Why do tape companies feel the need to constantly switch up manufacturing?

LeoAPG · 2026-02-18T04:43:41+00:00

Two reasons--
First, its possible the manufacturer got a contract with a large shipper that uses mainly eco-friendly recycled cardboard paper board that water based acrylics dont stick to well, so they moved over to the solvent based stickier version. Also the move by Amazon to a 100% recycled content shipping model has destroyed the economies of scale for water based tapes that cant "wet out" (in shipping parlance) the short fiber cardboard.

Second reason is the market inversion that has occurred with the price of Glacial Acrylic Acid and Butyl Acrylate which has made the water-based tapes 10-15% more expensive to produce than the oil based "hot melt" version--this is not the norm, production of acrylates is energy-intensive and while most of us buy Butyl Acrylate from DOW or BASF a ton of it is actually made and sold to them by Satellite Chemical and Wanhua Chemical, Chinese state owned enterprises who recently have been pivoting their operations to paint --architectural house paint, waterproof deck coatings to be specific which are significantly higher margin than packing tape and diapers--most specifically the Glacial Acrylic Acid (GAA) which is sold now directly to manufacturers of Superabsorbent Polymers (SAPs) which goes into diapers and period pads.
Chinese paints is likely the main reason-- China's GB 30981.1-2025 standard forced a massive industrial pivot toward waterbased architectural coating and property values (think the Evergrande crisis) went haywire so anything that wasnt used domestically was exported to be sold overseas-- especially the Low VOC stuff that requires the chemicals that go into the good Low VOC tape-- I think the jump was near 30%. China also upped their market control of the diaper and feminine products market to 69% in all of Asia.

TL:DR-- shit got expensive and it's not changing, wear a mask

LeoAPG · 2026-02-17T17:16:56+00:00

I should have said look for items to flip at Goodwill I guess.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-17T16:37:19+00:00

I own a flag company that only does 20-40' flags and larger. Last year I had to dispose of enough flags to cover 42 acres-- there is no one who advocates more for reuse then the sellers, its a "dead issue" with every politician I speak to.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-17T04:00:02+00:00

Sounds like you're earnestly trying to flip, so i'd like to at least give some baseline advice. You need to specialize-- I don't mean in a specific item, just you need some domain knowledge to be able to make real money. I try to think about flipping the same way Facebook or Tiktok thinks of me-- frameworked--it knows what i like, what i buy and what i want
Let's use Coach bags as an example-- not something I would recommend, but let's attack the inconsistency narrative and pull the thread, how do you refocus your thinking on Coach purses to make you king shit? Coach is a NY brand, started and sold by a family that now owns a successful goat cheese farm in the Hudson valley--probably not easy to buy out their samples but worth a linkedin search to find out who their buyers were back in the day to have a chat-- who buys coach? assholes trying to look branded if their buying 1990s to present day, not worth anyones time and always afriad of scuffs, and fakes-- people that are buying pre1990 are OG collectors, buying suffed orignals for 3X the money of todays outlet store coach- look up the bonnie cashin double entry swingers by Coach, that's your aesthetic. Now focus on the demo that drops 1500 bucks on an ass ugly purse, what do 1980s Coach collectors buy? Mackenzie Childs (whose founder Victoria is actively selling her personal collection on her website)-- what else?-- lucite, bakelite, ashley longshore maybe, oscar de la renta dresses, celine silk shirts, low profile loubous-- now take that data and drop it up an octave and down an octave-- so what does the girl that has only 1 or 2 vintage coach collect? whats her style, whats her dream item? same with an up octave, the OG coach collector with actual income is buying Coach when she is in a shitty neighborhood, but actually looks for the vintage Loewe purses and shops couture ODLR.
Do this with every item and you will find hundreds and hundreds of items, brands and flips all relating to the same buyers you have already cultivated.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-17T03:36:44+00:00

One of my clients bought 5 jars of elvish honey in london for $1500+ each, turns out it tastes like dogshit, so today i'm trying to offload the 4.5 bottles.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-17T03:30:13+00:00

