with experience, though, was shipping. People on eBay are willing to pay $10-30 for a board game, but that includes the shipping cost which I don’t profit from. Moreover, board games weigh 2-5lbs and often don’t fit in a flat rate box, which means that they carry hefty shipping costs via Parcel Post.

After taking into account the price hit that comes from the board game being in used condition, having to waste time opening it up and verifying contents, and worst of all, finding a box that the game fits in but that isn’t ridiculously large (and I have a WAREHOUSE with a whole section dedicated to shipping supplies), the meager scrapings I would keep as profit ($2-$10 on most games) were completely not worth it.

The only time you should consider picking up a board game is if it’s a really expensive, fancy, or rare board game. My best board game was “Tri-opoly International Edition,” a 3-tiered 3D Monopoly clone that fit in a flat rate box that I sold for $30. In the grand scheme of eBay items, it just goes to show that you definitely won’t get rich off of board games.

In this post, I explain how USPS Flat Rate Boxes work, when it makes the most sense to use them, and how to get them.

USPS Flat Rate Box Rules

Given that the Postal Service is in quite a mess, they’re not quite just throwing free boxes to the populace. There are a set of rules and policies governing use of the boxes, specifically this: a free USPS box or envelope can not be used for ANYTHING besides the specific USPS service to which it corresponds. This means that you can’t do things such as use a USPS box for UPS, or use a USPS Priority Mail box for Parcel Post, Media Mail, First-Class Mail, and so on. And don’t bother trying to trick the post office by flipping a box inside-out – USPS may be an inefficient and bloated bureaucracy, but it doesn’t mean that they are unable to enforce the rules they set and screw you over. (For a company in billions of dollars of deficit, they’ve managed to nail me almost every time I put insufficient postage [even by $.25] or violated their package size rules)

Of course, Uncle Sam typically won’t find out if you are using a Priority Mail box to store some knick-knacks in your house or fuel a fire… so just use common sense.

USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes

Though you can also order free USPS Priority Mail boxes for the weight-based Priority Mail service, you will in 99% of cases not need that – instead, you will use the Priority Mail flat rate service. The Flat Rate Priority Mail service delivers to anywhere in the U.S. for a fixed price, irrespective of weight (though it has a maximum of 70 pounds.) Essentially, prices are determined by the size of the USPS box you use: Small, Medium, & Large. Check out this nifty table I made:

When to use Flat Rate vs. Parcel Post

This is a matter of simple math (almost, anyway). First, let’s look at a concrete monetary comparison: with Parcel Post, you have to use your own box, which costs $.30-$1; moreover, Flat Rate boxes have free delivery confirmation (mandatory on eBay), which saves you another $0.19.

Less concrete of a factor is delivery time. Parcel Post has an expected delivery time of 2-9 days, while Priority Mail has an expected delivery time of 2-3 days, so make sure to build that into your decision – what that’s exactly worth to you is up to you and your customer’s needs. I myself put a heavy weight on getting the item to the customer ASAP – I have a lot of customers very happy with the shipping time which gets me better feedback, ensuring that I remain a top-rated seller and get my 20% fee discount. Don’t underestimate the value of positive feedback about shipping time, as shipping time one thing that really pisses people off about eBay sometimes.

Now, how does the postage stack up? Well, consider this: from South Florida to Georgia, a very short distance in terms of postage, a 3-4lb package costs $7.94. On the other hand, from South Florida to New York costs $10. My personal rule of thumb is a package over 3lbs almost always goes into a flat rate (if it can fit, of course). A 2-3lb package going cross-country (e.g. to California) also goes in a flat rate.

Check out the USPS shipping calculator and try things out for yourself.

USPS International Flat Rate Shipping

Note that the above ONLY applies to domestic U.S. packages. If you want to ship internationally, make sure that you get the flat rate boxes with a red band (note that these can be used for domestic flat rate as well). The box sizes are the same, but the prices, rules, and restrictions are a bit different. For one, the prices are much higher, and you have to jump through a few more hoops, like filling out a customs form.

