Jason is America's #1 thrifter and spends his time touring the country teaching others how to thrift and flip online. Jason was the star of Spike TV's Thrift Hunters and now hosts 2 Youtube shows Thrifty Business & Selling Past Your Expiration Date, Being Thrifty Over 50. Interesting Notes A few years ago, Jason taught his retired parents how to sell on eBay. They are 76 years old and flip a lot of water skis and TV-VCR combo. They are making $2,000 a month selling part-time on eBay. Jason and his mom started the YouTube show called Selling Past Your Expiration Date Being Thrifty Over 50. It is a once a week, late at night talk show about thrifting for senior thrifters and sellers. Her mom loves doing the show and enjoys it. It made her a celebrity on YouTube. She would go to flea markets, and people would recognize her. And Jason, being a Mama's boy, enjoys it. He finds it fun to watch the older generation hosting YouTube shows. Jason loves to go to thrift stores. Someone tried to call him a picker, but he likes to call himself a thrifter. Pickers love to dig in attics, basements, and old barns. But Jason with a 6'5 feet height is not into getting on his knees and crawling around. He prefers going to thrift stores with air conditioning and bathrooms which is more comfortable. His wife has a corporate career. She stands five feet and three quarters. When they go thrifting, his wife searches from the middle shelf down while he searches from the middle shelf up. Jason is a big music nerd. He has over 4,000 CDs, alphabetized on shelves in his little library in their house. When he goes thrifting, he would conquer first the Media Section because that is what he knows well. His first stop is the Music Section. He would crash the CDs Section and pull out all the gems. Then, he would go to the Cassettes Section and check for eight tracks. He would also look through the record section to find video and computer games. After conquering the section he knows best, he would work on the rest of the store. He would hit over to the Men's Clothing because he is a man and he wears clothes. He is well versed in Men's T-shirts, button-down shirts, and jackets. He also knows what jeans are good to flip and so he would conquer that section too. Early on, he had also flipped bras because there's good money in used bras. But he made a one-time mistake of grabbing the same bra at the same time a lady had grabbed it on. So he made a note to himself to always shop on the right side of the bra rack. When he had his TV show Thrift Hunters, there is a group of guys who kept on poking him online. These guys only sold fine men's wear - high-end button-down shirts, suit coats, blazers, and the like. He does not use those stuff because he lives in Vegas and rarely wears sleeves on his shirts. But he took on the challenge. One day, he went thrifting a whole store. He went into its Sport's Coat Section. With his iPad, he looked up every single brand on eBay sold listings. Doing it, he saw what was hot and was not. On that day, he bought a sports coat for $5. He ended up selling it for $300. Since he learned the Sport's Coat Section, he went into one the other day. He was in Boston for a trip and he snagged out two sports coat. One was an Italian that cost $100 and the other cost $50. He estimated that the price to sell on eBay would be $599 or $699. He also flipped neckties. They are super duper easy to ship and has no weight. The novelty neckties were great 10 years ago. It vanished so he stopped looking for it. Then on his Boston trip, he found some cool and unique neckties. Jason's house is 4,000 sq. ft. big full of his Tiki Mugs collection. 50% of which comes from thrifting. He has a bamboo bar, the size of one room, full of his collection. He got rid of it because he bought a new bar that matched their furniture. So their house is a mess of the mugs he bought in the last six months. He filled their new bar with the duplicates that need to be sold or traded. And he got 200 extra ceramic vessels, most of which are in the boxes. That is a lot of space, a lot of money that has already been paid, and a lot of profit just waiting. But his Tiki Mug collection is full so if something new comes in that he likes better, he lets go of something old. And he keeps that flow. If and when he wants to sell his stuff, it is worth way more than he paid for it. A Tiki Mug is a collectible mug where cocktails are served. It is made of a ceramics. You can take it home for a price. It is found in Tiki Bars. Tiki Bars started in the 30s. Thrift stores think they are a vase so they are in the vase section. Every Tiki Mug has a name. The modern Tiki Mugs have a manufacturer at the bottom of the mugs. Oftentimes, they have a year and the designer. If you don't know what it is, you can message Jason on Facebook and he will tell you. If he needs it, he will buy it from you before you even get out of the thrift store. He has a class in Portland. A new girl in the class ran to the Vase Section and found a very rare Tiki Bowl. The Tiki Bowl is for a group drink. The girl bought it for $6 and sold it for $60. With that one item, she paid for half of her class. The other day, someone sent him a picture of two Tiki Mugs. If Tiki Mugs are legit, they are good ones. He told the sender not to buy them because those are knockoffs. Jason used to work as an Operations Manager for his buddy who had a tub store in Vegas. He would deliver and fix tubs. He starts to work at 6 AM while his buddy works at 11 AM. Along the way, things did not go well with them. One day, he got an infection while working in some nasty hot tub. He almost died of it. He had two emergency surgeries to save his arm and his life. He was hospitalized for five days but his buddy never visited him. His view from his hospital room is the