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Are Private Picks the Best Way to Source eBay Stock?

Flippedit Aug 10, 2026 3 min read Watch on YouTube

YouTube makes private picks look like a cheat code: walk into someone's garage, pile up stock, hand over cash, leave with a month of listings.

The useful question is whether they actually beat thrift stores once you track the money.

Matt pulled every bulk buy on Flippedit from roughly April through July: seven lots, one or two a month. Not vibes. Sold-through profit.

What the last seven picks actually did

Sorted by profit in the video:

  • $2,000 lot, 240 items at $8.33 each. 170 of 240 sold. $2,482 profit on top of getting the $2,000 back, with 70 items still to sell. Cash-in so far about $4,400.
  • $1,000 lot already $547 profit with about half still to sell. On track to roughly double.
  • $250 Facebook Marketplace PS4 buy: $129 profit. Fine, not a home run.
  • $175 Marketplace bundle: $41 profit, one item left.
  • $300 Facebook bundle: still in the red by $64 with six items left. Likely a small profit at the end. One of the weaker buys.
  • $1,200 JB Hi-Fi Blu-ray deal: $172 from break-even, 13 left. Strong.
  • $1,200 private pick (July 9) at $24 average: $355 from break-even, 24 listings left. Matt's guess at the end: close to $1,000 profit.

Not every lot doubled. A couple were mediocre. The pattern still holds: one afternoon of sorting beats a month of $3 thrift-store singles, and the good lots throw off cash while leftover SKUs keep selling.

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Why they win on time, not just margin

A private pick is a listing bank. You pay once. You photograph for days. You are not driving to three op shops for eight items.

Matt's rule of thumb: tell more people what you actually sell. Video games, DVDs, Pokémon, tech. Then stand in a garage, make a pile, and pay for the pile. You do not need a "wholesale contact." You need a reputation and a number you can defend.

If you want the Marketplace version of this (no garage, just listings on your phone), that process is in how to source on Facebook Marketplace.

August snapshot from the same video

Ten days into August, Matt's store on Flippedit:

  • Revenue $3,729
  • Profit about $1,000 ($100–$110 a day). Pace for the month ~$3,100 versus a $4,000 profit goal
  • Margin 29%, below the 40% he wants (a few weeks of that already)
  • 55 sales
  • ASP $67 (the number he was happy with)

The pick is not a substitute for margin. Cheap lots of thin-margin media still show up as 29% months. Track the lot, not the dopamine of a $2,000 handshake.

How to track a pick so you know if it was good

  1. One bulk-purchase record: what you paid, how many units, average cost
  2. Every SKU inherits that average (or a better split if you priced the winners)
  3. Watch profit to date versus items left, not "I spent $1,000 so it must be a $2,000 lot"
  4. Call it a miss if you are still in the red with almost nothing left. Do not repeat that seller.

Flippedit has a bulk-purchase tab for exactly this. Start free 7-day trial, log one pick, and see whether it doubled or just kept you busy.

The video is the seven-lot walkthrough plus the auto-relist setup that went live the same day. This page is the sourcing math.

Try Flippedit free for 7 days and put your next private pick on a bulk-purchase record before you guess the ROI.

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