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 guide to join the channel and gain
access to the full length podcast zoom call and private discord today.
Let's get into this week's episode.
What is up, everybody?
Welcome to episode 35 resellers mindset podcast, hanging out with Johnny B.
Today's topic is one near and dear to my heart because I've been seeing it a lot.
Right.
So we're going to whip everybody in the shape here.
So there's going to be some hard truths in this episode, but it seems like
lately everybody almost seems to be in like some kind of funk and it's not so
much like complaining about this or complaining about that.
It's just everybody's kind of stuck in a rut, right?
Maybe you're not getting the results you want, whether that's sales,
whether that's sourcing related to anything in reselling, right?
Everybody has a lot going on behind the scenes.
Most of us just aren't sitting around reselling 14 hours a day,
besides Johnny B, right?
You know, he's the exception to the rule.
So we're kind of just going to touch on different topics, different
areas when it comes to reselling, to just try to kind of tell you guys.
Like this is how you have to do it.
If you want to get results, right?
You can't just wave a wand, snap your fingers and things just happen, right?
Sales just happen overnight and I guess I'll kind of, I'll go off to,
I'll go off the deep end here first, kind of with my, my crappy results
when it comes to reselling.
So eBay, eBay sucks for me.
It's I have an eBay account, right?
Have I listed on eBay in a month?
No, I can sit here and tell you I haven't.
So you think to yourself, well, you know, like you haven't got a sale on eBay and
actually got a return on eBay the other day, one of the items I did sell actually
was returned, right?
So that's like, that's a double way.
I mean, I sell one thing a month and when it gets returned, it's like, oh man,
forget about it.
I still like returns or like loans, like here's your 20 bucks and now we're
going to take it back.
It was a $50 item too.
So like I could have just like let it beat me up, eat me up.
It's whatever, right?
I literally, uh, that was like, Hey, don't look at your emails.
I'm like, Oh God.
And it's like, it's an eBay message.
I'm like, Oh God, here we go.
And it's like, you got a return for $50.
And I'm just like, I messaged the person.
I said, Hey, keep the item.
I sent you a full refund.
I cut it loose.
I did not let it ruin my day, but that's me.
And I can 100% sit here and say, a lot of people are not going to handle that
$50 return the way I did.
A lot of people are going to get bent out of shape because that's $50 you're
taking out of their family's mouth.
Uh, give me your opinion on returns.
Oh, I got two opinions on returns.
I love when I get an international return because I get to keep all the money.
eBay pays it out, but I get to keep mine.
I had one recently, uh, last month it was for $200.
They never got the book, but they made my problem because it
costs international lines.
And after that eBay takes care of me.
So on that front, I love it because I'm out of an item, but I get to keep the
money and the customer's out and item.
They've had a bad experience.
And I tell them, I'm sorry, eBay messed up.
I did everything I could, which literally I did.
Cause once it leaves my hands from the post office, I literally have zero
control unless I were to drive it down myself or boat it down myself in this case.
Now when it comes to domestic returns and the good old U S of a, and I think
Canada too, I don't know why Canada is part of the U S but apparently
in eBay land it is.
I don't like it so much because you can look at it and you can't
literally return it for anything.
Just like on Amazon, um, even for, uh, didn't like it or change my
mind or buyer's remorse.
Now those kinds of things don't really affect your account.
Now, if it arrives damaged or you missed a photo of some flaw, then you can get
what's called an item that is described, which does affect your account metrics.
Those in mind very much.
I've gotten maybe two in my whole career.
One, why I was able to get rid of one faded over time.
Cause it was very early on both of those cause I didn't know what I was doing
way back when, um, as far as returns go, it's just, I kind of shrug it off these days.
Uh, I do offer 60 day returns.
Um, most people just do 30 if they do returns at all, but I do full 60 because
I've never had anybody return an item on day 59.
It's always right when they get it, if they're going to return.
Cause either something wrong with it.
It's not in the condition they imagine in their heads, even though full
photo spread, right with my listings.
And I think that's, I think that's a customer issue.
They don't, some of them look at the filter by condition notes, but I think
by and large, if you're the only listing, they don't even bother looking at the
condition notes and they just buy it.
