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, everybody?
Welcome into episode nine.
I wasn't prepared.
I had a pen in my hand.
So we are on episode nine of the podcast.
We appreciate you all making it this far.
I can't talk here, right?
I'm still waking up, right?
It's only 11 o'clock here.
I like sleeping until like two or three in the afternoon.
How about yourself?
You're probably up at like 6 AM.
All right, but yeah.
But I don't know sign language, so I can't help you out, Mike.
Maybe I should learn for the podcast sake
and I can help us all out.
Yeah, yeah, maybe you should.
So today's topic is gonna be a little bit
of a different one here.
We're gonna be answering basically responses, questions,
topics to cover that we got on a YouTube poll
that I posted a few days ago.
So we got close to a little bit under 10 topics,
questions here we're gonna fly through.
And just, you know, this is gonna cover
a little bit of everything just from what I'm seeing,
the topics.
So this is just gonna be hodgepodge, rapid fire,
knock out these questions and see where we go from here.
So we're gonna hop right in.
One part is he knows what they are, I don't.
I have no idea what's coming.
So my answer may be don't buy a Gaylord on every single one.
We'll see.
Unfortunately, I don't send him a script.
This isn't scripted.
We just kind of roll with it, right?
I actually forgot what these topics are
until I'm looking at them right here right now.
So we're just gonna go into order here
that they are on the YouTube post.
Not even priority order, love it.
It could be the most important question first.
So there you go.
All right, so here we go.
First one we have, and I guess, you know what?
I'll even say who it's from, right?
Ooh, shout outs.
I'll even plug these people, right?
So we have Cheez Head Flipper.
He also has a YouTube channel, go check him out.
He's also a reseller.
He's got a nice little garage set up now
for all his eBay flea bay junk that he sells.
He says, fighting restock limits,
adjusting what you send in versus FBM,
expanding into other inventory categories such as clothing,
new triggers, stuff like that.
So that's like, I mean, he really loaded this sentence.
This wasn't even just one question here.
That's like a statement of like, here's my business model.
He wants us to write like a 10 page book report here
for him and submit it, you know?
Like he's asking everything here.
So fighting restock limits, right?
I don't think you can fight them, right?
It's a losing battle no matter how you look at it
from everything I've seen, even the huge sellers
that are selling, you know, tens of thousands
of units a month, they got crushed too.
So I don't think it's even just boiled down to media sellers.
I just think it's a fight we're never gonna win.
Amazon just don't want your stuff in their warehouse,
quarter four, they can't handle it.
So I do have something to say on this
because I did attend, I'm in another group guys.
I'm sorry, Mike, I am the daily refiner.
I did attend a call yesterday.
They covered this question.
They got cut and hit hard too.
How they quote unquote combated
is they just send in higher turning inventory.
However, the issue they've encountered this year
is even doing so, the market's not buying
as much as they used to.
So even though it says it moves faster,
it really isn't based off consumer demand.
So you gotta count for that end.
So unless you're sitting in like 150s all the time,
you can't really combat it to that degree
because you can't predict what the market's gonna do.
You can have a good guess
with all the charts you can look at,
but you can't really win every single time.
Even the big sellers struggle with this like you're saying.
I think kind of what he hit on is,
fulfilling by merchant or eBay.
It's just the Amazon version of eBay.
You just list it yourself and pack in
and ship it directly to the customer.
But I understand a lot of people don't like that.
You like the convenience of FBA
and Amazon dealing with all the shipping
and all the headaches and all that stuff.
But if you're doing this full time, right,
the money has to keep coming in.
You can't just close up shop.
You still will need to make the money.
If you have employees, pay your employees,
overhead, all that kind of stuff.
So you definitely have to take a step back
and kind of almost pivot your business completely
when restock limits hit,
if you're only selling on Amazon now.
I know he sells on eBay as well.
So you have that fallback plan.
That's why I always say it's important
to be on more than one platform.
So now when it comes to expanding
into other inventory categories, such as clothing,
no shot, I'm doing that.
I know it's feasible for some people.
Some people don't mind just kind of,
just being scattered brain, right?
Focusing on a million different things.
For me, I just rather FBM and stay in my lane, basically,
then expand into other categories.
And he brings it up because Amazon will let you,
have a thousand clothing items, a thousand apparel items,
a thousand shoes, oversized stores.
So that's something you could do.
If you have any experience with it, right?
I wouldn't recommend, if you're a bookseller,
all of a sudden, you're going to try to find clothes
and start from nothing with that.
That wouldn't work out any way you look at it.
It's interesting because even you and I diversified
into CBs and DVDs,
but they're where we're getting our books from already.
