Welcome back to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast
My name is Mike also known as a used book guy on youtube along with my friend and fellow full-time reseller johnny b
We help people start and grow 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 a 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 alongside johnny
I figured you were tired of johnny this week. So I found somebody bigger and better than johnny
I'm just messing with you johnny mel back from burnout as you know her over on the youtube world
So we're kind of you know, i'm going to pick on mel a little bit
See where she's at in her business today where she's come from and just jump into things. So mel welcome to the podcast
You know, we're great that you're here. Give us a little bit introduction of yourself for those that don't know
Thanks so much for having me. Uh, my name is mel. I'm from australia. I am a full-time
pre-owned bookseller and
I you can find me here on social medias sharing my life as a
bookseller, I guess
Books books only
I only do books. Yeah, i've got the occasional
Little bit of media cds dvds and it's probably a genre
I'd like to expand on a little bit, but i'm not really set up to do
Disks yet. I don't have the disk cleaning machine and I kind of feel like if I want to expand into another niche
I want to do it
I want to do it properly. So yeah 99 books at the moment
How long have you been reselling and why did you start reselling?
Yeah, been reselling now maybe five or six years
and
I was a family photographer before I did reselling
And I was having some healthy shoes. So I kind of went off the photography for a few months and during that few months
I was looking for something to still bring in a bit a bit of money
found a sneaker community on
Instagram
so started selling brand new nike shoes from the outlet and
Yeah, after after a few months nike started to hit me up and wanted to
Know if I was a dealer and they wanted me to sign like a waiver saying that I wasn't reselling their shoes
Which made me kind of go
So then I started looking at what else there was
Found out there was a whole reseller community selling secondhand clothes and shoes. So
I went down that path
For a couple of years and then covid hit and when covid hit I couldn't really get any clothes or shoes
So I started doing some call outs on facebook for books and I did have some books in my store at the time
Maybe about 500 and I possibly had about 3 000 items store with about 500 books
But when covid hit yeah
I just did a call out for more books on facebook and asked people to leave them contact lists at their door
And I would come and pick them up
and that's what happened and I ended up with
just
An abundance of books by doing that. My whole house was full
And I just kept listing and kept listing the books and that's obviously what kept selling because I was listing and
And suddenly before I knew it, I was a full-time bookseller
From nike's to clothes now books. Do you like yeah, do you see yourself staying with books?
Are you like are they your passion like for me personally? I always say this like
Uh, you know, i'm not passionate about books. I'm not a huge reader
I just enjoy the money you can make from selling books, but i'm curious what like what is that for you?
Do you would like are you a big reader and that's why you kind of decided to go from clothes to books or you just said
And wait a minute. There's books everywhere. So this is an opportunity where I can't fail basically
Yeah, I mean I I like books. I don't have enough time to sit down and read books
so I listen to a lot of audio books or a lot of
Um more audio than reading these days and also my eyesight is getting worse and worse these days
so I find it more draining to actually read but um
I I don't know. I think i'm one of these resellers who is willing to pivot if like
If if suddenly I wasn't able to get a whole lot of books, I would
Definitely pivot into another field like i'm not stuck on books
So to speak but I do feel like where I live there's an abundance of books
And it's something that i'm easily able to obtain
So it works for me at this moment like that. I've got everything
Into like good systems so that books works well for me, but yeah, i'm not
I'm not opposed to having to pivot if I had to pivot again like when I did with covet hit
I I still would like if I could sell another niche I would still go back to shoes. I I love selling shoes
So yeah, I still occasionally find myself browsing the shoe aisles and occasionally will throw some shoes up into my store randomly
But yeah, I still I still quite like the shoe process
Yeah, yeah books are books are a lot of work and I think it's so sad such a saturated category
And we were talking a little bit before this like you yourself got all the way up to the number three top
You know bookseller on ebay in australia
I'm curious like give give people a little bit of insight to what that takes to
Actually get all the way up to number three. I personally suck at ebay
I make it known like my ebay store is lame duck
It's just not for me, but I know there's a lot of work a lot more work on ebay than there is in amazon
So like give me insight on you know being one person
Getting all the way up to number three before they did away with the report as you explained before the call
Like how much work does this take?
I think people underestimate
How much work books is I think books often looks like the easy option in reselling like oh, I don't know i'm going to start
Uh, you know just reselling books. It's easy. I can get books everywhere
books is a very laborious job and um,
You know, you're constantly living lifting all these heavy books and so you get surrounded by these big overwhelming
halls of books
And I think it's a lot more work than people actually expect
it's um
There's definitely aspects of selling books
That's easier than other like I it's easier to photograph a book than it is to photograph an item of clothing
And even an eye shoes. Do you know what I mean? There's less cleaning. There's less prep
It's easier to photograph but it it's takes a lot of storage space
um
You know a lot of heavy lifting and it's just like a constant grind
I think the hardest thing about books is you have to be prepared almost if you want to earn a full-time living doing just books
You have to be prepared to do volume. It's very hard to run a
full-time job
listing 10 items a day
And bringing in enough income just doing books like it's really you
There's a lot of books that sell for low end prices and you're competing in a saturated market for a lot of those books
So when you when you compete in the saturated market, of course
You know often it's a race to the who's got the lowest price
So when you're competing against the masses and it and it can be hard to find those
higher end books, that's a lot of the time. That's why I do a lot of bundling to try and get my
ASP up higher but also
By bundling it takes me away from competing with the masses because i'm offering something that's custom made and different
to what everybody else is selling
So I think
It takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of hours, you know
it's not
to get to a higher
ranking on on selling used books or to make that full-time income is definitely not a
A hobby business just doing books. It's definitely not a i'm going to list 10 items a day and i'll
I'll be rich
It doesn't happen like that
So tell us about
Living in australia. Is it very competitive like it is in the united states as far as books go or is it more laid back?
Everybody loves each other and share and share alike. I think it's getting more and more competitive and
I'm probably partly to blame for
That's your fault now
I'm not gonna i'm not gonna lie like the the book market is different today than it was a few years ago
Um, the more i've shared about the book journey a lot more people are selling books now
So i've definitely created a lot more competition for myself
but um, I guess that in a way
adds to the challenge I go to stay on top of my game and you know, there's certain things that I
Don't publicly share just because I know it'll
Make it even more difficult for myself, but
It's yeah, I think the book market is definitely
Definitely strong. There's 30 000
Book sellers in australia and there's approximately 40 000 sellers
And there's approximately 40 000 sellers on ebay australia
And so 40 000 sellers on ebay australia and 30 000 of them three out of four are book sellers. That's amazing
Yeah, whether or not they've got hundreds of books or just a few books
But yeah the ebay ebay told me when I met them at the last conference that they had 40 000 users
And on the quality listing report, it says there's 30 000 book sell used book sellers
Yeah, I remember when I first started getting into my reselling book career
You were one of the few people that were actually doing books on youtube
It was the ewing creator of the loss. I think were the two
Book people at the time on youtube
That's since changed. I've even seen a lot more book people on youtube as in 20. What year are we in 2024 now?
