Welcome back to another episode of the Resellers Mindset Podcast.
My name is Mike, also known as the used book guy on YouTube, along with my friend
and fellow full-time reseller, Johnny B.
We help people start and grow their reselling businesses from the ground up.
We also have a weekly zoom call and private discord for all YouTube members.
Head on over to youtube.com backslash use book guide to join the channel and gain
access to the full length podcast zoom call and private discord today.
Let's get into this week's episode.
What is up, everybody?
Welcome to episode 40 Resellers Mindset Podcast.
Myself, Johnny B.
Special guest, video game Amazon seller, Jack up here next to me in the corner.
Johnny's down bottom.
You're probably, if you watch this on YouTube, you're probably like, man,
Johnny B is looking a little rough today.
Well, he got caught in a rainstorm coming in this morning.
So, you know, he's looking like a Ninja turtle who just crawled out of the sewer.
But we're going to dive into, you know, what, you know, what it takes to have a
video game selling business.
And for me, it's, you know, I enjoy playing video games.
I can't as much as I used to.
And if I had the supply of video games in my area, then 100% I would, I would
sell video games all day long.
I've been finding that a little bit more here and there, but not enough to be like,
Hey, I sell video games now.
So I'm going to throw it over to Jack.
He's going to introduce himself and a little bit about his business.
And then me and Johnny B are going to pick on them and, you know, see what it
really takes to make it in the video game world.
So what's up, Jack?
Hey, what's up?
Thanks for having me.
I'm Jack.
I primarily sell on Amazon FBA.
I started it around 2013 doing a retail online arbitrage.
I didn't really do that well at it.
About 2016, I learned about thrift stores, mostly did books, going to thrift stores,
getting books, all that kind of stuff.
Transitioned more to online arbitrage of books, like textbooks, flipping
Amazon, eBay, back to Amazon around 2018, 2019.
But then around 2019, I primarily focused on video games, which is what I'm
really passionate about and enjoy selling.
I was able to get some capital from doing huge books and doing thrift store stuff.
And was able to kind of transition to use video games.
And that's most of my business now is doing used video games on Amazon.
It went super well in 2020 with Amazon being kind of locked down, people buying
a lot of video games there.
My business has kind of done super well.
And I'm mostly a video game specialized now on Amazon, mostly with a little bit
of stuff on eBay as well, more collectible stuff on there, but mostly
Amazon FBA video games is my business.
So what they do, wait, hold up here, Johnny B.
So the, the, the, it's true what they say, right?
Everybody starts out with books on Amazon.
I just wanted to confirm that.
Yeah, it's amazing.
I love used books.
I love to talk about it.
Like I would love to still do used books.
It's a lot of fun.
That's how I got my start pretty much.
That's my first success on there.
So yeah, it's awesome.
And two things to your credit.
You are a solo, uh, solo op for how long?
Uh, I'm still mostly still have a little bit of help, uh, part-time.
Uh, but, uh, pretty much like most of my, uh, selling has been like solo on there.
So, uh, I haven't really had, uh, full-time employees, uh, yet in my business.
So, but most of the scaling has just been kind of myself and I like it
because I can keep a lot of the profits to it.
And I've liked to save up over the years from it.
So it's been super good to kind of do it mostly myself.
And my second thing here for those that don't know is I like to
plug daily refinement a lot.
Uh, Jack here runs the Amazon call on Fridays daily refinement.
Yeah.
So there's plug for daily refinement.
It's a good group.
Yeah.
Check it out.
I'm curious.
Like what was the infliction point where you decided, all right, I'm tired of
lugging these old crappy heavy books and I want to sell video games now.
So for video games, like, as you said, at the start, it is super hard to find it.
Locally, like in thrift stores, I'd rarely find video games.
So, uh, it is hard to find consistent source of it.
You basically can spend a lot of time, uh, researching it, like finding stuff,
like putting up Craigslist posts, Facebook, that kind of stuff.
Um, a lot of time trying to find collections from people, or you can kind
of use money to buy, use lots from various places like eBay, people buying
collections off there, but you can also find collections from people that
that's significantly more money to actually do that.
Uh, but that's mostly what I kind of like scaled into.
And, uh, I really did enjoy the book stuff.
Uh, I was in the Northern Virginia area, which is a really good book market.
And there's a lot of really good, uh, like thrift stores, uh, with, uh,
books available around, so I did super well with it, but it was also
incredibly competitive as well.
There would always be a scanner camping out, uh, thrift stores, everyone I went
to by the end when I stopped.
Uh, so it was super competitive, but there was a lot of good value there,
but it just became, I kind of pay a cap where it's difficult to scale further
doing thrift, uh, and I was saving up money from buying stuff, use, or like
selling, but I basically buying stuff for like two bucks from a thrift store,
selling for 20, but there's only so much you can kind of scale with that.
And I had to kind of, uh, expand a little bit, except a little bit lower profit
margins and, uh, kind of use the capital to scale a little bit more.
So it's interesting about what you just said.
It was super competitive then I'm going to make the prediction that it's going
to be a little bit less competitive with the rising prices of Amazon as a lot of.
Everybody's gonna, once they figure out that they're going to be losing money on
just the everything books, unlike before, where you could just send in pretty much
everything, I could see it being a less competitive market in the near future.
Honestly, I'd be curious.
Uh, I actually started going for fun.
I'll go back to a thrift store about once, once a month or so, and it did seem
like I went back, um, a couple of weeks ago, uh, for the first time in a while.
And, uh, it, there did seem to be two full-time scanners there while I was
there, like I kind of checked it out.
So at least in my area, there's does seem to be some competition.
I didn't recognize them from when I used to do it, but, uh, it does seem like
there's definitely a lot of competition in my area, at least still on that.
Yeah, about two months ago, I haven't been in thrift stores in like over a year.
I went for funsies just to see what the books were like, uh, as I was trying to
get some resupply of my, uh, fun paperbacks I do.
And they were all clothing sellers.
I was here in the eBay Kachin left and right, but they were all in the clothing area.
Nobody was at the book area.
I'm like, yeah, you guys stay over there.
It's fine.
Just leave me with my books.
So yeah, go ahead.
I do think like it's video games.
I, when I first started thrifting back in, you know, 2018, 2017, that while
I don't even remember when, like you would actually see video games out in the
wild, right?
You know, like you see stuff and you'd be like, okay, you know, I can make some
money on this.
Do you think that all of the thrift stores now, if it's a video game, they're
looking it up regardless of what console it is, what condition it is, because I,
I never see these things.
And if I do, it'll be like mad in 2014 and it's in the glass case for 10 bucks.
Right?
So it's like, do you think that any, any video game that comes in every thrift
store is looking it up nowadays?
Uh, goodwill certainly does, uh, because they have like their own, uh,
online like way of selling stuff as well now.
So, uh, goodwill is definitely doing it.
Uh, obviously goodwills are like regionally operated.
So some might, the ones in my area certainly do like everything, like they
haven't had video games pretty much forever.
Unless it's like a common, like we fit or something like that.
And no one cares about.
So, uh, video game, like for goodwill, they certainly do.
Uh, I think, uh, I used to do a lot of savers, like savers, value village,
unique, uh, those were big in my area.