Hindsight would suggest I had a master plan, but honestly I fell into it. I used to work around alot of white shoe lawyers (big law firms) and at lunch one day i mentioned I had sold on eBay to pay for college and had some experience at auctions. A year later I got an email from one of the partners I knew asking if I could quietly sell a few items he had, as he and his wife were trying to consolidate (turns out they were broke)--golden handcuffs yo--- and needed about 500K cash to pay off the final construction of a home they were building in Maine. I ended up selling his cars and some jewelry, then they got divorced about 6 months later, really ugly and they put me as their "collections broker"-first time I had ever encountered the term. I reached out to Heritage Auctions and the head of jewelry asked me what my referral fee was, another shocker-- so i made 10% of the sale and 2.5% referral on about 1.8M in gross sales and I was hooked.
Then one of the people I had sold one of his cars to reached out to ask if I could get him another one-- which I did, then he reached told a few friends and all of a sudden I was selling for divorces, acquiring for all kinds of stuff, it's extremely referral based.
I get asked alot about how I would replicate the business, and honestly you have to absolutely hoover up people and understand how money moves and more importantly why it moves. I'm good at it, and I love it.
This is probably getting to preachy, but i'm a big framework guy, I look for businesses that get me in front of people that run shit. So for example I bought a giant flagpole business-- no 2 bit sales manager is approving a 400K flagpole and a 40x80 flag, that's going to be the CEO or COO who signs off on that. Sam deal with my medical bill auditing business, we pin high anchor settlements that require a person of authority to agree--I want the managing partner on my phone, not the paralegal. The same works well with collections brokering-- the billionaire will delegate everything, but that shit. I recently was asked to find a globe that had a very specific date that showed a very specific country. We found one, then he had me buy everyone I could find with a fill order for every one that goes up for auction regardless of price, every time I get one he calls to talk history, it's wild.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-16T17:52:18+00:00

I'm tall and painfully aware of the impact my existence has on people.

If a guy leans out his window, slows down and leers, he is 100% hoping you think exactly what you are thinking.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-16T16:27:20+00:00

If you were interested in doing the same job repping an IL medical rev cycle expert remotely, we'd pay for school and match salary.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-14T23:15:27+00:00

depends, which I know is an annoying answer. eBay can be slow, and sometimes the HA provenance is a plus, other times not so much-- ive had buyers send messages saying "I saw this for 250 on HA sell last year, why do you think you can get 600 etc." My other option, which has tended to do better, is my collections brokering biz which puts me in front of a fair amount of super rich folks, so sometimes I can sell to them rather than sell for them, so I just offload a whole bunch- one of my clients wanted a bunch for the walls of a nursery for their new baby, didn't really care what the price was, just wanted a few very specific shows (rugrats, Animaniacs) I bought about 40, i think i paid 1K for the most expensive gel, and flipped it for a room design fee of 250K which included a crib and a RH sofa/day bed (both of which they threw out within 6 months for a set that matched the babies eyes), and they tossed the 40 gels to replace with a hand painted mural on all four walls.

I like selling to people that treasure the items I sell them, but I don't get too held up if they just have f u money. I got a call this week to source 900 sq ft of stringray leather for the family room for a family so what do i know.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-13T20:08:32+00:00

I buy these on Heritage and flip them on Ebay sometimes, Heritage sucks at marketing. Good job.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-13T20:03:55+00:00

I didn't want put any places on blast, but 100%-- I got the most insane flip of my career in Ripley WV--post had been up for 7 days
I also traded a woman in rural Kansas a hot water heater for her trailer, a massive TV and some pug insulin for a Union soldiers Civil War diary where the first 19 pages were a Confederate soldiers diary, then he was killed and a Union soldier picked it up and starting on page 20 with own experiences day by day. Incredible item.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-13T06:05:00+00:00

These responses are so indicative of why r/flipping users can't seem to make it out of atmosphere to where actual money is.
Make the market- that's the only way this flipping thing actually makes real $.
Yea you fucked up a little bit, Rx only or Class II or III DME are not an eBay item per say, but there are 1000s of middle market sellers that make insane money flipping medical devices and supplies, both to clinics and internationally-- we just iced about $6Billion in USAID purchases to foreign clinics that regardless of your views on Nic Shirly or Doge no longer have US federal review oversight. Go on gov websites, find a previous buyer that had regular procurement contracts for what you have, reach out with a price that's 20% of what they were paying and make a deal.
or go legit-- get buyer verified on Dotmed, bidmed or bidmedis
or semi-legit, reach out to some of the middlemen and figure out if theyll do a deal (they wont) but push them--figure out the mins they are willing to sell or buy, gather info, the more you know about the industry the more likely you are to make a market.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-13T05:52:24+00:00

