Episode 159: Elevate Your eBay Business with Betsie Bolger

Did you guys like that icebreaker of what age would you want to be for the rest of your life question?

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

Did you consider it further? Did you change your age selection?

Yes.

Oh, you did.

I.

You said 27.

I originally said my current age, but after thinking and reflecting on it a little more, I'm thinking. I'm still thinking like 35. Like younger.

Yeah, I think a little more wisdom, a little more experience under your belt. I like that. Did you change your age?

You said 50 originally. No, I still agree with my age, but I feel like I need to be more reflective and find kind of peace where I am right now.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

So we want to know you too, listener, if you could pick one age for the rest of your life to live that one age, what age would it be? And we want to know why and post on our blog or something.

All right, on that note, you are listening to the Profit first podcast.

This is the big one, the one you've been waiting for. Betsy Bolger's in the house for episode 159. Yes. Here we go.

Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I'm your co host, Christina Boldup.

And I'm Mike Michalowis, the other guy here. I'm the author of Profit First. Tell me, tell me you have that book by now. If you don't, for God's sake, stop listening to the podcast, go buy it and then come back to it.

Surely you do you better.

And I'm joined in studio by our co host to the host, co host, Kelsey Ayers. Hey, everybody, remember on the show the Dwight was not the assistant manager. He was the assistant manager.

I actually just started binging that, like episode three.

Such a good show. And you are, dear friends, you are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is a show where we explore every single element of profitability. Today we're talking about being an ebay seller. You know, ebay's still a big deal. It is more actually. It's more than still. It's always been a big deal. It's a huge deal in a new flavor, new way.

Interesting.

I bought my Viper.

When I bought a Viper, I bought three on eBay.

You bought what?

A Volvo on ebay?

There you go.

W. There you go. So you guys can find us on itunes, Stitcher, Tunein radio, Google Play, and of course, profit first, podcast.com and anywhere else that you listen to podcasts that I don't know about.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we always say we've been up to And I'm curious what you've been up to. I think we got to change that up too.

Yeah. Okay.

I think we start doing icebreaker questions.

Okay, cool.

Okay. So we do that, because that way, our guests listening into the show could at least play in their mind.

Of course.

Yeah.

What's the ugliest color? Oh, that's the iceberg. And this is, of course, you opine about that, meaning you render your opinement, which means opinion. I don't know. I love the words I make up. So if you had to place an opinement on it. Kelsey, you go first. What do you think's the ugliest color?

I'm gonna say brown.

Really?

Yeah. The association with poop.

Oh, well, there's that.

And is a poop association. Okay, I'll buy that.

Yeah, I like, like, olive green mixed with, like, brown. Like, the darker olive green. I don't know.

What's your reasoning behind me?

I don't know. I just look at it, and I'm.

Like, I like that.

It's kind of reminds me of the military, you know, for me, it's. It's a. It's the neon colors. Oh, they catch your attention. And at certain points, like, shut up.

That's true. So loud.

I can agree with that.

Yeah. True story.

This thought. Neon colors or pastel colors?

That did hurt. That hurt.

That was a cutting punch. Because they don't know. Our listeners don't know. But I refer to some neon colors. Pastel.

You're like, oh, that's pretty.

Okay, so I'm colorblind.

Okay.

So in my 20s, and this is why I never want to be in my 20s again. I said, oh, for a business shirt with a tie, I'll wear a neon one. They had this neon green shirt. I'm like, that's genius. Yeah, I put it on, and I. I looked in the mirror and was like. I tried to get one day through it, and I was horrible. It was horrid.

You wanted the attention. Was that why?

I don't know. You wanted to stand out?

Yeah.

Yeah, I thought it.

I mean, it makes sense.

It was so ugly.

It was so ugly.

I like lime green as a color, though.

Yeah, lime green's pretty. There's a. I feel like there's a very fine line between pretty green and gross green. For me, anyway.

I hear you. So we want to know from you, our dear listeners, or what's the ugliest color? Tell us. Talking about the ugliest color. Oh, we. We got a shout out.

