Welcome back to another episode of the Reseller's
Mindset Podcast. My name is Mike, also known
as the Used Book Guy on YouTube, along with my
friend and fellow full -time reseller, Johnny
B. We help people start and grow their reselling
businesses from the ground up. We also have a
weekly Zoom call and private Discord for all
YouTube members. Head on over to youtube .com
backslash usebookguy 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 Reseller's Mindset Podcast.
Mike, next to Carlos Norris, Chuck Norris, a
.k .a. Johnny. He's got... Chuck is his background,
Chuck Norris on those watching the YouTube realm.
Today's topic, Johnny, is going to be, I feel
like we talk about this all the time and I kind
of got irritated the other week I made a video
talking about like being a new seller on Amazon.
And it's this idea that the potential of the
fees stops us from seeing our real actual growth
in the business, right? This idea that, well,
the fees are so high, how am I going to make
money? Don't matter what platform, right? eBay,
Amazon, whatnot, Bonanza, Macari, Etsy, Poshmark.
The fees are accounted for. It's a number, right?
It's a number. Here is what this number is. Now,
at Amazon, yeah, sure. And most of these platforms,
it's based off how much you sell the item for
because it's a percentage, but it's still a percentage.
So you can sit here and say, the fees are going
to be 25 % and the fees are going to be 50%.
And I'm going to say this. I didn't even care.
I'm going to piss everybody off. They're turning
off the podcast already, Johnny. People that
care about the fees and complain about the fees,
they're broke. They don't make no damn money
anyway. Why are we worried about something we
can account for across the board? And you're
right, dude. It's such a limiting belief that,
oh, the fees are higher over here. Oh, the fees
are lower over here. And you think just because
the fees are lower, you can go make more money,
or the fees are higher, you're going to make
less money, when both of those statements can
be completely and 100 % false a lot of the time.
I made a hand gesture as Mike was giving the
real stuff right there. Yeah, it wasn't a thumbs
up. It was not a thumbs up. If you cannot operate
a business, a 40 % margin, get out. There's something
wrong. There's something wrong with you. There's
something wrong with your finances that stem
way deeper and darker than a 60 % fee that Amazon
takes. A lot of business are happy with like
a 3 % margin. And you're unsatisfied with a fucking
40 or 50 or 60 % margin? Get out of here. I'm
done with you. You're dead to me. It's just like,
it's an excuse, I guess, at the end of the day.
Right. Like because why else would you complain
about it? Like it's just an excuse for you not
to even, I guess, give something an opportunity,
like a real chance. And I it irritates me because
I'm an Amazon seller and the fees, like you said,
are like 50 to 60 percent. But like when you
really break it down. It's really not that much
more expensive than if you just sold it yourself,
right? And at least on Amazon, you can get a
premium for your items. I just think anybody
that complains about fees is broke and they have
no, I guess, outlook on growth or no understanding
that no matter where you sell or what you do,
right? Like, okay, you don't want to pay fees.
Go open a Shopify store and pay the monthly fee
for the Shopify store and take their small percentage
when people check out. But then you have to drive
your own traffic. There's a cost to everything
in this business. And we just think when they
raise fees like that, they're purposely just
trying to take more money. Sure, they are because
they are running a business as well. Right. So
they have to please their shareholders. And does
it suck? 100 % of the time, any fee increase
sucks for us because we're paying more in fees.
you can account for everything. Like, are you
really buying something where you can't afford
the 30 cents or the extra 40 cents per item?