And to be fair, there are clothes usually,
depending where you go.
Oh yeah. There as well.
I'm kind of noodling on that one,
but I don't want to have, it's a whole different storage
thing for clothes too.
And then there's cleaning and all of this.
And I don't want to fool with that personally.
So I would not even do clothes.
And then you've got the, what do they call it?
Like the toothpaste and vitamins.
Yeah.
Consumable. It's not consumable.
It's, what's the word for it?
My theory is I'm not-
But that's not even its own category, is it?
It's just standard size.
The toothpaste and vitamins?
Yeah.
I have no idea. I never messed with it.
I guess-
Yeah, it's standard size.
So it won't even matter.
You won't be able to send it in anyway
because you already maxed out.
Right. I mean, I don't even think you can merchant
with all that stuff.
You literally just have standard size,
oversized apparel and footwear.
So you would have to go to apparel and footwear
if you weren't doing what you were currently doing.
Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to stay in media personally.
And I often wonder if I just stuck in, just did books,
not CDs and DVDs.
I think that would be the wrong call
because there's so much value in the CDs and DVDs.
And they're, like I said at the beginning,
I'm picking the books up already.
Might as well pick up the DVDs and CDs.
They're in the same category, right?
It's all pulled on their media.
So it's not like you're a crazy person
doing all these different kinds of business models,
but it is feasible, right?
Maybe you live by the outlets.
I'm here in Lancaster and there's a bunch of outlets.
So if I wanted to go to the Nike outlet,
Puma, Adidas, all that stuff,
I could do it just something that
does not interest me and I don't want the returns.
And then, well, I mean, I guess if I had returns,
I could have a whole closet full of Puma and Nike stuff,
right, that I couldn't do nothing with.
And I just wear name brand stuff all the time.
I think you hit the key point there.
Like I started as an everything seller
and I can tell you right now,
I'm not interested in clothes.
I'm not interested in shoes.
I am interested in books.
Anything.
Yeah, I like CDs and DVDs, but the books do it for me.
That's all I gotta say.
Anything but shoes, please.
That's like a nightmare.
Shoes are so hard.
So hard.
So that covers new triggers.
I mean, they're basically the same.
You just switch them to FBM.
You can be a little bit more picky.
He's talking about Scout IQ triggers
to tell you whether or not you're buying an item.
You kind of can take lower movement stuff
because you have the space,
especially somebody like himself who has a garage.
It's a one E score, two E score.
You can list it.
And then my plan is when FBA opens back up,
you just transfer everything that's FBM to FBA
and then you're back in business like that.
All right, we're moving on here.
Next up, we have Thomas, six month member of the channel.
Shout out to Thomas supporting the channel for six months.
I break down on all the ways to get your books,
including which methods have worked and which work the best.
I'd love to hear insight on all ideas
of how to keep inventory coming.
Now, I-
You wanna take 30 minutes and I'll take 30 minutes?
Yeah, so we gotta like-
You gotta narrow this one down a bit.
You got more better bulkier sources than me.
So I'm gonna let you ride away first here with this.
Okay.
I'm just gonna list them.
Library sales, great for bulk.
You can walk into any thrift store, at least where I live,
and be like, I'll take them all.
Great for bulk.
You can hit Facebook marketplace
and look for your private collectors
or just your Joe Schmo,
but I wouldn't just stop at one,
hit a whole county and make it your daily run.
You just go from location to location to location.
Ideally, you pick something in the middle,
like a McDonald's that's a public place,
and they all come to you.
And you can get a meal while you're doing this,
while you're waiting for your next person to drop your-
They're 20 books off to you.
Another one is go to the actual bookstores.
They exist.
They aren't just thrift stores.
And ask, hey, what's your dead stock here?
Can we make a deal?
Do you just wanna get rid of it
so you can put better items in?
Some other ones you can do.
I've contemplated, never done it, but I've contemplated.
I live on the Gulf Coast.
I've thought about taking a trip down to the docks
and seeing, getting the books before they head overseas
to whatever landfill they dump them in.
As I said, if you're unaware of that,
most of our trash either gets landfilled,
burned, or shipped overseas.
So if you can get them before they hop on their boat
across the pond, wherever they're going, there you go.
There's the thrifts, of course.
I don't like going to them so much.
Estate sales, I love.
I love estate sales.
I love auctions, both online and physical.
It's great for getting bulk cheap, actually,
because most people at those auctions,
they aren't going for the books
unless they really photograph something, I don't know,
like the time machine, H.G. Wells, first edition.
But you're gonna go for the other books.
What other sources do I have?
Oh, I have a deal in community centers or old folks' homes.
