[00:02] Hey.

[00:02] Hey guys, what is up? Welcome back to another episode of the Smart Flip with me and Matt. If you guys are joining in on this podcast, this is. We're like 51 episodes in now.

[00:13] Are we? Oh my God.

[00:15] It's been. It's cool, you know, right? That's. Yeah. Also we are on the. The episodes are being uploaded to Spotify, Apple and I guess wherever else you listen to podcasts. Something like that.

[00:30] With that being said, just so you guys are aware, we do have a couple of things you can check out if you want to go a little bit deeper on phone flipping.

[00:39] The Smart Flip is mostly a podcast where we just kind of come on and talk about things about phone flipping, about flipping in general,

[00:46] and, you know, how to make money doing it. A lot of times we bring on a bunch of guests and things like that and we didn't have a guest today, so today we're going to be talking about the, the state of phone flipping in 2025 and what's working now.

[01:02] So I think it's more of like a state of the union, you know, we want to pride ourselves in being the. The experts and delivering massive value to you guys.

[01:11] So that is the goal. With that being said, if you guys do want some extra value, you guys can check out episode 11 of the podcast, which is the Tech Flips profit ebook or audiobook.

[01:23] In that case, if you do want the PDF version of that, you can check that out in the descriptions below and you can buy it. You'll get a couple of other things with that.

[01:32] And with that being said, let's kick off the Smart Flip.

[01:37] So like I said, guys, we're going to be talking about the state of phone flipping in 2025 and what's working now.

[01:46] So with that being said, there's obviously going to be some market trends and things like that that we're going to talk about.

[01:55] So a couple of things I want to talk about though is I keep hearing this increased competition thing that people keep talking about and we actually just made some major updates to accelerator as well on kind of a front here.

[02:14] Me and Matt were actually talking about this the other day and this has happened to us actually,

[02:20] where we're not seeing a ton of competition in terms of like a bunch of resellers in the cities. What we are seeing competition in though is recellarator students. So this is something we've noticed.

[02:37] We've actually coached people in our own cities and that's kind of, you know, it's come back to backfire on us A little bit.

[02:45] So in terms of competition, I do see increased competition happening over the next, you know, couple of years as more people join re accelerator. And I want to be clear on this.

[02:57] Like that typical side hustle, phone flipper,

[03:01] they aren't your competition. The repair shop down the road, I can almost guarantee you they're not even answering the phone. And if you're that repair shop that's listening right now,

[03:10] to be competitive, you need to answer the phone.

[03:13] Okay. Like, that's just a thing. It's something I see all the time. Or at least have an automated text back when you miss your phone call. Right.

[03:22] So the area that we are seeing competition in is our own students.

[03:27] We got multiple students that are now in the same city. A lot of them, luckily enough, are collaborating. They're not getting mad at each other.

[03:34] But that skill set alone has shown us that people with, with that level of skill that we kind of help them cultivate in less than six months does create a sense of competitiveness.

[03:49] And due to that, today is the 31st of January accelerator is actually going up in price to 5K. And this is one of the reasons why it's going from 3,000 to 5,000.

[04:00] One main reasons for this is it's we're only going to be doing.

[04:05] And we haven't fully decided on this, but like, we're only going to coach two. There's only going to be two to three active students in each city in our program at a time.

[04:13] So, like, somebody will have to like, leave the program for us to bring another person in, if that makes sense.

[04:19] And I don't think we've had many people like leave.

[04:24] That's fair. Tend to stay in the program. So.

[04:28] And true.

[04:30] So there is going to be increased competition over time.

[04:34] This is one of the best times to get in the business. Right? There's always that saying where it's like,

[04:39] the best time to start this business was five years ago. The second best time is now. Right? Like,

[04:45] best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, right? Best time is now. So couple other things that I want to talk about, some market trends. Um, so we got certain phones that are holding value a little bit longer.

[04:59] Like for example, like the 13 plus or the 13 Pro and the 13 Pro Maxs. These are tending to hold their value pretty well, mostly because of the SIM card trays and things like that.

[05:11] But the older models are tending to go down pretty fast in value. We've noticed like the 11s, the 12s, even the regular 13. I've noted. Personally, I've noticed the trends going down and I think we're seeing kind of a similar trend in the console space too.

[05:28] Right, Matt? Like with the older Oculus and things like that, they're just. I mean, obviously the time is happening, so things are getting.

[05:38] Yeah.

[05:39] In regards to consoles,

[05:42] I do think that consoles are a little more accommodating to the. Maybe the market floor that they tend to reach,

[05:48] maybe compared to phones sometimes. But I think for everything, and I think it's important for people to realize that everything eventually does reach a base rock bottom price. And then people have to be aware that once the item becomes.

[06:02] It's strange, people go from hype, right. Hyped about it to bored with it to like kind of just indifferent about it. Then it starts to get some traction because it's old enough to kind of become cool enough again.

[06:15] Then it becomes vintage. Then. Then the price actually starts to go back up. That's why you see vintage consoles in such high demand as much as like a PS5, because collectors love them.

[06:27] And now people are like thinking about nostalgia and memories and sentiments and all that sort of stuff. And so if people can understand that cycle about electronics, then you can actually become a better reseller by just understanding like where the value lies.