Even though it's clearly marked as an acceptable condition, they get it like,
Oh my God, this is all ratty.
I'm like, yeah, it's an acceptable condition.
Um, I have nowhere near that.
Did I say like new nowhere close?
Do you think it's like wrong?
Like my mentality when it comes to returns and I guess like people shopping
on the internet in general, it's just like, expect it, right?
If you just expect to get the return when it, when it happens, you really don't care.
It's when like, you think you're going to sell all this stuff and you're
not going to get any returns.
Like that's, I think that's the type of person that really like kind of like
destroys the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
their day, their week, they get like angry at the person that bought it.
And sure.
There's always scammers.
These are the times we're living in, right?
Unfortunately, we can't, you know, hop in a time machine, go to a different
time, you know, era where maybe people were more honest and trustworthy.
When it comes to internet shopping, returns, it is part of the business.
I'm sick and tired of hearing people whine about, well, I got this refunded.
And when I got it back, it was in perfect condition.
So what?
You just said it yourself.
I mean, I remember the thing it was probably about a year ago when eBay was
pushing like, try before you buy it.
Right.
And all the eBay sellers like getting nuts because returns are like, that's
the worst thing that can happen.
Right.
Why is eBay saying, try it before you buy it, you know, someone buys
ourself tries it on and then returns it.
Well, that's, that's, you don't want to play that game then, you know, make a
Shopify selling your own website where you don't have to, you don't have to do
returns if you're going to be playing on these platforms, especially with Amazon.
Oh my God.
The Amazon return crybaby.
And it's just, it makes no sense to me, especially, especially us that
sell used items, who cares, right?
Just, it's going to probably get returned back to your inventory.
If not liquidated, forget it.
You're into the stuff.
I could see, right?
I could see if we're, if me and you, we got it, we got to resell business and
we're buying things that are brand new, that cost $500 and people are buying
them and returning them completely used.
You know, like maybe we're selling diaper genies and people are sending us
diaper genies back full of diapers, dirty diapers, right?
It's like, I can see that argument, right?
There's no value in that item anymore.
But if you have a business model that is even like that, you should be taking
that kind of like cost, basically loss into consideration of your business model.
Right?
There's always going to be some kind of percentage of returns you're going to
have every single year, whether that's two, three, four, five, 10% of you're
selling apparel on Amazon, the apparel returns on Amazon are like 35%.
So a lot of those people that used to do, you know, online arbitrage, you
know, flipping socks and, and shoes.
They all ran away from that because the returns are so high, but there's
nothing you can do about it.
You got to eat it.
And if you don't factor in that loss, then guess what?
You're going to go out of business.
Right.
I mean, even think about CDs and DVDs for a second.
It's got to play or they're going to return it.
Books.
Well, unless the last chapter is torn out, it's not going to break.
I mean, it may get bent or dinged up, but still able to read it.
So it doesn't break really.
What I, what I dislike more than returns is order cancellations, especially
right when I've about to pack it and the cancel, like they changed their mind
with like within the hour they bought it.
And it's like, I just, I just pulled it.
And sometimes I've already packed it in that case.
I'm like, you can return it when you get it.
I've already packed it and put the label on it.
It's in my box ready to go to the post office or it's on the way.
What I tell them when they, when that happens is I've already
mailed it, even if I haven't.
Once the shipping label is printed.
They're going to have to do to return.
That's my policy personally.
I actually had one of those on Amazon like two weeks ago, uh, lady, vote a book.
I packed it and shipped it, you know, basically same day.
Next day I wake up refund request message and said, Hey, I already shipped it.
When you get it back, just send it back to me.
You'll get to return.
And that's what happened.
I mean, it's just one of those things.
I wish I had eBay orders to even have canceled.
Right.
But, uh, you know, that, that kind of goes with what you do.
And we're going to switch out of the refunds and just like, kind of, kind of
the general expectations people have of reselling, I think personally, I've
thought about this, I think people's expectations for reselling are way out
of line with the effort they put in.
I think a lot of people don't put in a lot of effort and expect a lot of
results from a little bit of effort.
Now this is possible.
