Welcome back to another episode of the Resellers 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
used book guy to join the channel
and gain access to the full length podcast Zoom call
and private Discord today.
Let's get into this week's episode.
What is up, everyone?
Welcome into episode seven.
I don't need Johnny B. yet, but we're well on our way there.
Now it looks like episode 14.
Way to go.
Today's topic, quarter four.
It's upon us here.
It's a little bit different for media sellers and people
that have other business models.
But we're going to touch on some topics related to everything
selling in quarter four.
And I'm going to start out with the big one that affects me
most is Amazon's restock limits as a media seller.
I cannot send in another single item to sell on Amazon,
whether that's a book, CD, DVD, anything
that can be sold on Amazon.
I can't send it in to sell through Amazon FBA.
So my business has changed to Merchant Fulfilled.
And we'll get a little bit into that later.
And I'm pretty sure it's still the same for Johnny B.
I'm not sure where you're at with limits.
Do you think you're going to be able to send anything in
by the end of quarter four?
Only if I recall what's already there.
It's the only way.
So you're in the same boat.
So we have a little bit of a different perspective
where we are primarily selling on Amazon through FBA.
We both do have eBay stores.
But we are primarily selling through Amazon FBA,
which you send it to them.
They handle everything.
So our business models basically have changed completely.
We were going north, and now we're going south,
which necessarily isn't a bad thing.
You got to adapt, or that's the end of the line.
But quarter four is the time where reselling mania occurs.
Everybody's making all this money.
There's all these different Bolo items out there.
There's always a few every year.
I'm sure you're going to be running around to all your
targets to find the hottest Squishmallow
to sell on Amazon, right?
I've been there before.
I've chased some of the more popular things
to try to sell them.
The Goo Jitsu figures that people like to sell,
some of those are really rare.
Have you done any of that in the past?
Have you chased any hot items that were flipping
for a lot of money that you could just go into any store
and maybe you get lucky and you find it?
Not for reselling, but just, well, I guess a little bit
for reselling because I dabbled on eBay before.
I took it seriously.
I did that with some toys, trying to get into Toys R Us
when they were a thing, or Zany Mraini,
or those kind of type of toy stores,
trying to get the Christmas seasonal thing,
like Furbies, right?
You flip Furbies or Beanie Babies,
Back on Beanie Babies or anything.
But outside of that, just for chuckles to see
if I could do it and not as a reseller,
more of as a hobbyist, that's about it.
I have yet to do that.
And now that I'm in reselling, I don't think I would do that
because it's not my business, even though, yes, I could.
Here's the thing, you can make money
in anything reselling, right?
But my focus is in media and I need to stay in media
because if I get, there's a term other groups like to use
and just people in general, squirrel brain,
going after the next shiny object,
I lose focus on my business and all my focus needs to be
on my business I'm currently running.
Any distraction from that is just a disservice to myself,
my one employee, part-time employee,
and my business as a whole.
So I refuse to do it for those reasons.
What's your nearest retailer, like large box,
like big box retail store?
Walmart.
How far away you think?
20 minutes.
All right, so we're gonna put them to the test right here,
ladies and gentlemen.
All right, so there's a new Furby out this year, right?
It's the Jaws Furby, right?
It's the shark Furby, right?
These things are like 20 bucks at Walmart.
They're selling for, I will say it's selling for $100.
Do you have the discipline not to drive over to Walmart
to see if you have Jaws Furby in stock?
Yes.
It's ways to get.
You're better than me because of my local place,
if there's something like that,
and I knew they were out there in the wild,
I'd be willing, just while,
I mean, I guess it's different for me, right?
Cause I'm out thrift and I'm by these stores,
but still, I mean, you could walk in.
I have a huge task of eBay stuff to do, right?
And now I'm trying to get the huge task of merchant fulfilled.
You have the option to do that
cause you're just trying to,
you don't have the time sync that I do.
So I get why you do it.
I absolutely do.
Yeah, I 100% would go look to see if they had it.
I would not chase it to every single Walmart,
within two hours.
I don't think that's smart, but my local one,
and I don't, I'll even say,
I don't shop at Walmart for anything.