Because like Johnny said, you don't even have
a business anyway. Yeah, I mean, for those that
are sucky with the math, 10 % of a million dollars
is still 100 grand. And most... Americans, $100
,000 is good money. The most third world country,
$100 ,000 is fantastic money. You can do a lot
with $100 ,000. So, just because you may have
to do more and work harder for a smaller margin
than you'd like, suck it up, buttercup. It is
what it is. And you complaining and yelling and
just forum blasting or leaving nasty asinine
comments, It does nothing. Those fees aren't
going to change just because you dislike them,
sir or ma 'am. Just like the postal rates. My
gosh, this is an expensive pack. I see this all
the time when I go to the post office. I'm like,
get out of here, lady. You haven't been up here
in six months, apparently. We got news on this
four months back. We generally get a heads up
from Amazon that fees are going up and the post
office. It's very rare that we don't. Even eBay
does this. Fees will always go up. And so you
got two options. You figure out how to run a
tighter ship on lower margin percents year after
year, or you sell higher end items to compensate
for these ever increasing fees. Those are the
two methodologies to go about it. And neither
one of them is wrong. Man, this one annoys me
to a degree I can't describe. It's like. As business
owners, we are problem solvers. A fee going up
is a problem that we need to solve. It's not
a problem we just complain about and do fucking
nothing. I like the idea that let's just go start
our own website. Instead of eBay or Amazon, let's
just go start our own website. We'll have our
own reselling platform. It's a good old eBay
promoted listings fee that I've never seen anybody
say anything good about eBay promoted listings.
And it cracks me up because I know somebody out
there is probably paying. you know, five or 10
X what everybody else is and probably seeing
a huge increase in sales over the person that's
like, it's a scam, dude. It is 100 % a scam.
If we all promote at 2%, then we're not promoting
at anything because everybody's promoting at
2%. Meanwhile, there's somebody out there promoting
at 10 % who has the margin in their business
and it's just like swimming in the money, right?
Like it's, I'm on you. I get burned out with
the fee talk because it's all accounted for,
right? especially in Amazon land or even eBay
land, you kind of know what your fee percentage
is on every single item based on your store and
things like that. If we can account for all this
up front, why are we complaining about it on
the back end? I know a guy who does exactly what
you're talking about with promoted listing. He
pays to be at the top, but he is in a saturated
market. He needs to do that in order to sell
through steadily because he can do all kinds
of... forecasting math if he does this and he
is highly successful at what he does um but that's
like you're saying it's baked into his business
model he knows the numbers because if he were
to like do two percent or no percent his sell
-through rate and his dollars he's raking in
would be trivial to what he's doing now he would
be he would have to work at cvs if he was doing
it by any other means I think too, like we're
resellers. Should we have like the craziest margin
in the universe, right? Like I feel like we should,
there's any, you know, it's not like tariffs
are affecting us, right? Like we're just buying
stuff locally, right? So like we have a lot of
control on what our spend is per unit, right?
We have a lot of control on, we have all the
control on what we decide to buy to try to resell.
this idea that, oh, I don't want to pay the extra
fee. Well, your item never sells. And you're
literally, it costs you money instead of making
you money. I can't seem to get it through to
people that we don't make money until the items
sell. For some reason, we try to hang on to this.
I'm going to get the top dollar. I'm not going
to pay extra to promote my items. And then you
don't make no money and you just keep spending
money. What's up, Amazon sellers? We wanted to
take a second to talk about GoToLister, the software
me and Johnny both use to list and manage our
inventory and grow our businesses. With the fastest
listing speeds out there and built -in profit
analytics, it's a no -brainer. Easily and quickly
have items available for sale using 2D barcodes
and get more for your items with its built -in
smart pricing. Make sure to check out the 30
-day free trial at gotolister .com backslash
Mike or using the link in the description below.
Okay, let me ask you this. Would you rather get
$10 every day of the month, and these would be
the same items, or $100 every other week? Yeah,
I mean, I'm going to take the $10 every day.
Yeah, I'm going to clear more money doing it
that way. Even though it doesn't seem that way,
it seems like I'm bringing in very little, but
it compounds. It's about sell through. You're
selling it over and over and over and over and
over again versus the other guy doing $200 a
post, you're $300 a month. Well, the $300 guy,
for those of bad math again, is making more money,
ladies and gentlemen. He's got more money going
into their bank account. It's okay to run a low
margin game or a high volume game as long as
you know your numbers and you're actually clearing
a few bucks. It's just a matter of scale at that
point. How much are you scaling? Because if you're
running the $10 game and you're only selling
10 items a month, that's not going to cut it.
