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
to another episode of Reseller's Mindset Podcast.
I'm right next to Johnny. running a lean operation,
kind of the whole, I don't know, focal point
of my business. Not necessarily because I do
push some big numbers some weeks. And when I
do dive into bulk, I do kind of send in a lot
of the inventory. So I don't even think I necessarily
have a lean operation, but I do enjoy the idea
of having an inventory of maybe only a hundred
SKUs and you sell the same items, or maybe you
sell in a category where You know, we talk about
it all the time. Maybe you're the phone seller
or the expensive bag designer, bag seller, and
you just keep looking for the same items because
you know what they're worth. You know how desirable
they are. I think, dude, I think if you have
a super lean operation in reselling, that is
like, that's the best place to be, honestly,
at the end of the day. Right. I mean, you can
go large. You can like what's behind you and
your background there. And you can go deep and
wide in that aspect, have 50 employees, the forklifts,
all of this and the other. But if you have a
lean operation, maybe you and a small team, maybe
the pinnacle of where you're ever going to be,
maybe three to five people. I think that is the
best place to be as. it's in and out your efficiencies
are so good your processes are so good you built
in automation where you would normally need employee
you've now replaced that with either software
or some kind of ai extension or maybe your employees
are all mainly ba they're paper pushers more
or less that That I think is more ideal than
the gigantic warehouse of doom and destruction.
That's all great. And they make for great photos
on Instagram, but their overhead is ginormous
by doing that. Even if you got them for like
$12 an hour employees, they're pushing 40 hour
weeks. A lot of them, maybe plus three optional
overtime hours or something of that nature. Payroll
is going to be your most. Comparable to probably
your rent, unless you own a building, then payroll
is definitely your biggest expense. Yeah, I think
about it. I just look. I sell over 1 ,000 units
a month on Amazon. What if you just sold 100
units that were 10x the ASP of your 1 ,000 units?
That's the idea I like. I'm just like, well,
I don't have to do as much work, as much prep,
as much sourcing. But yet again. Can you find
this stuff that you can have the margins to have
a sustainable business if you're planning on
running a super lean operation? I think that's
the catch 22. That's why you kind of see, you
know, we look at the video game category, right?
They're buying at 70, 80 percent of market value
and they're squeezing out the extra 20, 25 percent.
But their items are more desirable so they can
they have a faster turnover of the money. I think
the trap is people try to run a lean operation.
And they don't have desirable items or even high
ASP items. So you're never going to be able to
see any type of success when you got 100 or 1
,000 items listed. And it's all $5 to $25 junk.
If you're going to be lean, we're talking $75,
$100 plus ASP if you only want to carry a small
inventory. Because you got to make money doing
this. And usually, in these super lean operations,
you got to pay more up front. So for my 1 ,000
units I sell on Amazon. Maybe cost me a thousand
bucks at a dollar a piece for those versus maybe
I only sell 10 units a month, but I had to pay
$500 for each to make $200 on each one of those.
So it's more cash intensive upfront and resellers
are so afraid to spend more than a dollar. That's
why you really don't. see any of those type of
operations and they're really not as flashy,
right? If I'm selling the same 10 items, same
50, 100 items, it's kind of hard to, it's not
exciting, right? You're just kind of like we
do. It's just a boring job that makes you money.
Right. And even those bigger operations, they're
willing to sell things to make $2 profits on
an item, but they sling up so many, they may
sell, I don't know, three, two to 500 units a
day. And that's how they're able to at least
maintain operations. And some of them can't maintain
it even at that low margin. But they deal with
so many products, they kind of have to do that
or else they spend 90 % of the time throwing
stuff away. Now, for a lean operation, I think
what you need is consistency and efficiency in
processes. The consistency comes in maybe...
Well, definitely for yourself, but once you bring
in people, you have to have consistent people.
It's none of this, my tummy hurts, or I got a
toothache. There's none of that bullshit. They
come in, they clock in, they say hi, maybe you
say hi back, and they get to work. Then they
say, bye, boss, and I say, bye, see you tomorrow,
and they come in tomorrow. Those are the people
you need. There's little yap time. There's all
work time. It's the same thing every day. Consistency
and it's repeatable. Just like your sources coming
in every day or you have a route, you go out
and do it every day or whatever. The employees
have to be consistent. But before you can even
have that, you have to have consistency with
yourself. And unfortunately, well, not unfortunately,
just what's going to happen is you need a schedule.