At least the one around me is real bad.
So it wouldn't be like I'm going shopping there
and I'm gonna check.
I would just go out of my way one day
and just pop in there for two minutes,
run to the Furby aisle, see if they had it.
And that would be the end of it.
But yeah, it's like one of those things, right?
You gotta stay focused on what you're focused on.
And I think it's exciting for media sellers,
every once in a while when something like this comes along
because media isn't the shiniest
or funnest business model to have.
So you're like, ooh, maybe I can go get this.
I mean, I come across like combo units,
Guitar Hero, guitars,
and things I know to have value all the time.
And I just walk on by, because that's not my business.
But I do know there's money there
and I'm leaving money there.
I fully understand what I'm doing
and I hope reseller that deals in that stuff comes along,
because that's a good deal, right?
But if I were to do that,
I would have to worry about different kinds of boxes,
different kinds of shipping,
distracting me from what I've niche down to,
because now part of my brain's focusing on
looking at everything to see where I can get a dollar.
And I'm not saying it's like every seller mentality,
because that's a whole different kind of mentality.
I just know it to be a distraction,
but I also know there is money there, absolutely, 100%.
I think another thing with quarter four Bolo chasing
that it's kind of not the same that it used to be,
because now there's so many paid leads groups, right?
Where you can pay and be on a leads list.
And a lot of the groups are turning the same information.
So what happens is, when their bots found this item,
this 100% ROI item, and you've seen that
and you run out to get it, by the time you get it,
there's probably a thousand other people
that have already went out and got it and listed it as well.
So the price is what happens on these popular things,
is the prices tank, right?
And that's like the big complaint of Amazon,
is just the price is just completely tank on things.
I've actually had more luck selling Bolo items on eBay,
the ones I've ran into.
A lot of the stuff on Amazon is gated.
I'm not ungated in a lot of things.
I am ungated in a lot, for how long I've had the account.
But eBay, I don't know, it seems like the prices seem to,
at least for these hot items,
the prices seem to kind of hold steady.
And you kind of can have the benefit
of doing your listing correctly with pictures and everything,
versus where Amazon's just a price raise.
So I feel like eBay's almost a better route
if you're chasing, trying to get the most money
out of some of these quarter four hot toy items
or whatever it may be that's gonna pop up here
in the next month.
Well, here's the reason for why that is.
Cause everybody knows they go to Amazon,
they're paying for retail, right?
They go to eBay, they think they're getting a deal.
They don't even bother to check Amazon.
They're just going straight to eBay
cause they know things to be cheaper on eBay.
So yeah, the same item could theoretically
get cheaper on Amazon,
but you're selling it for higher on eBay
just because of, I'm not gonna call it laziness.
I'm just gonna call it false expectations by the consumer.
So have you ever had a situation where you bought something
while you were in line in the store,
you took pictures of an item
and it sold before you got out of the car?
Well, I've never done that to be fair,
but I have talked to several people that do do that.
They're Ben's shoppers, they use the floors,
their background, they take photos.
They actually have shipping supplies in their car.
So if they sell something,
they're on the way to the post office
packing in the car or in the parking lot
and shipping it right then and there.
Then they go home and store,
or yeah, they store, cause they've already listed, right?
They're just doing the put away.
Those guys got some hustle, man.
They got some dedication.
I would not be able to live a life like that.
It's just too much crap in too many different places.
I mean, unless I had like a bread truck or something
where all my stuff is like, my tools are here,
this is everything's organized.
I would not be, I can't even imagine
the back of my Hyundai Sonata shipping supplies.
Oh my God.
It's like one of those Blues Brothers trunks, right?
If you've seen Blues Brothers 2000,
you got the kid in the back,
but he's got a full bedroom suite in there.
Same thing, just with the shipping station.
But I've actually heard that they've listed it.
They're in the line to check out.
They haven't bought it yet,
but they've already sold it on eBay.
That's how crazy that game can be.
I've done that with testing kits,
health testing kits from CVS.
And I would literally go in and grab every single one.
