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
used 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 into another episode of Resellers Mindset podcast.
Myself, Johnny B. Today we have a special guest.
It has been a few episodes since we had somebody.
And I believe you are the first female guest
we have on the podcast.
So congratulations on that.
Sabrina, YouTube reseller, Barbie expert, right?
And it's not like, listen, we didn't just search her out
because of the new Barbie movie, right?
This is like, Johnny's like, hey, I
know somebody I watched on YouTube.
You learned a lot of valuable information.
So Sabrina here is going to kind of tell us
about her business, the excitement of selling Barbies.
And we deal in books.
So Barbie is a whole new world for us.
But we're kind of focusing on a niche or something
that's kind of where you can just focus in,
understand how it works.
And I think you're going to make more money doing that.
So Sabrina, introduce yourself.
And we'll kind of just jump into things.
Sounds great.
Well, I have been selling on eBay casually since about 2004.
But it wasn't until maybe about five years ago
that I started to take it more serious and turn it
into a little business.
I actually started doing it because I
wanted to make Disneyland money so I could take
my family on Disney trips.
So that's what it started as.
And then I just loved it so much.
It, a hobby turned into a little business.
When I first started selling, it started off mostly
with clothing and maybe a few little toys here and there.
But as I've gone through the last couple of years,
I've kind of really changed.
I changed a lot just figuring myself out
and figuring out the types of things that I like to sell.
And now I would say that though I
do sell lots of different items, mostly clothing, media,
and toys, Barbie is my niche.
And it is my specialty.
And I've been selling lots of Barbie things for many years
now or many years, we'll say like three years.
I actually started following your channel
when you were slinging DVDs.
That's how I found out about you.
And I got a lot of good information
that I've been sharing with Mike's group
because of those videos.
So I owe you a thank you.
So thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you.
I do think though it's like why do we all
start out with clothing?
Clothing is the hardest thing to sell on eBay.
And we're all like, yeah, we'll just sell clothes.
There's no big problems.
That's like the worst thing to do.
You just want to quit by the time
you're done selling clothes.
So give me a little bit of backstory here.
We know Barbie is your focus and expertise.
Is this something you just like growing up?
I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan.
And I would love to just sell Ninja Turtles stuff.
But there's not enough of it.
But I'm just curious the backstory to the Barbie stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I actually loved Barbie when I was a little girl.
I played with Barbies way past the time
that I probably should have.
I laugh about it because my daughter's 12.
And she's super into fashion and makeup.
She has no toys.
And when I was her age, I was still deep into my epic Barbie
adventures.
So it's so funny to me to see.
I think what I really loved about it is I loved dressing
them.
And my uncle had built me this wooden dollhouse.
And I love to decorate it with all the furniture,
accessories.
And I think I spend most of my time
getting the dolls ready for their adventure versus actually
playing with them.
But I loved it.
And then one time I was at a yard sale.
And I bought a huge like someone had like a suitcase
and it was full of doll clothes.
And then it had like another box of dolls.
And I bought all of it, even though I didn't really
have experience selling dolls yet at that time.
And I just had so much fun with it.
It made me feel like I was a little girl again,
combing the dolls' hairs and dressing them.
My husband walked into the room and was like,
are you working or are you playing?
I just told him, I think I'm playing.
It's like both.
So I kind of want to switch it up here
because you do YouTube, right?
Sabrina's magical world of thrifting.
If you guys don't know, it's going
to be posted in the description below and the comments below.
So why did you decide to get into YouTube?
Just actually started YouTube in 2020 during the pandemic.
So it was actually just something
that I was just bored and I wanted a hobby
and thought it would be fun.
And I learned a lot of information on YouTube.
So I kind of just wanted to give back.
And I always just feel like I have all this like creative
energy in me and I just have to have a way to get it out.
So YouTube has been something that's been helping me out
with that.
And I just love doing it.
It is fun to help people out here.
So let's just say here, because every thrift store I go in,
they usually have like, let's say
on the topic of Barbies here, they usually
have these Barbies that are in the boxes
and they want like $30, $40 for these.
A million dollars.
Yeah.
And it will just be like some anniversary Barbie
or something like that.
Like in majority of the world speaking,
if somebody, just a normal reseller,
walks into a thrift store and they see a Barbie,
like is there some kind of easy way
we can decipher pretty fast whether or not
it's worth even looking up or asking for them
to get it out of the glass case because they don't show
the price, you got to ask for it to see how much it is.
Like some quick tips and tricks if I just walk in
and the Goodwill's got three box Barbies sitting
in the glass case.
So I really wish I had an easy answer to that.
But normally when that's the case,
it's normally not worth it.
A lot of those holiday Barbies, which actually it's
funny that you mentioned that because I
have that on my list of an upcoming video
that I'm going to make is I'm going
to talk about those holiday Barbies.
You know those ones you see in the big dresses
and you always see those at yard sales
and you see them at thrift stores
and they're always behind the case
and they'll try to sell them for like $20 or something.
Those holiday Barbies I would not pay more than a dollar for.
They are really hard to sell.
There's so many of them.
I would compare those dolls to like a Disney VHS or a Beady
Baby.