You do that.

Doesn't connect.

That doesn't bridge at all.

Well, we set this shout out line and we want everyone doing this.

Yeah.

When you. This show's all about profitability, of course. And once you achieve profitability, we want to hear that once you're permanently profitable, you've achieved what the gold standards for business. We want to hear. Well, we had a good friend of ours, Darren. I'll let him share his story. But Darren called. Here it is. My name is Darren Verasami. I am the co founder of 34 strong. And we went from barely surviving each payroll period to being profitable permanently. I am profitable permanently. Okay, so, Darren, here's a shout out to you. Thanks for doing that for. Finally someone's bringing a little bit of energy in the air. Yeah, yeah. Jinx. I want some. Yeah, that was kind of jinxing. It was kind of jinxy. And we want you. Why don't you call in? You know, you're getting all the tips and guidance to do this. I know you're driving profitability in your business. I know you're getting there. We want to hear it. So you, my Dear friend, call 844-876-7221 and record your message again. It's real simple. 844-876-7231. Record, you know, a 15 or 20 second message of how you've achieved permanent profitability and shout it out. For God's sake, give us some energy. And here's the hot tip. Like, you can call the number and if you don't like what you're doing, you can call back and do it a second time. Yeah, yeah.

And say, hey, redo. That's helpful.

You can redo and we'll play the first one. That's genius. That was. Now that was funny. All right, who. Who wants to do the sponsors?

Christina.

Yeah. I touched my nose. We both touched our nose. Christina didn't.

She's up.

All right, well, this is a soft thank you. We'll get into a little bit more about what each of these guys do a little bit later, but thank you. Big shout outs to Fundera, Fundbox, Nextiva, and Receipt bank. And of course, Turning Points. Right, Mike?

Well, thanks for letting me not finish my food. American Express Turning Points. Let me just.

Oh, no, stop.

I know, it's pretty disgusting. Yeah, I don't like when people cheat.

That's like a pet peeve for me.

Oh, is it really? Oh, I had the funniest. I was at this event and this woman goes, would you please stop? Right? She just looks at Me, I'm standing. It was a large conference, and I'm standing just waiting from afar. And there's a. There's all these seats lined up. She's on an edge seat next to me because. Would you please stop that? I'm like, I'm sorry. And I start watching again. And then she goes, would you please stop? I said, I. I don't know what I'm doing. She's like, you're jingling the change in your pocket. And she goes, that's the biggest pet peeve in the world I have. It actually irritates the hell out of me. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry.

Yeah. And my mom will shake her foot, so like, any surface you're near, it'll shake you. And she has no idea.

That kills.

She does it incessantly.

Oh, it kills me, the whole brain shaking, talking about incessant.

Yes, of course.

Her name is Betsy Bulger. Where did I put my notes? Oh, here's Betsy's notes. So I met Betsy. We were just recounting before we on the show here, maybe about eight years ago, I was invited to do a speaking conference or speaking events at the ebay on location conference. Ebay was going city to city and putting on major events. A thousand people in the room, and this one woman sitting in the crowd, and you cannot miss her because of her hair. She paints her hair rainbow color. I mean, literally different rainbows. And this was before people were even dying their hair. It's like, so, yeah, this is eight.

Years ago, like, ahead of the time.

I'm like, who the hell is this person? And then I met her, and I'm like, who the hell is she? She is insane in a great way. She is the top rated seller on ebay as well as the creative director for voice marketing, Inc. Which produces the ebay radio show for ebay inc. She. Let me see. Boring. Boring. Kind of interesting. No, this is my. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. That was. That. That was actually very inappropriate. It wasn't boring. No, I was actually reading the wrong notes here. Here. She graduated magna cum laude with special honors as an English major. Little known fact, she has her own stable of training horses. She's an equestrian. And let's see, what else. And she's been. Here's. This is my favorite part. She's been dying her hair in various permutations of the ebay colors, which is red, blue, yellow, and green for ebay events ever since 2005. So I think that's when we Met. All right, Betsy, welcome to the show. Welcome, Betsy.

