Topics discussed in the episode: 

· [0:51] How Matt got into reselling

· [5:13] The influencers he follows
· [07:36] Are physical books ever going to go out of trend?
· [10:34] His outlook on reselling

· [12:51] Matt's reselling turnover

· [16:16] His long term goal

· [17:42] Advice for anyone starting out re-selling
 
 
Seller Tips: 

· Get your tech sorted. Ensure that you have a listing and a scanning software, as that can help streamline many processes in re

· Speclialize in something and be an expert in a niche field. This will help you stand out in the market in front of the competition.
· Approach micro/small press as they would have books relating to the history of your area that is not popular yet. Study more about the history in your area to find your niche.

Transcript:  Intro:  Welcome to the Sellers corner, an e-commerce podcast with real stories from real sellers. Each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show!

Chandni: Hey, this is Chandni, and I run marketing at AccelerList. Today, we're going to be talking to Matt, a library specialist who's turning six figures online annually. And he's here to tell you more about it. Let's have a chat with Matt, to help you and inspire you on your seller journey.

Chandni: So what's your store about and why did you pick those items that you sell?

Matt: Okay, well, I've been doing this a good minute. Amazon's just a part of my business. I started out in the punk rock scene, I was living in Southern California, and I go to punk rock shows at the Roxy, Chain Reaction, etc., and I'd have a table of (maga)zines and books from AK press. I was president of the social activism club in high school, and I just read books and wanted to change the world. I was young and thought I could. I've always been a collector. 2008 - I went to college in Missouri. And I was working at the academic library. And then they liked what I did. I learned how to do bibliography and catalogue the biggest equestrian collection in the world. And one of the librarians hired me at the public library where I worked the reference desk and in college. Unfortunately, I was selling on Half(.com), which is part of eBay at the time. And I was ecstatic because I was getting paid 12 bucks an hour and I was tripling my salary selling books that were donated or discarded online. And that's kind of how I got started. It's always been kind of on the back burner. I found a book it was called new stories by Charles Dickens. And it was a first edition that was being offered on the marketplace for $500. And at that moment, my life just changed and I opened up an entirely different world for me with books actually having, you know, monetary value and significance. The library I worked at wanted to pay for me to go get my Masters of Science. But I left for Florida and was involved in the equestrian world. I've always sold books on the side, I worked for a nonprofit in Florida called Faith Farms and handled around 3000 ish books donated a week and wasn't until I'd probably say like seven years ago, eight years ago, I started to delve into Amazon. And this is my third year of not having another job or side hustle. I've always been about you know, working for myself and making money and just trying to survive. I was running an illegal taxicab service with a couple of friends because there's no Uber or Lyft at the time and I offered rides. I'm not sure how familiar you are with like miniature books every year they have a conclave. And in 2016 there was a miniature book conclave and I was offering rides in exchange for books. And I met a dealer Kim and she was wonderful. She connected me with this organisation called IOBA and it's for internet selling of books. I traded her a first edition second state of life and on the Mississippi by Mark Twain for a ride to and from Dallas. And right now I'm partners with a bookstore in Ardmore, Oklahoma called Stranger Than Fiction. We have roughly 70,000 books in the store. I'd say about 15 to 20,000 of them are my books. And then I have a rare book section there. I sell on Amazon, eBay, Biblio. Etsy. I consider myself a dealer's dealer, also to establish dealers and just pass books up the food chain.

Chandni: Oh, that's pretty cool. So do you just do like books or magazines, just anything like reading material type of thing?

Matt: My passion is books. I love books as far as Amazon goes and what AccelerList’s focus is, I do everything on Amazon. I stopped doing CDs, I do video games. I'm a renewed seller, which is kind of unusual. There's not too many people that do that. So I restore video game systems, fix them, and then sell them as refurbish. I'll do a little bit of everything.

Chandni: Ah, that's pretty fantastic. And what do you enjoy?

Matt: Books are my passion though. I guess the thrill of the hunt like everyone else. In my area, I live at the site where the Trail of Tears end in Oklahoma it's Choctaw Nation. I like finding stuff that is historically significant in this area.

Chandni: So do you follow any influencers? Or do you read up any books to help you with your reselling journey?
 
Matt: Yeah, so I thought about like how to answer that question that would benefit people and I'm just gonna name drop a few people that I really respect that a lot of Amazon sellers, they're not really aware of. There's a lot of ways to sell books dealer I really, really like is Driftlist books, Eddie Nix, Yesterday's Muse by Jonathan Smalter, Heather O'Donnell, who does Honey & Wax, like, I respect people in the trade that have done it for a long time. In the Amazon spectrum, I guess the dealer that I really like his content, and what he does would be Murph books. I think he's a really honest with the videos he shared. And I like how he's phasing in Amazon out, he's doing a lot of interesting things, and anytime a business is for teachers, and helping their local community, I think that's pretty radical. So I guess he would be one of the Amazon sellers, and he's a mega seller. But I like more dealers. I think bibliographic descriptions are really important. And so that's an area myself I struggle with, and I like learning from other rare bookies on how to do it.

Chandni: Okay, great. And is there anything an influencer in particular that you really follow said that you know, had inspired, or you know, impacted your business positively?