It's just not. But if you're selling $10 items
and you're selling... I don't know, a thousand
of those a month because you sent in more or
you listed more of those, that improves your
sell -through. That's game on. You can do that
over and over again. I think too, like when we
really started looking at it from that side,
the spectrum, like Amazon punishes you for not
selling items, right? They have storage fees
and there's removal fees. In eBay, it doesn't
exist. Well, you do get punished because it takes
up real estate in your house. It's mental real
estate when you're looking at the same stuff
every single day. I think the platform even tells
you, we want you to sell your items. We don't
get paid until you sell your items. eBay, sure,
you have the store subscription, whatever, if
you have insertion fees, which most people don't.
You can let it sit there for years and years
and years. Amazon, they're like, hey, we need
to sell this stuff or we're going to charge you.
out the ass to keep these items here but for
some reason we still hang on to this hope of
trying to get the most money all of the time
when if you take some of the money all the time
you're going to win you continuously have cash
flow how many resellers don't have cash flow
it's probably over 65 percent well i'm giving
you the solution if you got a good item at a
great price it'll sell I know it sounds crazy.
Sounds like, you know, like Bigfoot, right? Like,
but if you have a good desirable item and it's
at the best price, I promise you it will sell.
And it goes for eBay, goes for Amazon, goes for
anywhere. That's why you look at these people
and whatnot to push these crazy numbers. They're
buying large amounts of inventory. at discounted
prices so they can sell them at even more discounted
prices, right? It's just the idea of turning
a quick dollar into a quick dollar. Instead of
trying to be the person that's going to turn
a dollar into an item and you're going to hold
on to it for six months to a year and it never
sells. So honestly, that dollar has cost you
real estate and Amazon has cost you more than
a dollar because you had to store it. And if
you had to remove it, it costs you more. The
fees or the Amazon fees literally tell you to
sell your shit yesterday. And we still can't
do it. We were still afraid to be super aggressive
with repricing. And eBay, it's different because
you have your own shelving. And sure, some of
you like to live with all your eBay listings
in the house and all over the place, but I still
would challenge you that. Imagine if you could
sell it all today, how much would you take for
everything today? Like that is the opportunity
you have, not worrying about the fees and playing
the games they want you to play. Is it fair that
promotional listings are even a thing? No, because
if you got the best listing, maybe you should
pop up first. If you got the best price, maybe
you should pop up first. But they have to make
money. They are a business. These platforms are
businesses. Amazon has ads as well. We just don't
deal with it in the used media land. But when
I listed on eBay, I always promoted my stuff.
I think, I don't, I mean, I don't do it. Like
I'm not knee deep in eBay, but I think like.
I know if I ever got back into eBay, I would
promote everything at more than the rate they
would want because I know a lot of you suckers
aren't. And unlike most people, I want to sell
my stuff and make some damn money. I don't want
to sit around. My goal is to have a zero -item
store, everything sold. There you go. I mean,
okay, there are some other things that you could
do if you're a fee shock individual. okay, if
your cost of goods are $1 .50 per book, somewhere
in there, okay, how can I get them lower to make
up my marginability back other than volume? Because
some people don't want to do tremendous volume.
So you got to think differently. So let's cut
cost. That's a way to make the same amount of
margin once we're making. Whether that's buying,
okay, I normally buy 100 poly bags, but if I
buy 1 ,000 poly bags, I get a 15 % discount.
That's 15 % more of my money back in my pocket.
Or like the subscriptions for the tools. There's
usually a monthly and a yearly. Even in groups
and stuff, that's usually the case. And there's
percent savings. So again, I'm making up marginability
back. And you just figure out how to cut cost
by either changing your purchasing habits and
or looking for deals. Like if you know Uline
has that once a year. Shipping thing, you save
up all year long and you go big on that purchase
because you're going to save 50 % over the course
of the entire year of stuff you're going to buy
anyway. Same with shipping labels. Or you figure
out, there are ways to figure out how to get
stuff for free. Your books too, your CDs, DVDs,
and video games too. If you cut all your buy
cost out, you're going to eat some time and a
little bit of gas money, but it can be done.
