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 guy 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 43 resellers mindset podcast, Mike, alongside JB here every
Wednesday, 8 PM Eastern on all podcast platforms and over on the YouTube.
If you want to look at our ugly mugs today's another one of our more
favorite, uh, kind of podcast episodes to do is where, you know, I put out a
post on YouTube and Facebook and we respond to every single question you
drop down beneath on those posts.
We do these probably about once every two months.
So it's something we look forward to answering all your crazy questions.
So without further ado, we are going to cover the YouTuber ones first here.
So I'm just going to go down the list here.
And, uh, first one is question for JB.
This is from miss Lashay resells.
She's also a reselling YouTuber.
She sells all kinds of stuff.
Uh, she's real big into selling up basically book lots.
So check her out over on YouTube.
Question for Johnny B.
Top two to three changes you've made in your eBay business that have increased
sales or improved your bottom line since starting.
Do coupons, uh, and the daily newsletter, uh, both coupons and newsletter are daily.
And three, I now charge for stamps, uh, or a mailing label as I like to be
corrected by everybody at eBay is they're not called stamps there.
So yeah, uh, sending out daily coupons, sending out a daily newsletter.
And now I charge for shipping labels instead of free shipping.
That was probably the top three biggest changes I made for
myself in business this year.
Do you need a store to send out coupons?
Like an eBay store?
I think you do on that.
Yes.
Well, even though the starter store is pretty cheap, uh, I'm going to get my two
cents, even though she's like, Mike, I know you don't sell on eBay like once,
once what a year, but Hey, uh, best two things I have made is, uh, I promote
listings a lot more heavily than I used to, like I used to be the cheap guy, like
the minimum 1% now it's 2% like.
Now basically across the board, it's 10% for me.
And, uh, the waiting with the way I increase my eBay sales is whenever I
list something, it just seems like something sells, right?
So if I list something, something sells, it's weird how that works.
So that's kind of my two cents on how I increase my dead eBay store
sales from time to time.
Yeah, all those are good.
Moving right along here.
I just, she only limited me to three.
I could have gone on, but there's just three.
Yeah, uh, just, uh, I do think like the way you kind of built a store, those,
like we could have a whole episode around how you build a store, but then
again, it's like your secret sauce, you know, it's like the way you build your
eBay store and how you want returning customers, but a lot of it's what you
sell, you saw a lot of the same thing.
So I could keep coming back, you know, you can be like my jerky guy, but you're
just my crappy trade paperback guy instead of being my jerky guy.
Yeah.
I mean, in the, in the course that we're running once a month here, I'll
go over a lot of quote unquote secrets, not every little secret, cause I do
need some sauce secrets to myself.
Sure.
But, uh, most things that we can go over that you may or may not know
that isn't easily searchable.
All right.
Next up we have Cison Arrows.
Uh, been a long time YouTube, uh, supporter of mine.
How do you feel about the recent renewed program?
It has largely pushed me as a small time seller out of the video game category.
I can't invest 50 K on inventory like that.
So from my understandings, I'm not huge into selling video games on Amazon.
I wish like, I could just be like, Hey, I'm going to phone a friend
and like call Jack up right now.
I'm like, yo, Jack, what are you doing?
I got a question for you.
Um, but I do think like the whole idea of the program where they, you
know, are going to professionally inspect and test it doesn't eBay
have something similar to that?
Like for like their sports cards, like the, or like fancy like
pocketbooks and things like things have to be rarefied sneakers and whatnot.
Yeah.
You have to have verification.
Uh, there's a program for that before with cards and sneakers.
I don't think it goes anywhere else besides those two, cause they're
pushing cards heavy for a while and they're still pushing sneakers pretty heavy.
Um, let's see verification.
I do think that like overall, like you, you kind of answered your own question
with this is like, it pushes more small people out, so they only have to deal
with serious players and unfortunately, like that's just the reality of it.
Right? If I think about this, like, could I deal with five people that are huge
sellers or should I deal with a thousand small sellers who really don't, I'm not
saying you're one of these people that don't understand the platform or anything
like that, but, uh, just think about how many people have an Amazon or eBay
business and have no idea what they're doing, have no idea if the item's real
or fake.
So unfortunately, um, I can actually see this expanded into other categories
as well, just because they want the customers to get actual real items at the
lowest price.
They don't care about third party sellers, whether that's me or Johnny,
whether it's eBay or Amazon.
So if they can decrease their headaches and deal with less of them and, and also
like basically put a guarantee to a customer that this item is actually
authentic, then listen, it is going to be widespread here.
I guarantee it's going to jump over from more categories and just the video
games, just the cards and just the sneakers, because those are kind of like the hot
things right now.
So it's like when the next hot, crazy, craze comes along, you know, like
vintage teas or something, like all of a sudden you got to get an inspector to
sell vintage t-shirt on Amazon.
