1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,480
Welcome back to another episode of the Resellers Mindset Podcast.

2
00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:06,160
My name is Mike, also known as the used book guy on YouTube,

3
00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:09,120
along with my friend and fellow full-time reseller, Johnny B.

4
00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:12,720
We help people start and grow their reselling businesses from the ground up.

5
00:00:12,960 --> 00:00:16,640
We also have a weekly zoom call and private discord for all YouTube members.

6
00:00:16,840 --> 00:00:21,180
Head on over to youtube.com backslash use book guy to join the channel and gain

7
00:00:21,180 --> 00:00:25,480
access to the full length podcast zoom call and private discord today.

8
00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:27,360
Let's get into this week's episode.

9
00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:28,320
What is up everybody?

10
00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:31,120
Welcome into another Resellers Mindset Podcast episode.

11
00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:32,640
Mike sitting next to Johnny.

12
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:34,000
He don't know the topic.

13
00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:37,160
I did kind of tell him the topic earlier today, but I told him I changed my mind.

14
00:00:37,160 --> 00:00:37,520
Last weekend.

15
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:39,640
He lied to me, ladies and gentlemen, he lied.

16
00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:42,640
I lied to him, but I came up with a better one for you all.

17
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:45,560
So we're going to talk about, I'm going to talk from the Amazon side.

18
00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:51,200
Johnny's going to talk from the eBay side, 2025, how to start a media

19
00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:54,680
selling business on Amazon and eBay.

20
00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:57,680
Johnny, do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?

21
00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:00,320
Since I knew the topic and I already kind of have a little bit of a plan.

22
00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:02,800
No, I can go first if you want me to.

23
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:03,280
All right.

24
00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:04,400
I'll go on eBay.

25
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,120
So eBay, you're starting an eBay business.

26
00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:09,240
You have no knowledge.

27
00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,560
You've been watching a bunch of YouTubers you may and probably have

28
00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:14,360
been lied to by these YouTubers.

29
00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:19,840
So let's just say, you know, nothing you think you do, but you know nothing.

30
00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:24,240
So what you're going to do is you're going to go out to locations

31
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:26,040
that are offering books.

32
00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:27,520
I don't care what it is.

33
00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:32,280
And you're going to bring your technology, you know, before you buy

34
00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:33,680
a device called your cell phone.

35
00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:35,400
And let's hope you have reception.

36
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:38,120
It's different story if you don't, but let's say you have reception.

37
00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:40,800
You're going to look at things you think are valuable.

38
00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:44,400
You're going to look them up and find out again that you're wrong and know nothing.

39
00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:48,480
And then you're going to put it back and then you're going to do it again and

40
00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:52,160
again and again until you have a reasonable amount that you can buy or you

41
00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:54,400
get tired and you're just done for the day.

42
00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:59,680
Then you're going to go home and then you're going to do the hard work.

43
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:01,280
Well, let me roll back there.

44
00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:02,760
You're going to check these items.

45
00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:09,360
I don't care what media type it is for damage and, or this this at face value is

46
00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:11,200
money, but I'm looking at it.

47
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:11,840
It's too damaged.

48
00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:12,360
It's torn up.

49
00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:13,560
It's water damaged.

50
00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:18,680
It the CD looks like somebody's skateboarded across it.

51
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:22,120
Any kind of defects.

52
00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:23,480
You put those back too.

53
00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:26,720
So you go out with less than you thought you were going to go out with.

54
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:29,280
You thought you were going to have carloads of stuff.

55
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:32,960
You're not, you're going to have a basketball, maybe you go home.

56
00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:34,000
You list this stuff.

57
00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:38,840
What I mean by lists is you take your pictures and find out this sucks.

58
00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:40,080
And yes, pictures suck.

59
00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:40,960
Congratulations.

60
00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:42,000
Welcome to the suck club.

61
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,960
And then you're going to list it and find out this sucks even more.

62
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:47,720
Welcome to the bonus suck club.

63
00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:52,440
And then you're going to put it on your shelf and it doesn't sell overnight.

64
00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:53,640
This sucks even more.

65
00:02:53,640 --> 00:02:58,080
Welcome to the VIP black card edition suck club.

66
00:02:58,680 --> 00:02:59,840
And then you're going to do it again.

67
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:04,400
And then eventually you do this enough times, you're going to get some sales and

68
00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:06,080
you're going to put some money back in your pocket.

69
00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:10,040
It's still not going to be as much as you spent, but over time, the money's

70
00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:12,960
going to start to trickle in and it's going to be more than you're spending.

71
00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:16,400
That's the name of the eBay game in 2025.

72
00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:19,040
I've been talking for a minute, so I'm going to toss it to Mike and we'll come

73
00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:20,200
back to me for eBay stuff.