Usually they have a library of some time,
but older folks like to read.
And that library gets cycled in and out,
and I get free books that way.
Retirement homes, same deal.
Or people looking to retire.
And their moving sales are looked at too,
like, hey, you got me books.
Estate sale companies, real estate companies.
You want me to stop now, Mike,
so you can have a turn, I can keep going.
Dude, you're done.
The timer's been up, right?
It's like the political debate.
There's so many guys, just look.
There's so many options to get books.
The issue in media is not getting the stuff.
The issue is selling the stuff.
That's the only issue. No, no, no, no, no.
To you it is, but to a lot of people,
a lot of people rely on thrift stores.
I still think probably 75% of people, resellers,
rely solely on thrift stores.
But there's more options.
There is, but it's one of those things
where it takes a little bit of time,
and maybe people aren't comfortable meeting up
with other people directly in today's day and age.
So yeah, I mean, you literally covered every single one.
Which one works best for me?
Craigslist, I don't care what anybody says.
You can say Craigslist is a dead platform,
but I've probably made over $20,000 off Craigslist
just in the past year alone,
just from buying directly from other people.
It's free, you just create an ad.
One thing I wouldn't do,
and I always recommend against doing,
is just buying Gaylords of books
from these dealers you see online.
Bookgaylords.com or something like that.
That's never gonna work out.
That's how it's always picked through,
and most people don't have a plan to get rid of it.
So like you said, there's a million different ways
you can get books,
and thinking outside the box is the way to go.
State sale, clean outs, 1-800-GOT-JUNK people,
all they do is throw that stuff in the landfill, right?
They're not sure they'll skim over it for gold and silver,
but the books and stuff all just go in the trash.
So there's always, there's so much inventory out there,
you can do whatever you want.
You just gotta be willing to look outside the box
and don't rely on the thrift stores,
because thrift stores are gonna keep going up,
and bulk prices are kinda,
you kinda can still be cheap about it.
And just more bank through the book.
There are two that I plan on doing,
that I remember you doing, that you still do early on.
Like you got car magnets, for instance.
You advertise.
You do, I don't advertise, I go out and get it,
but you advertise to get your stuff.
I plan on doing that a lot more next year.
I plan on doing flyers, pick up the car magnets,
put a sign in front of my shop
that we're a buy-only kinda store.
I also, I don't know if it'll work,
but I'm gonna give it a shot.
I'm gonna go door to door, knock, hand a flyer,
like yo, I buy this.
And give me a call,
or somebody tell them to give me a call.
I'm gonna give that a whirl.
I have no idea how it'll do.
It's just a, it might work, it may not.
To this day, word of mouth,
I bought books from somebody,
and then they told their friend,
and then their friend reaches out to me and said,
hey, Johnny said you bought some books from him.
I also have some.
So word of mouth is still the best way
to basically market your business.
It's just a matter of putting in the work, right?
It just doesn't happen magically.
Yeah, a lot of my sources led to other sources,
lead to other sources.
That's the only advertising I've ever done,
is gone out, get it, and I did a good job.
I wasn't a jerk, and they recommended me to somebody else.
They knew it was in the same boat.
All right, moving on to the next one here.
We have Miss Lashay Resells.
She also has a YouTube channel.
She sells media as well.
So go check her out on YouTube.
Topic, other than media,
what other items have you had success in selling?
You wanna go first?
I'm ready to go first.
You go first.
All right.
When I was an everything seller,
some of my best items were electronics
and video games related.
I used to find those Guitar Hero guitars.
I'm talking five hours a piece most
at Goodwills and Salvation Armies,
and they used to be everywhere.
And even back then,
you could easily get $60 plus shipping for those.
And usually, there's always usually more than one, right?
Because if it's a band, unless the person's a one-man band,
there's always usually at least two guitars.
So I sold probably over 50,
maybe even over a hundred of those guitars.
VCRs, VCRs are my bread and butter whenever I see VCR.
Five bucks, because back then,
nobody in Goodwills didn't realize they were worth anything
and nobody wanted VCRs or so people thought.
VCRs always are going for at least 60, 70 bucks plus shipping.
Those are kind of my two bread and butters.
I did dabble in clothes and sneakers,
and I hated every minute of it.
But as an everything seller, you're just like,
well, it's profitable, so I got to get it.
But my big things were VCRs
and basically video game accessories.
Mine were, I'm gonna admit it, shoes.
I don't know, hated.
I didn't clean them.
I cleaned a pair and I was like, no.
I didn't clean the others.
They still sold, by the way.
They were cowboy boots and ladies shirt shoes.
