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 in another episode, Resellers Mindset podcast.
Mike here, along with Johnny, as always, in your ears
or you're watching us every single Wednesday night,
8 PM Eastern.
All the podcast episodes go live on all platforms.
Today is going to be a relevant but important topic.
As a reseller, the opportunity to buy items in bulk.
For us media sellers, we know this kind of
can level up your game, but it also can basically run you
out of business.
It goes both ways.
And whether you're selling media or clothing or shoes,
or there's always opportunities to get
large amounts of inventory.
So we're going to discuss today basically the ins and outs,
the benefits, the downfalls, the things people talk about,
the things people really don't talk about when it comes
to getting inventory in bulk.
Johnny actually has a bulk pickup later today.
So this is why we're going to cover this.
So Johnny is going to take it away and tell his little story
here of his bulk deal, how he got it,
what is he actually getting?
Is he paying?
Is it free pickup?
How much work goes into it?
Anyways, take us away, Johnny.
Well, let's go.
So it's a library bulk pickup.
And these are their leftovers.
I didn't bother going to it in advance
because I'm going to get what was missed anyway.
And for those who don't know, I do have a retail shop
that the junk will go to.
So I just shove what I don't want out there
and doesn't feed my Amazon or my eBay metrics.
That's what goes there.
How this came to be is when I first was moving
into my warehouse here, I had met this lady
and I'd forgotten until she walked into time number two,
which I'll get to in a minute.
She was like, you buy books?
I like, yes, but I'm moving in.
It was like the middle of my move.
And I was moving from storage units to here.
I was like, I can't deal with what you want
to sell me right now.
I'm sorry, but here's my number.
She never bothered to call me.
About a year later, she walks into my shop
once I've opened the brick and mortar portion.
And she's like, you ready to buy books now?
And I'm like, no, because I'm not buying.
As you can see, I have so much.
And she's just like, well, I tried dealing
with other programs.
You tried dealing with buy back your book, I think.
And they wanted like a 1500 a month book commitment
from the library and they couldn't do that.
They were a smaller library.
So like, well, I guess we could do free.
I'm like, deal, done.
And that's been about two months.
And today's the day of the pickup.
They sent me some photos yesterday evening.
So I had no idea how much or how little
I was gonna go out for.
They're about an hour away, but based off the photos,
it's gonna be a two vehicle thing.
So I have an employee, so scheduling,
we had to be a little bit flexible.
So I gave her a day off, which isn't typical
during the week.
She could come in today after she gets out of church
and we're gonna go to the library.
Because that's when the library sale is done
and they don't wanna do the cleanup.
That's our job, to clean it up and take it away.
You say it's free, right?
So like it's free pickup, but like, I'm just curious.
That librarian shows back up in your store next week
and says, hey, can I take some books for free?
You gonna let her take them for free?
She's been in here a couple of times
and she's bought in books, but she wants some free books.
Sure.
I also have a, every time you come into my store,
you get a free book policy, cause I have so much.
It doesn't matter.
Some discussions around like,
before you commit to picking up bulk items, right?
Like, so you know a library sale is a library sale,
but there's other situations, right?
I always talk about, you know, people go to flea markets,
they have connections where, you know,
they can buy items in bulk.
What kind of like vetting do you think people should do
if there's an opportunity in front of them that's,
hey, I have X amount of pounds of shoes or clothing.
Do you want to buy them at X price?
What kind of vetting should a reseller do
to make sure you're not getting all junk?
On a purchase and not a free scenario,
you need to, can you send me photos
if the stuff isn't available to look through?
What are you trying to buy before you shake hands
on agreement?
It'd be the best deal in town.
But if it's all torn to shreds, water damage, bugs,
pages torn, it's not worth it.
I don't care if it's one cent an item,
it's not worth it at that point.
As far as the vetting, I would always ask,
why are you wanting to get rid of it?
Unless it is indeed a library, what's the deal?
There is a reason they're wanting to get rid of it,
and it could be a no-go reason.
It's funny you say that because I see it
all the time around me.
People are trying to sell thousands of DVDs.