74
00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:22,480
There actually is pretty big differences, right?

75
00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:26,080
Like the month one of Amazon, I'm going to start the same way Johnny did.

76
00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:30,520
You probably watch some YouTubers and they're lying to you from a YouTuber

77
00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:32,080
that literally sells books.

78
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:36,640
But I know of other channels that aren't, I would say, you know, above grade when

79
00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:39,760
it comes to telling people exactly how it is, especially in the beginning.

80
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:41,640
So Amazon's completely different, right?

81
00:03:41,640 --> 00:03:44,960
Johnny says you just need your actual cell phone for eBay and Amazon.

82
00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:47,080
You need lots of other bells and whistles, right?

83
00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,560
You're going to probably get a little bit of a better experience with

84
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:52,280
Amazon, you're going to probably get a little Bluetooth scanner.

85
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:56,160
And then you got your wonderful never-ending fee of applications

86
00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:57,360
you need on your phone, right?

87
00:03:57,400 --> 00:03:59,360
Because you're going to be out scanning barcodes.

88
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:03,840
You need to actually pay for software that can actually process things and

89
00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:05,680
give you the data based on the make a decision.

90
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:09,200
So your first month, you're spending a lot of money, you're getting, you

91
00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:14,160
know, some, some bells and whistles of a scanner and you're paying for software.

92
00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:18,200
Usually they have free trials, but, but for the sake of this, you're going to

93
00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:21,800
buy some sort of Write UI on the iPhone or the Amazon, like Apple, may

94
00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:25,860
want, some kind of zugra unconscious to figure out if you can actually

95
00:04:25,860 --> 00:04:27,520
buy the home or you can pay for that.

96
00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:29,280
If you're, you're not your damage.

97
00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:33,240
You're only worth a little division of the old money you enjoy on somethin'

98
00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:34,620
com 관�int

99
00:04:34,620 --> 00:04:34,900
so

100
00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:38,820
you're just, you

101
00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:39,460
you're justELL

102
00:04:39,580 --> 00:04:42,120
Trying to sell your

103
00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:46,480
business app is a lot of work t

104
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:55,480
and you realize, well, this is kind of monotonous and I don't even need to have, you know, any type of knowledge and there you just scan.

105
00:04:55,480 --> 00:05:01,480
I'm literally, I'm literally a robot every week that just scans as many barcodes as I can.

106
00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:06,480
And your little software says, hey, it's green, you should buy it. But you don't know nothing else about the software.

107
00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:12,480
You just see that it says green. So you buy that item, regardless of the price, you don't understand anything.

108
00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:16,480
So you get it all home. You got a packet, send it to Amazon in the beginning.

109
00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:26,480
If you're using a software listing software, then of course that's going to cost you another $50 a month on top of your scouting software, which is $30 a month.

110
00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:33,480
So in the Amazon land, it's a lot more cash intensive in the beginning because these are overhead costs that a lot of people have.

111
00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:39,480
And then you need the fancy thermal printer because your normal standard printer isn't going to work in Amazon land.

112
00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:44,480
And like Johnny says, you get home, you list things. We don't got to take photos.

113
00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:50,480
But the caveat to Amazon land is, well, nobody ever told you month one, you're not going to be buy a box eligible.

114
00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:54,480
So you're going to have basically 3% of sales that you normally would.

115
00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:58,480
Nobody ever told you, you get all that stuff home, you're a brand new seller.

116
00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:06,480
You're going to be restricted in 95% of the books, CDs and DVDs you buy. Books 95%, CDs and DVDs 100%, right?

117
00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:09,480
Because you got to take steps to get ungated. But nobody talks about this.

118
00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:14,480
So month one, you go out, gung ho, you buy all this stuff, you find out you're restricted in it.

119
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:21,480
This is the end. That fast. Most people don't make it past month one because of everything we kind of said, right?

120
00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,480
With eBay, you got to take the photos. And Amazon, you're going to be restricted in 95% of it.

121
00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:34,480
And in Amazon, sure, maybe I go out my first week, Johnny, and I send my first box off and it gets checked in and I get some sales.

122
00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:42,480
Unlike eBay, you 100% are not getting paid within the first month of selling on Amazon, regardless of how many sales.

123
00:06:42,480 --> 00:06:49,480
Even if you send in 100 books and all 100 sell that week they get checked in, Amazon is not giving you that money in that first month.

124
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:54,480
So here we are in Amazon land. We're operating big time in the red, Johnny.

125
00:06:54,480 --> 00:07:01,480
Maybe you got some pennies trickling over in eBay land, but in Amazon land, we're broke. The line chart is going down.

126
00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:07,480
It's not going up at all yet. So month two, eBay land back to you.

127
00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:10,480
Okay, month two, you've made a few sales. Congratulations.