I had over 100, 125 of them.
I maybe ended up with 20 that didn't sell
that I ditched to an auction.
I literally unlisted them because I'm a bookstore.
Like, you deal with this, I'm done.
I've had my time in shoes, done.
But my other one was RP,
I'm gonna throw out my nerd card.
Yes, I'm a nerd.
No, it's T-shirt, nerd shirt.
I'm into RPGs, D&D type stuff, or I was.
I don't have time for that crap anymore.
But I had a lot of friends
that wanted to offload their collections.
I had some stuff in my collection.
I didn't need either.
That's the problem.
You have an addiction to these things.
So you overbuy, you collect.
So the maps, the dice, the dice trays, the dice bags,
those always sold.
Basically, they're like Nintendo, right?
They just stay in value or go up in value.
So those were always good to me.
My problem is I can't really find those
out in the wild unless you know somebody who knows somebody.
But those are so good and money.
It was so good.
Like I said, it's like the Nintendo of analog gaming.
Yep.
And I still wear my video game gear over here, Donkey Kong.
See, you're just a nerd, just a different type of nerd.
So it's all good.
I mean, like you said, you don't have as much time
when you have a full-time business.
But it was, some of my guitar year guitars were,
it was fun.
The only, I'll tell you what though,
one thing I hated about those guitars
was making Franken boxes to ship those things in.
It was a, the only statement of grace was I worked at CVS
and I had access to every size box that came in
off the truck because they just get compacted anyway.
But if that wasn't the case,
it would have been a nightmare.
I can imagine that.
I saw Harry Tornado try to wrap one of those.
Like I'm not doing that, no.
All right, we are moving on here.
We have next up, Amelia Johnston.
When you reach six months with some books in FBA Amazon
and need a device on what the heck to do.
For example, I asked to destroy a book
and it cost two plus dollars.
What do you personally do
when pricing to move hasn't worked?
I thought you got money back liquidating.
Was that not true?
You do, but you're talking, you know, a nickel too.
The most I ever got was like a $1.75.
And most of the time it's in the 20 to 30 cent range.
Did I misunderstand?
Cause it sounded like when she destroyed hers,
they charged her $2.
She didn't even get a nickel.
They still, I'm pretty sure they charge you for liquidation.
That's just a little bit less
than destroying or having it sent back.
The price to destroy and have it sent back is the same.
Really?
Yes.
You're just getting a little credit.
Basically, so.
I learned something here today.
Okay.
I mean, first off, you know,
you're not gonna sell every book you send in, right?
It's probably an 80-20 game, I would say.
Maybe, you know, maybe more or less either way,
but 20% of the stuff you send in is not gonna sell.
All you can do is reprice aggressively
and hope that it sells, but you know,
it's gonna wind up with that 20% that just doesn't sell.
For me personally, I liquidate it.
I'll take whatever I can get from it and call it a day.
Now, if you have an eBay store, right?
I mean, you can have it all sent back to you.
You're gonna get a lot of boxes, a lot of packing material.
So that'll kind of cover the cost
of having it sent back to you.
I wouldn't destroy it.
I would always at least liquidate it.
There's no point in destroying it
if maybe you can get a nickel or 20 cents back.
Or if you need the boxes and packing material,
have it sent back to you, right?
You can liquidate.
I did it, it was like, you know, 300 books.
And you know, all 300 don't come in one box.
I sent a bunch of smaller boxes, which is good.
You can save them for, you know, reuse them for eBay
and you get all the bubble inside.
So that's kind of, you know,
there's really nothing you can do
which is part of the business,
but I wouldn't destroy it, liquidate it,
or have it sent back to you
if you need the shipping materials.
I need to remind you just a second
because I got my own question.
So there's three, right?
Destroying is gonna cost you money.
Having it sent back is gonna cost you money.
Liquidating, you get money?
But they still charge you to have it liquidated,
I'm pretty sure.
So charge, charge, charge, a little bit back.
Yes.
Okay.
So the trade-off is, do you need the packing?
You should never destroy, right?
You should always liquidate or have it sent back to you
if you need the materials.
So my answer is,
if it's $20 or more in value on eBay
or whatever other platform you diversified yourself in,
go ahead and recall that back.
Try to flip it on that one.
Take the chance, see if it sells there,
because it wasn't selling on Amazon.
Otherwise, I'm with Mike, just liquidate them all.
Yep, get them out the door.
If you need packaging, do the recall to get packaging.
Sure.
All right, we're chugging along here.
Next up, we have Getting Rid.
Wait, I forgot to say who it's from, right?
I mean, I'm a terrible host here.
They're gonna be so sad.