Thank you, Mike. Excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Oh, it's a joy to have you. When I said boring, I was going through your bio. It ain't boring. It's long as all heck. It's amazing what you've achieved and everything. Steeped in ebay. What made you such an ebay addict?

Well, it all started with spam. Not the email kind, the kind that you eat, only I don't eat it. But it was an acronym for some friends of mine and myself, because we were all DJs. They were all professional DJs. I was a home DJ, and we had this support group known as Supporting Practitioners and Admirers of Mixing. And we would take spam cans of spam to each other's houses when he had a party in case of an emergency, which we never, luckily had to open the can. Then I decided I wanted to find these, some spammorabilia. So I went on ebay one night, and there was an auction closing in, like, nine minutes. I was like, I've got to have this. And so I. It was a set of spam Christmas lights. So I quickly registered myself and I quickly bid, and I won. And that was it. I was hooked. Then I found out spammorabia, also spammorabilia. Then I found out you could sell on ebay, because. And the way I found this out was I went to eBay live 2004. I was totally overwhelmed by the ebay. I had just listed my first item as part of the camp ebay thing they had going that summer. You had to earn merit badges for, like, paying with PayPal, buying an item. And the last thing I had to do was sell an item. So I had just earned my last badge. And I get there, and there are 10,000 crazed eBay sellers on the premises. And I'm like, whoa. I barely got to the hotel to check in before I came back and just immersed myself in it. And I thought, these people are really cool. They all have small businesses, and they are all entrepreneurs. And I want to be this when I grow up.

Wild. Okay? So before we dig into how to be profitable on ebay, I want to talk about the relevance of ebay. You know, when they came out, they were before Amazon's existence. And I know I was not allowed to say Amazon. It would piss you off, but Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, that's okay.

I'll forgive you. Okay, cool, cool.

But ebay was.

I just can't say it.

Okay. Oh, you Can't. You can't say it. You can't. You can't say what? What can't you say?

The rhythm, the river.

Oh, damn. I tried to get you that. So ebay was the front runner in this case. Amazon came in and I think took a piece of the market. But I think ebay is flourishing in another way. So I just want to understand what is ebay's relevance today?

What is ebay's relevance today? Well, first of all, ebay did pioneer e commerce selling. This is back in the day. Pierre just wanted to set up a level marketplace, a level playing field where anyone worldwide could trade with anyone else whose peer this is. Pierre. Oh, yes. I only wish. No, I have a very nice husband. Thank you. Pierre Omidyar is the genius who started ebay. He built the entire site one labor day weekend in 1995, named it Auction web, and was part of a larger site that was actually devoted to the ebola virus. So it was kind of gross. You had to wade through that site to get to the auction web. But he actually set this up so that people could trade with one another. And then the creation myth became that he set it up so his girlfriend could collect PEZ dispensers and trade with other PEZ dispenser collectors. But what really made ebay great was Beanie babies. The beanie baby craze hit big time just as ebay was coming online. Is Auction Web. Those beanie babies were flying around the country like in cereal boxes and in, you know, old envelopes and, you know, God knows what. And people are sending money to each other, cash, and they're actually getting these items and money orders and checks, you know, and this is flourishing. And ebay's first venture capitalists came to the, to their offices, which at that point consisted of like one room and a dent as a sub suite in a dentist office. And they had to go to Ikea when they hired a new employee and have to make their own desk. So they had bought. They had somebody's girlfriend acting as receptionist. They're all sitting in, in fold up lawn chairs and they've got all these bag around the room of postal bags with stuff in them. And the venture capitalist guy is like, hey, what's in the bags? Oh, that's the listing fees that have come in that we haven't gotten to record yet. And there's a guy sitting there inputting the fees. So it was clear that this had touched a chord. And the cool thing about ebay, it was built on community, right from the start, Pierre made the premise that people are basically good. And this is what built ebay. The community values, our people are basically good. We all bring something to the table, deal with other people as you want them to deal with you. Golden rule, very simple and trust. And so now we think nothing of buying something over the Internet. But back then it was a revolutionary. What, you're going to send money to some total stranger and they're going to send you this like, thing. I was like, yeah. And it worked. And now when e commerce has become a huge, huge deal. What makes ebay special and unique, aside from the fabulous inventory, is that it is all about small business. When you buy on ebay, you are supporting a real person's business. You are supporting an entrepreneur, a mom and pop. Set up a storefront front setup, you know, anything, any kind of permutation of that that you want to imagine. People are selling on it as a hobby, people are selling on it as a secondary source of income. People are selling on it to make their full time living. And this is something Pierre could not have envisioned. But it's, it's, it's amazing and it makes ebay totally unique among all e commerce sites.