I was paying around like, I think right around $350 to $7
for them and they were selling for like consistently
55, $65 on eBay.
And I would go in, grab every one,
use the same photo I had.
It was just a picture of the kit on the CVS carpet.
And I would list them and they would sell
before I even got to the car, before I even checked out.
So I've been there, but I mean, it's like a rush, right?
And that time I did go around to other CVSs
because there's basically a CVS within every corner.
Yeah.
So I wasn't doing any crazy traveling,
you hear stories of people driving different states
and going into these items.
So mine wasn't as crazy, but I've lived that thrill,
the adrenaline rush of just selling stuff
before you even buy it.
So-
Here's a game I used to play.
I used to watch a lot of movies
and I'd buy the expensive ones like Criterion
or Mill Creek or Arrow.
Cause I like all the special features.
I do watch that and the commentaries.
But here's a game I used to play
and how I pretty much got free movies is I'd watch them.
I then list them for about 25 bucks on eBay
more than I bought them for brand new,
but I opened it, right?
The shrink's gone.
But cause of the eBay fees,
it worked out where I got exactly my money back
and then I do it again.
And I still get to watch my movies
and maintain my nerdy hobby of watching the cool commentaries
and all the other special features.
You can do that too.
It doesn't even really apply to reselling.
That's just supporting your movie habit, right?
Without spending a thousand dollars a month
on fancy movies.
Cause you're just spending money, getting your money back.
And it's that same initial 50 bucks.
That's all you're doing.
So on the topic of like quarter four, right?
Your sales are gonna uptick.
So that means whenever you have more sales,
you're gonna have more headaches,
whether it's Amazon or eBay.
If you sell more, you're gonna get more returns.
You're gonna get more of this, more of that.
So there's a lot of, you know, yeah, sure.
The sales are great,
but just be prepared for an uptick
in the things that are not so great
when it comes to reselling business,
especially with Amazon.
The return policy is just-
Stupid.
It's absurd the fact you could buy something in October
and return it, you know, at the middle of January.
It's just, it's crazy to me.
I don't see anybody selling seasonal items can even survive,
but to each their own.
You know about the Audible thing you could do with Audible?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
If you're not familiar with Audible,
you buy a token, use these tokens
to buy a movie for your library.
But no questions asked by Amazon.
You don't like it, you can get your token back
by just saying, I don't like it.
And you can get free Audible books,
because they don't care.
And they're well aware of it,
but because Amazon prides themselves
on no questions asked customer,
you're a customer, we'll do what you want.
You can so take advantage of that system, and people do.
Oh yeah.
There used to, I remember when I first started selling books
and there was a lot of talk of people
that would basically rent your books, right?
You know, they get your book,
read it within the 30 days and return it.
I'm sure there's a lot of people that still do that.
Yeah.
It's just part of the business, thankfully for us
used media sellers, it's not a big deal,
but that's where you can get yourself into trouble
if you're chasing some of these new Bolo items
and you're expecting the cashflow to be there, right?
So, you can just do the basic math here.
If you're spending 30 bucks, you're gonna make 10,
you're looking at 33% ROI,
which is, that's good for retail arbitrage,
it kind of falls in line.
But if you get a return and that item's not new anymore,
you can't return it to Target, you're stuck with it,
right there, it eats up two or three more sales
of that same exact item.
So I want people to be in the mindset
of thinking it all the way through, right?
Just because you see that ROI number is X amount of dollars,
you gotta factor in these returns
because they're gonna happen, especially on Amazon.
eBay, I don't see nowhere near as many returns.
I'll speak on that in a moment, but go ahead.
I mean, I'm sure they do happen on eBay.
It's just, it's a different platform, a different customer,
it's a different mindset versus the two platforms.
And like when I was selling those test kits,
I didn't get a single return.
And I probably sold 60 of them.
I think I wound up making a few thousand dollars off it.
And it was crazy, but I didn't get any single return.
I had one where they gave me the wrong address,
they ordered like 12 of them.
And they were even like,
hey, I'll pay for the shipping back and I'll take care of it all.
And then they wound up, it got back to me,
I sent it back to them.
