Welcome back to another episode of the Resellers Mindset Podcast.
My name is Mike, also known as the used book guy on YouTube,
along with my friend and fellow full-time reseller, Johnny B.
We help people start and grow their reselling businesses from the ground up.
We also have a weekly zoom call and private discord for all YouTube members.
Head on over to youtube.com backslash use book guy to join the channel and gain
access to the full length podcast zoom call and private discord today.
Let's get into this week's episode.
What is up everybody?
Welcome into another episode of Resellers Mindset Podcast.
Special guest today, Ed Hussle and Grow known over in the YouTube universe.
That's how I track this man down.
And as always me and Johnny.
So we're going to throw this over to Ed.
He's going to give a little bit of a introduction to himself and how he's
gotten into reselling over the years.
So welcome to the show, Ed.
How's it going over there?
Hi, what's going on, man?
First of all, let me just say thank you to both you and Johnny.
I appreciate it.
I've been following you guys for a little while.
I became a member.
Wasn't even because I sell sell books.
I just liked the way you did your videos and stuff.
So I was like, I'll support that, you know?
So yeah, but as far as me and how I got into reselling.
So I go back, let's say, let's go back to, I mean, I started my eBay
account in 2012, but I wasn't selling, selling all like that.
I did some selling maybe 2015, 16.
This was when I was still managing the restaurants.
I was at steak and shake.
I was buying lots off of liquidation.com.
That's back when they actually had some good stuff, you know, like
electronic lots and all that.
It was some good stuff on there back then.
Excuse me.
So I was selling stuff on there, going to steak and working on steak and shake.
You know, then life happened. I kind of just got away from reselling.
Started doing vending.
I want to say it was, it was probably a year before the device came out.
Right.
And it was actually, it was actually pretty cool, man, because it was more passive.
I built up to about a hundred something locations total.
So most of the things I was doing was gumball machines and things like that.
Candy machines. I didn't have that many like pop machines or snap machines.
I started to get into the mini car machines.
It's actually pretty cheap to order from China.
I ordered one.
But then I was going to order a pack because you can get like six of them from
China ship for about, I don't know, five, 6,000 ish, which really ain't that much.
All right.
Six of them coming from China.
And that's when everything happened. So when everything happened, everything
closed, most of my locations, I didn't hear from none of the people.
I already had the one, uh, claw machine, the mini claw machine.
I had it.
I had somebody that was going to let me place that near location.
Of course that wasn't going to happen.
I mean, and I really liked that business, but had to do something else.
So I was like, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do something else.
So I was like, ah, let me look, let me look, let me look.
Oh, let me start selling stuff again.
Right.
Well eBay start buying stuff off of liquidation.com again.
They still have some pretty good lots around that time.
So it's probably would have been what?
2020.
Right.
Still has some good stuff.
I started selling again.
And then, um, man, as I, as it just kept getting bigger and bigger.
So even when things started opening up, I realized how much I love selling
stuff more than the Vendon, even though Vendon wasn't bad.
I liked, but I liked selling stuff.
Now go back way to my youth.
No, when I was growing up, we did stuff.
I think I might've said this in one of my videos, but anyway, we was always
hustling, man, so like grew up in Pittsburgh.
Um, we would go to John Eagle.
We would help people carry their bags to their cars.
We would sell candy bars.
We would get a bunch of old hangers, go to the post office to get the rubber
bands and make sling shots, sell them in the neighborhood.
Then when the rubber bands broke, we charged them a quarter to fix it.
All that type of stuff.
We were just always hustling, man, always selling stuff, bro.
And so when I started selling again, that's kind of like, I'm going
to just keep doing this.
I really didn't plan.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
No, I was just going to ask, uh, you're the first part of here.
So did you start following us because of the podcast, because of Mike's
how to Amazon videos?
I'm just curious.
I started seeing the how to Amazon videos first.
Gotcha.
Okay.
So it caught my attention because you know how you do it.
What's up, everybody?
Yeah.
It's famous intro.
Love it.
You must be on some Adderall.
So then I started watching the podcast and so I was like, yeah, now that I've
seen the group, um, you know, the channel thing, I was like, I can, I can do 290
nights cheaper than a cup of coffee.
You know what I mean?
I can, um, like, so when you got into like vending, you said you worked
in a restaurant industry and you got into reselling, like did the, the whole
pandemic kind of shut down your job in the restaurant business.
So you decided I'm going to take this, you know, this time to see if there's
something else I want to do to make a full-time income, like what was the
transition like, because now you resell full-time, right?
This is, you still don't work in the restaurant industry, right?
No, I've been golfing there for almost three years.
So yeah.
So like, what was that kind of transition like in deciding that this was
something you were going to stick with?
Yeah.
Good question.
So our store, I was, I was at Chuck E.
Cheese at this time, so I was managing there.
The store didn't close fully.
So what they did, they transitioned to online and they would just have
basically the two managers working and the tech, excuse me, they got a tech
that do all the games and stuff.
And so that's basically all we had.
It was just us, we worked.
Nobody was really allowed in the store, except the delivery drivers and
people could come in to order.
I think we might've shut down for those first week, two weeks that nothing was.
But once they kind of like start saying people can go, once they start saying
restaurants can do this and that and the other, that's when the corporate was
like, all right, well, we going to do online door dash and we did that for a while.
And so that's how we was able to get our hours and things like that, you know,
keep it going.
So, but it was, it was, it was dead most of the time, you know, because it was
new, especially for Chuck E cheese, Chuck E cheese wasn't known for takeout.
So it was super dead, you know, at first.
So we would just sit around, man.
