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 use 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 in episode 24, the Resellers Mindset Podcast, myself, Johnny B.
And we have a special guest today, another Jay name, Jared here.
He is a full, well, part-time looking to be full-time CD seller.
So his primary focus is selling CDs.
You know, me and Johnny B are, you know, heavily into books and a little bit into
other media, but it's going to be cool to see the insight of somebody that's
primary focus is a different type of form of media than books.
So we're going to let Jared introduce himself, kind of give you a little bit
of insight on him and his business and we'll just go from there.
So what's up, Jared?
Hey everybody.
Appreciate you guys having me on to talk about CDs a little bit.
Um, my name is Jared Smith.
I'm from Indiana.
I'm what, like Mike said, I'm a part-time, uh, CD seller.
We're looking, we're refining processes and then we'll go full-time.
So, um, I was a collision center owner for 20 plus years.
I still do, uh, emergency vehicles.
So that's my full-time gig, the part-time.
Disbased media.
So CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, but 95% of it is all CD.
So I'm curious, like, how did you like, give me the origin story?
Like, how did you, you know, when did you have the epiphany?
Like, Hey, I want to try selling disc media.
You know, like, like a lot of people I got into eBay is, you know, just kind of a side hustle.
I had done body shop stuff so long and honestly, it's not real good for your health.
So, so I thought, you know, maybe I could just play around with eBay and make a little side money.
Maybe I could turn it into something.
Maybe not.
So, um, I'm one of those people that just likes to stay busy all the time.
Um, started out like a lot of people do, dabbled in close.
Shoes, just whatever you found at the thrift stores.
I had a really high return rate on clothes back then.
And nowadays that I've learned a lot more, it's probably more processed than it was anything.
Cause we know some really skilled clothing sellers that do very well.
So it was probably more, um, operator error than, than anything.
So, uh, I just, I'd seen some people that had sold CDs.
And I thought, well, it was kind of interesting.
And I went to a flea market one day and it was more like an antique booth and there was all these CDs there one day.
So I started looking at them and I'd already sold books on Amazon.
You know, I did some FBA books.
I did, um, did a little bit of books, not too much on eBay, but so I had a scanning app.
So I pick up a CD and I started scanning a couple of them and I started hitting $50.
CDs, you know, it was $50 CD, $60 CD, a hundred dollars CD.
Like I'm like, what is going on here?
I'm like, surely this can't be real.
And I just happened to stumble across the guy was an auctioneer and it was somebody's whole collection that he got.
So there was a bunch of, um, kind of rare valuable, like, is it clot to the band?
And there was some odd moody blues and stuff like that.
And it was just super valuable.
So I bought, I probably blew 200 bucks that day and they were all between like two and four dollars a piece.
So I blew probably about 200 bucks.
I went home, started, uh, doing even more research.
It started listing them like the first night, like two hundred dollar plus CDs sold like the first night they were on.
And I was like, I'm going back.
So I went back and I basically cleaned his booth out of every valuable CD that was like basically $20 and up.
And my mark just kept going down.
Like, I think the first day I went back, it was like, all right, I'll buy anything that's, you know, $30 and up.
And I, you know, I come back and start listing all this stuff and it's just so crazy.
I couldn't believe it.
Like, so then it was like, well, I guess I'm going back for everything that's 20 bucks.
Like, you know, so then, you know, I went back and rated it again and it finally just kept going down to where I'd pick.
I'd picked everything out of it.
So then I was already in Chris Lin from Daily Refinement.
I was already in his group anyway.
And I talked to him about it on a like, on like a private chat.
And I'm like, man, what do you think of this?
So we did a little research and he's just like, man, this I think this could work.
Like, I think you got a viable business model and we've just kind of been running with it ever since.
So that's it's pretty crazy.
Like you kind of just, you know, stumbled upon this one day and all of a sudden you're like, I'm never listed another polo shirt again in my life.
It's funny because like a lot like I guess like Amazon, you start with books, eBay, you start with clothing.
But it's almost like the opposite because I feel like clothing on eBay is really hard compared to books on Amazon.
Like clothing on eBay, you have to have like a passion for fashion, I guess, because sitting there and listen that stuff and just understanding, you know, all the different styles.
It's just I was in the same boat as you when I started eBay.
I had no damn clue what I'm listening with these shirts and you know these shoes.
Mary Jane buckles all those kind of I had no idea.
I was like, the first chance I could get to get out of that.
I was like, all right, I'm running for the door. I'm out of here.
So yeah, you kind of just stumbled upon it, which is it's pretty crazy.
It's weird how life works. Sometimes you kind of can just, you know, just walk into some of these opportunities and they can be life changing.
Kind of like the one you have. So like CDs, disc media, I guess, like once you got into that, did you just say, hey, I'm just going to stay focused?
Did you shut down your other part of the business like kind of quickly or like did you slowly transfer over?
It was a pretty fast transfer.
So the only thing I kept really going other than the disk based stuff was I was still doing FBA books.
I was I was fairly heavy in FBA books for quite a while.
So but I was a library sales sorcerer and I kind of kept that going all the way up until the time of covid.
So I had probably I don't know, three or four thousand in inventory.
And then when covid hit and a lot, we lost the library sales.
That's basically when my book business died off.
So I lost my sourcing and with my other business,
I just didn't have time to just kind of beat the thrifts constantly to be able to get the inventory I needed.
So and obviously, you at the very beginning, all that you weren't doing personal pickup buys and all that kind of stuff.
So I just I basically use that as my cue to step away.