I don't think they do.
Like, I don't think they, uh, kind of have a way to do that.
So I think pretty much everything still hits the floor with them and it kind of
depends on the other thrift stores, what they're doing with it.
Um, whether they have like ways to move it online, uh, for my most luck in
finding video games was usually at savers.
Um, I would, uh, it's very hard to get video games.
As I said, at thrift stores, like it is super difficult, but, uh, I did have a
couple of savers where I knew the, uh, the guy putting out the media.
So I know the time.
So he is like moving video games out and I just have a check it out then.
And basically for video games, anything good is going to go like in a minute
or a minute or so once it's put out.
So you have to be there when the new stuff is being put out basically for
that, because it's so hyper competitive.
The only, I live in a rural area compared to YouTube.
The only time I ever see video games is at garage sales.
It's the only time I ever see them.
I work with a lot of estate and auction houses.
I never see them there either.
I don't know why.
Um, and thrift stores definitely not same as you guys.
I do think about this, like it's almost beneficial to somebody like yourself
that video games don't exist in thrift stores anymore, right?
Because it's, it's, it's like the barrier to entry.
Like if I started from nothing today and I wanted, you know, to be Jack 2.0,
I wanted to have a video game selling business, like that you got to put the
work in and develop relationships in order for your business to even exist.
Because, you know, we all just basically said, you're not, you're not walking into
a thrift store anymore and finding a stack of video games that are worth more than
three bucks when you look them up on eBay and Amazon.
So like it's beneficial to you.
I think that it's almost gotten tougher.
And I think a lot of people like they're gravitate towards video games because a
lot of us grew up playing them.
So everybody thinks, Hey, I'm going to sell video games.
I see it all the time.
Like how do I get ungated and selling video games and, you know, selling this
and selling that when it comes to video games.
And I just, I try to tell people like, is it really worth it to get ungated in
Nintendo because I'm lucky if I come across 10 Nintendo games the whole year.
Right.
So it's, it's kind of, it's kind of good for you that it's the barrier to entry is
so much harder, but I'm curious, right.
If you had to go back and start today, like what, what would be like your, your
approach with the knowledge you have now?
Would it be, would you even bother with thrift stores at all?
You only go in once a month now, just so you can be like, Hey, yeah, I still go
to thrift stores, right.
Just keep it on your resume.
But I'm just curious, like if you had to go back and start over knowing what you
know today, would thrift stores even be on the radar for you at all, or would you
just push like what you're talking about, like the Craigslist ads and trying to
find collections.
Uh, so in, uh, in our group, uh, the Chinese then as well, we have a guy named
Jamison who's on my calls.
He's super good at finding these deals in Facebook, Facebook marketplace,
Craigslist, garage sales.
He always has like a collection buy every week going on.
So you basically either need to put in a ton of time, uh, and you can't
get to trying to find these deals or have the capital to do it.
And he's putting in a lot of time.
So it is definitely possible to find these deals out there.
Um, if I were just getting started today, I probably would not do video
games, just getting started because it is so hard to actually find it.
And I would probably do the exact same thing I did these days as well.
When I got started with it is focus on the books at thrift stores first.
Um, just because it's so abundant, uh, the books out there.
Uh, so for thrift stores, you pretty much need to do either clothing or some
kind of media books, that kind of stuff.
If you want to do it, because there's so much clothing out there and I hate
clothing, uh, but that's something you can buy super cheap there.
And there's just so much abundance of it.
So I probably wouldn't do anything different.
I just do books these days as well, just to get started.
Because when I, when I got started in 2016 on Amazon, books was pretty much
like 80% of what I sold on there.
I sold some video games I had, uh, as well, maybe some DVDs occasionally,
but, uh, it was pretty much books.
And that's just because that's what is so available and so abundant.
And I built up capital from that.
And I also un-gated my account on everything.
Like I un-gated Nintendo through books.
I un-gated Nike through books, uh, and basically had like a fully unlocked
account by just selling books on there.
So I would, I would still do the same thing, just focus on books at thrift stores.
And it's funny, you mentioned Jameson.
He's also in Mike's group here.
Oh, cool.
Nice.
Yeah.
I'll have to join.
Yeah.
I'll have to join after this.
Yeah.
Every time, every time I drive past a piece of furniture on the side of the road,
I think about him, right?
Cause he's like, he has crazy, like he'll flip anything.
And if he's getting this furniture for free and he's got to space, I mean,
he crushes it.
I'm just like, holy smokes.
I wish I had a truck.
I love him.
He's like, uh, he's like the guy who's like going out and like making these deals and
getting these collections every week.
He has to find something crazy.
It's, uh, it shows like, if you put in the time to do it, like you can get the stuff
out there, but you have to put in the time and really like, especially in the video
games are just so competitive than the niche, but he's like, he's shown it's
definitely possible.
He's doing the Pokemon cards as well.
Yeah.
He grinds man.
He's the definition of a hustler right there.
Yeah.
It is, it just goes to show, I talked about a YouTube video not too long ago, like
you can have all the knowledge in the world, right?
Jack be the biggest video game expert on everything.
He knows every edition of console, every console, every video game.
But if Jack doesn't actually put in the time to find these deals, his business
doesn't exist.
Right?
So at the end of the day, you got to take action on what you're doing.
And I'm curious here, like, all right.
So you can get into video games.
Uh, was it like, when you started getting into video games was like, was there ever
a point where you're like, man, maybe I should have stayed with books.
Like, did you ever think about going back because like you weren't getting the
results you thought you were going to get, even though you're excited about it.
Right?
Cause you sound like you were kind of like me, right?
Books, we make money on them.
The money excites us, but it's like not going to get us up in the morning to go
list a hundred books on eBay, like Johnny.
So it's like, did you ever hit a point when you got into video games where
you're like, all right, maybe this isn't what I thought it was going to be.
And maybe I should go back to books.
I know actually I kind of immediately just saw success with it.
Like, uh, one of the things that was successful for me is like breaking up
lots I'd buy on eBay, like buy out, uh, collections on there.
And, uh, like I was kind of surprised at first, like how well it's actually
working out for me.
And I got in really the perfect time for like in 2019, right before 2020, where
it just like exploded, uh, that whole, uh, niche, the video game niche really
like took off during that time.
So, uh, I was super happy with it.
At first I was looking for a way to expand my business because you feel
with books, there's only so much, I was grinding a lot.
I was going to thrift stores about two to three hours per day, uh, then
listing and all that and kind of just ran out of sources.
I could actually source the books from it.
I had to expand, uh, to something else.
So, uh, like I had the capital from the books and I was looking for
something else to go to.
I was doing like buying off eBay.
I'd have a list of like all the books and like high end stuff that I
flipped from thrift stores and then make a list to find them on eBay and just
looking for more stuff I could add, uh, to like scale up my business because
you kind of run out of time at some point when you're going to thrift stores.
Uh, there's, you just kind of run out of supplies in your area to actually get.
So once you get more money, uh, you can kind of opens up more opportunities to
do what you can do and like stuff you can buy from it.
So like it worked out.
That was basically the national transition is just, uh, like just trying
to invest more capital into my business.