I mean, you can, you can get away kind of doing things half butt in some facets
of reselling depending on what you're selling, but I do think overall, a lot
of people expect full-time results and they don't put in a full-time hours.
Like what's your take on, you think a lot of people are that way?
Yeah.
I mean, look at packaging, how many stuff smelled in cereal boxes.
It's ridiculous or pizza box, flimsy pizza boxes, right.
And that's like the one thing you don't have to be super expensive with it.
You can even find free stuff.
That's better quality in that you don't have to go as cheap as
possible, even on a freemium model.
And your, your, your items can arrive all gnarled up, chewed up by the post
office machines or the carrier drops it or used, I don't know, the
instead of real tape, you use Scotch tape or something, and it just, there's
no way it's going to get there in one piece.
It's like, why would you do this?
I get that you had a roll of Scotch near you, but you use some real tape
to ship your packaging or pack.
Do you think it's like, I don't know.
Like, so I I've had this probably two or three times so far this year on
even, I really haven't sold that much on eBay, but somebody will buy something
from me and I'm like, I'm going to sell it to you, I'm going to sell it to you.
And then they'll come back and they'll send me a message, like, Hey, can you
make sure you pack this properly?
Like, it's almost as if the sellers on eBay are ruining the experience
for the buyers on eBay.
So the sellers blame eBay for slow sales, but in actuality, maybe if we
take a step back and go even further, maybe it's kind of like the sellers
you're saying that are ruining the platform because it's, it's kind of
mind blowing to me that somebody buys something and they have to be like,
yo, Mike, don't send this in the Count Chocula box, right?
I want this in a normal box.
Like that's what kind of customer.
Why does the customer have to tell us this?
Cause they've had a bad experience before.
Exactly.
And it's almost crazy to think like somebody would even go back and shop on
eBay again after they got something in a DiGiorno box, right?
It's, but that is the reality of it.
So the people that are like, the whining the most about it is it's
almost as if like the sellers created this problem.
You shouldn't be yelling at eBay.
You should be yelling at every other single eBay seller that is keeping
their, you know, food boxes to ship items.
And we, we joke about it, right?
We can sit here and say, yeah, but this is happening every single day.
There's multiple people doing this for stuff they're selling every single day.
I see it in some of the groups I'm in.
I've seen somebody bought a Lego set, the flip from eBay to Amazon, and all
they did was wrap the Lego box in newspaper and slap a shipping label on the newspaper.
Like this is going on every single day.
So I think, I think we all kind of got to step back.
And one thing I think should be implemented.
I mean, this is, we're going off to deep end here is almost some kind
of like packing standard, right?
Like Amazon, they can't enforce what you ship like your stuff in, but they say,
Hey, we want plain boxes, plain, you know, polymellers, things like that.
You know, you can't, they don't want you shipping in any kind of box.
It's got any kind of, you know, label and promotion on it, anything like that.
I do think like maybe eBay would be better off if, and even Amazon, if they
had some kind of like standard for what, what they expect their sellers to do
when a customer orders a product, because if I ordered, so like I ordered, you know,
I ordered from my jerky guy last week, right?
Yeah.
And so I talked about my jerky guy a few episodes back.
And if I got my beef jerky and like, you know, like a pizza box, like I
would be so pissed off, like it's just sick.
It's just disgusting to me.
No, no, no.
Now, I don't know if you caught on since you don't do eBay, uh, as intensely as I
do, but they've changed the rules on feedback used to call in and go agent
shopping to get the feedback removed.
You can't do that no more.
You get like two tries and you're done.
So I'm going to have to go with external things.
If I ever have a negative feedback, like literally I pay a guy to call in for me.
And, um, they'll take care of it or they'll attempt to, or get my money back.
Because I, I, I should be more versed in the whole terms of service of eBay and
know the right keywords to plug in to make the agent do the thing, but I don't.
Um, so the good old days of agent shopping are gone.
And that leads us back to what we're talking about here.
I think the standard is going to improve because of that, because you're
going to have people, well, they're making less money because they have
so many negative feedbacks there.
They literally lost money.
eBay said, no, you can't do that.
We're taking 15% of every sale now from you and that affects your wallet.