I'm the only name not mentioned.
I know.
From Josh Graff with two Fs.
He also has a YouTube channel.
He sells everything on eBay.
I mean, everything.
His last What's Sold videos.
He's got knives to video games, to boots, to clothes.
To auto parts.
I mean, this dude.
I'll take a knife and a book.
This dude sells everything.
Getting Rid of Duds from bulk buys.
I mean, that's like, when it comes to,
if you're gonna be a media seller,
this is like the number one thing you have to figure out
is how to not only get rid of them,
but is there a way you can make a little bit
of that money back on your duds?
Personally, for me, I live 10 minutes from a second
in Charles, that's a trade in store.
You can trade in games, books, CDs, DVDs, records.
Basically anything they'll take.
It's almost like a flea market in there.
So that's what I do.
I scan it all for Amazon.
No ISBN gets looked at on eBay.
And then it goes to second in Charles.
They usually take about 90 to 95% of whatever I take in there.
And then whatever they don't take, I donate.
And you can donate to thrift stores as well
and get a tax write off.
If you don't have any of these options around you.
But Johnny Beak hit it on a little bit earlier.
Local bookstores will probably give you something
for all your inventory.
It might not be much, but realize you didn't pay much
and you're just trying to get money out of the things
that you don't have the space for
that aren't worth it for your business.
Yeah, I mean, most of mine are the same as you.
The only thing I've done differently
is I've done like a auction house.
I've done the online auctions.
They'll take 20 of my things, do their own weird lot.
And right there, you get some money back there.
I've even put it in like a retail portion.
Here's my cart.
I come collect the check.
You take your monthly fee out of it
and it sells on that cart.
I don't sit at a booth.
I don't got time to sit in a booth.
If you've got time to sit in the booth, enjoy.
You can bark at the people walking in the door.
My books are important, buy them.
Other ways you can do it is diversify again,
like Merchant Fulfilled.
Maybe it's a dud on FDA, but it could be a green on FDM.
There's a small might program.
Well, no, that's nevermind.
I didn't say that, ignore me.
Edit this out, Mr. Editor, whoever you are.
You can try other platforms.
Like I've been looking at Macari, Walmart, Shopify even,
diversify, my answer is always diversify.
There's a fine balance here
between wasting too much time on your duds,
like trying to get money out.
You got a thousand CDs or DVDs that are duds
and you literally sit there
and you're literally trying to do lots of them
and you're taking pictures and putting in every single one
in the description only to make 20 bucks.
You gotta have almost a quick way or a proven way
to get rid of this stuff.
I know a lot of people say Facebook marketplace,
throw up your dud CDs and DVDs and lots
and you'll get 20 bucks for them.
It's better than nothing, right?
But you gotta have the space.
And if you don't wanna deal with it,
then you really gotta weigh your options.
Personally, I don't like having stuff just sit around
waiting for two months, three months for it to move.
So I'm taking it to second and Charles.
If I didn't have second and Charles,
I'm going to Johnny B's local bookstore saying,
hey, I got a car full of books, give me 30 bucks.
We're out the door, you can get all the books.
I get my 30 bucks, fills up the tank halfway
and we roll on to the next one.
Now I'm gonna mention one that we both have done.
And I think we didn't mention it here
is cause we realized it's a time sink
is we both have done garage sales for our duds.
Yes, we have.
Yep. And mine wasn't terrible.
I mean- Mine wasn't either.
I made more than I thought I was gonna make.
So did I.
I mean, I have no problem doing it.
So that's another option, especially if you live
in a nice area where you kind of can do it year round.
And if you have the space, right?
I'm on the third floor.
So that's not feasible for me to drag everything
down every weekend.
But if you have a garage, maybe a cart with wheels,
hey, you roll your stuff out, you're ready to go
in three minutes flat every Saturday
or every other Saturday and you get some cash in hand.
And you know-
I do it from like, I don't know, six to noon
and then take that money from noon to whatever
to go source.
Yeah. That's your day.
Yeah. And towards the end of mine, when I did it
I just changed my Craigslist post and that the books are free.
So people were just coming
and grabbing whatever they wanted.
So I didn't have to deal with them, right?
And you know, listen, if they're duds
and you're really not worried about recouping money,
do what Johnny B said, right?
Look to donate to a library or like a senior citizen home.
There's plenty of good things you can do with the books
besides don't ever put them in trash bags.
Like that's just, you know, it's bad juju
as Tommy Boy says.
You don't want to just have that bad karma come your way.
Their books, somebody will appreciate it out there.
You just got to find a way to-
Some folks, they love them John Grisham's.