128
00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:23,480
But you picked up a lot of 10, $12 items and you realize, huh, I'm only getting like a dollar, maybe $5 for each one of these.

129
00:07:23,480 --> 00:07:29,480
I want more money for my time. So you make a decision. I want higher valued stuff.

130
00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:33,480
So you go out and do the same thing you do and you bring home less.

131
00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:41,480
You're like, damn, I did the same amount of work. I brought home less items and I'm going to do less work.

132
00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:46,480
But I'm still I'm still in the position of I need to get more.

133
00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:53,480
But I'm I've taken a step back on the lower end stuff to do some, I don't know, mid tier stuff.

134
00:07:53,480 --> 00:08:02,480
Okay, maybe I need to put more time into sourcing. So now you're working harder to find higher valuable items.

135
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:06,480
And you're like, huh, this is how this game is played. Interesting.

136
00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:11,480
So you do the same process again and again. And all of a sudden, you're getting paid more.

137
00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:19,480
Okay, this gives you more what I'm going to call opportunity because you built up some capital to go out more because it's going to cost more gas.

138
00:08:19,480 --> 00:08:26,480
It's going to cost more in your time. And then it's going to maybe cost more because you change it the way you're sourced.

139
00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:31,480
That's another thing. Sticking to the same sourcing type.

140
00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:38,480
And we'll just say thrift stores. You decide to branch out. Maybe I'll try an estate sale. Maybe I'll try a library sale.

141
00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:44,480
Maybe I'll try a music shop or 10 other different things. Doesn't matter.

142
00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:47,480
So you're branching out your source and things. You're starting to figure things out.

143
00:08:47,480 --> 00:08:51,480
Okay, it costs more here, but I'm able to pull more higher end things.

144
00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:56,480
So it is worth my time and investment in my capital to continue to source like this.

145
00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:02,480
Maybe I'll drop a few of those thrift stores because I may be able to pull five items in a trip here.

146
00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:07,480
I'm able to pull 15 or 25 over here, even though it's spending slightly more.

147
00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:13,480
I'm going to go with option B versus option A every time. And then you do that for long enough.

148
00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:19,480
You built up even more capital. So you find out how to network.

149
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:27,480
You may have built up one to two networking people because of you continuing to go in month two.

150
00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:29,480
Maybe spilling over a little bit in a month three.

151
00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:34,480
But I would assume you would have built up as long as you're friendly and outgoing.

152
00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:40,480
That's the key thing. You got to be a little bit outgoing to get this where you're starting to get discounts because you're buying in bulk.

153
00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:44,480
Or you're starting to get access to the back room before it even hits the floor.

154
00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:48,480
Good job. Now you have to do this a million more times.

155
00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:53,480
And that'll that'll go into future months. And back to Mike.

156
00:09:53,480 --> 00:09:58,480
Month two, we're dead broken Amazon land. We got no paychecks coming in.

157
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:02,480
Maybe we got some sales. We're hoping that we can catch the buy box in month two.

158
00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:04,480
So those don't know what the buy box is.

159
00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:09,480
Every category has a used buy box that you need to become eligible for on Amazon land.

160
00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:16,480
There's no unfortunately there's no set of rules that says, hey, if you do these five things, you automatically become buy box eligible.

161
00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:20,480
So we're hoping by the end of month two, which usually is not the case.

162
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:29,480
Most people take three months, sometimes even longer, that we become buy box eligible because 90 over 90 percent of the sales on Amazon come through the buy box, which is the buy now button.

163
00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:35,480
So if you don't have the buy box, you're literally getting at most 10 percent of the sales you otherwise would.

164
00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:39,480
So here we are. We're in this weird spot where maybe we've made a few sales.

165
00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:44,480
We have no money coming in and we still want to continue to grow the business.

166
00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:50,480
You're the person that's stubborn, which I like, because it takes time to grow any business.

167
00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:55,480
It takes time to grow anything in life. So you just said, I'm going to keep at this.

168
00:10:55,480 --> 00:11:02,480
All right. Maybe maybe you're in the group or you're in Johnny's here and we say, hey, it's going to it's going to take a few months.

169
00:11:02,480 --> 00:11:06,480
It's going to take, you know, to get the plane off the ground here.

170
00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,480
You just got to get down to the end of the runway and then we'll be good to go.

171
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:12,480
So you're like, all right, here I am. I'm going to continue sourcing.

172
00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:17,480
I'm going to continue sending boxes maybe by the end of month two.

173
00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:25,480
You could argue that you're still not going to get paid from Amazon in month two, because if you factor in the thirty nine ninety nine subscription fee,

174
00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:32,480
hopefully you've made enough to kind of cover that at least. But Amazon holds your money as a new seller.