It's just one of those things where especially in the 90s,
a lot of people love to collect them because they
were told that they were going to be worth a lot of money.
So I know that my grandma had some,
maybe some of my aunts had some, I had some in the box
and now it's just like it's one of those things where
the market's just saturated in them.
So I typically don't sell Barbies in boxes.
Even if I find them in boxes, I open them up.
Really?
And I sell them that way.
Doesn't increase the value?
Well, the reason that I do that, now,
if I look up comps on this doll, a particular doll,
and let's say that there's 15 other people selling
the same doll, then I open it up and sell it.
If it's a separate from the other sellers.
Yes.
So if it's a very rare doll and there's not very many of them
or if the comps on them are really good,
I'll leave them in the box.
But otherwise, a lot of Barbie collectors
don't leave their dolls in the boxes.
They like to open them and display them.
So why do they want to pay $20 for shipping this box
that they're just going to open it up when they get it anyway?
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
So I open it for them and then in the title,
I'll say something like newly opened or never played with
or something like that.
So where do you sell the Barbies?
Is it primarily eBay, Amazon, Etsy, or elsewhere?
eBay.
I do cross post onto Macari and some of them onto Poshmark.
But for the most part, most of my sales come on eBay.
Actually, probably about a year or two ago,
they used to sell so well on Macari.
Probably like 50% on Macari, 50% on eBay.
But as of lately, I can't move those dolls on Macari anymore.
I don't know what happened.
But they do sell really well on eBay.
Very cool.
So I don't know if you know, but can you
sell Barbies at Amazon, either one of you know?
I mean, I'm ungated.
I can sell new Barbies.
You can only sell it as new or collectible.
So you can't list it as used, right, Amazon?
You can't do used Barbie.
Interesting.
You could do collectible.
I mean, you won't have to buy box.
I went in and looked.
I can sell Barbie.
I mean, if you're brand new seller,
you probably have to get ungated to sell Barbie.
But for my account that's been around forever,
I can list anything that's Barbie related as long as it's
new or collectible.
Gotcha.
I'm curious here, because Barbie's
like kind of your focus here.
But do you like, I used to work at Toys R Us.
And I remember when Monster High dolls came out.
I was working at Toys R Us.
I did security at Toys R Us.
And I'm not kidding.
People would line up outside of Toys R Us for like five hours
to get these Monster High dolls.
And do you have like, is Monster High
like another one of your specialties?
Because I think that's like kind of like the newer age Barbies.
And I like the idea of like they're
like the daughters and the sons of like the horror characters.
That's kind of what I like about it.
But what's your take on Monster High?
So I love Monster High dolls.
I think that they're so fun.
Like if I had space to collect things, like more things,
I would collect them because I just think they're super cool.
I'm super into like all that horror stuff.
And they're very unique.
And they're really beautiful.
But for me, I wouldn't say that they're a specialty only
because I have a really hard time finding them.
So because I can't find them, I don't sell them that often.
So I just don't know that much about them.
But whenever I do find them, I buy them.
And they sell really well.
Do you think thrift stores overprice all their Barbie stuff?
Yes, absolutely.
I think I agree.
Like I feel like there is a lot of Barbie stuff out there.
But like I think that's like you probably
do a lot better like flea markets or garage sales.
Like and that's weird to say because a lot of people
just thrift, right?
They only go to thrift stores for reselling.
And I think like what's a specialty you have with Barbies,
I feel like the thrift stores charge way too much.
And then Johnny B, who just wants all of his daughters
Barbies going, is going to charge way too little.
There's like no in between where you're like,
all right, I'm going to pay three to make three.
You're either paying way too much
or you're paying not enough in your mind
because you're going to make a lot more money.
Yeah, I love to just buy Barbies at yard sales
and Facebook marketplace.
I buy them in bulk.
That's how I feel is the best way to do it for me.
Now, if I'm at a thrift store,
I'll always go look at the Barbies.
But it's super rare that I buy Barbies at thrift stores.
So you buy a bulk lot of Barbies.
What's your processing or sorting process on that?
Oh my gosh, I'm still trying to figure that out.
The last.
No clothes, clothed or?
It's so hard to figure that out.
And I think that every time I do it,
I do it a different way
because I'm just trying to figure it out.
But, and I think it also depends too
on what it is I'm working with.
But for the most part, I like to identify the doll first.
That way I can see if I have the outfit
because a lot of times when I buy the dolls,
they're not wearing their clothes.
And then there'll be a separate bag
that like will have all the clothes in them.
Or they'll be- Do you mean on the clothes
in case you get a Barbie down the road
whose clothes go with that Barbie?
Neat. Exactly.
It's like a puzzle piece.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so it just all depends.
I like to take a picture of a Barbie
wearing an outfit with Google Lens
because that's the best way to identify it
if the doll's wearing the outfit
because then Google sees it as like,
oh, this is a doll outfit.
So I like to put the outfit on the doll,
I'll Google Lens it.
And then if the doll's wearing its right outfit,
it'll show me right away.
But if it's not, then it's probably gonna show me
because it picks up the outfit
more than it does the actual doll.
So then it will show me
what doll goes with that outfit.