Matt: Everything, I get inspiration from everything. Books, I read a, I'd say Umberto Eco, is probably one of the biggest influencers in my life. I love his books and literature. And I'm just like, in awe of his mind, and what he talks about with books, you know, books has only been around since 400. BC, it's, you know, it's every moment in history, you know, like, is been with the history of books, I definitely think we are blessed living in 2021. Having Amazon as a sales channel where people can, you know, make a living selling books, and not working for anyone, you know, that's we're all blessed. And I think we should all be thankful for that.

Chandni:

Topics discussed in the episode: 

· [3:48] What he enjoys doing for the business

· [5:39] The influencers he follows
· [07:35] How he got started
· [11:23] Insights on his daily routine

· [15:31] Greatest challenge in the recent years

· [21:26] Jon's short-term goals

· [25:25] Advice for anyone starting out re-selling
 
 
Seller Tips: 

· Always check and double-check your selling information and get familiar with the software and tools you use.

· Take the leap and go for it! You can start your business anytime. Waiting for the right time is a myth. All you got to do is act.

Transcript:  Intro:  Welcome to the Sellers corner, an e-commerce podcast with real stories from real sellers. Each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show!

Chandni: Hey, this is Chandni, and I run marketing at AccelerList. Today, we're going to be talking to Jon, a man with a mission. And he's here to inspire you and help you on your seller journey.

Chandni: So, what do you sell? And how did you get into it?

Jon: Okay, we're in a weird transition right now in the business. I started selling books on Amazon, kind of as a part time thing and getting started into it, what I was doing about 99% of on Amazon specifically, and then I was selling little whatnots on eBay. But now we are heavily transitioning into like collectibles and toys and video games and that kind of things now. And I would say we're probably doing 90% of that, and probably just 10% of books now. So we're kind of a weird transitioning phase, in my opinion, because I'm not used to it because I'm so familiar with books. But that's kind of what we sell. We do pretty much tonnes of toys and video games. But I got started into it. It's kind of a funny story. I was pretty much doing a route, I was driving on a job full time. And I would just watch and put on when I was driving, I would just put on like a YouTube video and sit it in the passenger seat and just listen to people talk and just explain what they do. And I was I thought it was cool. So I went ahead and just started doing it part time on eBay. And then soon after, maybe less than a year after I was able to go full time just watching them do that. And I've pretty much learned from YouTube on how to do it. So yeah

Chandni:  That's pretty cool. And what's your favourite collectible that you sell on eBay?

Jon: Oh, man. I would probably say I'm a real big video game guy, but I'm not gonna lie. I'm pretty. I really like the old nostalgia toys. I've had a old 1980s Ninja Turtle lot for probably six months, because I'm having a hard time just playing with them. You know, when I was a kid, and I just like my wife is always like, when you're gonna list that and get that, you know, out of the work room? And I'm like, Well, I'm not I'm not done, you know, not done with it yet.

Chandni: Yeah. And how much would something like that fetch in 2021?

Jon: Oh, man, I have probably 80 figures with all their guns and accessories and everything. And I'm not sure how I want to list it. Yeah, there's multiple avenues to go a lot of people usually do auctions on that kind of stuff. But I regularly see loose figures of lots of 10s sell for 50, 60, 70 bucks, without accessories. I would say the lot's worth close to at least $1,000 or more so.

Chandni: Oh, that's great. But yeah, they're so precious hey, so. So what part do you enjoy the most and reselling? Do you like, you know sourcing the items? Or do you enjoy the marketing bit where you get on the platforms and create stuff?

Jon: Man, there has to be hands down. For me, it's just finding the stuff. Always been into. And I like to say like this, I always like to go and look at what another person's junk is and find value in it. It's just I guess the right words to say that I use commonly is just the thrill of the hunt. Just getting out there at a yard sale or in a thrift store or something and just digging through a bunch of mess and pulling out something valuable. And you know, I'm a big person on a lot of the stuff that I sell to so it's just finding neat stuff and just awesome thing. So I would probably say sourcing pretty good.

Chandni: Okay, yeah, that's common with many resellers. They do enjoy the sourcing bit and you know, seeing the value it brings to the customer at the end.

Jon: It's just I really like just knowledge in general of random obscure things. So when I was able to do reselling, it was just kind of like one of those things that I got to do a job where I could just find random things that I knew nothing about and spend an hour researching it. You know, and just learning about it. And it's just that, to me that that's just awesome because I like history. I like a bunch of random stuff and expectedly like, I got to explaining nostalgia toys and stuff, and video games. It's like when I find something that I've never seen before, and then I get to sit down and read about it. And then it's just, it's just kind of like, taking a luxury and making it a job, you know. So, doing so being able to do it as a job just, it's just great.

Chandni: And that's good fun, isn't it?

Jon: Yeah, yeah. Well.

Chandni: So, do you follow any influencers are do you read up any books to help you with your reselling journey?

Jon: Oh, a lot. Actually. I do. A lot of both. Influencers, one of the main people that got me into it was Raiken Profit. He was a big bookseller. And I pretty much just watched his videos on repeat, learning how to use Amazon. And it's kind of funny the podcast I listened to before this was Caleb from Phoenix Resales, and I'm only actually about 45 minutes from him. So I watch Phoenix Resales quite a bit with Caleb, and then Rally Roots, Hairy Tornado all those guys just just the pretty much Chad Flip Cincinnati picker all those guys from you know, the resale community on YouTube. There's there's a lot of them Retro Rick, all those guys. So I just, while I'm working, I used to have a TV in my work room. So typically, while I'm listening or, you know, prepping, cleaning, whatever I need to be doing, I have a YouTube video on in the background. One of those guys. So there's always got something on. But my morning routine. What I do every morning, I have this morning routine that I do. And I read at least a chapter a day of a book. So books, Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Chandni: Yep, yep. I love that one.