Yeah, it's interesting when I went to youtube sharing my book journey and said I was going to be full-time book seller
I actually um
You know had people say to me that it was going to ruin my channel because
Nishing down like that. Nobody would want to watch somebody who only just sold books because a lot of people didn't sell books
So people actually told me it would hurt my youtube channel. Whereas it had it hasn't done that at all
I don't i've got people that follow me for youtube for the books and i've got other people that
Don't sell books and couldn't care less what I sell. They still will follow me. So
Yeah, it was interesting that I did
Um, there was a lot of people who told me I was basically
Doing career suicide by by just doing books niching on the books
Are you in fact the biggest content creator on youtube who focuses on reselling books or is there somebody bigger than you?
Um, there's nobody bigger. I don't think I don't think there is I think you're the top of the food chain there
There there was always rakin rakin used to sell the books. I don't I don't know. I don't know where he is anymore. But um
But um, yeah, I don't maybe I am I don't know. Yeah records move on that you beta amazon now
Yeah, he left us book hustlers behind but uh, yeah
It is interesting
Me and me and johnny did a podcast talking about what ifs and juggling like family responsibilities, right? Like
I got my wife and cats
It's different for you. You have actual children to take care of so if you're fine with it
Give us some insight to being a reseller and having the responsibility of children and how that can you know weigh in on your reselling?
Business in a good way and then possibly, you know, sometimes you got to take them to soccer practice or this or that
You know, whatever you got going on
Yeah, it's definitely
Ha it's definitely hard with children. I guess i'm lucky that i've got four children
But they're now 23 21
19 and 14 so three of them are you know adults and kind of can drive and do their own things and
They're very even my 14 year old is very independent
But I guess i've worked from home since my first child was born doing side jobs from the home from my garage
Um, i've i've always done that since the moment my daughter was born
So I guess they've kind of grown up with me if it wasn't reselling
It was something along the line that I was doing at home on the internet
so I guess
It's one of the benefits of working from home and working for yourself. It's something that i've always liked
I've got that flexibility that I can just pack up and go to their
You know, i've been able to go to all their sports or their school plays or their assemblies
I've been very blessed that i've been able to do that for the entire life of my my kids and i'll never take that for granted
But it's definitely hard you you have to be
You have to be organized you have to kind of be you have to plan things you have to meal plan
and it's definitely a juggle when you've got
So much on your plate
And I do think that that's partly like over the years
it's probably why I have gone in and out of burnout because when i've got a lot on my
On my plate I get very overwhelmed and then I find it very hard to focus
On what needs to be done and what needs to be prioritized. So
Yeah, I think that's
Probably with the amount of hats that I have to wear in my daily life
Is probably the reason the biggest struggle that I have and the biggest biggest way that I get overwhelmed in life, which
When you're overwhelmed it always hinders you from being productive. So yeah, it's a big big juggle
We asked uh tech and sports the same thing about his his kiddos and do you do your kids think you're crazy for
Like being a reseller or like are they involved do they help you in the reselling business?
No, they don't want to they're not interested in it. They don't want to heal they kind of find it
At first they found it a bit like oh she's going to the charity shops like yuck
They weren't really the the the I had never really been into charity shops until I started reselling
It wasn't somewhere where I actively used to
Shop or anything before I was a reseller. So the kids weren't kind of used to going to those shops beforehand
So they didn't really understand the whole secondhand shops and
Things like that, but no, they're not interested in it. They're um
I don't think they
I don't know. I don't know if they think it's a little bit of an odd job
but I think they understand why I do it and they can see that the business is growing every day and
They used to be a little bit
They didn't really at first with the youtube they didn't want to tell anybody that I was a youtuber or anything
But once I got to a certain level then they started to kind of be proud of it and tell their friends what I did
So I think there was an element when I was smaller that they maybe kept it to themselves because it wasn't the norm
But now that I'm out there, they're they're kind of very open with it
So between your youtube business and your ebay business you have
A ratio of how much time you put into one of the other
At the moment I put more into my ebay
And that's not really due because that's not really because I want to do that
I actually really love the youtube side of it. I love
You know, it's quite boring really doing ebay and just sitting there entering into the it's like entering a spreadsheet constantly like youtube is much more fun
And I get to be creative. So I so I obviously enjoy that side of it more but
eBay is where my
Main income comes from ebay pays me weekly youtube pays me monthly
And you know, i'm very reliant especially now more than ever
On my weekly income. So
eBay probably takes a priority at the moment, but
Um, it doesn't I don't necessarily want it to be like that. I would like it to be like a very even split but
Finding finding the time to juggle it all and finding a good schedule at the moment. It's just been really hard
Yeah, it's very fair now with all the
The
Ducks in the pond if you will
You have people to help you with either aspect of the business like editor or somebody helps you with the book hauling?
Just you all you
It's all me I think
Later on towards like at the end of this year
I probably would like to hire some help in the ebay business
And that would just be somebody maybe helping me to pick and pack my items
somebody to help me with photographs and prepping and taking the stickers off books and
Um getting thing getting all that side of it ready with probably i'll still maintain doing the listing
But just having somebody in there to help me with the pick and pack and the
Shipping as well. Also, like my warehouse is about 50 minutes away from my house
So it would be really good if I could have somebody in there for a few hours every single day
So if there's a day that I want to stay here working on the youtube side of it
I can still have somebody getting out my orders for me. Like even if that's all they did
Um, a couple of days of the week is just pick and pack my orders. That would be big help
But the youtube I can't I can't hand over the youtube to
Like it's such a creative
Creative thing for me. I I don't feel like I can hand I need control of that
So, yeah
Johnny, uh, we might know a guy that lives in australia that could help her out at her warehouse
We just had him on not too many weeks ago
Yeah, it's everybody now
So, uh, that's your warehouse how big is it and have you ever filled it up into its maximum capacity?