[06:43] During a lot of those cycles too, they hit a. They hit a point where people are.

[06:50] It's almost like a not interested phase, but it's also still profitable phase with that. I remember when this happened with the iPhone 7 Plus where I was just buying them consistently at $120.

[07:00] Like.

[07:01] Like that was the offer I'd make every. I remember ebay, they. They paused my account because I was selling so many of them.

[07:09] Like I was like 20 a week. But that was incredible. It was that point where. And I think every electronic actually goes through that type of phase too. Like in the reselling space.

[07:19] Like you get this like specific amount of time where this thing is just hot, you know, and it's selling like crazy. But it's not too old yet. But like we.

[07:29] We saw this with the quest 2 a while back. It's selling a little slower now, right. But it's still selling.

[07:37] And the Quest 3 and 3s and stuff has now kind of replaced that, you know.

[07:42] Yeah, it has.

[07:44] So yeah, so there's going to be ups and downs in the markets, guys. So make sure that, you know, you are kind of staying on top of that. One of the best ways to stay on top of that is to, you know, go into your marketplace often on online and Locally and figure out what things are selling for awesome.

[08:02] Or just join re accelerator.

[08:03] Let's do it for you.

[08:04] But one thing I do want to throw out there for all the phone flippers that are listening is the importance of diversification as more companies start to offer buyback programs, which is happening, by the way,

[08:20] GameStop, Eco ATM, those aren't the only players in the game anymore. Walmart is now doing it.

[08:27] There's a bunch of other places that are doing it.

[08:31] However,

[08:32] it's important to diversify outside of iPhones, simply because there's a lot, there's more money out there. Like the grass is greener, you know,

[08:45] and the margins are higher more consistently. For example, the other day I bought a drone.

[08:53] I made $273 in profit on that drone. I don't usually make $273 on one iPhone.

[09:01] It's not usually something that happens. Right.

[09:04] Yeah.

[09:04] So,

[09:06] and just, just like looking at my tracking sheet here or my inventory sheet, some of the, some of the items that I purchased and some that have sold recently, I just bought and sold a MacBook and I made.

[09:19] Where's that?

[09:23] I made $177 on that MacBook.

[09:28] I bought a Google Pixel 8. I made $63 on that, but I bought from the same customer a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL where I made $151 in profit. Right.

[09:41] So like, you're not going to make that with just iPhones. Typically you, if, like, if you're getting enough volume. Yeah. Can do that. You can be like the Kansas City iPhone buyer, you know, Rick, and just do iPhones and keep your business super simple like he does.

[09:58] But if you have a little bit of leeway outside, because he's very disciplined in what he does,

[10:04] if you have a little bit of leeway, you can also go outside of those types of items or those just those items and make, you know, extra money on the side.

[10:12] I mean, upselling is a massive part of our business.

[10:16] Being able to purchase more than just an iPhone makes us more valuable to the customer. And that is the way forward as well. Like a lot of, you know, people out there talk about just iPhones flipping iPhones, flipping Apple products.

[10:31] Right. Like I flip Apple products. I know, right. But when you can,

[10:38] when you can purchase more than a phone and this, this is the way forward, 20, 25 and beyond. But if you can flip more than a phone, you become much more valuable to your customers.

[10:50] That's important because you want them to remember you. Right.

[10:55] So that's just my thoughts on that one.

[11:00] Anything to add to that, Matt?

[11:07] I think if you're.

[11:10] I think everybody gets very comfortable with like certain items. I've seen a lot of resellers in the space.

[11:16] Everybody has their sweet spot. But I think it's important to just be comfortable with being uncomfortable about always kind of expanding the vocabulary of items that you know, to flip.

[11:29] Essentially the skill set you're wanting to continue to kind of curate is where can I find value? Where maybe other people are overlooking it. And so where do I see value that other people maybe naturally don't?

[11:46] Where can I upsell a customer and buy this or buy that as opposed to maybe the other guy? And in that rate like you're not going to have to be.

[11:56] For starters, you're not going to be worried about competition.

[11:58] For real?

[12:01] Yeah, I mean you're not.

[12:02] Unless you're in recellator and there's another person that's in recellarator in your city. Then you do have to. Yeah, we've seen that issue where people are picking up consoles, you know, that other people were negotiating with already.

[12:14] Yeah, it's true.

[12:18] Yeah.

[12:18] But yeah, I mean if you want to be less concerned about competition, if you wanna feel more confident about the deals you can do on a regular basis and I think also just kind of step into any environment, whether you're looking online via reach out method, whether you're upselling or whether you're.

[12:36] I don't know, let's say you just go to a garage sale, estate sale, you thrift something, you find some consoles, whatever. Like ignorance. If ignorance is present, it's probably going to win and compel your decision to not buy rather than to buy.

[12:50] And all. All I wanted to do when I got going in this business was kind of eradicate all the ignorance I had surrounding certain electronics so that I felt confident finding 50 to $100 in the market on a daily basis.

[13:03] That's all I want do. And you know, now I have price sheets that have over 74 items on them. So like it really will help you grow your business and like expand what you think you're capable of doing with your business.

[13:18] Which is pretty cool.

[13:20] Totally agree with that.