And, uh, like, because I was running out of time, the sources in my area for
thrift stores where it just made more sense to kind of the national
progression to it.
So it could have been video games or anything else, but video games is
something I love as well.
And I just found the niche and like found success in it.
So that's what my next thing came, became on Amazon for that.
So Mike made a very good point.
Um, I do a lot of eBay listings and people are like, why?
And well, honestly, I do like the books.
Um, and, uh, I get that it was just money to probably, uh, Mike and whatever.
But I think you yourself actually liked the video games.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, it's fun.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
It's fun to do it, but it would also be like, I would do something else too, if
there wasn't profitable in it, like it's just super profitable and something I
enjoy doing as well.
Like I have a lot of knowledge in it.
Like I have a small Instagram following as well, uh, which I haven't posted
to in a long time, but, uh, like I've kind of known as like the video game guy,
uh, at this point with it in my business.
So it's like kind of cool that I can do something I really enjoy with
it as well and make money with it.
I will not take offense.
If you start a YouTube channel called Jack, they use video game guy, we can,
we can be one together.
I actually do have a YouTube channel I used to have, uh, and I haven't
posted to a long time, but, uh, like, especially I am, uh, considering, uh,
starting up doing some more YouTube and Instagram pretty soon with that.
So we'll, uh, we'll see on that.
I do have one though, uh, video game sourcing on Instagram and video game
sources, my YouTube channel.
So maybe at some point I'll post a little bit there or at some point.
I've watched your YouTube videos.
They're really good.
I would like one of your like little minion subscribers over there.
I'm curious.
Do you have a collection of video games for yourself that you're not going to
sell, you know, like maybe you collect, you know,
Nintendo switch or something like that.
Do you have a personal collection?
So I play a lot of video games.
I enjoy playing.
I've never been super into collecting.
I was into it for a little bit.
I used to have a steeled video game collection.
I, if you look behind me, there's some video games back there.
I I'm sort of interested in a little bit, uh, but I more enjoy just selling.
And, uh, like for me is the enjoyment comes from selling and getting good deals on it.
Like just having it for a little while and selling is more fulfilling to me than actually
owning it.
Like I don't really care about owning a certain game.
I like to play games.
Like I, I kind of enjoy it.
The idea of collecting and I used to be more into steel game collecting, but
like after I started selling stuff, I kind of the stuff takes up a lot of space physically.
And I just more enjoy playing the games themselves and collecting.
So I don't really consider myself a big time collector so much.
I like some of the stuff I'd like learning about the mores, more like rarities of video games,
misprints of box art, like variations of games, like I'm into sports cars a little bit too.
So kind of the, the, um, like printing errors on, uh, cartridges and different variations
of stuff is more interesting to me and kind of the history of video games.
Uh, so sometimes I'll collect a little bit like old school Nintendo games are different
variants of box art, but I don't really collect so much.
Like I just enjoy selling, um, mostly I don't really consider myself so much of the collector.
That's right.
Like the money, like myself, you know, listen, I'll find the emulation somewhere online.
Yeah.
I want to play the game down the road.
You too.
Yep.
I'm curious though, like, so you kind of like got into video games when like the,
the pandemic was happening.
So you almost like we're getting in on the wave as it was going up here.
And I do think, uh, I think now we're kind of on the downswing, at least with, you know,
used media overall, there's a lot of people that, you know, have gone away just, you know,
in my group alone and just seeing, you know, less faces out there.
You do see new faces, but not as much as kind of when you first got into video gaming and
it was on the rise.
Cause everybody knows like 2020, 2021, like it's going to be hard for us to replicate
the numbers that we had in those years just because of the way everything was.
Are you concerned at all?
Like about the downswing we're going to see here?
Are you just like, kind of like we are, we're committed to it anyway.
So it really doesn't matter.
But just your opinion on like, do you think there's going to be more people trying to
come in and sell video games or less people?
Sure.
Yeah.
Um, it's definitely changed a lot from 2020 or so, uh, 2020 was the first year I sold
over a million on Amazon, uh, in total revenue.
Um, and it's kind of like stayed about the same, uh, since then or so, uh, so like 2020
is kind of an anomaly with, uh, in 2021 as well.
And I'm seeing definitely a downswing in the used area, uh, like of sales on Amazon,
like it's getting a lot more competitive.
There's a lot more used companies, uh, like bulk sellers on listings now,
like sending stuff in.
Uh, so it's definitely changed a lot worse, a lot harder than it was in 2020, 2021, 2022
even.
Um, and a lot of video game sellers I talked to are kind of frustrated right now with it.
A couple are, uh, are leaving the platform.
But I'm still seeing success with it.
I'm still profitable, uh, in my buying.
And as long as I'm still profitable with it and still doing well, I'm going to keep doing
it definitely, but I'm starting to add in a little bit more sales channels as well,
as well as Amazon.
I think one of the issues with Amazon is it is so easy to list an item there, FBA.
All you do is you scan the barcode and you just send it in, no pictures or anything like that.
And I think that's, uh, encourage a lot of bulk companies to start like flooding the
market with stuff on there, which is fine.
That's a, that's normal.
This is just, there's not the demand there was in 2020, 2021 with everyone at home, uh,
like needing, uh, news, media, DVDs, books, uh, video games and stuff like that.
So it's definitely down a lot since then, but there's still a lot of property made from
it.
I am seeing a lot of sellers, so moving to different platforms like whatnot and eBay.
I had a conversation just yesterday with a, like a really big Amazon seller, um, uh, in
video games.
It used to be exclusive video games where he's actually moved off the platform entirely
now and is entirely eBay because a lot of the cheaper, especially in the video game area,
a lot of the common bulk stuff has really tanked pretty hard.
Uh, during 2020, 2021, you could sell this stuff for like maybe 15 bucks or so now it's
down to about like the full price of six to seven, where you're basically making no money.
Uh, but people are finding that they can sell this stuff on eBay for maybe like, you know,
seven or eight bucks and pro pocket a little bit money on that.
So I am seeing, uh, some video game sellers starting to transition to other platforms a
little bit.
But for me, like I still really enjoy Amazon as a smaller operation, just myself pretty
much like being able to scan a barcode and throw in a box is still like, I can, the time
it takes to do is so much faster than having to take photos on eBay that right now for
me, I'm just like focused on as long as they're still profiting made from it.
So, um, back to what Mike was saying on the, we've seen people come and go and I've
definitely noticed that even in refining group, the people that were attending the media call
when I first joined, not all the same faces are still there and same, I don't attend your
call all the time Jack, because usually Fridays are a busy day for me, but I tend when I can't,
but I have noticed they're same, same kind of deal.
When I pop in one month, come back a month and I'm steady for like a month on your thing.
Um, sometimes the faces just go away for whatever reason.
Don't know what happened.
There was no bye guys.
I'm out.
It's just, they no longer appear.
So reselling is super low barrier to entry.
Uh, so a lot of people get involved with that.
Uh, and it is definitely a business that you need to run with it.
And a lot of people don't take it as seriously with that.
They're kind of a lot of people do it just to move on to the next thing.
So maybe they need some capital or something like that is pretty easy,
like to get started with it.
And some people move on to other stuff.
They all want to scale up their business.
