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 an episode of Restore Your Mindset Podcast.
Mike next to Johnny. Mike is going to shut up
because it's Johnny's topic. Johnny will get
you into the topic today, and it's going to be
a fun one. Yes. Yes, it will. So, I don't know,
a week, week and change ago, there was some,
I guess I was pushing some people's buttons in
the Discord about how a new person probably wants
to start selling high -end only, especially if
they're part -time or on limited hours because
they're probably testing out the waters of reselling.
And a lot of naysayers there. So, today's topic
is how to run a $50... plus eBay store and only
kind of source for those items, at least at the
beginning. As I think that context was lost on
a lot of folks is like, no, you must list only
$50 items forever and all of time. That wasn't
really what I was trying to say. It was more
if you're new or starting out, maybe 20 hours
or under, let's start doing it this way. And
I'm going to apply it to books, CDs, and DVDs
here. One of the main argument points was consistency.
You're not going to get enough. Okay, that is
fair, but how do you overcome that? To me, that's
predictable sourcing, places where high -value
media appears, well, freaking regularly. Like,
you can't just go down to your Goodwill down
the street and all they have is garbage taking
that shit all the time. No, that ain't going
to work. You got to go around. You got to go
poke around and find out where the good stuff
is actually ending up at. Number two of three
that makes this work is you got to do a fast
evaluation. You can't be there 10 hours in one
store. That ain't going to work. And so you need
some kind of method. It may be beyond your phone
and it may just be your head knowledge building
a catalog of a fast evaluation in less than 30
seconds, in my opinion, per item. Probably should
be trimmed way down. You got to recognize these
things on site. And then you have to be able
to replenish these things because buying a bunch
of one -offs, Yeah, maybe $50 plus, maybe $120,
whatever. But if you can't find it consistently,
it isn't going to work. You need to be able to
find these things consistently. You're tried
and true. And that kind of comes in that mental
Rolodex, being able to recognize things on site.
And that's where you're going to require, well,
homework. Yeah, homework. You've got to look
at the eBay solds. Go to your category, CDs,
DVD, books. Take 15 minutes. Scroll. What's selling
for $50 plus? There's a filter that enables you
to look at solds for $50 plus. Burn these into
your memory. Or if you're savvy enough to have
some software built for you that image scans
the whole shelf for you for these particular
items, great. Technology's there for you too.
I'm going to let Mike chime in here on what I've
said so far. I think a lot of the problem with
everything you said, Johnny, is that a lot of
resellers we love only spending a buck or two
bucks on an item and i think to get this better
quality stuff you have to be willing to let a
ten dollar bill from your pocket every once in
a while and in even in excess of that i mean
yeah if we compare this to other business models
right the main two that jump out to me are video
game sellers right they're paying 70 80 of the
actual collections value so there's you know
skimming you know, maybe 15 % after fees, maybe
10 % after fees of actual profit back into the
bank account. And it's the same way. We've all
seen the videos where people are selling like
flipping iPhones, right? You go buy an iPhone,
you pay 150, you can sell it for 200 bucks. After
fees, you make 25 bucks. But I think the big
thing with this is if you're going to go the
higher end route, find stuff that's actually
going to sell because if you're spending more
money, you can't afford to have it tied up. And
Johnny told me this topic before. our other podcast
this morning that we record. And I went and pulled
up my eBay numbers. All right. I got a little
bit of evidence to support that this can be done.
eBay land is not the land for the used book guy.
All right. This is not where I want to be. I
walk into the club, right? And I'm wearing like
a tuxedo and everybody's like wearing like swimwear,
right? Like I just, I'm out of place over there,
but I have been dabbling more. in the type of
stuff Johnny is talking about. So in the past
60 days, I've sold $1 ,926. The quantity sold
is 42. So my average sales price is $45 .86.
I mean, it's not hitting Johnny's $50 mark, right?
But you're close, man. You're real close. My
current active inventory. is 29 items. I've sold
42 in 60 days. My current active is 29 items.