I would just be playing on eBay, selling stuff and stuff was selling and selling
and selling, and I'm just like, all right, well, just keep buying stuff and see
how fast and how it going, you know, kept growing.
When it came to leaving Chuck E cheeses, did you, were you nice about it or did
you take my route and just leave your keys in the middle of your shift and
never look back?
I'm always tempted to leave my keys, man, but I always try to remember not to
burn up bridges.
So I was nice about it.
I gave him two weeks.
Better man than me.
Them bridges are still burning to this day and let them burn, baby.
I gave mine three months.
I'm now so yeah.
Well, that's how I felt when I left steak and shake Chuck E cheese wasn't that bad
as far as the people I worked for my district manager.
She was, she was crazy, but I knew how to deal with it.
You know, that was one of the things I'm always good at is I know how to kind of
like get the, when I get to know a person, I can kind of like figure it out, but
steak and shake, I was about this close to walking out of there, but I still did.
That was probably my worst stuff, honestly.
So, um, doing liquidation boxes, I'm going to guess not everything was alike
in those boxes.
So what was your experience like listing, well, literally probably everything.
There was a liquidation box.
I will order specific types of, so I learned, I learned a lot.
I will order the Amazon box.
Like you said, not everything was alike.
And I didn't really realize like, especially with clothes, a lot of that stuff
was cheap and just didn't sell, you know, I thought it was sale if I put it up.
And it would.
So I learned that, you know, Sony certain types of lots.
So I started ordering more electronic lots than anything else because the
electronics would actually sell better.
Of course, even if they didn't work properly or at all, right.
Cause you can list it as four parts.
So I started staying away from the mix lots because it was just too iffy.
And honestly, most of the time it was crap, you know, so yeah, I stayed away from
that stuff.
Even now I don't, I don't order no general merchandise slots, nothing like
that.
I don't want none of that stuff.
Cause it's moat nine times out of 10 is just going to jump that you may be able
to sell.
I like yard sale, but it ain't good for online.
It's it interests me.
The fact you sell on platforms, what name all the platforms you sell on.
All right.
So I'm on eBay, Walmart, and Amazon.
And I do a little bit of McCarty.
I got about $2,000 in sales of McCarty this year.
And you treat them all basically the same, right?
Like you don't, you don't kind of, do you have like, you play favorites, I
guess I would say, like how can I do like eBay and Amazon, but eBay is like
1% of my business.
Do you play favorites?
Are you just like, no, I'm all in on everything?
No, no.
So my plan was to have a certain percentage of revenue coming from each
platform, because here's how I was thinking, right.
And I know y'all remember tech said, it ain't a question of if you get suspended
on Amazon is when that's always in the back of my mind.
I try not to like speak it or talk to Liz.
I believe in like manifestation, right?
So I don't speak that stuff.
It happened to happen, but I ain't going to put it out the reason.
So I'm like, but you know, you got to, you got to plan.
So initially it was eBay.
So that, that, that first bigger year on eBay, I did about $1,000 a year.
About 130,000 in sales, right?
But it was all eBay.
I had an Amazon account, but I wasn't really selling it.
And I had tried to apply for Walmart, but they was still going through something
and then they stopped accepting applications.
And so I kind of didn't even think about Walmart for about a year.
Then once I started doing more Amazon, I started doing that maybe in, I don't
know, 2021, 22.
Yeah.
Somewhere around the 2021 ish as my business started growing, especially
once I left my job and just like, I don't want to have to depend on one spot.
So the goal was to have it about, you know, 30, even split it on a three
platform, you have about 30, 30 some percent of revenue coming from each
platform.
That was the plan.
But then when I got on Walmart, I realized how much better it was.
So then I'm like, all right, well, eBay is just going to have to
go to like third place at this point, especially now because it's just
ridiculous, right?
Even the stuff that might take a little while to sell on Walmart, it would
never sell eBay.
So it's a big difference, right?
So now it's more like Walmart will be, I don't know, 40% of my revenue, Amazon,
about another 30, 40% in eBay is definitely around like 15 to 20% ish
somewhere around there, maybe 20, 20.
Yeah.
Not quite 25.
So that's kind of how I'm going to keep it for now.
It's no, say for example, you get a shipment in of items.
You don't know what they are.
How do you decide what platform to listen on?
Like, because, you know, you're selling on all these different
platforms.
Do you spend the time to comp each platform and sell through each
platform, or is this just kind of like a knowledge base you developed that,
you know, all right, health and beauty items are going to do better on
Walmart than eBay or is like, what's your process when it comes to dealing
with multiple platforms and different types of items?
It's a little bit of both.
So a lot of this stuff I already know when I look at it, because look, there's
as far as hygiene, health and beauty makeup, most of the stuff I can look
and I can say, well, that doesn't sell or that is not going to sell on eBay,
but it'll sell on Walmart.
Or I can't list that on Amazon because you know, this and that and other.
So I kind of got a good idea, but if I don't know, I will come on each
platform the only way I'll put something though on Amazon or Walmart, it sells
for less than I would on.
And it can sell for more on eBay, but I'll put it on those two because I know
it'll sell fast.
I don't want to wait on eBay for more money.
I would rather not deal with it.
So like if it's selling, let's say it's selling for 15 bucks on Amazon or
Walmart, but on eBay, you know, you got some comps for 20, 25.
I'll take the 15, especially if the sales rank is good.
I'll just take the 15 and be done with it.
And if I, and usually I got a lot of units of certain items.
So like I just sent in a bunch of units of lower dollars selling items, but it's
going to sell out so fast.
I'm going to have that money right back.
Right.
Whereas if that stuff was on eBay, it would, man, it would be there forever.