And then I'll be like, okay, now let me go look for that doll
and see if I have that.
So it's so complicated.
It really is.
It's like doing math sometimes,
like just trying to identify everything.
So is there a certain, because Barbie's been around forever,
just like G.I. Joe.
Is there a certain time period of Barbie,
like 1950s Barbie that are more sought after
and desirable or valuable?
Yeah, so definitely like the 60s and the 70s.
Oh my God.
If you find those, it's such good money.
I actually sold a Barbie dress
that was from the early 70s and it sold for $100.
Just the dress, wow.
Just the dress, yeah.
How can you tell?
How can you tell what year it's from?
Is there like a year date on them, like other toys or no?
So they have a tag and I wish I could show you.
Maybe I can Google it on my phone and show you.
Those dolls have a little tag on them.
Like a paper tag?
You're talking like a stamp on like
the actual plastic of the doll.
Well, actually I'm talking about clothes.
Okay, thanks.
So the clothes will have a little tag.
It'll have like that classic looking Barbie logo on it.
If you know what I'm talking about,
like the classic looking one.
Yeah.
If you see that, then there's a really great possibility
that it's worth good money.
So I have different websites that I use to identify
the clothes.
So if I can tell that this is a 70s dress
and I'll just look up like dresses from the 70s
or I can also Google lens it
and sometimes that will show it too.
But as far as the dolls go,
you could tell they're old by looking at them.
I have one right here.
This one.
Oh yeah, that's got like the 70s, 80s vibe.
Yeah, totally.
I'm like, oh, I'm like, oh, I'm like, oh, I'm like,
oh, tell them they're fromWhere themselves in comes There's
You'll know it's the hair. It's the hair is the dead giveaway
little eyes
It uh, it is pretty crazy because I went down a rabbit hole and I asked my wife Deb
I said, what do you think like the most expensive like Barbie is on eBay and she actually guessed it right that black and white
Stripe one that you kind of just showed like they'd selling for you know
6,000 plus dollars all the time and it's like it's crazy to me. It's just like something so niche and specific
But if you really get focused on it, like I for all I know I probably could have walked by that that specific Barbie
100 times in my thrift and lifetime because I don't know nothing about it
It's like if you just have little tidbits of information about certain things like you can just make yourself so much more money
Like when you see a bag of Barbies or something exactly exactly
So going back to the original question you were asking so these dolls from like the 60s and 70s
Those are the best ones to find
After that, I would say 80s is pretty good
Once we get into the early 90s, those ones are good, too
But once once you're in the mid to to like late 90s those ones get a little bit iffy
That's when people were really collecting Barbies during that time. So there's just a lot there. They're more common
They're easier to find so some of those dolls aren't worth as much but once you get into the 2000s like the Y2K era
Those ones are pretty good. Like a lot of those dolls will sell between like 18 to 30 dollars
Which I find that to be good for a doll that's used
Calling my childhood from the 90s. There's like a Barbie commercial like every other commercial
Yeah, they were way more collectible at that time
And it's actually the ones that people were collecting that aren't worth the money today
it's the ones that everyone opened and played with and
Are harder to find because people just weren't saving them
So those are the the dolls you want to look for?
but yeah, and then
in the
early 2010 so like between 2010 to like 2012 I want to say there was a cartoon out called
Life in the Barbie Dreamhouse
I want to say that's what it was called and it was a pretty popular cartoon
My daughter actually watched it and they made dolls based off of those cartoon characters
And if you can find those those ones sell really well too
A good giveaway is those ones came with rooted eyelashes
So the eyelashes aren't painted on they're like little hairs on their
Little tiny hands to put them together. Oh man, so
Just some history that I don't know but I'm curious on
I think it's Mattel was the original manufacturer of Barbie has Barbie ever exchanged hands between toy manufacturers
It's always been Mattel. Okay. Yeah
You come across this
$6,000 Barbie at a garage sale and you can see the
Garage sale and you buy it. All right. Are you keeping it for yourself? Are you selling them?
I'm selling it this one I tapped
because it was gifted to me by a family member and I was just like I think it's really good to have one of these dolls because
when I find their clothes I can use her to model them or
Like I use her her feet a lot because I find these vintage Barbie shoes all the time
So I'll use her feet to like model the shoes because as you can see out here
She's got like I don't know if you can see it. Actually, she's got like little painted her toenails are painted
So like I like to take pictures of her modeling the shoes
So I actually it's it's cool because I I feel it's awesome to own one of these vintage dolls
But at the same time I could use her for the business, too
Now speaking of photos and eBay because Mike loves eBay. So let's talk about eBay for a second
How many photos are you taking a Barbie because I imagine all kinds of angles like the maximum photo limit
I I would say I
take anywhere between
eight to
15 photos, okay, that's about what I take from the books here. So nice
The collectors want to see are the hands in good condition the feet
They want to see all the parts of the doll. Yeah, so I do my best to show
So you're in
What because of all the angles and everything you just described there. I know that eBay just added it recently
But with the video feature
You think would enhance the sale it sells for Barbies or not so much. It's always gonna be photos. I
Never use that feature for the dolls
Mostly because I'm always trying to list them really fast because I always them in bulk and it's just more time
To process the listing if you're taking video like day or two day around processing approval
It's nonsense
Exactly. And then yeah, and I always feel like I always have problems with it glitching on me
Like it doesn't upload the video and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to do this
I'm gonna be like it doesn't upload the video and I'm just like, I'm not dealing with it
I'll just take lots of pictures. It's just easier
So how many listings of Barbies are you doing a day?