But I, I think of these competitors that have said, and we've already mentioned Amazon, Etsy is a major player.

Oh yeah.

Don't they take a chunk out of ebay every single time these things pop up?

It doesn't, it doesn't because a lot of people have cross listed their items on ebay and Etsy and there's also Bonanzel and a couple of other secondary markets that are, that are a little smaller. But ebay. Ebay remains the main player. And so, you know, if we lose a little chunk here or there, it doesn't take away from our, from our still being the main player. Rising tide lifts all boats.

I got you. You know, Kelsey instantly wrote down bonanza. They only sell banana items. It's all different types of bananas. You're looking for that banana pen your whole life. So.

Okay, Banana Rama.

Banana Rama.

Yeah, good one.

I had an inappropriate one. I'm not gonna say it, but basically I just inferred it.

Right, yeah.

So, so what about the, the, the size of ebay? Has it diminished? I mean, they were the number one player, but my assumption is now they're a niche player. Or is that not true?

Oh, no, not a niche at all. They are very much a main player on the e commerce stage. They've got 169 million active buyers worldwide as of Q1, they've got a billion live listings on the site at any given time. And as of 2006, which is the most recent firm statistics, there were 1.3 million active sellers worldwide who use ebay as a primary or secondary source of income. And that has grown exponentially over the years.

So, okay, so it is very viable.

Oh, very much so. And the billion live listings, what sets ebay apart again from the other e commerce sites is you have not only 80% new items, commodity items, like I buy my erno laszlo there, I buy my Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap there, I buy everything on ebay. But they also have the special, the unique, and the unexpected. You can find stuff you never even knew existed.

Oh, yeah, no, I believe for sure. There's. There's the weirdo section. So let's get into that. Yeah, let's get into being profitable with ebay. What if I'm. If I've never sold on ebay before, how do I set myself up to have a permanently profitable ebay experience?

Well, the first thing you do is you look. If possible, you find an ebay educator to coach you through the first couple of listings. That can really help. Ebay used to have an education specialist program, which I'm proud to say I was a member of from day one, and they dispersed that program or discontinued that program last june. But there are still a lot of ebay educators around. Check your local college, Google it. Chances are you can find an ebay educator in your area, and that will jump start you. Because we were certified to teach ebay, we have official curriculum materials that we've gone on to develop our own from those. And you'll shortcut a lot of the learning curve that way. But if you're just going to start with yourself, go ahead and sit down, and the first thing you got to do is buy a couple of things on ebay. So you see how it works.

Buy before you sell.

Okay, Absolutely. Buy before you sell. Because you've got the main thing to know about succeeding on ebay and becoming profitable and staying that way is you've got to think like a buyer.

Okay?

So you want to buy a couple of things and just see how it works, and then find something around the house that you have no emotional attachment to whatsoever. And it should be preferably something that's easy to ship, like, you know, not a big, awkward size, or, you know, not. Shouldn't weigh 100 pounds. It should be something, you know, relatively light and simple and lightweight. Like, my first item was A baseball cap that I found by the side of the road. It said, I'm smiling like this because I don't know what I'm doing. And yeah, and it was really easy to ship. All I had to do was put it in a bubble padded. I put it in a plastic bag first and then a Ziploc and then a bubble padded manila envelope and it sold for 99 cents to somebody in Australia. Very excited to decide. So that was just a slightly used baseball cap. Yeah, and I got positive feedback for it. He just loved that baseball cap. He just thought that was the greatest baseball cap ever. And it was easy to ship and it wasn't something I was, I wasn't going to get my feelings hurt if I only got one bid. I was thrilled to get that one bid in fact. And when you sell your first item on ebay, it's a big woohoo moment. And invariably that's when, that's when, that's when it sets the hook. You know, you're like, oh, I want that high again. Yeah.