You know, and I ain't got time to, you know, be waiting on that money to come
back.
I need it back as fast as possible.
See, my methodology is similar, but slightly different.
Basically we take an item and if it can go to Amazon, it will go to Amazon.
And then if it fails the Amazon check, okay, we'll do the eBay check and it
fails that well to the storefront and goes.
And then I've talked about publicly about probably getting to Walmart.
Probably getting to Walmart later next year.
So it would probably be a third check.
Now, whether Walmart gets slotted above Amazon, below Amazon or below or behind
eBay is questionable at the moment, but we'll see.
Um, I just find if I try to play the pricing game, which to maximize my
dollar on which platform it goes, how much time I waste during the day.
So I think a sign, at least for me, assigning a platform of like a, like we
were talking for a second, third place, um, is the way I'm going to go do it
for the time being.
That's just how I'm doing it right now.
That may change down the road.
Yeah, no, that's a good, that's a good plan.
And one of the things I'll look at too is Walmart don't have as much
competition as, uh, Amazon.
Right.
So, you know, a listing on Amazon could have 50 sellers, but the same item on
Walmart might have five.
So that would, that could determine it too.
That's why I always double check because you know, that buy a box will come up
quicker on Walmart and it's easier to jump people in the buy a box on Walmart
than it is Amazon.
So it just depends.
That's a, that's a hard pill to swallow.
You're basically telling every reseller out there to take less money quicker
than to wait for a little bit more money.
And I think you're 100% right.
But I do think for some reason the mentality resellers have when it comes to
like, Oh, they need to get every dollar for something, even though, you know,
maybe you paid, you know, a dollar for the item, you know, you paid a dollar
for the phone, you know, it's worth 300.
Somebody offers you 150 and you're like, no, I can't take it.
It's like, you have to turn and burn inventory and like, especially like, I
wonder how this relates to you because in media cashflow is the only way you
survive, you can't have millions of books sitting around your house.
You got to turn this inventory, even if you're going to, you know, even if
you're going to lose money, sometimes you have to get something back out of it.
So I'm curious, like, because you don't mess around with media is the cashflow
struggle the same with replenishables and you know, what you do.
Yeah.
It's the same as far as that goes, because I got my bread and butters, but my
bread and butters are not hot dogs.
So items, right.
And with health and beauty, honestly, the higher end items are usually the ones
that get you in the most trouble.
So I, on purpose, I purposely try to stay under the radar by selling only
certain types of things.
Not that I won't sell higher end, but I found that those is the ones that you
usually kind of get you in, you know, those that get you suspended.
So I'll stay away from certain stuff, but my, I think one of my main problems
in the beginning was thinking one that I had to list everything and two, um,
that I could, that it was a good idea to hold on to stuff.
And so I don't even do that anymore.
Some stuff now I realize I'm not even listed individually.
I'll just put it all in a box and I'll throw it up on marketplace
and sell it for 20 bucks.
It's super important that I keep getting money back.
I got to, it increases my buying power.
When I need to make a purchase, I'll have the money to make the purchase.
It is doing me absolutely right.
It's not helping me.
To have stuff sitting on, and I know we say that and it kind of gets cliched,
but when you have bills to pay and you got things going on and you need to keep
running your business and dealing with your household, like looking at something
sitting on the show, it's not helping.
You know, I'll take $5.
If I can get $5 now over $20 in six months, because that $5 is going to keep
moving. If I get every week, you know what I mean?
And by the time you get your 20, I done turned that into a hundred.
So I don't have to be like, Oh, I'm going to get $20.
I'm going to get $10, too.
A hundred. So it don't even matter to me.
And who knows what opportunities might come along in the meantime, and I'll still
have the cash to access the opportunities.
So that's just kind of been my philosophy.
Now I do want to say something a little controversial, but I'm in full agreement
with what's been said here is you can't play the longer dollar later game.
You just have to, well, be able to sustain that.
And you're going to go out of business if you can't sustain that.
I think it's a game to be played down the road
once you've built your business up to, well, status quo.
These handful of items over here,
I'll just wait for the money on those
because everything over here is making everything I need
and then some.
But I think both models work.
It's just most people give up on the,
I think it's a harder model to do.
Because again, how long are you willing to wait?
Two years, three years, four years?
And if you have enough of it,
then it starts to become daily sales
because that time clock, you've gotten to that point.
Just most people don't survive to that point
with that model.
They go out of business
because they're making no money while they're waiting.
Because they're waiting for the right customer
at the right time for the right dollar amount.
Much harder game to play, very high level, very,
or you're independently wealthy
and you don't need the money technically.
That could also be a way it could work.
So I'm done with my controversy.
Back to you, Ed.
Well, look, I don't think that's really controversial.
And there's a couple of things about that
because I thought about that too before, right?
So there's a couple of things, right?
One, it probably wouldn't be a good idea
unless you already got money and you rich, right?
To start off with long tail irons.
Or unless it's just a hobby and you got a job.
Right, then treating it as a hobby.
Right, but if this is your business,
then what you said is correct.
So you can do that,
but you also need some bread and butter stuff
until you build up the volume.
Exactly.
So for that stuff to start turning over
because like once you get,
it might take you three or four years
before that stuff starts selling,
but you'll still have stuff coming in.
But in the meantime, to keep the cashflow,
you're gonna need some other stuff
that's gonna move a little bit faster.
Absolutely.
Cross-listing, you're on multiple platforms.
Everything I see on social media
when it comes to reselling is,
if you sell on eBay, cross-listing will save your business
and make you rich.
What's your take on it since you sell on,
three major reselling platforms?
The only things I cross-listed items
that I got a bunch of units of each.