Jon: Yeah, so that stuff I read a lot of I'm a student pastor of a church. So I read a lot of like, spiritual health, mental health, self-help kind of stuff. So, but right now I'm reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Man, difference maker. I mean, I don't know. It's just, I just read a lot of stuff like that.

Chandni: So what's something that an influencer, I guess said or something you read that has really impacted your business positively?
Jon: Oh, wow. I...

· [0:45] Why he started selling online

· [5:49] Pivoting from popcorn selling into Amazon
· [07:33] On why he chose re-selling books
· [10:27] The power of online resources in re-selling

· [12:15] Bob's typical day

· [16:10] Greatest challenge in the past 18 months

· [25:32] Advice to anyone who’s starting out in re-selling

Seller Tips: 

· Be patient! Starting out reselling takes time to scale, so does any other online business.

· Start early and make the most of online resources like YouTube

Transcript:  Intro:  Welcome to the seller's corner an e-commerce podcast, where the real stories from real sellers, each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show. 

Chandni: Hey, this is Chandni. And I run marketing at AccelerList. Today, we're going to be talking to Bob, a creative entrepreneur who pivoted from the popcorn-making business into online resales and he's here to inspire you and help you on your seller journey.

Chandni: Can you tell me what's your store about and why did you pick those items?

Bob: Well, we made a purchase some time ago with a product called Magnaloc, magnetic shower curtain fillers. And we tested them and I noticed a guy was trying to sell about 20,000 of them. And I noticed that he was in my area he was in Henderson, Nevada, which is only about 10 minutes away from me so made an offer and bought those and I didn't realise how many 20,000 was. So we ended up having to throw away a bunch of them because I didn't have storage for them. And but they've been doing good for us. I have had diabetes for like 33 years type one and between my health and my oldest son has Down Syndrome, and he's 40 and he starting to have some discipline challenges with us. So, I decided to close a business that I had, we used to make the best popcorn in the country. And we had a lot of fun with and we did a lot of customised labels and things like that. So people's pictures on it, and it was just a lot of fun but there's a lot of work so I've been looking for different things which be a lot less physical and doable from home, and that way you can spend time with Jason and get some stuff going in. Might say I'm a little on the older side. So, in diabetics, they generally don't live quite as long as their partners and so I got to make sure I've got something in place within the next five years make sure that if by chance hopefully I don't but if by chance I end up leaving the world got my wife pretty well set so my goal is to accumulate about 500,000 in this next five years. So what we've been doing is we take the money that profits and I've been trying to invest in stocks we purchased the book from a gentleman named Charles Payne man this guy is sharp he's got a very good track record and long term is what we're looking at so so basically we're investing in stocks that they recommend and in his programme that gives a text they feel it's a good idea to purchase a certain stock or sell certain stock so that's kind of where we're at in that. In the books and stuff we found that a thrift store where I just buy all the books they have and it comes out to like six cents apiece. So that seems to be working out pretty profitable because there will be there's a lot that we can't sell on Amazon but I'm trying to learn the eBay stuff and it seems like you should be able to bundle these books and still make a profit out of them. So basically that's our game plan and we've come across some pretty cool stuff and we are known as Angeles popcorn on Amazon we're not going to change that even though we're not doing popcorn I did keep some of my equipment to do popcorn for family events and stuff like that our eBay our store is called take a look folks because what we're trying to do is film it, they can get pictures and again that's just started so there's not a lot on there I think I got eight items but this week we're going to start working and getting bundles and stuff they sometimes they take too long to kind of learn the stuff but but again with drop V and diabetes makes it a little tougher and as quickly as I'd like to all stop. But, I'm still getting it done even being in bad health so tell people not to give up.

Chandni: Yeah, no that's the spirit and just curious what kind of flavours of popcorn Do you sell all types?

Bob: Well we normally sell or did have, we had used to have over 30 flavors

Chandni: Over 30 flavours? 

Bob: Yes, and that's a store that was feasible. Do you like coffee?

Chandni: No, I don't drink coffee. I drink tea.

Bob: Yeah, my wife drinks the tea. I love coffee. So I made a coffee popcorn. And so I took her basic Carmel and I put coffee flavouring in it and she absolutely loved it. She hates coffee and I was just so shocked. It was just unbelievable. But, we do different stuff. Christmas time you do cherry and green apple. One which was absolutely phenomenal was black cherry. Problem is it turn your tongue black. So it was fun to play jokes on people with that. Well but Halloween you can do orange and black cherry. There's so many different things. It was just mainly more of a hobby we didn't we didn't do as much money positive because we were building up to that but equipment stuff like that you you can have $20,000 - $30,000 invested in equipment and that just takes a long time to turn things around and to have a break even so yeah, but again, it was fun and people love to have their pictures on things so kids see their picture on their their birthday popcorn or someone graduating. We just enjoyed it.

Chandni: Wow okay and did you find your skills transferable from from what you were doing previously to pivoting online and selling on Amazon? 