How many people, do any of us listening or watching us know
somebody that has thousands of DVDs?
The answer is zero.
Nobody has that much inventory.
So if you don't take a second to say,
hey, why do you have 5,000 DVDs or CDs?
All of a sudden you agree to something
and you get it and there's 30 copies of Harry Potter,
and it's all basically another reseller's duds.
I'm public service announcement.
Resellers wanna sell their stuff.
They don't care if it's to another reseller.
They're not gonna be like, oh yeah, Johnny,
come get this stuff and pay me for it.
I'm not gonna, they're not gonna be like,
yeah, I scanned this for Amazon and eBay.
They're not gonna tell you that because unfortunately,
yes, there's great reselling communities out there.
Most resellers that are on social media and YouTube
are amazing people, but that's not the real world.
That's just not the case.
Right, and I'm not guilty of this,
but I put ads on Facebook.
Here's a box of kids' books.
I have so many kids' books to get rid of,
but if a reseller asks me, hey, are these duds?
I'm like, absolutely, here's my number.
If you're looking for less, it's maybe there,
but there's no promises or maybe something bounced back
in the market.
I had a woman walk in here.
She asked me, are you a reseller?
I'm like, yes, and then we talked about our numbers.
Well, I'm just gonna buy books for me, so she said.
So I come in the back here and I'm hearing the little boop,
boop, boop, like, why would you lie about that?
Some resellers are dirty, filthy liars.
I'm like, and I mentioned,
I don't think there's much on that shelf, ma'am.
You might wanna try this shelf if you're gonna scan.
Like, no, I'm just shopping for me.
I'm like, I can hear you scan.
It's not even muted, but I just let her go at it, okay.
It is, I think it is crucial, though, to understand, right?
And personally, I'm not a great investigator, right?
So if somebody reaches out to me,
I get all their information, right?
Usually get their phone number, their name,
and I'll have Deb.
She's good with computers and technology.
She'll look this person up on Facebook,
make sure they're not a serial killer, anything like that.
There are steps to basically prepare yourself
in the sense of dealing with the inventory
and making sure you're checking off all the boxes
that this bulk buy is actually gonna make you money
and vetting a person 100% is the case.
If, you know, I have somebody around me
that sells Gaylords of Media on Facebook, right?
So this person reaches out to me and like,
hey, I got, you know, X amount of DVDs and CDs
and look up the name on Facebook.
Deb's like, this person's literally a reseller.
They like sell media on Amazon and eBay.
So like we email them back like,
hey, we're not looking to buy other resellers,
duh, it's like straight up, just straight to the facts.
Like, just shoot straight.
And the guy's like, okay, I understand.
Yeah, I'm a reseller, right?
So that wasn't the initial conversation, right?
It's not like the first message that person sent me
was like, hey, I'm a reseller.
These are all items that aren't worth it to me.
It's like, if you don't take that extra step
to kind of discover what you're getting yourself into,
all of a sudden you have thousands of pounds of stuff
that's worth nothing that you gotta deal with.
Now, another thing you should vet them for,
because you can do a whole lot of talking
over the course of a few days or a week.
Get the number out of the way first.
If they're doing the song and dance
about the number per item,
those are usually professional sellers, by the way.
They're really good at it.
They worked like at a car sale company or something,
because they don't wanna discuss numbers
until the very end.
They want you there.
You've already, they want you to overcommit
before they high volume.
That's what's gonna happen
if you don't get the number talked about
at the beginning of the conversation
and wait all the end.
They're gonna get their way more than likely,
unless you know better.
I agree with that.
I do think you have to have a,
okay, this is what it's gonna be.
Everything is set in stone before.
I'm even close to going to get the stuff.
We're not playing this game I get here.
Oh, all of a sudden it's X amount.
No, we're not playing that.
Everything is set in stone,
whether you're paying for it
or you're picking it up for free.
All your ducks need to be in a row.
So the library today.
Johnny, did they say things
are gonna be boxed up for you?
What supplies are you preparing
if somebody's like,
hey, I got a whole bunch of stuff for you to come get?