So the warehouse and i'm not sure what this is going to be in american terms, but for me it's almost 11 meters long
And five and a half meters wide
33
33 I know 16 and a half feet
Yeah americans
I was gonna say I know you use square feet and stuff. So I don't know what that is
I didn't I can't do square feet in my head. Maybe my cat. No, it's pretty big though. Yeah
And if you ever filled it up to its
Max it's getting like it's getting pretty full now. I could go higher if I had some different shelving
But I don't have different shelving. It would be very expensive to change all the shelving at the moment. So that's
That's not happening just yet, but the actual warehouse is getting
Like my shelves are getting very full at the moment
So I am really trying to focus at the moment on my sell through rate trying to increase that sell through rate
So I can get those books
Moving a little bit faster so I can keep
Putting more books in there and hopefully not getting too full
Because that is space is a space is an issue. Oh, yeah, I
Completely hear you. So how many books do you think you have in your warehouse at present?
I got about 7 000 listings
But a lot of them are bundles. So there's a lot more than 7 000 books
So but I don't have very much death pole in there at the moment
It's just basically what's being bought coming in getting that listed straight away. I've kind of eliminated all the death pile
So I don't just have boxes and shelves full of unlisted inventory
Almost everything that's in there now is listed. So the space has been utilized by actual listed items, which is what I want
I'm curious here. If anybody that's like followed your journey on youtube
You kind of like I don't know like I titled this podcast
I sent you like the year of mel you kind of like I don't want to say reinvented yourself this year
Because you're you know, you're always hard work in august. They weren't working hard hard before
I think you're just probably working smarter now
I'll give some insight on like where you were at last year to where you're at today and like the the death pile that you got yourself through
Um that some of us have seen on social media youtube instagram
Uh, just give some insight to you know, what was the wake up call to you?
And are you happy with where you're at today moving forward? Are you still looking to progress?
Yeah, so like if anybody who doesn't follow me my whole like I
Separated from my husband husband. So basically what happened is I was the secondary income earner in the marriage
And one day basically went from the two incomes to just being my income
And when you suddenly have gone from
You know not being the
Breadwinner of the family and next minute you are financially independent on your own
I wasn't earning enough money. That was like a full-time income for myself
so I really had to step up into my business and
Take it from this like secondary income job to a full-time earning job
And it as we all know with ebay that doesn't happen overnight like that takes
Months to actually bring that income up maybe even years
It's not an easy task. So I had to really
Um
Change my whole
Working
Life, I guess it was a little bit different because before I when I was the secondary income earner
I was kind of primarily there doing everything for the kids
Once my husband and I separated we went on to a week on week off
So by by me having like that week off with the kids responsibilities
That allowed me to change my time that I was actually able to work
I wasn't interrupted by appointments and school runs so I was actually able to do some really long hours every second week
so that I can
Get that get that business actually growing for the first time ever
I felt like I was actually able to get the business growing to its full capacity
So I had developed like a huge
Death pile as they call it like an unlisted inventory pile
And that was really just because I was buying and buying and getting these hauls and I just didn't have the time to process it
But once I had this every second week and I had these longer hours
I just started to do big hours in the warehouse 12 hours 13 hours 14 some days and I was just working through that
unlisted inventory pile that had been really overwhelming
And in turn by doing that it brought my sales right up
Increased my sales, you know doubled my 90-day total within three months
and
You know, that was exactly the start that I needed but
My 90-day total is still increasing the more it's not as increasing as fast anymore as it was in
When I initially doubled it, it's a little bit slower now to increase
but
I'm still working on it and it's not where I want it to be but it's
Much closer to where I need it to be
So yeah, I remember seeing you had you had so many books in that warehouse. I was just thinking to myself like holy smokes
It's like yeah, you know how many books you've probably listed in the past, you know since the beginning of this year
Oh
No, so not as many from the beginning of this year, but from october last year I was listing
You know hundreds a week like maybe like five or six hundred at least every single week was going into the store
And that was on top of doing all the cleanup
So I was I was not only going through the death pile and sorting it and cleaning it and organizing it and culling it
But I was listing really really hard on top of that. So
It's it's been
This year has actually been really really busy. I've actually found it hard
In the last like four or six weeks to be able to get as many listings done as I've needed just because I did move house and
You know, I've had a couple of weekends that I've had things on where I haven't been able to dedicate the same amount of time
So but march is looking pretty quiet and i'm ready to like really put some big hours again coming up now march
To really try and bump that 90 day total over the next milestone
So we all don't like change so what is the biggest thing you resisted in your business?
But once you changed over to that thing, it was like why did I wait so long?
I think it was the
It's the um
It's the processing
So that was the that was my biggest issue like the stuff would come in and I just wouldn't process it instantly
I would just sit it there in the corner and then new stuff would come in and I would just sit it there in the corner
and then new stuff would keep coming in and I would cherry pick what I wanted to list and
What would be photographed next from this big death pile?
Whereas now the processing gets done instantly as soon as something comes in
I process it even if I don't feel like it even if it's an item that I don't really want to and i'd rather sit it there
The processing has been the biggest change that i've made getting that stuff done as soon as as soon as I buy it get it listed
Don't leave it sitting there and that's been the biggest change in my business
And it's also what is keeps increasing my income because now as soon as I buy it, it's actually getting listed
So yeah
so
Tell me about amazon in australia as people may not listen to tom's recording may not realize how what amazon life is in australia
It's pretty very much non-existent for most of us
Amazon is totally different in australia than it is in america. I think it is getting bigger in australia
But it's still just not
A platform that most of us use I I have never ever ordered off amazon australia
like it's just not a platform that I
Even look at or consider going to to buy something
So for a long time they weren't letting anything that was secondhand being sold on amazon in the last couple of years. They've been trialing
selling used books and they had a select few um
resellers that were selling the used books and now anybody can come on there and sell
You just apply for it and you can sell the used books
I did speak to somebody who was selling used books. They had like 15 000 listings and they were selling one a day
So I was really like yeah, i'm not interested in a sell-through rate
Yeah, and it maybe it's increased a little bit now maybe the platform's getting a little bit more traction but
I think the reason like people often say to me you get so much money for your books on ebay australia
And I think it's just the fact that we don't have any other platforms to compete with compete with i'm not competing against
All the amazon sellers like you are in america. I'm not competing with big media male
companies
That sell everything for pittance
so i'm very
Uh, yeah, i'm very lucky amazon's just
It's it's not even in my radar the amazon at the moment
So I'm curious was that 15 000 sent into the warehouse or is that 15 000 sold at some facility like a merchant fulfilled?