So it's it's pretty crazy to think, you know, like three thousand, four thousand books and inventories, like no small fee. Right.
We can sit here and just talk about it like it's nothing, but that's a lot of profitable books.
Right. You're only sending in profitable items.
So you were you were pretty knee deep and thick of it.
And, you know, just to decide and to kind of switch it up and just think kind of hits on, you know, what we kind of been chasing this year is having a business
that's going to have to change again, regardless of what happens in like the economy and in the world.
You know, another anything happens.
I'm curious, like, for your main sourcing, do you source like mainly online now or is it are you still going out in person now and then or like what are you doing nowadays?
All bookbush.
So I buy Gaylord's. I look I left into a source probably right about a year ago and the guy kind of had just the ultimate plug of being able to buy from a place that liquidated libraries.
So I kind of niche down even further and probably 80 percent of the stuff I list now is the X library.
So it's kind of a double edged sword. I never thought I would mess with much of X library stuff because it can affect the value.
But the thing a lot of people miss with X library is the fact that some of this stuff has been in a collection for the last 30 years.
So you can find some really rare stuff.
It's not uncommon to pull hundred dollar plus CDs out of a box of library stuff that's been, you know, it's been in a library collection for, you know, 20, 20 plus years.
You can find some really rare stuff. So it can be it can be quite valuable.
I'm curious, like just overall condition wise, because with libraries like the condition of books sometimes can be really good or they can just be completely destroyed with all like the library stickers and everything.
Like, do you kind of see like a condition problem or is it usually better because it hasn't really been open and played because I don't know you think of a library, right.
You don't think people go into, you know, take out CDs to listen to.
Yeah, condition is a big factor. So it's funny that it really depends on the library.
Like, I've had really bad luck out of Chicago Library, the Chicago Public Library. A lot of times it looks like people use CDs to skate on.
So I think they ride them down the sidewalks and, you know, do their best moonwalk on them or I don't know what they're doing to them. But, you know, a lot of times they're horrible.
So you do get you do get a lot of you do get a lot of trash when you're buying it with any bulk with any bulk buy. That's the problem with bulk is there's lots of trash, but it's it's super high depending on the library.
We do get a lot of stuff that's blasted with stickers, but we just disclose it and, you know, collectors looking for that rare CD.
They don't care. Like there's some, sometimes we get stuff that there's just none on the market.
So they could care less they just want the recording.
Well you mentioned doing FBA books do you do FBA CDs as well as eBay or.
Yeah, I do a little bit of FBA CDs. I, I do merchant fulfilled CDs I use I use a software.
So my software will cross list between eBay and Amazon merchant fulfill.
So, we just opened a Libras integration into it so we'll be, we'll be live on there and probably another week.
So, I probably only have.
I haven't looked lately but maybe 3400 in FBA inventory.
So, I don't I don't focus on it too much.
My processes are so are, I've been working to streamline the processes so much for the eBay merchant and merchant fulfilled side that it's almost easier sometimes for me just to not even worry about a secondary scan to see if it should go FBA and just sell
it merchant, maybe it's a couple dollars less but speeds of factor.
We have a couple guys are group they're pretty see focused heavy. What tools would you advise for them to start looking into tools as far as cleaners or tools as far as software or.
Yes, all tools.
Oh, all tools.
Software is a big part of my business. I'm really software heavy, and I mean, me and Johnny. I host the media I'm pretending I don't know you here. So,
and I know that he knows them so I'm just sitting here like yeah Johnny doesn't know this guy.
Yeah, well, I'm letting the cat out of the bag that I happen to know Johnny, because I hosted me, I host a media call and Chris lens reseller Nirvana group on the media call host.
So, and I'm lucky to have Johnny come in to our call. He's there, pretty much every week so I feel a lot of antiquarian style book questions. Go right to Johnny, because I'm on, like I said, FBA bookseller, and I was hitting library sell so that means I'm a book
scanner, not a book expert. So, I could find, I can find you money, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't for her knowledge of books, so I'm just, I'm just closing that but as far as my software is because I use software to buy my time back.
So I want to be as efficient as possible as quickly as possible because I'm trying to scale this business while I still have my other business. So, and I don't, I don't, I don't keep it shy that in a part time business.
I've done over 100,000 in sales on eBay and Amazon. This past year, you know, in a part time scenario, but that's just by being able to utilize software that's why I feel it's important. So I give Johnny.
I'm on the dream pill all the time about not using software and doing everything manually, but honestly his is the most thorough best way to do it. Mine, software can cause mistakes so I always, always advise people be very cautious when you, when you go to a software,
like, make sure you're not a couple times just to go straight up software I won't lie been very tempted. Yeah, you got it. You gotta.
For one, you got to be willing to spend quite a bit of money.
Don't go to the cheapest software, because the biggest thing for people to remember is your business is in their hands.
So you need customer service. You need the guy that has developers that are willing to work in the middle of the night to fix a problem.
And then somebody that's willing to give you a phone number to text them like when you see a problem in your software, like one of the head developers of the software I use.
I texting like, hey man, I just got kicked out of the program. I'll send him a screenshot of the error code or whatever happened.
And to do on it. So that's that's worth a bunch of money to me.
So I'm not, I'm not shy to spend money on software.
Just like the book guys, you got you got to have a scouting app for being out in the field.
So that's how I feel on software. But other than that I don't my, my listing software has my repricer built into it, they do all of it.
So I don't have to. I don't have to price it. I don't have to worry about repricing it.