Bob: Well there, Amazon was fairly easy because we just did the FBA which ship these things and to Amazon and then they've take care of everything I'm not a big fan of Amazon they just don't really seem to give the seller a lot of protection and they make it very easy for the buyer to destroy your product and it will keep your product and so I don't really like that aspect of it. But the weight of the magnets that we shipped to Amazon it's just not feasible for us to take an order and pay the shipping and stuff to a client just because of the weight of it. Overall we're doing okay with Amazon, but again they seem to lose like the books we just recently started the books and actually sold like 27 of them so far so it's not real bad. It could be done. But a problem is they keep losing or misplacing them or saying missing SKU and then there's documentation that shows right on the shipping queue or whatever it's called showing they received them but they make it very very difficult for you to get help when you're trying to locate some of these expensive books that they have are anxiously saying don't exist but overall we're doing well with them but I think once I learned the eBay again My problem is I'm not the sharpest with the computers on stuff so it's...

· [0:45] Why she started selling online

· [5:19] Which part of selling on eBay she enjoys the most

· [7:10] Her morning miracle routine

· [10:03] The Facebook communities she’s joined for re-selling

· [14:16] The Effect of the pandemic on the seller community

· [17:10] Biggest setback in her reselling business

· [14:33] Advice to anyone who’s starting out in re-selling

Resources Mentioned:

· https://miraclemorning.com

Seller Tips: 

· Look for items to resell from thrift stores and yard sales 

· Join online communities like Facebook groups as there’s plenty of help on there

 Transcript:  Intro:  Welcome to the seller's corner an e-commerce podcast, where the real stories from real sellers, each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show. 

Chandni: Hey, this is Chandni. And I run marketing at AccelerList. Today, we're going to be talking to Terry, aka Mother of nine entrepreneur. And she's here to inspire you and help you on your seller journey. So, what's your story about what you sell? And you know, how did you get into it?

Terry: I've been selling on ebay since 2013. Why? It basically came around because I was homeschooling our children, we have nine children. Yeah, so a big family and, and I needed a place to be able to buy and sell curriculum, because I didn't really want to buy new so. So every year, I would sell my curriculum on eBay and turn around and use that money to buy my new curriculum for the next year. Yeah, so that's kind of where I started with stuff. But I also really enjoyed thrifting, and yard sales and anything, buying something and to be able to turn around and make profit on it. So that was pretty much what I was doing till I got to the point where I had probably about 1200 physical items in my house that I was selling list had listed on eBay. And it finally got to the point where it was like, I'm running out of room of where I can get my physical inventory. And I said, There's got to be a different way to be able to sell online. And that's when I kind of have been falling a lot of people on I mean, I don't know, okay, well. So I followed a lot of people for eBay selling like Suzanne A. Wells has got a big group. She's got a Facebook group. And then I joined her premium library for a while to try to get some education to try to make what I was doing more efficient and more profitable. And then I found some local friends that also sell so we'd go sourcing together and they were really one person in particular was very helpful with helping me up my ante because I was buying low, but I was also selling too low. So I wasn't making enough of a profit on it. But then we're still in this problem of having a physical inventory. So I feel like I got a pretty good eye. And now I know how to use you know, the eBay app, the Amazon, yes, smoothly.

Chandni: So you've started scaling up to physical items you say, after you did curriculum?

Terry:   Yeah, so I was selling shoes. Oh my gosh, just about a little bit of everything. Um, clothing. I got into hard goods really. And that was like a really a lot of challenge because having to ship it. I get like whole sets of dishes at a state sale. And then I would break them up and sell them by piece. So I got really good at packing breakables. But that also meant that my kids were jokingly calling me the box lady because I had a whole room in our house. That was just boxes that I had, ever people were giving me their boxes. I took over all their boxes from them, until I finally started buying eBay label, you know, with. I'm trying to remember when I've been selling physically since 2013. But I started a store a couple years ago. So then eBay gives you the, you know, like credit towards shipping supplies every order. So then I started stocking up on that and started, you know, those come flats, take up this much room is like, I wasn't breaking everything down. Let's just say I had a lot of real estate in my house with the business. 

Chandni: And that's what reselling is really.

Terry: It is. And one of the things that got me was my husband had lost his job, they had decided to outsource, he's a nurse. And they had decided to outsource his whole department to the Philippines. It was like they didn't even give him any warning. So all of a sudden it was like I had already started upping my inventory and my stuff I was buying. And then all of a sudden I just kind of went into overdrive and this was right before about a year two years before COVID hit. So in the last, you know, three years or so I've probably tripled my business from what it was. I actually did really well I sold I was around $30,000 in physical products on eBay. And since I just started Amazon in November of last year, I still that still has yet to see but I've been doing pretty well every month.

Chandni: That's fantastic!

Terry:  Finding AccelerList and learning how this all works has been really great and then also to be able to cross-list back to eBay. So my whole goal is to try to get to a point where I'm doing wholesale or just the books FBA so that I can get rid of the physical inventory or have just a very small physical inventory. We're planning on moving to the south sometime next year, and I don't want to have to take it all with me.

Chandni:   Yeah, that would be hard to pack. So tell me what do you like more? Do you like the marketing side? Or, you know, developing the listings? Or do you like sourcing What? Which part do you enjoy the most?