Well right now I took a break from Barbie because I
Are you doing today not just barbie? How many listings you do?
Well, when I do Barbie stuff
I could probably do more like 20 if I'm doing them in bulk and I'm just like listing like some like shoes and stuff like that.
I can I could do them a little bit faster.
So shipping. Are you just popping these things and bubble mailers and let them go or how you shipping the Barbies?
I ship the Barbies in boxes boxes. Yeah.
One of the things that I have learned from the the Barbie community because I'm I join all of their groups on Facebook and I become very involved in their groups because I just want to be able to understand them and know what it is that they like and what they expect from sellers when they buy on eBay.
And one of their biggest things that they complain about is how sellers ship their dolls.
Right. I can see. Yeah, they get really angry about it sometimes and they'll go on their groups to vent and they'll talk about yeah I left them bad feedback and blah blah blah.
So I'm just like I was attached bad packaging. Yeah.
I'm a family feud and they're like the top five most probably pain in the butt customers to deal with. Like I'm going to say Barbie is one of the categories because I can just hear the customer service nightmares now like this Barbie was this and that like, how do you think customer service for Barbie?
You think maybe Barbie buyers are more picky like collectors and things like that compared to other categories.
No, I actually would say, and maybe it's just because I've mastered it so I don't have problems. I've never had a problem with a Barbie buyer actually now that I think about it.
But I do ship their items very securely, I post tons of pictures I'm very honest in my listings.
So I think as long as you do that they will love you like they're really great.
Like typical Barbie collector normally is like a young at heart, really kind person.
So I noticed that they always leave feedback, they're really great at leaving feedback actually.
They, they'll come back and buy from you again if they're happy. They're, they're, they've actually been really good to me and really awesome I like the Barbie community.
So,
you can say or not say how large is your store composed of just Barbies just the Barbie side of your business, you can even give a percentage if you prefer.
I would say that's a really good question I would say maybe about 40%.
40% Okay, cool.
There are endless supply of Barbies like do you feel like you could literally just, just, if you cut out everything else you did and you said I'm just going to do Barbies Do you think you can make a full time income.
Just doing Barbies that includes sourcing and selling like to, you know, would you make enough money would you find enough Barbie stuff to just have only Barbies in a full time reselling story.
So, I would say that there is enough stuff out there that you could do that.
But as far as making a very solid living off of it I would probably say no.
So in the book world there's certain book resellers that are the big dogs right is there, are there also certain big dog Barbie sellers.
I don't know. I've never really looked into that. Sometimes though when I do list Barbies and I'm looking on eBay and looking for comps. And if I see somebody made a really nice listing, I'll go in and look at their store and see what it is that
they're doing just out of curiosity and I like to learn from other people and see what other sellers are doing in their stores, and I have seen that there are some really nice looking Barbie stores out there on eBay, but I just haven't given it that much attention,
other than just being nosy and peeking around here and there.
This is more of a fun question than anything is it, is there some fantasy down the road where you're going to open your own brick and mortar Barbie resale shop.
Probably not.
But probably not. Why, why isn't Ken worth as much as Barbie.
Actually Ken is worth pretty good money I always when I see Ken dolls even like some of the newer ones because it's really rare that I'll pick up like a like a newer doll because those ones just don't sell for that much and they're kind of made like shit.
But, um, all the like Ken dolls always sell. I never see Ken in a thrift stores now that I think about it's always bags of Barbies it's never bags of Ken's right you never will get a bag of Ken's.
It's always bags of Barbies like come on. I don't think I've ever seen a bag of Ken's either to be fair.
Now, the play houses do you sell those two or not so much.
I will buy the play houses and part them out.
Parts Okay cool.
That is that is smart it is funny because Deb talks about growing up she had the Barbie convertible she like if I still have that thing today you know it's worth his weight in gold.
And then you have the big bulkier items like that is smart because I do think there is a lot of opportunity when it comes to part and things out in different categories and it really doesn't get talked about like you probably could sell the, you know, the dollar house for 100 bucks
but if you part of that you probably make $300 and it's probably a lot easier to, well it's definitely easier to ship and store because you get to break it all down you'll take up less space.
I'm just curious like, so you started with eBay like what made you decide to start cross listing because that's like the huge thing like, do I want to cross list eBay socks I'm not getting sales on eBay I'm going to start cross list and if people think that's the solution.
I'm just curious what your take is on cross listing and like why you started doing it.
The funny thing about it is I actually have been thinking lately of maybe not cross listing name.
I can't even tell you why I started doing it, I think it's, it was just one of those things where everyone was saying to do it so I did it.
And the lure if it's in more places more people see it, see it more buyers buy it don't care from where right.
So I get the appeal and the allure I mean I'm kind of cross listing but I don't think I'm gonna go above and beyond eBay and Amazon, maybe my own website at some point down the road but that's as far as I think I'm going to take it.