You need to have a schedule for yourself. That's
the only way I see you running a tight lean operation
with some kind of schedule. I hate to say it,
but when I hear people say, I just wake up when
I want to. I'm a reseller. I cringe at that so
hard. I'm like, no, you're lazy is what you are.
And if I'm talking to you and you feel like I'm
calling you out, well, that's exactly what I'm
doing. Get yourself a damn schedule and get to
work, my good sir or ma 'am. You'll thank me
later. You'll hate me now, though. Yeah, that
was me many moons ago. I think you can be a larger
seller and still have a lean operation. But I
think you have to be more in tune with the market
you're selling in and selling to. Because if
you're not going to carry... a million different
SKUs like we're talking about. You have to know
what's exactly going on. I think about like if
I was going to be a lean bookseller, right? Like
maybe I would just niche down and just do like
the, what are the fancy books called again? 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 building profit analytics,
it's a no -brainer. Easily and quickly have items
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trial at gotolister .com backslash Mike or using
the link in the description below. pay 70 of
the market value that i could get that extra
30 out i think that's a it's a more i don't know
how to even say it's it's not more time consuming
because if you think about it you're going to
be going out and sourcing all these crappy items
anyway you just spend your time differently you
instead of going and buying all the junk you
spend more time researching researching more
items you're going to pay more dollars for so
i think on surface level people think that It's
not possible. But I love the idea of not having,
you know, 5000 plus pieces of items sitting in
my inventory. And a lot of the mega sellers,
they don't have tons of skews and media. Yeah,
sure. But in other categories. they carry small
amount of SKUs, you know, like they don't have
to play this game of you're always looking for
the next, you know, the next item or like wholesale,
right? You go to the brand, you know what you're
getting, you make your 20, 25%, 30 % and you
kind of wash your hands of it. With us, it's
just your average reseller. It's tough to kind
of get out of that mindset of, oh, I got to go
to the thrift store and I got to look everything
up and see what it's going for on eBay or Amazon.
Right. I think that's a good point. If you need
to make concessions, like in your scenario, it's
probably eBay. I mean, you can sell Easton on
Amazon as well, but it sells. I think the sell
through is just as good as on eBay, honestly.
The thing about eBay is once you make that listing,
you now have it forever. It's repeatable. Like
you said, limited amount of SKUs. And yeah, they
have new books come out every year, but yeah.
Also, I think with that kind of niching down.
you're more focused and your travel may go up
a little bit. You may have to drive farther to
get the library collection of Eastern Press,
but that's okay because your product is on point.
You know exactly what you're getting. You know
it'll sell within the month that you listed,
either sending a box to Amazon or listing on
eBay itself. And that's an interesting concept.
Can you niche down in Amazon? I think you can.
Yeah, I definitely think you can, but you've
got to investigate and know your SKUs, know when
to rotate your SKUs in and out. But you could
run a tight, lean, high ASP operation inside
Amazon land. Yeah, it won't be in used books.
It won't be easy, but it's definitely doable.
Yeah, I think it's the most appealing resale
business to have is not having to always juggle.
just think about like unless it's a box of dvds
even the dvds are different sizes like dude putting
together a box of books it's like jenga that
that you got to do every single week right so
it's like imagine just uniform uniform sizes
right you just fill the lows box up and everything
fits perfectly you can fit exactly 24 of this
you know exactly how many is in there you know
the exact weight of the box right like don't
even need to weigh it this sounds like this is
dreamland for me right like Sign me up for this.
But it's not as easy or as much. If it was that
easy, everybody would do it. I think it's hard.
It would be hard to do it. But once your initial
work's done and. You just have to stay on top
of the rotation because things fall out of trend
phase and they come back or there's new things
out that are newly trendy. You got to figure
out, do I drop SKUs? Do I add SKUs back in? And
SKUs is universal here between eBay and Amazon
because you're replenishing. I don't care where
you're replenishing at. That's all you're really
doing. And then maybe you replenish new items
that you bring into your own personal buy catalog
for the year. I got a crazy, I got a crazy idea
for everybody to have a leaner business. And
this would kind of be cool. Now I think about
it, right? So Amazon lane, you have prep centers,
right? So you just throw yourself in a box, send
to the prep center, or you buy things online,
it goes directly to the prep center, not your
house, right? That's one idea of it, right? So
what if you just factored in the $2 they charge
you per item? and the 50 cents per item to ship
it to the prep center. And you never had to list
your own items again. And you just fill the box
up and send it to them or vice versa, right?