If I can do it, anybody can do it. And what Johnny
said, if we're going to the thrift store, this
business model is next to impossible unless you
have really good type of boutique type thrift
stores where they have quality stuff, but they
charge more for it. But I have the same opportunity
to list items underneath. the 46 average selling
price for me when i decide whether or not to
list an item on ebay it's 30 minimum full transparency
none of this stuff is books cds or dvds all right
this is just your average type household goods
uh candles things like that right like stuff
that i'm getting uh not from thrift stores from
actual brands themselves So this is possible.
And I think, dude, in a perfect world, honestly,
if I could come across the type of stuff we're
talking about today, I would 100 % rather go
that route instead of selling my $10, $12 DVDs,
CDs, and books. I mean, we all should strive
to go up the hill in average selling price. And
I think the disconnection from what you said
and how people took it is you can't find this
stuff every single way. Every single place you
go to, you got to have relationships. We talk
about relationships, even me down here in the
weeds with my $15 ASP on Amazon, right? Relationships
allow me to get the better type stuff, right?
I go do the library pickup. Sure, there's $15
stuff, but there's also somebody's personal collection
of Stephen King books that I can sell for, you
know, $75 a piece, first editions. You have to
have relationships to get the quality items anymore.
There is so much competition out there besides
other resellers. We have junk clean out companies,
estate clean out companies. You got thrift stores.
They all have online presences. You got people
that are buying from the back room directly.
There is so much competition out there that just
walking into your thrift store. Sure, can it
make you a couple thousand dollars a month? Yes,
but it's going to be a lot of damn work. What
if I told you you could go? And build a relationship
with somebody. And then you go get the best items.
Maybe you spend $100 on that item, right? But
you can sell it for $200, right? Then you know,
oh, well, let's go on Facebook Marketplace. Let's
find the same thing, right? Let's see if we can
make this replicate itself. That is the exciting
part to me. It's like people that sell replans
on Amazon and eBay. You got one listing. You
just change the quantity when you get another
one in. Change the quantity. Who wouldn't want
this type of business? I think it's almost the
perfect reselling business to have. And in the
beginning, it might seem far -fetched that you
can do this. But I think what you were trying
to get at is it's going to take some work. But
if you do it now, it's only going to benefit
you tenfold in the future. Because me and Johnny
are sitting here 20 years later still hoping
we can replicate that business that he's talking
about where we can sell the $50 ASP items. And
I'll tell you, right? It sounds crazy, right?
Like to have an ASP of $46. I sold 43. I only
got 29 listed. Like I'm not carrying a huge amount
of inventory. Sure. I only sold $2 ,000, but
you could easily scale this up if you wanted
to. And that's my plan moving forward. I'm going
to continue to scale this up. I'm going to continue
to list better, more expensive quality items.
I got a few items that are listed for a couple
hundred bucks in my store currently, but it's
all about. Building relationships. This stuff
just didn't wind up in my lap at all. It took
conversations of me having with individuals to
get these products. Right. And I'm not going
to lie to you. It's going to be harder at the
start than people going the other route. Because
it's easy to get a box of DVDs, a trunk of books,
I don't know, a store bin of CDs. That's easy.
And I'm not discrediting the people that like
to do that. I'm not. I'm just saying. What's
up, Amazon tellers? 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. So you're
going to make more money, I think, in the long
run if you run this kind of model, especially
with fees rising, because that's just going to
eat out your margin or your lower end stuff.
And you got two choices, raise your prices or
stop sourcing that crap. But that notwithstanding,
I'm going to kind of give you some easy ones.