Everything worked out smoothly in the end.
Without it being Amazon,
it would have been a completely different story.
That option would have never even have been there.
So.
So here's the deal on returns on eBay.
If you're doing it right,
you'll have a 30 day return policy.
If you're not doing that, you should,
because that's the only way you're gonna get top rated status
or top rated plus status.
I myself offer 60.
You know, all of my returns have only been for three items,
three different reasons.
One, it didn't arrive, the post office lost it.
The post office damaged it.
Or the customer had an issue,
they did not feel the item was in the condition I stated.
But normally what happens in any three of these scenarios,
that customer will message me first before filing a claim.
Because I send them a message.
So there's some kind of correspondence between us already
when I do my shipping.
And they're like, yo, there's a problem.
How can we work this out?
And I've offered, they can keep the item
and I can give them a refund.
But usually what happens is
they just want part of the money back.
Or they say, hey, can you cut me a deal on my next order?
So I'm turning a potential bad thing into a positive thing.
I had a guy the other day, it's a $60 return.
Cause my condition is for fine,
but he was a very particular collector
of the things he was buying.
And he wanted his things in pristine.
These were in the acceptable kind of category.
And I explained this to him and he said, okay,
I just want 10 bucks back, not the whole 60.
I'm gonna call it a day.
So I gave him his 10 back.
I technically sold it for 50 at that point.
Each one, the whole cost of goods was $2.50.
Did not affect me.
Just because of that customer service interaction.
But I can tell you for a fact,
after a week after I get it,
I've never had a return request on eBay.
It's that first week after they get it.
Cause that package may sit on their countertop
before they get a chance to open it, right?
We all do this.
But once they open it and they look at it,
they either like it or they don't.
If they don't, they usually send me a message
or they process the return.
On Amazon, it's a whole different thing.
There's none of that interaction.
I think like when I look at chasing BOLOs
to round out here, the BOLO topic of quarter four,
I think it's worth the look
if it's your local big box store going.
Especially if you're already shopping there
or you're going for something else,
it's worth taking the look to see if that item's there.
Because the ROI on some of these is crazy.
Especially if you catch the hottest item.
If you can even get one of those
and pump an extra 80 bucks into your business
while you're already there shopping or anything.
I think that's worth a look in my eyes.
But going further than that,
maybe if you're feeling lucky,
if you're one of these lucky people,
like Deb's super lucky.
When it comes to luck, my luck sucks.
I rarely went at the casino.
Powerball, I get one number.
That's like the most I've ever gotten in my life.
So I don't push my luck.
So I mean, sure, if you come across
maybe a bunch of one store,
maybe the next store will have them
because nobody else is out there looking for them.
But getting caught up in chasing these leads
and these BOLO lists,
I honestly feel like it takes away
from your business focus
and you're gonna wind up losing money
by chasing crazy, crazy things all around the country.
I got a curious question for you.
If you scaled up,
like you had another piece of your business
that ate up more time,
would you bother with those BOLO chases at that point?
If I was still going out to get inventory,
I would pop in a store here or there.
So you still do it, it'd just be less of a kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's one of those things, right?
When you start seeing results and what you're focused on,
everything else kind of just fades away, right?
The fade fuzzy thing is like, yeah, that's over there,
but there's a lot more of what I do here.
The shiny thing doesn't appeal as much
as when you're getting results and what you're focused on.
So it's one of those things, right?
If you're, I guarantee you, right?
If you're crushing it right now
and the Walmart 30 minutes away
might or might not have this item,
you're not gonna be so much worried about it
as the person who's not seeing the results currently.
And they're like, whoa, maybe they have this
and I can make an extra thousand dollars
because that's what you're gonna see, right?
You're not gonna see the TikTok or the post
of somebody finding one of the Jaws Furbies.
They're finding 30 of them in one store
and they're basically retired now off Jaws Furbies,
but that's not the reality of it.
So I can see it's, if maybe you're struggling right now
or you're looking for a little bit more cashflow,
these things are more enticing,
but if you're seeing results,
I guarantee you're on the side of, you know what?
It really doesn't matter to me, you know,
whether or not they have them.