I don't, listen, I'd have made my mistakes
of taking one item, putting it up on multiple platforms
and it's selling on all of them.
Trust me when I tell you, you can have.
And then I gotta go out and freaking find it
and make sure I make the customer happy by sending it
and don't get a ding.
So, anytime I put items up on those multiple,
when you see that, if you used to see that,
it would be things that I probably got,
10 or more units of.
And then I'll do it that way.
And then I always got a note
because I keep these little sticky notes on the outside
to let me know which platform it is on.
So I can take them down.
And once they whittle down a little bit,
or if I see that it's selling faster
on one platform over another,
I'll just take it off the other ones
and just leave it on there.
But to start off, if I'm not sure,
I'll put it on all three,
but it gotta be more than one.
It gotta be a few units.
But I'm not playing that game, dude.
That's just, I can't tell you how much of a headache it is
to put one item up on multiple platforms
and have to keep up with it, dude.
Especially if you got a lot of units up.
I'm just not doing it.
I've done it and it never worked.
It never worked.
Do you, hold up Johnny, I got an important question to this
because this is how I live my life.
Do you go to thrift stores at all?
No, not really.
Unbelievable, security, get this guy security.
Listen, you'll be happy to know
that that is one of my goals for this coming year
to start going to thrift stores, man.
I'm gonna start doing a little bit of thrifting
just to expand my knowledge base,
see what other opportunities out there.
I'm not gonna put a huge amount of time,
maybe once a week or so.
Gonna start doing it, man.
Don't shoot me down.
Be fair, I don't really go to thrift stores either, Mike.
I'm just saying.
You live in a thrift store though, that's a difference.
I mean, I made my own thrift store.
You're not wrong.
It is pretty cool to think about that, right?
Your business, you really don't have to go
and deal with the crazy people in thrift stores.
I was just curious and I'll be excited for you
to get out there and meet some in real life people,
not just us YouTube personalities.
So you said, I mean, Mike said, so this may be untrue.
Have you ever sold media and or books,
dismedia or books before?
And what was your experience like with that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So coming off of COVID,
I bought out a bunch of family videos.
It was going out of business.
I seen a post on Marketplace
and it was one of the ones that's in my city.
Went up there, talked to them, got all the DVDs
after they did their little few days
of selling down or whatever.
So I'm like, y'all got more?
First they didn't wanna do it,
but then later on that night, they called me and said,
hey, our district manager said blah, blah, blah.
And if you wanna drive over here, I'm like, yeah, I'll drive.
So I ended up buying out like four of them, bro.
I got a bunch of DVDs, DVDs, games, adult movies.
I actually still got a whole banana box of adult movies
I gotta figure out what to do.
But so, and I just made a video of basically
whatever I got left as far as the DVDs go
at the end of the beginning of next year,
I'm just taking down, but I've sold thousands
and thousands of DVDs.
How much did you pay per piece?
Do you remember?
25 cent.
Good deal.
25 cent each for everything.
It was just everything.
And I had a bunch of good stuff.
I had some seal ones.
I'm still selling through the games now,
but it was a good deal.
It was a good deal.
I've been made my money back and then some.
As far as books go, I sold some books,
but I ain't a book person.
I bought a lot more bad books than good books.
I will say that I ended up taking most down
and just tossing them.
It was, you know, but I don't dislike media,
but I'm not a media guy.
Yeah, it's, I don't blame it.
Media is, I think everybody jumps it, jumping into media.
And it's like one of the most oversaturated,
slow sell through categories on any platform.
It's like, guys, like there's a million other ways
you can turn your dollar a lot quicker than media.
If you don't have relationships in media
and you're not willing to put in two plus years
in the business, it's not for you.
Just move on to that other thing
that's already in your mind, right?
If you want to do the health and beauty,
then just skip media altogether.
I don't think it has to be a stepping stone anymore,
especially with Amazon,
because everybody starts with media on Amazon
because it's everywhere.
Skip that step anymore.
Do something that you're passionate about.
And it's, you're a lot more motivated.
Like I'd said, like if you had a storage unit
behind them full of books,
he'd be hating his life right now.
It's like, you don't want to deal with this stuff.
Yeah, I mean.
I'm like, I'm gonna do that right behind me.
Do what you're passionate about.
And don't think you have to do what Ed's doing,
what I'm doing, what Johnny's doing.
It's just something that you enjoy doing,
a category you enjoy.
I mean, maybe Ed likes to paint his nails
and he sells a bunch of nail polish, but that's-
Stop telling people my secret.
I told you that was between us.
Why you think?
It makes him money.
He enjoys, and he's,
and like to the topic of like relationships, right?
Because I have thrift store and library relationships.
Do you have like relationships maybe with like wholesalers
or suppliers that you can always go back to
and order more things from?
Because that's kind of like your whole business.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I got a couple local ones and I got a couple.
I actually got a couple that I met on eBay.
So one of the things I'll do is reach out
to the bigger stores.
And you can find some connections that way.
I'll just put it that way.
And so the one guy, I made like one little test purchase,
got the merchandise.
It was pretty good.
Made another one, a little bit more.
It was good.
He actually ended up reaching out to me and was like,
hey, if you want more, I see you made a couple purchases.
You know, this is how we can connect.
He's up in New York and it's been, listen,
he's been a blessing, honestly.
I get merchandise from him.
It's always almost all good condition, brand new.
And the price point is super low with the shipment.
And that's, you know, that's outside of any like B-stock,
any like business like platform, you know what I mean?
So those has always been the best deals I could find.
Even the local guy, one of my buddies, Josh,
he sold me about what, 1,500 units not too long ago.