I've mentioned them throughout the podcast over
the years, but I'm going to mention them all
in one block. So if you're a note taker, now
would be a good time. Books, you're going to
look for the out of print niche crap. Your technical,
your art design, your regional history, occult,
witchcraft, tabletop RPG, certain cookbooks,
university press, or small presses. For books,
that's pretty good. Also specific editions. I
mean, this kind of requires some book knowledge,
but if you're able to identify a first edition,
an illustrated edition, a limited print run,
and Pacific ISBN cover variants, yeah. they'll
pick those up too and then your sets and volumes
a lot of sets ain't worth fifty dollars or more
some of them are being able to identify those
pretty much on site like if i knew what an eastern
press books look looks like i picked that up
no brainer every time that now that's not saying
there are eastern press books fifty dollars or
less there are but that is a fast seller you
may want to pick it up regardless because that
publisher will just fly off the shelf And again,
I'm not saying limit yourself to $50 or higher,
but on average, you should be attempting this.
Now, for your CDs, same thing. You're out of
print. You're limited press. You're certain genres.
You got your metal, your punk, your indie, your
Japanese import, early pressings, box sets. You
got your long box special weird packaging. Sometimes
that pushes value. On your DVD front, you got
your boutique labels, your Criterion, your Aero.
your limited steelbooks, your niche cult horror,
complete series box sets, and then you've got
your region format oddities. That can push the
value depending on what it is because maybe it
has a different art cover on the disc itself
that makes it $75 for reasons that collectors
decided to be so. Now, you can pick one of these.
You can pick all three of these. If you pick
all three, you're going to find more $50 plus
items, in my opinion, and you can run a fantastic
eBay store doing that. Now, I didn't mention
everything, but I mentioned enough to get you
started. There are plenty of other things. Mike's
more experienced with CDs and DVDs. He could
probably give you a couple more than I did on
my little short list here, but those I know are
valuable. You could do concert DVDs, usually
always hold value, even if it's your least favorite
artist, right? Like even if it's, I remember
the, dude, I actually remember this. The first
concert DVD I ever sourced was an NSYNC. uh johnny's
favorite boy band and uh concert dvds are always
amazing even if it's weird stuff you never heard
of uh on the topic of finding like variants of
books these exist more now than ever right just
look at taylor swift's album she put out like
35 different like versions and covers right and
like i found one it was a while back now i got
this from a relationship it was a my library
that i work with uh it's a popular fiction book
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yaros, or however you pronounce
her last name. Super popular fiction book. If
you've seen it in the store, you probably wouldn't
scan it. I personally enjoy scanning fiction.
If the price is right, there's a lot of fast
-moving stuff. But it was a Target -exclusive
cover. So instead of it being like a $10 book,
it was like a $120 book. This is the knowledge,
like we're talking about, that if you want to...
sell the quality items you're not going to find
it walking sure every once in a while you walk
in you find the gem in the thrift store but this
type of stuff You're going upstream, which we
all should be doing anyway. None of us should
just be relying on these crappy thrift stores
that are scanning, looking everything up. Yeah,
I know some people will comment, my thrift stores
are great. Well, my thrift stores used to be
great back in 2023 too. And it's just a matter
of time because as the belts tighten up, they're
going to look for more ways to make money off
the junk they have coming in that they're paying
absolutely nothing for. Your goal, my goal is
every time I drive by Goodwill and I see somebody
offloading something into those dumb gay lords
they have out back. Think to myself, how can
I be the guy that gets that stuff and not the
goodwill, right? That should be our goal is to
get this stuff directly from the source, directly
from the person's bookshelves. I mean, I've crushed
when I was doing free book pickups or when I
was paying 15 cents a pound, I was getting crazy
sets. I have 15 cents a pound, all first edition
Stephen King's, 15 cents a pound, full set of
Dragonlance. I'm talking every goddamn one of
them, all hundred and however many. Full sets
of the Masters of Gar, like 15 cents a pound
because I'm going directly to the source. I'm
going directly to these people's houses. They're
moving. They got to get rid of it. They need
the money. It's got to go somewhere. That, you're
never going to find that in a thrift store. You're
never going to find none of that in a thrift
store. It just does not exist. It is, it's nice.