You know, what could that be?
It could be DVDs, it could be CDs, any, any kind of form of media that's often
like counterfeited, I can see them putting this in place.
And unfortunately, our small guys are just, you know, we got to bite the bullet
and kind of look the other way, but you should always have a plan B anyway.
Anything else to add over there?
Yeah, I just look it up.
I mean, there's the verified rights owner program Vero, but we all know
that as a bad thing.
Uh, that's basically when they take your IP away, but the, um, what it's
called is eBay or authenticity guaranteed seller.
You can pull that up pretty easily, but it's for sneakers, for
watches, jewelry, handbags, and trading cards.
So those five things.
All right.
We are chugging along here.
The next one, another JB question here from, I mean, this is a terrible username.
I like hate.
I mean, come on, what kind of username is that?
Let's get a little bit more uplifting, you know, positivity.
Like I like butterflies.
I like rainbows, pot of golds, things like that, you know, like, I mean, come on.
I'm glad this is a JB question.
Does JB use eBay's Terapeek research tool for his listing?
If so, how does that influence his inventory old and new?
I don't use it like that for a per item basis.
I use that to examine the market as a whole.
I like to see what paperbacks are doing, hardbacks are doing,
leathers are doing, or maybe a certain publisher like Eastern pressed or folio.
Just in case I come across something or a lot of some things that are a
paperbacks and the hardbacks.
I can do things that come across something or a lot of some things that are a little more obscure.
I could use it for that, as a, for instance, just
to get a baseline price, because the market fluctuates here and there.
And it's like two years data.
So what did well last year may not be doing well this year or what did terrible
last year maybe doing fantastic this year.
And again, I go, I go more brought with it than granular just to
get a bigger hole whole picture of the market itself.
Now you can look at just auctions, you can look at just buy it now, you can look at items
just 10 to 20 dollars, so you can make it granular within that broad scope, which I
do, but as far as per item basis, very rarely.
I don't, it's so many extra steps in the process to, I don't think it's worth the time in that
aspect.
Now if you're just getting into it and you don't know Diddley, sure, I could see you
using that for a little while, but after a bit of time you're starting to get an idea
Rolodex wise, oh I have a Kermacross that's seeing similar to these, I don't really need
to look it up on Mr. Terapeake anymore.
How many times do you think I've used Terapeake?
None.
You would be correct.
Ding ding ding ding, zero times.
I mean, maybe if I was more heavy into, you know, selling on eBay and a specific category
and I had lots of inventory, it makes sense, but just for, you know, what I do on eBay
I can just go off the sold comps that I see in my phone when I'm listing something or
doing research, but Terapeake is a great tool, a lot of people use it and there's a lot of
fancy ways that you can use it to kind of see, you know, where are the people on the
platform searching for these items, what dollar amount, things like that, so it is a great
tool to use and I mean, you should use it.
If you're full-time eBay, you should know what Terapeake is and understand and go in
maybe once a month and see what's going on with the shoppers on the platform and the
category you're selling in.
Right, like I know for a fact, Nora Roberts does really well in the summer, pros to winter.
See?
Alright, next up.
How much money would it take for JB to shave his head and face bald?
That's a good question.
10 grand?
I'd do it for 10k, sure.
10 grand out the door, that comment was submitted by none other than the wife, Deborah.
So she was curious and she said, make sure you tell him he can't say no amount in the
world.
Well, 10k, he's actually a lot, he's really not committed to the beard and hair.
I'll be waiting for my check there, Deb.
What?
You say, oh, I would never do that for any amount of money every time I ask.
I know, because I just got to act tough, right?
I got to be the tough guy.
I'm not taking money for doing nothing.
I'll reverse the question, how much for you to grow your stuff out there, Mike?
How much for me to have the head of hair and beard you have?
Oh man, dude, I hate having to do that.
I don't care if you like it or hate it, how much is it going to cost the general public
here?
It's going to take me like months to do, like that's a lot of torture versus you, you're
just shaving it off.
Like mine, I got to grow it out.
I'd probably say 50k.
50k, alright.
We know his price now.
Let's start the GoFundMe.
No, no, don't make me do that.
Please no.
Like once my hair gets like a second.
I don't care, dude.
Anything over a centimeter long hair, I'm like, I'll go with dots.
What about 100k?
Would you do it for 100?
Yeah, for 100k I would even like use like hair growth stuff so I could grow it like
within two weeks.
Get some plug in.
I'll shave mine off, mail it to you, you just blew it on.
I would just grow this thing out in a month.
I have a mullet.
I tell Deb, if I ever grow my hair, I'm going to have a mullet.
She's like, no, no, you won't.
I'm like, you don't have a choice.
Alright, moving on.