And I think that so I do cross post on posh mark and McCurry but I don't think I'll ever add another one to it.
I think it's just, it takes up like extra time and you can be using that extra time, and I do use the venue to cross post but it still takes more time to do it.
And then you got to go and be listed and all that stuff and, and I have that problem to where sometimes.
And I don't sell. And that I already sold somewhere else and I don't know how that ended up like it slipped through the cracks it happens all the time that's Johnny B's worst nightmare he dreams about it every night and he wakes up from it like, oh no,
I go to work to make sure it doesn't happen exactly.
I'm not in a headache I honestly feel like eBay is just the better platform, compared to the other one so I'm keeping them for now because for now they're still worth it I look at my numbers every quarter and it's like is it still worth it to have it.
And it always is, but not by a lot, it's like barely worth it.
Until it gets to the coin flip I'm, I'm going to keep it now I get that totally.
So, with the. What's your favorite part about this whole process is that the sourcing is the shipping I mean collecting money is always fun right but the whole in the resale environment what's your favorite part.
Oh,
I would say okay so I love when I get like a box of Barbies, and I'm like, okay, I have to like figure, figure this out like it like a puzzle like I had said, and then when I figure it out and I'm like, oh, now I know what doll this is and now I know what
profit it goes to you and it's worth this amount of money like that feeling you get when you figure it out. And you find something that's worth money is just like, like success you know that feeling you get like in Mario when you jump on that pole at the
castle you don't kind of like that that feeling you know.
I get that. I sort the books by genres and publishers so the puzzle vibes definitely there. When you say puzzle like yep there's puzzle every day.
So what
in Barbie world, I'm not even sure that's correct terminology and making stuff up here as I go in Barbie world.
What's the non Barbie non Ken non family member Barbie what in that vein what's there to most profitable non Barbie Barbie I guess
or something to look after does have to be more I would say basically any doll that's not Barbie. Any doll stop Barbie. Okay, okay, let me rephrase that any vintage looking doll.
Yeah, that's fair. If you go and you walk down the bar Barbie aisle and target today, you'll see tons of diversity, which I love and is amazing and I wish it was like that when I was a little girl.
But if you went down the Barbie aisle when I was a little girl in the early 90s.
Everything was blonde, you know blonde Barbie everywhere. But to be fair, they did have her friends were, you know, she had the different like nationalities of I remember that. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but they didn't make a lot of those.
Those ones are always valuable when you find them so any any doll, any Barbie doll that's vintage that does not have blonde hair.
I would definitely look into that.
Okay.
I walk into a thrift store, there's a bag of Barbie clothes just say your standard you know poly bag size like nine by 12. You don't know nothing about it.
How much should somebody be willing to pay, you know, for maybe 30 Barbie outfits at a thrift store just to just walk in they see the bag of Barbie clothes. It's kind of like, I kind of related to like the build a bear clothes right because some of the build a bear stuff sells
for good so like, sometimes you just find a bag of build a bear clothes and when I was an everything seller on eBay. I saw plenty of build a bear stuff so like, it just give me a number here I walk in there's a bag of Barbies clothing, you know, normal size, you know, Ziploc bag like, what do you think you should pay for it, like you're guaranteed to make money like 10 bucks 15 bucks.
Yeah, I would say about 50 cents per piece.
Okay.
So if I found a bag of 10 Barbie dresses, and they were selling it for $5 I would buy it.
But the problem is is that you have to know that it's Barbie, because there's other that's where it gets complicated because there's a lot of like unbranded dolls out there like even the Dollar Tree sells dolls that are like Barbie Barbie size, even think about that.
Wow.
So, that's where that's where it gets tricky is you have to know that it's Barbie. So as long as you know these are Barbie dresses, then you're good to go but if you're not sure that it can get a little bit tricky, but I would say if the, if it's, if it's a really good deal and the
dresses look nice, because you can tell by the quality right.
But if they look nice, I would say take the risk and try it because that's how you're going to learn.
I am curious because clothing sellers can identify an age of an item by touch. Is it the same way and Barbie clothing.
I would say so. Really.
Huh.
Okay, neat.
Is there an animal that's collectible in Barbie world we're going to stick to my weird terminology. Oh yeah she had some dolls like some vintage ones like in the 70s and 80s that were like dogs like little Pluto.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you can find any of those I never buy the Barbie horses though. No Barbie horses no yeah I mean I'm not to say that there's not going to be some that are worth money.
But I just haven't had really good luck selling her horses, and they're kind of big and bulky so you got to charge like $10 or ship them and I just always leave it close to store the little, little outfits you put them on like little hangers and put them in a little
closet or what like how do you store that tiny tiny Barbie stuff because I would assume you could just sell like a pair of shoes a pair of little Barbie shoes like I just see those get lost.
I can't just swap them all over the apartment I can only find one of the Barbie shoes I need the other one like, how do you store this order needs to go out today Mike you find that other shoe.
How do you store I had to come up with a system because I was selling a lot of Barbie accessories and clothing, and I had that I would just put them like in a Ziploc bag and then I would like put them in like a box, but then when it was time to ship.