Like the idea of consignment, right? Like theoretically,
if I send Johnny enough stuff, like I send Johnny,
I don't know, over the course of a year, I send
Johnny 10 ,000, 15 ,000, you know, like I can
have a whole eBay business, right? And I wouldn't
have to ever list anything myself. I would never
have to do a photo of myself. Like that is like
kind of talking about like, I hear a lien, I'm
like less work. I mean, yeah. Do I give up 50
% of the sale to Johnny? Do I have to pay to
ship it to him? Yeah. But at the end of the day,
I don't do nothing else. I mean, that's just
it. You just sit back and get paid. Yeah. And
then even for myself, when receiving is 10 ,000
units, 9 ,999 of them are going to another person.
So I've created a lien operation. on that and
this chain of events we're talking about here
then that poor other person has to decide how
much of this shit's going to mckay's of mike's
versus i'm actually going to list it on ebay
yeah but i mean even if i was doing like all
desirable stuff right like even if i'm just doing
eastern presses and i accounted for that when
i was making the buying decisions You could have
a nice little business where you theoretically,
I mean, I've seen this out in thrift stores.
There's companies that you can scan for and they'll
tell you, hey, we'll give you five hours for
this book, six hours for the book. I've seen
a lady, she's scanning everything using one of
those apps. So she doesn't have an Amazon account.
She just scans for that. She says, well, the
books are 99 cents here. Anything they're going
to pay me more than 99 cents for, I buy, throw
it in a box, send it in. They pay me through
PayPal right away. I want to talk to that person.
They're just running the buyback program business.
i want to meet the powerhouse who's maximized
that i want to talk to them i have questions
it was an older lady and i tried to explain to
her that she's getting ripped off because i was
talking to her for a little bit but is she she
is she though yeah dude because they don't pay
on the fast movement stuff they give you a decent
amount but anything that isn't like going to
sell within the week like they were giving her
like three four bucks on some of these books
like i scanned like i was scanning her cart like
those are like 30 bills all day long So I think
if the spread was closer and it wasn't as scammy
on their end, 100%, she's better off. She's got
no fees and she's got no liquidations or any
of that. Yeah, if the spread was better, I think
100 % she would have the better business model.
But for a lot of that stuff, they kind of shortchange
it because they know people don't know better.
They just want to get money for their items.
So they kind of take advantage of that. you can
be super big and super lean. Like Johnny said,
you just have to have the processes. If you're
going to have the warehouse, you're going to
need the equipment. You can't be diving into
Gaylord yourself. You can't be getting pallets
of clothing and pallets of shoes. And there's
so many processes that go into it. And I think
That's going to be the key part is once you find
the product, you could almost say the products,
getting the product is going to be harder than
actually having processes in place that don't
consume your whole life or having employees in
place that aren't going to suck the life out
of you. And if something goes wrong or their
tummy hurts and they can't come in, you're kind
of screwed. Yeah, I mean, even if you're running
a bulk operation, if you run a bulk lean operation,
that's a beautiful place to be. Instead of 20
employees, again, you have like a max of five.
It's you plus five other people. And two of them
are just to account for. They got a dentist appointment.
They got a doctor's appointment. Just so every
day it's maximized. And that would be amazing.
And maybe you don't have like back you there.
I see a lot of warehouses, they go extremely
tall, right? Then they get the equipment to go
up there. Instead of tall, maybe you got, I don't
know, you built a custom warehouse where it's
long and not tall and nothing's beyond six feet.
Everything's within arm reach. Then you can rule
out a whole bunch of equipment you don't need
and or the maintenance that goes along with it
and or replacements when needed. I mean, if you
can run the bulk lean operation, I think you've
won the game entirely. I've seen them, dude,
right? The conveyor belts that it scans it and
then it'll actually go down the belt and it'll
actually push it into what Gaylord it goes to.