Kind of deal. Uh, they had 15 000 that was merchant fulfilled
Ah, okay. I wonder what the fba is like. I think you should send a box and see what happens
It's really quite expensive to hold the stock at the fba
so
Like I have looked into it, but the costs are very high
And you know if you if you don't have a fast sell-through rate
You're going to pay a lot of money or that stuff's just going to end up being sent back to you and it'll cost you money
Just sitting there
So I think you would have to choose books that have a very fast sell-through rate
right and
I don't know I
Obviously, I do have a lot of books that silver like have a fast sell-through rate
but some of them also are like a
Six nine twelve month sell-through rate and I just think that's too long for amazon, especially at the
The level that it is here in australia. I I would not want stock that's got a 12 month sell-through rate being held at amazon
Right, no, bye, okay fine. So
Have you do you sell anywhere else besides ebay?
Help all ebay. Okay all ebay
Pretty boring. Hey, I don't even sell on facebook
I I stay away from facebook marketplace really mainly because my youtube I don't want people coming to my place and
Stuff like that or I don't want people saying I bought books from mill and they were rubbish. Sure
So I just really stay away from the facebook platform now
Gotcha. So were you in any other groups before reseller nivana now?
We're in reseller greatness before or was that your first group that you actually joined
Yeah, that was definitely my first patreon or any kind of group. That's that like that, you know, I was in facebook marketplace
I mean facebook, you know reseller groups, but nothing like the the zoom or the patreon like it's been
It's actually been life-changing for me really to be part of that group like
Yeah, I i've learned so much from being in that group and yeah, I can't honestly
I can't thank tech enough for everything he's done for me. He's been amazing
Yeah, there's a lot that goes a lot to be said when you surround yourself with like-minded people
And I know like it sounds kind of cheesy like maybe coming from me or mel like we're on youtube
We make youtube videos like we like talking to people and respond to every single comment we get on youtube
But there is a lot to be said to have people that have the same goal of being in that group
And I think that's a great way to have people that have the same goal or same mentality of working towards an end goal
Or get into a certain point in their reselling career when you have those, you know voices in your ear
It just uplifts everybody and that's one thing like I like to see on youtube is reselling people that are uplifting everybody
Hey, you know like everybody here can win every you know us three sitting here
If we wanted to make a million dollars selling books, we could we really put our mind to it and put in the hours
Of you beside yourself and reselling so i'm curious your youtube journey
Why did you decide to go down the rabbit hole of being on youtube because we already kind of said, you know, like
YouTube doesn't pay the bills
So like we have to our resell business needs to be our focus short youtube's fun
We enjoy doing it but the reselling business pays the majority of our bills
So what got you into youtube and i'm like, what are some future plans for your youtube channel? I know you really enjoy doing it
yeah, um
I think it was just that community side of it. Like I've always, I'd always worked from home and
I'd never had a community in any other, in any of the other jobs that I've done. I'd never had a
community. So when I found the reselling community and found this whole online thing and the YouTube
thing, I just, I'm a people person and I get my energy from other people. So I just absolutely
loved all these live streams and you could go in there and you could chit chat and I'd never had
anything like it working from home. So I had like my little Instagram page and once I got to a
thousand followers on Instagram, I thought, oh, maybe people, maybe I should start a channel.
Maybe people would be, they seem to be interested in what I'm doing. Maybe I'll start a channel and
get more involved. And that's basically how it started. And I, I don't think I ever really
thought that the YouTube would end up being something that I would love to do as a full-time
job. It just was kind of there as a social thing, bit of fun. And I just enjoyed the whole pro,
I was a photographer, family photographer before I did reselling. So I was kind of used to the camera
and I enjoyed that side. I, yeah, I always just enjoyed the vlogging side of it. And
I've continued to enjoy the vlogging side of it more than the actual going to YouTube to be like
a teacher or do tutorials or stuff. It's not really something, I don't really enjoy doing the
tutorial side of YouTube. I prefer to just tell my story and vlog my life and show what I'm doing.
And yeah, I just, I loved the community side of it. So yeah.
So when it comes to doing eBay listing, is there a genre or type of book format wise that you just
find slightly more annoying than all the rest? Yes. The books that you like, Johnny,
the hard books, the rare and querying books, like that take me longer to price comp.
I'm just not interested in them. I prefer the more bread and butter quick ones that I can just
look up quickly, make a quick decision on. It takes me one second to look at what the
last top five have sold for and make my, you know, sale price based on that.
You're right. Some of mine don't even have sold. It's like, what do I do with it? Well,
I guess I make my own price up today. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really interested in,
like I don't find the research side of it fun. Like some people love learning about that research
and they dig right into the book and they want to learn the history of it and really dig deep on how
much it's worth and where it's come from. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in getting my
book up for sale and making a profit on it, turning it over and buying another book.
So anything that takes me longer than like two seconds to price comp is a pain for me. So I tend
to steer away from those halls or those books where they're books that I'm less knowledgeable
about. And I tend to just stick with the genres that I know a lot about. They're very common,
can turn them in and out and that works for me. Ironically, I don't like the books you like to
list, the big coffee table books and the bundle stuff, because I just hate storing it. It's always,
it's a puzzle. I hate puzzles like that. I enjoy puzzles, but not that one. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm,
we're completely the opposite. Right. How many, how many photos per book are you doing for your
email listings? As many as it needs as on the quality listing report, I think it said my average
was 12. So like if it's just a basic fiction book, it's about eight front back, the four sides,
the copyright page, maybe a photo of the text inside. I generally show a picture of the page
just so they can see the size of the text inside a book or that there's no writing or something
like that. But if it's an illustrated book, like a coffee table book or a cookbook or a book about
gardening or plants or something like that, then I always show photos of the illustrations inside
and I'll take as many photos as need be. So yeah, sometimes I'll feel, yeah, sometimes I'll feel the
24 photos. Sometimes I'll have more than 24 photos. It will tell me there's too many. So yeah,
it's the basic books. It's normally eight at the minimum, but yeah, on average I'd say about 12.
Do you have a minimum like sales price? Like for me now with eBay, since I suck at it and I just,
you know, I don't have enough inventory for eBay. Like I don't list anything unless I'm going to
list it for at least $19.99. Do you have like a minimum floor price when it comes to what you're
willing to list? So I'm trying to not list anything under the $25 mark, but that doesn't happen.
So now anything that I'm listing under the $25 mark, I'm trying to make sure that it's got a
faster sell through rate because I will sell things that are under that $25 if I can move,
if I can move them over faster. But there's, I don't put anything in my store that's under
$15 because then I'm literally making no money on it. So the only books that kind of go in there
at that $15 mark, they're normally like low end fiction books and $15 includes postage as well.