Terry:  Sourcing by far, that's kind of the problem is that I have, I could take probably two or three months off, because I this is not my primary money stream of income. This is still kind of like my auxiliary stuff. And so I still have a part-time job. And I do have one kid still in school. So most of the other time I'm spending running her around. So I have way more inventory. I don't know people call about death piles. I have death piles that, that fill up a few bookcases full. I mean, I have not bookcases, storage shelves with boxes of books and different things that I still need to list. They can all go to Amazon. So it that's where the tedious part because with Excel or list listing on an Amazon, putting a sticker on it, packing it up, I like that. I like the process of doing that. Because that gets it all out of my house. The eBay is a little bit more tedious, because it takes me a minimum of 15 minutes to do a listing. So if I have something so I'm trying to be more picky about what I'm actually listing, it's making at least three times what I paid for it.

Chandni: Is it the web interface of eBay that makes it a bit more complex?

Terry:  Well, they're asking for more products. I mean, more I did not products m...

Topics discussed in the episode: 

• [1:03] Why he started selling online
• [4:22] Why he gives tips & info about selling for free
• [6:15] Motivates everyone not just the seller community through TikTok
• [7:37] His Facebook community 
• [9:40] The Effect of the pandemic on the seller community
• [12:23] Typical workday
• [14:33] Pivot your business
• [18:26] A failure he learned from
• [21:32] Imposter Syndrome
• [24:40] Bought a one-way ticket to the Netherlands
• [29:32] Tips & Tricks to start selling online  

Resources Mentioned:

• https://iamthemoneybadger.com 

Seller Tips: 

• Pivot your business to sell outside of just used books
• Look through your house to find some things to start selling online

Transcript:  Intro:  Welcome to the seller's corner as e-commerce podcast, where the real stories from real sellers, each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show. 

Joana: Hey, this is Joana. I run marketing at acceler list today. We're talking to William AKA, the money Badger, and he's here to inspire you and help you on your seller journey. So, William,  Are you, is that what you want me to call you William? Or do you want me to call you the money Badger? 

William: Yeah, you can call me William. You can call me bill. You can call me the money Badger. I've been married for almost 20 years. So there's probably not many things I haven't been called. 

Joana: Well, I think I'll stick to Will. Maybe that might be easier for the podcast. The seller's corner is all about people sharing their stories and how they got started selling online. 

William:  So the why is probably more important in my opinion, you know, I probably worked countless jobs that didn't seem to really invest in their people, you know, glass ceilings, you know, misrepresentations, that sort of thing. So you just, you kind of get tired of the rat race and you try to look for an exit and reselling became just my exit.  

But it's funny because I met somebody just at a happenstance and we were actually looking to move to the Netherlands and I took a temporary job in Tennessee with a best friend. And, you know, that turned out to not be the opportunity that was explained to me. But I ended up meeting somebody at a different job, introduced me to Gary V's content. And Gary V has the have Reezy resells on his podcast. And when he was like, yeah, so I did $500,000 yet last year, selling used books and kind of like made me perk my eyebrows up. Interesting, gotta look into this. I watched a ton of content and you know, the rest is kind of history from there, but the why was just necessity. And I think necessity is just what drives a lot of us resellers. And the more of us that I talk to, the more I realize we come from very similar backgrounds, you know, more impoverished, not a lot of opportunities, poor education, maybe a broken home government assistance, that sort of thing.  

So you develop skills that you don't really realize or skills or strengths until you have to lean on them. And when your back's against the wall, it gives you that ability to do so to how would be grit, man, just grit. I started with a couple of books that we picked up at a Goodwill just to test the waters. My wife had some choice words for me saying, you know, Hey, you know, we're not selling these books. No one's buying these books. So I got news for you. There was the only time that I had ever been like, you know what, now we're going to take a chance on this because I've done the same thing that I've always done forever. And the rest is history. We sold a couple of books, reinvested every dime back into the business for the first six months and just snowballed from there last year, we fell just short of 250,000 in sales. 

Joana: That's amazing. 

William: Definitely life changing for sure.  

Joana:  I find the reseller community really resourceful. I mean, you kind of have to be, I think, to get into this.  

William: Yeah, for sure. 

Joana: Yeah. Like I kind of wished that when I was living in Jersey, that I knew about all this stuff, cause I probably would have gotten into that for a while. I would, I had nothing going for me. So I feel like when I hear these stories, I'm like, damn, I should have done this.  

William: Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm talking about, where we all come from very similar backgrounds where, you know, I'm college educated. I have a degree in finance and it just, I could blow my nose in it. That's how valuable the degree is like right after the 2008 recession, no one's hiring in finance. No one's going to trust somebody right out of college with their nest egg, after they lost 60% of their portfolio. And for the next 10 years, I couldn't find a position in my field of expertise. So, you know, you take these jobs just to make ends meet, and then you realize the job after job, after job, there's just not a lot of opportunity and really start questioning what your skills are and what your strengths are. And you know, you can just kind of stumble into it and realize that you're really good at it. And you go from there,  

Joana: I've been like looking at your stuff on TikTok and Instagram and stuff. And I noticed that you give a lot of information for free, which I think a lot of people in your position probably wouldn't do that. They would try to make a buck out of that. I'm interested or I'm intrigued to know why you don't charge for the information.  