I tell them that's great that you box it up for me
if they pre-boxed it,
but I'm going to leave your boxes there and use my totes.
Cause I don't wanna have to cut boxes
as part of my process.
I got enough boxes.
I hate boxes.
Boxes are terrible, terrible, terrible.
So if they pre-box it, I say, whatever,
I'm just gonna unpack it and leave your boxes there.
If they ask me if I'm gonna box it up or help them,
I'm like, no, I'm gonna, me and or my employee
are gonna come in there.
I need you to get out of our way
and we're gonna do all the work.
You just smile and have a good old time.
You don't have to do a thing.
Cause me and her have a certain process.
If they try to help me,
they're gonna interfere and get in my way,
which will A, frustrate me, B, cost me time.
Now, like with media, it's different, right?
There's really like no brands.
I mean, yeah, there are certain things
that kind of stick out that you would know to buy, right?
But we can kind of get into other reselling.
Like we're talking about clothes and shoes.
A lot of it is brand heavy, right?
You know, a lot of it's like,
well, if you're selling a thousand pounds of clothes,
what are the brands in there?
How heavy is it with, you know, Nike, Adidas,
same with the sneakers, right?
What do you get?
And are you getting the Walmart brand stuff?
Are you getting the good stuff?
And I think with that, it's even more essential
that you get photos.
You understand exactly what you're getting
because I can say, oh yeah, there's some Nike in here,
these thousands, this thousand pair of shoes
I'm trying to sell.
And there's maybe five pairs of Nikes
in the whole thing, right?
Did I lie?
I said there was pairs of Nikes in there, Johnny.
I mean, I didn't say there was only five out of the thousand,
but I did say there was some Nike in there.
Now here's the other thing that I haven't mentioned
about my library sale.
They have a back room they're going to invite me into.
Apparently they did Amazon once a time
and their accounts now deactivated.
I didn't really question this.
I told them I'd look at it.
But if I'm dealing with an already previous store, Amazon,
this is what they're going to want to charge me money for.
They had mentioned this.
I said, I'll look at it and we'll talk about it
after I look at it, the number,
because they wanted me to commit a per piece item
on pre-listed Amazon.
I have no idea what they've done.
I have no idea if they know what they're doing.
It could be worth it, could not.
That's a game I'll play when I'm actually there
to look at it and pull some stuff up.
That could be all you score zeros for all I know.
But I'm going to do the free stuff
and maybe their Amazon ring, maybe.
I'm never signing up to pay what somebody else decided
they think something is worth.
That's just, but that's what we're having this talk here
because these situations do arise.
I have all these antique books and I looked them up on eBay
and they're worth X amount of dollars.
Well, I mean, listen, if you want to go list them on eBay
and sell them yourself, go for it.
There's no problems doing that,
but I'm not going to pay that price.
And I think the idea of buying in bulk,
even if it's not media, is you're providing a service
of getting rid of the items, even if it's free.
And if you're giving them money, that's even better.
Not only are you providing the service,
you're actually paying them to remove the stuff
they can't get rid of or they don't want to list.
Maybe it's good stuff.
Maybe some of us have great full connections
in any aspect of it.
But you just have to realize you are providing the service.
You are the one in control.
I think we kind of get swept away with,
well, they have the stuff, so they're in control.
No, it's actually the complete opposite.
You are in control.
You're the one that's paying or you're removing all the stuff
they don't want to remove.
No, absolutely.
And my other library, I do pay them.
It's by the pound there with them.
It's like 10 cents a pound, which I don't mind.
They give me good stuff.
However, now they're calling me in
before the library sale even starts.
So that was the price that I have to pay and continue to pay.
They give me cookies.
They offer me furniture.
They asked for help and be involved.
I'm like, no, get out of my way.
You just make me cookies.
That's all you need to do.
But if you have to pay for a bulk pickup, that's okay.
It doesn't have to be all free.
But as Mike was saying here, you are in control of the number.
I don't care how fancy their storage
and well organized their books are,
they are in control.
It's your time and time is valuable.