They don't want to really run it as a real business.
Maybe they don't really make it in it and they kind of just move on to something else
like doing Uber or something as well with that, like they can't like kind of figure
out how to make it work.
So it like, since it is so lower, low barrier to entry, like reselling is like a lot of
people get involved in it and there's a lot of turnover with it where they kind of move
on to something else.
But, uh, like I love, uh, I love reselling.
Like I, uh, one of the things I kind of got involved in early on is I used to always be
into video game markets and like selling on auction houses and video games.
And like, uh, this is like the real life version of it, like, uh, making money.
Like I just love, uh, selling stuff basically, and just, uh, turning being able to buy something
cheap and then sell it for more.
So it's something I really enjoy doing.
I probably always have some part in.
So like, uh, for me, uh, like I'll be doing this for a really long time.
I'm sure.
So going back to the similar phases that are still around, I have noticed there are
a lot of big video game sellers and the highlight of that is you all seem to get along and you
are hyper competitive or there's no like animosity, which is really cool to see at the higher
end that all you guys are pretty much get along.
Yeah, yeah, I'm on discord with a couple of video game sellers as well.
We talk a lot, uh, with it.
Um, like we don't go so far as like to like discuss like pricing strategies and so much
usually, uh, but we will, um, like there's a lot of like talking among us.
We, we talk about like what's going on at the Amazon.
It's really nice.
Like we, uh, with my call in, uh, in the, uh, Chris and tech group, uh, like I brought
together a lot of like video game sellers, there's people on discord who are together
as well.
So like, I pretty much know just about like every major video game seller on Amazon at
this point, um, which is really cool.
Uh, like in we, we like kind of share info and talk to a little bit, like is a smaller
community than the use book community.
Uh, I see a lot of the use book people kind of going at each other in the Facebook groups
occasionally, so, uh, it's a little bit of a smaller community, uh, with us.
Uh, so it's kind of cool to like just chat up and, uh, talk to people on that.
And like, uh, it's been nice to do a little bit of social media as well.
That's why I wanted to do this podcast, uh, with you guys too, because it's a cool
connecting with people and talking with people and, uh, kind of sharing info, uh, that you
both know about the platform.
I've learned a lot from just like talking with people in it.
All right.
Now I got two hot takes here.
Okay.
First hot take the book community is not as nice and friendly as everybody makes it out
to seem.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, you can just go into any one of these groups, right?
And oh, the book community is so helpful.
That's kind of like why I started the channel is because like it's almost the opposite out
there, right?
You go to a library sale, like these people won't even talk to you and they just run in
and run you over, run your kids over, run your wife over, run you over.
Like it's not really like almost, you know, a community close knit.
So I agree with you 100%.
Like there's a lot of, there's a lot of ignorant, uh, media booksellers out there.
So the second one is it's crazy to me, right?
Because I look back when I started reselling and there wasn't all of these resources where
you could basically sit down with somebody like Jack once a week for an hour who does
over a million dollars in sales and ask him anything about selling video games.
You can start from nothing today and you will get a lifetime of advice from a seven figure
Amazon seller and people still are like, nah, I can't do this.
It was nice meeting you, Jack.
I'll talk to you in the next lifetime.
Like it's crazy to me that we have these resources out there and people just, I don't know.
I don't know what it is.
I think, I think it's kind of what you said, right?
It's like, if you don't take the action, if you're not willing to put in the time and
really understand what it takes to have a business, it's not just, oh, I went to the
goodwill today and I sold one video game for $10 that I bought for five.
Like it's, is there so much more to that, but it's still crazy.
Like once a week you can sit down with Jack, ask him any question you have about selling
a video game, probably turn yourself into a six figure video game seller within, you
know, the year.
And you're just like, nah, I don't want no part of that.
Well, uh, Brad, uh, is, uh, probably does 10 times the sales I do.
Uh, like, and he's, uh, he shows up to our calls like quite a bit.
Like he's a, probably one of the biggest video game sellers on Amazon with his company.
And, uh, he's still, uh, like you can just come on and just ask him the questions.
He'll answer for a while too.
It's crazy.
Like he's so nice.
He's such a nice place.
Nice guy.
He's one of the nicest people in the group on.
Oh yeah.
He's amazing.
Like, uh, um, like, uh, Brad, uh, like on my call, he'll come on like every so often
and the book community.
I agree with you.
Like I sometimes catch up on the Facebook groups and it's so bad in there.
Um, it's just a lot of complaining all the time.
Like, uh, well, I think it's like I said, it's very low barrier to entry.
And I, when I used to do the book game for myself, like, I, I think I did it super well.
Like, uh, I was really efficient with how I did it.
And I was always tried to be super nice to my competition.
I never kind of got in their face or like I'd work with them.
I wouldn't like try to like hog books or anything like that.
I always try to be super nice to them, talk to them.
And it mostly like in books, it feels like, especially locally, everyone is super competitive.
Like there's been book sales going into where there's like basically fights, fights breaking
out where they're like just like all over each other.
Like I've heard like screaming at book sales.
It's completely crazy.
Like what goes on there sometimes.
Hold up, John.
I'm gonna go on record here because book sales are one of my things I get all the time.
Mike, why don't you go to book sales?
Well, Jack just summed it up for you, right?
If I don't have to go to book sales and deal with these, uh, these people that are just
rude and ignorant, I'm not going to, I'm not going to put myself through torture just to
maybe get a bag full of books, right?
And deal with all the crazy people that sit outside for three hours.
It just, I can better utilize my time.
So, uh, that's why you never see any, you know, you book guy at a library book sale,
go to library sales.
I don't have to, and I don't want to deal with the crazy people that Jack's talking
about.
You better believe they're at every single book sale because I've been to a few and I
don't want no, I don't want no parts of, I don't got it.
So it's like, you know, he's right.
100%.
Yeah.
Uh, like there's like screaming matches, like occasionally book sales in the first few
minutes of it, like at the end of my book selling career, uh, around 2019, uh, I, I
basically only was going to one book sale.
That was like once a quarter they had it on.
And the only reason I went to that one is because they had a really good price book
section where I could spend a lot of money pretty quickly on like the price books.
Um, so like it was, it was really frustrating.
Like it's, it's super annoying to me because I like to talk to people and kind of learn
from them as well.
And I like share info on that and there was really very few book people who wanted to
do that.
Who wanted to kind of talk about their business or anything like that.
And you, you learn a lot from people like telling me you don't have, you can be selling
the same thing and like still share info and help each other out with it.
I get so much help from, from other like video game sellers.
And it's been super nice, like having like a community and talking to them.
And like, like I can go to Brad and say like, are you seeing this with that, with this?
And like people message me all the time, like asking what's up with this.
And I'll mess with them.
So it's super nice to like be able to go back and forth with it.
So like, I like, it was really frustrating with the book community where like they do
seem to be like mainly very mad people, very mad at the, at the work.
So I went a year without seeing a competitor, my EB, eBay business rather.
And everybody else was mainly Amazon.
I didn't care too much about the Amazon competition.
So this one girl, I brought my employee to library sale.
She was very nice.
The competitor person, she's, she's in my niche, a little bit more antiquarian, but also vintage.
I turned to my employee.