Dollar a piece, bro, but it was all brand new stuff.
The only thing I had to do, it had stickers on it.
I had to take the stickers off, but it was well worth it.
You know what I mean?
Those have been my best deals, my best finds,
the things that have boosted my business the most
are those personal connections.
It's reaching out to somebody saying,
hey, you got more or, you know, things like that.
So I want everyone who's listening to pause,
rewind what Ed just said and pay attention very closely
because that's probably the biggest tip we've given all year.
It wasn't even us, it was Mr. Ed here.
He didn't give away all the things,
but I almost wanted to say no, stop Ed, but no,
it's good stuff, really, honestly.
I've done that myself,
especially when I was doing disc media.
And yes, they are the best deals you can probably get
if you hustle and find the right person
who's willing to talk to you and deal with things.
So, well, go ahead, Mike.
Sorry, I just wanted to say that.
Do you have a, like, when it comes to you listing,
do you have like a set amount you like to list a week,
whether it's dollar or items,
or like what does your listing on a weekly basis
kind of look like or a daily basis?
When it was mostly eBay, I did,
and it would be, you know, my listing goal.
I was doing like 30 to 40 items a day, every day.
But when I switched, now there's really no goal.
Once I've determined what's going to Amazon,
first I determine if something is going to go to Amazon
or Walmart, or am I going to sell it myself?
Once I've determined that, then I make my plan.
If it's going to Amazon,
I start preparing the shipment and inventory lab.
Ship it out and be done.
As far as Walmart goes,
I haven't done as much fulfilled by Walmart yet.
So most of it's fulfilled by me.
That listing process is simple when it works well.
You know, it's almost like Amazon,
but there's a couple more steps involved.
And then lastly, eBay is always last.
I got a whole table back there right now,
stacked up with stuff that got to be listed on eBay.
And so my plan for that now mostly is I'll go through,
take all the pictures.
After the pictures are done, I'll create all the drafts.
After the drafts are done,
I usually schedule about five a day to go out,
and I try to get it to be like two weeks out.
That way that give me more time to focus back on Walmart
and Amazon or anything else I need to do.
So that's kind of how I treat eBay.
I just do like two weeks worth,
schedule them to go out and be done with it
until I get back around to it.
I will say a lot of people in tech groups
struggle with getting that two week draft bank.
Like it's one of the more harder things to overcome
if you're doing eBay on any serious basis
to have that draft bank to prepare for unforeseeables
and that buffer room when things go awry.
So I found that good.
Why do they struggle?
I can see, and look, it's only for me.
It's only anywhere from five to 10 items a day
when I do that.
Well, the methodology is supposed to be
whatever your daily is plus X percent extra.
And the extra goes in the draft bank.
And over time it'll accumulate,
well, we have two weeks worth of drafts
ready to go for a two week vacation,
going out of town for a racing trip or any,
this, that, and the other.
What they try to do, the ones that are struggling with it,
is they try to marathon, dump stuff in the draft bank,
and they burn themselves out.
They're over-listing essentially.
Because when they're base and they're like,
okay, let's do 90 more.
Dude, you just did 90.
Now you're trying to do like two working shifts.
That's taxing on anybody, to be honest.
And the ones that just, just a little bit extra
and are patient is the impatience, I think,
that gets to them.
They want to just do it and get it over with.
So I don't know if it's because I've been doing them,
been doing eBay for a little bit, or multiple platforms.
But if I was just doing eBay, let me go back.
I think here's the number one thing I learned
as far as like whether it's creating draft banks,
multitasking, which I'm not a big proponent of that no more.
I think you should do one thing until it's done,
then move on to the next thing.
So as far as like that whole listing thing
and trying to do too much,
I think the biggest thing people gotta learn is
set a time that you want to do something,
determine how long you want to do it.
And when it's done, be done with it
and move on to something else.
Even if you can do extra,
unless you got something going on, right?
Even if you can do extra
and you got something else scheduled,
move on to the next thing.
Well, even if that's a break, you know what I mean?
Take your break, move on to the next thing,
but don't do more than you should do
because in the long run, it usually come bite you in the butt.
It's funny because how I stumbled upon your channel
a few months ago, you made a video
talking about how resellers were thinking about cross-listing
and going to other platforms in comparison to eBay.
And I think to this myself, because I used to flip-flop
and I would list on eBay every once in a while
and now I kind of just put it to the side.
But the benefit of being somebody like Ed
and saying, okay, I got X, Y, and Z I can list on.
What do these look like?
I can look at my sales on each platform,
see where you're making your money.
Ed's not going to list the stuff on eBay
if he knows it's going to take forever to sell.
So he can say, all right, I'm pumping the brakes on eBay.
I need to go where the money is.
And that's kind of where I've fallen into is like,
eBay is an afterthought for me.
I haven't listed in months.
I don't intend to list for months.
I'm going to focus on where my money is, which is Amazon.
And that's the reality.
People get, it's almost like a relationship
like you're married to eBay.
You can't go and cheat on eBay with another platform.
But I try to tell everybody, expand.
It doesn't even have to be Amazon.
It doesn't have to be Walmart.
There's so many different platforms and different styles
that you could adapt to, but people are just like,
well, eBay's, that's it for me.
It's crazy.
I will say part of that's due to,
there's probably more videos and resources out there
for eBay than any of the other platforms at present.
Dude, it's all just people sitting in their garages
full of junk that's never going to sell.
Well, I didn't say they were listing the right stuff.
I just said, as far as content available for them to consume,
to put up their trash,
it's probably eBay has the most content out there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and it's the lowest barrier to entry.
I agree.