William:  Uh, so for me, it's about paying it forward and legacy. So it's not necessarily making the money because I believe money is a by-product of doing the right thing. And I think that the universe always finds a way to find balance. And the more that you can skew it to a positive outlook with the imbalance, then the universe is going to try to over-correct and reward you. So I try to give as much as I possibly can away for free. And you know, a little piece of that too, is the Gary V approach where you play the long game and it's not necessarily the short-term and how to make a quick buck. It's about not monetizing your audience right off the bat. And you know, sometime in the future, I may so sell an ebook or a course or on something completely unrelated to books. And because it provided so much value upfront, people will feel compelled to want to help me out. So it's about that jab, jab, jab, right hook that Gary V always preaches about. I can't help, but think that there's a huge part of his philosophy. That's kind of still floating around, but for me it's money. It's just a, by-product of doing the right thing. So doing the right things, always the right thing.  

<...

Topics discussed in the episode: 

• [0:38] When Caleb started selling online
• [2:11] A typical workday
• [5:18] Shifting gears when sources dried up
• [7:30] What he wishes he had known before starting
• [12:10] Lost his job while selling on the side
• [17:22] Trends in video game reselling 
• [20:03] Great places to find games
• [27:04] A failure he learned from 
• [36:10] Top Five Favorite games 
• [39:11] Some final advice 

Resources Mentioned:

• His YouTube Channel Phoenix Resale

Seller Tips: 

• Go to pawn shops where you might find that a lot of games are underpriced. 
• Don't compare your seller journey to someone else's carefully curated Instagram feed

Transcript:
Intro:  Welcome to the seller's corner and e-commerce podcast where the real stories from real sellers, each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show. 

Joana: Hey, this is Joana and I run marketing at acceler list. Today. We are talking to Caleb, Ashton about his journey into the world of reselling video games and how you can get started too. 

 When did you actually get started with selling? 

Caleb: I think I started back in September of 2018. My wife had just entered law school and I was working a regular nine to five job with some friends and was just looking for like a side hustle to put some time into and, you know, earn a little bit of extra money on the side and sort of stumbled into the YouTube, like resale community and actually started out flipping books onto Amazon from like thrift stores and book sales and stuff like that. So I started more on the Amazon side. Then at that point it was kind of later fall. Once it warmed up again, I started going to yard sales and amping up eBay side a little bit more and yeah, it sort of just evolved from there, I guess. Cause you said you started with selling books. 

Joana: Do you mainly sell video games now or do you still sell books? 

Caleb: Yeah, I would say I'm probably maybe 90% video games and then 10% miscellaneous. I sometimes will still do books. My wife is still in law school and sometimes I'll buy her friends old textbooks and things like that. Or if I know someone who's getting rid of a bunch, but I'm focused primarily on video games at this point. 

Joana: Are you like a video game geek or I ask because I'm one, so it's totally fine if you are too.  

Caleb: I would say probably less so than most video games sellers. I definitely played my fair share as a kid right now I'm working on a Switch collection, but I'm not like a hardcore collector or game or anything. I don't get to play quite as much as I'd like 

Joana: talk us a little bit through like a typical work day. Cause you do this full-time at the moment, right? 

Caleb: I sure do. Yeah, day-to-day it varies a good bit because like some days I might be focusing more on source things. Some days might be heavier on the listing, but I would say on an average day, I'll start the day off normally by packing up and shipping out any eBay orders that have sold on the Amazon side. Almost all of my inventory is fulfilled by Amazon. So luckily I don't really have to worry about those orders.  

Then later on in the day, maybe I would go out and hit up a few pawn shops in town to buy some video games or systems that I find that maybe are under priced. That's a way that I get a decent amount of my inventory. I might spend some time looking online for video games, sales, like on gamestop.com or other websites to find underpriced games on like a clearance sale or things like that. I would say, especially this last year, I've gotten a lot more into the online arbitrage aspect of that. And then on, you know, maybe I'll finish out the day by filming or editing a video because the YouTube side of the business is something that I really developed this last year as well.  

Joana: What's like the part that you enjoy the most, is it finding the games or do you prefer doing like the YouTube stuff and kind of inspiring others to get into it?  

Caleb:  That's a hard question. I don't know if anything really compares. There's like a really deep satisfaction when like you get a nice comment on a video or like VM from someone who's been like genuinely helped by something that you've created. So I'd probably ultimately have to say that. Although the thing that really like got me hooked into the resale community was like the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the find, like going to a yard sale and having somebody like dig out a N64 collection from some dusty closet and being able to make a good amount of money on something that you know, was previously basically junk to someone else. That element of it is really addicting as well.  

Joana: Yeah. I hear that a lot actually. Like the thrill of the hunt is, is like the key factor in all of this. Everyone really enjoys that.  

Caleb:  I think it's a really common trend, especially for resellers. I think because if you don't get enjoyed that, I think most people won't gravitate towards resale. Cause most people don't like get much of a high from like listing 20 items on eBay. You know,  

Joana: You mentioned your wife's in law school. So do you do this all on your own or does she like step in a little bit when she has some time?  

