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.
Mike here alongside Johnny, special guest today,
tech in sports here.
So we're going to dive deep into his reselling business.
It's usually the other way around where he's giving us
all business advice.
But today, me and Johnny are going
to pick on tech a little bit and see
what's inside of that brain of his
when it comes to reselling.
So tech, just give a little bit of intro to yourself,
how you started and where you're at today
when it comes to reselling.
So I'm from South Florida.
I've been reselling for 15 years.
I first started reselling when I needed a new cell phone.
Mine broke at the time.
It was a T-Mobile sidekick.
And I looked on eBay and they were too expensive for me
at the time.
They were around $70 to $90 on eBay
and I didn't have enough money at the time.
I was a single dad.
So things were pretty tight.
I went on Craigslist and saw people were selling them
for $35 on Craigslist.
So I had the bright ideas.
If I can get one for $35, sell it for $70,
get another one for $35, sell that for $70,
it makes my phone free.
And that's what I did.
I bought one on Craigslist and I sold it on eBay
for the same day.
I bought it for $35, sold it for $70.
And in my mind at the time, I doubled my money.
Forget all the fees.
I bought it for $35, sold it for $70,
I doubled up in the same day.
And that's kind of when everything unlocked that.
And I didn't know the word at the time,
but there was an arbitrage between Craigslist and eBay.
And for a long time, I bought a lot of phones on Craigslist
and flipped them on eBay.
So that's where the tech part comes of my name,
because I used to do a lot with cell phones, iPods,
even broken cell phones, broken electronics,
because back then, we're talking about
when the iPhone first started to come out.
So people would have a crack screen
and they wouldn't know what to do with their iPhone.
So I would buy the crack screen stuff for cheap on Craigslist,
just run a seven day auction as is for parts on eBay,
and then collect what was in between.
So that's where the tech part came from.
And then I do remember a time where, again,
things were pretty tight.
I started selling my own clothes that I had from high school.
So at this point, I was about 23 to 25 years old
sometime in there.
So I still had some of my old clothes from high school.
We were talking six, seven, eight years.
And I listed a Andre Reed Buffalo Bills Champion jersey.
And I listed it for $70 and it sold the same day.
Just so happens he was getting inducted
into the Hall of Fame that week.
So like that kind of worked out.
And my girlfriend, who is now my wife,
she said that they have jerseys at Goodwill.
So we went to Goodwill and I started buying jerseys.
That was kind of like my introduction into clothes.
And that's why the name is Tech and Sports,
because I used to sell the phones and jerseys.
And then once I started selling the jerseys
and seeing that jerseys don't need directions
on how to use them.
They don't need unlimited customer support
for the lifetime that you own the item.
They don't break in transit.
And if they don't fit, they could get returned
and you could just sell it again.
I slowly started to phase out the electronics
and just became sports.
And then I got into clothing.
And then that's when I started doing all of the clothing.
Once I saw, you know,
it didn't have the hassles or complications
that electronics do.
And I've been running with that ever since.
So at the peak of the business, there was 53,000 items.
We were listing 250 per day, selling 250 orders per day.
So there was many multiple orders.
I had three people doing photos and listing,
two people shipping, picking and packing.
And I also have a brick and mortar store
that sells clothes that are not as good for eBay.
They're very cool shirts, like an all over print shirt
or a cool skeleton shirt, which on a rack is very cool.
On eBay, hard to find in the search.
Do a little bit of wholesale and things like that.
But, you know, I was able to build
a pretty good sized machine, you know,
just finding stuff that, you know,
maybe people discarded or didn't know as much about.
Took the time to get the education and learn,
put them up on eBay, do the right thing,
ship out fast, communicate, create quality listings.
And, you know, eBay and reselling
is a beautiful opportunity that helped, you know,
change my life and everybody's life around me.
So I am forever grateful for, you know,
what we are allowed to do.
Did you, I'm curious, did you have like a job
when you started like reselling?
Like, was this just like kind of a side hustle gig for you?
Like, did you get to a point where, I don't know,
if you had a job, like, how did you decide to quit the job
if you had one and just focus on reselling only?
Sure, so I worked at CVS for five years,
from about 18 to 23.
And from about 21 to 23,
I was going to a vocational school for computer repair.
And I got my A plus degree from CompTIA and N plus.
And then I got a job at Circuit City.
And you remember Circuit City had Fire Dog,
which was their equivalent of Geek Squad.
So I got a job at Circuit City to work on the computers
behind the bench.
And like two weeks after I got hired at Circuit City,
they claimed bankruptcy.
So once they claimed bankruptcy,
we were no longer legally allowed to perform work
on the computers.
Something happened with the insurance.
So we were told to call all the customers
and have them come pick up the items.
So I was doing a little bit of computer repair on the side,
and I stuck my business card in every single one
of those computers and built my computer repair company
out of that.
But the biggest thing,
the most important thing that happened with that
is in South Florida,
we have like these retirement communities and they're huge.
Some of them have thousands of people in them.
Like they're like dedicated 65
and over retirement communities.
One of the people that I fixed their computer,
they put our card in the clubhouse on the cork board.
And I ran a huge business for the retirement community,
fixing their computers, giving computer lessons.
How do you send an email?
How do you send this picture to your grandkids?
And I built a beautiful business out of that.
And from there, during the liquidation process,
I had a friend named Conrad,
and he knew a little bit about eBay.
I've never been on eBay before in my life,
but they had all kinds of like trinkets
during the liquidation process of Circuit City.
And I remember they had a whole tote of remotes.
And these were brand new remotes,
like current year remotes
that I guess they couldn't match up with TVs.
For whatever reason,
they were selling this whole tote for like 20 bucks.
And my friend Conrad was like,
dude, these are big money.
We could sell these on eBay.
So he had an eBay account
and we were both listing those on eBay and selling them.
And these remotes were selling for like 80 bucks,
75 bucks, $100, like the big long, like the good ones.
And it didn't click with me,
but like that's how I found out about eBay
for a year later that,
oh, let me check on there for a T-Mobile Sidekick,
a used one, cause I remember the used remote.
So like if we had never sold those remotes,
maybe I would have never even had jumped on eBay.
But when I had the computer repair service,
after I started doing the T-Mobile Sidekick thing
and finding broken electronics on Craigslist,
what we would do was, okay, you have a broken Sony VIO,
the LCD is broken.
And at the time that was like a death kiss
cause an LCD would be like $900 just for the part.
And the VIO was like $700.
So like it wasn't cost effective to actually fix the LCD.
So what I would say is, okay,
we could do a data migration on your computer
from this one to that one, pull all of your photos,
everything, put it onto the other computer.
And this is way before cloud storage or anything.
Everything was fixed on the hard drive.
This is even really before thumb drive.