You know what I mean?
So that's why, but I mean, just what you were saying, Mike,
it's funny you said that,
because I was thinking to myself part of my plan for this year,
I got some things I want to do, but I said to myself,
I'm going to focus more of my financial resources
on only sourcing for the other two platforms over eBay.
Now I still buy a pallet, so some of that stuff will go,
but I'm going to be more targeted in my spending
because I need to focus on a platform
that's bringing me revenue a lot faster
instead of putting it into,
whatever they got going on eBay.
Look, I'm not going to ban the shit,
because you never know if I got to come back home,
but it's just, I don't know,
with the opportunities out there,
I think for my time, it's just not worth it, man.
It's just not worth it.
No, I agree.
You have to put your most time in the platform
that makes you the most money,
but I'm in your camp there of we don't know when
we'll get a pink slip from which platform.
And so keeping up with the times,
at least listing every now and then,
so even Mike listing once every six months,
that's perfectly okay, as long as he does it
at least once a year, Mike, please, once a year.
But I don't know if that's an irrational feel or not,
because I think we as resellers that do this
on any kind of level, we focus on the negative
a little too much.
Any of us who are trying to do it above board
and not nefarious things, we focus on those horror stories
that the innocent lister or reseller,
they got banned all of a sudden for no rhyme or reason.
But how many of us that we personally know
that talk to each other are banned off a platform?
I will say that tech did get banned off Amazon.
So I guess I'm a hypocrite in my statement there.
I have a hot take and you guys can address this
if you wanna be in hot water right along next to me.
Resellers will be the first people to chase
the next shiny object, shiny Bolo,
but they refuse to try to learn a different platform
to sell on, whether that's an Amazon seller
learning eBay or vice versa or Walmart
or the next platform that comes out or whatnot.
It's like we can go scatter brains
with what we sell in our business,
but when it comes to the platform,
all of a sudden we cannot step one inch
outside of the lines here because it's scary over there.
And like you said, all you hear is the horror stories
about what could possibly go.
I think it's such backwards thinking.
I think everybody should at least try
every single platform to see what works,
especially if you're selling different types of items.
Now I will say the exact same thing for sourcing.
Resellers don't like to change
their sourcing methodologies.
I've done very little online sourcing,
but I do do it from time to time.
I was resistant to it.
Like, no, I could just go out,
fill up my truck and come back.
But you know what?
Getting packages delivered to me is a lot nicer.
I will say that.
Or you're just a Benz person.
Have you tried not going to the Benz
and maybe going to, I don't know, a mom and pop
that's not affiliated with Goodwill or Salvation Army
or these other chains?
Or it may be you go to garage selling
or what do they call it?
Storage unit sales and auction houses and estate sales.
There's all kinds of options for us.
But I think we fall into the routine,
even if it's sticking to a platform routine,
we don't diversify or expand our knowledge.
And I think that's very important as a reseller as a whole,
to expand.
No, and I think that's for any business, right?
Unless you got a lot of capital
and you are just guys a lot of opportunities
or you're innovating in some type of way,
the longer you stay with something,
the more stale you'll probably end up being.
Things change, trends change.
And so you don't gotta go all in,
like you said, on these other platforms
or all in on a different form of sourcing,
but it's good to have the knowledge or the experience
just in case.
You gotta make a pivot because if you wait too long,
it might be too late, right?
Because that end your cash is probably dwindled down anyway,
right, if things start going bad.
But if you already got a presence on another platform
or you already met a new connection
and you've been dabbling here, selling this and that,
it's a little bit easier.
I agree with you on that for sure, man.
Let's just use my truck example.
What if I wrecked my truck?
Or let's say I broke my legs and can't drive the truck.
What am I gonna do?
And I don't know how to online source at that point.
Well, I gotta spend some learning time
before I can get things delivered
and then start the machine back up again.
But if I already had the forefront knowledge
outside the doctor's visit or a trip to the mechanic,
I would have been A-okay if I had the knowledge in advance.
Yeah, for sure.
I guess, like, what's your newest platform
would be Walmart, right, Ed?
Yeah.
So like, give me insight from the day you decided
I'm gonna try to get approved on Walmart
to like where you're at now and how much you sold.
Are you selling a lot more than you think
you would have sold on Walmart?
Like, did you even think you would make it
this far on Walmart?
Oh man, listen, I wasn't ready.
I ain't gonna lie.
So I went back, this would have been last year,
I don't know, August, September, somewhere around that time.
I went back to the site
and they started taking applications again.
So I'm like, well hell,
let me try and see what happens, right?
And then I got an email like,
hey, congratulations, you've been approved.
I'm like, oh shoot, okay.
I get in there, look around, I'm like, oh, this is weird.
So I'm like, all right, well, let's see how it go, right?
I put a couple items up.
It took me about a week and a half or two
for things to start moving, I'm getting items up.
But listen, bro, I'm telling you,
once I started putting that inventory up, it was moving.
I'm talking about fast, fast.
Because there's little competition.
Like I said, it ain't like Amazon yet
where you got 50, 60 sellers on a listing
and everybody got their pricers.
Walmart got this primitive repricer
that is kind of stupid, but it's not like that.
So listen, you can sell out of something super quick.
Look, I don't mind selling five, six, $7 items on Walmart
because it'll sell like this
and people will buy multiples or to shop and buy different.
It's crazy, man, it's crazy.
So I wasn't ready for that.
And I almost got in trouble a couple of times
because I couldn't keep up at first.
So I had to like figure out some things,
but it was good, man, it was good.
So that's why I was like, okay.
And that's why I wanna take more advantage
of this opportunity on Walmart
before it start getting like crazy, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I think we can reference it to
what not as a platform, right?