I don't, I don't have to worry about the integration between eBay and Amazon and double selling and all that kind of stuff.
Their, their system so high tech in a little over a year I've double sold one item. And that was when Olivia Newton John passed away, her CD was selling everywhere.
And it sold within, they tracked it down and it sold within like two and a half minutes.
It sold on both platforms. So I can't fault them for that the API is don't even update fast enough to be able to catch it.
So, they've got my mind running here so you, your software reprices your inventory. So it actually will reprice your eBay inventory as well.
So I'll just set it like that. I actually run a little different model on my eBay side. What I do is my, my software prices my items initially.
I don't even, I don't price it. I don't look at it. I don't, I don't research them. I don't do anything.
I don't initially price it say it's my bottom floor is like 760 basically on day Amazon. So we'll just use 760, it'll price it on the eBay 760. I'll run a promotion on eBay to bring it down a little bit closer to actual market value on eBay.
And then I have the repricer shut off on the eBay side. So that way I can control the eBay side via promotions coupons, etc.
Alright, so now I'm going to ask for your process here right so I show up, I got a Gaylord of will say you know just CDs in general right so Gaylord shows up at your door CDs walk me through like exactly like how you go from Gaylord to listed and shelved.
When I have raw Gaylords where they're just thrown in there.
I basically do like everybody, I actually use like a milk.
I start picking it I start picking them up out of there, and I set a table up next to it, and I get them stacked up.
I'll do.
I'll do on the table, I'll have everything stacked up, I basically transfer them to boxes, and they go right to the listing area.
Are you listing basically everything it has a disc and that Gaylord.
Now, here's the other caveat to it is we've implemented testing now.
So they're actually at the per listing station, you will be testing every disc.
So, and computer programs are testing them all.
What I want is it to be tested so I know there's no critical errors on the CD. There's no deep scratch that may be into the data.
Whatever.
So, it goes from there if I know that it's past testing to write to the listing area.
I don't care if Amazon says it will never sell, I don't care.
I'm just getting listed, I'm going to get I'm going to give the CD a shot because you know what we've all found out, whether it's books or DVD or CD.
Amazon can say that things never sold here, and that it's worth nothing, but there may be a customer waiting for it on eBay.
Just a different customer base. So, I'm not concerned with the value of it.
With all high volume media, the, the whole trick to making money is to get the multi quantity order. So, I get a lot of people that will come in it's like kids CDs.
I had some about a week ago. They were new sealed cases cracked.
Amazon said none of them would ever sell I listed them anyway, with within a week, they sold on eBay, and somebody bought like four or five of them all in a group.
Every CD they bought, according to software said they would never sell, but they all sold together so they ended up and they were, they weren't high value by any means they're only like $7 $8 $9 CDs.
So, but I ended up making about five bucks a piece, roughly, off of them.
So, I'm willing to take that chance. And worst case scenario the software is smart enough that I can basically run a report that says, show me everything that's 18 months old.
It'll give me a pick list I can go into the inventory area pick every item that's 18 months old. And if I wanted to you could just throw it away.
Do you have like a process like say if it's a safe it comes back critical error. But you know, maybe it's, well I guess you're really you don't even get you so you don't even know if the CDs worth it then do you like resurface any of the desk.
I resurfaced every desk before it leaves every desk. Every desk it's going before it leaves. You have like a super duper JFJ or like what do you what do you use in here because we're all out here with the JFJ easy pro doing one at a time and we know it can take a lot of
time. Yeah. Hey man, you can't. I'm the biggest advocate for JFJs there is. I argued with so many sellers over the over a JFJ.
Like we've had people come into the calls and try and say that machine garbage. I'll never use that I bought one I tried to use it one time and it messed my CDF and all this but they just don't know how to use it.
I think that machine's great.
What's that I am. I'm not good like figuring things out my JFJ look kind of like what you're saying I've never had any issues with it at all.
I don't know what people are doing or anything but I'm going to say but if you people give me, you know flack about like hey you know this thing sucks I'm like, are you talking about like you can literally I'm curious, you run like the disk in there for like the maximum amount of time or like
because I'm down to 20 seconds I can put it in there for 20 seconds, and it gets all the scratches out usually that I need to get out so I when I started I was a two minute guy everything two minutes.
I'm a second guy I'm just curious you know what you're doing. Yeah, when my JFJs are now backup machines.
Just because I bought bigger, you know bigger machines that can process more more disk, but they're not coming off my shelf, because those things always run, and they do a good job like you said, right.
The only thing I really changed is when I'm sanding I added a step since I come from the body shop world. I added a sandpaper to mine which is a which is a 3M Trizac 3000 grit.
So, say we had something really rough and you have your core 600.
Then you go 1200 and then normally you would go to a buff on a JFJ.
I basically put another pad in, put the 3000 grit.
I put the water, let it, let it run for 20 30 seconds like that, and then switch over to the buffing.
And I changed the compound over. So I didn't have to do how JFJ has two compounds. I switched it to where I have one, and I use a car, it's basically a car polish is what it is.
So, and then I'll put it on, if I've resurfaced all the way down to 600, then I'll let it run for one minute on the polish, and you pull it out and it's, it's new.
Just to give some people an idea of what a part time CD seller list today.
And also what you think you would list once you convert over to full time if you can give us some numbers there. I don't answer this.
Yeah, my, my goal has been up and down a little bit lately, and that's just because we've been implementing the testing. So my goal for a while I had moved up to 250 is where it went to.
Right now I've backed it down to 100.
So, now that's a day correct. Yes. Yeah, that's a day.