175
00:11:32,480 --> 00:11:36,480
You're looking at six plus weeks of your money staying in reserves.

176
00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:43,480
And even as a seasoned seller like myself, they still hold my money for a solid two to four weeks, depending on what type of mood they're in.

177
00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:46,480
So we're chugging along in Amazon land.

178
00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:51,480
Johnny hit on the hit on points that if we had this conversation five years ago, Johnny,

179
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:57,480
we never would talk about building relationships because you could walk into any thrift store and leave with a cart full.

180
00:11:57,480 --> 00:12:00,480
But now we're talking month two of your brand new business.

181
00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:06,480
You need to be having conversations. You need to start building relationships because that is the only way.

182
00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:10,480
Not only are you going to scale the business, the only way it's going to exist. Period.

183
00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:15,480
Dot end of sentence. You can't rely on the goodwill. You can't rely on the Salvation Army's, the savers.

184
00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:20,480
You need more than that to have a tangible business, especially if you want to make.

185
00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:24,480
What's up, Amazon sellers? We wanted to take a second to talk about GoToLister.

186
00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:29,480
The software me and Johnny both use to list and manage our inventory and grow our businesses.

187
00:12:29,480 --> 00:12:34,480
With the fastest listing speeds out there and built in profit analytics, it's a no brainer.

188
00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:42,480
Easily and quickly have items available for sale using 2D barcodes and get more for your items with its built in smart pricing.

189
00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:49,480
Make sure to check out the 30 day free trial at gotolister.com backslash Mike or using the link in the description below.

190
00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:54,480
You live in California, you need to make a whole lot of money and your third stores aren't going to give you that type of money.

191
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:58,480
So Munk2, I 100% agree with Johnny. We need to have conversations.

192
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:03,480
But here we are, Munk2, and you're still just scanning things. There's nothing exciting, Johnny.

193
00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:07,480
There's no knowledge needed. I still know nothing about books.

194
00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:14,480
I'm literally a robot that just scans barcodes and maybe hopefully you're understanding the screens in front of you, right?

195
00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:18,480
You're understanding your scouting software, Scoutly, ScoutIQ, whatever that may be.

196
00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:25,480
So you're making a little bit better buying decisions. But like Johnny said, you start out in the beginning, we all buy junk, right?

197
00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:29,480
But the difference is in Amazon land, you get punished.

198
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:33,480
Johnny and his eBay business can just say, all right, I'm throwing this stuff in the trash can.

199
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:40,480
In the Amazon land, no, it doesn't exist. You're going to have to pay to have those items removed, liquidated, destroyed.

200
00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:47,480
Sure, this doesn't happen in Munk2, but your mistakes you make in the beginning are going to, it's not a huge punishment.

201
00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:53,480
Unless you go crazy in the beginning of your business. But most of those items you buy in the beginning, you're going to have to get rid of.

202
00:13:53,480 --> 00:13:59,480
And in Amazon, you have to pay to get rid of them versus eBay. Yeah, you have your buy costs, but you're just out your buy costs.

203
00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:02,480
You can just throw them out your garage, burn them, whatever you want to do with them.

204
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:08,480
Amazon, you have to physically pay somebody to get it off the shelf and dispose of it however Amazon wants to do it.

205
00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:14,480
So Munk2, we're probably, maybe we got one paycheck. It's not big in Amazon land in the beginning.

206
00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:23,480
You're talking 50 bucks, 30 bucks, 40 bucks. You're already, you're spending more in software than you are actually getting paid from Amazon in Munk2, 100% of the time.

207
00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:31,480
So we're still dead broke over here, Johnny, Munk2 end of Amazon. Now we're into Munk3 and your eBay business is rocking and rolling.

208
00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:35,480
You're actually getting paid, which is nice unlike us. So where are we going in Munk3?

209
00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:46,480
Munk3, okay. So you made, you maybe made one to two connections. Great. You're going to need more because you've decided you want to get paid more for your time.

210
00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:54,480
Because you've realized by now, photography and listing really, really sucks. Yeah, it does. No argument there. It does.

211
00:14:54,480 --> 00:15:00,480
But it's just part of the process. You got to do that in order to get paid, get a bigger paycheck.

212
00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:14,480
So in Munk3, okay, you've decided, okay, I need people to remember you, me, because I've had conversations where people want to talk to me more and do further business with me, but I've gotten no calls.

213
00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:20,480
Nobody's called me. I gave them my number. They said they would and they didn't.

214
00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:35,480
Or so what you do is you decide to do some business cards, maybe put up some flyers, maybe introduce yourself more to people you haven't really, like beyond the checkout person.

215
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:44,480
Like is your manager in? Can I maybe have a couple minutes with them? Kind of deal. So you're advertising yourself. You're selling yourself at this point.