I'll tell you what, Johnny, I love packing eBay
orders now because I know. I made a nice chunk
of money, right? I don't even care if I got to
put it in a box that cost me a dollar because
I know, hey, this is actually going to make me
money. And in Amazon, we should even be focusing
more on this because you make more money the
higher the average selling price is of your items.
You sell a DVD for 10 bucks. You make $3, but
if you sell it for 30, you make $22, right? So
you make more money as you go up the scale of
the selling price of an item on Amazon. But it's
not, you know, you're not just going to be able
to build a business off this if you just go into
the thrift stores. I mean, I see this in pawn
shops and I pay up in pawn shops in quotation
marks, right? Like I go, I scan the DVDs, they're
20 for $10, right? So like, of course, I'm going
to clean up the DVDs. Well, I'll go over to the
video games. He's got some new games. they're
always willing to cut a deal, right? Because
they want the stuff going. The last, not the
last time, the previous prior to last time, I
seen a bunch of video game guides. It's like,
yeah, they just gave me these. I don't know what
I want to do with them. And I just went through
them. I wound up getting like $500 in profit
just from the video game guide. But like I have
the relationship with him. I walk in the door,
he knows who I am. Hey, how's it going? Where
you been? You got anything you're looking for?
You know, just that type of conversation. And
I think that's the biggest hurdle is people don't
want to. I get it, man. People don't want to
talk to people, right? We live in a world where
we kind of just want to do our thing, go in,
go out. Like how many people you see walking
around, they got headphones on, right? Like they
just want the whole world blocked out from them.
But in reselling, you have to start thinking
about this. I just started going to flea markets
last year. I'm excited to go to more this year.
I'm like, maybe I can get a few relationships
out of that. Maybe some guys that do clean outs,
but like, that's the type of mentality we need
to have. And that's how we can start working
towards consistently getting better items, consistently
driving up our ASP. It's not that you can't do
it. It just takes more work and effort. And,
and you're not going to, you know, it's, you're
never going to find the 1000 item pickup and
it's all 50 plus dollar items. Right. This is,
we're talking, you want the best stuff. You're
taking the best stuff off the top. Forget the
rest of it, right? That's the business model
you have with this. And it's 100 % possible.
I mean, I showed you my numbers and hell, I just
told you guys, I use a terrible listing software
for eBay. I have to correct the listings, but
I don't take none of my own photos, none of that
nonsense. And you guys see the results I can
get. So I 100 % believe it can be done. yet again
anything that's under that 30 dollar mark i'm
not listening right and i got tons of it i wish
i could pop the photo up here i probably have
like 16 boxes of brand new inbox probably sell
some of that stuff but i'm good i don't want
to it's your time it's your your profit per hour
i haven't said that quote in a while but i'm
selling it now i'm saying let's raise the bar
here and if you're new raise the bar from the
get -go you're gonna have a much You're going
to work a lot harder up front, sure, than the
guy not doing this, but you're going to have
huge payoffs later. And to make this consistent,
instead of you having burst sales, you got to
have non -negotiable rules. Like he just said,
if it's 30 or under, I ain't touching it. That's
a rule. Another rule, buy off sole comps, not
listed prices. I don't care if it's listed for
a million dollars. You buy off listed prices.
Listen, you buy off listed prices, you need help.
Yeah, it's sole comps only. You're looking at
sole comps when you're unfamiliar with an item
and you think it's worth money. You're not looking
at listing prices, period. You got to standardize.
You got to have some kind of, I don't know, condition
threshold. Maybe you don't do X libraries unless
it's a slam dunk. Maybe it's no missing inserts
for a CD. Or no disc rod. If it's been stored
in a barn outside for, I don't know, 10 years,
yeah, things may be bangers, but I'm pretty sure
they're not all going to work. Yep. Because they've
just been stored improperly. And you've got to
work your buy list of targets, man. It's that
Rolodex. I mean, you spend 15 minutes a day.
in a category let's say it's books or maybe you
spend 45 minutes a day if you like this idea
and you want to hit all three of these categories
you're spending 15 minutes in each one books
cds dvds and you're just burning these things
in your memory what's popping up what am i seeing
that sells so often and to me that means it's
abundant if you're seeing solds all the time
now you're one -off antiquarian book that's sold
for 10 grand You're probably not going to find
that. Look for some common, repeatable, multi
-monthly sales and that 90 -day sales result
thing that you pull up for any of the category.