So like we could do a data migration
from this computer to your new computer.
You now have a dead computer with no LCD.
Your bill is $500.
I'll give you a hundred dollars credit.
I take your Sony VIO, I run a seven day auction.
And now I sell your Sony VIO for parts
and I get three or $400.
So we were doing that a lot.
And then we branched into, okay,
your computer has a virus, fine.
It's a hundred dollars to fix it with a $50 diagnostic fee.
I also see you have a broken iPhone.
We can knock off 50 bucks.
I just charge it a hundred.
I would go home and sell the broken iPhone.
So we started even asking customers,
what do you have broken?
Oh, I got broken computers.
I have a drawer full of old phones.
My kid's Game Boy doesn't work.
My iPod is broken.
And that's, I ran a great business on just an,
as is four parts, broken electronics,
where I was giving a discount on the bill
and then just bringing them home
and running seven day auctions.
Before Johnny says something,
I can confirm that CVS makes great resellers
because I too worked at CVS.
My man.
10 years of my life.
CVS workers here.
10 years?
Photo lab supervisor, baby.
That was my wife.
That's how I met her.
She worked in the photo lab.
Nice.
I was a store manager and I quit in 2018.
I just left in the middle of my shift, left my keys and just,
but I did the same thing.
I built it up on the side correctly.
I didn't just jump into it with nothing.
So yeah, go ahead, Johnny.
I just wanted to plug up.
No, I was gonna say, you two worked at CVS.
I'm the odd man out here.
We can open our own, you know, CVS store.
We got every, well, that'll just be me as the manager.
We only do photo here.
I only got two photo texts.
My hat is off to you to survive that place for 10 years, dude.
And like customer service is brutal,
but like sick, rude people are like a totally different breed.
So like people are rude in general,
but like sick, rude people, it's brutal.
I lost my immune system when I quit that place though.
I'm so used to being around sick people all the time.
Now it's like, I get a little cold and I'm done for weeks.
I think for me, like being around all the sick people
and then digging through stuff at the flea market,
I think I'm bulletproof.
I never get sick anymore.
Yeah, it's just like, it's gone for me now.
It's just, it is crazy though to think about like,
you had so many like ways inside of that one business
to make money, right?
It wasn't just, oh, just the computer repair.
It was like, okay, what else can I do
while I'm there to make money?
And that's so crucial.
And a lot of people don't really think about that.
It's just like, well, here's my one item that I have.
I'm just gonna sell this one item.
I have no other angle besides this one item, you know?
It's like the business card.
You said, I tell people all the time,
get business cards, they're super cheap
and you'll be amazed that one relationship
can blow up your whole business overnight.
Oh, absolutely.
And I think that thinking outside the box,
and one of my favorite things
and probably like what drives my entire existence
is just pulling money out of thin air.
Like there is nothing that makes me happier than like,
the other day, like we were out on a morning walk
with my wife and there was a garbage bag
with a cabbage patch doll on the top.
And I look at it and it was a legit one from the 80s.
I turn it over, it was Xavier Roberts on the back.
And I go, oh, wow, this is, I look inside.
There was like hundreds of pieces of Playmobil.
I ran home, got the car, put it in the back of the car,
sorted it all out.
And she sold the Playmobil for $100.
The cabbage patch doll for 20.
And then she had some slight animal toys for 10.
$130 in the trash.
There is nothing better in the world
than just pulling money out of thin air.
And I think that there's opportunities everywhere.
We just have to like think about what more we can do
or what in addition we could do.
Because like you said,
showing up and doing the computer repair,
that's like one avenue.
Showing up to the computer repair and then teaching,
that's another avenue.
Doing that, doing that.
And we'll give you credit on a bill for stuff
that you don't use anymore.
Like there's so many different ways to either upsell
or get more money in addition for more services provided.
And you could do that.
And like Johnny's done with the reselling
and the brick and mortar store.
Like there's so many opportunities.
And Johnny could host a book night or a game night
or all these different things and just keep upselling
and keep building on top.
I'm doing book repairs now and I'm getting so much money
out of book repairs.
We have a couple of customers,
but they're paying us like 250, $500
for a 20 minute repair job.
It's ridiculous.
It doesn't matter.
That's what it takes.
That's what it costs.
That's the price.
And just keep layering that stuff.
And like then you end up building beautiful businesses.
And it's also good because like,
let's say books start slumping a little bit,
but your repairs go up.
And then it's very safe for your business
if you can have all of these different avenues
layered on top.
Yeah, we were talking with our other guests yesterday
about that and I kind of hinted at it.
I don't think I found all the ways to make money
with the books yet.
There's all kinds of different ways.
I'm discovering more and more
as I go along my journey here.
Yeah, you can send all those Nora Roberts to the recycler
and monetize them that way too.
Exactly.
Or I can make little crafting furniture pieces
and have Thrones of Nora Roberts.
That'd be great.
I like your approach that you've recently taken
as like higher ASP items, right?
So I kind of done the same thing in the past year
where last year I was carrying an inventory of 4,000,
but it was all low dollar junk, right?
I'm making a dollar, $2 this year.
I'm carrying an inventory of only 1,000,
but I'm making more money than I was last year.
But the argument a lot of people have is that,
well, you can't just go out and find better items, right?
That's the argument, you know,
we always hear, especially if I talk about,
well, just stop buying, you know, the two, $3 stuff.
Well, I can't find the better stuff.
So like, what's your take on actually being able to go out
and find like better products to sell
that are gonna make you more money?
So now that I've like been traveling more,
and you know, before that,
I haven't really done a lot of stuff,
you know, for the last 15 or 20 years.
I've kind of been combined here,
building all of the businesses.
And I knew what was here.
And I knew here, there was no way, shape or form.
You cannot find quality items.
So, you know, people start saying like,
you know, in my area, it's hard to do,
or my area is hard to do.
Okay, fine.
So, you know, I've started traveling around and stuff,
and kind of the first place we went
is kind of up near my mom, and my mom lives pretty rural.
And my wife and I went to a flea market
in a town with 2000 people,
and I found $10,000 worth of stuff for like 400 bucks.
So one was a car hard jacket,
gonna sell for a couple hundred dollars.
I found a few pieces of Ralph Lauren that would sell for,
I think around 200 bucks, I paid $4 for.
I knew all the right keywords.
So I would know how to sell it for the correct price.
And then also I found some baseball cards
that were also very good,
but take out the baseball cards,
I still made 1000 bucks with like 20 bucks.
So that's one.
And then I went to a couple of thrift stores,
found stuff like there's stuff there.
And then last week we went up to Orlando,
and my wife wanted to get a Disney annual passes,
cause it's only like two hours away.
And that's like two or three hours away.
And that's like a quick trip for us.