216
00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:51,480
And then sometime around Munk3, you're going to start getting responses back.

217
00:15:51,480 --> 00:16:06,480
And like, this is great. Maybe the deals work out. Maybe they don't. And you're doing more, more groundwork on building a relationship, essentially, even if that first phone call, it doesn't work out.

218
00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:17,480
Maybe on call two it does because they may call you the first time. You're like, okay, I got a room full of books here and I need you to pick it up. How does $800 sound?

219
00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:23,480
Well, to me, that's I don't know. Can you send me photos? It's a question you should always do.

220
00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:36,480
And if it's that price tag, you may want to go look at it and maybe ask how many units is it? Because we call them units. I don't care what you're selling CDs, books, video games, doesn't matter.

221
00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:49,480
So maybe go down and look at it and you're like, this isn't worth $800. This is all Southern living taste of home microwave cookbook stuff. You don't want to get anywhere near $800.

222
00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:59,480
And maybe you decide to buy it at a negotiated rate. But to me, I think the lesson you'll learn, you're probably going to do it, honestly, because you've worked it down.

223
00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:16,480
So you bought it and you're like, this isn't worth it. So you know next time when you come across it, this is for a future month, you say no and you walk away and you drive off because you've done this long enough now to know a junk buy versus not.

224
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:26,480
But earlier on, you're going to make this mistake. Everybody makes it because you're trying to buy quantity at a good rate. And you've done that, but it's not quality.

225
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:35,480
Everybody makes this mistake. You buy a non-quality big buy and you're stuck with it and you got to get through the tremendous work.

226
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:45,480
And here's the lesson, the second lesson you're going to probably learn in month three, disposing of the junk. Where can I offload this and maybe monetize it a little bit?

227
00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:56,480
So you're going to maybe make Facebook market ads to try to sell it off. You're going to try to go to some stores to get some store credits because you know these places because you've been to them.

228
00:17:56,480 --> 00:18:05,480
But there's going to be a portion. Well, you're either going to have to trash, donate, or set it on fire because you're stuck with it because it's yours and you bought it.

229
00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:16,480
So you're going to learn that very, very valuable lesson. And if you don't, you're going to do it enough times where you'll eventually come to the same conclusion that the savvier person learned the first time they did it.

230
00:18:16,480 --> 00:18:30,480
That's pretty much what month three looks like. A couple of mistakes, but I'm going to call that educational cost and also more advertising by you by putting yourself out there with business cards, flyers, maybe a couple of emails.

231
00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:42,480
It's, I feel like I got to give two different scenarios in Amazon month three because you have the scenario where you have the buy box and you have the scenario where you don't have the buy box and they look completely different than one another.

232
00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:56,480
So you have the buy box. This is the good scenario, right? Like this is the, you have the evil path and the good path, right? The good path is you have the buy box. You'll know when you have the buy box. Everybody has advanced placement and remedial.

233
00:18:56,480 --> 00:19:09,480
So, all right, you're rocking and rolling. All of a sudden your sales are ticking up, but I already told you all right, like you can have a thousand dollars in sales today. That money ain't coming anytime soon. I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

234
00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:25,480
So month three, we still have expenses. We have all these expenses coming out, the software, our buy costs, our inventory fees. Now items are sitting there, our Amazon subscription fee, but we have the buy box. So sales are picking up.

235
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:36,480
So you're still not getting paid in month three. You'll have trickle in money from the previous two months from items you sold when you didn't have the buy box, but that money from that month is probably going to be pushed out to the next month.

236
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:46,480
So your real paychecks really probably aren't going to start happening until month four, 120 days, if you get the buy box in month three. That's best case scenario.

237
00:19:46,480 --> 00:20:00,480
And then you have the buy box in books, your restrictions are coming down, right? So any new seller on Amazon is going to be restricted in 90% of the books, 95% of the books. As you send inventory to Amazon, as you sell a few pieces, you stay consistent.

238
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:10,480
Amazon automatically removes the gates with books, but it's one of those things where it's a hurdle you have to get over. So month three, you have the buy box, the restrictions are coming down.

239
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:21,480
So you finally feel like you're starting to get some ground, but you still don't have money coming in. And I'm going to be straight up. I mean, who's going to start a business where they're not going to get paid, Johnny, until month four, hopefully, like fingers crossed.

240
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:22,480
Crazy people.

241
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:38,480
Crazy people. That's why I try to tell everybody. Amazon is not a sprint. Start as slow as you can, as cheap as you possibly can. I know people start reselling and they want to just go with the speed of light.

242
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:54,480
It doesn't exist on Amazon. You are going to spend a whole lot of money and get nothing back for three plus months every single time. Every single person that starts on Amazon, just be wary. You got three months until you see any type of significant paycheck dependent on what you're sending.