[13:22] Yeah,

[13:24] let's talk about going into 2025. Like we're a month in, 31 days in, right?

[13:31] What let's go over the best places to source electronics.

[13:37] Get them. Right now we teach a lot of different ways to get electronics.

[13:44] We're going to start off with pretty. The most common way that most people start obviously Facebook marketplace.

[13:52] So let's talk about it. Like, it's still number one. Let's be real. Like, there. There's hundreds of or hundreds and thousands of deals on Facebook Marketplace in every given area every single day, straight up.

[14:03] But what has changed, right? Like, what has changed in the market where we can, you know,

[14:11] grow using Facebook Marketplace? And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago, like,

[14:17] being able to find more than an iPhone on Facebook Marketplace.

[14:21] It goes to your advantage in a massive way.

[14:25] Yeah.

[14:25] Also,

[14:27] you know, it's a.

[14:30] Marketplace is a volume game, or.

[14:32] I mean, unless you know what you're doing, like me or Matt, like, you can cherry pick deals,

[14:38] right? But that only comes with time, too. That's one of the. That's one of the things we teach, is how to cherry pick certain deals. But in the beginning, most of the time, it's like brute force and volume, right?

[14:50] Because you don't know what you don't know.

[14:52] And until you buy that one item that you don't know that you can make a profit from yet you don't know you can make a profit, right? Like, I never bought an Oculus Quest until Matt kind of came into the fold and kind of laid out a game plan for that,

[15:06] right? So Facebook Marketplace is still the number one way to start in this business, which I didn't used to believe, but, you know, obviously I can change.

[15:18] And then, you know, we still have offer up in Craigslist too. Like those. There's still. There's so many marketplaces that are available to you guys where you can just go make money.

[15:28] And I always like to say it like this. Like.

[15:34] Like, deals are made every day on Marketplace. And one thing about Marketplace that I've noticed here recently is. Let me actually tell a story.

[15:42] So I have a buddy who was trying to sell his Xbox N64, couple of games and things like that on Marketplace, and he kept having people reach out to him.

[15:54] He was trying to sell everything in a bundle for like a hundred bucks, right? Like, he was just trying to get rid of everything. He kept having the people. People just reach out and ask if it was still available and like, all of that, and they would just ghost him.

[16:09] And he was like, this is ridiculous. Like, this is stupid. Yeah, I. I hate this. And he knew. He knew what I did, and he just messaged me and he's like, hey,

[16:20] what can you buy these for? And, you know, because. Because people just keep, you know, no showing me and things like that and that, not coming to pick it up and Stuff like that.

[16:31] So right there, that is where your guys opportunity comes in with Facebook Marketplace. Can we talk about that real quick, Matt? Like, cause I know you've seen similar stuff. Yeah,

[16:43] let's talk about that.

[16:45] Yeah, well, I think people have to look at,

[16:49] I look at this from a couple different levels, okay.

[16:52] If you think of ebay, ebay is the premier resale space on the planet. There are millions of eyeballs there. And because it has a, because it is premier, okay, like it's like elite.

[17:06] And people will, people will argue and shout at me about that, but it is, it's going to command the highest premium of any resale space that there is. I would say ebay and then probably like, you know, a little bit lower than that would be like Mercari.

[17:18] And then like at the bottom of the barrel would be like a garage sale, like a yard sale. People pull up to a yard sale expecting to like buy things for next to nothing.

[17:29] Right? That's the precedent, that's the culture surrounding that resale space. There's a culture surrounding ebay's resale space. Facebook Marketplace is somewhere in the middle of that. Better than a garage sale, but worse than ebay.

[17:43] And so you're going to deal with two varieties of people. You're going to have people that are polished and are going to be kind and courteous sometimes. And you're going to have like these goons that just show up and are like, hey, it's still available.

[17:54] And you message them and there's memes across the entire interwebs about like all this stuff. Because that's how it be, right? Like people will, people will ghost you, people won't respond.

[18:06] Like you have to have an impeccable amount of patience to simply sell an item. And you're not just gonna get people that wanna sincerely buy the item. You're also gonna get people that are looking to buy it to resell it.

[18:17] You're looking for people that just want a dirt cheap deal thinking they're at a garage sale. And you might get some people that are actually honor the price that you want.

[18:23] You don't know what type of person that is until you're in negotiations. So if you really like that, go for it. If you don't, you're like, I have about this much patience for that experience.

[18:35] Then you could always consign something like that to like Chris's friend did with him. Or you can go on ebay and teach yourself a skill and do this. Which is exactly what we do, what we do to Help people, like, learn that.

[18:50] But I think people just gotta be aware that that's exactly where online marketplaces, Facebook, OfferUp, and Craigslist. And I would say that there's even like a. Like you'd even stack the reputation of those three.

[19:03] Facebook is a little bit better than OfferUp, is a little bit better than Craigslist. And then, I don't know, nextdoor is like, somewhere in there, in like the forgotten space.

[19:11] But those are the four that I use. Those are the four people should be aware of. And when you step onto that, that space, if you're mentally prepared to encounter those types of people, you might have a better experience.

[19:22] Otherwise, Ebay's your. Ebay is your go to.

[19:25] I agree. Yeah, we'll talk about that here in a few minutes.