If she doesn't play nice, we will end her.
And what that means is we will be there before her.
I will pay more than they're asking for and buy out all of her goods.
I will find out where she lives and crush her.
But until then, it will be very nice to her because it doesn't matter.
It does no need to do that unless it's a threatening your own business kind of game,
or she's a royal pain in the butt.
So I was always overwhelmingly nice at these places.
I feel like even the kind of let people kind of walk over me a little bit with it, like,
because I was doing well with books and I didn't feel like my competition was doing as well with
it. And like sometimes we'd all, we'd both be there at the same time when they're putting out
new books and I wouldn't be very aggressive and kind of like, I knew they were being super
aggressive, like with that kind of stuff with their scanning and stuff.
And like I mostly just kind of held back a little bit with it.
But yeah, there's a lot of aggression that goes on with like, it feels like a very much like
limited mindset with it because they're looking for like the same resources.
They feel like they have to compete with you for that.
So I'm kind of glad to not be in it as more as much as well as having to deal with the thrift
store stuff, because I have so much stuff I can buy, like I don't have the time to buy it all
and process it at this point. So I love the way I source now compared to that.
Yeah, there's no reason to do that unless like what I said, your business is directly threatened
then it's game on. Sure, we'll play that game. But anyway, I would be remorse if I didn't ask you
a specific eBay question, because we do have some eBay listeners and all of our Amazon people,
they dabble in eBay. So can you talk a little bit about your eBay business side? I know you
sure well in there. So I would like to do it more. Right now I'd say 95% of my sales are Amazon,
with maybe a little bit on eBay. I would like to spend it more because like Amazon can be a
little bit crazy. It is good to have like a mastery of Amazon. And it's probably the best
platform in my opinion to sell on. But it is good to have some diversity in your business.
And I would like to do it some more. I am seeing a lot of video game sellers moving on to eBay
selling more common stuff on there. But for what I do with eBay, I kind of have a passion for sports
cards as well. Like I enjoy like the collectible market, like also a little bit of TCG cards,
and those just don't really work on Amazon. So a lot of what I saw on eBay is like graded stuff
and collectible, like higher end stuff that wouldn't work on Amazon really. So a lot of
my eBay stores, the graded cards, like some sealed card product that like I enjoy, enjoy buying and
holding for a little bit kind of just like a side hobby thing. And also like graded video games.
That market has tanked pretty badly in the last few years. But something that's kind of interesting
to me because I used to be interested in collecting sealed video games. So that's what my eBay
stores is more higher end collectible. I think my ASP on eBay is probably like $150 or something
like that crazy, because like I'm just selling the expensive stuff pretty basically on eBay. So
to get me to list on eBay requires something pretty expensive to sell on there because I just
don't like it. I thought I would be greedy at my $20, $150. So I mean, holy smoke. You got to up
your game, Mike. You got to up your game. Dude, it's tough out here in the thrift stores. All
right. Why do you think you don't go to them no more? So I got an assumption here and you're the
perfect person to ask. And I'm going to prove whether I'm the smartest non-video game seller
out there or I'm the dumbest. Does Nintendo stuff hold its value the best out of all the platform
like the I guess the publishers? Absolutely. Yeah, I would say Nintendo is the best. There are some
publishers are also good, but they're much smaller. Some like niche publishers are really good from
like the PlayStation 2 era. They made a lot of like RPGs and stuff like that still held their
value really well. But Nintendo is just consistently basically anything they make is going to hold their
value or be really close to it. Like GameCube games, Nintendo first party, all those are pretty
much crazy over $100 at this point. Most of them are. And then anything like even the Wii stuff,
there's a couple Wii, Nintendo first party titles that don't do too well like Super Mario Galaxy's
like something like 15 bucks or so. But most of the stuff on Wii like like new Super Mario Brothers
is easy like like $40 to $60 usually. So Nintendo stuff holds its value super well. Basically,
you can pretty much blind buy anything Nintendo like anything Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, anything
like you see a thrift, you can just pick it up and night and scan it is probably going to be good.
I'm going to reverse the question. Is there anything Nintendo to avoid purchasing? Well,
they made a few games that have bombed pretty badly. I can't think of like there's just random
stuff that you probably wouldn't even think they're associated with Nintendo. But occasionally,
like there will be a couple of things, but you probably wouldn't even recognize it as a Nintendo
publisher pretty much. So anything you recognize in Nintendo like it's doing probably going to do
well like anything Zelda, Mario, anything like you recognize as a Nintendo character is probably
doing well. Even like Wii Sports is like something that sells for like like $25, $30 at least,
and sometimes even more if it's complete. So like basically anything Nintendo is going to like be
worth picking up. Hey, Wii Sports is one that comes in a little cardboard sleeve, right?
Most of them are cardboard sleeve. They did make a one in a case like the Nintendo slux version of
it. They also made a different version of it in a case too. And there's also Wii Sports Resort,
which does really well. That game used to sell for like 80 bucks during like 2020. But now it's like
40 to 60 or so. So yeah. So all you people out there on YouTube, I posted that below last week,
because I found some of the Wii Sports in the cardboard case and it's only 25 bucks a day got
checked in. And that's like it's one of the more common ones you actually find out in thrift stores,
because usually it's just in with the CDs or something. But I got a few rapid fire questions.
All right. Okay. All right. So you're an Amazon seller. Do you have a repricer?
Yeah, I use reprice it and be cool. Be cool for new reprice it for old or for used, but I don't like
either. So I need a better option. Whoa, he's both them. That's, that's, that's really interesting.
I do like you do use reprice it because it's simple for me. And I always, you know, that's when I
always push on people. And for the new stuff, it's the same reason why I use be cool. So you can set
your men's and maxes and you know, make sure you don't lose money on that. If you have a suggestion
for a reprice, I'm looking for a better one. So go ahead. I'm on reprice it with you. So I'm not
going down that rabbit hole either. There's probably like 10 million out there and they're
probably all garbage. What like what's like an average inventory like amount you carry in your
Amazon store? If you don't mind us, you know, sure. Yeah, previous in previous years is like 20k would
be normally what I have. Then like all the I had a lot of issues with the FBA storage that's over
now pretty much these days I'm usually around about 13 to 14k but ideally I'd like to be back to 20k.
And that's all video games? Almost entirely like 95%. I mean, I I'm speechless because I don't think
I've seen that many video games out and out in a while to my career, but you don't go out in the
wild anymore. You got a better way of doing it. So that is pretty eye opening, right? 13, you know,
15,000 and you did kind of hit it on the head here like storage storage limits kind of screwed you
over. You know how they change it this year where you know, if it does go down, you can bid to get
more space. Is that something like you're willing to do with you know, the numbers you're doing?
Once they changed it, I had no issue. The main problem before was unit based. So video games are
super small, but now it's a cubic feet based and it doesn't matter anymore. Like I have plenty of
space. So I ran into major issues with that in the past few years, but that's mostly because over the
summer video games sell a lot slower. So my sell through is down on that. But now that they changed
as a cubic feet, I have no problem anymore. That's do you use a listing software? You don't have to
name which one? I use inventory lab. I know most media sellers don't use it by really like the
accounting for it. So that's the main reason I use inventory lab. Oh yeah, that's I always say that's
the best one as long as you're willing to pay it pay up for it. It's it's the cleanest. It's the
prettiest and it does have the accounting if you use that as well. So that's an added benefit.