Like if we're not doing anything,
we could just go up there and just do something.
So I, and it ended up being over 2000 bucks, right?
So I said, you know what?
If we're gonna spend this money,
I gotta be able to make it back.
So I said, hit some thrift stores
and let's see if I can make this money back
in a couple of thrift stores.
So my wife set up a thrift route,
three hours away.
I didn't pick the stores.
I've never been to the stores.
I fell asleep on the way there.
So I couldn't even tell you where they're at.
And the first store pulled out $1,700 worth of profit.
So in three stores,
I think the grand total was 2,500 bucks.
And then we went to a flea market the next day.
And I think I pulled out $4,000 worth of profit,
a flea market that I've never even been to.
And this is not like, the flea market was small.
It took us like 45 minutes to run through.
So like, I am not convinced that this stuff is not out there.
I am convinced that we are passing it up
because whenever I do a deep dive in the group,
people start magically finding that item.
Whenever I do a deep dive on YouTube,
people start magically finding that item.
Someone just today posted a reel
of some Jeff Hamilton Converse that they found.
And they said they would never know the brand
if it wasn't for the video that I put out the other day.
And these shoes, these are gonna be huge money.
And they would have passed on these.
And they said they didn't know the brand
until they saw the video.
So like, this stuff is out there.
We just don't know.
And the worst thing that you could do as a reseller
is pass on profitable inventory.
Right, Anika in the group,
she was like on the verge of quitting.
And I just gave her a quick tutorial
about the higher end book.
She came back two weeks later,
Hey, I made $900, look at that.
It's funny how that works.
And then when I did the reseller rescue video with Terry,
we both went to the same garage.
She pulled out six items.
I pulled out 30 or 40 items.
And Terry sold 12 of those items within three or four days
for almost $700 and her cost was $21.
Like that stuff she passed on, but I found it.
I gave it to her, she listed it.
And she sold $700 with the stuff in a handful of days.
But the problem is once those items are gone,
her business goes back to what it was,
a business that's not selling items.
If she can continue to get the education
and keep selling those kinds of items,
why can't she sell $1,400 a week,
$700 every three or four days
like she did with those items?
Like the stuff is out there.
We're just passing it by, unfortunately.
No, that's absolutely correct.
Like my book knowledge has expanded
and keeps expanding, right?
Same for you and all the categories
and clothing and stuff for you.
It's just people go find the category items
and most of it's junk.
It's the gems they need to mine out, right?
But they don't know what's a gem and what's junk.
And I think people just, if I buy enough, I'll find it.
It's kind of like a bulk model mentality
and bulk model definitely works.
It's just how do you, I think most people get stuck at,
well, I'm just gonna buy it all
and try to make just enough
while I try to figure out what's worth it and what's not.
And I think they should just reinvest their time
in learning before they even go down
that rabbit hole of getting stuck.
100%, and like you said,
try to find the gems inside of the junk.
The issue is, is there's a lot of gems in junk.
So like Nike, very saturated.
But if you get the Roger Federer or the Rafael Nadal
or the Pre-Fontaine stuff, it's great.
Or Polo, very saturated.
But if you get Blackwatch or you get the 1992 stuff,
the Crossflag stuff, the Polo Bear,
that stuff sells fantastic.
But on face value, especially for clothing,
on face value, most of these brands appear to be saturated
unless you're getting the right stuff
and you know the proper keywords that you can search
when you see it in the field.
And then you can list it on eBay the proper way
so that a customer can actually find it.
So like in the example, in the Terry video,
like we're talking about Ralph Lauren
and I think there's 840,000 items on eBay,
which there's way more,
but eBay limits the search to 840,000.
But when you use proper keywords,
the example that we used was there was 58
of this Ralph Lauren item available with 128 sold.
So 150% sell through if it's the right item
with the right keyword.
But you can even have the right item listed generically
and now you're with the 840,000 items
because people can't even find it.
So you have to find the right items
and then list them correctly.
And with the right keywords,
and especially at the right price points,
the sell through that you see on eBay
doesn't have to apply to you.
The knowledge that like it takes the properly listings
in comparison like to eBay, to Amazon,
it's like Amazon is just,
you don't need to have a brain to have an Amazon business.
You just have software in front of you, you scan it,
but it's almost as if like,
cause I'm going to the same stores, right?
So how all of a sudden am I making more money
and doing a quarter of the work?
It just doesn't make sense to me, right?
It's because I've learned different things, right?
My knowledge base,
doing things that maybe other resellers don't do.
I say all the time with scanning media,
nobody gets on the floor and scans the bottom shelf, dude.
If you just scan the bottom shelves in their stores,
you'll be rich.
Nobody wants to do it.
And it's just like little things like that
and understanding, like you said,
it might be a junk book, right?
Maybe it's a one example I ran into is
Donald Trump book worth nothing, right?
Just throw it out.
But if it's signed by Donald Trump,
all of a sudden that's a $400, $500 book.
And that was the case.
But most people aren't going to grab that book
off the shelf, open it up to see if there's a signature.
I'm not saying every single book on the shelf,
you're looking for autographs,
but you've got to have some kind of knowledge base
of what's hot right now.
You know, Jimmy, this past week,
I sourced a lot of Jimmy Buffett CDs, right?
Unfortunately what happened with him,
his stuff's hot right now.
His CDs used to be $3 CDs.
Now they're selling for 20 plus all day on Amazon.
It's kind of like,
you always got to be learning in this business.
And some people just get complacent
with not trying to understand how the market changes
because it changes every year, especially with clothing,
trends, styles, brands.
I mean, it's never ending.
I agree.
And like you said, complacent with just how stuff is going
and also like complacent with not understanding
that you actually have to learn and research your brands
before you go out and buy stuff.
Like I can't, so like if I went out and you said,
okay, you have to buy pots and pans,
I don't know what I'm looking at.
I'm going to leave with nothing,
but someone else is going to come by and go,
oh, this is, you know, like we say,
this Griswold is good
because they've already done the research.
They have the experience.
But if I went to the flea market
and you said only can get pots and pans,
I would make a bunch of bad buys
and I would pass by a lot of profitable inventory
because I never took the time to learn pots and pans.
While if you did, you go up and you go, wow,
this guy's a fool.
I'm leaving with a whole carload full
of great pots and pans.
That's great because you've done the research
and that's the same thing for every single niche.
So I'm curious on, you do a lot of research on eBay.
Have you ever found stores
and you've been doing this for a while,
that's a cool store.
Yeah, the coolest stores that I ever find
are the ones that snipe off of eBay.
Nice.
And you could tell they snipe
because a lot of them like reuse your own photos,
but they have all the right keywords.
Like the coolest stores that I find on eBay
are the ones that snipe.
There's a lot of good polo stores.