The people are either going to leave or they're going to shape up.
Um, and I think we're going to be left with low quality standard people leaving
the platform because they can't handle that or hack that.
I mean, a few of them might change their way.
Sure.
But then we're going to be left with everybody else, like you and me, who
will do a good enough job where it's not enough freaking pizza box or cereal box.
And it's it, I mean, they bought an item.
I mailed it properly.
They received the item in a proper fashion.
I mean, it's a bold statement for me to sit here and say, eBay is not the problem.
It's the sellers on the platform.
That's the problem.
And listen, it is what it is, right?
You can take it how you want to take it.
But for every one good seller, there's probably two, two sellers that, you know,
or it just, they're just not doing what they should do.
They're not shipping items when they should ship.
They're not packing items the right way.
On time.
Exactly.
And what happens is the, that person, like you said, right, that customer's
never going to come back.
Sure.
The guy that bought from me, you know, he had that experience or, you know, he's
a collector and if he didn't have that experience, clearly he's heard of somebody
having that experience because you wouldn't send the message if you didn't
never had that kind of experience or knew somebody, right.
It's, but I do think like for me, I don't do nothing on eBay.
So I really can't expect to get a single sale.
Like until I'm listing on eBay, my expectation should be zero.
And even if, even if I list 30 items, you know, today and nothing else, like your,
your expectations should be next to nothing because you're not being
consistent with the platform.
I'm not saying there's nothing wrong.
I've 100%.
I love all the part timers we have in the discord that sell media and crush it.
But I do think they all understand what they are, right.
They understand they're doing this part time.
They understand they have 10 hours a week and they build their business
around those 10 hours and they have the part time expectation, right.
They're not coming to me saying, Hey, why aren't all my items?
So why, why am I not selling as much as you?
Because they understand I'm doing it full time.
They are doing it part time and you could still make good money doing it part time.
You just have to do it the right way.
You have to have the right expectation.
Like, I don't know if you were doing it part time, say one item, you were
listed one book a day or just one item.
We don't even got to take it to media.
Like if you're listening to one item a day, like what do you think your
expectation should be like, uh, just, just overall in general.
A year later, I'd make one sale a day every day.
If I listed 365 books for a full year and I continued that on the year two,
that would be my expectation that I would sell one book a day.
I think if I sold two books a day, whoa, I'd be elated.
Wow.
I sold two whole books.
Yeah.
But see like that, that's, you just said one year, right?
Nobody that's doing reselling or starting reselling wants to hear that it's
going to take a year to sell a single item every day.
If you list an item every day, like that's just, that's just, I don't
think people understand the, that everything you sell isn't selling
multiple times a day, like 98% of items we sell, we sell, we sell, we
sell, or we're lucky if it sells once every day, you know, so just think
about that, it's just a numbers game.
If you really look at the numbers and understand basically averages and
sellers and how things work, like you will see that this stuff isn't going
to sell every single day, even if you have the best price, sure.
If you've listed for a penny buy it now.
It'll sell right.
There's just bots out there that'll track that stuff.
But like, if you're actually like pricing to the market, best listing,
things don't sell every day and people don't understand that, right?
Because everything out there and somebody that as a YouTuber, you see
it all the time, all the videos are, yeah, I went to the garage sale.
I got this controller.
It's going to sell for $80, but they don't say how long it's going
to take to sell the controller, right?
That's only the monetary that you get from it.
There's no, well, I found this controller is going to sell for $80,
but it's going to take 90 days to sell.
Right.
And that is the case with a lot of these items.
These people are picking up, right?
They're picking up these old like glass, you know, cups, mugs, like mugs.
The great business.
Yeah.
Guess what?
Those mugs are going to sit on your shelf for a month.
You're lucky if it's going to sell after that.
Right.
So like, I see these things because I used to live the mug life.
I used to try selling mugs, right?
I got mug experience.
So I'm not just shooting from the hip here.
Right.
It was one of those things.
Yeah.
You see the comp you see right then and there, you're going to make $30.
And that's you're going off with that person sold it for.
Maybe that was an anomaly.
Right.