Time has a worth.
And don't be afraid to say no.
If you don't like what you're hearing
or there's just a million red flags, it's A-okay to say,
I'm sorry, this ain't gonna work,
but thank you for your time.
Have a good day, sir or madam.
100%, everything you just said is,
I mean, it doesn't get any more true than that.
I actually, I was supposed to have a bulk pickup Friday
that I canceled on because the guy reached out to me
last year, thankfully Deb has a great memory.
And she said, hey, this guy reached out to you before.
He's an antique book dealer.
And all of a sudden he wanted me to buy his books last year
at X amount of dollars for each one.
Now all of a sudden he's got stuff that,
he wants to get rid of for free, doesn't add up.
So if you have this feeling or this intuition,
I always tell everybody trust your gut with stuff like this.
If something feels off, if you think this person,
might be a reseller and if there's any reselling lingo,
like say you're just on marketplace and you're shopping
and trying to find stuff in bulk,
if there's any reselling lingo in the post, run away.
If I see any great for reselling,
like how many bulk things do you see like,
oh, around me now I got these people trying to sell
like liquidated pallets of like Coles returns
and Target returns.
And it's always like great for reselling,
retail value of like $50 million
and I'm only gonna charge you $500, right?
Those are the situations you wanna run from.
The ones that are easy to get are usually bad.
That's how I kind of look at it.
The easier it is to kind of just be like, take my money,
the worst the inventory is gonna be.
Now here's a fun one,
especially when you're dealing with not pros,
but people who don't know any better,
they're gonna want you to appraise their books.
And like, I don't get time for that.
And if you wanna know what it's,
I will show you how to do it once
when you're on your own after that.
But I'm not here going to price comp the stuff
and then you tell me, I'm just not gonna sell to you.
No, I'm not doing that, no.
That's funny because my library sells
like the older ladders are usually like curious
what I'm doing, right?
Because I'm in there before the sales open to public.
So it's just all the people that help set it up or shopping.
So they're always like, hey, what are you doing?
And like I show them, you know, oh yeah, hey,
this is worth this, this is worth this.
But I do think, right, like there's a fine line.
I understand, you know, like I work with that library
so they don't care, right?
They're just curious what I'm doing.
But there are situations, right?
You know, you walk into somebody's garage
and all of a sudden they want you to,
well, is this one worth a lot of money?
Is this one worth a lot of money?
And it's like, if you say they're not,
it's like they're offended anyway.
And then if you say they are, they're like,
well, you ain't getting this one.
It's like, it's a lose-lose situation
if you're looking up items for the person
you're picking up from.
And even when you do show, I've showed them the number
when they're asking for X and you're like, no,
it's worth Y, but I need to make a profit.
So that number needs to not even be this number.
It needs to be my number over here for me to make any money.
And they're like, no.
I'm like, well, we can't do business, sir or madam.
That's just how it is.
Yeah, and that comes to like iron everything out
before you show up, right?
You want to have everything, every detail ready to go.
Do I need to bring boxes, right?
There's been situations where, hey, we don't have boxes.
Do you need me to bring boxes around?
How many items do you have?
Do you have pictures so I can come prepared?
That's how you word it, right?
Can I get some photos?
Are these going to be boxed up?
You get everything out of the way.
You get all the photos.
You see exactly what you're walking into
because somebody could say, and it's happened to me,
I only got like two boxes of books.
You can come get them.
And then I show up and there's 15 boxes, right?
I'm like, wait a minute, you said two boxes.
Sure, I can handle it because I can fill the car up,
but that's why you have to have a clear conversation.
And most of these people, if they're not resellers,
they're going to be straight up with you like, oh, yeah,
here's a picture of the bookcase.
I don't have boxes.
If you bring some, that could be great.
But if you don't have that conversation
and they're just like, hey,
I got probably two boxes of books for you to come get.
And you just say yes, and then you show up the day of,
like, you all know what you're walking into.
Right, and in the case of my library sale,
and this is true of all library sales,
they're not going to know how much is going to be left over
until the library sale is done.