[19:28] So obviously the local marketplaces are still kind of number one, just because there's deals out there.

[19:34] Next one I would probably recommend on how to source phones is advertising.

[19:39] Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Google Ads.

[19:42] More so Google Ads nowadays, in my opinion, than ever before,

[19:47] simply because. So this is where the bulk of my business now comes from.

[19:52] And just to give you guys an example of this, let me pull up my sheet here. So this month alone,

[20:01] Google my business. So my Google business profile, which is a free thing that you can do to get established,

[20:08] you do have to obviously, you know, do some work there. But currently I made looks like $2100 in profit this month from my Google business profile.

[20:21] Like, that's just that, right? That's not Google Ads. That's not anywhere else. It's just 2,100 in profit for free, by the way, might I add. Nice. Okay, so that's one of the main things that I'm focusing on nowadays is how do I get that better, right?

[20:36] Like, how do I increase that?

[20:39] So my, my opinion on this is you need the, the Facebook ads, the Instagram ads, the paid Google Ads. In the beginning is still a premier way that we recommend starting your business is you need to get exposure.

[20:54] You know, last week Spencer said something incredibly profound.

[21:00] He's like, well, based on my CRM, only about a thousand people know that I exist. And there's 600,000 people in my local area.

[21:09] Guys, that is very powerful.

[21:12] Like, only about a thousand people in my city know I exist.

[21:17] A lot of you guys are like, worried, like, like I'm not getting any leads. Well, that's cause nobody knows who you are.

[21:24] You know, nobody knows you exist,

[21:26] right? So in the beginning, you know, the Facebook ads, the Instagram ads, the Google Ads, all of that is necessary if you want outward exposure, Right.

[21:35] You can build it from reach outs, you can, it just takes longer and it's a lot more work. Right. But if you really think about ads, ads are basically in a way an automated reach out, right?

[21:47] They, they put an offer in front of somebody on the platform that they're using and that's how that works, right.

[21:54] So Facebook, Instagram, Google, Google business profiles like that is.

[22:02] And Google Google is my favorite at this point because people literally are going to Google and typing in, sell my phone near me.

[22:10] And this also happens with game consoles. I have Google Ads running for, for gaming consoles too. So I'm targeting GameStop.

[22:18] So you know, the stream of searches to GameStop, I'm getting a little piece of that, you know, so. Which is very powerful because all I gotta do is offer more than GameStop and that's not hard to do.

[22:31] So easy, easy peasy, right?

[22:35] Some other ways where you can source electronics outside of reach outs and ads,

[22:41] **** shops and repair shops, they're always needing to get rid of inventory all the time.

[22:48] I walked into a **** shop the other day, walked out with an imac, right, left some business cards. They put the business cards on front on their desk. Which was really cool as a manager to do.

[23:00] And the cool thing about that is I also have a referral thing on my business cards. Now for those of you that are watching on video, this is what it looks like, okay.

[23:08] It's got referred by phone number and then preferred payment method. That way I don't have to text them and make sure they actually, you know,

[23:15] sent the person. I just cash app them or whatever.

[23:20] So these are, these are ways where you can go in and you can get kind of bulk deals or one off deals or items that need to be gone.

[23:28] You can also do consignment deals with repair shops because they usually have a death pile in there or as I like to call it a profit pile.

[23:36] And you can offer to sell those items for them and for, for a percentage that's called consignment.

[23:42] So there's, there's ways. And then obviously other ways to source phones and electronics is utilize other resellers. Most resellers or phone flippers do not sell online.

[23:55] And you can use that to your advantage.

[23:58] You can, you know, make 30 to $50 per device from other phone flippers that may be in your area that are buying phones because most of them are selling them back locally and they would rather just have somebody to sell them to.

[24:12] Yep.

[24:13] Okay. So I did a poll a good while back and I found that only 2 out of 10 phone flippers that follow me anyway sell online. 2 out of 10. 2 out of 10.

[24:26] That's surprising.

[24:27] A little shocking.

[24:28] It is shocking. Like it, it's quite shocking actually.

[24:33] But that just shows like, like there's so much room here to play in the business.

[24:42] So it's, it's one of those things. Right.

[24:44] So those are just some options for you guys on where, where it comes to source right now. How do you make sourcing easier? You know, obviously we have our accelerator lead machine where obviously we set all of that stuff up.

[24:56] Automate the reach outs, automate the Facebook ads, automate the Google Ads. Build your website. Like everything is done outside of your llc. Right. So if you guys want more in information on that, just check the description below.

[25:11] And it should say something. Like,

[25:14] it should say something. I don't know, I probably changed it by this point. But I also want to go over the best platforms to sell on in 2025. This has changed up a bit.

[25:23] For those of you who may have watched my older videos, this has definitely kind of made a, a shift and I'll go over them.

[25:33] Well, ebay is still king, boys and girls.

[25:36] I don't know what to tell you guys.

[25:38] Like for everybody who keeps calling it scam bay and fee bay and everything like that, right. I'm still here to tell you, like it is still king when it comes to offloading electronics.

[25:51] Yep.

[25:52] Matt, do you have anything to say on that? Like, I know people, we get slammed all the time on recommending ebay, but.

[25:59] Yeah, I, I think people that.

[26:04] I.