So it'll scan for like all the different buyback
companies, Amazon, Crosslisten, all of it. And
then all you need is an employee that's laying
the book barcode up, scans it, and then it goes
down, boom, kicks it right out, kicks it right
out, kicks. But I mean, we're talking hundreds
of thousands of dollars. And most people will
never get there. But I think a lot of people
try to run a lean operation and they just don't
have the quality and they don't have like the
processes to be like, hey, you know, this actually
works. And I'm only working five, 10 hours a
week, right? Like it's tough. I helped somebody
set up a manual conveyor belt over Zoom. And,
you know, those rolly things you see at the airport
that luggage go on. That was their conveyor belt.
It wasn't automated. So everything rolled. And
then they had a, what were they called? Squeegees.
It was squeegee them over into the Gaylord thing
when they needed to bump them in. And it was
a manual thing and it was low cost. It was probably
less than a grand. And it was like, this is awesome.
This is terrible, but it's awesome at the same
time, right? But they had a tight labor force
going. There's only three of them. So they were
able to do it pretty quick and process maybe,
I don't know. three or four to five pallets a
day. And then you'll push the buggies where they
need to go. So I think it can be done in some
ingenuity and probably on your front or maybe
the team's front, you all get together and do
a think tank. You can cut things you don't need.
I think the equipment, the space, the multiple
employees, these are luxury, probably overspending
things you don't necessarily need. Some of them
you do need. Maybe you do need the, I don't know,
80 feet tall warehouse for reasons you want to
go vertical instead of horizontal. And you got
your own reasonings for that. But at the end
of the day, I think all things are possible.
And the tighter you are, the tighter your staff
is. Even if you have plans for no staff, you're
going to need a VA or two just for the paperwork
alone. So I don't think you can go entirely solo
these days. Or maybe use ChatGPT. We'll consider
that an employee. a robot employee, but an employee
in itself. I think incorporating all this over
time, don't do it right now, new seller who's
listening, like I'm getting a VA tomorrow. No,
need to wait. Incorporating all of these things
together will make your business sing. I agree.
I think everybody should strive to run a leaner
business, whether that's getting time back or
making more dollars per hour. And just you're
finding some of your processes or maybe adding
on something that's going to make your business
later. Like Johnny's saying, theoretically, add
an employee could make your business leaner.
If you have a big need for it for a part of your
business that's sucking up your whole life and
you can do more money making activities and just
let this person do this one thing that kind of
really isn't producing the money. It's all a
balancing act. And I don't think anybody should
just work to work and resell on like that's why
I try to be. as lazy as I possibly can be and
as profitable as I possibly can be. It's hard
to kind of get that mix down. In Amazon land,
you can get away with it just like you can in,
you know, even any generic reselling. You can
drag along. a shitty reselling business for years
and years and years. So you really don't think
that there's another way until you do something
different. And then you're like, wait a minute,
I've been doing this wrong forever. I'm like,
I could have got how much of my time back if
I just made this one change, right? So you should
always be looking for little things that are
gonna make your business leaner. And for me,
like I've always been about, I wanna spend as
little time as I possibly can. Sure, the other
argument is, well, Mike, if you go spend more
time, you can make more money. Yes, but even
that's not 100 % guaranteed. How many people
work all these hours in reselling and their wage
goes down? They're just spending time doing shit
that has no effect on their business or they're
doing things that aren't being done correctly.
They're listing items that are never going to
sell or they're screwing around with trying to
do 10 different platforms and all this other
nonsense. Or maybe they're trying to do FBA,
OA, and RA and do some eBay in that too. That's
a bit too much, in my opinion, for one person.
Now, can you? Yes. Should you? Probably not.
I agree. It's the same idea I tell everybody.
Don't try to do all these damn different platforms.
Same idea when people cross -list. I'm going
to list my junk on all the platforms. Well, it's
still junk at the end of the day. By listing
non -desirable items, you are literally creating
a problem for yourself. I don't think people
realize this. They're just like, well, I'm just
going to list this stuff. And eventually it'll
sell on one of the 35 platforms it's listed on.