I would go through the box and look for them and it was just taking up more time. So what I do now is I put them all in Ziploc bag still, but I put a cardboard in there too.
That way, the outfit like if it's like a dress it lays flat against the cardboard and then I just, you know, tape up the little Ziploc bag, so that it's like tight against it so it kind of looks a little bit professional kind of.
And then I put a little sticker on it that has a number.
And then, in my custom skew number thing on eBay I'll put that number in there, and then I will put that particular item that I'm selling that I just numbered I'll put it in another bag.
And then that bag will be labeled like number like 10 to 20 or something like that. So when it sells and I see the skew number or this is 36 I'll go find the bag that says 30 to 40, and then I'll find that item in there.
Johnny I thought you were unmuted here I got a cat my face I was totally muted I was watching the cat and listening.
I got Nico sitting here he's like oh it's almost time to eat I gotta eat another 30 minutes.
So I got a question here when it comes to like, you know, building a business around Barbie like, I feel like you can't.
You can't just focus on that one thing start now we talked about it all the time like kind of diversify yourself like you, you almost can't just you almost don't want to be just the Barbie seller right because then you're going to miss the monster high stuff
and then you're going to miss the other profitable items that are kind of in the same niche right because it's like, you know, fashion dolls basically is what what the whole category is so like, as much as like hey it's a Barbie thing well now this new Barbie movie out you've
been around well before they thought he'd even making this movie so like, has this movie impacted Barbie sales the Barbie community like, because you're on the inside right so I kind of want to know the inside scoop of how this movie is affecting like the, the
what the collectors think of the movie, if you have heard opinions about it. Yeah, yeah, so the collectors love the movie. They love it so much that they're not buying my stuff.
They're buying this, the Barbie movie merchandise.
That's what they're into right now. Because, yeah, it Barbies everywhere.
They've got that new line of dolls that go with the movie. They've got some special edition ones, and not only just the Barbies but like you go to the mall and walk into forever 21 they've got a Barbie section there, you go into a hot topic they've got a Barbie section.
So these collectors, that's the stuff that they're buying right now like they're excited about all the new stuff. They've been collecting all this stuff that I'm selling for years, so they don't care about that right now.
Maybe maybe next month, they'll go back to it. But I think that right now. My buyer is somebody who loved Barbie as a child, and is watching the movie now is feeling nostalgic and they want to, they want to buy their old Barbie that they had or they want to
buy it for their kid. And I think that's the type of buyer that I have right now.
But when the movie first came out my Barbie sales were insane for like the first week but then it like really went back to normal again after that.
So, I mean we kind of briefly touched on it like non Barbie clothing that is like Barbie is, was there ever a second party or third party seller of Barbie stuff that was official not official, that makes sense.
Like in video games there was non Nintendo made video games when Nintendo came out, this kind of a correlation there. Yeah, so so basically you're saying like clothes that's made for Barbie but not necessarily made by me by Mattel Barbie.
Oh, okay.
And some of those like if you find those vintage, those ones that sell to. I was wondering right there okay. Awesome. I can sell vintage homemade Barbie dresses I actually just sold one of my last video I talked about it I so it's like $18.
It was just a homemade Barbie dress.
Was this one you found or is this one you actually made yourself. Oh, I found it. Okay.
Now are there other types of Barbie merchandise out there, outside of the dolls that is that are collectible and sought after.
Yeah, I would say pretty much any Barbie merchandise that you can find that's like Nintendo slap a Barbie label on it it's gonna sell.
Okay, I sold a like just for as an example.
I sold a sheet that had the Barbie logo all over and it was from pottery barn. And I think I sold that she I paid like a dollar for it at a yard sale I think I sold it somewhere between 40 to $50.
Wow.
When the movie first came out I sold a diary a Barbie diary that was from the 90s that sold for like $23.
So yeah, I would definitely say anything that's got that Barbie brand on it, especially if it's vintage. I'm always take a look at it.
I guess it's good like that the collectors and the Barbie pole seems to like the new movie right because they do. What if the movie would have completely sucked right and they would have screwed everything up it's like, I guess would have been better for the
movie. I guess not so much the new stuff and I guess you know it shows right you know the people are looking for the new stuff so it's going to have traction for years to come, and probably with the success of the movie they're probably going to make more of them
because you know movie was a huge success. Tons of people went and seen it so I'm curious like what do you think the future of Barbie is.
I see the future of Barbie to be spectacular. I mean it's been around since the 60s the early 60s I want to say, and it's never like not been popular, like she's always been popular and I think Mattel has done a really great job of keeping her
consistent. And, you know, she changes throughout the years and she just continues to just have impact on people and everyone loves her and she's nostalgic and no matter it seems like no matter how old you are there's, there's going to be a generation
of Barbie that's nostalgic to you.
Yeah, I'm nostalgic. I don't not sure if it's ever done so I'm just going to ask the silly question. Was there ever like a crossover Barbie like Barbie and GI Joe or Barbie meets the A team kind of set thing out there, I have to know.
I don't know as far as like GI Joe I don't think so.
I did. I have a Barbie Hot Wheels car.