There's a lot of good Patagonia stores.
But they're cool because they took the time
to become an expert and they have all the items
and they have all the proper keywords.
Very cool.
I don't know, man.
It's like, so what you're telling me here
is that me and you have the same dope polo shirt, right?
And I just list mine as a polo t-shirt,
but you know exactly that this polo shirt
was in this movie or something.
Like you're just telling me you're gonna get 10,
maybe 50 X what I'm gonna get for mine
just because of the knowledge you have.
You're not even saying you're getting better items.
You're saying you understand the platform better
and the actual worth of an item.
Yeah, there's a polo item that was worn by Big Boy
from Outkast in the movie ATL
that if you know which one it is, you can go on eBay
and you could probably buy that once a week
and you can make a couple hundred dollars just on that item.
And it doesn't have to be movie this, movie,
it's just keywords.
Like there's a very similar one that has a geometric pattern
that people probably list for $30
that if you find the right buyer looking for it,
you could probably sell that for a couple hundred dollars.
Like there's all of these things,
these nuances, price point,
all of that stuff matters when it comes to listing your item.
And first and foremost is like listing it in a proper manner
where like people can actually find it.
There's been times where someone has put their listing up
and we try to find the listing on eBay
and we can't even find the listing because it's not good.
So like it's one thing to say,
okay, I'm trying to look for that shirt
that you're wearing, the Boogeyman shirt.
Like, okay, I'm trying to look for that
as a customer on eBay and then I can find that shirt.
But like going on eBay and trying to find
your actual listing and not being able to,
that's scary, man.
And people mistype their titles.
They get the title wrong.
They add an extra L or an extra I
in knowing how to take advantage of that.
There's times where people misspell the authors in books
and I, well, I buy their book because they screwed up.
Or wrong item specifics, that's the killer.
Yeah, the Michael Myers, right?
It's M-Y-E-R-S, but people spell it M-E-Y-E-R-S.
And you'd be amazed at some of the stuff
you can actually find over there that's valuable.
But it's like one of those things
where you have to just think,
like take it to a next level, right?
You have your business, you have this mentality of,
okay, this is what I'm doing.
But just, if you just think a little step further,
like how could this be something more than what it is today?
You would be amazed at the possibilities.
I say all the time, there's still so much creativity
to be had in the reselling world instead of just,
well, I'm gonna go sell books like Mike
or I'm gonna go sell clothes like Tech.
Like you gotta start thinking outside the box a little bit
and we're so cookie cutter,
like I'm just gonna do what this person does.
And that really doesn't work.
Absolutely, man.
Like there is so much innovation to be had
in the reseller space.
And there's a lot of rehashing ideas,
but it's the same ideas,
but there's so many opportunities.
And someone messaged me the other day and they like,
do you think reselling is gonna go downhill from here?
And it's absolutely not because somebody eventually
is going to build a multimillion dollar business selling VR,
but no one is reselling VR.
So like that opportunity is not here today.
So there's gonna be so many new products
that people can build great businesses on.
And every single day, more and more and more shoppers
come to shop online rather than physical.
So like reselling is not going anywhere
and it doesn't matter AI this or whatever,
it doesn't matter.
There's gonna be so many opportunities for us
as individuals that can be swift and move fast
and kind of be the first one to do it.
And there's a lot of opportunity to make a lot of money,
but it's not just gonna come to you.
You have to work for it.
You have to put effort towards it.
You have to do your research.
You have to be consistent with everything.
It's the same stuff that we always talk about,
but like it's just not gonna fall into your lap
and be given to you.
Like reselling is an active contact sport.
It's active.
It's not, let me just sit back and wait.
That's you maybe could have done that 10 years ago on eBay.
List it, forget it, sit back and wait for it to sell.
I don't think you could do that anymore.
So I have a two-part question for you.
What is the one piece of advice you give people
and the ones that listen make a lot of money
and the reverse, what's the one piece of advice
you give people and they don't listen
and either they go out of business
and you never hear from them again
because they did not listen.
Probably the same piece of advice.
So I don't know if you know LC in the group,
but he sells shoes.
He was in my original group four years ago.
His first year he did 91,000 listing five shoes a day.
He went up to 10 shoes a day.
He did whatever, 180.
He went up to 15 shoes a day.
This year he's gonna do 300.
Next year he's gonna go up to 20 shoes a day
and he's gonna go over 400.
I don't know if I said three,
but he went five, 10, 15, and then he's gonna go 20.
So what he did, he listed five, made good money.
He doubled exactly what he was doing.
He didn't go out and do some kaka mani scheme
or some stuff.
He just doubled what he was doing.
And then from that, he just added five more.
He just kept doing the same thing
over and over again for years.
He didn't get crazy.
He didn't get special.
He didn't do something that's working
and then woke up today and do something else.
If it's working, just keep doing that.
And he grew slow.
He's never had any issues with cashflow.
His bank account is probably crazy fat,
but it's the same thing that I did.
I listed 20 for years and then I listed 40 for years.
I've listed 80, 100, 120, 250,
but it was the same business, just modular.
20, let me add on 20 more.
Let me add on 20 more.
And by growing slow and having enough profit
in your items, like the example, $8 into 30.
Rough math because $8 and 25 into 31, 16,
like that doesn't have the same ring.
So eight into 30.
You sell one item, you get your initial profit back
that you could go out and buy another item.
You have $16 to play with after fees,
and you could go out and buy two more items if you wish,
or you can go out and buy an additional
and keep $8 for yourself.
So you get your additional money back,
you get an additional chance, you keep the remainder.
eBay does not have to be a non-profitable business.
I'm in grow mode, so it's okay, I'm not making money.
It doesn't have to be like that
because our margins are 800%.
How the hell are we strapped for cash
when our margins are 800%?
1000%.
How many people have bought stuff for $2
and sold it for 100, raise your hand.
Like everyone has done that.
If you have cash flow issues reselling,
you have humongous problems.
This is not CVS where they're making 2% on the front end.
We have 800% margins and we can't figure this out.
Because why?
We're overspending, we're over-sourcing.
We're buying stuff and not listing it.
We're buying stuff, listing it
and it's crap and it's not selling.
If you have cashflow problems in this business,
you are making a series of monumental mistakes
because the margins are unlike any other business
in the entire world.
So do the same thing every single day if it's working.
Be patient, let eBay grow your business, stop over buying.
Stop over buying, those are the most important things
for people to do.
I think on top of that, it's like,
I used before this year, I never really,
I kind of was the guy that would just be like,
oh, I'm gonna go to the thrift store today.
Like I didn't have a set schedule.
Since I do now have a schedule and I say it all the time,
like I think you need some kind of structured schedule
to see real results and be successful.