And I try and offer like coupon deals and stuff. So it's like a buy two, get two free or something
like that. So that way if they buy two, it still means they're getting like a $30 spend, but I can
put four in and because I charge free postage, you know, like I still make profit selling four
books for the price of two. And then I'm still hitting that $30 mark, which still goes above
the base metric that I'd like to hit. So when I do put those lower end books in, I try not to put
kind of like one-off books that are that price. I'm trying to put books that are either by the same
author or the same topic in my store to entice people to come in and buy like multiple books
if they're going to buy them at that price.
So let's talk sourcing for a minute. Did it take you a while to figure out how to source books or
was it fairly easy for you where you're at in the world?
I don't think it really took a long time, but it takes a long time to build that Rolodex up in your
head, I guess, of what actually is going to sell. And that takes practice and that takes, you know,
mistakes. And, you know, it takes listing a lot of books to know what sells fast and what actually
takes a year or more to sell that you would never actually want to sell again into your store. So
you can look at the comps and you can do all that kind of stuff. But I do find sometimes that
what sells for somebody else might not sell for me. And I tend to focus on trying to list a lot of
the same types of books into my store or books on the same topic, because I find that brings those
repeat buyers back to my store and also brings the multiple sales. So I don't think it's so much
of a hard thing to learn, but it just takes a long time to build that knowledge of, you know,
what is actually going to sell in your particular store.
Now, do you have like a dedicated route when you go sourcing or do you have assigned days or
what's the organization life of sourcing if there is one or is it just let's go sourcing today?
My life doesn't feel very organized at all. I do not run to a schedule. I don't really have
a route that I do. I do have particular stores that I go to regularly and often. So I've definitely
got my favorite stores, my honey holes, and I don't show those honey holes on YouTube.
So I don't share my stores that I shop at regularly on YouTube for those reasons. But
I don't really have set days or anything. It's really just worked around when I've got time,
what's going on. I do a lot of my sourcing with Todd, but I don't really have a set day.
I do a lot of my sourcing with Tom. So it also depends on his schedule. And, you know, we do a
lot of sourcing as well. That's a couple of hours away from where we actually are. So we do travel.
And so normally when we go sourcing, we will make it like a bit of a day trip or at least half a day
trip where we're out going to as many stores as we possibly can in the timeframe that we've got.
Yeah. So is there a type of area like a library sale versus a charity shop kind of deal that you
haven't done that's on the reseller bucket list to go to? Mine's like the shipyards and see what I
can do there. That's like down the road. Just figure that out as I go. Not really. I think the
main place that I like to source is at the book fairs. So Tom and I, like we have a big book fair
twice a year where we live and there's other big book fairs around Australia. And we like to kind
of travel to the ones that we're, normally the ones are within about three hours from where we
are, we will travel to those book fairs, but there's probably a couple more that are, you know,
further away that we'd like to kind of go to, but to go further than that, you end up requiring to
stay there a night or two. You need to take a big truck when there's two of us buying a lot of books.
And it just becomes quite a costly trip. And you know, when you need to take a couple of days off
the business as well, you've also got to equate for the time that you're losing, not being actually
there in the business doing the actual business work as well. But yeah, the book fairs.
The book fairs, that's like, I guess people would think of it as equivalent to like a library book
sale here in the States. I'm curious because a lot of the library book sales, well not a lot,
every library book sale I've ever been to, these people are maniacs Mel. Like I took my wife to one
and they're like running her over to get to the books. Like what is the vibe over there when it
comes to, you know, these book fairs? Is there a line when you show up, people camped outside,
I've seen this happen, you know, people are waiting a day before the sale. Are people polite and
courteous or like, you know, is it just chaos? No, people are polite and courteous. On the first day
of book fair, there's normally like a big line. And like the one that was recently just here where
I live, it opened at nine o'clock in the morning. I got there at seven o'clock in the morning,
was it around about seven or something, but the people where we were standing within line,
they had been there since six o'clock in the morning and they were not the first in the line.
There was people there earlier. So there are some people that get there, you know, hours beforehand.
But I find that the people, almost those people, quite often they're collectors. They know the one
table that they've got to go to to get their stuff before the resellers get there. And so they will
line up and get there very, very early to go to there. They know exactly where they're going and
exactly what they're looking for. So you've got a mixture of the resellers and the collectors
who are going to the book fairs, but you know, they're not push and shove inside there.
Everybody's courteous inside there. And yeah, the book fair, we don't really have big library sales
here. That's not a, I've never been to a library sale. It's not a thing that we have definitely
where I live, whether or not they've got them in other states of Australia, I'm not sure,
but there's definitely nothing like that here where I am. The only time I occasionally will get
ex library books is in a charity shop. And they might have some for sale there, but I've never
actually been to a library book sale, but the book fairs are fantastic. Do they have, are you able
to purchase books at your libraries? Not that they have a sale, but just maybe a dedicated bookstore
within the library. They don't have that either. No. So is there a big overall goal for 2024 you're
wanting to hit? I think 2024, I'm aiming for 200,000 in sales. That's my sales goal. So
fingers crossed. No, it's still won't be quite where I want to be, but like,
I think that's the capacity that I can probably reach this year. So that's my sales goal. But I
think the goal is just to maintain more consistency this year and to stay on top of it and not get
snowed under, not get behind. And mostly that consistency, because that's the biggest thing I
struggle with in my life is just consistency. And I fall off the wagon very quickly and very easily.
And I'm not tech's ideal student who lists consistently every single day.
That I'm not his best student in that way. I do try my best, but I'm definitely not that person.
So I need to be careful that I don't fall off that wagon for too long. So yeah, consistency to
hit that goal will be my biggest thing. So when you find yourself being inconsistent,
how do you get back on the consistent bandwagon? It's so hard. It's so hard. I guess I feel like
a lot of, this is something that I say quite often, a lot of people are always like, how do you be
motivated? How do you get motivated when you're not motivated? And I truly believe that productivity
is what causes motivation. So instead of focusing on how do we get motivated, we should just be
focused on productivity. What can I do today? And then the more productive we are, the more
motivation that naturally causes. Because when you're productive, you're like, oh, I'm going to
do this. And then you want to go and do more. So the hardest bit when you're lacking or being
inconsistent is just trying to do something that's productive, giving yourself a high five,
ticking it off. I did this, even if it's a small goal. And then the more you do it, the more
productive you are, I just find the more motivation you get. And then you can build back that
consistency after being down or low or when you've taken a hit and you're not doing what you're
supposed to do. So yeah.