Okay.

So.

So your high didn't live long. It was 99 cents you made.

But by the time you take out the fees, you know, it was my home. So it did not. It cost me 9%. I think it was actually 7.7point something percent at that time. But you know, it, it was the beginning. And you know, every journey begins with a single step.

Yeah, of course. No, of course.

And I get it.

And just in that one, I just want to see that little story through the person you shipped it to in Australia. The shipping, I presume is a legit expense. I mean that must be 30, 40, 50 bucks.

Well, the big thing now is to do free shipping because buyers love free shipping. It does not require math. And there's psychologically, the word free is just, you know, it just jazzes your boat.

Yeah.

So to mix it for. So what you want to do is you want to build the cost of shipping into the price of your item. Ideally.

Okay.

And the way that you do this is you find a far away zip code and check the cost for mailing to that zip code and you find a closed zip code and check the cost for mailing to that zip code. Average them out and add that amount, maybe round up to the next dollar and add that amount to your price. You just build it in. So it's really shipping included.

You gotta give me closure with Australia hat boy here. Did he pay for the shipping? How'd you ship it down there?

Back. Back then? We did paid shipping and he paid via PayPal almost immediately. And the cool thing about selling to Australia, it's already tomorrow there. So when they email you, you get an email from the future because it has the next day's date on it. So you know the world is not gonna end that day. So anyway, so yeah, I've got his PayPal payment dated. The. I went ahead and sent it off and he paid, I think it was about $3 and something cents. So this is before the last couple postage increases. Needless to say, it was like $3 and something cents to mail it first class international to Australia. And I sold internationally right from the start. A lot of people are intimidated by that, but you don't need to be.

Okay, so, yeah, okay, so I want to talk about international, but I'm going to go back in a second. I want to get some of the basics down. You mentioned bidding. My question, what's your question?

I was. No, I was just going to ask, do you think which is more beneficial, being the seller to set up an item as, you know, something where people have to bid on it and then the highest bidder gets it or the buy it now, like, what's the benefit as the seller for the two options?

Well, here's the thing. Back then, back in the day, it was really exciting to have an auction and you know, people were, it was new and it was fresh and it was hot and people loved, you know, that, that waiting to see if they were going to win that, that item and blah, blah, blah. Nowadays, not so much. We're jaded. We want instant gratification. So, and about 79% of the listings on ebay are fix nowadays. So you can, you can just, you know, buy your item, pay then and pay on the spot and boom, you get your item in a day or two. But what I like personally is fixed price with best offer because then you can send, you can send the seller an offer. You'll be like, well, I want this item, but I don't want to pay 39.99. I'll pay 35. Let me offer 35. I might say, yeah, that's great. Or I might say, no, I need to get 37 for this with free shipping. So, you know, you could counter offer and you can go back and forth a couple of times on this. And what, it's great because you've, you've basically got a viable price for your item. You leave in a little wiggle room. So you're not subject to the vagaries of the bidding, which sometimes can Turn out kind of disastrously. On the other hand, if you have a rare and unique item that you don't really. That you can't really get a market value for, you want to start that off at an auction and it will find its own level. I did that with a ring.

There's the tip of the century.

Yeah, it was very cool because it was a ring that was made by a Mexican consortium. This one designer, one silversmith, had teamed up with another silversmith's workers to produce this limited edition items. And they only did it for couple of years. And it was a very hot collectible ring. So I started it at $79, and it got up to about $380. And then in the last two seconds of the listing, it went up to 420. Oh, my God, that was exciting.