Caleb: As little as she possibly can, doesn't have the same resale bug that I did, which I think is a good thing. We kind of compliment each other in that way. I think I'm much more of a generalist. So resale is a really good path for me I think because there's so much stuff that you can potentially learn about like not only are there multiple facets of the business, like you have to learn sourcing and like listing stuff really well and scaling and like business efficiencies and things like that. But there are also tons of niches that like you're having less success in one, like after I did books for awhile, I started to realize that the niche would becoming a little bit more competitive and also that some of my sources were kind of drying up. And so that's when I shifted gears a little bit and started experimenting store, sourcing more at pawn shop and sort of how I started to get into the video game niche, but yeah, sort of the, the generalist nature of resale and just the fact that there's so much to learn and so many ways to expand really throughout need to it.  

And meanwhile, my wife is the kind of person who like will set her mind to something and we'll be like the best in the world, that one thing. So we're kind of a, I guess, opposites att...

Topics discussed in the episode: 

• [0:58] How John got started selling online 
• [2:06] How did he feel about quitting his full time job
• [3:06] Moment of Panic about leaving his job 
• [4:22] What a typical work day looks like now as an Amazon seller 
• [6:08] Scaling his business quickly 
• [6:55] How the pandemic affected his business 
• [11:06] What he wishes he'd known before jumping to selling on Amazon 
• [14:40] Why he started his blog sidehustleexperiment.com 
• [18:40] All the work that happens behind the scenes 
• [23:50] Library Sales 
• [25:25] Bulk Model
• [26:00]What Book genres sell the most
• [29:00]Hardest part about being a seller
• [33:03]How AccelerList has helped his business

Resources Mentioned:

• Book: Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
• Book: Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Seller Tips: 

Bulk model might be best if you don't have thrift stores nearby or you don't enjoy going to library sales.
Build sets of books, especially of children's books before putting them up for sale as individual books

Transcript:
Intro:  Welcome to the sellers corner and e-commerce podcast where the real stories from real sellers, each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show. 

Joana: Hey, this is Joana and I run marketing at AccelerList. In this episode, we talked to John Muscarello from Pennsylvania. He tells us how he quit his nine to five to sell full time and how you can do the same.  

Today. We're talking to John Muscarello just about his seller journey that allowed him to quit his full-time job. How are you, John? 

John: Good. How are you? 

Joana: Pretty good. Can't complain. 

John: That’s always good. I mean, it's Friday. 

Joana: do you want to tell us how you got started with selling online? 

John: I started back in 2017. I actually wasn't selling online. I was actually selling locally. I was selling furniture, Facebook marketplace, and Craigslist, and offer up those kinds of apps or I just pick up a table and chairs for like $50 and sell it for like $200 on another app. And after a year, like it went pretty well and I was like, wow, this is great. But then when the holidays rolled around I’m originally from New York, so I travel, I don't know the last, probably two weeks of the year, like the business dried up because like I physically had to be there.  

So I was looking for something I could do online. And I started just looking and watching YouTube videos and came across that you could sell books on Amazon. And I just started going to thrift stores. I got all the software and just start going. Wow. I quit my full-time job. I hadn't been full-time for about a year now. It's been a crazy journey but I love.

Joana: pretty cool. So how did it feel to quit the full-time job? 

John: It felt amazing. It was like a tough decision. It was and it wasn’t  like, I didn't know if I was fully ready, but there is a lot going on at work and like, I wasn't happy. So I was just like, you know what?  I have like a good runway, like saved up in the bank and like, you know, what, if it doesn't work out, I guess I can always get another job, but deep down, like I knew it could work.  

Like I've been doing it probably a year and a half before I quit maybe two years. So I had a pretty good, like, sales are very consistent. It wasn't just like I was doing like a thousand dollars and like, Oh, if I quit, I could do like $8,000. Like it was very consistent. So I felt like very comfortable making a little leap, but like, yeah, it just felt like amazing. And when they sent the email that like, I was leaving to do my own thing, like, it just felt like so surreal that like working all these like nights and weekends, like it finally all paid off. 

Joana: Did you have like a moment of panic right after like, Oh no, I just quit my job!

John: I did probably the first four to six weeks. I was like, Oh my God, did I make the right decision? Like, it's just weird. Like now all of a sudden, like you're used to doing this thing on the side and now it's like, you could do it all the time. And like, things just change. Like you're used to going to the same thrift stores in your neighborhood after work. But now like you have to do a lot more and like, that's just not going to cut it. So I quickly was like, Oh, like I have all these routes in different States I was doing. So I was doing that. And then I was like, wow, like, this is a lot of traveling. Like, I don't know, like if this is like sustainable and then like, I basically started doing bulk books. I found a supplier and I liked that much better. It's easier to control your time. Like, you're not really competing with anyone else. Like you could kind of scan on your own time. And I mean, it comes with its problems, but like once you have everything kind of solved, I like it.  

Joana: Do you mainly sell books or do you still do like furniture stuff?  

John: Pretty much all books. I do DVDs and CDs as well, but for the most part, it's all books amazon, and some stuff on eBay. 

Joana: So what does a typical Workday look like for you? Like now that you're doing this full time?  

John: A typical Workday? I like to get up early, um, try to get up by at least 5:30/6:00. So basically I'll get up. I kind of check my seller central and make sure everything's okay. There's no issues. Then I go to where the books are stored usually. And then I'll start scanning for the day and I'll go through everything. Yeah. I just started scanning for most of the day. So take a little break for lunch and then I'll drop off any packages for eBay or any merchant fulfilled orders, but I'll probably go back and scan to like, I don't know, maybe like five, six o'clock and then I'll go home and then kind of relax a little bit then kind of just check orders, maybe post stuff on eBay, get stuff shipped for the next day. It kind of start all over again The next day. I recently just hire...