Let's see what else here. So you got 13,000 and it's based off cubic feet now. So that probably
puts you around like what 350 cubic feet give or take a little bit? Yeah, I think it's I think my
limit is currently around 350 and I'm using maybe like 200 or something like that. And it should go
up during Q4 when sales spike up a lot more during that time period. So like I'm using about half the
space or so right now. What's your take on storage limits? Are they going to crack down again this
year across the board? Or what's your what's your opinion on what's going to happen? I'm just curious.
I'm hoping they finally figured it out. They kind of rug pulled us last year in quarter four,
like right before quarter four, they dropped our limits massively, at least for me. Like I had a
lot of space in summer and then got rug pulled during quarter four and couldn't send in for a
few months. It was terrible. I'm hoping with the new cubic feet system, I really like it a lot.
It makes sense. That's based on your actual storage space. As long as they keep that,
I'm good with it. And if I really have to, I would bid for space, but I haven't had to yet.
My argument to that would be this just before Johnny B times in here is they start everybody
out with seems like 100 cubic feet. And for books and media, that's actually a lot. Because we kind
of convert that it's almost 4,000 books you could have in there, give or take some. And if we look
at where we were at last year with the units, you were maxed out at 1000. So I just find it hard
to believe it. I don't know, it's just because I don't trust Amazon, I guess. It's like I don't see
them allowing all media sellers to continue to have 4000, you know, basically unit space.
I agree with you. I think 100 is probably a little bit too high to start people out with.
That might be some they pull back on at some point with that. But at least as far as like,
sell through and like them increasing, it's been pretty good for me on that. So like,
I've been happy with the new system. So you don't have to be specific here. We do have a couple
people like Jameson and Luke in Mike's group that do video games. If you had and Luke's fairly new
at it. If you had to point somebody in the right direction for sourcing video games, you could be
as vague as specific as you'd like. What would you advise them? It depends on the capital you
have available to you. If you're doing what I'm doing, which is like going out by trying to like
find collections and being able to pay up more for them, then like you can do that you can look
on eBay for people selling like like bulk lots, like sites like that. But if you don't have the
capital available to you, like you don't have a ton of money saved up yet, then you really need to
do what like Jameson's is doing and like posting to Facebook marketplace, like trying to find deals,
like driving around trying to like hit up your sales early, calling guard sales early, that kind
of stuff with it. So it all depends on the capital you have available with it. It is a lot harder to
do what I'm doing with it. I think I just like got gained experience over the year. So I know,
I basically know the entire video game catalog Amazon kind of in my head at this point and know
what stuff sells for so I can look at a lot and see, oh, there's a video game in there that sells
for 80 bucks. I know it can like get that game for 80 sell for 80. And then basically, the rest
of the games are pretty much free. So like you gain that experience over time with it, but you
kind of have to put the time into it. So I would probably just really work super hard trying to
find these, these deals that you can get out there like Jameson is doing in it, and just kind of keep
like really working hard on it. I got a few more rapid fire questions here for you. All right, so
I'm out of the thrift store, I come across, you know, a handheld, right? Maybe it's like a Nintendo
DS or something. I want to send this into Amazon. Give me a rundown of how I would do it. I just
have the DS with the with the power, you know, cable. That's it. Like, how would you send that
into Amazon? So I'm not an expert on that kind of stuff, because I actually focus more on the
software, like just the media of it. But there are people who do a lot of like controllers,
accessories, like consoles, it just takes so much time as like a one person operation right now,
I can't, I can't do it. But I do know how these people do it. And like, if you get like a DS,
you get at a thrift store or something, you'd want to test it, make sure everything's working
correctly with it, like test it the best you can, like test it, whether it's playing games, whether
there's any issues with the controllers, like anything like that. But then you'd want to like,
kind of like wrap it up, bubble wrap it and include the the charger or anything that's in
the Amazon listing, find the Amazon listing for it, see what's included in the Amazon listing,
make sure you're including everything that's in it, like cords, chargers, all that, put it in a box
and then put your FBA label on it. But I personally don't really do much hardware right now with it,
just because I don't have the time to actually process it, because I can I can basically just
scan a barcode of a video game, throw it in a box and be done with it. Where with like, there's a
lot more time that goes into like dealing with controllers and hardware cleaning, testing, all
that. All right, Jack, you got to debunk the person that's probably typing this up right now
in the comments of this video. Jack, I sell video games and everybody returns my stuff all the time.
What's your return rate, Jack? Spill the beans here. 20% return rate, you're making no money or
what? What's going on? Amazon's 4% for me. That's probably higher than eBay a little bit, just because
Amazon, you're going to get more returns on there. So 4% is fine. You can just factor that into your
margins. Most of the time, I get back the game when it gets returned to me. And usually what happens
is that either the customer just didn't like it, they returned it. Maybe they couldn't figure out
how to play it. They didn't think it was the right game. So a lot of times, like at least half the
time, you just send it right back in. I usually test them first to make sure they're working.
If this is a return to me, make sure the disk is in good condition. A lot of times the case will
break because Amazon doesn't package these stuff that well. In that case, you just replace the case
and send it right back in. So returns are no real issue. Maybe very rarely I get scammed. I've never
been scammed out of a very high dollar game. A lot of times for some reason it's like the cheap games,
like a $10 game. They just didn't return the disk. I don't know why. In that case, it doesn't matter.
It's not even worth following an A to Z claim on or anything like that. So I don't really care too
much about it. I kind of just think it's going to happen over time and I don't worry too much about
it. I've heard of people on YouTube saying they are playing like invisible marker on their games
to market. That's crazy. Just list more video games. Just list more stuff. It's going to happen so
rarely to you that you're going to get returns to just factor into your profit margin. It's no big
deal. Yeah. So I got a couple of questions. One would be, you do a lot of lots. So what do you do
with the stuff that isn't worth sending in to Amazon? So I don't have a great way to liquidate
my bulk right now. If it's really not worth sending in, like it's a five to six dollar game on Amazon,
which you're not making any money on basically, I'll take the disk and save the disk. And maybe
at some point it makes some lots of like 500 video game disk lots on eBay. I just haven't gotten around
to doing it, but I have thousands and thousands of these disk saves up. But usually what I do
is I take the case and I reuse the case. So if the case is in good condition, I'll just take it
and then reuse it when the case is in bad condition. So that's where I get my replacement cases,
is the bad games that aren't worth sending in. Now, the horribleness that comes with disk media,
and I think you know what I'm about to say, is the cleaning. How much cleaning do you do
and any tips and advice on the cleaning process? Cleaning is hard. It's frustrating. And these
days I actually am looking more to buying stuff that doesn't require as much cleaning. Like
newer games, Blu-ray games usually won't require as much cleaning as older DVD based CD based games
like Wii 360 or CD DVD based games. And they tend to scratch a lot easier. Blu-ray is a lot harder
to scratch. Obviously cartridges don't have that issues with it. But as far as like cleaning,
that's a big issue. I have storage units full of games that are backed up that need to be cleaned.