Cause I think that kind of gives you,
okay, like yesterday's my day where I pack my Amazon boxes.
So I know Saturdays, no other days of the week,
I'm not worried about it.
I'm more focused on the task at hand.
And I think a lot of people can't just sit down
and just focus on what's in front of them and say,
okay, today I do this, tomorrow I do that.
And I think that's why a lot of people just get overwhelmed.
And another thing with that is like a death pile,
but we're still shopping, right?
Like why are we still shopping if we have a hundred items
we already paid for that aren't making us money
that are sitting there,
people refuse to touch that thing,
but they'll add to it, right?
And they'll still go out the week after.
I think it's so backwards,
the mentality around how you should actually
be doing your business and getting everything
that needs to get done from the second you buy it,
anybody can go out and buy something
that's quote unquote worth money.
Well, it ain't worth money until you sell it.
And a lot of people don't understand that.
A hundred percent.
And like you say, like a lot of people,
like can't sit down and do this or do that,
but like if those people came to your business yesterday,
they would have packed 10 boxes to send to Amazon for you.
They would have done that for you,
but they can't do that for themselves at home.
So like, if you struggle to list,
if you worked for Tech and Sports Incorporated,
you would be listing from eight to four
and you would be getting your listings up.
So why can you come to my operation and list and do my work,
but you can't sit home at your house and do your own work?
Why can't you go to CVS and work every single day,
but you can't come home and do your own work?
100%.
So you were under the radar for so long
and then you started coming online in podcast form
to give knowledge and learn from others
and network, et cetera.
What made you do that call?
Because you could have stayed in your lane,
no one would know who you are.
So I was kind of like a lone wolf for a very long time.
And the reason why I was doing 120 a day by myself
is because I thought everyone else was doing 100 a day.
So like, I was in such a bubble where like,
I was like, okay, everyone's doing 100 a day,
I gotta do 120 a day.
And it wasn't until like I started talking to other people
in the reseller community where like, that wasn't the case.
Like no one else was listening 100 a day.
So like, and then like, you know,
a lot of people started discovering my store
because my store started getting discovered on YouTube.
So like a lot of people started messaging me this and that.
And, you know, once people started messaging me,
like all of these questions and, you know,
just like very basic things
that they were having trouble with, like, you know,
like I said in the very opening,
eBay has provided like such a humongous opportunity.
It's helped me start other businesses,
it's helped me get into real estate.
And I never went to college.
I had a kid when I was 18 years old, he's 20 now.
I raised him by myself.
And I was able to build like a beautiful life.
And just like out of the thousands and thousands of people
that listen to the podcast and like the thousands of people
that are in the group, it's like, if one person,
if I could just help one person,
like get to the same opportunity
or reach the same opportunities
that were available through reselling,
then that's mission accomplished
because there are a lot of people who like don't listen
and that's fine.
Every single time, I just want one person
to like get a spark and just make their business better
and in turn, which will make their life better.
Now you don't have to do it to the tune of, you know,
consumes your entire life 20 hours a day.
You don't have to do that.
You don't have to list hundreds of items.
You don't have to have items that are tens of thousands.
If you just want to save up money for a vacation
and use reselling as an opportunity to do so,
I'm thrilled with that.
If you want to do it for side income,
if you want to transition into full-time,
there's been people that have retired their spouses.
I'm all for that.
It makes me over the moon.
If whatever goal you set, large or small, you crush,
I'm thrilled with it.
And like, we've all grown up.
We've all done silly stuff in the past.
I've done a lot of silly stuff in the past.
And I think that like having the opportunity
to like help people,
kind of like my own personal redemption arc
because like we've all done silly stuff.
So like on the karma loop,
I have to like help a lot of people
because I've done a lot of silly stuff in my day.
And I think that, you know, just help.
And like I answer DMs constantly.
I respond to every single comment
that ever has been left on YouTube
for as long as I'm humanly able possible to do it.
But like, you know, just if you help people,
like good stuff has to come to you.
And like all the connections, like I've met you guys.
I've met thousands of people and like, you know,
if the day ever came when I was ever in a jam,
I would like to think I have so much good karma
that someone will be willing to give me a hand
and help me out.
So if my car was broke down in the middle of Texas
and I saw the road runner pass me by,
I think I could call Johnny B
and he would come help me out.
And he would help pick me up.
Oh yeah, I'd toss the employee the keys.
You lock up and I gotta go pick up a man.
So like, you know, just like all of that stuff,
like putting out like the good energy and stuff like that.
And I'm not a hippie by no stretch of the imagination,
but like, you know, I'm getting older.
Even though like I'm only 39, like my son already left.
Like I'm an empty nester.
Like I'm 20 years in the future.
And like, it's just, you know, it's just time to,
you know, hopefully try to help a couple of people
and you know, on my way out,
cause you never know, you can get hit by a bus tomorrow.
So, you know, I just wanna do good things
and just help people.
And I like to do it.
And you know, it keeps me active.
I don't know, I just enjoy,
I just enjoy talking to people about reselling.
If you wanna talk about other stuff,
like I enjoy talking baseball, I enjoy talking this,
and I enjoy talking trees,
but like I really enjoy talking about reselling.
So, cause I feel like it's such a unique vehicle
that requires no college and no experience and no money.
Is, I'm curious, is your son interested in reselling
since he's kinda, you know, been raised, you know,
in the reselling family?
Like does he have any interest
in doing his own kind of reselling?
Or is he just like, dad, you're crazy?
A little bit of both.
Probably more crazy than that.
So for him, he's worked every single aspect
of all of the businesses.
So like in the summertime, he was out cutting down trees.
One summer he did work on the eBay business,
but like when he was like 10 or 11,
I would have him photograph 10 pieces of clothes.
I would have him, you know, make 10 mock listings
that I would just delete cause they were horrible.
Just have them like go through the process of doing it.
I would have him help me ship, help me put away stuff.
So like he's done every single aspect of the reselling
business as well as the other businesses.
But he's also seen how hard I've worked
and how much it's consumed me.
And sure dad, let me sign up and volunteer
to have this all consuming business.
So like that part, no thank you.
But now he's away at college.
He has a little eBay store where he sells hats.
So like he has also learned that I can go get hats
for a dollar or two and I can sell them for 15 or 20 bucks.
So he has an eBay store, a couple hundred items.
He knows how to do it.
Every now and then he'll ask me a question, which is fine.
But I don't think he'll do it full time.
And I've never pushed him to do anything like that
because like what if the kid grows up and cures cancer
and I'm here relegating him to be an eBay seller?
You know what I mean?
So like whatever he wants to do,
and he's a very smart guy.
He's going to school for architecture.
So like whatever he wants to do is fine.
I just always taught and instilled in him
to be a positive, productive citizen.