And you got to know the keywords to put in eBay
as well. So maybe that's a title, an ISBN, the
sell -through, or like a notable author. Okay,
I'm going to research Stephen King. I hear his
name dropped all the time. But what Stephen King?
material is worth $50 plus. Maybe it's an audio
book. Maybe it's, I don't know, a book from a
certain publisher. And then you leave all the
other Stephen Kings for the other sellers. Concentrate
on the $50 plus ones. Yeah, I, and to give more
context, I send 100 messages every day to brands.
So in the past 30 days, I've sent 3 ,000 messages
to brands about, you know. getting their product
and reviewing it. And then I wind up selling
it if it's worth the actual money. So there is,
you know, legwork. I mean, but with anything
you can't expect, if you're expecting to just
walk in and have a $50 business, like, and you're
not going to have to do anything like it ain't
going to happen. Then days are gone. I don't
know if they've ever even existed, but I mean,
you have to be willing to have a super refined,
focused down business. As you go up the ladder
with ASP, you have to be. an expert in said business
if you're going to sell the higher end stuff
you need to know the makes the models how often
they sell is the market up is the market down
is there a new one coming out is this one you
know it's like the same idea uh when like somebody
passes away a famous person passes away all their
stuff shoots up i mean maybe you could just be
on like maybe you can just track famous people's
health right and if you know somebody's on the
door you just start buying all their stuff and
then uh You're waiting for that small bubble
in the news cycle. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not
going to put no bad news out there in anybody's
name, but, you know, it 100 % exists, right?
They're three doors down, lead singer. Mel Brooks,
Dick Van Dyke, those guys are 90 -plus years
old, 95 -plus years old. I think Mel Brooks is
99. He ain't got many years left. If you were
to stockpile Mel Brooks right now, you just wait
for that small bubble. I don't know, the next
five years, probably sooner, you'll be sitting
pretty. I guarantee there's somebody out there
that does that, man. Like, you just hoard all
the stuff for the people that are, like, 90 -plus
years old. And once the day comes, boom, you
just. bang it all out there instantly i mean
we can get that stuff today for so cheap you're
just basically playing supply and demand when
the time comes and like almost you're just relying
on the trends but i mean that's the same way
with like fashion and like just look at the vintage
market how that's taken off so much you gotta
you gotta be in with the end you gotta know what
the hell is going on if you're just going to
a store and you're just the everything seller
and you don't know that you know I mean, there's
people out there that focus on just like lamps.
There's people out there that just focus on like
kitchen mixers, right? That's their focus. That's
why they can find that stuff because they know
where it's at. First off, where is it located?
You're not going to find many Cuisinart kitchen
mixers, KitchenAid mixers in the Goodwill that
are actually going to work and not in a million
pieces and missing pieces. Clearly that person
ain't going to the Goodwill, right? They're probably
on Facebook Marketplace. Hell, you even can flip
eBay to eBay. You have all these liquidation
stores now. I have a lot of them around me that
get pallets of this stuff from Target and you
can go in and you can buy it at a discount. There's
just so many options out there and you have to
just kind of figure out what you want to sell.
It's hard to do this as an everything seller,
I think. It's hard to just be like, I want to
sell the iPhones, the gold bars, the graded cards,
the expensive video games, the Easton presses,
the criterion collections. I think it's harder
to grow that business when you're just all over
the place about it. Does it give you more opportunities?
Yes, but you're not an expert in any of those.