They love James Patterson and my favorite Nora Roberts.
They love her.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Moving on here.
We have next up from the three lanterns garden,
eBay repricing.
Is there an easy way?
Is there a program that you use?
There is an easy way.
It's called the bulk editor tool within eBay.
That's pretty easy.
As easy as it can get, that's the program to use.
There are repricers out there
that are meant for cross-listing software.
So meaning it does more than just eBay,
but it does eBay too.
You could look into those.
That answers the question.
Now here's my two cents that you did not ask for.
Don't use anything beyond the bulk editor.
It's unnecessary and it's extra money.
You don't need to.
The bulk editor is just fine.
I personally don't use the bulk editor
because I think too many things can go wrong.
Human error, not the editor's fault, but it's your error.
And it's going to take you a while to fix it,
even reusing the bulk editor.
But to answer your question, yes,
there are software programs out there.
And there's also the bulk editor.
I've answered. Your turn.
I hate repricing on eBay.
I'm in the same boat as you, three lanterns garden.
We're sitting in the same garden, pissed off,
because it's not easy.
I usually just go to my active listings to the seller hub,
and then you can click on the little pencil
and edit the price.
And then you can click that button.
It shows the sold or comparable listings.
And you just have to do it manually, unfortunately.
I guess with the bulk editor,
you would have to go in and select all the ones.
And then can you decrease it by like,
say if I wanted to decrease them all by 10%,
is that something you can do?
Yeah, you could do that.
You can even, on the top level of the area
you're talking about, so seller's hub listings active.
You can filter however you want to filter,
and then select them.
And then there should be a bulk editor option or edit,
and then bulk edit.
But I do it the same way you do,
because they've got their columns,
and you can edit those columns if you're unaware.
You can get rid of the junk and keep the necessary stuff.
But I just go down that current price,
hover over the pencil, just like Mike was saying,
and edit that way, because it's safe.
And I know if I screw up on one thing,
I can just go back and fix it one thing,
because I see it.
Well, versus me making a mass selection,
being really hasty, and like, oh, I'm charging a penny.
I meant to charge a dollar.
Whoops.
I think Amazon spoils us with the software
that these companies come up with
that just reprice things automatically 20 times a day.
So repricing on eBay sucks.
We all know it.
It's just part of business.
And I'll never have thousands and thousands
of items to reprice.
Thankfully, I do not want to live that life.
And I know Johnny B is living that life right now.
So that's kind of a little bit of a dig.
He sees me suffer every day.
It is what it is.
All right, so this next one,
this is like a 20 hour call, this next topic here,
about stuff says taxes.
That's it.
Taxes, I mean, you gotta pay them, right?
Especially now, there's no more sneaking by.
There's no more, there's 20K nonsense.
It's 600 bucks.
So I'm sure everybody listening to this
has made at least $600 this year reselling on the platform.
So the IRS is going to want to see,
basically your write-offs,
or you're gonna have to pay taxes on that $600 that you made.
Well, it won't be the $600, whatever you net,
that's what the one tax is on.
So you have to keep track of everything.
I know it's, I think people over complicate taxes.
I think a lot of people waste a lot of time
doing a lot of things they don't need.
I just scan the receipts, scan my utility bills,
scan everything that needs to be scanned,
upload it in QuickBooks.
There's rules you can set.
So it knows that the electric bills, the electric bill,
it knows that the storage units, the storage unit,
it categorizes it automatically.
And it's super duper easy.
That's my recommendation for taxes.
I'm not afraid to say anything
because it's an illegal question.
So rule one, when anybody is giving you tax advice
on the internet, don't listen to them.
Get a tax advisor.
That being said, here's my advice.
I'll tell you what I do because I'm lazy.
I literally have a bucket plastic container
that I throw my receipts in.
I do my taxes about four hours before they're due,
but I also write my mileage so I can do that.
I'm also pretty good with Excel because I'm lazy.
Mike does it the proper way.
Do it the Mike way.
And the fun part is my tax lady loves me
because everything's broken up into columns.
But anyway, I digress.
My better tax advice answer is set yourself up
at your financial institution of choice, a tax account,
and just put 20% of your money in there
that you get from reselling.
Because even if they hit you, the money's already there.
Now, it requires you not touching that money.
People don't have that discipline, dude.
Come on.
I do.
It doesn't exist once it goes in that account.
Not until tax season's over.
I know, but still.
That's my advice, but I don't expect any of you to do it.
So, try.
I think Tommy Boy gives the best advice on this
is have a separate bank account
only for your reselling business.
Yes, that too.
I have both, but yeah.
So do I.
I do too, but at 100%.