Barbie Hot Wheels. Nice. Yeah, but I don't know about any of those other ones. William Shatner meets Barbie said, I don't think so she, she does do like Disney Princesses.
Okay, okay. There's some crossover there.
They, they actually have because I went and looked it up here real quick they actually have a Star Trek Barbie and Ken. Yes.
I don't know much but I mean, I don't care. They probably just licensed it out for the money do like that's probably the stuff you want to stay away from when it comes when you're out to looking for Barbie, I do say though, because me and my wife Deb were huge Beauty
and the Beast fans, and they actually had the Beauty and the Beast Barbie dolls, and like the Ken like they actually have the Beast out and everything like that thing's legit like I'll get that like they, they put a lot of details into this and I think that's
that's kind of why Barbie's been around and been so successful is because it's not just like cheap garbage not golf right like I feel like it's almost as if, if you have a Barbie in your hand at a cheap dollar store one you probably can feel the difference in
the way and you probably can just feel the difference in the quality and that's why that's why they're always going to be around like you said for years to come.
So, so for a person that's just getting into Barbie or toys in general just want some general knowledge base. Where would you point them is there a certain book a certain website a certain group online or where would you steer them to go.
Oh, that's so hard. I would say just for me the way that I learned was just hands on.
Yeah, just going to yard sales and buying things in bulk you know like maybe someone has a whole bin full of toys and you don't really know anything about it. But if you can get that bit of toys for like $10 or $20 and you take it home and that's the best way you learn
is just through experience and what things look cool to you what things are fun like what triggers joy when you see them like those types of things because if you don't like what you're selling.
You're going to be horrible at it like you got to have that.
You're going to be like hair, basically, and I think that if you care really shows, and you'll be successful at it so I would just say if you're interested in selling toys just start buying toys and see where it goes and then like like I said I didn't start off selling Barbie
it was just something where I was just buying all these different things to learn what it was I wanted to do. And when I started buying Barbie stuff I was just realizing that I was having a lot of fun doing it and that I was good at it and then it just went from there.
Sir, there any Barbie hard pass never again never going to touch it items walk away now.
Hmm.
Hairless Barbies that's got to be one right the Barbie and got hair, it's got to be a pass.
Yeah, a lot of the newer Barbies.
I stay away from.
They're not made very good quality I mean, okay, don't get, don't get me wrong, Mattel does still make some really nice Barbies today.
But, like the, like the common ones you see when you walk down the aisle is they're kind of cheap, cheaply made.
So, and, and if she doesn't have her outfit like if it's a new Barbie, and a really good giveaway to know if it's one of those new ones is if her knees don't bend.
Then it's kind of like a cheap, it's a it's a cheap doll because they like to make a lot of like $10 Barbies that way like if you just want to get a quick gift for someone like oh, you know, here's like a value doll, they make tons of those.
So those ones where their knees don't bend I would, I'd stay away from those. If the doll is
doesn't have her clothes on. It's going to be super hard to identify her.
Just leave it. And then especially check, because this could be hard to tell off the bat, but move her neck up and make sure it's not cracked underneath, because that happens a lot.
And you don't know until you move the, you move her head up a bit and you can see underneath that that is broken, because collectors aren't going to be interested in the doll at all. If the neck is broken you're actually better off just removing the head and selling
just the head. That sounds good to say it's just like, that's going to see a little bit demanded but it's my Texas chainsaw massacre.
I know the podcast. Can I just buy Barbies and just like rip their arms off and their legs and their head and just sell like all the parts of the Barbie.
1972 Barbie left arm. Yeah, I would say just the heads and it's got to be a vintage doll. If you there you go Mike, there's your new eBay business nothing but Barbie heads.
It's a deep dark hole I'm not even going down. It's like, okay so like when you take photos of your, your, your, you know whether it's Barbie or any kind of fashion dolls like, all right, well, the argument is like, are you going to use just a white background
are you going to have like Barbie, are you going to have like a little kind of like almost like props in the photos like what kind of your approach when it comes to, you know, photos for Barbie if you want to do it the right way and kind of drive more traffic to your
things.
So I tried all kinds of different ways. So if you were to go look at my store you would, you would see a whole bunch of different types of styles of pictures.
But right now what I've been doing is just using a white background. And I like I will either proper up on a stand and take it that way because if she's got her whole outfit her whole original outfit with her shoes and everything you want to show the buyer that
she's a complete doll.
So I'll normally always stand her up on a stand make sure to put in the description that it does not come with the stand.
Because I get those messages sometimes stand I'm like no sorry that's just display.
You would think that people would just know but they don't so you have, you do have to disclose that.
But that's one of my really favorite ways is sitting the Barbie down and just kind of like posing her like I'll turn her to the side and like put her to put her hand out like that and, and then I'll take the picture that way and I think it looks really cute like that.
So I'm interested a Barbie, what are the, like in books there's acceptable good very good etc. Or is it the same kind of condition in Barbies or do they have different condition.
I, I don't really know too much about that. I just put pre owned condition. Okay.
See the photos, and then the best way to live your life Johnny has a reseller good condition everything's good pre owned condition all right unless it's one of the one hundred dollars acceptable condition stuff now.