That's all I wanted him to do.
And I always told him, I was like, dude,
I don't care what you do.
You just have to be a positive, productive citizen.
That's it.
You can't go negative.
You can't be all messed up.
As long as you're doing positive things, you're productive
and you are a productive member of society, I'm happy.
So if maybe one day he decides to do it, great.
If not, that's great too.
You know, selling old stuff on eBay allowed us to move
into the house we're in now and allowed him to go
to a very nice school versus the alternatives.
And that and change allowed him the opportunity
to go to college.
And he's the first one that I know
that actually went to college.
So, you know, I'm proud of him.
He's a good guy, but it's very hard for a teenager
to see his dad really busting it 20 hours a day and go,
oh yeah, I want to do that too.
Very much so.
So not necessarily something that you just like making money
at, but are there items that you've listed in the past
that you no longer list that you really enjoyed listing
but for whatever reason you say, but like for me
I enjoy listing the books, but not every book's a winner.
Right?
That's fun.
Items that I used to list that I enjoyed listing.
So I've listed in a lot of categories.
I used to sell a lot of toys, a lot of electronics.
I sold a lot of video games.
I dabbled in books on Amazon FBA.
And I know like all the flea market bolos.
Like what do you enjoy to list?
What's fun for you to list?
Not necessarily that it makes money, just fun.
Oh, I have the answer,
but I don't particularly enjoy listing.
That might be a surprise to everybody.
I do not enjoy listing, but I will tell you this.
My favorite thing to buy, my favorite thing to list,
my favorite thing to sell is a buy cost of $5 or less.
Super Smash Brothers for GameCube.
That is the best item to sell.
One picture and that baby sells in 30 seconds.
I love it.
Love it.
I do think like, cause I was thinking about this.
I posted a poll on YouTube yesterday asking like,
do you think somebody out there has a reselling business
that only sells like Taylor Swift items?
Like you can have a whole business based off
of one specific character or like product line.
And we all get so attracted to just selling anything
and everything we can.
But if you just focus down and you own that niche,
like you're gonna get more money for everything.
And we're just, I don't know.
It's just another one of those things that just like,
there's still so much opportunity.
Like I wish I could just sell like horror trade paperbacks.
I just can't find them in my area.
I've been this close to just doing just that several times
cause they sell so quick.
They're fun.
It's just getting them in enough abundance is the kicker.
Cause even at bookstores,
the horror section is like a shelf on a shelf.
It's so small.
You said you sold a little bit on Amazon FBA with books.
I need to hear the story just for my own sanity here.
I'm curious about it.
So once upon a time, I was pretty big time on Amazon.
I was the first one to figure out that you could go
to Disney world, buy Disney park exclusive items,
list them on Amazon and make a tremendous amount of money.
And this was at the time where Disney acquired the rights
for Star Wars and everything fell in place perfectly.
And every Star Wars fan has to have every Star Wars figure.
And if it's Disney park exclusive,
it means if you live in Kalamazoo,
you have to go to the Disney park to get that figure.
There's no other way for you to get it.
So we would go to Disney and pay full retail, full retail.
And there was still enough margin to send all of that stuff
in to Amazon and make a killing.
And I really, really, really made a killing.
And this is crazy.
I made a killing when Disney Star Wars
started putting out Legos
cause they sold those at Disney world too.
And I used to buy,
and they didn't have all the limitations like they do now.
You could buy 10, 20, they didn't care.
And Lego was gated on Amazon,
but Lego Star Wars was not.
And I was sending in 50 Lego Star Wars
and they were selling immediately.
And every single thing like Disney park exclusive,
full retail purchase, send it into Amazon,
especially in Q4, it would sell immediately.
And once we started getting that going,
I was still going to the flea market,
doing my thing over there and I would pick up the puzzles.
I never sold anything pre-owned on Amazon.
It would always have to be brand new.
Picked up a couple of books.
I think the only kind of books I remember picking up
were cookbooks.
And I remember picking up, I don't know how,
but this guy who bought storage units,
he had like cases of this art book,
some sort of like Latin American artist.
And I sent in like, I don't know,
maybe three or four cases of those.
And those did very well, like selling for a few hundred
bucks and I think I bought every case for like $10 each.
So like I was just scanning away on Amazon
and it was just whatever has the margin,
whatever looks like it has the sell through,
I'm picking up, sending it in.
And I kind of looked at Amazon as just a two week paycheck
because you could kind of really gauge
how fast this stuff was going to sell.
I did extremely well with Barbies once upon a time.
I found this huge Barbie deal from a guy
at the flea market, sent those in.
It was like the designer Barbies.
So like there was a certain timeframe
where like Louis Vuitton put out a Barbie
or like Gucci put out a Barbie
or all these high-end brands were putting out like Barbies
that were licensed with their brands.
They were made of porcelain and stuff.
Dude, those Barbies were selling for like $1,000 each.
And I had like probably two pallets
of crazy Barbies once upon a time.
So, but then, you know, as Amazon goes,
I, out of everything that I sent in there,
stuff from the flea market, Ravenburg puzzle,
all that kind of stuff,
I bought a set of Zip Catan myself from Target,
sent it in, they claimed it as counterfeit
and I lost my account.
Out of all the crazy stuff I ever sent in
with no receipts, no purchase from the flea market,
I purchased a Settlers of Catan.
And you know why I got it?
Because Pie Face was a bolo that year.
You remember Pie Face?
I was going to Target and cleaning out Pie Faces
and I saw Settlers of Catan was doing well.
I sent in a couple of Settlers of Catan
that I bought from Target.
I sent in my receipt for proof, they didn't accept it.
I lost my Amazon account for that.
Oh.
With no previous infractions, nothing.
Settlers of Catan jammed me up and got me.
And I had to recall all of my stuff and like,
you know, I had a few thousand pieces and I was like,
all right, I'm just going to list them on eBay.
That stuff don't sell on eBay.
Like there's stuff that sells thousands of times a day
on Amazon that don't sell on eBay.
I'm just amazed at the crap I send to Amazon.
This will never sell on eBay, never,
a billion years, but sells all day on Amazon.
Yeah, like we'll never in a million.
And there was like silly stuff, like laptop locks.
Those sell hundreds of times a day on Amazon.
I listed those on eBay, like I had those for years
and they wouldn't even sell one time.
So like when I got jammed up on an actual Settlers of Catan
that I purchased myself, I was like,
I cannot run that risk of having like a lot of money
in Amazon inventory and have this happen again.
So that was kind of like the ending of my Amazon career,
but it served its purpose.
I did very well over there, but you know,
Amazon's not like eBay.
eBay will tell you six months in advance,
hey, we're going to make this change.
Amazon, you might wake up in the morning
and your whole entire business is now different.