Maybe that person for some reason, maybe they had 50% promoted listings
and eBay just shoved it out there down somebody's throat.
So I do think the expectations are way just overall.
Like, what do you think?
Do you think the expectations are kind of in line because you're in the refinement
group, there's a lot more full time eBay sellers.
Do you think it's like, do you think the people have the right expectation?
Or do you always think people are expecting a lot more than they're putting in?
No, I mean, that's been a big.
Thing over in refinement lately.
Hey, it's been two years.
I'm listing 30.
I'm not selling 30.
Why question mark.
And the general answer is desirable items.
Are they desired?
Listing used Kleenexes.
I mean, I'm sorry, it's not desirable.
You got to find the right items.
Like even me, I adjust for a lot of my sales.
I run the I'm 100% certain I run the highest promoted listings on a bookseller.
Nobody does 15% promoted listings.
They're they do the minimum recommended guarantee.
I do that because I know all of my items are long tail items.
I also charge a premium and I'm just recently now I charge stamp money on top of that.
So it's even more of a premium and I'm still getting sales.
I mean, I had a guy buy 21 books yesterday from me, but my whole sales yesterday were just six.
I had six whole sales yesterday, but I made a lot of money within those six sales doing it my right way.
Because I understand how eBay works because I know the expectation.
I'm like, OK, these are longer tail items.
I need more people to see it.
Thus, I need promoted listings.
I need to remind people that I'm a bookstore and send out my newsletters.
And I also need to have coupons running.
So I look like a good deal in town with my high prices.
Oh, I buy two from this expensive guy.
He's going to give me two more free.
I mean, I do all of these things to get the results that are necessary.
Now, on my end, I need to have a little bit more higher end items, though those higher end items will sit longer.
But when they sell, they count.
It's like that Rocky Creed thing.
You had old Rocky versus young young guy and they trained him like every hit counts.
Right. When you do hit because you're going to miss a lot.
But when you hit, you're going to put them on his ass, essentially.
Same concept here.
All right. I'm going to take this.
This work we're going on going to the deep end.
Now, do you think it's expectations from the platform or expectations from yourself
that kind of motivates you to have a business?
Right. Because I consider and say, I'm motivated to have my own business.
So I have expectations for myself, regardless of anything else.
And it's even more apparent, like with Deb's business, right?
She has her own Shopify website.
She has to drive her own traffic, her own SEO.
And on Etsy, it's the same way.
She got to have the best pictures.
And Etsy doesn't require none of this, right?
You can you don't have to list every day on Etsy.
You don't got to do none of this on Etsy.
But she says, this is my business.
I'm going to take pride in what I do.
I'm going to be the best at what I do.
So she creates an expectation for herself, regardless of whatever the platform wants.
She's still going to hold herself to a standard above what the platform wants.
Do you think that kind of plays into it?
That people almost are just like, well, eBay wants me to do this.
So I'm going to do it.
And if eBay didn't make them do it, then they never would do it.
I'm going to say this one.
I love Deb's mentality there.
That's great. I share a little bit of that because I take a lot of pride in my eBay store.
Just like she does her Etsy and Shopify store.
That being said.
Yes, there is the eBay standard, but that's just the start.
You need the customer standard on top of that.
They're like a totem pole.
Yeah, eBay is there.
That's the bottom.
Well, that's the bottom rung, the customer rung.
And then you're wrong.
Your personal standard, I think is so is your personal standard eBay and customers.
The very top of that little pyramid I just built here.
And I have a personal standard eBay makes me take it a step up and the customers take me another step up.
And that's why my listings look better than most all other bookseller listings, honestly,
because I have everything they want.
The only thing I probably don't put in there that I could, because I get this occasionally,
it's stupid page numbers.
Maybe I should, but that's an extra step in the listing process.
So somebody can outdo me if they just copied me and put page numbers in there.
There you go.
That's how you beat Johnny B. That's how you beat me.
You're going to put the page numbers on every listing.
That's how you beat me.
It takes us back there, right?
You understand what's expected and you understand the market you're selling it.
You understand when you list something, it's not going to sell immediately unless it's
the hottest item on the market, whether that's Amazon or eBay.
Everything is you understanding your business.