It's just straight out of the box and I'll let them know that it's not been played with it straight out of the box and all that.
Okay.
So, if you had to start the Barbie empire over again what what what's the number one advice you would give yourself.
What advice I give myself, you go back in time you now to you then.
I would say,
I kick myself a lot for this but when I first started I bought a bag of vintage Barbie clothes at a goodwill, and I listed it all in one big bulk. I like did like $30 or something like that and it sold like that, like super fast.
Oh, that's that's what you know you made a mistake when that happens. Yeah, so if I would have just taken the time to figure out which each outfit went to which doll I would have made a lot more money.
And I would have started learning a lot faster.
No, absolutely. Do you have a lot of competition in your areas or some other evil you out there who gets there before you.
No, I try not to pay too close attention to that, but I do feel like there is a lot of competition out there for Barbies.
You see it like when I go to like thrift stores and I go to the little section where they have all the Barbies hanging I always see someone over there looking through those.
See, you're the only one I know specifically just Barbie like I know a lot of toy sellers, which are scooping into your market certainly, but I'm wondering if there's other just Barbie sellers.
I know that there is I just I just don't pay too, too close.
Yeah, that's fascinating to me. There's a used Barbie guy out there on YouTube somewhere we just don't know about them yet.
And you're only going to sell the heads of Barbies we've been over this. If I became to use Barbie guy my channel would probably just sky rock you know what I'd stay subbed up just for the giggles.
It is kind of important to like to kind of just understand what you're getting yourself into and you have, you know, multiple videos when it comes to selling Barbies and you know you're what sold video recently like I do think like just watching that one video you posted
about, you know, how to sell Barbies things to look for how to ship the customers, you know what you're kind of doing like that 50 minute video, a lot of people don't want to spend the time to do the research they don't even want to take a second I just want to be able to walk in
and say oh I'm going to grab this Barbie but it's kind of good for you because it's almost like a barrier to entry because me or Johnny can't walk in and you know look at a bag of Barbies the same way you can so it's like, it's good that there's not as much competition but now with
Barbie you're probably going to have a lot of want to be Barbie sellers that come along and just buy everything for whatever they're asking because they think all the Barbie stuff is worth a lot of money so like you got to give a ratio of like the stuff that's actually worth
picking up versus the stuff that leave behind because for like books for example, you're probably only going to, you know, buy 10% of the books you scan. I'm curious like what do you think the ratio is for like how much of the Barbie stuff you actually see that you're going to buy versus like how
much of the money behind. So if we're talking yard sale I normally it would probably be like eight out of 10, like I'm always just I scoop up Barbie stuff at yard sales, but if we're talking about thrift stores.
I probably say like one out of 10.
Nice. So do you, do you go on and look for past you who sold that lot for people doing the same thing and buy their lots instantly. Nice.
It's a turn it's a cycle of life.
Are you a good place to do it. I haven't done it in a while just because I have so much to list right now I really don't need to. But if I'm ever in a, in a situation where like I need inventory and I don't feel like going thrifting, I'll go and I'll look at.
I'll look at McCarrie and eBay and find other sellers that are doing that. Absolutely. It's like when people ask me Johnny when they comment on my channel like where can I buy gay lords of books like that's what it's going to be on Sabrina's channel like, where can I buy gay lords of Barbies
right like that that's people want the easiest way out and they think, you know, just get the stuff in mass is easy and I would argue. Hey, if you know Sabrina dropped a trash bag full of Barbie clothes on your lap today you won't be able to get through it all probably five years,
you know, please know. Don't do it like it's, it's, it is cool though right to see like other niches where like you have a passion for it that's, that's honestly why I don't enjoy doing eBay because I was crappy books I just like the money I get from them so I won't like
to pass a like least resistance but you need to find something that eBay sends you a check for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically, but like if you're passionate about it like it makes your life so much easier right if you probably have, you know, a bag of Barbie stuff to list,
you're not like, oh, I really don't want to look through this unless that you're probably like, oh, let me look through this. Maybe there's something I've been looking forward for my personal collection or maybe you know you have favorite sets favorite Barbies things
like that so like it does make it a lot easier I would think that you're actually doing something you're passionate about. Yes.
So to wrap it up here, where can people find you Sabrina, plug all your social media so I'm not sure how many you're on I know you're on Instagram and YouTube but plug them here for everybody so they can all go learn about Barbie.
So I'm only on Instagram and YouTube Sabrina's magical world of thrifting.
Yeah, so make sure you guys go check her out tons of valuable information over there. And you can be a Barbie boy like me, and one day Johnny B will be a Barbie boys well I don't want to take you watching a few videos I mean, yeah there's indicators but hey she she does all the heavy
like starting a band called Barbie boys.
She does all the heavy lifting for you and can just condense it down into a video so we appreciate you coming on Sabrina. Best of luck with your future Barbie endeavors, and that we will see you guys and next week's episode.
Welcome back to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast my name is Mike also known as a used book guy on YouTube along with my friend and fellow full time reseller Johnny B.
We help people start and grow the 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 us book guy to join the channel and gain access to the full
time podcast zoom call and private discord today. Let's get into this week's episode.