If I was to go down that rabbit hole, I want
to know everything there is to know about criterion
collection. I know if I see it today, I'm buying
it. I don't got to scan it for it because I'm
only paying a buck or two bucks. i really want
to start getting into the sealed stuff what's
worth it are they reprinting these things right
because this is a big thing now they started
reprinting and reproducing a lot of the the media
that has been out there even like the old school
horror books like my halloween trade paperbacks
they have reproduced those now and you can get
them just out in the market as a new one instead
of your vintage one and that absolutely crushes
the price of your vintage one because people
that want to read it and have it now can just
get the newer one sure there's still people out
there that are willing to pay that premium but
a lot of this stuff when it's printed more and
it's printed again and again it loses value so
there's so many different levels to this and
just being the person that can just walk in the
store and find this and it's just repeatable
right and again you're gonna have to work on
your networking skills i don't care if you're
a non -talker to people an introvert or not um
even you extroverts you may be lazy and too busy
talking but you got to focus on your talking
talk if you're going to go to a thrift store
a charity or library stores what you're really
wanting to target if you're going to hit these
places behind the counter stuff uh donation processing
carts if that's allowed you hitting the Public
area that's probably been picked through and
combed through unless it's private suburbia,
honey hole type scenario. You probably want to
just avoid those places unless you, again, hit
one of the marks I just mentioned. We probably
really want to focus estate sales, church rummage,
garage, Facebook marketplace. Now. When you look
at Marketplace, you're probably looking at a
pile of your media thing. But if you can spot
three to like five $50 plus items just because
you built in this knowledge or your software
recognizes this, if you're using software, that
could be huge boons. Like maybe, I don't know,
it's $200 and it's for 200 items. But three to
five of those items are $50 plus. It's kind of
a no -brainer to me. It doesn't mean they're
all $50. It could mean they're $50, $75, $120,
$500 in some instances. But you being able to
see these things, again, or your software being
able to, that's just going to serve you to be
able to build this model, make it repeatable,
and make it consistent. Older households with
deep libraries, their house is a room wall of
books. It doesn't mean they're getting the right
kinds of books. But that's what you should be
targeting is huge collections like that because
the odds are more in your favor that you're going
to get a hit that way. Same for your music and
movie collectors. If it's just they got dedicated
room to their hobby, that's a good indicator
that they got some bangers in there. And you
being Johnny on the spot, no pun intended maybe,
that's going to serve you well. And then... If
you're going to some place that's public like
an estate sale, arrive early. Be the first in
line because you won't be the last in line and
miss everything if you're there a couple hours
early. I mean, I think Tommy Boy mentions that
frequently when he's on the calls. Get there
early. You want to be in line early. Yeah, and
then the problem with your Facebook marketplace,
your Craigslist, and your offer ups is… The reliability
of other humans, that's outside your control.
You may schedule something. You may be in that
parking lot waiting for them to show up. They
ain't going to show up. But I tell you, if you
meet a couple of sellers that you're buying from
repeatedly, you can then build a relationship
with that person. And they're no longer putting
that stuff on Marketplace. They're just selling
to you direct now. Maybe they're, I don't know,
a... storage unit guy or they're a flea market
guy and they're just selling their leftovers
between the weekends on marketplace or some such
getting those guys to work for you where they
just sell direct to you that's huge i think uh
as much as i sit here and say that it's the perfect
business model you're probably thinking michael
why don't you do it well i have some of those
types of sources but i have to mix in a lower
dollar stuff to pay the bills it's just the The
honest truth of what my area provides for me
is not the best quality stuff. Sure, our house
is full of absolutely gems. Yes, I just choose
to have the relationships I have. If another
relationship arises, sure, I'll take advantage
of it. I was in a thrift store literally on Friday.
We were recording this on Sunday. Did my library
pick up? There's a thrift store in the town of
my library. I went in. I was scanning the DVDs.
The lady that puts out the DVDs in the book nook
was there and said, hey. I say, you're buying
some of our DVDs. I got a whole box of horror
DVDs in the back. You want to check them out?
I don't put that much horror out here because
it's not good for the clientele that we serve.