I do have cleaning machines, but I always have a backlog of it because it's just me doing it at
this point. There's a lot of options on that very quickly. Like a lot of people start with a JFJ
EZ Pro, which is like $130. Then it gets a lot more expensive from that point forward. There's
ECO Pros, which I personally don't like. If you go to Elm USA, you type in Google, you'll find them.
There was about like a thousand to $1,500 each to do okay. The ones I really like are called the ECO
Auto Smarts. I have four of those machines currently. Those are going to be about $2,000 used.
And if you want to go crazy, there's the ECO Master, which will clean games for you. That's
what crazy people like Brad have in their operation, which automatically cleans like 50 discs at once.
But those are going to be about $20,000 new, $8,000 used. So yeah, so that's kind of the
rundown of like the disc cleaning stuff. What about condition of like games? Because I always
tell people and they ask me like, Hey, like, I'm out of the store and I see a video game, like,
I always prefer if the game has the manual, but a lot of these newer games don't even have manuals
anymore. Right? So like, is it important to you that if you're, you know, selling a game on Amazon
or something, like it doesn't manual play a huge factor into, you know, what you're going to condition
the game at? So for the manual, I don't think it's as necessary anymore. The case, I think,
is more important than the case artwork. I generally won't sell a disc only. I just feel like
most people kind of expect the case and the case artwork to be intact. So I generally won't sell a
game without the artwork, at least for the manual. It depends. Like when I first started doing it,
I thought most games should be complete pretty much to sell on the platform. But like, I've started
to sell games with no manual as well, and haven't really noticed any returns or issues with that,
as long as you're not saying like it comes with it in your description. So I've never really like
had issues with that. I still won't sell if it does, if it's disc only usually. But as far as
like, whether a game has no manual or not, you actually can tell this is kind of something that
people don't know. But especially with newer games, most of them don't have manuals. But they're
required to print the warnings, like seizure warnings and stuff like that somewhere. So the
way you usually know how something never had a manual is on the inside of the cover art, they'll
have all these warnings on there. So when you open the case, you'll see all these warnings in the
inside cover art. So that's how you usually know it doesn't have a manual. And if you actually look
at games, you'll see like newer games have all the all these warnings print on the inside of the
case and the cover art. And that usually means it had no manual. So that's one way you can know.
But I'm looking at it right now. And yeah, that's that my game doesn't have a manual. I mean,
I growing up I miss reading the manuals of video games and they don't exist no more. Yep.
So let's say in a very horrible land, eBay and Amazon didn't exist, what platform would you use
to sell video games on? I'm looking to whatnot right now. I probably will do it soon. I'd like
the idea of it have some friends who do whatnot. I love the fact that you can just like hold up the
item and then it sells but it doesn't work for everything like books probably would be terrible
on there. I know CDs don't do that well. DVDs don't do the well. Video games do work on whatnot.
Because there's a community like collectors who want to do it. So what now it's probably
going to the next platform or really try to like focus on playing a move in a couple months here.
So that's going to be one of the things I'm going to focus on like have a dedicated streaming room
for that and focus more on that platform. I'm glad you said the book game wouldn't work.
It is great to source on I'll tell you that but really sell on because I'm one of the usually
only buyers and I'm like, Yes, a dollar. Yes. Yes. I used to I used to source some video games on
there. Unfortunately, it's a little bit too slow. I tried to the problem with sourcing.
You got to sit there. Yeah, all the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting platform to source on
though. I've got some good deals, but it just took a little bit too long to source on there. So yeah.
I like want to message them like, Can I just take a road trip to your place way quicker? Yeah.
I do think though, like you have the opportunity, right? You know, you have this YouTube
channel, you know, a decent amount of subscribers, you got the Instagram, all you got to do is pop
back up like, Hey, jack's back. Yeah, me out on whatnot, right? I'm planning to do it soon. I have
an amazing whatnot name, my whatnot name, I got in early on it. So my whatnot name is at video games.
So when you see at video games go live, that'll be me. If you ain't gonna do what not at least
sell the name. I am approved. I am approved to sell. I just have never sold on it yet. But I'm
planning to do it pretty soon. So let's see the problem here. Jack is they want to see jack sell
the video game. So do you plan on doing the whatnot streams? Or do you plan on hiring?
Get the circus hat and I monocle and go at it. So I probably will do some appearances on there. I
have someone in mind who I think will do really well at though. So we'll see on that. I probably
will do a few appearances on there for it. But I think the person I have in mind for is going to
do way better at it than I will. But we'll see on that. In the realm of video games, are you worried
that we get to a point where physical video games don't exist anymore? Right? Because if we look at
the PS5, you could buy the disc version or you could buy the digital only version. Personally,
for me, I prefer they have the physical copy in my hand. But there are a lot of people out there
that are like, well, if I'm going to save 100 bucks, and I don't have to worry about having
a disc or something, people will go that route. I'm curious what your opinion is, like with the
future of gaming, and does it worry you as your business revolves around selling the physical
media? So as like a physical video game seller, it might be weird for me to say like, I don't
actually like the physical, like when I buy stuff, I'm buying digitally, usually. So I enjoy the
convenience of digital personally, like, I'm not that into the physical stuff. Like I enjoy selling
it and handling it. It's kind of cool to like see this cool stuff. But like, you're right though,
that eventually, like the physical stuff should die off, there will probably be some like niche
market for it. Like at some point, I'm like, I've always known that my business like has some
limited time span on it. But there's always going to be some demand for the older stuff as well.
But like most of the stuff I sell is older games, like, you know, we game cube, like that era of
stuff. So I'm not super concerned about it. But maybe at some point, it'll die off a little bit.
But I'm always kind of willing to like transition my business and do other stuff. Like I started
with used books. So like maybe in the future, I'll be going to something I enjoy like sports cards
or do something else and transition or something else too. So I will say this thing kind of you
kind of just proved my point though. It's like, I this year I've been selling so many DVDs. And
like people will be like, who buys DVDs? Right? Like we there's so many streaming services. And
it's the same with CDs, right? Who buys CDs? Well, yet there may be people that utilize these
digital only platforms. But I think you hit it on the head. There's always going to be those people
that still are going to buy the physical media at the end of the day. Yeah, even though it's not for
me so much, like I'm willing to like appeal to those people with it. And of course, there's
always stuff like streaming where there are certain movies where like there's certain movies that I
know that like I like that are just not that popular and not on streaming services. So the
only real way to do it is get the DVD of it. And those DVDs are still do like super well actually.
So there's definitely a market for that kind of stuff. But for like the mainstream stuff is
tanked a lot in DVDs. But there are there are some outliers on where you can do super well where they
haven't are on streaming services at all too. Here's another fun question for you. So the
boutique video games like limited run games, are those worth buying and holding on to? If you find
them, should they go to Amazon or should they go to eBay? What about the boutique labels? What do
you do when you come across that kind of stuff? Lemon run is tough because they're they're kind
of like manufacturing rarity on it where they're intended to be rare. So I don't think they're
going to do well long term because usually when you try to create something as a collectible,
it doesn't do well as a collectible like stuff like organically usually becomes collectible over
time. Like, but if you're creating something as a collectible and selling to like a market of
collectors, usually that's not going to do well over time. I think letting it run was really
popular many years ago, I used to buy all their releases at the start, I kind of fell off of them.