[26:04] Don'T know, people that want to poo on ebay obviously haven't been privy to the benefits of what ebay is. Yeah, there's. What people don't like about ebay is that it requires patience like any business.

[26:20] Much like when I started, when I, I once started a job and they only paid on a monthly basis. It was 30 days before I got paid my first time.

[26:28] And guess what? I still went to that job and kept doing my thing and 30 days later I got paid.

[26:34] Right. So everything has these, this essence to it where if you bring an instant gratification mindset to any marketplace or any structure or any strategy, you are going to be disappointed.

[26:48] Don't impose and project the way you think systems are supposed to be into a space when it's going, it's. If the process works, trust it and run the process. Just run it right and stop imposing the way you think it ought to be.

[27:04] And allowing that to disappoint you, that's not ebay's problem. That's your problem.

[27:08] Allowing it to disappoint you. I love that.

[27:11] I mean, people are in control. And if you're listening to this, you're probably an adult, with the exception of a few high schoolers we have that are buying and flipping. Shouts out to you guys.

[27:21] Yeah. For doing the thing. Which is.

[27:23] But yeah, ebay is fantastic. And I apologize, Chris, in the previous question, I talked so much about ebay, I didn't talk enough about sourcing. But yeah, if you're going to source on a local marketplace, which is, like Chris was saying, is still going to be your best place to find deals,

[27:39] that is how we actually make this money. This is basic arbitrage, guys. This is Bilo sell high. We move it from one marketplace where it's undervalued to a marketplace where it's more highly valued.

[27:50] You've got a few options. You've got ebay and you've got Amazon and you've got Mercari and you've got Swappa, and then you have a couple, like, other oddities that are kind of out there for like, furniture or if you go back, a few podcasts for like, sound equipment, which I think was like Reverb.

[28:07] And so you can.

[28:10] When you find these spaces, you have to understand, if people go to a distinct marketplace looking for a specific thing, it's probably going to command a slightly higher premium on that space.

[28:19] If I buy a Pioneer CDJ2000 on Facebook marketplace and put it on ebay or put it on Reverb, it's probably going to sell for a little bit more on Reverb.

[28:28] Why? Because there's a community of musicians there that respect what that item is and its price. If you're not getting the price respect for the price on the items that you have listed, you're probably not selling, selling them in an ideal enough space where that price is respected.

[28:45] Every one of these spaces, though, has a certain culture of the way people tend to respect or disrespect the price. And so local to local flips are a good thing.

[28:54] But if you're super frustrated, there's a reason for that. And you should see that. The reason is people don't respect the price as much if you're buying on ebay and reselling on ebay as much as, excuse me, if you're buying on Facebook and selling on Facebook as much as if you were buying on Facebook and then Trying to flip it on ebay,

[29:10] but I say ebay is still the easiest and best in the game. If you heard Spencer last week, Spencer is a former fulfillment by Amazon and Merchant fulfilled Amazon reseller, wasn't just a reseller, but was also a coach within a specific coaching group and then came over to ebay and joined up with us.

[29:29] And he loves ebay. So if you really, you know, if you really need like a strong second opinion, I would go back and listen to that podcast as well.

[29:37] Also, he thought ebay was dead before.

[29:39] It's true.

[29:40] Like, he straight up thought it was like, for old people. Like Craigslist. Right?

[29:45] Yeah. Well, Chris, I should also ask this.

[29:49] And I don't know if this still happens from time to time, but people ask me what I do and I tell them I'm a professional reseller or a pro flipper and they're like, what?

[29:58] Like. And I explained to them and they go, well, where do you sell most of your stuff? Like there's some sort of magic bullet, like some sort of magic Narnia or Oz where we, you know, take things through the portal.

[30:08] And all of a sudden, you know, we, we dropped it off in the spider verse and came back with cash. And I say ebay and they just kind of look at me like, like they half believe me and half.

[30:17] Don't you ever get those responses from people, dude?

[30:20] All the time. Like,

[30:22] ask what I do and they're, you know, like, well, I run a buyback company where I buy stuff from people and sell it online.

[30:30] And I'm like, what if we make money doing that? Yeah,

[30:34] it's pretty funny. More than I would have made in college. Like after my. After college, you know.

[30:40] Right.

[30:40] And it's a lot easier. I get to kind of control my time. Like after this podcast, I'm going to pick up 1, 2, 3 devices at Starbucks and let's go, you know, and you know, I'm going to make a good amount off of that.

[30:55] I'm picking up two smartwatches,

[30:57] a Samsung. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm picking up five devices.

[31:01] The guy, the other guy had a 14 Pro Max with a cracked back and then he got another phone that he said he was going to bring with him. So, you know, it's a.

[31:10] You don't have to do a lot to make money. Like in this, in this, like I'm buy. And this is just my 12 o'clock meetups. Right? Like, I haven't even gotten anybody yet for my 5 o'clock meetups, which Typically, I don't usually even get phone calls until after 12 most of the time.

[31:30] But this morning I've already gotten three. So that tells me it's probably going to be a busy day.

[31:35] So if I wake up and I'm getting phone calls in the morning from Google, typically it's going to be a busier day because most of my people aren't thinking about selling their stuff until the afternoon most of the time.