So I specifically requested for last evening for the,
well, I requested for them to send me photos
the evening of when it's done.
So I know if I'm bringing one vehicle or two vehicles,
or if this is going to be a one, two, or three, or four trick,
because you don't know based off the quantity,
and they don't know either, which is fair.
And they also may not know because they're going to,
some of them will put certain things back in their inventory
for their next sale.
So they're not going to have a true count,
or I never asked for a count, by the way.
I just asked for photos to see what it is, an eyeball,
until it's done, and that's fair.
Now, we're dealing with an individual,
they got all the times in the world,
and then they're not having onesie twosies come out.
They can count it, or they can send you a photo,
or the bookcase.
You don't need a by shelf thing,
just to see what you're getting yourself into, honestly.
And here's the other fun thing, the weather.
You're doing it in a truck,
are you going to schedule it on a rainy day?
Maybe you should check the weather.
You have an enclosed vehicle, not such a big deal,
but you've got that transportation
from their facility to your car.
Is the stuff going to get drenched?
How can you protect it
if you are going to work in a rainy day?
Have a tarp handy or something?
I do think the biggest thing
that we haven't talked about
that we're going to get into right now
is processing the bulk pickup.
You just took the time to score, right?
Because we all know, usually when you buy in bulk,
you get it for cheaper.
You're going to make more money.
You're just willing to do the work.
Now, no matter what category you are in,
if you are not prepared mentally, physically,
and processingly, processingly is not even a word,
I just made it up,
a bulk pickup can close your business, your reselling business.
I'll stand by that no matter what category you sell in.
If you are not prepared for it, it will crush you.
Now, here's the thing, I messed up.
You know what I forgot to ask these library people
and she just so happened to mention it last night
in her little correspondence to me?
Oh, by the way, there's stairs.
I can't use my card I normally use unless I have two cards,
which we're not going to do.
We're just going to carry it on the stairs.
I didn't account for that and that was a mistake of mine.
I didn't add this.
We're in Texas.
There's very little things with stairs here, honestly.
It didn't even dawn on me to ask for stairs,
but so I'm going to deal with stairs today.
But back to your point, go ahead, Mike.
You pick up the library sale stuff, right?
I think this is important and everybody has to hear this.
You're scanning through it for Amazon and eBay.
If there is a profit of $1, $2, $3, $4,
are you wasting time putting that in the pile to list
because you got it for free?
Yeah.
I mean, unless you're assembling a lot of these
lower end items, yeah, you got to assign
how much your time is worth.
And if you're trying to chase quarters in, I don't know,
Washington and Mr. Lincoln there,
I mean, it's not worth your time.
You need to be chasing at least a $10 bill,
$20 preferably, honestly.
Okay, so people are probably like,
well, Johnny's got a storefront,
so he can just put the crap out there.
Well, I don't have a storefront.
And I'm here to tell you that even how easy it is
to list on Amazon, if I'm going to make $4,
if I scan it today and it says $4, I'm not sending it in.
I'm here to tell you that.
I hate to burst everybody's bubbles.
All you people out there are selling the $5, $10 junk.
Live your life, that's all I could say.
You want to work for three bucks an hour, so be it.
As a reseller, you are a business owner.
What is your hourly wage inside of your reselling business?
Just because you got it for free doesn't mean
you should be listing everything.
I mean, it's crazy to me that people have the mindset,
well, I got it for nothing and it's going to make me $2.
So I might as well list it.
Okay, let's create an eBay listing.
If you're the fastest man alive like tech
and you can get an eBay listing done in 30 seconds, right?
That takes years and years of experience.
Ain't nobody out here listening to this,
got that kind of mojo behind their listing prowess.
So all of a sudden, your little free items pile up
and you get them listed.
Maybe if we just factor in how long it takes you to list,
maybe you're listing 30 bucks in profit an hour.
Sounds great, right?
30 bucks in profit, all right.
The items take a while to sell.
Your packing materials,
you're definitely not factoring that in.
The time to pack the items,
the time to take them to the post office,
the customer service, you're $30 an hour.