So, and that's because I'm utilizing software, right.
The software is where all the speed comes from. Now when I was doing all manual listings, I stuck myself at 30 for a long time when I was strictly just eBay CDs, I did 30 a day.
And then, when I knew I had all my processes kind of refined and could clean the CDs in ample time and be able to get them out on time, I went to 50.
And that was it didn't take too long. Probably, it was two and a half hours I think I can do 50 and about two and a half hours.
Not not. That's great. So, once all the kinks were worked out and all your processes refine, and you decide okay I'm going to pull the trigger on full time.
How many a day do you think you would want to do could do.
Well, my, my plan. We're almost done with the testing system.
I'm not a big technical guy. So I think I'm the problem on the problem on getting the testing system done right now there's four machines for testing machines running but we're going to move it to eight.
And when eights done, and my big CD cleaners back up. I'm jumping right back to 250, I'm going to hold 250 for probably, maybe, maybe two months or so, and then we're just going to put, we're going to put the gas down and probably go to 500.
Yeah, that's, that's the goal.
I'm going to clear my name now and say one day of listing you have more eBay listings than I do. All right, so I accept defeat in that category and aspect of my life but I'm curious right so I see you got your listing software we all know with CDs.
It's only you know maybe 50% of them actually have the scannable UPC barcodes. Now like how does that work if it has like the those like club edition barcodes or like no barcodes because personally for me I think the CDs and you got a cover scan with Amazon
are actually really profitable because nobody else does it. I'm curious like, what's the process for like you if it doesn't have a scannable barcode like with your listing software.
So I'm going to go to my work flow, since I'm trying to go fast. They basically get set on the table next to me. When I scan it and it didn't pop up set right on the table next to me.
When I get to my listing goal.
I get those done. I pick that pile up, and most of the time, it's old school punch, just type the type the title right into Amazon, pull up the ASIN copy the ASIN and just transfer right over into the software.
That's usually how it goes.
Now we're also working, the software I use has a recognition system in it, because they also do fully automated lines.
So you can basically set a webcam up.
And it's kind of like the seller app will just recognize what it is.
That's the next move.
Oh yeah, that'll even take you to the next level, you can just throw them under there, you don't really got to worry about doing anything. That's pretty crazy to think about how like you're doing this part time but I would argue that your processes are a lot better than you know 98% of resellers out there and you're only putting in you know part time effort.
And it's like it's almost like you want to refine the process and then you'll take the business where it needs to go where it's almost the opposite way for a lot of people where they want to go go go and their processes are completely broken from the top to bottom.
That's, that's exactly right. My, I'm waiting. My goal was
the goal became basically I wanted to be able to net 100,000 part time before I went full time, because I know if I can net 100,000 part time, you can easily.
You can easily double and triple that.
So, that that was the goal.
So I need, honestly I need to be about 225,000 or so in sales to do that number.
Where are you, where are you keeping all these damn CDs at man you got to have like a huge you know 5000 square foot warehouse I mean, but then again, CDs are not that big right so you can store a lot of them I'm curious like what's your storage setup
to have just like a room.
That's the beauty of CDs. They're so small.
Actually, back when I had a collision center.
So I actually I keep the bulk part of the media over there. I have, I bought some palette racking and I've got a forklift and all that.
I have a bunch of it over there. And then I'm actually split where the, the big goal is to we're going to put an addition onto the building over there, and then everything will be in house at the warehouse, eventually, right now.
So I actually store at another house, we bought, we bought a second house, and one of the bedrooms is where I store my inventory at, just to kind of, we're just trying to get it out of our house because I don't.
My house is small my house is probably 1000 square foot.
And one of my biggest rooms was dedicated to my eBay inventory. So we ended up taking it out of there was the only reason but you can literally have a 12 by 12 bedroom with some shelves in it.
And you can have.
I think you could pretty pretty easily have a 15,000 item store in there.
So, and then we're on that right now is just basically my living room. So I prefer to list here just because I'm at home. When the wife comes home I'm here. I got two dogs that are normally running around acting crazy I'd like to be able to be at home
and spend time here. So, I like to list here.
So, so listing the amount you're listing, and I, and I didn't realize this is till I started attending your media call. What does that do to your shipping you talk about shipping it listing at that scale, but that does to you.
It's work.
It's a, it's one it's one of the bottlenecks. So, like a lot of media sellers, I clean CDs, after they sell, because you don't want to invest all the money it costs us and, you know, even if you're using a JFJ you know expensive pads polish sandpaper all that stuff
so you don't want to pre clean every CD not unless you have a small operation so I clean at time when they're going to go out. So, it can make shipping quite hectic. When I was running 250, I had one time where I shipped on Saturday morning.
And I pulled my order report on Monday morning and I had like 170 or 180 going out.
And it was bad.
It was so bad. Like, I mean I complain about 30 or 40 but 150 again, ouch.
Yeah, my machines are just back there humming. Like I literally spent the entire day.
Shipping, and I had to run my post office close at seven.
I showed up at like, I think I went over there like 630 with, you know, I'm just carton boxes in of all these CDs.
And they're, they're just, you know, their eyes are this big and they're like, what are you doing. What happened like you used to just bring in like 3040 like, I'm like, well we put we put the gas down so we're starting to sell a bunch and I was like I'll be back in a little while.
She's like you gotta be kidding me. So, I had to rush back home, and then that night I shipped. I think I shipped all the way up till probably midnight.
It was hours and hours of shipping it was my entire day.