So even if you don't wanna do your taxes,
if you have your bank account statements,
you have your receipts, you can go down to H&R Block
and say, hey buddy, here you go.
Boom.
And yeah, you'll pay a few hundred dollars for it,
but they'll take care of everything for you.
And you might not get all the write-offs you're supposed to,
but if you wanted to go that route, you could.
Now, here's my number one tax advice.
Hire a tax person like an H&R Block.
Just do it.
It's a write-off anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Make sure you say that, that you want the fee
they're charging for your tax visit
before you pay your taxes.
That's right.
Before, not after you've handed in the credit card.
So yeah, taxes, keep it simple, but you know,
play the rules the way they're supposed to be played.
Don't risk anything, be smart about it.
And you gotta keep track, right?
You can't just BS things because, you know,
sooner or later you're gonna get caught
and then you're gonna be screwed.
And the IRS, you know, it's not like some credit card
you can default on that goes away
in however many years, right?
IRSs, they'll follow you to your grave and then even after.
Now, I will say this.
If you get hit hard with taxes,
you can go to irs.gov, I believe is the address,
and you can make your monthly payments.
The minimum is about $100.
So if you get hit for 10 grand,
you can do small installments to pay it off.
I mean, if you're gonna hit for 10 grand in taxes,
you need to rethink your whole business here
because clearly you're not doing the things
you should be doing, but anyway, moving on.
The next one's also a pretty loaded question.
I'm so glad we're done with taxes, thank you.
Taxes just, they stress me out.
I'm gonna do a Zoom call for taxes
coming up here in December, but like,
I don't know, it's one of those topics that's just,
yeah, all right.
Caught up in the minutiae, anyway.
Here goes another loaded one here.
It's only one word from Leslie Darling.
And all she said here was pricing.
Leslie, you need to use full sentences, Leslie, but.
Maybe the keyboard died.
Pricing, pricing before you buy it,
price it when you sell it, look up the comps,
relook them up six months down the road if it hasn't sold.
Do sales, I don't know what to do with this one word, Mike.
Your turn.
All right, we'll start with eBay.
So pricing from the beginning.
You have to comp everything.
And by comping on eBay doesn't mean looking at
what Johnny B has his 99 cent McDonald's toy
listed for $10,000 on eBay.
You need to filter it to sold and completed listings.
Whatever people have stuff listed at
means absolutely nothing.
So you have to look at these sold comps
before you buy the items, right?
You're not looking at the already checked out
at the Goodwill or Salvation Army.
Yes, it takes a little bit of time on eBay,
but it's only an extra click on your phone.
So you have to make sure you're going off the sold comps.
And for me, when I price things on eBay
and I'm looking to buy something, I'm greedy, right?
I wanna see what I'm gonna make if I'm priced the lowest
off the current listings and the sold comps.
So if there's five people and the lowest one is,
maybe it's $20 and then it jumps up to 30
and then 35 like that,
I still wanna be able to sell that at the $20 mark
and make the money that I wanna make, right?
So I'm not looking off the third or fourth highest.
I'm always going off the lowest price,
whether that's Amazon or eBay.
I think that's just a good business habit.
I don't like waiting in line.
And I wanna know if I sell it
at the least amount I'm expecting to get,
then I'm still gonna make the money
that I'm expecting to get.
I don't know if I should say anything
because everything you said is right,
but my business model is gonna be so different
for most of our listeners,
I'm probably just gonna sit in my corner.
Okay, yeah, so make sure you're looking at sold comps.
Listed stuff on eBay means nothing, absolutely nothing.
Don't even, you know, and if you see, okay,
so if you see something that maybe there's 10 listed
and none sold, that's also a big red flag to me.
If I'm out buying stuff for eBay,
there's 10 listed and none sold,
I'm probably gonna pass on it.
It's just something that probably isn't moving,
even if it's some crazy price.
Sure, you know, maybe you can gamble here and there
if you're getting your inventory for under a buck
and maybe you'll make $50, it might be worth it,
but other than that, don't buy stuff
that doesn't have a sell through rate on eBay.
Now, I will say this, everything you said is correct,
but if it's old and you can't find it
or there's only one on there, you may take the gamble on it,
but make sure it's worth your time.
I wouldn't do that for anything
that's like less than 50 bucks.
And then you're gonna have to play with the numbers.
If there's one other guy, why hasn't his sold?
Is he overpriced?
Is he underpriced?
Did he use a bad title?
So keep those considerations on the older stuff,
the newer stuff, exactly what he said there.
So that covers kind of your comps
and then repricing on eBay, we kind of hit it earlier.
I only go home probably once a month.