You're looking at eight bucks an hour.
I mean, that's just the reality of selling this.
So when you get large quantities,
don't change your business
because all of a sudden you have items in bulk.
I think that's kind of the takeaway, right?
It's-
All right, and Nick, or go ahead, go ahead.
Well, with Amazon, right?
I do, I have a bulk trigger set, right?
So the profit's a little bit lower.
So if I'm buying CDs at the thrift with an $8 profit,
if I'm buying in bulk for 10 cents a piece,
I can lower that down to six.
I think the 25% less idea is good for me
and I think that's kind of maybe a good rule of thumb
to follow, but it's harder if you're not selling on Amazon
because the software takes care of that.
If it's eBay, right?
I'm used to listing $20 only items.
I'm only gonna list books that are,
I'm gonna list for at least $20.
So that would have to make a metal note.
All right, well, if it's worth $15,
but then again, it's really not worth my time on eBay
because I'm not the fast tech lister, right?
It takes me a while to list things.
So my, if anything for eBay, it should go up 25%
because it takes me longer or it should be the same
because it takes me longer to list things.
I don't know, man.
I think people just, just because they get stuff for free,
like right across the street from me,
they had stuff free on the sidewalk
for like the past two weeks.
And I think to myself like, wow, free inventory.
Like somebody would kill to have free inventory.
And I just think about the person, the reseller,
that goes and grabs everything.
And all of a sudden they're like,
well, I'm gonna list all this stuff.
I got a Christmas wreath, I got a blanket,
I got baby shoes and it's like, forget about it.
Right.
And one of the things, since we mentioned his name,
tech always tells our little refinement group,
let somebody else deal with the junk.
You don't wanna be the junk seller.
Give that to somebody else, burn it, get rid of it,
open a storefront like Johnny B.
Do something with it.
Don't make it part of your online business
because like you said, it's the hourly wage.
How much is your time worth?
So all that happens when the stuff that's not worth it
just goes, poochie, on a shelf, I'm done.
Or it goes on that shelf and I'm done.
Now it gets monetized, sure.
But if you don't have a place like I do,
well, you got Facebook Marketplace,
but let's say you don't have the space
for all these Facebook Marketplace items, fine.
Then it's time to either donate it
or set it on fire, my friend.
Every category, you can leverage the items
that aren't worth it to grow relationships.
All right, so let's just think about it.
Forget books and media.
I'm a clothing, I'm a clothing designer.
I'm a seller.
I get all these clothes, right?
I'm only keeping the cream of the crop.
I'm not dealing with the junk.
Well, what can you do with said junk clothing?
Maybe you have a local used clothing store,
maybe a little local thrift store.
You go in, hey, I got a bunch of donate.
You explain what you're doing.
All of a sudden, you're building relationships
from the stuff that isn't worth anything.
And hey, you got sneakers.
Maybe you donate the sneakers
to like a local mission or something.
Give out some business cards, explain what you do.
All of a sudden, hey, hey, they're always in here
donating 500 pairs of sneakers every three months, right?
And then all of a sudden,
the person running the mission is like, well,
one of my friends has got a whole bunch of stuff
they're looking to get rid of.
I know you're in here always helping us out.
Are you interested in it?
And then boom, all of a sudden,
all these doors are open.
And for all the junk, that's not worth it to you.
Right, like one of my biggest things last year,
sadly they closed down, was a senior center
that was, what do they call it?
It's not a clubhouse, but it was like an activity thing
in town they had.
It shut down, unfortunately.
But they were all donating to that place's library,
but they were getting so much,
they had to roast state stuff out.
But I was the guy that took the stuff they'd rotated out.
And this is the funny part.
They used little skinny boxes
because these are old men and women, right?
They were smart because they're old and wise.
They made boxes they could carry.
So I had to do so many trips with these little tiny boxes
because they were like this big.
There's like five books in each box.
But that's how they did it
because that's how they could handle it before I got there.
But I didn't mind because A, it was free.
B, I was doing a service.
And all those little old ladies and men,
they would call me when they wanted to clear stuff
out of their houses too.