What is the best way to handle stale Amazon FBA inventory?
Lower price and sell to loss?
Liquidate at six months old or have it returned to you?
Alright, I'm going to jump in here.
So personally for me, I liquidate everything.
So there's a huge difference in cost when it comes to having something sent back to
you or destroyed or disposed of versus having it liquidated.
So liquidations usually cost you right around a quarter a piece because they sell your item
and then Amazon takes a fee, right?
So if you liquidate something, you know, you liquidate this book, we'll say this is a book
and they sell it for 75 cents.
But the liquidation fee is 40 cents.
You actually make 35 cents on that item and it's out of your inventory versus now say
you're like, well, I want to have it sent back to me so I can look at it and maybe read
it and then throw it out anyway.
Well, that's going to cost you probably at least $2 to have that book sent back to you.
So the only way this makes sense is to liquidate after six months.
Amazon actually has automated settings now where you could have it.
Once something hits that six month plus mark, they automatically liquidated for you.
Personally, I think this is the only way that's feasible to have a larger scale media business
on Amazon is that everything needs to get liquidated because the fees add up quick and
they're not going to tell you when you go to put in that request removal like, hey,
this is going to cost you $500 each 200 books you're going to have removed and sent back
to you.
That's just going to hit your bottom line.
And then all of a sudden, your Amazon balance is negative $500 because they don't really
tell you upfront.
They kind of make it kind of wishy washy on what to do.
You can also go the route of selling it at a loss.
But personally, I think it's cheaper to just liquidate it down the end of the line.
Even if you don't even if you get a nickel back for it or something like that, you know,
at least you only lose 30 cents versus two plus dollars.
So it is confusing.
And Amazon's kind of shady with how they hide the numbers, right?
Because wouldn't it make so much more sense if when you went to do it, it would say this
is going to cost you X amount of dollars?
It would be a fantastic thing for them to show us.
Yes.
And this changes.
Like if you would ask this question last year, I probably would have said you could do either
or but they have since changed the fees.
So if you ask this question again next year, things could be completely different.
So this is one of those things that's always changing within Amazon.
Whenever they move the fees around, they get an extra dollar out of people because a lot
of us don't sell used media, right?
A lot of people on Amazon sell new products.
So you're kind of stuck having it sent back to you because it's a new item.
It still might be worth something.
So they're basically just dipping into everybody's pocket with this.
But liquidate, have it set up in Amazon to automatically do it.
You're not worried about it.
And if worse comes to worse and you got to liquidate a thousand books, no, it's only
going to cost you 150, 200 bucks versus basically $3,000.
And that's just the reality of it.
So any input on that?
Yeah.
I mean, I might take a look at the books that are priced $50 or plus on Amazon to contemplate
a return.
And on that short list of items, I'd look at, I don't know, eBay and see if I can get
something similar to that.
Maybe it's worth more on eBay.
You just didn't want bother to look before.
I'm not saying look at all books on both platforms, make a call for each and every book.
I'm just saying when it comes to liquidation, maybe you look at the $50 plus books, what
are they worth on eBay?
There may be a couple you want to have returned to you, sling them up on eBay or another marketplace
and get some more money than you would at a liquidation.
But again, you got to factor in your time in this.
How much time, how much are you worth per the amount of time you're putting in these
kinds of things.
So maybe you just like, nah, I'm worth $300 an hour.
It ain't worth my time.
But it done.
All right.
Now we are going to switch over to Facebook.
We got some questions over here as well.
So the first one is from Robin Beach.
If the book shows as a goodbye, but is not in great condition, should I still pick it
up?
I'll let you go first on the eBay front with this.
If it's condition doesn't matter so much on eBay, I would buy an unacceptable book.
It's worth $100 and there's only four of them.
Maybe yours is $75.
And yeah, it's in ratty shape, but hey, you're the low man.
People may just want a reading copy, not a collectible copy, just because it's that rare
or scarce.
Now, if it's a run of the mill, I don't know, $15 book on good.
I mean, you're maybe looking at $15 if you do a quality listing to match it up versus
a crappy newer book, same caliber or better caliber.
You gotta, again, this comes down to how much is your time worth?
I wouldn't definitely try to repair it at all.
I would sell these things as is, just make your condition notes what they need to be.
You gotta decide what's your pricing point honestly on what's your minimum to eject in
eBay.
Is the book gonna take any more of your time?
Yes, no.
How much more time?
How much is said book worth at the end of that time factor?
Those are my opinions.
That makes sense.
So for Amazon here, conditioning is like, I know I drive people nuts the way I can
condition stuff, but I know 100% that it's the right way.
So it can drive as many people nuts as it wants.
But for me, all my books, CDs, DVDs, they're all good condition, whether it's brand spanking
new or whether it looks like it's kind of been beat up.