And it seems like they're like from hearing from other sellers, like they they really don't
have maintained the resale value anymore with the newer stuff. There's sometimes niche releases to
do well with it. And as far as selling them, I own a lot of you limited run stuff still. I sold a lot
of it on eBay. I'll do if there's an Amazon listing port, I will sell it on Amazon. Usually,
I have had a lot of returns with them burn stuff a little bit more than normal, because people are
usually really picky about the condition of it. So Amazon might not be the best like route to do
that with it might be better to do eBay on that. So especially if it's like a collector's edition,
or like a big thing they do, like that might be the better place for it on eBay, I have bought a
lot from limited run in the past though. And I sold on Amazon and eBay for it had varying success
on those platforms on it though. But I don't I'm kind of skeptical of them long term though,
because they're like selling to the collector market. And they're like selling it as like a
rare collectible usually that stuff does not do well long term. So like, I think a good example
of this is something that kind of raised my eyes a reseller is recently they announced the Friday
the 13th game is going to be taken off the market because of their license expiring. So like, is this
something where you're like, I need to get my hand on every physical copy of Friday the 13th,
because it's not going to exist, you know, in another few months? Or is this something where
you're just like, there's already a million of them made out there. It's really not going to
have a difference. I'm just curious what your take is on it. Yeah, that's really a good point.
With like games losing or licensing gets taken off the digital storefronts. That's very common
in video games. And you do usually see the physical copy jump up in price, right at that announcement
of it. A couple years ago, PlayStation was going to shut down the PlayStation three store
and remove the digital copies of all PlayStation three games, you couldn't buy them digitally,
but they reversed the decision on that. For a couple months after that the price of PlayStation
for three games, physical spiked up a ton. There are certain games that like doubled or tripled in
price. So yeah, any announcement of that is usually going to increase the value. Long term,
though, sometimes it holds value, sometimes it doesn't. One example I can give you is like
Marvel Ultimate Alliance, they lost the licensing for that on the 360 and PS3. And that game,
there's a downloadable content force and you can't really get that content anymore other than like
a rare version they made like the gold version of it. And that gold version, I think I've sold
on Amazon for like 300 bucks or something like that in the past, just because like you can't
get the content anymore unless you're it's a very, it's a very limited release of it with the the
content available. And you just can't get that content anymore unless you buy the like the
disc version of it. So because they've delisted it. I did see they closed down the Nintendo store
for like, I forget what it was. Yeah, we in 3DS. And the completionist over on YouTube, he went and
bought every single game and every single piece of DLC in the Nintendo store. And like, I just
think to myself, like, how much is that going to be worth down the road? Because you've got
everything that was ever I mean, you can't put a price on it. The digital copies of stuff don't
usually hold any premium usually like if you have a digitally on a console save. So it's kind of
that's come more archiving project. But like I was just doing just before this call is processing to
3DS games. And there's certain games have gone up a lot in value like Kirby's Epic yarn, I think is
over $100. And around their kid at Chris uprising is like 100 bucks, I was in that was in one my I
just processed like 30 minutes ago. So some of these games used to be like $30 games have gone
up to like 100 bucks now because you can't buy them digitally anymore. So I have a fun series
of questions for you. You can just say yes, no. And the questions are going to be is this a viable
business model? So let's start with an easy one here. Disc only video games. It's a business model.
I don't do it. But it is viable though. Would it work? It would work. Yeah, you could make it work.
I'm sure someone could cartridge only business. That's really good. I don't do it though. I don't
deal with as much. All right, just video game manuals. I know someone who does it. Jameson does
it. So yeah, that would he does super well with that. All right. Now, now just the plastic actual
casing. You could sell replacement cases, you could get them made and import them to the US.
Brad does that. So sure, you could do a business model on that. All right. So just the little
statue figurines that sometimes come with video games. Oh, yeah, yeah. Those are super collectible,
you know. Yeah. All right. So basically, you could do anything with video games. Yeah, sure.
So that's all I'm hearing. Okay. All right. Back to Mr. Mike. All right. I think we're going to
wrap it up here, gentlemen. Okay. It was fun hanging out, you know, kind of seeing the inside
perspective of like a seven figure video game seller. I mean, you heard him. He doesn't really
mess with consoles, right? He focuses on pumping out the disc and it goes to show you can do anything
out there, right? You start with books, you get your feet wet, you learn the platform, you can
sell anything you want. And especially if it's something you're passionate about. I mean, I'm
sure you don't hate getting out of bed to go dig through video games you bought because you're
passionate about it, right? When it's me, I'm like, I got 10,000 books in that the storage unit, I
got to like drag myself there, like talk myself in actually. Well, there is some of that too, like
for me. I do think it is like, you know, it's eye opening that you can have a business on Amazon,
one person you got this part time or maybe down the road, you clone yourself for your whatnot
stream. But until that time comes, it's like, the possibilities are endless here. And if it's
something you're passionate about, it's going to be a lot easier to kind of grow your business. Sure,
there's always going to be struggles and everything. But I do think, you know, right here's the proof
that video games are still viable. They're going to continue to be viable. As we said, even if we go
to a digital only market here, there's still always going to be physical copies and just send
us off here, Jack, let us know where we can find you on Instagram and YouTube again. Yeah, sure. I
haven't posted Instagram in a while. But my Instagram is video game sourcing. I plan to post
it pretty soon. And on YouTube, my YouTube channel is just a video game source. So you have great,
you got good handles for what you're doing. I'll give you that, you know, you got all your handles
for you. I think you'll jump back into both once you decide to go down this whatnot road. When you
realize, hey, I have a storage unit of 10,000 common games that I got to get rid of. Yeah. So
I'm excited to see here, what you do here in the next month. And just like the next year overall,
like, just think about it, right? You join the daily refinements Patreon group, you can sit down
every week with this guy and literally build a video game business. Like if I decided to,
I wanted to do video games an hour a week, just sitting down with somebody like yourself, it's
like, you have every question answered. So take advantage of the opportunity here, right? You know,
he's on Instagram, shoot him a DM, you know, on YouTube, drop him a comment, like people don't
leverage these relationships enough, in my opinion. And I think that's why a lot of people go away,
because you almost feel like, oh, you're the only one out here. Well, it's actually the complete
opposite. There's so many people like yourself that are like, hey, this is how things work. This is
what you should do. This is how I did it. These are the mistakes I made when I was doing it. And
you almost can kind of build like almost a perfect business from the start by leveraging people like
yourself. So we appreciate you hanging out. We'll have to have you on again when you're, you know,
doing 50 million on Amazon. And then you'll be selling consoles, or you're probably going to be
doing video games, you'll be doing something else. But thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks, Johnny,
for hunting him down out of the refinement group. This is the what the second person we've stolen
from refinement for, for the shortlist, I just saying. But yeah, thanks, guys. Thanks for having
me. I'll join the discord after to like, it sounds like a really cool. In next week's episode. Thanks
for listening to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast. Today's full episode and all
previous episodes are available to all YouTube members, along with the weekly zoom call and
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