I'm like, yeah, sure. Why not? We'll got our
whole box of horror. Of course, I grab, you know,
five to 10 out of the box. She appreciates it.
Next time, you know, she's there. She knows I
bought some from her. Little things like that.
And if you're out there enough and you're having
conversations and you're being polite, you're
keeping the shelves clean, you're buying the
stuff. These relationships will fall on your
lap. That is not the only time. It happens more
than you think. When they see you with a big
bag full of stuff and you're buying it and you
just happen to be there on that day when a worker
sees you. I've been in many back rooms because
of it. I have ongoing back room relationships
because of it. It opens doors you didn't think
you could open. And that's how you start going
up the ladder. So sure, day one, you go out and
you're looking for only $50 items in your thrift
store. Bad news for you. It ain't going to work.
But we're not sitting here telling you that's
how you're going to go about having this business
model. It's about figuring out what you want
to sell. Where can you find the stuff you want
to sell? It is the big thing. It's not just you
go out into the yard and you dig it up. Where
does this stuff exist? Where are the people?
You know, it's the same. I know. There used to
be this big push of like, go to book sales in
more affluent areas. Go to thrift stores in more
affluent areas. That's 100 % a thing. I even
see it in this little area that I'm in. When
I go out to the further stores, it might be a
little bit more expensive, but the quality is
better. Perfect example of this is record stores.
You go to record stores, you're paying at least
$3. They have anything you can imagine, but the
quality is way better. They're checking the disc.
They're not putting the junk out on the sales
floor. This is premium. top -line quality for
the stuff we're looking for. That's why I love
going to record stores, because I know it's good
stuff, and it's going to be reasonably priced,
because these people want to sell it in -store,
not online. And the quality's there. They always
have more coming in. Sure, you can't go there
all the time, but it's the same with the pawn
shops. Like Johnny said, whenever I go to a pawn
shop, I bought... Books, graphic novels from
pawn shops. Like who in their mind would think
you could find graphic novels at pawn shops?
But you don't know until you actually go out
and put in the time. This whole thing's irrelevant.
If you're not willing to actually go out there
and see what the hell's around you, keep a little
notepad of where's good, who has what, what relationships,
who am I talking to and what stores. So when
you go back in, hey, John, what's up? Yeah, I'm
back. Yeah, oh, yeah. You know, we got more of
the game guides you bought last time. We got
more new sealed games. Like that is how you're
going to win in reselling. Not even. you're going
to get the better stuff, but you're overall just
going to be winning in reselling irregardless
because you're going to have better relationships,
which means you're going to have better quality
access to all of the stuff. Right. And we had
a bulk, I think they were a DVD seller, post
their numbers. They were good numbers. I'm not
knocking what they're doing. But again, addressing
the people with 20 hours or less who don't want
to do bulk, who just want a awesome, well, potentially
awesome sell -through rate. You got to sell desirable
items. You can't sell the, these may take a year
sell through rate items. I mean, you can, you
should, but you need, you need to eat. So you
had to have the faster moving things at the $50
plus mark in order to accomplish that. Now to
Mike's point, I'm going to use Mike as example.
It's an hour and a half. You don't like to go
outside that bubble, right? Basically. Sure.