So for me, my threshold for conditioning, the only things I'm really not gonna touch
writing doesn't matter.
Stamps on the side don't matter.
Library, you know, stamps don't matter.
None of that stuff matters.
You just want to make sure that the dust jacket is there.
I don't sell any books on Amazon without the dust jacket.
And then there's no water damage.
That's one thing that's like, once once you get water damage, it's out the it's out the
card for me.
I'm not buying it.
I'm not going to sell it.
Those are kind of the only two things that I worry about.
And it's funny, somebody posted in the Facebook group that I'm homeless from and they had
a set of kids books.
Well, the kid wrote inside, you know, like, hey, you know, their names and everything
and you know, all their friends names.
And the person was wondering, hey, can I sell this set?
You know, it's it's really valuable.
And like, it didn't even come to my mind twice.
Like, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to sell that set.
Put in the condition, no good condition book.
So many books have writings and like writing all over them.
dog eared pages, I don't worry about that highlighting, I really don't worry about that
unless it's the whole book.
Same with underlining, right?
Because I have that built right into every single one of my condition notes, whether
there's writing or underlying and not.
And every condition, it says may contain some highlighting some writing scattered throughout
the book.
So I don't think condition is as big of a deal as people make it out to seem like what's
your take?
Because I know you like you're the eBay guy here.
But what's your take on like conditioning on Amazon?
Do you think a lot of people get, you know, just caught up with conditioning?
I do.
I think it's a waste of time on Amazon.
I don't think it's a waste of time on eBay.
Because it limits returns when you get dinged for return of Amazon.
So what?
You can literally request the feedback to go away.
It's a button click.
I've done it before.
And it was like that gone.
Amazon's like, keep on selling, send us some more books.
I'm not saying I wouldn't go the other way.
I wouldn't lie either.
I wouldn't make an acceptable book like new.
If you got to pay attention to that, too, because there's a lot of people who want to
grade up on a book that shouldn't really be graded up to be fair.
Now, as far as the original question of time factory and putting in, just put it in your
base condition notes.
Unless it's something truly outlandish, then maybe go the extra mile.
But that book better be worth $1,500 for you to go the extra mile.
I think the big thing is that my conditioning is completely different than anybody else's.
Right.
There's no two people that are basically if we're really going to sit down and nitpick
a book on like conditions like you're going to have a different condition in mind than
I'm going to have.
If the customer is going to have a different one in mind than you're going to have.
So like always.
What is it?
I forget to say it.
It gets me every time under promise over deliver.
Is that it?
Yes.
There you go.
That's that's what you want to do.
That's why everything goes good.
Don't get caught up too much in that.
So she also has another question.
Can I do FBA with just three books, three or four?
I see everyone with 40 or 50 at a time.
So I'm going to suppose you're talking about sending in a shipment here.
So Johnny B's already over there like, well, I'm going to.
I'm going to I'm going to take a thousand dollars.
You're sending in.
I'm going to take both sides here.
So this is this is a loaded question because do you have the buy box?
Can you merge to fulfill them for a profit until maybe you can get a box and then send
them all FBA?
But there is a program Amazon allows you to have free shipping credits because if you're
going to send in four books, you're probably going to pay like six bucks and shipping to
get them there.
So right there is another dollar 50 off each one of them when it comes to profit.
And then if they split the shipment, that's even worse.
But there is a program, the FBA new selection program.
It's free to every Amazon seller and they'll give you one hundred dollars in shipping credits.
So if you're not enrolled in that, definitely hop on to that.
So if you do have a smaller shipment, you'll get it for free because they'll give you one
hundred bucks, three UPS shipping credits.
But I kind of I don't want to encourage people to send super small shipments like that because
it's especially if you don't have the buy box, you're going to spend time going through
the whole process that's going to get there.
It's probably not going to sell right away.
If you don't have a lot of FBA, I would probably just scan for merchant fulfilled and FBA at
the same time.
Right.
That's kind of why I like Scali, because you can see the merchant fulfilled any FBA profit
because what happens here if you just keep sending in three or four here, three or four
there, if you're not getting the free credits, you're actually spending more money.
So once you start getting boxes ready to go, that's why we all try to get as close as we
can to the 50 pound mark, because that's where you get your biggest bang for your buck when
it comes to actually shipping those items in.
Give me your input here.
I wouldn't do singles like that unless they're like north of 500 bucks, even hundred dollar
bucks.
I would shove in with the 30, 40, 50 box ones, to be honest.
Like it had to be a real special book.
My special, I mean, really valuable for me to send in by itself or we're just a couple
other that were very similar.
Which is like you said, six bucks to send it in.
I mean, I analyze the numbers.
I'm more math intensive with it.
Like how many units could I cram in the box to my shipping cost is what?
Three cents now instead of a nickel.