Like when it first came out,
people were like, nah, it really ain't gonna do nothing.
Now there's more people trying to move over,
but all the eds of the world have been over there already
and have the following, have the sales, have the feedback
that's gonna give them the advantage
when it comes to the buy box and things like that.
So there is definitely huge benefits
to picking and choosing opportunities
that aren't just product related.
It's almost like a business strategy opportunity
that you take advantage of
by there not being a lot of competition
because if there ain't no competition,
then you set the market price for everything
and you're gonna get a lot more money
for all of your items.
So that is kind of interesting to think about
and just like you took the risk for some reason
to decide that, hey, did you like come across
like a YouTube video?
Like what clicked in your mind that you're like,
I wanna try to sell on Walmart.
Did you see like a news article or something?
I think I was just doing stuff, you know, researching.
I came across the webs, it was some website
and it was just like apply to sell on Walmart.
And I remember in my mind, I said, well,
last time I checked, they wasn't even taking applications.
And I was just like, well, let me see what happened.
It wasn't even like a thing that was in my mind.
I seen the link, I clicked it, I said, okay, what the hell?
Submitted it and look, Walmart got its issues
as far as the back office.
I've seen people talk about how they can get items to show
so they don't deal with it.
And it doesn't even matter.
I don't care about none of that stuff sells.
That's all I care about.
Everything else I can figure it out stuff sells.
And I feel like I hope they keep the barrier,
the entry of you need a reseller's license
and you need this and you need that
because that keeps the competition low.
And it just, the opportunity is crazy on there right now.
So, you know.
So my last question I have for you,
are you a solo operator?
Do you have part-time employees, full-time employees
or plans for employees down the road?
Or don't want any at all?
No, so I had an employee last year.
It wasn't bad.
She ended up moving out of town,
but going forward, I was like, you know,
so I tried to do everything myself
and that's been burning me out.
So, which is another reason I've been doing
more FBA and stuff lately.
So my plan going forward was this.
I was thinking I could either hire somebody to help me ship
if that's where I've been getting my bottom deck at, right?
Bro, when you got to ship all the way
into like three or four o'clock,
you don't want to list nothing or do nothing else after,
right, if you starting in the morning.
So that's been getting on my nerves.
So I said, okay, I can hire somebody.
I can do more FBA fulfilled by Walmart.
I talked to the accountant and he was like,
well, look, if you hire somebody,
it ain't just the price you want to pay them,
it's going to be more because you got taxes
and you got things like that.
So he said, look at it like,
if you want to pay $10 an hour, he said,
well, that's going to be more like $15 an hour.
You know, so he said, you got to think.
So then when I thought about it, I said, well damn,
if I pay somebody that much, well,
what's the difference on the fees for FBA, right?
It might even be cheaper to do FBA.
So at this point, I'm just going to, this year,
my plan is I already know what it's like to try it myself.
It's cool, but it's too much.
This year I'm going to do, I'm going to leverage the platform.
And I'm going to see how that goes,
which I think I should be good doing it that way.
And then my next bottleneck would just be hiring somebody
to help me pack, but we'll get to that bridge,
you know, when we get there.
I love how you did the numbers to see if it was cheaper
just to do it FBA.
So again, that's another rewind Ed replay moment right there.
That was a pro tip.
Excellent.
You got to, I mean, at the end of the day,
time is the most valuable thing we have.
And even if, you know, what Ed's saying is basically
if he's going to pay an extra $3 in fees to FBA an item,
it's better than paying somebody to sit there
and pack an item he's got to fulfill himself.
And yet again, it's all a cost analysis
and being able to accept the fact that
you don't have to get maximum value on every single item,
a lower, quicker profit item that you can turn over again
and again and again, like Ed says, he has replans.
That is how you quickly ramp up your business
and you don't really have to worry about hiring somebody
because let's face it, we talk about all the time.
If Ed had a list, you know, 100 items on eBay versus Amazon,
we're talking hours to basically minutes.
I mean, it's that astronomical.
So that's the point where he's at.
It's like, okay, well, all of a sudden I'm maxed out on time.
You know, what can I do to make this make sense?
I think it's a good idea.
I think you'll probably,
and your revenue is only going to go up from it
because you're going to be listed more.
You're just going to have to buy more.
And then when you get to the point where you can't,
you can't literally send in anymore because you're maxed out.
I mean, that's when you can think about it.
But I think the ceiling for that is so high.
I mean, look at how many people just sell on Amazon
by themselves and they're making hundreds of thousands
of dollars a year because it's so easy
to just throw a label on it,
put it in a box and get it out the door.
Hey, so look, so what you were just saying,
I think this is an important distinction.
The whole revenue thing as opposed to focusing on,
I guess you can say higher every sale price.
Not that I don't ever try to raise my higher
every sale price because I do.
So like the eBay sellers, the person who only sells on eBay,
they focus more on finding an item or items that sell higher.
You know, 20, I need $20 profit, this and that.
I get that, especially selling on eBay.
But me, that's not, I learned that's not how I look at it.
I look at it like revenue.
I wanna increase my revenue.
High every sale price, I can have a harder time
increasing my revenue with that
than I would with lower every sale price
if it's selling fast.
So I don't really necessarily focus
on higher every sale price.
I just wanna know if something sells and if it does,
what's the profit and how fast does it sell?
I'll take $2 if I can make $100, $200 a day off of one item.
And then I'll just find a bunch of them.
It'll do that same thing.
And so if that increases my revenue percentage,
month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year,
I'm fine with that.
I don't care if I get $20 profit, I really don't.