So, that's when I started to back back off of the gas, because I realized my bottleneck.
So, you know anybody with scaling.
It's nice because when you when you kind of put your foot down.
You start to learn all those bottlenecks in your business, and they seem to appear real quick so you got to be, you got to be super careful.
You got to be ready to take your foot back off the gas immediately.
And at that time, I think I even put my store on vacation.
Like just to try to stop it, because I knew what was happening. You don't want those defects you don't want out of stock.
Just late shipments like crazy because when you're selling large quantity all it takes is two days, and you can lose top rate of seller.
We had the power out a couple weeks ago. And I mean my foot's off the gas and I had like 50 orders or something to go out.
Powers out, internet's out, it's out of the other house, it's out of the warehouse, there was basically nothing that you know I called eBay and I'm like, guys, there's nothing I can do these, these orders aren't going to go out.
What I've got shipped now is all that's headed out.
And then when I went, I dropped to like 97% tracking uploaded and validated in one day.
So, all it takes is a second day when you're here at scale and you might be losing top rated seller and then 6%.
You know you get the 6% fee for not being being below standard basically.
So, you got to be super careful for sure. Anytime you're scaling. That's crazy like just thinking about like you know we get overwhelmed by you know 20 30 orders you got 170 CDs you got to find, and I can't admit here, I am now like you I do not clean the DVDs or CDs until I sell them.
I used to do it like once you know oh before I listed or while I'm listing it, clean them but now I guess you know just words of wisdom somehow came to me and I'm in the same way as you now I guess it doesn't make sense to clean it until it sells.
And people will say hey well what happens if you can't get the scratches out well I've never ran into that with with my JFJ even if it's a pretty beat up scratch.
Usually you can always get it out and I really don't worry about that I think that's just you just trying to overthink something a little bit and I think it is smarter to just clean it when it sells because you know you spend the time when you have to and it's a whole process.
So now say hey. All right, you get your 150 orders for the day, you stack them up.
Now, before you throw them into JFJ I know you say you clean all of them. Now what happens if you flip this disc over and it's brand spanking new you cleaning that are you just cutting it loose.
It's new.
I'm wiping it off and sending it down the road.
So, so, I mean if it's got nothing to clean on it.
Maybe it's got a fingerprint or something on it, I actually use a quick detail or spray from a car from cars.
I have one that you got to watch those to caveat to that you got to watch those because some of those are very oily.
Find one that's not quite oily wizards makes makes a good one. I like a lot of the wizard products are body shop.
So, I just hit it with that spray microfiber, wipe it off.
Send it on the road. Do you have any employees like Johnny or no.
Do you plan on having any. Eventually. Okay, I have to have my process processes got to be 100%.
I kind of want to be like Johnny where you grow it to a point where you kind of can step back from the business and you know, kind of just show up and make sure things are running the way they're supposed to or like, do you want to stay kind of knee deep in it.
I'd like to eventually be able to step back a little bit.
But I'm kind of a control freak.
Even in my body shop and we had employees and everything I always made sure I was very aware of what was going on.
I gave them space. I'm not too bad.
But believe me, I knew what was going on to say the least. So, but yeah, I'm actually I actually have a plan for that.
And that's going to come this summer. My wife's a teacher.
So my plan was is to refine my process and get everything done before she goes on summer break.
And then I'm basically going to give her the plan. Give her the SOP.
This is how we do it. See if she can do it.
I know if she can jump in there and do it and have no issues and she can turn the same product as me, then I'm at the point to where I can throw people out.
So because if I throw them out at too early, all I'm doing is paying people to create problems in my business.
I forgot about your your disk cleaning question, too. Sorry. The JFJs became the backup I use. I have to zero dual disk two machines that are tabletop machines that clean to us.
I have two of those in the back. And then over at my big shop, we have a old it's from Disco Technologies.
They had a machine called a Mech6 and that's what Netflix and those guys used. So you load a hundred into it. It's fully automated.
Let's get a time. Sounds great.
And that machine I've actually been in contact with the guy that owned that company because that company got bought out by Elm, which everybody knows Elm, you know, EcoPros and the AutoSmart and the Master Machines.
His company actually got bought out by them. So I've been in contact with him on like I've never had like service manuals for that machine. So it's always been a little temperamental.
So hopefully with his help now, I'm going to have it back online for this for maybe springtime. I'll have it all the way sorted out.
And then that's really what's going to be able to accelerate the business quite a bit.
So I can throw a hundred in there. It spits them out. Then I want to take to clean a hundred on that thing.
It has different settings. If you were just doing very light like clean it.
Light scratches that thing that thing can do 180 in an hour.
It's an it's an unreal machine.
So I want to get technical with you for a sec because I don't even know if everybody in our group realize what this actually means.
But can you talk about disc rot for a moment? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm quite experienced on disc rot at the moment.
So disc rot basically happens when CDs have been stored for a long time and especially not in climate controlled units.
The disc rot can occur and it's basically the chemicals reacting and the CD is basically eating itself from the inside out is flamings terms on on how it works.
So because all the chemicals that are in there and that's basically a clear resin that's on top of that.
So it's you know, they basically just drop resin on there and the machine spin and it spreads that resin out is the actual coating that you're sanding and buffing.
So disc rot is when the chemicals that were originally used in it down below that layer, they start to react from heavily from climate climate going up and down.
Heat, cold, heat, cold, heat, cold, which we all have to deal with because that's the reality of video games, DVDs, all that stuff.
When people get done with it, like you had a PS3 and you went to a PS4, you put your PS3 and you put all your games in a box and it went in the garage or it went in the attic or something like that.