Topics discussed in the episode: 

• [0:50] Accident that changed everything 
• [1:40] What Karin Sells Online 
• [2:50] Why Karin Started Selling on Amazon 
• [6:23] What she wishes she had known before starting 
• [9:46] Best & Worst aspects on selling online 
• [12:55] Resources Karin used to launch her business 
• [15:43] Used Tik Tok as inspiration and a resource 
• [17:25] Debunk an assumption about selling on Amazon 
• [19:14] Advice for starting your seller journey 
• [20:18] Where does she see herself in 5 years? 
• [22:05] Is the seller community helpful? 

Resources Mentioned:

• Tik Tok
• Book: “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill 

Seller Tips: 

Consume content and research a lot before launching into selling on Amazon.

Transcript:

Intro    Welcome to the sellers corner an e-commerce podcast with real stories from real sellers, each episode, we sit down with online sellers all across the globe and talk about overcoming challenges, scaling and putting processes around their online businesses. Welcome to the show. 

Joana: Hey, this is Joana and I run marketing at AccelerList. In this episode, we talk to Karin from Iowa. She has such a great story and shares some amazing tips for those of you starting out on your seller journey. 

So Joana here and today, our guest is Karin, and she's going to be telling us a little bit about her seller story.  

Karin: My name is Karin and I sell online. That's my only thing that I do now. I was a workaholic for a really long time. And then I, uh, actually was in an accident with a semi, while I was on a test drive with a customer, I worked at a car dealership and I realized that life is short. And although, luckily I wasn't hurt too bad. I'd always been entrepreneurial. And I had sold on eBay for years, but that just wasn't working well enough to do it full time. And so I started doing some research and found some information and then somebody’s Tik Tok just really, you know, spoke to me one day for some reason, selling books on Amazon. And so I kind of started to get into, you know, full-time then internet sales in multiple platforms from there. 

Joana: So is that what you mainly sell or only sell books?  

Karin:  On Amazon I sell books and VHS tapes primarily. I have a few other things that I've dabbled in, but I don't do any, you know, major online arbitrage or anything like that. And then on eBay it's more varied, you know, I branch out and have a little more, you know, some vinyl records that I'm not eligible to sell on Amazon, but mainly media and a few other things that maybe I see at a Goodwill outlet that I know a little bit about, or I think will sell well. Like for some reason, trucker hats that have the mesh that are vintage and eighties feel are hot. So those will sell for way more than I would expect. So I got lucky on a huge score at an outlet mall, you know, one time with like a hundred of them for probably $5. And I think if I made my money back on just one hat in 10 minutes, so it just kind of depends, but books are definitely the bulk of what I do.  

Joana:  So You kind of went into a little bit into why you started selling. Do you want to like,  just elaborate a little?

Karin: Sure. I mean, I guess when it comes to eBay, I first started selling because I needed some extra cash when I left my ex-husband and I was a single parent and I knew that working and paying for daycare just wasn't going to work when you have a three-year-old at home. And so I had worked for an internet company that mainly sold downloadable software cause it was late nineties, but they had branched into some other things. And so I learned about eBay sales from that company. And so I was like, Oh, I should try this. And eBay was not even five years old at that point. So I didn't really go full bore into it, but it was fun to go to garage sales and kind of the thrill of the hunt was there and being, and having an entrepreneurial spirit that was fun and it was good extra money, but it wasn't something that was gonna pay the bills.  

 Long-term I just didn't really have the time to put into building it into a sustainable business. So I went back to work and kind of didn't understand what was out there. Then when I started doing the Amazon stuff pretty quickly, I found a lot of things to learn from, you know, from whether it was, you know, learning just about scout IQ and scanning books that way, um, you know, and other things to really help do the business by yourself and scale it fast. So, you know, of course, AccelerList helps in that, you know, listing quickly versus seller central and things like that. But, you know, so I just kind of consumed as much information as possible, went to a turn the page conference in Austin in February, and really learned a lot of information from, you know, some sellers that really knew their stuff.  

 And so just networking in that way to help because it kind of taught me, you know, that whether I wanted to work two hours or 80 hours in a week, that I could find a way to really make what I wanted to make and that I didn't necessarily have to have a huge warehouse or 14 employees to make the big bucks. So, um, Amazon took off pretty fast for me. I only started Amazon just over a year ago and pretty quickly it rammed into, you know, four figures of sales in like a month and a half. And so just kind of snowballed. And I learned that, it's not just about, you know, finding that $200 book, but sometimes it's getting through the penny books faster. That really helps too, just getting to accept more items fast and list them fast, get them into the warehouse. It just lots of different things. I don't know.  

Joana:  Yeah. I kind of find it amazing in this community, how people just really grab on, I guess the saying would be like grab the bull by the horns and just really just go into it and make whole businesses out of it. I find it incredible. Like I find your story really incredible as well. So like what would be some things that you wish you had known before you started all selling online?  

Karin:    Well, I think that what I wish I would know not, yes, profit is profit, but sometimes you've got to work smarter, not harder. So I guess that's probably one thing I wish I would've known understanding eBay fees a little bit better. Although I think that I consumed enough content that I was a little better prepared than some people are in ...