I'm not worried about that.
See, I redeploy my efforts in thinking about
what else can I tack on to my current business?
Now I'll give a freebie here
because I'm not gonna do it, I decided,
but here's some free money for you people out there.
You can do it if you'd like.
Ooh, pick me, pick me.
Here you go, Mike, you can have this one.
I thought about selling dust jackets
because I've seen people do this,
just the dust jacket only, right?
And I noticed that people will pay the same price
for the dust jacket versus,
they can get the whole damn book
plus the dust jacket for the same price.
And I thought, well, I get a lot of junk,
but if I just sold the dust jacket
and then I sold the book separately,
it's like selling it twice, right?
And the storage, the dust jackets, it's just paper, right?
The storage wouldn't be that bad.
So that's where I put my efforts
instead of my Bolo hunting like you do.
I think about what else can I tack onto the business?
How can I add another sales channel
with stuff I'm already going out to do or I have already?
Dust jackets is a prime example.
The other thing I think about is maybe,
okay, maybe instead of lots,
like maybe make like, I think what you came across recently
or a few months back, there was like those safe things
that are inside books.
I can get into that because I already have a lot of stuff
that I can get into that because I already have the books,
right?
So those are the kinds of things I think about
how I can improve my business.
Is there more money to be had with what I already have
that's junk kind of thing?
And I noodle on this stuff all the time.
I could go out and do the Bolo thing.
Absolutely, I could.
But it's a choice I'm making
and I don't think one's more right over the other.
I really don't.
I'm gonna find a Walmart Bolo this year
and we're both gonna go to our local Walmarts
and maybe buy an X-Box.
Is it a book?
No, it's probably gonna be something stupid,
some kind of toy or some kind of-
You're gonna maybe buy an X-Box?
Some kind of crazy thing like that.
And just for scientific reasons, we're both gonna go.
You need to be standing lying.
Why would you do that?
Yeah, I don't care.
You're gonna go and you're gonna see.
And if they got them, you're buying them all
and we're gonna be rich.
Oh man.
All right, so getting out of the Bolo thing,
we'll just kind of shift
to like what you should expect to see sales wise.
Media, you'll see a little bit of an uptick with media,
but other categories are really the strong categories
for quarter four, right?
Media, we see an influx around textbook season,
comes a few times a year.
So quarter four, I mean, if you're selling media,
don't expect to see these crazy numbers
because you're selling media, it's consistent, right?
That's kind of another reason why I love selling media.
Once you get your inventory levels,
it's consistent across the board,
you're not fluctuating up and down
and almost makes your business more predictable, right?
Versus somebody that's selling these categories
or seasonal items every year is a different thing,
how many you can get.
So your business, your income and everything
is a little bit harder to predict.
But with media sellers, if you're out there listening,
it's gonna, you'll see a little bit of a bump,
don't expect anything too crazy.
You will see if you have non-media items listed,
they're probably gonna sell quarter four,
no matter what it is most likely,
as long as you're priced correctly.
But yeah, so the media sellers don't get too excited
on quarter four, it's not a huge thing for us.
Wait till January when the new semester starts
and you get your influx of book orders
from kids going, starting their second,
their winter semesters and everything like that.
But that's kind of like the overall view in my eyes,
of sales and quarter four is probably the same for you,
right, it's kind of the same thing.
Yeah, it is and what I've noticed between the two platforms,
eBay and Amazon, Amazon's like you said, a lot steady.
I mean, as the inventory trickles down,
the, what you're getting trickles, goes down as well,
but even then that stays steady until you sell more
and it's steady.
eBay, it's a lot more spiky.
It'll be great sales, bad sales day, great sale,
but it all evens out, so it is kind of stable
in that regard if you're measuring month to month
versus like week to week or day to day.
But if you examine the month as a whole,
it's about the same as you did last month,
maybe a little more,
because that's the whole idea with eBay,
the more you list, the more you sell,
eventually you're selling the amount of what you list.
So if you're listing 10, you'll sell 10 every day
after some amount of time.
But I like the stability with Amazon to be honest with you,
it's just a lot more predictable.