I just saved myself per unit two cents, two cents times 50.
So there you go.
That's what I would worry more about unless the one-off scenario, oh, this is a thousand
dollar book.
I'm going to pack it all special like in its own little box.
And it's worth me paying $10 to ship this one book in.
Outside of that, no way.
So the last box I packed up yesterday to send in, I couldn't fit everything.
I had to leave out one book.
So this one book is going to sit here until next Saturday.
I was so ticked off.
Like come on, is there any way I can finally like, and it was like a thicker hardback.
There's nothing I could do, but it's just irritating.
Here's what I would have done.
I would have gotten some duct tape, got a little box, put it on the side of the box
like a tumor, taped it.
But yeah, I mean, if it's your first shipment as well, maybe I can see it because then you
can kind of understand how the workflow works with Amazon when you're listing it.
But I mean, don't get carried away with sending in super small shipments because in the long
run it's just going to cost you a lot more money.
And unfortunately it adds up over time.
So all right, moving on.
We got Paul here over on Facebook.
Are there any business or personal habits that you are trying to change to help your
growth personally or financially?
I'll let you go first.
Wow.
Right under the bus with that one.
Okay.
So it was personal, it was financial.
And what was the other part?
Personally and financially.
Personally and financially to help my business grow.
It's a very long question.
Change.
Yeah.
Yep.
To help your growth.
Yep.
So we recently decided we're going to open up a percentage of the shop on an everyday
basis to brick and mortar.
Surprise, surprise.
Oh, and here's my announcement.
I'm coming back to Amazon.
Hi suckers.
I'm coming for all you.
And we're looking in, we just acquired from a gentleman 40,000 books, but he's going to
store them.
I'm only going to take them when I need them.
So it's one of my sources I've been dealing with a while.
I just decided to pull the trigger on, I don't know, sourcing smarter from him instead of
harder.
Because what I was doing was harder because I was cherry picking.
I was like, well, let's just make a deal.
And a lot of the books in the brick and mortar store, they're going to be his, honestly.
They're not going to endorse some leftovers from me, but doing a kind of a commission
deal.
But the stuff I don't want to go in that brick and mortar, it's going to go to Amazon, that's
going to go to eBay essentially.
And the rest goes in the thing.
And I just pick up more when I need them and it's a cool thing I'm doing.
Very labor intensive.
And again, you got to assign how much dollars to time you're worth.
That's the real crux of this whole business.
Where are you putting your time and how much money are you getting for that time investment?
To me, this is a good play in that factor because there's an unknown amount of money.
Now that doesn't mean I'm not afraid to pull the trigger or pull the plug.
You're dead.
Flat line.
I would have done said brick and mortar if it's just not working out because there's
a lot of processing.
There's some customer service.
I'm trying to limit that as much as possible.
And I'm not taking my employees time out.
She's going to be working online.
She is never to take a break to go handle customer service ever.
So that is both, that's financial for business.
So now if we go to personal changes.
Good question.
I spend very little stuff on me.
I guess I'm going on a little diet here.
So drop a few pounds.
So there's that.
If I drop a few pounds, it's better for me personally, but it's also good for my business.
Maybe I'll move a little faster.
Who knows?
Better for me too.
You'll be around longer.
Oh, okay.
Maybe you may.
I'm going to order a pizza right now.
None of that.
Maybe you'll grow a little taller here.
Yeah, I don't think it helps with the height.
I'm sure that's how it works, Mike.
So how much weight works.
That's what I do every morning, I come out and stretch my legs because Deb's so much
taller than me.
I got to get tall.
I feel like I'm shrinking.
Like every time I stand next to her, I'm like, are you growing or am I shrinking?
Like something's going on here.
It doesn't make sense.
No, that's true.
And men typically shrink as they age.
That's a thing.
That's a real thing.
For me, they kind of intertwine.
Time management.
Like Deb has turned me into like some kind of scheduling monster.
And if you would have asked me this, like you know, like I used to just ride my horse
out to the Wild West and shoot from the hip.
Deb's got me calendar set up.
It just, it affects your business and your personal life so much if you just don't have
a plan every day.
And I know that's crazy.
Like to say to have a plan every day.
I'm not saying, all right, well, 1230 to one, I got to eat my PB&J sandwich.
And then at one o'clock's a hard stop and I got to do the like, I'm not talking about
that.
I'm just talking about like overall kind of like days, right?
So like a dedicated thrifting day.
And if you're part time, it's a little bit harder to do this because you don't have the
time and you don't know when you're going to have the time to put into the business.
But full time, you need to be on some kind of schedule.
And it has changed my business and my personal life.
So and just, it's just everything is better when you have a plan and a schedule to attack
every day because you're not like, oh, am I going to go thrifting today?
Am I going to go tomorrow?