Are people. Is that automated? The, the, like the last two seconds are people just clicking like mad trying to get the item.

Well, you've got your snipers, and some people set up an auto snipe, but that's not very sporting. If you want to be really sporting about it. You go in there and you snipe live, which, that's taking your chances. Kind of like deer hunting used to be before they shot them at feeders. But no, you. You take. You bid that, you place that last b. Your last button ready to click in that last second, and boom, you've. You've. You've aced out whoever's got, you know, got the bid before you. But what you can do is I used to snipe proof. I. In fact, sometimes I still do. I will set my maximum bid at a certain amount, and ebay will automatically proxy bid for you up to that amount as the bidding climbs.

Oh, but, but it won't go. It's not an unlimited climb. It stops.

No, it's not an unlimited climb. It stops. You set the limit, and. And the. The bid that shows is only the bid that's just high enough to be the top bid. And then somebody might bid over you, and boom, you'll automatically boost up ahead of them, and boom, you'll automatically boost up ahead of them. So you can never really be sure if it was a snipe that won your listing or if somebody placed a max bid. But either way, you're making money, so who cares?

Yeah. So let's recap some of the things we learned. It sounds like you can just list at a fixed price. You can list at a fixed price, though, with the best offer, which sounds like almost like a flea market. You Know, you walk down the. Talking about the Mexicans, right. You walk down, I went to a Mexican flea market and like, oh, this is 10 pesos or 20 pesos. I'm like, like, I only have a $1 peso in my pocket. That's fine. Like, that's the negotiation now. Yeah. Or you could do an auction. And it sounds like the auction. What I heard is you do that when you have a unique or rare item, A fixed price, I assume if it's a very more of a commoditized item and you're competing on price. When do you use the fixed with best offer option?

You can use it on commodity items, or you can use it on like vintage and collectible kind of items. A lot of commodity items people feel that they want to just have a firm price on, but there'll be a percentage of those people that also will use best offer, and you can just pretty much figure that they've built a little wiggle room into their price. So to me, a best offer is like a red flag. Hey, offer a little less and you're liable to get the item.

That's interesting. Okay, what about your own personal success with ebay? Does this supplement your lifestyle? Is this your exclusive form of income? How are you using ebay?

For us, it's an additional income stream. My husband is on Social Security disability because he's HIV positive and has been for many years. I work for ebay radio for voice marketing inc. The team, the company who produces ebay radio for ebay inc. So I have that retainer every month. But ebay is definitely the third leg of the stool.

Okay, so. So it's a serious business for you. How many items or products are you selling every week?

Well, I. We have a client that we list for and we actually had our. Have our store on vacation until September 1st because my husband was recovering from a rather serious illness. But we usually had about 50 to 75 items listed for ourselves, and we have about 300 listed our client.

And what does that translate into? Product. When. When you're not on vacation, what does that translate into? Moving product. How. How much product do you move every week?

Well, typically, the only. The reason I could only get 50 to 75 items up for. For. For our own personal account is because a lot of what we list is Converse sneakers. And those suckers sell right off the bat because we have the old made in USA Chuck Taylors and they are hot.

Nice.

So I try to list them. I try to keep a mix of long tail and short tail inventory. Up there. We also sell jigsaw puzzles. Those tend to be long t sell and they sell quite well sometimes, especially the older spring box. And then we also sell rubber ducks.

Perfect compliment with your Chuck Taylor sneakers.

It's Chuck stuck potluck.

Oh, you are good.

You are funny tagline. Thank you, but no. The ducks are kind of a medium tail inventory. Some of them get snapped right up, some of them sit around for a while but. But they keep. They keep our listing count up. And I like that.

Okay, so you gave some of the basics on ebay, the pricing structures. Buy first so that from someone so you can learn how to sell. Now I want to commit to this and be the most profitable ebay seller I can be. What's the instructions now?