I just wanna increase my revenue.
And so whatever item does that for me,
depending on the velocity,
that's kind of what I'm looking at,
especially going forward.
So- Yeah, it's like,
and the ease of use of the platforms too, right?
I mean, it's one of those things where
if you're just throwing a sticker on something,
you're never taking a photo.
Do you have to take photos of your items on Walmart?
I'm just curious, I have no idea.
No, not unless you create a listing.
It's pretty much set up as far as that goes, like Amazon.
Okay, so there's one parent listing
that you just list on. Yeah.
Okay, so I mean, yet again, right?
You're saving the time of thousands,
tens of thousands of photos every single year
that you factor into,
where you're gonna take your business over the next year.
So before we wrap this up,
what does 2024 look like for your business overall?
Do you have some crazy goals in mind?
Give me a little bit of insight here.
So 2024 looks like me doing more FBA,
more fulfilled by Walmart.
It looks like my revenue goal for 2024
is gonna be 350,000.
It was 300,000 this year.
I'm not gonna probably make it, gonna fall short.
But I think the reason I fell short
was because I took too long to adjust
and start doing more FBA and stuff.
And I kept trying to do things myself for too long.
I think that's the main, especially when I saw eBay,
wasn't doing as much as I wanted it to do,
or I needed it to do.
So I took too long.
So I think next year,
I'm actually pretty excited about it.
And so that's my goal, man.
That's the revenue goal.
And I wanna be able to free up time
because I want, like we was just saying,
I wanna explore another platform.
I wanna explore whatnot.
I wanna try that once a week,
but I need to free up some time.
I can't be in here shipping all day one day.
You know what I mean?
And I just wanna kinda like,
see how I can evolve my business.
One thing I know we gotta go,
but the one thing I look at, I watch this a lot.
What Amazon is doing, how they innovate,
how they're trying to reach the customer.
What Walmart is doing.
I said this in one of my videos,
the only big platform I never see in these videos is eBay.
How they're making a push to reach out
and bring in more business to make the process easier
for the customer.
I never hear eBay in these conversations.
There's always Amazon.
Amazon, Walmart's at the top.
That competition is crazy.
So I definitely gotta be on those platforms
because they're only gonna continue to grow
and that reach is gonna grow.
There's Target in there,
but I don't really know nobody to sell on Target yet.
But even whatnot, right?
I think the future of reselling or selling in general,
not just reselling, but selling is gonna be live selling.
Having that direct contact with the customer,
talking to them,
people being able to actually see you handle the product,
all of that.
And so I don't wanna do too much too fast,
but I wanna go where it looks like the industry is going
and bring in people and meet people where they at.
Cause not every customer likes eBay as we see, right?
They lost millions of buyers.
Some people love Prime
and they want their products in a day or two
and things like that.
But then some people are gonna wanna actually see
you handle the product.
They're gonna wanna have that interaction.
And so I want my business to evolve
where I'm able to do those things
at a sustainable level.
I don't need to do crazy, crazy numbers,
but as long as I'm satisfied, my family's good.
That's kinda how I just wanna be in tune with the industry,
if that makes sense.
What about the future of your YouTube channels?
Is this something you're gonna continue to do
basically on a weekly basis like you had been?
I know you've got the weekly lives.
What's the future of your YouTube channel look like
for next year?
Well, the reason I named it Hustle and Grow
is because I didn't wanna name it a flipping channel.
Hey, the used book guy, you throwing shade at me or what?
No, no, I'm like, but if box did you win, bro,
if box did you win, I didn't wanna box myself in.
Because I started off vending, now I'm reselling
and I don't know what I will be doing in five or 10 years.
I can tell you this, I don't wanna only be reselling though.
And so I wanna continue to document that journey.
So heck, next year, a couple years from now,
I might own a McDonald's or something.
I don't know, but I wanna be able to have my channel
broad enough that I can bring all that content in
as I kind of like grow and all of that.
We had a lot of amazing people on this year,
but I will say you're my pick for best information
given in our podcast.
Sorry, Tech.
Oh, now Tech and Tech's gonna be blowing me up.
Johnny needs to get fired from the podcast.
And I'm listening, sorry.
Hey, if you replace him with me, that's an upgrade.
I'm just saying, that is a flat out upgrade.
It is interesting though to see somebody
because you always hear everything sellers.
And I kind of think of you like as an every platform seller.
So like, that's kind of what got me into your videos
and even came across you because you just tell it
like it is, right?
You go where the market is.
You don't hang on to something just to hang on to it.
You're like, beat it.
If I can do something better on a different platform,
then that's where I'm going.
You're not tied down to a single platform.
I think that gives you such an advantage,
especially the stuff you sell.
And I hope it's eyeopening for some people
to just step out of your comfort zone.
And if you have a question about how to sell,
if I ever wanna go sell on Walmart,
I'm just gonna blow it up.
Ed will answer all your questions when it comes
to everything he knows about selling on Walmart.
And you heard it here, the competition,
the barrier to entry is high, which is good,
which means the competition is low.
I mean, if we all could get over on that platform,
have a reseller's license, and all of a sudden,
when you are in the market,
you can charge a lot more for your stuff
that you'll be amazed at some of the prices
you can get for things that you can probably get cheaper
if you just went to your local store.
So we're gonna wrap it up here.
Ed, we appreciate you hanging out.
And as always, go subscribe to him on YouTube
over at Hustle and Grow.
And we'll probably bring you back on next year for an update.
I think we're gonna bring all the guests back on, Johnny,
after a year or so, just to kind of get updates on us.
So thanks for hanging out with us, Ed.
For now, exactly.
Thanks for listening to another episode
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