Am I just going to go to one store today?
One store tomorrow?
Like when you have dedicated time slots for things, it just levels up your business.
So don't think like this.
You got to be a crazy scheduler, right?
You need time block everything off.
If you just have, all right, well, Wednesday is my thrifting day.
Saturday is my listing day.
Like start small and you'll start to see the changes like because you're more focused to
write.
You're more focused to make your day scheduled like I'm going to thrift today.
You're focused on thrifting only, right?
You're not worried about doing this, doing that, doing this, doing that.
Like and for me with YouTube, the discord, the coaching calls, like it, I should have
done it a long time ago and I got the point.
That's like, all right, we need to sit down and get you on some kind of pertinent schedule.
And for me, it's good now because I feel like I'm kind of maxed out.
So like if something else comes up, I can, I just, I can't fit it in.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I'm sure there are like, you know, I can make arrangements for certain things.
I'm really interested in doing it or it's like a huge opportunity, but just being able
to be like, well, listen, unfortunately JB, I can't fit you in anywhere else.
Like I don't have, I can't like, it's just impossible for me to fit, keep adding things
on and what happens is you just keep adding stuff onto your plate and then you ain't got,
you ain't got time for nothing.
It's just like your day's gone, your week's gone.
You don't even know where you've been.
That's totally true. I like with me, I'm pretty much playing down to the minute.
So if a random conversation happens, honestly, all I'm thinking is, all right, how many more
or less minutes of sleep am I going to get tonight?
Because I stick to my schedule and if something out of my control happens, well, that just
means I stay up later, which is going to affect the next day.
But if I put it off to the next day, I believe for myself, at least that's worse than staying
up a little later to get it done.
Will I drag a little more the next day?
Absolutely, I will.
Because I sleep very little.
That's a sad time for me.
But I fully believe in scheduling.
Good job, Deb, for finally wrangling the man in.
I do think though, like if something unexpected happens and you have a schedule, it's easier
to kind of move things around and figure out where you can play catch up and where, like
how you're going to approach, you know, tackling the task or the day you missed.
Because like for me this past week, I've been feeling a little bit under the weather.
So like I took a day off and it's like it was one of my thrifted days.
So I'm like, all right, well, you know what, next week I can add an extra day.
I can stay out a little bit longer, make my route a little bit longer to make up for it.
But like if I didn't have that schedule, then it's kind of just like, well, I'm just taking
today off and whatever happens, happens like down the road, like, you know, who cares?
Right.
That's not to say, oh, I had this two hour task coming up.
Maybe I should just reallocate that to a different day if that unexpected interrupts, like a
flat tire that may take a couple of hours to change or get done.
Depending on how bad the damage is.
And it's just, you got to make those calls.
But once you're used to a schedule, you know how to make those calls a lot better.
So it's either staying up a little late, moving that hefty task to a different day where you
had a lighter day plan schedule.
Because I do more than plan for the day.
I usually plan for, I'm going to scare people when I say months out, but let's just say
a couple of weeks out for simplicity sake, for people who may have never done a schedule
or thinking about getting one.
You don't have to plan it as large as I do.
I am kind of a freak when it comes to that.
So to start small, you'll grow into it.
You'll make adjustments and your schedule will be more fine tuned over time.
It takes 30 days to make or break your habit as the saying goes.
So if you mess up, you mess up, but that's okay.
You'll do better next time and you'll do even better the next time.
So there you go.
We just went off on a tangent.
We could have did the whole episode.
That was a great question.
Yeah, it would be a whole episode.
It really could.
Hey, what are you doing August 19th at 5.45 AM Eastern time?
So that's 4.34 my time.
That means I'm doing my newsletters for eBay and moving on to sending invoices to buyers
who haven't paid.
You're nuts, dude.
You know what?
A comment will hit the earth before then and you won't be doing none of that.
All right, we're moving on.
But none of this matters.
Our podcast was for not damn.
Yeah.
All right.
Paul's got another one.
Why does Johnny look like he spends as much time on his hair as Mike?
And it's not in the schedule.
Is it in your schedule?
Once it irritates me enough, I'm like in the mirror, like shaving because I shaved my own
head and that definitely touches me up in the back, like the spots I missed.
So like, I just get so fed up and I'm like, all right, this I got to shave this mop off
my head today.
I don't care if it's a thousand degrees in the bathroom, like it's getting shaved.
Like that's my approach to it.
I mean, with you, I guess it's just the opposite.
You just, does it get to a point where you're like, all right, I got to shave this, right?
Because I feel like your hair hasn't grown as much as it should have.
Do you trim it down or what?
Yeah.
I generally go get a haircut once every month.
The last time I waited two months, that's why I looked a little extra shaggy the last
couple of months.
So yeah, I go different lengths on the beard.
