{"id":111398,"date":"2026-02-11T20:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T20:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/111398\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T20:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T20:44:07","slug":"how-a-pittsburgh-entrepreneur-turned-online-returns-into-a-thriving-retail-business-with-box-flipz-wpxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/111398\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Pittsburgh entrepreneur turned online returns into a thriving retail business with Box Flipz \u2013 WPXI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 Ricky Smith has successfully negotiated an unexpected career turn from salesman to merchant of unexpected merchandise. After getting his start selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and progressing to other direct sales jobs through his 20s, Smith realized he needed a new venture when the pandemic hit and all but ended direct sales. So he took up a business strategy of tracking down undervalued merchandise at garage sales and thrift stores and worked to resell it on eBay, Facebook Marketplace and elsewhere. The approach culminated in Box Flipz as a store that debuted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/01\/16\/oconnor-three-downtown-initiatives-ura.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Smithfield Street downtown<\/a> last year, with all merchandise priced the same and reduced each day, a mystery treasure hunt shoppers aren\u2019t likely to find online. Smith cites industry figures that more than 20% of Amazon sales are returned, resulting in a pipeline for the inventory at Box Flipz. In addition to the downtown store, Smith operates a website, a warehouse where he sells everything from pallets to scratch and dent appliances, and a second store in McDonald.<\/p>\n<p>When did you start Box Flipz?<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">That was my Covid project. \u2026 I think it was February 8, 2021, the day we started the website. And that\u2019s when it all started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/02\/09\/personalities-ricky-smith-box-flipz.html?ana=wpxi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/2026\/02\/09\/personalities-ricky-smith-box-flipz.html?ana=wpxi\">Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 Ricky Smith has successfully negotiated an unexpected career turn from salesman to merchant of unexpected merchandise.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1896,53202,53194,53193,53199,53198,53196,73,75,53195,74,53201,436,53197,53200],"class_list":["post-111398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-retail","tag-box-flipz-ceo","tag-box-flipz-pittsburgh","tag-box-flipz-retail","tag-box-flipz-shopping","tag-merchandise-company","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-merchandise","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-retail","tag-retail","tag-retail-shopping","tag-shop-box-flipz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}