I mean, mine's music. I mean, Mike knows this and Mike's wife thinks I work at a club, honestly,
because sometimes my music's just blaring all the time. That's how I get through the day.
Pretty sure my employee halfway hates me because of this, but only halfway.
That's more than halfway, dude. I can't imagine what you're playing over there.
I was going to say it depends on what you're playing, Johnny.
Hate by hate on a daily basis.
I think it brings you back though to the benefit of being in a group, like how you're one of the
pillars over in tech's group, right? It's like, if we have a down and out day, you just pop in the
group for five minutes, you're going to see all these people that are making these huge jumps and
success stories. And I always think to myself, that's a big benefit of having a YouTube
channel. I don't know, it kind of motivates me. I don't want to be the lowest slacker on the totem
pole. I'm always like, listen, if everybody else is out here working, then I got to be. I can't be a
YouTuber and tell people, yeah, go resell on Amazon when I'm not even doing it myself.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the thing I like about the group is that everybody is growth-focused and it
doesn't matter if you're small seller, medium seller, large seller, everybody in there is happy
to help or give advice and cheer each other on. No matter if you're lifting five things a day or
a hundred things a day, people will cheer you on in the same way. And I just find that it is a nice
space to be in because everybody is so growth-focused or focused on improving themselves or their
business compared to the other Facebook groups where there's just people coming in and
constantly being negative or whinging or talking, you know, complaining about how they're doing
talking, you know, complaining about their low sales or their negative customers or whatever it
is. You know, they're looking for validation on whatever it is. And I just find Tech's group is
very, you come in, you be positive. If it's, if eBay is a roller coaster, if you're having a slow
day, you just stay positive and keep going. I will say, and I hope you don't take this
disrespectfully, Mike, it was a big shift when I joined Mike's group coming from Daily Refinement
at the time. And I had to slow my roll and my intensity because as you know, it's very number
intensive growth focused. And I had to like, there's different ways to do things and that kind of put
things in a humbling perspective, respectfully Mike. Hey, I don't think no offense to anything.
All right. I just want everybody to make a little bit of money so you can quit the job you're
miserable at. Like that needs to be a slogan that I have. It is fun though, like to have groups and
be involved and see other people and you get in the right mindset. And the problem is it works both
ways, right? So like if me, Mel and Johnny just always whine to each other about how eBay sucks
and how Amazon sucks, like you really start to believe the things that you hear around you all
the time. And that's why it's so important to, you know, be in the right mindset. And if you have
somebody, you know, if Johnny was always whining in my ear, I'd be like, yo, Johnny, like stop
whining or like, we got to move on from the friendship. And sometimes you got to cut ties
and not only like with relationships with your business, the processes you're doing within your
business to kind of get you to that next level. On the topic of like sourcing and dealing with
books, I always tell everybody here, hey, put out a free ad, you'll take books for free. Is this
something you do down there? And if so, is there like, do a lot of people are like, hey, Mel, come
get, you know, my house full of books. Yeah. I haven't done it recently because I just had an
abundance of books coming at me, but whenever I'm low on inventory, yeah, I'll put out a call out on
Facebook marketplace. I've also got pamphlets that I will letterbox drop if I go for a walk or I'll
sometimes pin them up on notice boards if I'm at the shop. So I normally have like a pile of pamphlets
in my car or around just for those times. But yeah, I definitely, I mean, that's how I really
got into the books full time was doing those call outs saying, you know, I'm looking for books,
free books, or sometimes I'll put on there that I'll also pay for the books or whatever.
But it's definitely putting out call outs. It's just the way you word it. I think you have to just
be careful how you word it and the books will come to you. Yeah. So I know you say you did a little
bit of CDs and DVDs. Is that something you've been doing a while now or is that something
where that has to be a certain ASP metric for you just to even touch it?
No, I think like always back from when I was a bit of an everything seller with clothes and
shoes and some books, I always still had some DVDs and some CDs. But whenever I did them,
I always tried to lot those ones. I'm not really one to do the individual DVDs or CDs. I'd rather
lot them into like a series or, you know, the same kind of like I used to, I did a haul once
where I got a lot of CDs that were all classical. So I bundled them all together and because I knew
nothing about classical music, I just bundled them together by all the strings or the orchestras or
the choirs or whatever. And I'll still sometimes look for stuff like that. I've got quite a lot of
media in my, I still do have like a death pile of media because there's a lot of it that's scratched
and I'm just, there's a lot of good stuff there and I've learned that it's good stuff just by
being with Tom. So I know that some of the media that I've got is good, but like a lot of it's
scratched and I just don't want to be reliant on listing it and then having to go over to Tom's
all the time and say, hey, can I borrow the disc cleaner? Cause I don't think that's fair. So I will
get a disc cleaner. He just has to set a quarter machine next to him. Every time you need to use it, you put a quarter in it.
Yes, true. He likes to be in control. I don't think he'd want me using his disc machine.
He's one of the only people that's allowed to touch his disc cleaning machine.
So yeah, I would just stay away. I'd rather have my own. If I break it, then it's on me.
Fair enough. Fair enough. So what is the biggest learning lesson you've learned on the entire
reselling journey or the most impactful? At least the biggest learning lesson. I mean,
I mean, the, the lesson I learned the most was doing that death poll. Definitely. That was just like a
pivotal thing in my, in my whole reselling career was how I just got so out of control
with that death poll and that unlisted inventory. And I think that's so common for so many resellers.
I guess the biggest things to learn from it is that it's hard work. It takes discipline. It takes
consistency, all these kinds of things. It's not like a little easy side job. It's not a side job.
You have to take this like a real business. I think one of the other things I'm really learning
at the moment, which is via tech is like the metrics and knowing my numbers. I feel like
I've said this recently, like for the last few years, I kind of feel like I've just done eBay,
like I've just been doing it. I get there, I photograph, I list, I get it up, I ship it,
but I don't feel like I'm actually in control of the business. So it's only now that I'm
gone back, fixing up the mistakes, going through this unlisted inventory, now doing my metrics
every day, writing down my, you know, my notepad here, how many things I'm listing, how many things
are selling for over the metrics, keeping track of the daily sales and the expenses and stuff.
I think that is one of the most underrated things. And that's probably my biggest life
lesson at the moment is knowing where I'm at within the business and not just doing eBay.
I got to be like running a business as such. I'm curious, I think a lot of resellers run into this.
