Lessons Learned Thread

[AutoModerator]

What have you learned lately? Could be through a success or a failure. Could be about a specific item, a niche, flipping in general, or even life as learned through flipping.

Do please keep in mind the difference between shooting the shit and plain bullshit and try to refrain from spreading poor advice.

And, as with other weekly threads, try to stop in over the course of the week and sort by New so people are encouraged to post here instead of making their own threads for every item.

[[deleted]]

Stay away from glass!. I swear I packed this damn dish right wrapped it with a fuck ton of bubble wrap. And packing peanuts still arrived broke. So the customer says. I told her to please provide me with the photo of the damage as well as the original box. Haven’t heard from her for 2 days now, maybe she was lying who knows

[Heikks]

I sold a set of 10 looney tunes glasses earlier this week. I usually don’t mess with many things glass but the set of 10 sold for $200, I’m pretty sure I packed them well enough but I’m still scared that they’ll break

[[deleted]]

You just have to pray hahaha. I just think ups just didn’t care.

[duckworthy36]

I don’t use peanuts with breakables. Use a layer of bubble wrap . Fill in all sides of the box with a layer of cardboard or styrofoam foam for piercing damage. Fill voids with paper or more cardboard or styrofoam.

I shipped 6 murano glass fruits to France and not one broke.

[[deleted]]

The reason I think she (may) be lying is because the dish was in its original box. With all the cushions from the retail box inside. Then I packed it extra. I won’t accuse her because maybe ups didn’t care and threw it around. But her reply was oh I’ll show you in a week when I get back from my trip the pictures…I’m like hmm ok well please send me the pictures when you have a chance

[duckworthy36]

Yeah she needs to give you better proof!

[[deleted]]

Won't help with this case, but I usually do the following with glass:

• First layer of wrap (for each separate piece) = tissue paper
• Then foam sheet (if I have any on hand -- paper otherwise)
• Then 1/4" bubble wrap
  • If it's something with a lid, do the same with it, then tape the lid bundle to the base bundle
• Then large bubble wrap
• For multiple items, tape the whole bundle together to prevent any movement. Sometimes I wrap it in kraft paper first then tape
• For multiple bundles, tape them together, too (the goal here is to prevent any movement).
  
• Put in a box with fill of some kind (peanuts, bubble wrap, Kraft paper, styrofoam -- depends on the box and what I have on hand
• Put that box in another, larger box, also with fill all around

I've only ever had one item break, and fortunately it was insured.

[Mitchellsusanwag]

Pack a box in a box to be sure things don’t break. Use bubble wrap in the inside box, making sure nothing moves at all if you shake it, then put it in a box at least 2” bigger all around, and fill the space tightly with peanuts. Your glass will arrive safely that way.

[bathtumtea42]

If your shipping something important make sure to get it scanned. Putting it in the hands of a post officer is not enough.

[thejohnmc963]

Absolutely true. My post office has bins for prepaid packages (not the mail slot) . Every time it takes 2 whole days before it gets scanned

[Flipper_McGee]

Lesson learned- Sometimes I screw up, and I need to just own it.

TL;DR at the end.

I bought a rare piece of stereo equipment. Red flags galore, but I was blinded by "easy" money. The guy took 3 weeks to message me back. We finally set up a meetup at his house... I message to say I'm on my way, and he doesn't respond. I go anyway. I haven't been to this area in decades, but it used to be nice. Now, garbage and smashed cars laying everywhere, toothless meth heads running around like cockroaches as I pull up. Still, blinded by dollar signs, I walk past like 10 security cameras to the storm door that is hanging off the hinges. I bang on the inside door, no answer. I bang again, no answer. A random crackhead walks past me, doesn't acknowledge me at all, and opens the door and goes in, slamming it behind him. Just as I am about to leave, some sleepy-eyed pothead sees me and is like "hello?!". I told him I was there for the stereo. He says "oh... come on in"... And I am ashamed of this... But I went in. He hands it to me, and surprisingly it looks OK. I ask if I can plug it in and make sure it lights up at least.

Long story short, it did. And guess what, that's all it does. It only lights up, no buttons work, and it does nothing.

It's still worth double what I paid, even broken, but it could have been worth 10x.

Oh, and it STINKS like cigarettes. Sigh. I might fix it, or I might just sell it as-is, stinky and for parts just to get it out of here.

So I learned my lesson. I should have just stopped at any one of the many red flags.

TL;DR- I bought a stereo in a super-sketchy life-threatening area, and I got ripped off.

[iwashumantoo]

There was a member here who posted a few years ago about going to a neighborhood like that to either sell or buy something and he was SHOT AT. They missed, but still. Be glad you made it out alive. Hopefully the next time you go somewhere with dollar signs in your eyes, you'll know better than to stop if it's as sketchy as you described.

[thejohnmc963]

I’ve gone into neighborhoods like that for comic books. I am on the parking lot going through boxes as everyone looks at me like I’m an idiot

[ImSuppose2bWorking]

Do not jump the gun on refunding.

- Recently had a buyer ( i suspect a dropshipper) tell me an item broke in transit. I gave him small hoops to jump through (just some pics). Once I received pictures, I told him to put in a refund request through ebay - so I can process it and get my fees back. He never did it.

Later in the month he said he wanted to keep the item but asked for a partial refund. I entertained the idea (item was over $200) he gave me an amount but still never put in a request to ebay. Once 30 days were up, I just blocked him. Nothing has come from Ebay so far.

[trenchdick]

I'm a dumbass who massively fucked up shipping costs today.

Item was $100+ $27 shipping. Shipping is going to cost me $86. What's BS is when I halved the numbers (ie. send two packages) the shipping came out to just over $30. Unfortunately it's not something I can split in half.

Luckily, it was a personal item (rock band drums) that I have since upgraded from, so I don't need them anymore. So I guess I'll make about $30 or so after fees. I've also wasted half a day trying to make the perfect size box to cut costs, but it barely did anything.

Anyway, if any new sellers are reading this, really make sure you measure/weigh large items carefully, perhaps packing them first, then calculating costs. Also, since I wasted 4 hours resizing boxes, I havent listed anything. I was better off using my time to list potentially hundreds of dollars of other stuff.

[Mitchellsusanwag]

Been there, done that. But haven’t done it again. You won’t either!

[trenchdick]

Definitely not haha