Okay, and if you were just going to do it casually, I'd tell you to do it right from your phone because you can take the photos, import them to the listing. They'll give you pricing guidance. They'll even give you a sell like this option where you can, you'll use somebody else's title. You don't have to research your own keywords, blah, blah, blah. But if you're going to do it for reals, if you really want to make money off this and not just, you know, get some money back for, for something you don't want anym, you need a couple of things. You need. First of all, you need something to sell that people want. And secondly, you need an attitude.

An attitude?

An attitude. And I mean by that, I mean a good one. You need to have the attitude that you are going to give each buyer the most fabulous buying experience they've ever had. You are going to give the best customer service there is. And I guarantee you that if you do that, your profits and your feedback and all the other rewards of your business will take care of themselves. You take care of your customers, your customers will take care of your business.

But yeah, ebay, I didn't expect that. Ebay, I'm hidden behind the computer. I'm a jerk. No one likes me. That's why I went on ebay. Like, that's the whole reason I want to be an ebay seller. Are you saying the rules that apply at a retail store apply just as much, if not more on ebay?

Oh my gosh, even more on ebay. Because you are, because you are at one step removed from being in person. So there's no, there's no voice inflection. There's no, you know, facial expression or body language to contribute to your interaction with Your buyer. But what's really cool is. And this again, differentiates ebay from any other e commerce site. Well, Etsy does this to some extent. Bonanza. But on ebay, you have more opportunities to brand yourself than you do anywhere else. So you have your storefront, which has a billboard in it, which has a description. You can lard that description with keywords loaded up. Google will find you. So Google shopping will pick you up. You have the opportunity to brand yourself in your listings. You have the opportunity to brand yourself with the monthly newsletter or, excuse me, a newsletter. You can send out a subscription only, but you can send it as often as once a week to all your store subscribers. You can advertise your sales. You can do this, you can do that with it. You have the opportunity to run promotions. You have the opportunity to brand yourself with collections. You have the opportunity to brand yourself with guides and reviews. You can really create a viable Persona for yourself on ebay. And you better not be a jerk, because it will sure wear off and you will drive your customers away in droves.

Okay, now you said absolutely.

That's a great cure for jerk. If you're a jerk, go on ebay and it'll improve your personality.

Oh, really? It's a de. Jerkifying system.

It's a dejerkifying system if you want to make any money.

Right? Right, exactly. If you want to be poor, you.

Have some incentive there.

You said you sell chucks and ducks. That sounds like a very narrow category. Is there a profitable advantage to doing that?

Well, it's not so much that it's a profitable advantage in that we chose those items specifically from the beginning. We chose the Chuck Taylors, the jigsaw puzzles. Kind of chose us because my husband had collected so many of them. It was time to start sell. We love Converse sneakers. We also sell Converse bags and apparel. And I had accumulated quite a lot of that over the years. And once I realized that they flipped for a lot of money, I started looking for them on ebay. And so I've accrued a pretty good inventory of them. But. But what you. What you do want is something that you're passionate about, something that you really care about, that you can get a little bit that, that you. That you can work up some interest in for my client. We sell estate and new. New and estate jewelry, which I have. I have become very fond of and very, very interested in learning about, you know, the manufacturers, the designers, this, the. That you got to be passionate about what you're selling.

And was it what advantages that give you to be passionate about it?

Well, the other, the other advantage of. Okay, the advantage of being passionate is that you're gonna. That passion is gonna come through in your listings. It's gonna come through in everything that you do with your customers that you really care about what you sell. You really care that they have a good experience with you, really care that they like their item. And the other advantage of our particular niches is that we've got the mix of long tail and short tail inventory. You want to have a mix?

What does that mean? Long tail, short tail.

Yeah. Long tail inventory sells rather slowly. Short tail inventory turns over quite quickly and you want to have some stuff in between. So the ducks kind of worked out well for us. Is that, that, that in between niche.

But. Okay, but don't you want all your inventory to turn very quickly? I don't understand why you.

You do what you don't. You want to. You want to maintain a certain number of listings at all times. So if you're selling it as fast as you can list it, it's hard to keep up.

Yeah.