They're like, how do you want me to cut your beard?
I'm like, I don't know, player's choice.
Just get all the wild hairs out and whatnot.
After that, I don't really care.
I get it out of the shower, I dry it off and I'm out the door.
If I was going to someplace maybe more upscale, which I don't really do these days, maybe
I take a little more care in my maintenance.
If I was dating a charming young lady and she made a request, I really want you to comb
your hair more often, I take it under advisement.
I'm not saying I'd listen to her, but I take it under advisement at least.
Do you use any beard products?
All natural Texan man down here.
He goes out, rubs a little dirt, a little tumbleweed in there and he's like, I'm ready
to start my day.
Yeah, when I have it longer, the hair does get in the way sometimes.
Because it's Texas, I usually have my windows down when I'm in the truck and sometimes it'll
smack my eyeball and it hurts like a son of a gun.
But I try to keep it a little shorter than that.
As long as I, again, the haircut's in the schedule, as long as I get my once a month
haircut, I had to blow it off the one time and that's why it took me two months because
I didn't have the time allocated to go do that.
Because my barber, there's usually like 20 people in there because we only got the one
in town.
So it's like a two hour, three hour deal.
Because if you leave, they don't hold your place in line.
Yeah.
All right.
Final question here from listeners we have, and this one is not up either of our pipelines
here.
I'm curious about your answer in mind, but it's kind of generalized idea of business.
So we have, let me move my screen here.
Mark from Facebook, when flipping from eBay to Amazon, how do you stay consistent with
growth?
I.e. sourcing more and more products while waiting for your previous orders to get shipped
slash fulfilled?
You want to go first or you want me to?
I'm going to go first on this.
So you're reliant on, not all things are equal in this scenario because if you're buying
from eBay to Amazon, every seller is going to ship at a different pace.
You can get a kind of ballpark idea based off two to three day shipping, two, three
day shipping.
You can kind of make it standardized and not deal with longer shipping people.
However, to get some consistency of volume, the key word there is volume.
I would just do multiple orders because if you're relying on like one bulk shipment to
get in or a couple, like you bought a thousand piece lot and another thousand piece lot and
another thousand piece lot, there's no guarantee those three are going to arrive within three
to 10 business days, honestly, because I found with larger packages, if it's going through
USPS, at least it's going to be slow, smaller packages, not so much because they can deal
with those a lot faster.
I think they shove them at the back of the line for that.
That being said, you can keep a Rolodex of people who generally ship on time.
If you're buying lots at a frequent rate on eBay, you'll get an idea of people you're
buying from frequently and maybe they go on the good list.
Always buy from this person because I've never had a problem with it.
Outside of that, you could message the seller and like, I need it shipped by here.
What can we do to make it happen?
You lay down the law and you can also incentivize them.
I'll buy from you again if you can get it done by X-State.
I will continue to buy it from again if you continue to send it to with me within Blah.
Then after that, it's not even in the seller's control.
You're within the United States Postal Service, maybe get lucky with UPS or FedEx.
That's another thing.
You can check for upgrades when you check out.
A lot of people just go with the cheapest option, but if you're a time-sensitive person
and they have an option to get it to you faster, well, maybe you pay up for the shipping.
Those are my devices.
You, Mr. Mike.
I think the challenge here, because eBay to Amazon, what category are you selling?
Are you doing textbooks?
Are you doing books?
Are you doing DVDs?
Are you doing CDs?
Think about it this way.
How long is it going to take you to fill up a Lowe's box with eBay to Amazon flips if
it's DVDs?
We're talking 80 plus DVDs.
That's 80 flips you got to find on eBay.
Have those items sent to you.
Inspect them.
Make sure they're good to go.
Relist them.
I can see.
I never thought about it like this.
This is a good question.
When you start out, it's going to take time for you to get a process down where you are
consistently sending inventory to Amazon.
I think that's a crux because to find 80 items, if I find 10 this week, but I don't find the
other 70 for another month, those first 10 items that I sourced, there's a high probability
that they have gone down in price on Amazon.
It is tough to think about.
You almost have to do lots of volume to get shipments out or you just have to commit to
sending in smaller shipments.
Maybe instead of the Lowe's boxes, maybe you're doing a small one that's 10 by whatever a
DVD size box would be, like a perfectly sized DVD box if you're doing just DVDs.
Maybe you're only sending in 20 or 30 at a time because you don't want that stuff sitting
around.
I do think it can become a choke point real quick when it comes to capital.
You just got to be wary of that because if you're spending all this money and it's just
sitting there because you're not sending it in because you're waiting to get a full box,
I don't think that's the right approach.
I think you have to just factor in the extra shipping cost to Amazon and get it out the
door as soon as you can.
I'm not talking one, two, three items per shipment, but maybe if you got 10 items, maybe
you just cut it loose because you need that capital to pump back into the business.