And by understanding, I mean, not just watching videos, listening to podcasts like this,
you actually understanding what type of business you are, how much are you willing to pay for
an item that you're buying, how much are you willing to sell things for on eBay, right?
Have a cutoff.
My cutoffs, I'm not listening to anything under $19.99 on eBay.
Completely understand your business and have a realistic expectation.
Just because you see me or Johnny selling all these items doesn't mean that you can't
do it, but just understand all the steps we've taken to get our business to where they are
today.
It is possible for anybody to achieve anything with reselling.
But if you start off with the mentality and the wrong expectations that everything is
going to fly off the shelf when you listed, you're not going to you're not going to last
more than six months.
I'll sit here and say that you're just not going to be around because what's going to
happen?
Your stuff doesn't sell.
You start blaming eBay.
eBay doesn't work.
eBay, eBay, I'm closing up eBay.
And that's just the reality of it.
And to debunk a few things, since I turned on the stamp, it's been about a week now since
I have.
So here are the results of that.
Yes, I am selling less, but I'm keeping more in my pocket, which pretty much means I'm
making the same amount of money.
So I think over time I'll come out ahead.
Again, this is a week analysis.
I like to look at at least a three month analysis, but here here's my week result.
It's I'm making about the same amount of money and you're doing less work.
You don't have to pack and ship as many items.
Exactly.
And you'll probably get more sales in the long run, like you said, because you have
more lines down the water to catch a fish.
Right.
Because because eBay does give us pay bumps at active listings.
So and pay bumps, I mean, traffic.
And that's the other thing I did notice my traffic take a dip, which well, I can equate
that to sales too.
So more traffic, less traffic, get less sales you're going to get.
So more traffic, get more sales you're going to get.
That's just how it works.
It is true though, right?
Because I've been doing the same thing this year at my Amazon.
I've been selling a whole lot less and I've been making basically the same amount.
So I'm prepping and packing a lot less inventory and it makes a huge, it might, you
know, today might not seem like a big deal to you, but I think that kind of takes you
back to the expectation of you should have an expectation to get paid for your time
as a reseller and paid by pay by the company.
And paid by paid for your time is not listing one dollar items, right?
And anything you're going to make one dollar on is not worth your time.
I don't care if it's something that's sitting here right in front of you right now that
you could sell and make a dollar on the time it takes you to list your list, the item,
do the correct title item descriptions, pack the item, take it to the post office,
do a customer service.
If they have a question, a possible return, you are playing a losing game.
I think there's like, if we could go through and like flag like junk on eBay that's just
way out of line and like the listings are terrible.
It's just a completely broken listing.
Like we probably could wipe out like half of eBay's listings.
Like know what I would love?
No, I wouldn't love it because I got friends who do this.
So I feel sad for them.
But outside of the friends, what if eBay came along and said no more stock photos and we're
taking down every listing that has a stock photo?
Whoa.
I mean, it's not even that though.
It's like it's overall like the listing is like the fire emoji listings, right?
You know, like why can you even have special like they shouldn't even allow special characters
to be put in there, right?
If they want to talk about here's our standard and we don't want fire emojis, then why do
they allow it?
So I mean, I don't know.
I do think expectations and it's the same on Amazon.
People expect especially because a lot of people come from eBay to Amazon, right?
People expect you're going to send something in Amazon and it's going to sell overnight
like immediately and like, no, it's going to take three weeks for them to check it in.
If you're lucky, then they're probably going to transfer that item across the country.
That's going to take another two weeks and that maybe it'll sell when it gets checked
in and hopefully by then the price hasn't tanked.
And I do think like you got to understand here.
You're playing if you're doing this full time or you want to be full time, it takes large
amounts of quality items.
Now, what quality means to you and means that somebody else could be different.
But I do think there is a point where you're wasting your time when you're when you're
just sending it, you know, anything that's going to you're going to make under five bucks
on.
I do think you're wasting your time on Amazon unless this is something that's not returnable,
right?
On Amazon, maybe it's a grocery item or something along those lines, but it is there's far and
few in between people that are successful at selling that low level junk.