And you can make up some margin back. It's not
easy. And here's where I think this stemmed from.
People don't like not easy things. And they get
mad when life becomes a little bit harder because
they think life is as hard as it's going to be.
And when something new comes up, making their
life harder, it feels like they got punched in
the face. And they don't like getting punched
in the face. And so they scream and yell about
it and do nothing. And it does. Does them, does
no one else that's reading it or who they're
yelling at any good? It's just a waste of time
all around for all involved. Yeah. Like you said,
with the shipping, like shipping goes up like
three times a year now. Like every time it's
like, this is the end of times, right? Like,
well, what are you going to do about it? I mean,
you start your own. That'll be the next comments
I start seeing. I'm going to start my own shipping
company, right? Everybody's got this grand solution
to these problems that you just can't account
for. You know shipping's going up three times
a year. You go in, you change your shipping profile
on eBay where you do calculated shipping and
you don't even got to change anything. You could
literally just pass it on to the consumer. Oh,
well, then they take the fees off the shipment.
So technically you're paying more fees. Well,
listen here, little Johnny. If you can't afford
the extra dimes and nickels, then... this ain't
for you i mean we are reselling junk that we're
buying for nothing and a lot of times 10x in
our money all day long like if you can't like
john said if you can't find margin to cover these
fees that are so predatory and so business crushing
then you gotta you gotta do something because
well i guess well i guess it's cool to whine
about things now though right it's just cool
to just be like oh man this sucks fees are up
man this is the end of course the fees are up
look at look at the everything everything's up
what was the last time you went and bought something
from anywhere like wow this was actually cheaper
than it was a year ago like it doesn't it doesn't
exist anymore so like hello it's just Get with
the times. As crappy as that sounds, we can't
control the fees. It's not like they come and
ask, hey, should we raise fees? All in favor,
raise your hand, right? Like, nobody's ever going
to raise their hand, right? It's crazy to me
that we get so bent out of shape. And I'm just
like, I just pay Amazon, you know, $100 ,000
a year in fees. And people are like, you paid
them $100 ,000 in fees? And I'm just like, yeah,
but it's all accounted for. That's the only number
they see. They don't see all those other numbers
over here. They're good numbers. They just see
this one number and they're like tunnel vision
because no other numbers exist. And the brain's
exploding like Mount St. Helens. I know. I know.
And I just think to myself when I see one of
those little ugly Amazon vans, I'm just like,
yeah, I own that. That's mine. Yeah, I know.
I bought one of those for you, right? Like it's
all a huge network of things when it comes to
the fees. People just, resellers take it personally.
Like, I've been selling on eBay for 60 years.
Well, no shit, the fees aren't what they were
back when you started back in 1922. If you're
a free shipping guy and your business is suffering
because of shipping, maybe switch from free shipping.
Wow. That is the best piece of advice we've given
ever on this podcast. Maybe you should start
charging for shipping because that's marginability
for just selling the same damn item. I was a
real true life story. True life, MTV style, old
school true life for those that remember MTV
when they actually had documentaries. True life
was one of them. So I was a huge proponent of
free shipping back when I did eBay. that was
selling the cat and dog toys and she said like
there ain't no way i'm doing free shipping and
looking back it was the smartest decision she
made because the fees go up multiple times a
year and you pass it on to the customer and people
just you know they might be bent out of shape
but that's what it calls to ship an item right
so it's not like you're ripping anybody off it's
uh it's it sucks but if you don't like it cbs
is hiring i mean They might not be in business
for much longer, but you can go do something
else. I remember I did my first reselling year
free shipping. That's only because everybody
I asked or saw on the YouTube land, they were
doing low margin, high volume, and free shipping
was part of that model. And that was different
than my eBay model, but I took that as a blanket.
Nobody else is saying otherwise, this is what
I need to do. And then it just dawned on me.
Why don't I just charge for shipping? This sounds
better. And it was better and is better. I don't
even do media mail. I do first class mail with
all my eBay orders. It's sometimes priority if
they want to pay stupid money for it. But, yeah,
and that's the other thing. People try to pick
the lowest shipping class. Like, what is it?