If that, maybe once every 45 days
and just kind of look at my pricing
and you know, kind of, or if Deb yells at me like,
hey, you haven't sold this thing, it's been forever.
And I'm like, all right, I'll go in and lower the price.
So I guess that's my repricer strategy for eBay
is have somebody else yell at you about seeing the crap
that's been sitting on the shelf forever.
But it's not something I consistently go in and do.
And I wouldn't recommend anybody going in
and repricing daily on eBay.
Not in books, not in books, no.
I mean, even anything, right?
I mean, it's just your time.
You have to value, we have to value our time.
Maybe you're selling Apple iPhones,
the latest model maybe.
It's crazy, right?
You gotta value your time at some point here
in the reselling business.
So yeah, I think that kind of covers repricing on eBay
and pricing, you know, sold comps.
And then, you know, you want to be the lowest,
at least in my opinion, from when you buy it, you know,
that you're gonna make the money you wanna make.
So now we're gonna jump into Amazon, same thing, right?
It's the same concept.
When I use Scout IQ, the app, you know,
it shows you the lowest FBA offer.
So I'm comparing to that.
So sure, I probably miss out, I'll admit,
I probably miss out on some books where
maybe it jumps from 13 to $20
and I'm still going off the lowest one.
So if I just would have waited,
it would have go for 20 instead of the 13.
But I don't play that game, right?
I'm not-
I'm not buying that time for that.
I just wanna be the lowest, right?
I know I wanna be the lowest.
The software used, you know, repriced, repriced,
it's 20 times a day.
I always wanna be the lowest price no matter what,
because that's all that really matters on Amazon.
Nothing else really matters
because you're not taking your own photos.
You know, 90% of people don't look at content
and people don't look at condition notes.
They just hit buy now.
And for you to be the buy now person,
you have to basically be the lowest price on Amazon.
What he said.
And if you don't have like, you know,
if you're not doing media, just use Seller Central.
You can scan any barcode right through Amazon,
add a product, and it'll actually show you
the fee breakdown and exactly how much you would make
without, you know, without a whole lot of work.
It's maybe two or three clicks.
So if you're not doing media, you can use, you know,
just Amazon Seller Central app.
A lot of big timers do it, or you can buy, you know,
there's all kinds of different ones out there.
Scoutly, there's so many out there.
So pricing, just be in the best place with the price
so you can get the sale at that price
and you'll probably get it before anybody else.
I mean, that's just keep the cash flowing.
That's how I look at it.
That's why you always wanna be priced the lowest.
eBay is a little different, right?
So I would say this on eBay,
if you're pricing against somebody that has no photos
or one photo, and maybe it's like a video game
or a collectible item, and you have, you know, 10 photos,
you probably can get more than that lower person
because, you know, they're gonna see all your photos.
And don't use stock images on eBay.
With eBay, you can get a little bit more
if you take a little bit more pictures
and the other people don't take a lot of pictures
or they're using their flip phone for the pictures.
But other than that, it doesn't matter.
I just wanna be the lowest.
See, I was keeping my mouth shut.
You had to open yours about this.
Yeah, no, he's 100% right.
If you go the extra mile, you can charge a premium.
A for your time, B for your effort.
I sell what are quote unquote $4 books for 15, $16
because I go the extra mile.
Now, it's a lot more work
and it takes a lot more time doing it that way
versus uploading the stock image and saying it's a DVD
and calling it a day and doing a weird title
or minimum title effort.
But yeah, you can charge a premium for that.
Also, there's a scarcity factor in there.
Like there's only three of you and none sold.
Exactly like we were saying, one or none.
You can charge more of a premium
just because you did a better quality listing.
You may have a better time with the search results
to the audience.
Yours may sell because his was so badly done,
it's buried and no one's ever gonna find it.
So keep those factors into consideration.
Now, if you want a better refined eBay college course,
there's that daily refinement group.
Go join that if you want the full course.
There you go, plug.
If you want the half ass eBay course, I'm the guy.
I'm like community college myself.
So they're like Harvard over there.
Yeah, 100% of daily refinement.
They got everything figured out with eBay.
Everything, anything, anything, anything, anything,
anything is figured out over there.
They got it all down to a science.
There's no guessing, right?
They know exactly how everything works
and the proper way.
They got people to tell you no
when you have a stupid idea.
They just say no, don't do it.
I know, all right.
So that is it for the viewer questions.
We appreciate them all.
We'll probably do another one of these here
in a month or two.
So please, please, more than one word next time.
Yeah, so we need our full sentences.
Well, at least that's what he says.
Thanks for listening to another episode
of the Resellers Mindset Podcast.
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