Hey, you can only send in this amount of SKUs.
You got this amount of space.
We've raised the price on this.
So like that is still a little bit too risky
for my risk tolerance.
But yeah, out of everything that I've sent in,
Settlers of Catan that I bought myself from Target got me.
I think you should have like that sealed,
like in your background up on the wall, right?
Like this is what got me.
It is funny though, like the Disney parks thing,
because I'm doing the same thing currently.
I live right by Hershey,
where they make all the Hershey chocolate
and they have stuff there you can't get nowhere else.
So I'd be lying right now.
I got that stuff listed on Amazon and it sells every day.
So a lot of it is like understanding where you're at
and what advantages do you have being by Disney?
What advantage do I have by being by Hershey?
So it is pretty crazy to think about.
Yeah, and then when I was doing the Disney park exclusive,
these other stores started popping up
who lives much closer to Disney.
And I think there's a couple of huge stores
that only sell Disney park exclusive
and they probably crush it.
Cause I know I was crushing back then,
but everything kind of serves its purpose
and everything kind of happens for a reason.
And it's great, cause probably if I didn't buy
that set of Zipkatan, maybe I would have went much deeper.
And I think probably a lot of Amazon people listen to this.
I think that ultimately is the fate
for every single Amazon seller is that
you will eventually get jammed up for something
that you probably didn't even do anything wrong.
Right.
Now what's funny is I took your advice
that you gave me a while back
as my employee runs my Amazon business more or less, not me.
I spent months teaching her eBay,
basically everything I learned in refinement.
It took me two hours to teach her how to do Amazon.
Two whole hours, months with the eBay teaching.
I think that's the fundamental difference
between eBay and Amazon, honestly.
It's pretty little thinking,
just understanding a couple of graphs
and knowing how to print the label.
That's about it.
That's it.
I'll tell you the best thing about Johnny.
So on the Tuesday call, I'll be wrapping on there
for four or five, six hours.
People ask me questions, I answer.
They wanna debate, I tell them the same answer.
They wanna debate, and then they tap out.
I'll do that for hours and hours and hours.
If it's not the answer they're looking for,
they'll rephrase the question in hopes
that I'll give them the answer that I'm looking for.
Johnny will ask this question, I'll give the answer.
And Johnny will go, okay, I'll go do that.
And that's it.
And Johnny just goes and does it.
It's funny how that works.
Every time I do that, it just works.
Why argue with the person who knows the answer?
I don't understand it sometimes.
I tell you all the time how patient you are.
I couldn't do that.
Why aren't they listening?
It would drive me insane.
Oh, it's great.
Cause every single time I log on, it's me verse 200.
I know.
It's me verse 150.
Every single time I log on, it's me verse everybody else.
And I'd be lying if I don't join sometimes.
I'm saying, I don't know if they're gonna break him
this week, I would lose my shit.
They will never break me, man.
It's one verse 200 every single time I step on there.
And when no one has any more questions,
I log off, that's victory for the week.
I won.
Mike's never been to one of these.
He'll sit there for 12 hours
and they'll ask him the same question
or be the same person rephrasing the question
for weeks, for weeks, for months.
I mean, tech is stern in the way he addresses things
and he has a clear cut answer for everything.
It's not like if we ask him something today
and we ask him next week,
you're gonna get a different answer, right?
So it's like, he's got it laid out.
And I mean, I got one of the worst eBay stories out there,
but I listen for the business sense,
the processes, the things, you know,
cause eBay doesn't do nothing for me currently,
but there's still a lot to be learned.
And I think a lot of it is people have to understand
the business sense of having a business.
And a lot of resellers, I say, that's like,
oh, I resell, like you don't treat it like a business.
You just fiddle faddle around when you're in a thrift store
and you sell a thing here or there.
Even if you're part-time,
you got to treat it like an actual business,
because if you don't, then you ain't got a business.
You're just screwing around.
No, you have a hobby that the IRS calls a business.
That's a little different.
But the reason why my,
the reason why my answers never change
is because my answers are in accordance
to what my rules are for my business.
And my rules will never change.
So I have these rules of when I list,
how I list, what I list,
when I ship, how I ship, what I ship.
I have rules for everything, sourcing, photography,
listing, shipping, storage, customer service, eBay backend.
I have all of my rules and I answer the questions
in accordance to my rules.
That's why the answers never change and will never change.
And if you listen to the very first podcast in 2017,
it's the same exact thing that I said today.
All you have to do is listen to that and just log out.
That's it.
Listen to 2017, do that and you'll be set.
Consistency.
I think that's like the biggest thing with reselling.
People cannot be consistent with tasks
within their business.
And that goes for any kind of,
I think it kind of reverts a little bit
to like how you do things outside of your business as well.
Like if you're usually consistent doing your reselling,
you're gonna be consistent with other things in your life.
And I know it's a big thing to get over to list every day
or do certain things every day
and at a level that makes sense, right?
We're not going one day half ass on something
and the next day we're gonna do it real well, right?
That doesn't make sense.
And I think a lot of things with eBay get caught up with,
well, I'm listing all my items, nothing's selling.
And there's so many other things that go into just,
besides your listing, is your listing good?
Is your listing crappy?
Are you promoting?
There's so many things.
So we're gonna get close here to wrapping up.
I wanna jump into your YouTube world here a little bit.
You recently just launched your YouTube channel.
Many, many, many, many subscribers, awesome content.
Like what does the future of your YouTube channel look like?
And I enjoy all your content so far.
I like the Rag House one.
Somebody had, the guy you were talking to,
I forget his name, he had a cutout of Michael Myers,
a cardboard cutout.
And I was like, dude, I need that thing.
So what's the future of your YouTube look like?
And I think just trying to do cool stuff,
trying to meet cool people and just continue to try to help
as many people as possible.
And I think I figured out the two things
that I wanna get across in every single video.
Number one is I wanna trick people into getting an education.
That's the best thing in the world.
So I'll do a video,
but you really learn something at the end.
So I did the video about Travis Kelce
selling him an expensive sweater,
but then I tricked everybody.
Oh, you're here to learn about Nike and Jordan this week.
Or I went to the Rag House, but I tricked everybody.
You're here to learn about vintage this week.
So I want to find different ways
of tricking people into an education.
And I also want to show that everybody can do this.
And when I went to the flea market last weekend
and found $4,000 worth of stuff in a very small flea market,
I want to prove everywhere,
a town of 2,000 people find $10,000 worth of stuff.
Anybody could do this, anybody.
Like there's no secrets.
I'm not a superhero.
I'm not special.
It's just took the time to learn,
wake up and get out there
and then process your stuff when you go home.
That's it. Anybody can do this.
So I just want to trick all you guys.
And I just wanna prove that anybody could do this
anywhere that you are.