So these things are starting to come out of storage and they're basically eating themselves.
So what you're looking for is basically like dots.
If you ever see one, if you flip a CD over and you see a spot on it, sometimes it can be a stripe.
Sometimes it can be the whole CD, but you'll look at it and almost looks like maybe it's been sitting like maybe it was sitting somewhere like with the silver side up and somebody was like, maybe they were dusting like they had some pledge or something near it.
And you get those little spots all over it, like that you had to wipe off.
If you ever have one that looks like that and you like, you know, maybe you're just testing it and just kind of rub your finger across it and it doesn't remove.
Like, be very careful, because that could very well be disc rot.
I was going to ask if you can even see disc rot.
Yeah, that's the other side of disc rot too, is sometimes on these older CDs, you have to be cautious because you'll have something that looks like a scratch, and you'll put it through the machine resurface it pull it back out, and the disc will actually look worse.
If you ever have one scratch and you pull it out and now you've got three.
You've got a disc rot problem, because it's basically it's the coating underneath that resin that's broke down, and it's basically missing at this point.
So, your testing will catch it right. Is that one of the reasons why you started testing every single one. Yep.
That's exactly why we implemented testing.
So, basically, a lot of library stuff is not stored in controlled units.
And I've seen it from, I've actually seen it from stuff that hasn't been stored for a long time too. Because honestly we're dealing with CDs that can be 30 years old now.
So, I'm curious about it, you gotta be careful.
I'm curious, I pay 20 cents per CD if I'm doing a bulk buy, do you think I'm overpaying?
How big is the bulk buy? And maybe they got a box you know they just hit me up on Craigslist, because that's what I have I pay 20 cents per CD you think that's fair?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good right.
You figure, figure if you're, especially because you're not dealing with shipping.
You know people that are looking to get into the bulk game. There's a lot of places you can buy Gaylords from.
But you gotta be careful because the shipping is so high now.
If anybody's trying to go down that, trying to go down that avenue, the one thing to talk to your broker about is quantity that you need to have a good shipping rate.
Because sometimes it's going to cost you the same amount to ship one Gaylord as it is for.
Maybe six is the sweet spot. It's all going to depend on your location, the trucking company, the broker you're dealing with.
So definitely get a good relationship with them, and basically tell them what you're trying to do. Ask questions.
Be very adamant about asking questions about shipping.
Because I know when I was buying Gaylords from a place,
it was four was the sweet spot. It went up significantly when I went to six.
And four was basically the same price as one.
So it was worth it for me to, you know, we'll just say they're $150 a piece.
I was better off to save my money.
Instead of only having 150 to buy one, I was better off to save my money, have 600 to buy four.
Then my shipping was at the time, normally was about 200 bucks.
So, but if I bought one, it was like 150.
So why not? Why not just buy more?
Because the big thing with any kind of bulk stuff is you've got to work off averages.
It cost average, average sale prices. You've got to be on averages if you're dealing with bulk.
Because everybody knows it doesn't matter if it's a book or it's a DVD or it's a CD.
You're going to have a lot of stuff in a bulk buy that's not very valuable.
Like that $6, that $6 CD. I mean, we're not going to a Sizzler off a $6 CD.
But if we average that in with all our home runs too, now we might have an ASP.
Say it's, say you get a lot of like lower end stuff in your bulk buys, but you still get a little bit of home runs.
Now you might have a $9 ASP at this point.
So now when we take our shipping out and our mailer and all that, say that's four.
Now we're left with a $5 average profit per item on something that you basically have less than a minute involved in.
So that's kind of how I have to judge my CD business.
You ship all these CDs. I have to know, how are you shipping your CDs?
Are you polybagging? Are you bubble mailloring? Are you, what are you doing?
I actually have six inch wide bubble wrap. It gets a piece of bubble wrap around it.
I have an automatic tape machine. So it gets, bring it around, piece of tape on each side that holds it to itself and it goes in a bubble mailer.
So you're bubble wrapping and bubble mailloring. So you're doing more than I do. So good on you for taking care of the customers.
Yeah. Then that that's a big part of our repeat business.
We actually sell, we can sell like library CDs and plastic cases.
Library printed artwork, stickers all over, markings all over.
We can actually sell these for more money than places like Declutter and all that. So very good CDs for.
And it's all customer service, resurfacing all the discs. We make sure every disc, every disc that shows up works.
We make sure even though that we use a catalog photo because we're using software, we make sure everything's disclosed in the listing.
So they get a product. They've been resurfaced. They get cleaned and all this.
Yeah. And it's a pretty boilerplate description and it's basically that will show light markings that do not affect playback.
All discs are cleaned if needed. That way, in case we get something, maybe it's, you know, because everything like this, you know, it's listed in acceptable condition.
So, if it's got a few little marks on it, a few little scuffs or whatever, I'm okay with only throwing it on, you know, the shortest cycle possible.
And maybe it still has a couple little marks on it. I'm okay with that. But it's going to look good. We don't send anything out that looks like people have been skating on it.
We make sure it works 100% for them. So we get a lot of repeat business and it's enabled us to charge more than other people.
So as we, as you like continue to grow here, I know you're saying you're getting on another website like with this cross-losting software, you're not taking photos or are you taking photos of each item?
It's all stock photos?
Yep. All catalog photos.
So that's important to know that, you know, even though he's not taking actual pictures of the actual item, he's still pushing, you know, over 100k part-time, right?