Beyond the little senior center clubhouse thing they had
that has now closed sadly.
But now that it has closed, they're calling me a lot more
because they have no place else to put it.
So it all worked out.
And it's again, it goes to that relationship building
Mike's talking about.
Yeah, it's a win-win for everybody.
And there's always somebody else out there
that could use it or appreciate the stuff
that isn't really worth it to you, right?
I mean, junk to me might not be junk to Johnny, right?
I mean, yeah.
I mean, I know, that's a fact
because I got a box of junk sitting in my storage unit
that's gonna be headed your way next week probably.
So like. Right.
And because of our little podcast here,
me and Max have actually worked out some stuff as well
because he doesn't like everything he gets
that I like to deal with.
So some of that's coming my way.
And see, it's a trickle down effect, right?
Or a trickle up depending how you're looking at it.
If everybody's helping each other out in their businesses,
everybody wins, honestly.
I think another thing that I wanna touch on here
before we switch over to the members part of this is
making and touching the item once,
making a decision once, right?
So I get a thousand t-shirts, vintage t-shirts, right?
I'm holding this t-shirt up once.
I'm checking the tag once
and I'm making that decision right there, Johnny.
Is this for me?
Is it going to eBay?
Is it going to Amazon?
Is it going to donations?
Is it going to my pile to sell to somebody else?
I think touching items multiple times
and I know for a fact because we used to do this, right?
When we use Scout IQ and you would have to scan for FBA
and then switch your trigger set and scan everything for FBM,
touching things once is the only way you are going to survive
if you're dealing in bulk.
Right, even me.
When it scans for Amazon and pops to go in,
I don't go check it for eBay in addition to see
if I can get slightly more money from eBay.
Hell no, it's going to Amazon.
If it can go to Amazon, anything leftover,
then I'll look at that stuff for eBay.
I'm not going to look at it, unfortunately,
a second pass, but it's part of my process.
And the stuff that can't be looked up,
like the hard lookups, am I going to hard look it up
on Amazon and try to deal with the crappy photos?
Sorry, Amazon, you got crappy photos.
Or am I just going to try to look up on eBay?
You got to say it again, how much is your time worth?
Again, you can milk every nickel out,
but does this pile of nickels equal this pile of dollars
for your time, question mark?
You got to answer these for your solace.
And like I said, how you look at things twice,
it's not, you grab that specific book, right?
You grab an example, right?
You got your little, I'm a video game seller, right?
I got this video game, I scanned it for Amazon,
it's not worth it.
I don't stop right then and there
to look this item up on eBay.
You put this aside because we always talk about it.
You have to be focused on the task in hand.
You can't be switching, because I'm guilty of this,
I've done a play at times where I hit the button
where it pulls up my tabs for Amazon and eBay,
and all of a sudden, it's this thing that took 10 seconds
to put in the pile, now turns into a three minute debacle
of me switching between eBay and Amazon
to see which one's worth more,
and then your whole day's gone,
and you got through 30 of the thousand items
you have to get through.
All right, it's a completely separate run,
completely separate run.
And also the pre-process of barcode, ISBN pile,
things I'll have to open to check to see if it has an ISBN,
or hey, this is way too old, I could just tell by eyeballing,
it don't even have a thing for me to look up in there.
All right, we're gonna wrap up the normal part here.
I do have one last piece of advice for everybody
before we switch over to the members,
is that if you are not experienced in handling bulk,
no matter what category you sell in as a reseller,
reach out to anybody and everybody.
I will say this, most of these big time resellers,
if you just send them a message and explain your situation,
they can give you, they can lead you in the right path
to starting correctly and not overwhelming yourself
with a bulk purchase, right?
Most of these huge resellers, they're open books, right?
They're on social media for a reason.
They wanna help people grow.
They wanna help you understand your business.
And they want you to build your business the correct way.
I know you might think your way is the best,
but if you've never done this, I always say,
reach out to somebody and just see what they say.
So as always, we appreciate you listening
if you're watching over on YouTube,
and we'll talk to you all in next week's episode.
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.