243
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:55,480
So that's a good case.

244
00:20:55,480 --> 00:21:04,480
Bad case, no buy box. Here you still are 10% of sales. I mean, it's grim at this point. You've gone 90 days, you're getting 10% of this.

245
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,480
You're leading money. You're making no money. You're spending money nonstop.

246
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:25,480
You are literally spending money and you have nothing coming in. And it's like people that quit at this point, I can't blame them. I can because I know the upside of sticking with it. But in actuality, how long can people go without getting paid doing something, right?

247
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:37,480
You're putting in a significant amount of time. And I think that is a good reason why you should have the combo attack of eBay and Amazon when you start out in media because there are some items that aren't good for Amazon that are good for eBay, right?

248
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:49,480
Sign books, things like that, antique books. And eBay is going to give you the money a lot faster than Amazon ever will. So it is good to have the combo attack. But if you don't have the buy box in month three, you're still there.

249
00:21:49,480 --> 00:22:11,480
You're still, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel that I'm talking about. You're just like, this sucks. This doesn't work. Why did I listen to whatever YouTuber I listened to that said nothing about becoming buy box eligible, that said nothing about these hurdles you have to deal with in Amazon land, the software overhead, the fees of having your items there.

250
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:30,480
There's a lot that goes into it that really isn't talked about. So month three is pivotal. If you make it past month one, okay. You're not out of the woods yet. You get past month one, cool, you're still here. After month three, that's going to be the true test because 90 days without getting paid, dude, is a long, long time.

251
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:45,480
To my benefit, when I started, I was still working a full time job. So being part time in the Amazon land, I kind of was just winging it right like I just didn't want to be what Johnny said you realize as an eBay seller, you got to take photos, you got to deal with customers, you got to pack and ship orders.

252
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:55,480
I just started Amazon because I don't want to deal with any of that. I'm like, wait a minute, I don't gotta take photos. I don't get to ever answer a customer message. I don't got to pack individual orders. So it benefited me.

253
00:22:55,480 --> 00:23:12,480
It's hard to imagine starting an Amazon full time with nothing else today like from scratch like 90 days without getting paid. I mean, the majority of people, there's no way they're less than that long like without getting a single paycheck from Amazon, especially if you're out active sourcing.

254
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:32,480
I mean, even when I did it, I still had the eBay money coming in. So it wasn't I'm burning through my savings. So it was like, okay, it's going to be a minute. So let's just send, send, send, send. Maybe maybe I got to cut back on some splurges here and there. But it's still since since then.

255
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:45,480
And I would say another, I know, I know it's not my turn because I'm the eBay. It don't matter chime in. But I would say the stuff you're gated in, and I've given this advice rather recently.

256
00:23:45,480 --> 00:24:08,480
You're making no money. So put it on eBay. If you're an Amazon seller, learn eBay, unfortunately, you'll hate it. But price it at the Amazon price. Don't ignore the salts. If you're an Amazon seller ignore the soul cops because basically it's a holding ground. But it has a chance to sell and you recruit some capital, especially if you've got the in your the no buy a box.

257
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:29,480
You need some capital. If you get a lucky sale, great. Or you decide, you know what, it's worth $35 Amazon, somebody sent me an offer for 20. I can't send it to Amazon. I need the money now I'm going to take the $20 offer, because it's still more than I paid for it. Welcome to media. It usually is more than you paid for.

258
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:53,480
Now you've got a few bucks in your pocket, and it's going to make you feel better, honestly versus that pile of stuff you bought that you can't do anything with. So I'm going to say to you Amazon sellers, especially month one through four here, your gated pile until you're ungated, put them on eBay. And once you're ungated, rip them off of eBay and send them to Amazon. So you need the capital that you do.

259
00:24:53,480 --> 00:25:14,480
You got to be scrappy in the beginning, you got to be like, you got to be that person like they make movies about right like the pursuit of happiness right like you got to be so scrappy in the beginning. And I have people that start this business and there's like, hey, I got $5,000 $10,000 set aside, right. And they start in their Amazon business.

260
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:29,480
I tell everybody the same exact thing where they have $0 or $10,000 is you need to be as cheap as you possibly can in Amazon for the first three months, while still starting and growing your business. So what does that mean? That means you're doing free pickups.

261
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:47,480
That means you're going to the cheapest sources out in the universe like whatever you possibly can get for dirt cheap, you're trading your time for money in the beginning because there is no return on your money in Amazon for the first three months, no matter how much you go and spend, you can go spend $10,000 your first week sourcing, it ain't coming back no time soon.

262
00:25:47,480 --> 00:26:04,480
It's not coming back in the first three months. So we have to be so cheap and tactical and growing the business on Amazon, where eBay land, at least even if you're buying some bad stuff, you're still buying some good stuff, hopefully, so you do get a little bit of change back in your pocket in case you need it.