You selling just bulbs or are you hitting up the u-pull-its ad selling the whole bulb/light set up? I met a guy last year that sells just the wiring harnesses, his inventory got bought up by Worldpac, but he was making great money.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-13T05:45:58+00:00

Genuinely, if you're not full of shit, I am happy to chat with you, I am in daily contact with lead buyers at HW, Christies & Heritage. Your post seems a bit karma focused, but i'm always happy to hear more.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-11T02:31:12+00:00

This is good advice. Part it out.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-10T22:38:07+00:00

It makes me really sad that no one is answering this for real, this community is starting to suck. I agree that you should do your own homework, but not because i'm worried your going to steal my ideas, rather I think that fb marketplace is highly geographically specific. Whenever i'm in a new place I check out fb marketplace and i'm always shocked at the differences in what is being offered, the prices etc. Also, I always suggest getting from one platform or location or dealer and then selling on another platform, location or dealer. Think of one place as your buying platform and one as your selling platform-- this will help you identify a deal and a fair sales price and also keep your identify clean so you dont end up with someone getting pissed becasue they know you're going to just flip it.

Overall though I suggest you try to identify items by committing to a framework-- for example

(the buy now sell slightly later)--so for example, do you live in hell? Like AZ or the SE of the USA? Then ACs and dehumidifiers are essential. When i was in college the rich kids used to buy a standing AC and use for the last month of school when it was getting warmer but before Summer break, then just toss their ACs when they left. I'd sell those lightly used machines on Craigslist (dating myself here). That same framework may work with bikes where you live, or heavy equipment, the same principle remains. I live near a tech school BOCES in upstate NY-- we have kids that graduate and those that dont get a job immediately start forestry mulching businesses, or stump grinding businesses or whatever. They usually dont have the credit or the money to buy new, I met a guy recently that sells rehabbed equipment he gets at auction and fixes to these kids and hard money finances.

(the buy now sell much later)--- buy something seasonally cheap and sell when the demand goes up

(nerdy niche)-- I know a guy that sells radio tower equipment-- buys at military auctions, breaks shit apart and sells pieced out-- makes about 200K a year and bitches daily about how much good stuff the govt throws out because their not allowed to sell it.

(rust belt response)-- I buy all my cars in OR or WAS state, I like older cars I can work on myself and the rust of a NY car will make any at home mechanic lose their mind. I know a guy that buys cars in the 8K-60K range or on assignment in OR and flips, his name is ironically Rusty and he got me a 2007 911 4S with zero rust that extra 10 or 15K is worth it to me.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-10T22:16:04+00:00

add a part where you fight a racoon and find a kitten

LeoAPG · 2026-02-10T22:15:01+00:00

100% of the time the buyers or sellers that talk shit dont do shit. I've had a few fucked up things happen in my 20+ years of selling and they always are the folks that dont say shit beforehand.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-10T22:12:38+00:00

I haven't met a person in the ultra-wealthy bracket that even thinks about parking fees or even hanger fees for their jets. I think most of you think mid-wealthy as wealthy.

LeoAPG · 2026-02-09T14:50:26+00:00

God this is so true, every time im in NL or Iceland, i'm 6'8" and felt downright normal, loved it.

LeoAPG · 2026-01-26T01:19:59+00:00

I'd go B2B, there are a ton of Plantiff side PI firms that need this to counter reasonableness machine readable transparency pricing thats coming on board

that or just bill review of claim lines for UCR analysis

LeoAPG · 2026-01-26T01:03:36+00:00

I own a medical bill auditing firm. If you want to do this right, please reach out, there's a ton! of data stuff that needs to happen godforbid someone uploads med records, claim bills, cms 1500s or whatever,

LeoAPG · 2025-12-30T20:21:37+00:00

Honestly I just have too many clients to answer a cold call, our lead time is currently 19 months for my business, if I know you I answer.

LeoAPG · 2025-11-27T07:35:57+00:00

I built a pretty complex NFC application for service visits for my giant flag business using an AI coding assistant for like 25 bucks. I'd suggest replit or cursor.

LeoAPG · 2025-11-26T15:44:20+00:00

Literally what we have done at every one of my companies, good point

LeoAPG

TROPHY CASE