And I'm just tired of seeing it because like I see it all the time because all my YouTube
feed is basically resellers, right?
And it's like what what these items sold?
It's like I sold this for a dollar ninety nine plus four dollars shipping.
And I'm like, that ain't even worth me getting up and putting in the inventory system, even
typing in the SKU to have it in the inventory system, then packing it and shipping it because
I know people aren't taking into consideration how much they pay for packing supplies, right?
It's like they have no idea.
And that will tell you right now how much you pay for every single polymellor based
on size, every single squeaker that goes in a toy, every single foot of fabric we cut.
It is all costed out.
And I think it's like the expectation of, oh, I'm a business owner.
But are you really?
You're not because you don't know really nothing about your actual business numbers.
I would I mean, I'm going to go on record here and I'm going to blow up eBay sellers
again.
I'm going to say 75 percent of eBay sellers do not know the cost of their shipping supplies
down to the piece.
I got it down to the penny.
The exact penny.
I think 75 percent I might be I might be being a little too kind.
I might be 95.
I'm not 95.
Then I'm going to get canceled, right?
I'm saying all basically all eBay sellers, but it could very well be that right.
I don't even think it's limited to just eBay.
I think it's all sellers across all platforms don't know their numbers.
Oh, I agree.
One hundred percent.
I think, you know, it might not seem like a big deal, but when you start selling more,
like say if you're part time and you're really not worried about this and then you go full
time and all of a sudden you don't realize you're spending, you know, a dollar fifty
per box or, you know, you have all these expenses coming in and then you're like, I'm not making
no money and I'm doing this full time.
Well, is there ways you can save money?
Right.
Like Deb's always looking for a deal now for fourth quarter because we know we're going
to use the bags.
We know we're going to use the squeakers.
We know we're going to use the catnip.
So we can find it on special now.
And hey, let's stock up now.
And it brings down your cost.
And I think you hit it on the head.
Like people just don't understand how the business works.
It's not just all fun and games going out and thrift stores recording YouTube videos.
Look what I found.
I sold for a million bucks.
I found this gold bar.
I can't believe what I found.
It's just like that's just like the very, very, very tip of having a reselling business.
And people don't want to accept the fact that they think they might tell people they might
think in their own mind they have a reselling business.
But if there was like, you know, a set of 10 requirements to be able to say you have
a reselling business, probably, you know, like you said, five percent of people would
be able to actually get the reselling business at the wear around.
Everybody else would just be considered part time hobbyist.
All right.
So here's an extreme example for you.
Let's say you had one employee.
Employee cost fifteen dollars an hour.
They work seven hours a day, five days a week.
That's one hundred and five dollars a day.
That is five hundred and twenty five dollars for the week.
Let's say you had a thousand dollars in gross sales for the week.
Oh, yay.
That's gross.
That's not net.
So let's just take let's take away a big chunk of that from fees.
Let's be nice here and only say 30 percent.
Right.
So now you're down to seven hundred dollars.
Well, you got to pay the employees.
So five twenty five coming out of that seven hundred.
So how much are you left with, folks?
How much?
One hundred and seventy five dollars you made for the week.
How many hours did you work that week?
How much did you pay for the stuff you sold?
Right.
And I didn't even get it.
I didn't even touch shipping supplies where I'm sure it really factored in that kind
30 percent number I threw in there.
And I didn't even factor in tax man taking his cut at the end of the year.
I didn't do any of that.
I mean, even if you are using Count Chocula boxes, cereal is expensive nowadays.
So you'd probably be better off shopping from Uline than going to your grocery store
and just keeping your cereal boxes, honestly.
I do.
I do think it brings us back to the overall topic is just like, have a realistic
expectation for what your business should be.
Sure, it's OK to whine, right?
I whined to Johnny, you know, hey, I'll text Johnny.
Yo, my sales suck.
I'm done with Amazon.
I'm done with even he's like, shut up, get back to work.
And honestly, I think that negates everything.
If you put in the time, you put in the work, you put in the effort in the right way, you
will get results.
Sure, there's always going to be down times.
And we were kind of talking about it.
Jimmy and Deb earlier is like, I don't think there's a summer slowdown on Amazon.
eBay, I do think it exists.