Strip, the last thing he wanted while in a hospital bed. A strip is a place where people are having the funniest time of their life. When one stays in Vegas, the one thing one wants is a view of the strip. Those five days, with all the machines, he realized his work life is miserable. It is making the rest of his life miserable and he needed to fix it. When he got out of the hospital, he quit from his work. He spent the next month doing eBay while rehabbing his screwed up arm. But he made as much money with one bad arm, sitting in his office than he did at a backbreaking outside job. Doing so made him realized that he is his own boss making the same money. And so he worked it up to make a lot more money, setting his own hours. He works longer and harder than he ever had but he enjoyed it. Jason and his wife get up at 6:30 AM. He would ride a stationary bike in the gym in their house. Then he would catch up on his Facebook Groups real quick. His assistant comes to work at 8:30 AM and then they would do the shipping first. His assistant would then take pictures and on the next day, they would list it. On the other days, he would get materials together for whatever he will be teaching next. At night, he would go downstairs to watch TV with his wife and doggy. On weekends, together with his wife, he goes on thrifting. They would hit garage sales in the morning and antique stores after lunch. His grand plan is to make money with no boss so that he can control the hours of his life and be happy. But as he continues to make his own living, he acquired more knowledge. As he acquires more knowledge, he shares it to a few people until it leads him to teach, run Facebook groups, and host YouTube and TV shows. Last year, he started teaching two-day classes in major cities. He teaches where there are cool Tiki bars. He sees himself doing it more because he loves to travel the country. Besides, it is pretty awesome to travel the country and make money at the same time. He loves shopping too! To him, thrifting is like a treasure hunt. So he wants to thrift more around the country and around the world. He wants to see the world through thrifting and teaching. He will continue to do so until he can do it no more. He also has a TV show. He is the new character on the Pawn Stars. He has already shot two episodes. He finds it cool to show up, do his role, get paid and then leave the shoot. And he intends to do it more. Jason is now living his dream with his life partner. Even if his wife has a different job, they do well together. He loves seeing his successes. But more so, he loves seeing everyone who follows him succeed. That is what fuels his heart and brain. Advice, Tips, and Tricks When flipping bras, always shop at the right side of the bra rack. When you are in a thrift store and you don't know what section to go to, get your phone or your iPad. Sit in a section the whole day and learn it. Look up every brand you can find in the section on the eBay Sold listings. Then figure out what are the hot items. There is so much money in every single section of a thrift store. Conquer what you know. Then start to teach yourself or learn from a Seller's Summit like the So You Wanna Sell Summit. Or you can learn by listening to a podcast like So You Wanna Sell On eBay. If you have a mannequin, tie the necktie around the mannequin's neck. That way your potential customer can see how it looks. Pay attention when you bring stuff in. If you get attached to it and you want to keep it, that is fine. But if something new comes in, learn to let go of something old. You have to keep that flow. If you get into Tiki Mugs, 100% of the time, you can find it in the vase section. Every thrift store in the world thinks that Tiki Mug is a vase. So they put it in the vase section. If you are a beginner on thrifting, start buying clothes of your size. Find some things that you think are cool, unique, or jeans if you like wearing one. Vintage Levi's do quite well. Buying clothing of your size and does not sell means that you've got an extra pair of jeans or an extra T-shirt in your closet. So there is no harm. If you know something well, like Tiki or CDs, go to its section. Buy a bunch of the stuff. Then expand by buying big and ridiculous stuff like TV-VCR combo. No one is making them anymore today so you get them cheap. The only place one can buy them second hand is on eBay. His parents would get it for $5. Depending on the size and the brand, it can be sold for $80 to $200. Once it got a remote, no matter what the brand, that's a minimum of $80. The remote really adds huge value to it. So, when you go to the thrift store, go to the TV-VCR section. The great thing about being a thrifter is you can work from anywhere. When you go on an actual vacation with your kids and spouse, they will probably let you thrift a little bit. But don't push it. Quotes "Everyone has a niche. Everyone has something they collect or know very well". "Life's too short to be miserable every day". "Don't work for friends. It never works out!" "The great thing about being a thrifter is you can work from anywhere"! "Life is so much better when you're with the right person!" "Be your own boss. Create your own wealth. Create your own lifestyle". - Ali Young "A miserable job is a pain which infects your entire life". - Ron LaBeau Contact Information eBay Store: TikiPugMusic Facebook: Jason T. Smith Facebook Group: The Thrifting Board YouTube: Jason T. Smith Sponsors So You Wanna Sell on Ebay Virtual Summit Norila Digital Marketing
Jason is America's #1 thrifter and spends his time touring the country teaching others how to thrift and flip online. Jason was the star of Spike TV's Thrift Hunters and now hosts 2 Youtube shows Thrifty Business & Selling Past Your Expiration Date, Being Thrifty Over 50.
Interesting Notes