[31:47] I don't know why, it's kind of weird, but that's just something I've noticed over time.

[31:53] But yeah, guys, ebay is still king when it comes to this stuff.

[31:58] I know a lot of you don't like to hear that, but it's true. So you might as well just like hop on the bandwagon there. So the next one is Swappa.

[32:06] I'll be real. I haven't been using Swappa as much anymore. Their fee structure has changed. They are basically the same as ebay at this point.

[32:17] One thing that is a plus with Swappa is you get paid out faster because they use PayPal,

[32:25] but that's about it.

[32:26] I hate PayPal. Personal thoughts. I don't like PayPal.

[32:31] Just a personal PayPal can be a pain.

[32:34] So I understand that. Yeah,

[32:39] I'm not using Swappa as my. I just moved back over to ebay.

[32:43] Like for example, I had a MacBook on Swappa the other day. It sat there for like five days. I put it on ebay. It sold the same day.

[32:49] Oh my gosh.

[32:50] So it's kind of. I wanted to pay more in fees. I think I paid 2 or 3% more in the fees, but the thing sold faster. So I was like, right, whatever, you know, like I made.

[33:00] The heck did I make off of that?

[33:03] Because I literally moved it over. Funny enough, we were on a.

[33:07] A co working call in accelerator, like, and I listed it and then it sold later that night after. After that. So it was fun.

[33:15] I made $177 on it. So I made. I would have made probably closer to like 190 with Swappa,

[33:24] but I'm willing to take one 77 to get it out of the house, you know, so that's kind of the way I see that.

[33:32] A couple other places you guys can sell that. I recommend direct buyers mostly for phones. They do buy other things too. We got Aaron Goldstein's Mercury sheet that you guys can use to figure out what prices he's paying for what.

[33:47] Just subtract from the price list the amount of profit that you want to make. And make the offer right. That's the best way to work with that. You can do local sales.

[33:57] A lot of our guys are now testing out local sales a little bit more successful. Yeah, they're being successful. I mean, Aaron Simon Welch has been doing it for quite a while at this point.

[34:09] Yeah, Steve Lee is being pretty successful with it.

[34:11] Yeah. I don't do it personally just because I have my system set up really well to where I minimize the amount of meetups. Like the only places I go is the post office and Starbucks.

[34:22] So my system runs pretty well for me. But you know, for other people, they can do whatever they want.

[34:31] Another place I found here recently is Facebook groups for selling in.

[34:37] So there's a, there's a B2B group out in the phone flipping space that I've sold some devices on. Aaron Goldstein has sold some devices on. And it's a pretty good community.

[34:48] So that, that's another place where you, you can basically get paid with no fees and things like that.

[34:55] A lot of like paid up front and stuff happens in those groups now. So that's kind of been a, an offshoot of, of things, which has been nice. So those, those are some recommended places to sell.

[35:07] My recommended places here to sell in 2025 are obviously eBay, direct buyers,

[35:13] local and then Facebook groups.

[35:16] Those have been my top here recently when it comes to selling in 2025.

[35:23] So I want to go over the, the biggest challenges for phones and electronics in 2025.

[35:33] So a couple of things.

[35:36] Locked and stolen devices. Number one, we're going to just put that out front. There's more scams than ever before. You need to understand how to protect yourself basically from even letting it happen.

[35:51] Right. And then there's also more security measures. And this is, this typically has to go with phones.

[35:57] Apple is always updating their security measures.

[36:00] There was a lock that I saw the other day on a phone that I had never seen before, and I was like, whoa, what is this thing? You know,

[36:09] Luckily I was able to bypass it and erase it with itunes because there was no icloud on it. So a couple of things you guys will probably see, especially with the Apple intelligence thing that they got running now on the iPhone 16s is there's going to be more security measures when it comes to things like that.

[36:27] Like also now, whenever you go to erase one of the newer phones, sometimes it'll even make you wait an hour.

[36:34] So little things like that. Right.

[36:37] Just make sure that, you know,

[36:40] you're up to date on how this stuff works. Look up the YouTube videos when something pops up and things like that.

[36:46] These are some things just to watch out for. These are going to be some of your guys biggest challenges.

[36:51] And this is where community actually really helps is like other people have been through that. They didn't step in the pothole kind of thing, right?

[37:00] Saturation and pricing wars. So a lot of you guys have probably, you know,

[37:06] seen the people that are offering outrageous prices where they're only making 20 to $30 per device, even in a local market,

[37:15] which is wild. And how do you beat that, right? Well, you beat that by getting more volume and more leads and specifically leads that come to you.

[37:26] So like you want, a lot of the times you want to try and work with the people that aren't exactly on Marketplace, right. Because they know what they want.

[37:34] Right.

[37:36] Also, you got to get better at negotiation and becoming more valuable with the customer. I have bought many devices that somebody wanted a very specific price for. But the fact that I bought their Oculus Quest or their iPad or their whatever, right.

[37:52] Made me more valuable and it made it easier for that person to sell to me because they were selling everything all at once and they're just like, oh, let's bring the phone too.

[38:02] I'm just, let's get this lump sum of cash, you know.

[38:06] So those are some, some things that you guys are going to have challenges with this year is you'll probably see people, you know, especially on Marketplace with phones. You'll, somebody will be like, oh yeah, somebody else offered me this amount, right?