Another thing you really can't control is how long Amazon takes to check it in.
It could take a week, it could take two weeks.
Even if it's the same warehouse, it varies from week to week, day to day.
Sometimes they're fast.
I explain your shipments.
Doing that is you really have to know your numbers, especially there because usually
you're dealing with smaller margins because you're paying up for convenience.
There's all the factors.
There's the seller shipment, there's the whatever postal thing you're going through, and then
the secondary postal thing to go through, and then you've got Amazon processing time
itself.
Now, number five we didn't talk about is you.
You've got the stuff, how long are you waiting to send it in?
Mike touched on it a little bit, but I'm going to touch it on it from the point of consistency.
You got the stuff and your normal day is Saturday.
I don't think you should wait to Saturday.
I think you should box that stuff up as soon as you're able to.
Don't be lazy with it.
If you're playing that game, get it in as soon as possible, in my opinion.
I got an idea that's going to blow this whole thing up.
Why don't you just source for items that you can sell for a profit, FBM?
Item shows up, you inspect it, list it.
It's listed within five minutes of you getting it in your house.
If you're selling fast moving items, it'll probably sell pretty quick within the week,
and you get your money back quicker with FBM as well.
That would be my challenge would be, all right, maybe you source high profit items to FBA
and you have a box going.
If the price goes down a little bit, you still have the margin to give it up.
The faster moving stuff, FBM it.
People buy merch.
People are so, oh, people don't buy stuff off Amazon, Merchant Fulfilled.
There's literally seven, eight, nine figure businesses that literally only do Merchant
Fulfilled.
That's such a myth.
I'm currently in the process of listing 10,000 items to FBM, and it'll only be more.
It's super easy to do.
Yeah, it takes that.
I am creating some brand new, spanking new listings for Amazon as well for some of my
older stuff.
I got to tell you, it's not long in comparison to eBay.
It's like button, button, button, button, done.
It takes me less than a minute.
But I do have some book knowledge that helps with that.
If I didn't have the book knowledge, making a brand new listing would be a pain in the
ass, but I would get used to it eventually.
Anybody would, not just Johnnys out there in the world.
Now I agree with Mike.
That's a great idea, Mike.
I think to play the eBay to Amazon flip, you got to have a giant bankroll so you have the
stuff consistently coming in.
Build up with FBM to start.
You can still do eBay to Amazon, honestly, that way.
And then when you get to such a point where, oh, oh, I got some real money coming in consistently
from FBM, maybe now is the time I jump into FBA with the same business model.
And then you have stuff for FBM and FBA.
So now you're selling twice.
You can get the stuff up right away that doesn't meet your FBA metrics.
And the stuff that does, you can ship out the door, but it has to be like a wheel, right?
It always has to be spinning because if the wheel stops because you're waiting for Joe
Schmo, postal worker, it's just not going to work in my opinion.
Yeah, it is capital intensive.
Any which way you shape or form it, there's going to be, especially starting out, it's
going to take you, I know yet again, hey, Joji, wake up.
He's already up.
He's like you.
He's up with the crap you're doing because he's a teacher.
Hey, Joji.
And he'll straight up, Joji, be like, hey, you got to understand.
It's going to take a time until you get to a point where, like you were just saying,
the capital is exceeding with what you're spending.
So I don't think it's not as relatable to having a media business where you can do free
pickups, low capital to start out.
eBay to Amazon is going to take a little bit more.
And the huge trap is you start out and you're using credit cards, right?
Because the credit card game is you pay it off every month.
Well, you're not going to be able to get that return that fast just starting out on eBay
to Amazon or maybe even at any point, depending on your business model.
So just be cautionary of that and just understand that with any business, it takes time and
there's no problem with FPM and items and then build a bankroll and then you can just
go all FBA.
And when that day comes, you already have in your mind, hey, this is going to take 60
days for me to actually see a return on what I'm sourcing to the point of it selling in
Amazon and me getting paid the profits back.
Now, Joji is a great example because he worked on his processes.
A lot of his stuff is automate.
I believe he said he only spent two hours a day on it.
I love to work two hours a day, but he also has a full time job in addition to doing his
two hours a day or 14 hours a week.
If you sit down, it's going to take you more than two hours and figure out how to make
your processes as streamlined as possible, even on the eBay to Amazon or Amazon only
front, you're going to save yourself huge chunks of time.
And maybe you spend a little less time doing the business and a little more time having
some freedom in your life.
Yeah.
Well, it's going to do it for the questions.
We appreciate everybody contributing their questions over on YouTube and Facebook.
And like I said, we'll probably do this again in two months.
So we will talk to everybody 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 private discord.
Head on over to youtube.com backslash to use book guy and consider joining for as little
as $2.99 a month.