Have you become more pickier with the items you pick out from when you started selling books to
today? Because I know personally for me, I used to, you know, I'll buy a book for a dollar if I can
make two bucks on Amazon. Them days are long gone behind me. I just like leave it for somebody else.
Have you had kind of the same experience in your business? Yeah, I'm trying to pick up those books
that are higher now. Like, and I will, some of them I will just leave or I'll give them to Tom,
because he's a different level seller than me. Like he's got a lot more space. He can have like
a lower metric than what I can have. So I'm definitely trying to kick better books now,
or trying to bundle up books that are lower end so that I can get my ASP up by doing the bundling.
So yeah, I'm definitely more picky than I was. And I only want to, we'll still do those books
that only make that small profit as long as I know that they're going to be a fast sell through rate.
I'm curious. One more thing here, Johnny, before you jump in. When it comes to, I ask every eBay
seller this, it's like a right of the podcast, promoted listings. Do you use them? Are they
required? Are they a scam? What is your take on promote? I personally, I use them. I know Johnny
uses them as well, but some people, you know, they're like, I don't believe it. It's like an
extra fee. What's your take on promoted listings? Do you think it's worth it? Do you need it?
Yeah, a hundred percent. I do promote promoted listings and I do think it's worth it.
And I do think it's needed, especially in like the book market, because it's a saturated book,
books are saturated. And obviously there's some books that are rare and they're not as,
there's not as many of them listed on eBay and they don't probably need the promoted listings,
but I just promote at a flat rate throughout the whole store, whether or not it's a rare book or a
basic read, I just have a flat rate that goes through my entire store and doesn't change. And
that seems to work okay for me. Yeah. And even on the rare obscure stuff, sometimes it's so obscure
and so rare, nobody's ever heard of it. And does it mean it's not worth money or there's not an
interest in it? Just people aren't aware of it. So that's partially why I use promoted listings
myself is just to give exposure on my more weird oddities. So are we going to do more CDs and DVDs
in the future, you think, or is that a, nah, I'm just going to deal with what I have.
I think I've looked at them a little bit more now just because I've learned by, because I'm always
picking with Tom and he's obviously primarily a CD seller. So he's kind of taught me a lot along
the way. And he's, he's of the mindset that if I'm going to a charity shop to look at the book shelf,
I may as well quickly look at the CD shelf as well while I'm in there.
It's because sometimes you'll go into a charity shop and they'll be hardly, you'll walk out with
one book. So if you're only going to, for your time, if you're going to go there, maybe it's best
to have a look for some, something else as well. I think if I, I'll probably list the stuff that
I've got as long as it's not too low end. But I think if I was going to go down to CD, I probably
wouldn't bother with the DVDs at this point, but if I was going to go down to CD route, I think I'll
focus on bundling my CDs. So I don't think I'll be that CD seller that's looking to do individual
CDs. I will do, I will bundle. Yeah. Right. I'm looking to get into DVDs and CDs late this year,
or maybe in 2025 myself, but most of that's primarily going to go to Amazon, to be honest.
Probably a little bit of it will go to eBay, especially if I get an across listing, just,
well, I'll just be part of the eBay process. So on that note, are there any other platforms
you would like to sell on and where you're at? Not actual platforms. We don't really have many
platforms here in Australia. So I don't think there's any other platforms. If Whatnot comes
to Australia, it would definitely be of interest to me. I don't know if it's going to come here.
And the only other thing that I would like to do is build my own website. Now I'm kind of at
that point where I think I would like to have a back from burnout website. And with your own
YouTube channel makes sense. Yeah. Do it. Yeah. If I could have some kind of software that also
listed cross-listed my items over into my own website store, then possibly, yeah, I would be
interested in that. Yeah. I think that's genius, especially with your following you have, you
should definitely do that in my opinion, but everybody's free to run their business how they
see fit back to my corner. Yeah. I know. I think it would actually be quite good. And like before
one of my previous jobs, before I was a photographer, I actually had an online party business,
kids party business. So I used to import all these party supplies in from America and I would sell
them on my own website. And occasionally I would sell some on eBay back then, but most of the time
I just did my own website. So I actually learned in that process, I learned a lot about SEO. I
learned a lot about building my own website and, and selling on my own website. So I've got, I do
have past experience on that, but now also I've built myself a brand. So I do think that not only
would I be able to be able to attract probably people through my brand, but I think that I would
also probably be smart enough to be able to know how to market that website outside of my brand
as well, to just bring in regular people who in then in turn might become followers and of my
actual YouTube as well. So it would work together. So yeah, definitely, definitely something that's
I built the, I've all the other websites that I've ever had before, but I've built my own
websites that I've ever had before. I've built myself on WordPress. I've done them myself. So
I feel like I could build my own back from burnout one. I would just, it's just a time thing really
for me of having that time to actually sit down and play around and make my own website.
You were hustling way before eBay ever even came into your mind. It's like you are, you've always
been out there hustling different kinds of gigs. It's just, it just happened to land on eBay and
it's been sticking for the years. So we always ask everybody like, what is the best piece of advice
you would give? Maybe somebody listened today's thinking about getting into reselling or, you know,
they're just started reselling. Like what's the one piece or it doesn't even got to be one piece,
just a summary of your best advice you would give to a new reseller out there.
Yeah, I think it would be price comp everything. Don't just buy what you like and what you think
is nice or cool. Like it's reselling is not just about what you like. I mean, it's good to be able
to sell things in a category that you like, that you've got an interest on it, but often things
that we have personal attachments to and we like, we think they're going to sell and they don't end
up being the best sellers. I would tell people to not have emotions really in the actual business
that it is very black and white. It is very, it is a business. Don't be emotional about it.