So as much as, you know, me and Johnny B always kind of harp on taking nice photos, you know, everything we do, there's also a different way.
And both ways can work. It's just a matter of what you really want to do with your business.
And, you know, you've probably heard, oh, 250 CDs a day. Well, hey, if the software has already got all the stock photos uploaded and it does everything for you, then, you know, how much of your time are you getting back?
Like if we told Johnny B to list 250 books today, it'd probably take him, you know, a few days. And Jarrod's like, yeah, I'm done sucker. Beat it. I'm off to work.
So it just goes to show everybody's business is a little bit different here. So I'm curious, like, this software, you're going to keep expanding, right? You want to list on as many platforms as you can, because that's kind of how you're going to get the sales in the bulk game.
And are you like looking at because I've always thought about this and I always talk to Johnny B about it, like maybe having like your own Shopify website where the fees are less, but the traffic really you have to drive it.
Is that like something that's like kind of on your mind? Like, well, maybe I can get less fees. I can, you know, maybe charge a little bit less on my website and, you know, have a whole business over there as well.
I've thought about that. But the only way I'll consider it is if my software can integrate into it.
I don't want to think I'm going to have to do manual because, you know, as I've said, time, you know, all this software just all it's doing is buying my time back, which is which is super important to me.
With with with the discussion of photos, taking photos of the actual item is always a better route.
Always, you can you can you can command more money by taking good pictures just like you guys tell everybody, you know, take those quality pictures, you're going to command more money than anybody else with that way.
Always going to get extra money compared to me.
So, but, and I was, I used to hate catalog photos are early media calls I was on there like I didn't know catalog photos, no stock photos, no nothing. That's no way to do it.
And when I finally made the switch. I just realized it's just a different customer set is all it is.
There's a customer set for everything out there. There's, we, you know, we got guys in the group that do disk only. They do disk only no tracking, like it's shipped with a stamp, like, and he has a, he has a great business.
Like, he sells a ton of stuff.
So and he is margins are awesome.
So, it doesn't, you know, we got everybody from there, all the way down to somebody that takes it takes the best photo box picture, there is, you know, so it all works there's all there's a customer base for everybody.
If it shows up they don't like it, I got free returns, send it back.
Like my, my return, my return right when it shows you compared to other people. Mine's like mine's like a less than a third of what other sellers are.
So actually have them send it back reduce Tom to keep it.
Now I haven't sent it back.
Yeah, I'm taking a quote from tech from our group.
But we don't negotiate with her.
We don't negotiate with her. That's going to be your business, your business motto when you get there and you're full time it's going to be right outside of the warehouse, real big sign.
Negotiate with her is because here's the real for everybody. People are going to fish for return.
I catch people doing that all the time. Like, I have no emotion that's one thing I've learned from tech over the years is, I have no emotions with a return.
We offer free returns. Hey this thing, it came out the box and it looked at me funny.
No problem. We have free 30 day returns. Please. You know my, my board just says, please package it up.
Like we like we sent it to you. So, so it's protected on its way back home.
No problem. On the same way I turned off those Amazon return emails you get oh you got a return I don't care like I don't want to be boxed people I think that's like it's a real that's like a touchy subject here now we're going to get a lot of people ticked off because returns like people think
there you know oh man why are this person returning it well at the end of the day they can return it for anything like it's a it's one of those things you just have to learn to deal with and it sucks right you sell something you know maybe it's a $50 CD.
And all of a sudden you know you, you get a return for it well you shouldn't be relying on that one sale that the funds from that one sale shouldn't you shouldn't be relying on that anyway so it's like, if you're kind of in that space and you have that mindset you got to
get out of it especially what returns. It is what it is they're going to happen no matter what and you just you just move on to the next one don't let it beat you up I mean it is, you're going to get them.
Yeah, well,
going back to your software here. I know yours is rather expensive.
And I know some of our people in the group are into are thinking about getting into software themselves. Is there a cheaper one that you can personally recommend, because I don't know if you want to talk about how much years is, but it's really expensive.
Yeah, I can talk about mine, mine has a $750 a month minimum. Yeah, that's expensive.
Which makes a lot of people, it makes a lot of people choke. When they hear it. Like, it's expensive. But it, I bought my time back. And what I do is how I justified it was I look at it as an employee.
Where I don't I don't know where everybody's from, but where are you going to get somebody that shows up and list your stuff for you for $750 a month. Your software is cheaper than my employee. So, yeah, and you list more than me.
So there's that. Yeah, well and my software doesn't call in.
It doesn't complain.
You know, it's never called in sick.
So, you kind of got to look at it on a different light, I believe. So, and there's other software is out there.
There's, there's software is out there they're cheaper.
But I won't recommend them, because I'm like I said early on. I'm not trusting my business to the cheapest person. I actually have one software is Johnny knows that wants me to work with them.
And it's basically like, hey, come over here and it's free.
You know, basically kind of help us develop it to be popular and they want me to be able to pitch it in our media group and all this stuff, and I'm not interested.
I paid these other people $750 a month for the memo.
So, because I think it's big enough yet.
So, basically when you're when you're into this software at 750 a month, you're basically good all the way up into probably 25,000 a month in sales, before you go into a commission based business, because the people don't know all these software's become commission
based, they want 3%, or whatever the number is it kind of varies between software software.
So, they basically, they'll set a minimum price.
Say it's 750. And then once that will hold you, I can't remember the exact numbers that don't quote me but we'll just use 25,000 for rough guess.