263
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:20,480
And you can fire sell items and things like that. It is so tough today to start an Amazon business if it's going to be the only thing you do in the beginning, because you got a 90 day runway, hopefully, you get the buy box by then, and then you kind of can take off so I don't know.

264
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:29,480
Alright, so we'll just do a magical one after three months, maybe we'll do like four to six months, what should we be doing in eBay land at this point?

265
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:47,480
eBay land, you've now figured out, man, it's taking me a long time to get through this stuff. And I mentioned it sucks. So how do I get through the suck faster. So this is the beautiful part of the business, and it's going to take you to forever to the end of your reselling career.

266
00:26:47,480 --> 00:27:09,480
How do I refine processes to streamline my business? Do I need to move a piece of furniture? Do I need to get uniform packaging? Do I need to figure out how I do less hand movements of picking up the cell phone and dropping the cell phone and positioning the items, where I get the same amount of quality with less steps?

267
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:29,480
And even on the computer, you're how you operate on your thing, you have the same seven tabs open, leave them open all the time. And you're just hitting the refresh page instead of having one tab open and then going to something else that you need, and then refreshing going back to Google typing in what you need.

268
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:52,480
No, you got to figure out how do I eliminate steps, how to make myself more efficient, because your time becomes more and more precious the longer you do this. So month four through six, you're going to try to figure out how do I do less work to take or how do I do more work in less time to eliminate steps, improve my processes to streamline my business.

269
00:27:52,480 --> 00:28:12,480
Because all that time saved gives you more time to do the important part, the money making part, because the money's in the buy, you need more time to buy. Whether that gives you an extra hour of drive time to go sourcing, so maybe you can expand your bubble, especially if you're still, you're probably still part time or full time job at this point.

270
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:19,480
And every minute is precious, especially for you.

271
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:38,480
And I would say another thing that's going to go into this is, yeah, you may have to go to the hardware store to to jerry rig something up. It ain't going to look pretty, but I promise you it's better than ordering off Amazon. Sorry, Amazon sellers for $500 when it's going to cost you $50 at Lowe's or Home Depot to build the same thing.

272
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:51,480
You're going to save a little bit of time, but you're going to save some capital, which you still need at this point. Now, I'm going to say, here's what's also going to happen in month four to six, especially if you're in a relationship and or have children.

273
00:28:51,480 --> 00:29:08,480
You don't spend any time with us. You're just spending money. We need you to do less of that. But no, look, look, I'm making money. It's not enough money. It's not enough. You're just you're ignoring us and you're making like $50 a day.

274
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:23,480
You make way more at your day job. Why are you even doing this? Or your shit's taken over the house. It's everywhere. I don't want it in my living room anymore. I've had enough. I've lasted three months of this bullshit and I don't want any more. That's what's going to happen in month four to six.

275
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:34,480
If you're in a relationship is you're going to stick stuff in the hallway. You're going to stick stuff in the wrong closet. You're going to put something and it's going to edge at them, edge at them. They've had enough. Yep.

276
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:40,480
And you're going to have to have those conversations with your family and significant others. It's just going to have to happen.

277
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:55,480
You got to have these conversations up front. And we had a full episode saying, hey, there's there needs to be sacrifices if you want to grow this business, especially like if you're somebody's Johnny's talking about where you have obligations, full time job and you're trying to grow this on the side.

278
00:29:55,480 --> 00:30:09,480
There's only so much time in the day. Right. So you got to plan your time accordingly and have open conversations of saying, hey, here's what I want to do in the next six months. I want to start this business. You give me six months. We'll see where we can get it. If it's not working, we can step back from them.

279
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:22,480
But it is going to take a little bit of extra time from my days. This is how you do things the right way. The wrong way is you pile up the tubs in your bedroom and you just got tubs full of random junk.

280
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:35,480
I know we're talking about media. Maybe you got random bookcases full of books that are not in order. It's just an absolute mess. The books stink. You can't blame the other person for being upset at what you've done because you weren't clear about your what you're going to do.

281
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:47,480
You should always have a conversation about these things, but most people don't. That's kind of what we're hitting at here. And in Amazon land, it might seem hunky dory. But like Johnny said, where's the money at? Where's the money at, Johnny?

282
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:57,480
You've been doing this for three months and maybe, you know, unfortunately, a lot of people do start with credit cards, right? Like you spend $1,000 on their credit card and like we have nothing coming back.

283
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:09,480
So now you're at this four to six month mark in Amazon land. And I'm just going to assume you have the buy box now. If you don't have the buy box, you've probably already given up. But if you do, all right, maybe you start getting some payouts.