Set your business boundaries from the beginning, your own business rules, your own business
boundaries, and then stick to those boundaries because it's easy to get sidetracked if you don't
have a plan for your business. So by putting some boundaries into place about what you will and will
not accept, that'll really help you as well. And be mindful of who you consume and be mindful of who
you hang around with. Like we were talking about before, you do need to hang around with positive
people and people who are interested in growing and not, there are toxic communities within the
community. So just be mindful of who you associate with. And yeah, I have fun with it, but go slowly,
learn properly, don't rush into things and try to, I mean, everybody needs to have some bad buys to
learn from, but the more you can price comp and learn about eBay before you actually dive into it
full-time, the better. Yeah. What do we have to look to be doing it? You need to do it for a little
while as a part-timer, I feel like. And I also feel like you need to experiment with genres
when you're new and find what you like. Like I actually feel like it was very helpful for me
to be a clothing seller first, because when you do clothing, you learn a lot about returns
and you have a lot more customer problems than I have with books now. So I think by learning these
different genres first before finding the genre that I wanted to actually stick to. Yeah. That
was really, really important. Yeah, for sure. I always tell everybody like, don't just start
selling books on eBay because Mel's doing it, right? It's like, it's one of the most saturated
categories. Run away from media. Everybody listen in. It's one of the most saturated categories out
there. It is fun to, especially if you're into books, but it is a lot more work than some other
category. Then it can be a low ASP at times. It comes from it. I'm curious here and everybody's
probably curious, like, what are we looking forward to 2024, your YouTube channel, your passion this
year, you're going to full-blown YouTube as best as you can. What do we have in the future lined up?
I think firstly, I just want to say you're right there. Don't just copy what everybody else does.
That's one of the biggest mistakes. I've got a lot of people that just will flat out copy my store,
but then what happens is they become very reliant on only learning what I put out there. There's a
lot of stuff that I don't put out there. You need to do the work for yourself and you need to learn.
Also, what's available for me in my area might not be available for Johnny in his area.
You can't build a business around something that you can't actively source. I think that's one of
the biggest problems is you see these people on YouTube and people want to copy and do exactly
the same, but it doesn't necessarily cross over into that. I'll just say that.
No, you're absolutely spot on and no disrespect to the gentleman, but I tried copying the hairy
tornado method. It did not work out at all for me. Just saying. Nothing wrong with this channel or
the guy at all, but as far as what we're talking about copying, do your own thing, you'll be better
off, honestly. Yeah. It even comes down to business relationships. I have a business
relationship with somebody that gives me a particular type of book, a lot of them. If
somebody's following me, they might be like, oh, she puts all this stuff into her store,
so it must be good, but little do they know that I've got a deal going where I get all this stuff
for very, very cheap. That's the only reason why a lot of it will go into my store. I think that
there's stuff that people don't know and you definitely can't just copy what somebody else
is doing and have to do your own research. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the MTV show
Cribs where they go and tour houses. Basically, they go in celebrities' houses. When you get your
house all dressed up here that you just moved into, are we going to have a full-blown tour of
everything? Oh yeah. I've done the empty tour, so when I get it all filled up, I'll do the full-blown
tour. I think that was the next part of your story when you were saying what's on for the YouTube or
whatever this year. That's something that I would really like to go down. My YouTube channel is a
lot about reselling and it's Mill the Reseller, but it's also very, I take people on a personal
journey and it's about me and my life in general. I think now that I'm in my own space and stuff,
I've got some ideas for some different types of videos and I would very much like to introduce
maybe every fortnight or something like a video that's not just about reselling. Do you know what
I mean? It's more of a, it's still maybe like, it's about me and my life and maybe there's part of
that is some reselling going to a thrift shop or something, but it's kind of not solely reselling,
I guess. That would be my goal, but to do a video like that every two weeks means I have to be doing
more videos than I currently am because I'm not just going to have one video every two weeks.
It's about me in Australia, my life in Australia or anything like that. I've got a lot of big plans
for the YouTube channel. It always comes down to my time and trying to find some kind of routine,
which I'm hoping now I'm in this new house I can actually find, but it's definitely hard.
So I'm going to go the reverse of a previous question I asked you. What are your favorite
books to list on eBay? Okay. My favorite books to list would be books that I personally like myself.
So that's... I'm just saying, it's funny. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Chick lit, romance novels, Nora.
Nora. No. Do you already hate selling Nora Roberts? I'm down to sell Nora Roberts. She sells for me.
You can have them all when you come down here. You can have them all. No, no. You have to bundle them.
I figured this out. You can't sell them individually. It's impossible. Yeah. You have to bundle them,
but you can bring some really good money if you bundle that type of books. So yeah, I like selling
the chick lit, the romance, the cookbooks, all the girly type of books, I guess. And the self-help.
I'm really... Sometimes I'll pick the self-help up even though I know it doesn't make me very much
money, but it might be a book that... Some of those really, really common self-help books, they don't
make you much money, but they just sell and sell and sell over and over and over very quickly. So
I like to put those in my store because they are books that bring buyers. They are looking for those
very popular self-help books and it brings buyers to the store. And then hopefully they'll look
around the store and buy something else while they're there. There is one romance that I like
listing. It's the medical romances because they sell. How do medical romance do for you in Australia?
Do they do well? It does. Medical romance does really well for me, but it's very hard to find.
Same. I love finding... What even is medical romance? There's your doctor on the front.
Yeah. He's shirtless and he's got the stethoscope around his neck. Yeah. Not necessarily. There's
actually a decent storyline. I know way more about this than I really should, but yeah.
They're more clothed than you think they are, Mike. I stand by my statement that if somebody out on
eBay had a romance novel only bookstore and they hired hunky men that were shirtless, tanned up and
oiled up and they held the book for the main eBay photo, they would get a lot of sales. I don't think
you're wrong. And I think that's genius. Even if you had the hunk sign the book, right? You know,
hunk or whatever his name is, right? Brian the hunk, he signs the book, you get a boom, right?
I'm telling you, you got to think outside the box at reselling anymore. Free business model for those
listening. You know, I actually think you're a hundred percent correct. I actually think that's
brilliant. I've never even thought about that. I've seen women standing there in different things,
but I've never seen a hunky male. I wonder if there's a mannequin with a whole lot of abs that
you could somehow sit like a stand up. I don't know. Like those highland Scottish romances,
he can be in a kilt holding a Scottish romance. That would kill it. It would absolutely kill it.
And I definitely feel like you could have an entire eBay store that was just romance novels
and you would kill it. It's one of my top sellers and I will sell those meals and burn
silhouette, Harlequin, whatever novels you want to call them over and over and over on repeat
every day. I think we could try and experiment with Tom after a long day of work. We can cut
his sleeves off his shirt, have him hold up a few books, you know, just quick and easy. Tom, listen,
just hold the book. Don't worry about what we're doing with it. All right. Just a few pictures.
All right. And then we'll see where it goes from there. Who knows? Oh, that's hilarious.
I'm getting to do one. You probably could Photoshop one. It's actually a fantastic idea.
We're going to wrap it up there. Mel, we appreciate you spending your morning with us and
we're looking forward to what you do this year. We're all excited for the YouTube channel,
the growth of your eBay business. So yeah, thanks for hanging out with us today.
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast. Today's full episode
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