I'm not gonna send the box in,
I know what I'm probably gonna make.
I'm gonna sell, well, what do you think
the sell through rate on average is?
I mean, if everything was equal,
I think it's about 80% of what we send in sells.
Basically, yeah, so you're just gonna wind up with 20%
after nine to 12 months, it just doesn't sell.
I mean, that's just the nature of the business with media.
Yeah, on eBay, for me, I think it's about 25%
of what I sell a month basically.
And those are from various months,
like stuff back in January to stuff I've listed here
in November, but it's about 25% of my inventory
actually turns over, like it all turns over,
it's just a matter of when on eBay.
Yeah, and I think now is a good time
if anybody's sitting out there on some slower moving items,
now is the time to get it up.
If you have a pile of stuff where there's no sold comps
or one or two sold comps, put it out there for quarter four,
see if you can make the sale,
because if you don't sell it quarter four
on Amazon or eBay, it's probably never gonna sell.
Honestly, that's kind of like my take on it.
Like if you have something listed on Amazon
and you're repricing and it doesn't sell within,
you know, the nine to 12 months,
it's probably never gonna sell anywhere.
Except eBay.
Except eBay, it'll just sit there for 3000 days.
But you'll sell it on 3000 in one day.
It's a thing.
Imagine if, I guess it wouldn't work
because they couldn't charge you for it.
I wanna know what this is, what is it?
If there was like basically a fee
to have like your items listed
over X amount of days on eBay,
like what if they decided they only wanted
faster moving stuff on their platform?
So if your item was listed over a year,
then they start charging you like a quarter a month
or something to keep it listed.
I already knew that, man.
With the subscriptions, that's how they get away with it.
Because people don't wanna pay those listing fees.
They say, hey, get our fancy subscription
and you'll get a coupon to buy more stuff at eBay.
eBay is very smart about that.
And it's not in your face recognizable,
but they're clearing money from every eBay seller.
They're getting, I think my storage subs
like 50 something dollars a month.
They're getting 50 a month out of me every month,
just for me selling on their platform.
And then when I sell an item, right?
I got all those fees on top of that.
So eBay has got a great thing going.
They're collecting money no matter what.
Quarter four customer service.
Amazon doesn't exist.
If you get those stupid questions from customers,
there's a little button that says no response needed.
Guess what?
Guess what I've hit every single time
I've gotten one of those, no response needed.
I am not wasting my time.
That's the reason anybody sells on Amazon versus eBay
or as one of the big appeals
is you don't have to deal with the customers.
I highly recommend always hitting that no response needed.
Even if you answer them, it's just, it's a waste of time.
Now eBay is usually a different story.
That usually you get a message it's for a reason.
Every once in a while, sure you'll get a stupid message.
Hey, you know, how many pages are in this book
or something like that, right?
Things that really aren't that important.
Just personal preference if you want to answer it or not.
I usually always do because it only takes a second to do.
But it can be, some of them can get crazy
when they ask certain things about,
somebody asked me to look through a whole Bible
to see if like how many pages were highlighted.
And I said, I'm not looking through this
700 page large print study Bible
to count how many pages are highlighted for you.
I'm selling it for $30.
It is not worth my time.
Well, I'm not gonna debate the fact
that there is a lot of I gotta do this customer service.
I had to measure a book the other day.
Why does he care?
Does he have certain dimensions on his shelves?
He needs to know how big it is, sure.
But I always think of the positive side.
And this is the customer service that makes me so happy.
I got a letter back from a guy about a month
after he ordered it.
He sent me a message and thanked me for the book
because he was recovering for cancer.
And it really helped him through that process.
That made me feel good that I could supply him
during his recovery.
And I've gotten similar things like that
of the book affected somebody in some way.
And that makes me feel good as a bookseller.
Yeah, there's the bad side like you're talking about.
I gotta measure a book or oh,
I gotta look up this thing on this page.
There's also a positive side
and it's very uplifting in that regard
because we can get into the grind and blah, blah, blah.
And then we get something like that.
Like my days have gotten a lot better.
I did something good in the world today.
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