[38:23] They might have, could have, I don't know.

[38:26] But you want to just put in more volume, talk to more people and yeah, so those are some things you guys might see.

[38:37] We talked a little bit about this. You're going to see a lot more Facebook, Marketplace and bots and scams and things like that. That's stuff that's happening.

[38:45] And then Apple is probably going to be making flipping harder over the next couple of years.

[38:53] Reason being is obviously their trade in programs go up around the months leading up to September.

[39:03] Apple is probably going to be moving to buy more devices back. It makes sense, right? Like they make more money that way. So those are some things that I'm seeing.

[39:14] Samsung, I haven't seen that at all. Like they don't do, they don't offer any buyback programs at all.

[39:22] So Matt, what do you see coming like in the console area over 2025 and 2026?

[39:33] Just be aware of the, of a few things. First of all,

[39:38] once you learn consoles, you have an ever Expanding catalog of items that is just going to continue to increase. Essentially the companies that are continuing to create consoles, Sony, Microsoft for the Xbox,

[39:52] Nintendo, right, they're, they're not going anywhere. If you learn consoles, they're going to keep adding to what you're capable of buying. And so your diversity and capac to buy more increases as they create new products.

[40:05] That is their business helping yours. That's just smart. Okay. But also VR is so on the map and stamped now and there are still emerging VR opportunities. Like Samsung just released kind of their response to the meta quest 3 and that's coming out.

[40:26] Microsoft I think has one that is going to have some kind of like augmented reality interaction that might release soon. And so VR isn't going anywhere. And also it's presenting itself as there are varieties there, there are luxury and premier versions of VR, they're middle of the road and then there are low end.

[40:47] And what it does is it gives you opportunities. If you're coming into this game at a different level of income, Whether you have$50,500 or 5,000,

[40:56] it gives you opportunity to consider what you can buy and then start to build a business or build a side hustle or create extra income. And so I think people have to be aware of that in regards to consoles also,

[41:10] culture's not going to change. People are still going to look for a way to blow off Steam.

[41:15] What is gaming? Gaming is a release. It's a step away from reality into a space where I can do something, I can be something else, an avatar or be somewhere else for a brief amount of time and people still want that.

[41:28] I would say culture is probably moving more towards an even deeper immersion of that. Regarding the nature of some VR experiences, especially with pass through, if anybody's messed with the new Meta Quest or Meta Quest 3s, Meta Quest 3,

[41:42] it's just, it's really cool. Like these things are so cool. Like when I buy them, I low key don't want to sell them because it's fun to play with. And so being in that, being in that conversation, in that stew pot as a reseller is only going to help you a lot more because the buying opportunities are going to be great.

[42:02] And there's a lot of, there's a lot of great classic titles that are getting, you know, fresh upgrades like the New Super Mario,

[42:09] the New Super Mario Party that dropped this past Christmas. Oh man, I haven't played it yet, but I've heard, I heard from friends that I, I've got to play it.

[42:17] It's so Fun. And so I've got to find one of those to flip so me and my kids can mess around with it.

[42:22] But that's the beautiful part about that.

[42:25] Yeah. And by the way, Chris, did your kid find Super Smash Bros? Did he find it?

[42:29] Oh yeah, they play it all the time.

[42:30] Okay, sweet. His son lost Smash Bros. And guys, you know that can't be.

[42:35] He can't lose smash bros. $40 game like.

[42:37] Oh, I know, right? Yeah.

[42:41] So anyways guys.

[42:42] Yeah. Get in the console space because there's just going to be more and more opportunity. It's only going to help you diversify where you can be and what you can do as a reseller.

[42:51] So another thing I want to talk about is what's working right now.

[42:55] And I want to talk about a couple of different things. So here's what it, here's what we are using right now that we are on the cutting edge of with Accelerator, resell, deck, resale, hawk, all the stuff that we have,

[43:09] AI and automation.

[43:12] So we are moving inside of accelerator to heavily using AI.

[43:19] Not only like we're using AI to find deals, we're using AI to assess deals, find the values of deals. We're using AI to build our business. We're using AI with customers.

[43:30] We're using AI to improve our negotiations. We're using,

[43:34] we're using AI big time inside of accelerator at this point. There's AI boosters all throughout my curriculum at this point.

[43:42] And automation stuff. So things that are, you know, inventory tracking, management, there's some, we got some AI stuff coming with that. And AI is here to stay. Like if it takes over the world,

[43:55] it is what it is, right?

[43:57] Oh well.

[43:58] And we can't really do anything. The genie is out of the box at this point.

[44:03] I might as well make some money with it, I guess.

[44:06] But another thing that I like, AI and automation is something that is, that is going to be massively changing the way that people resell on a, on a daily basis, especially within our, our in our space.

[44:19] Because we're kind of the one of the leading people with that. Another thing that is going to be big in 2025 is reseller communities and networking.

[44:32] Like a good example. So our, our students have recently created co working sessions and this has kind of been a game changer. I didn't create this so I didn't build this for the students.

[44:48] Like they actually did it themselves which was really great.

[44:52] And like I joined these co working sessions because. And basically what happens is like we're getting work done together while Also just kind of talking because being a reseller can be kind of lonely.