So, if you're at 75,000, you've already paid more than this, or you're to the value of the 750. And then it becomes basically like 3% or 2.75 or two and a half depending on what level you're at.
As the more you sell the tier kind of comes down.
So that's how that software actually works.
That's crazy to think about. Just like you know a lot of us, you know we're not even, we're not even thinking about getting this software right anybody that's listening to this podcast we're like, what is you know software oh yeah you know you're going to go get the
software. I think the important thing here though is like you build a business you secured your sources the software kind of came in afterwards I think a lot of people are so quick to be like, hey, what can I get to make my life easier right away but I think something
like this is what you have in this listing software, it has to be a calculated decision and you have to have all the other pieces. So when you buy that software, you know, I mean, at the end of the day $750 might seem like a large investment to somebody today but in the grand scheme
of things it's really not. And, and the time you get back like you're saying you treat it like an employee, and you have to have everything else in place before you, you know you hop on something like this I say it all the time.
And then you have to come along, and they need inventory labs $80 a month they never even sent in their first shipment of anything to Amazon I'm like, wait a minute pump the brakes here you need everything else in place before you.
Sure, these are fine these are bells and whistles basically, and I think a lot of resellers get caught up with oh well I use this software and I got this fancy piece of equipment and it should be the opposite you should be grinding it out down you know nitty
nitty you kind of say hey what can make my life easier what makes sense for my business so just because you know hey Jared's got this software it's not like, you know, me and Johnny you're going to get off this call here and go get it right away right because
it doesn't kind of work with our business currently but for him, it makes sense.
Yeah, it bought my time back and it's basically an employee for me.
But we recommend that you know people that come into the media call, we recommend.
I tell people, get turbo Lister.
If you get turbo Lister comes with scally, you can have the database system and it's $39 a month I think that's with database, you can actually I still have it because I use scally on my phone, and I don't even have database because I don't scan that much anymore
but I still like to have it.
And it's $10 a month.
So, you're on.
I'm used to it.
And then, Amazon shipments.
It works well.
So, how does the software properly prices things correct so say like you know you have your minimum price that you know 750, but you scan a book, you know, is it is a poem from like the buy box is a poem from like an average sold price, I'm just curious.
It's the software has the most complicated reply price or ever.
So, our sellers someone like the biggest sellers on Amazon, use the software and pay the money strictly for the repriser. It's so complex it's almost like a series of questions.
If, if this is 100,000 rank and below, and the score is above 40, just for a number, then we're going to price at five box.
But maybe we don't want to be the first cell.
It's hard enough to know that maybe you want to be the second cell maybe I want to be 10% over.
Like, and then the other caveat to it is, you can basically.
If you have time to set this repriser up.
It can you can trigger it to know that you've got a Christmas CD.
Like, it can hold you can hold your price on it. So you know this Mariah Carey Christmas, you know, we always talk about that one because it always sells at Christmas time. Maybe you, maybe you know that it'll sell for 1295.
But it's going to be the first week of December before it does.
You can basically click a button and make it hold your price.
So if you just want to hold it at 1295 because you know it'll sell for that. Just click the button.
Set your own price.
It'll let you do basically whatever you want. It's, it's super intelligent.
So, or you can just set it to be.
I want wildfire sales, be super aggressive go for the buy box constantly, and it'll just, it'll be, it'll be aggressive.
So, and it'll get you every cell you want.
So we're going to wrap it up here we're going to let you take it away give advice to somebody that is maybe on the fence or new to starting to sell on Amazon and eBay when it comes to media.
It doesn't necessarily have to be down to CDs. Just throw, throw some words of wisdom out there for somebody you know maybe that's in your shoes right you had a full time job you wanted to pick something up part time.
Just throw some words of wisdom out there for the people.
So, everything, consistency and process.
I don't care. Don't, don't be the person that lists 20 items on a Saturday and doesn't list again until next Saturday. If you're dealing with eBay, Amazon.
It's a little for your game, but if you're listening on eBay. Make sure you're better off if you can list 20 items on a Saturday and that's all you have schedule your listings to go live.
So, if you're going to schedule them out make sure it's consistent whether it's one a day.
Five a day.
80 a day. Make sure you schedule them out if you've only got the one day, make sure they hit consistently.
You're dealing with an algorithm, you're dealing with a computer.
eBay doesn't make the decisions and say, says hey I don't like Johnny or I don't like Mike today. It's a computer all it sees is X is the nose.
So, be consistent and work your process.
Don't ever put your foot on the gas until you have the process.
We're going to have to have you back in like a year when you're full time and like your whole background is just going to be like an endless walkway of just rows and rows of this media.
Yeah, we appreciate you hanging out with us though. And, I mean, I might, I mean you run in the media calls over there Johnny B's been trying to get me to go over there I might have to dabble in this and, and get into it.
What are the next days or the calls over there.
Our call will, it's getting ready to move. We've been Thursday forever but it's getting ready to move to Wednesday evening.
So for our media call, but shameless plug it's the reseller Nirvana podcast.
Facebook group, Patreon group. So, yeah, good great information over there Johnny B's always plugging it and you know everybody that's really on YouTube that's a reseller knows Chris and tech.
And their their knowledge is priceless I mean they've literally, you know, built so many businesses they really, you can't even put a put an amount on and how many businesses they help create and people get out of situations they want to be in.
But Jared thanks for hanging out we will talk to you guys and next week's episode.
Appreciate it guys.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast. Today's full episode and all previous episodes are available to all YouTube members, along with the weekly zoom call and private discord, head on over to youtube.com backslash to use book
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