Okay. So hour and a half bubble. And if you truly
cannot find $50 items plus, And you've combed
every nook and cranny, all your marketplace,
and your area does not provide this. You cannot
do an hour and a half? Okay, lower it. Now you're
the $40 plus guy. If you need consistently, and
you can find $40 plus. You can't do that? Okay,
$30 now. But you want to make the bar high, and
you don't want to settle for less. You only want
to settle for lower or less if you truly... truly
cannot find these items but i'm telling you this
stuff is everywhere um but in some maybe rural
areas maybe you live in alaska it's not as frequent
and you need frequency for ebay now for this
model and for the particular group of people
that aren't bulk that i'm speaking to you you
want to try to find six to twelve items a week
that's it you're not dealing with thousands of
items you're dealing with six to twelve items
a week That pretty much makes you be able to
do one listing a day. Every human, despite, I'm
going to rule out having physical limitations
like a paraplegic, can list one item a week on
eBay. Truly. It's not impossible. It may take
you 30 minutes to figure it out your first time,
but you're going to get smarter. You're going
to get faster. You're going to get tools to enable
you to be able to do these things fast. Now,
the other thing they were saying, which is true
-ish, Scale. Well, with enough relationships,
you can scale with this. You're going to start
with a super small store and it's going to gradually
expand. Will it ever expand to the big numbers
of the bulk guys who are just selling everything
at $10 plus? Absolutely not. But I'm telling
you, you're going to have an easier life unless
you want to go do bulk. That's a choice. So I'm
excluding the bulk people. They've chosen that
lot. They want to do it that way because I'd
rather have... You people that wanted to stay
part -time and don't want to have a big storage
bill or a rent bill, be able to have things in
your items, make it in your home, that is. Make
them $50 plus. Have a bookcase. Have two bookcases
of $50 plus items. I think that will serve you
well. But it's going to be hard work. You may
be working less hours, but you're doing more
intense hours. You're coming home with less.
Some days you may come home with nothing. Some
days you may come home with five items. That's
okay with this model. I agree, man. You summed
it up good right there. And I know you kind of
hit on the eBay, but I'll just cover it on the
Amazon side. You could sell one book on Amazon
for $10 and make $1. Or you could sell one book
on Amazon for $25 and make $13 .76. So in theory,
you would have to sell 14 $10 books on Amazon
to equal the same profit as one. $25 profit book.
That is why that business model appeals to both
me and Johnny. And if there was a world where
we could only get this type of stuff, we would
100 % be living in it and doing everything we
can to continue growing that. And you don't have
to have the biggest store. It's a complete lie.
I want to have the smallest store where all my
stuff sells for the most amount of money every
single time something gets listed. I'm going
to say this, for this model, I don't think you
need to list every day as long as you're listing
desirable $50 plus items. You come home with
six items and you don't have an item for day
seven if you're listing one a day. I think you're
okay because people are looking for this stuff
actively and they're going to buy it. This model
lets you list less, which is less work, which
is more dollars per hour. I know we're going
to get flack for this in the comments, but how
are you going to scale? I'm not talking about
scaling right now. I'm talking about starting.
getting your relationships, knowing what's valuable.
And that's what you need to start with. Don't
learn that stuff later. Learn it at the beginning.
Or if your hobbyist is trying to make your ASP
and your income come in a little bit better,
know what the hell you're sourcing for. You got
to put in a little bit of work. This model is
not easy. It is hard. I'm not going to lie to
you. But the benefits are there very much so.
Yeah, even on the cheap end, right? The craziest
books I've ever found were from my 15 cents a
pound pickups, right? It's just, it's going to
take a lot of damn work and it's going to take
you getting an ad. It's going to take you having
a conversation with somebody. It's going to take
you going into a stranger's house. It's going
to take you dealing with a bunch of junk that
ain't worth it. But every once in a while, someone
needs to get rid of their Stephen King collection.
Someone needs to get rid of their first edition
signs, whatever it may be. And that's, those
are the opportunities you can build upon. That's
going to do it for this episode. I think it was
a good episode. I think everybody should strive.
to have a higher ASP. I know that is my goal
in 2026, just because all the changes on Amazon.
I want to be the person that's got a $20 ASP,
which in theory would mean I could absolutely
have a way smaller inventory. Last year, I was
close to 6 ,000 units. This year, I don't think
I'll even break 4 ,000 because I'm being way
more selective and the stuff I'm buying is going
to sell quicker and for more money. Like Johnny
said, when I go out to the thrift stores, the
car isn't fully loaded. It's half of what it
used to be, but I know everything that's going
out in those boxes every single week is going
to sell for top dollar. We'll talk to you all
in next week's episode. Thanks for listening
to another episode of the Reseller's Mindset
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