How to Set Up eBay Deal Alerts for Flipping

Wondering whether a cheap cast iron pan is worth flipping? Deal alerts in Prelo keep watching for listings you could resell at a profit. The screens in the video use example data.

What deal alerts do

In the sidebar, open Sourcing, then Deal alerts. The page itself is called Lookout.

The math is spelled out at the top: estimated profit = comp price − eBay fees − shipping − asking price. Comps are similar eBay listings, and shipping is a flat $12 estimate. Every profit figure is an estimate, so check the listing before you buy.

Set up a watch

Use the New watch panel:

1. Type what you're hunting. Be specific: a model name works better than a whole category.
2. Choose where to look. eBay is on by default. Facebook Marketplace scans run through the Prelo Chrome extension while your browser is open, using your own Facebook session. Add a ZIP code for pickup distance.
3. Set your bar: $ profit or % margin, then drag the slider. The line underneath reads back what you'll be alerted for, after fees.
4. Press Start watching. It saves the watch and runs the first eBay scan.

The free plan includes one active watch. Pro is unlimited.

Each watch shows its bar, where it's looking, the typical comp price and when it last scanned. Lookout checks eBay again about every 30 minutes on its own. Scan now checks without waiting for the next pass, the switch pauses a watch, and the bin deletes it.

Reading a hit

Open a watch to see its latest hits. The line at the top shows how the last scan went: listings seen, how many matched your search, how many were comped, and how many made it through as deals.

Each hit shows the asking price, the comp price and the estimated fees, with the estimated profit and margin on the right. In the video, a dutch oven listed for $15 with comps around $68 works out to about $68 − $10 fees − $12 shipping − $15 ≈ $31 estimated profit.

Hits can show up under your bar. You're only alerted for the ones that clear it.

Details pulls in the listing's condition, photos, description and item specifics, so you can judge it without leaving Prelo.

When you buy

Press Bought it, and Prelo creates a draft item with the title, the listing photo, the comp price as a starting price, and what you paid recorded as its cost. Swap in your own photos before you list it. The star saves a hit for later, and the X dismisses it.

Alerts

To hear about new deals while Prelo is closed, press Enable push alerts. That device gets an alert when a scan finds a hit that clears your bar.

Pro accounts also get the Arbitrage Explorer, for hunting across a whole category. That's the next video in the series.