I'm like, no, it's never going to sell. It will
sit there forever. You know, like people don't
realize when you list an item, it's not guaranteed
to sell, right? There's no, it's hard to find,
right? Only the super lean desirable. If that
were true, my eBay store would be zero items
right now. There are things that may sell in
five years down the road. And then all eBay stores
grow as long as you're listing consistently.
There are very few stores that shrink. And the
stores that shrink are kind of like what we're
talking about. They have a limited replenishable
SKU system going on. And they upload them in.
They sell out. They do it again and again and
again. Versus most eBay stores where they just
grow continuously. There's just, we list more
that's profitable to us. And then there's the
stuff that's left over. And then at some point,
the stuff that's left over, we got to make a
call. Do we burn it? Do we try to make it a lot?
Or we just, I don't know, donate it. Yeah, I
mean, even if you look at yours, like you do
your listings different than anybody else on
the platform. So it's like the generic reseller
will just list it and then expect that, well,
I listed it, eventually it's got to sell. And
I'm here to tell you, there is no guarantee that
anything is going to sell that you list. And
I think that that's so like, oh, well, I listed
it and I'm just going to stick it on the shelf
and it will eventually sell. Like you literally
just wasted time working for no damn reason at
all. Like if we can get away from those types
of products, right? Then we're going to be good.
But you can't be the person that's just going
to list your generic item, your generic item
with your generic listing and nothing's different.
And there's two photos. I can't list the Patterson's
or the Nora's. It just doesn't work for my store.
They'll stay away. It's crazy to me because people
think they're working and you're not. You're
just wasting time. And I guess it justifies spending
all these hours. I want you all to be the most
profitable and have the highest dollar per hour.
And all the people that... complain about dollar
per hour and resell and it'll be in the comment
sections but i don't care at the end of the day
we should be making as much money and as a little
bit of time i don't care what business this is
nobody's like i want to work all these hours
to make as little bit of money as i possibly
can said no successful business person ever true
oh man it's it's crazy to me what i look around
even in uh even in our group in the discord i
see a lot of people wasting time i don't say
too much on it because part of it is i could
tell them but it's kind of like we said in the
other podcast they got to learn from themselves
that they're wasting their time now if they come
out and say i think i'm wasting my time then
i'll chime in yes you are and here are the 10
reasons why but i agree until that point they
got to learn from themselves and there's no there's
no amount of screaming i could do i've tried
screaming at them before it doesn't work At least
in Amazon land, you can set up some settings
where things automatically get burned after 12
months. I guess I'm contributing to the ecosystem
of the never -ending supply of stuff that doesn't
sell. I think they just take those items and
list them as new. Probably. That's my theory.
I remember when I was an everything seller on
eBay, dude. i would list something and it would
sit there and like especially when i didn't have
that big of a store like i never really had over
i don't even think i had close to a thousand
items ever listed on ebay and like i see the
same that i bought and it didn't sell yet and
i know it cost me five dollars or whatever and
just like it drives me nuts but for some reason
people can just block that out they just block
out the fact that That pair of shoes has been
there for three years, and they just let it continue.
They'll go into that bin to pick other items
for the next five years, and every time they
open it, they know what's in there, and they
just let it exist. Yeah, it's a thing, unfortunately.
I mean, it's like X amount of time goes by. You
got to toss those pairs of shoes, man. It's occupying
space for shoes that will sell. That's the thing.
The real estate, if you're the merchant fulfiller,
I don't care if it's eBay, Amazon, or some other
place where you're shipping the item yourself,
you have to value your space. That space is not
free occupancy. Even if you are in your home,
it has an assigned value. So what's your assigned
value to it? And then, sure, this pair of shoes
may meet that assigned value, but they're not
selling. So that's basically zero value. I agree.
We'll wrap this episode up here. We want you
to have a leaner operation. And just because
you're leaner doesn't mean you're less profitable.
Honestly, most leaner operations are more profitable
than us idiots over here like me and Johnny that
have thousands and thousands and trillions and
billions and gazillions of books, CDs, DVDs laying
around listed. This is a lot of work. And we
would trade it in if we could just find a hundred
of the same item and sell it. significantly all
the time and have a higher sell through. So always
be thinking about what can you do to get some
of your time back, make some more money, make
your processes a little bit easier. And we'll
talk to you all in next week's episode. 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
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