Order Free USPS Boxes Online

Not only can you grab flat rate boxes from your local post office, you can even order them to be shipped right to you, completely free of charge! You can either order eBay-USPS co-branded boxes if you like that kind of thing, or just order plain-old USPS boxes. USPS also sells shipping supplies that you may use freely, so to start it might not be a bad idea to pick up a tape roll and other packing odds and ends. However, I would not recommend ordering from USPS as a long-term strategy. In a future post, I will address where to buy your shipping supplies.

The danger, of course, is not that you will accidentally buy some low-end flea market stuff. The risk is that you may suspect that some items might have resale value and waste your time looking into them. You need to save your time by quickly identifying a sale that is unfriendly to your business and moving on to more productive sales.

How to Spot a Professional Vendor

How do you identify a professional vendor? Well, sometimes it’s as simple as realizing that you’re standing in a daily flea market or at a place with a weekly or monthly flea market event. But a lot of times, professional vendors sell out of their own homes. I’ve accumulated a list of signs that tell me not to waste any more time at a sale:

There are things in the ad that clearly point to a professional vendor. Pre-emptively save time by screening ads. On the whole, when you’re looking for sales, beware sales that advertise that sellers have to pay for a table – i.e., avoid “commercial” garage/yard/rummage sales. The keyphrase “flea market” should raise red flags, though I should note that I have seen some good organic sales listed as flea markets because so many families were participating. It’s OK to stop and check it out if you’re passing by, but never plan your route around a flea market!

Once you’re at the sale…

Everything has a marked price and prices seem high. I’m sure a small percentage of the population is meticulous enough to mark prices on everything at their own garage sale, but it’s generally the case that very few casual garage sales will ever have a price tag on nearly everything. Moreover, casual sellers let go of things in the $1-$5 range very often, whereas with a professional vendor the items in that range are either bric-a-brac or really weak electronics (e.g. bad headphones, retail-boxed cables, flashlights, etc.) The best way to get a feel for high prices is to look at a couple of items you know the rough value of and see if they’re worth reselling – with a vendor, most of the time they’re not.

There are lots of new, packaged items. Casual garage sales typically sell things right out of the household that were once used. Contrast this with a flea market, which often takes low-end closeout or drop-shipped products as a product source. Be on the lookout for bins of sealed, cheap-looking stuff – like swimming goggles or sunglasses. Lots of electronics of unknown brand – especially cameras, mp3 players, and other small gadgets, for some reason – is also a sign of a flea market vendor.

The stuff you see is dated by 5-15 years. In the same vein of looking out for closeout products above, a lot of stuff at flea markets is some old crap that was either purchased for cheap from a closeout, or hasn’t managed to sell for the years that the seller has been lugging it around. Here’s an example: at one sale I saw these horrendously tacky crystal doorknobs new in box marked at $3, copyright 1997 – nearly that alone identified the sale for me. On the technology side, this is easier to spot: you’ll see lots of things like CRT monitors, beige PC towers, standalone Canon printers (e.g. the iPxxxx series), old DVD players, crappy 90’s home stereo speakers, etc.

Seller has a very inactive attitude. Most of the time, a casual garage sale is a very special event for the person hosting it and you will often find them walking around, sorting through items, talking to customers, and otherwise actively maintaining the sale. Taxing as it must be to be a brick & mortar reseller, you’ll find a much more jaded atmosphere from a professional vendor. At the “tacky crystal doorknob” sale I just mentioned, the seller didn’t even acknowledge my existence when I arrived – to her, it was probably business as usual.

Not all hope is lost, but be ready to move on…

I can’t say that I’ve never bought ANYTHING from a professional vendor for resale. After all, they are only human and can not comprehensively price everything at “consumer” prices (this is especially true in the antiques business). You can get an edge with some creative haggling. However, I would implore to newbies: definitely don’t bother. There is way more low-hanging fruit out there in the form of casual garage sales run by everyday people just looking to liquidate some of their possessions.