[45:03] It's just a hangout.

[45:05] Yeah, it's a hangout because a lot of times you get in your own head,

[45:09] you kind of feel lonely, you know, like you're the only one that understands what's going on.

[45:14] But with stuff like this now, like these communities and things are becoming more valuable than ever.

[45:21] Like, just last night I hopped on with Kevin and Spencer. They were listing stuff, I was listening to stuff. I was getting some ads work done for some clients and we were just chatting, you know, it was awesome.

[45:33] So those. That's going to be one thing that's going to be big 20, 25. And then beyond is like the community aspect of things along with AI and automation. These things are coming down the road, guys, and there's.

[45:48] It's going to make resellers a lot better.

[45:51] And that's just what's going to happen. Right. So predictions for the future, we've kind of gone over that a little bit.

[46:01] I mean, I think depending on.

[46:04] So I go back to what Aaron says all the time. Right. The longer you're in this business, the better it gets. Right. The more people know about you, the more money you're gonna make, I guess just be real.

[46:14] So,

[46:17] and then what. What do we believe that the next big item to flip will be?

[46:23] Guys, I'm on, like, VR actually, like, as VR gets smaller, like, and we're seeing this with the headsets right now, the headsets are just getting smaller and smaller to the point where eventually they'll probably just be glasses, like, and I know the meta glasses came out recently, but I think probably five years down the road,

[46:45] we might be flipping more types of VR integrated AI stuff than we will be phones.

[46:53] That's what I personally think.

[46:56] Yeah. I think some VR arrangement with AI integration is probably inevitable. Not that people will be like rocking monocles like the Planter's Peanut man, but I mean, imagine, you know, buying a pair of sunglasses that, you know, when you're wearing them, it tells you the temperature.

[47:12] You could immediately see like the wind speed as you look out into the ocean. And it will tell you if you need to add extra sunblock because you're getting too many UV rays.

[47:21] Right. Just.

[47:23] I mean, I don't think that that day is too far off.

[47:26] And so it's fascinating.

[47:30] I think in a couple of years, like, phones will still be relatively pretty good, but I think it'll kind of replace smartwatches in a way, I think,

[47:41] where,

[47:43] you know, how People will buy the phone and then also the smartwatch at the same time from the stores. I think it'll move to more of like the phone and then the glasses.

[47:53] I think that's, that's what we'll be seeing.

[47:57] That's just my personal opinion. This could change, I don't know.

[48:02] But with what I'm seeing with VR,

[48:04] it's getting slimmer and slimmer. I think that'll probably be the biggest thing in the next 10 years.

[48:12] Yeah. So who knows, maybe even someone will try to make some contact lenses.

[48:16] Dude, that'd be crazy. I work on X, so that'd be amazing.

[48:19] Yeah, that's like 007 spy stuff right there maybe. But.

[48:27] Yeah, that'd be awesome though. But yeah. Well guys, I mean that's about all we have for today. I hope you guys enjoyed this like state of the union type of phone flipping.

[48:37] Like here's where the market's at, here's what we believe, here's what we think is going to happen type of stuff. Let us know in the comments if you guys like this type of stuff.

[48:45] Yeah,

[48:46] this is just something I kind of came up with since it is, it is 2025, it's the new year.

[48:52] Things are changing obviously in pretty much every aspect of culture and the nation.

[48:58] So I think, I thought it might have been just a good thing to go over.

[49:03] But with that being said, this has been another episode of the smart flip. For those of you guys that do want access to a good community, I'd recommend joining our Facebook group.

[49:12] It's got 15,000 people in it. You can find that in the description below. If you want a very high level community, I'd look into joining re accelerator. You can check out the video and everything below.

[49:23] Like I said, we are moving it from 3,000 to 5,000. That's number one to due to the level of value we've added to it over the past year and a half.

[49:32] It's been 3,000 for a long time. You can also just get the thousand dollar course bundle if you want where that doesn't include the mentorship or anything like that where we help you directly.

[49:43] But if you want our direct help you will need to do the $5,000 package because you're, you will need to buy us away from our businesses because we, me, Aaron and Matt kind of going all in on our own businesses this year.

[49:57] Yes indeed.

[49:58] Just because like we see there's, there's a massive level of profit to be made in my opinion.

[50:07] And I mean Matt, do you concur with that? I don't know.

[50:11] Absolutely. And if. Look, I'll say to anybody who maybe you're strapped right now. If you're looking for a cost effective way to just sort of dip your toes in the water, you could do a subscription with Console Kings.

[50:23] It's a very, very affordable monthly subscription. And you're still going to get access to some really good training. And, you know, then if you want to progress into joining on with Accelerat, uh, we've.

[50:35] I've had people do that completely, you know, several in the last few weeks, actually. But yeah, like if you're, if you're still waiting for an invitation, like, this is it, guys.

[50:47] Like, step into this. That's 20, 25. It's February tomorrow. If you haven't pulled the trigger yet, invest in yourself. It might be the best decision you ever make.

[50:56] All right, guys, that's been another episode of the Smart Flip.

[51:00] Hope you guys have a great week. We'll see you guys next week, next Friday for another episode.

[51:05] See you guys later.