But if you're selling desirable items on Amazon, it is around the year.
So I don't want to hear, well, oh, summer slowdown on Amazon.
I've been sending in more and I've been selling more.
So guess what?
I debunk that immediately with media when it comes to summer slowdown on Amazon.
But I do think people just have to have to get real with themselves and get real with
their business.
If you want it to be a business, then treat it like a business.
If you want to be like me and list every other month on eBay, then have the expectation that
every other month on eBay, you're going to get sales, you're not going to get sales.
And you have to accept that.
It'd be stupid of me if I complained.
If I complained to you, hey, I haven't got sales on eBay, what's going on?
You haven't listed in five weeks.
I'm like, well, no, did you see that eBay did an update on the back end of their international
shipping?
And even though I'm not enrolled in international shipping, that's why I haven't got it.
It's like, no, Mike, you didn't list it.
It's so much easier, though, to make an excuse for yourself instead of just getting out there
and just getting it done.
Like, that's honestly all I can say.
If you're going on Amazon, you get any sales on Amazon, whatever, send in another box so
you can get some more sales.
Yeah, I think people are so quick to like almost look for an excuse or an out instead
of just being like, okay, I got to get out.
I got to do more sourcing.
I got to find a different source.
I got to repost my Craigslist ad.
I got to repost my Facebook ad.
I got to get on real estate sites, storage auction sites.
There's so many things we can do that people choose not to.
So it's like...
Trip out to California.
Like my 10 list to classify yourself as a reselling business, I need like a 10 bullet
point list before you can complain about something.
You have to meet these 10 requirements and then you can complain about something.
Right.
I mean, I complain too, guys.
My life's not perfect every day.
I do the same thing mostly every day, but I have days where I don't need to be complaining,
but I will.
I mean, yeah, stress gets to you all the time.
Sure.
And that being said, I live a pretty stress free life, honestly, because it's the same
thing every day.
Give me your final thoughts on expectations here.
Expectations, both Amazon and eBay.
I think you have to know the tools you're working with.
If you're in Amazon land, I know we didn't discuss this in length, but know your repriceit
tool and how it works intimately.
Know your scanning app.
Know how it works intimately.
If you know how to read every number in that column, you've done a good job.
And my final, final thoughts on eBay is, remember, do what the platform wants and then go a step
further and do what the customer wants.
My take on it.
I'm done.
And he literally makes a sale as he finishes his monologue here at the end.
It's like, it's so scripted, dude.
I'm tired of the script.
All right.
I'm really tired of it.
But yeah, I think you summed it up, right?
You got to just get out of the mindset that everything is working against you.
And you got to basically create opportunities for yourself.
We talk about luck all the time, right?
Is it really lucky that you go into a thrift store and find an item?
No, it's not.
Because you took the initiative to get off your butt and actually go to the thrift store
to find this item.
I might be lucky that it was still sitting there on the shelf, but guess what?
It's really not luck because if you never would have went, it never would have happened
to begin with.
So the luck, luck really doesn't play a factor in your reselling business.
It's consistency and just having, you know, putting in the time, putting in the work and
you'll get results.
I can promise you that if I, if I, anybody that is really kind of, you know, we always
say you can't carbon copy somebody, but anybody that's in my discord, that's taken selling
media seriously and kind of did what I did along the way.
I'm comfortable in saying that today, if they're still doing it, they have grown their business
10 times from where they started and that they're getting the results or working towards
the results that they ultimately want to get.
So it's not 100% copy and paste, but I do think there is almost like a recipe for success
in reselling, no matter what category you're in.
If you take the steps, like you said, if you take the steps eBay wants you to do, Amazon
wants you to do, then you're going to get results as long as you're, you're, you're
doing it correctly.
So just, just think the next time I want people to just think next time you have a slow sales
month of slow sales week, instead of just running and yelling that the economies were
in the worst recession in the history of the solar system and the Milky Way galaxies, I
want you to take a step back and think to yourself, well, what can I do a little bit
differently this next month?
That's going to give me better results.
So we appreciate you all listening.
We'll talk to you in next week's episode.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the resellers mindset podcast.
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