Bound printed matter. And then there's media
mail. And then you got first class mail. I just
want first class. It is what it is. It gets there
within two days. I'm covered with $100 free insurance.
So no matter what, I'm getting $100 out of this
item, whether they lose it or not. Yeah. I love
me some bound printed matter on Amazon when I
used to do merchant fulfilled. I'm like, I'm
going to save three cents and I'm going to invest
this three cents and I'm going to be a millionaire
off the back of this three cents that I saved
today. Right. And I'm not saying don't use bound
printed matter. Don't use media mail. But I mean,
at the end of the day, it's just run your business
how you see fit. If you get better margins for
bound point or matter route, that's the solution
you came up with. That's okay. That is a perfect
solution. A lot of people do it. Another thing
in that is, I know Mike's not a big proponent
of credit cards, but there are plenty of cash
back cards for each mailing label. You can get
2%, 2%, 2%, 2%. Crank that up. I mean, that's
more margin back to you. I mean, a buddy of mine,
I think he got nine grand back for the year in
his cash back. He spends a lot of money in order
to do that, but it all adds up. Or you can funnel
it into points or whatever. You're making the
money up. Again, this is all about problem solving.
We are problem solvers as business owners. You
got to ask yourself, I think there's like six
critical questions. Who, what, where, when, how,
why, and to what extent? To what extent is the
duration of how long it's going to go on for,
for those that aren't familiar. When is when
you're starting. So there are different questions.
You can solve like 95 % of problems with just
those six questions. The hardest part is to figure
out which order the questions go in for what
problem. Like if you need to buy a home. probably
your leading question is where versus how. Unless
you got very little money, then how might be
the leading question. Again, it's about the order
you put things in, and then you can work it out
from there by answering the other five questions.
I think fees overall, they're always going to
be there. There's always going to be more. And
even if they decided to come out on lower fees,
People that complain about high fees will just
be like, well, they're just preparing us for
next year where they're going to quadruple the
fees. So they lower fees this year and then next
year we're going to pay a million times more
like the people that are always going to be Debbie
Downers about everything, especially with the
fees. There is no satisfying these people. They're
going to be a no fee weekend. This is just a
weekend. And next month, they're going to raise
it up and we're all going to have to pay the
price. And these people are just miserable all
around. That's what I realized. Like, if you
complain about fees or eating away at your business,
then you don't you don't have the margin to begin
with. Give me some final thoughts on fees before
we roll out of here. I mean. They're never going
to go away. There's no there's no happy. sunshine
rainbows and puppy dogs out there where these
fees go away. They're just inevitable reality.
They're going to increase every year. And you
have to figure it out. It is your responsibility.
Amazon, eBay. The post office, they aren't going
to give you the gift of we're lowering fees except
watching a blue moon. But that's already after
they jacked it up 50%. So lowering it another
2 % doesn't mean diddly because you're still
left with 48 % going up than what it did originally.
So don't think you're getting a break. There's
no such thing as a free lunch, especially with
fees. Yeah, yeah. I think this was a great opportunity
for me and Johnny to tell you that we have never
raised. The $2 .99 monthly fee to join our wonderful,
amazing group that's all about selling books
on Amazon and eBay, CDs, DVDs as well, whatever
it may be. So unlike Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Mercari,
whatnot, Depop, all of them, we have not raised
our fees since we first launched this group.
And Johnny tells me every day, listen, you guys
want to get angry? Johnny wants to raise fees,
and he's been wanting to raise fees for like
years now. Since we started. When we started,
I said $2 .99 was too low. Here we are like four
years fucking later. Everybody else is raising
their damn fees, but not Mike. Not Mike. He's
staying the course with his $2 .99. We might
lower our fees. Fuck off. I want to have a million
people on Johnny's call so he goes crazy, but
that's going to do it for the episode. Don't
let the fees get you bent out of shape, and we'll
talk to you all next week. Thanks for listening
to another episode of the Reseller's 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
$2 .99 a month.