I mean, look at Johnny,
there's no shortage of books
and he says he lives in the middle of nowhere.
Like there, anybody could do this.
Brad, the biggest video game reseller on Amazon,
he doesn't even have a stoplight in his city.
Like anybody could do this.
Absolutely.
And last question I personally have for you
and I'll let Mike have his way with you.
Since we have a large Amazon audience,
what is the one piece of advice
you could give to Amazon resellers?
It's been a while since I've been in the Amazon game,
but I think what Mike said is very important
and I used to do the same thing.
I would shop all week
and I would pack my boxes on Saturday and Sunday
and get them out Monday.
I think having that schedule of actually packing the boxes
and having a dedicated day of packing,
that really helped me tremendously.
So I would shop all week.
I would go to the flea market Saturday.
I would go to the flea market Sunday.
And immediately when I got home on Sunday,
that's when I would pack my entire shipment
and I would send them out on Mondays.
And I think that having that dedicated time
every single week that no matter what,
you're packing your shipments is the way to go
or every single day, however big or large you are.
But that every Sunday I'm packing,
that was crucial to the business.
I got one last one before we wrap this up here.
An exit plan when it comes to reselling,
we know you have multiple different businesses
behind the scenes and personally,
I invest in retirement funds.
Do you strongly believe that resellers
should be looking past reselling?
I think to myself, right,
I can't, especially being on the third floor,
I'm not gonna be able to lift 50 pound boxes
when I get 67 years old.
So I gotta have a plan to get out of this
or some kind of future.
And I think a lot of resellers just live
for that flip today and they're not thinking maybe five,
10, 15 years down the road.
What's your take on having other income streams
besides reselling or investing in your own long-term future?
I believe I'm a big saver, huge saver.
I might spend maybe $6 today as a human being
and that's probably like a turkey sandwich.
So I am a big saver.
Because there's no 401k for eBay seller.
So if you have to go out and get that, I believe 1,000%
into that, although every avenue is different
for different people.
So I don't have the IRA and stuff like that.
I have real estate.
So for me, if I needed to sell something and liquidate,
I could do it.
If I needed to refinance, I could do it.
So that's been my method,
but although that requires much more work,
it requires much more effort, requires much more time.
So I think everybody needs to find some kind of avenue
where, and this is, I don't know if it's like the retire
early or whatever, it's just, you have to be able to save up
some kind of money where you're able to live off the interest
or live off of the investment, no matter how you get there.
So you need to calculate like how much money do I spend
per year, how much money do I need in retirement?
And it's hard to do that calculation
the further out you are, but if you need $50,000 a year
to supplement your social security,
then you got to figure out a way how to get
to that dollar amount, which is going to kick off
that kind of passive income, passive,
because everything requires attention,
everything requires effort.
So if it's a piece of real estate that you could save up
enough money for the down payment,
that's going to give you $50 after all of your expense,
or 50,000 after all of your expenses,
then that's your vehicle of choice.
If it's save up X amount of dollars into a Vanguard
or into some sort of investment account,
that's going to give you $50,000 that can supplement
your social security or supplement your other retirement
or whatever you have going on.
I think everyone needs to kind of find that magic number
as a reseller, and that should be your target,
because like you said, being 60 and lugging Amazon boxes
or 60 is 30 years away, there might not be no Amazon FBA.
Amazon might start contacting Pepsi,
they might start contacting Hershey,
they might start contacting these brands,
because Amazon is a data company at the end of the day,
they don't care about resellers,
just like eBay is also a data company,
but the difference between eBay and Amazon is,
eBay is not competing with you on your own listing.
So Amazon sees all these listings and goes,
okay, Hershey's chocolate sells great,
let's contact Hershey, let's order directly from them
at such a volume where nobody else can compete,
let's lock this category or this item,
and now all the resellers are gone.
Eventually Amazon will have contracts with everybody,
and there may not be an FBA, especially for new items,
pre-owned books, Johnny, you're probably safe,
but if you want to do a widget or you want to do
some sort of replenishable, eventually Amazon is just going
to reach out to all these companies,
they're going to have the exclusive,
and they're going to sell the item.
So, and eBay, eBay could be gone tomorrow,
or you could be gone off eBay tomorrow,
like this stuff is not forever,
so you need to get it kind of like a looter in a riot,
like now's your time, now is your opportunity,
get everything that you can,
do it the right way for as long as possible,
find that target where you need to be,
invest your money into that to get to that target,
and kind of live off of the interest
or the profit of that investment,
and hopefully you have enough there,
or something else that could supplement it or something,
but I think that you need to find out
what number you need to get to, to invest,
to be able to get kind of that kickback or that dividend,
or whatever, in order to live your life down the line,
because for us guys, our age,
Social Security is probably not going to be there,
so we can't depend on that, we're paying into it,
but we can't depend on that, so if you think, hey,
and you also have to remember,
50,000 today, ain't gonna be 50,000 in 30 years, neither,
so you probably need 120,000 a year
just to live at the $50,000 level when the time comes,
so how do I get 120,000 a year in like dividends,
or residual, or income, that's a pretty damn high number
you gotta reach for, so you gotta get after it.
And we were just talking about Mike's thing
about lugging books at six years old,
and just on our media call,
50 plus year old woman's doing the same work I'm doing
in my 30s, like no way, no way, it's hard life.
It's hard, man, and amen to the people
that are still getting after it and still doing it,
and ultimately that's probably what we're all looking at,
so you just gotta do your best on a day in, day out,
and hopefully when you're in that position,
maybe you have options,
having options is a beautiful thing,
so I think that resellers should think about having options,
that's probably very important
and something that people should start thinking about.
All right, Tech, we appreciate you hanging out with us today,
and I do agree 100% with Tech said,
the Grim Reaper gets up every morning for Amazon sellers,
and you better hope your door is not the one being knocked on,
and that's just to what we kinda just said here,
you gotta have other options out there in the business,
and thanks for hanging out with us, man,
and we appreciate you sharing all your knowledge,
as always, looking forward to the YouTube channel
and all the fun different videos you have coming up,
so yeah, we appreciate you.
I appreciate you guys for having me, I apologize for Johnny,
Johnny's asked a couple times over the past few months,
but I had to get some ducks in a row,
and now you see, I had to launch the channel first
before I came onto the podcast,
otherwise it would be audio only,
and people don't wanna listen to that,
so I had to get my ducks in a row,
told Johnny I would do it, and we're here,
so I apologize, guys, but it was very fun chatting,
if you guys ever wanna talk again, just let me know,
and I'll be over here, I love talking about selling,
so that's the magic word, so thank you, Johnny,
thank you, Mike, for having me, it's been absolute pleasure.
We'll talk to everybody in next week's episode.
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