284
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:21,480
But you have to realize you just spent 90 days. You can't just go spend every penny you get coming in on more inventory. You have to scale the Amazon business slow and steady.

285
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:32,480
Trade your time instead of money in the beginning for the first six months in Amazon. Your time is what you have to trade instead of your money because you're not going to see the money for that time frame.

286
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:42,480
So now you're rocking and rolling. You're actually getting some payouts. Maybe you're sending more inventory in. You're kind of making a progress. You got to get a repricing software, which is another added expense.

287
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:58,480
There's lots of added expenses in the Amazon land that people don't talk about, unfortunately, right? So by the end of it, you're going to have a listing software, scouting software, a repricing software, and hopefully by month four, you found my YouTube channel and you're paying $2.99.

288
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:08,480
So you can come hang out with me and Johnny every single week, right? Because if I don't have a live call, Johnny does a live call and you say, okay, now I realize what goes into this business. I can get all my questions answered.

289
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:18,480
And I do think a lot of that is people start Johnny and they don't have the right community. They just have that YouTuber that has the flashy videos that kind of got them into this.

290
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:28,480
So four to six months, we both agree. You should be getting some type of payments coming back to you at this point. You should have some type of at least one to three solid relationships.

291
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:38,480
Maybe you don't get stuff every single time, but you're the first person on their list. If they come into the inventory, you're looking for. So you have the quality inventory. Maybe you're getting it for cheap.

292
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:50,480
That's all about balancing your time and your money in the beginning and realizing it's not all. I mean, did I remember the eBay days you used to work like he used to?

293
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:58,480
I even felt tired, man. I mean, you used to look like you just work 24 hours straight and people don't see that.

294
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:09,480
16 hour days, seven days a week, no days off. Yeah, you don't see that and it's unexpected. But there in the beginning, if you're so gung ho about starting something, right?

295
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:18,480
Because that's usually when you're most excited, right? Like I want to go, go, go and you go, go, go buy and then you don't do nothing else. You just buy it and then it sits there. Right. And then you have nothing.

296
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:29,480
So you got to balance it all with time and and the money that comes in. Johnny, give me your final thoughts on somebody that's going to start eBay selling media in 2025. The money will come.

297
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:37,480
You will learn along the way. You will make mistakes along the way. But eventually the money will come. Now.

298
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:50,480
It's a grind. I promise you that you're going to get up one day. You don't want to do photos. You don't want to do listings, but you got it because that's the only way you make it in this business consistency and time.

299
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:59,480
And then eventually the money comes in. Now you make adjustments because you want more money. So you figure out those little nuances along the way.

300
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:13,480
But if you're consistent, determined and willing to change that last one there, most people are not willing to change. Unfortunately, to make the adjustments necessary for your business, you will be successful. No questions asked.

301
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:24,480
I agree. My only caveat to that in the Amazon land is accept the fact you're not getting paid for 90 days. There's no there's no way around that. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it's it's the honest truth.

302
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:34,480
There's it is so hard to start Amazon and keep your head down and just do your time. All right. Do your time. Get the buy box. Then you see what the power of Amazon really can do.

303
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:41,480
Then you can see, okay, wow, I'm actually making money. Wow. Things are selling when they get scanned at UPS when I drop them off.

304
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:51,480
That is how you survive and you thrive in this business is getting over those first initial three months on Amazon is arguably the hardest business ever because you have nothing coming back.

305
00:34:51,480 --> 00:35:02,480
Every dollar you send away, it ain't coming back for at least 90 days. And in some cases, maybe you don't get the buy box, right? Maybe it's that worst case scenario where you don't get the buy box for four or five, six, seven months.

306
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:15,480
Like then all of a sudden, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, sometimes you just got to move on and there's nothing wrong with moving on. And you don't know till you know, you don't know till you jump in and you do your first hundred eBay listings that it sucks. Right.

307
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:24,480
Johnny says it sucks. Maybe you enjoy listing. Maybe you're the person that loves photography and not sourcing. So you don't know until you're actually in these businesses what you like, what you don't like.

308
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:35,480
Is this something you want to continue on and never be afraid to step away and pivot and do a whole new business, a whole new category. But we're here to tell you, you can still make lots of money selling eBay and Amazon books.

309
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:46,480
But these are kind of where you need to be in the beginning. Your expectations of first three months, your first six months, kind of where it's going to take you, what you can expect. And just know the sky's the limit.

310
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:54,480
There's people doing seven figure selling media every single year on Amazon and eBay. So that's going to do it for this week's episode. We'll talk to you all next week.

311
00:35:54,480 --> 00:36:11,480
Thanks for listening to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast. Today's full episode and all previous episodes are available to all YouTube members along with the weekly zoom call and private discord. Head on over to youtube.com backslash to use book guy and consider joining for as little as two ninety nine a month.