And you don't have a big presence. But. But you want to keep listing regularly because A, list more, sell more, and B, the more, more frequently and regularly you list, the better you. You present in search results.

Yeah. How do you keep your inventory of like Converse? Where do you get it from?

Under the bed. They store it under their bed? Yeah, in the closet.

Clearly the bed got to be up to the ceiling. Now we have actually some. Some little. We have like some space in a little office building down the street. A very funky, late 40s, mid century modern office building. And we have like three rooms there. We have the commerce stuff in one room and we have the ibeana in another room. And then we have a third room that, that it kind of spills over into and we use it for photography and shipping.

And where do you find your inventory? Like, where do you order it from? Where do you get it from?

Well, I can't tell all my secrets, but I'll say I get a lot of it on ebay. I look for things that are not listed well or that are undervalued. And I also used to hit the. I used to hit the outlet stores when the Chucks were still made in the usa. And I stocked up at that point. And let's just say I'm not going to need to do any Chuck Taylor product sourcing for at least the next couple of years.

That means you landed the mother lode.

I do have the mother load of Chuck Taylor Chuck Taylor items. Yes, I do. I have a lot of related Chuck Taylor items too. So you have a lot of Chuck Taylor memorabilia and such. So that, that helps too. And display units. I mean, you name it, I've got it.

Okay, so I'm happy you're not sharing the secret because it means you found something that other people can't find.

Right?

Did you find those Chuck Taylor secrets because you were that devoted to that market and kind of revealed itself?

Well, I was buying Chuck Taylor's because I just love them. They're the best thing in the world to wear out dancing and they really are. You gotta have your priorities. And I love them. And so I started noticing that they were going for quite a lot of money, some of them, and that there was a lot of rarities out there. Lots more Chuck Taylors than I was seeing in the retail stores. There was no converse.com at the time. So ebay was a big source and I was seeing all kinds of stuff I was not seeing anywhere else. And then I noticed that the made in USA stuff was flipping for a lot of money. I was like, I'm interested in this. So that's when I started hitting up the outlet stores.

Are the consumers for this? It sounds, sounds like they're more collectors than they are just looking for apparel to wear. Is that accurate?

No, these people, these people are looking for stuff to wear. I mean, yeah, you got your collectors, but they wear their collectibles. These are not the Nike people. Nike people will put them in your, in their shoes and just look at them.

The terms you have are awesome. I still like spammorabilia the best. They're shoes. Hey, so what's the gear I need like now? I'm serious about this. I picked my name. I'm going into, you know, whatever it is. Chuck Taylor's nerd glasses would be my selection. I want glasses, you know, tape on them. Now I have my nerd glass commitment. What do I have to do? Set up a professional shop and be profitable?

Well, the first thing you got to do is register as a seller account. They'll ask, you know, for the usual information. You're your firstborn child, you know, your name, your credit card number to bill you for the fees, et cetera, et cetera. And you set up your site preferences. Which, you know, do you want? Do you want to send your buyers an automatic 48 hour payment notification if they haven't paid by then? Do you want to, do you want to be able to send Us and such to your buyers or receive thus and such. You know, what do you want your settings to be? Just kind of run through those and then you're all set to sell and you want, you're going to have selling limits when you start off. Ebay's going to put some training wheels on you because they don't want you to get in over your head. They're as invested in you having a good, they're invested in your buyers having a good experience with you as much as you are invested in having buyers have a good experience with you. Because once the buyer has a bad experience on ebay, boom, they're gone from the site and they're going to tell all their friends and what a bad experience they had. So, so you're gonna have some limits on you. At first you'll only be able to sell a certain number of items per month. But chances are you will not reach that limit immediately. So because you want to start slow because it's complic. It's a little bit complicated nowadays. You want to do your listings first of all. But then you've got to remember that you have to ship that item and you need to ship item quickly, preferably the same day or the next day. One day handling is probably the really the minimum you want to have. But when you start off, you might say two or three day handling. But when you get a little further down the road, one day handling is crucial to being, to being a top rated seller. So you're going to want to move up to that one day handling eventually.

That points back to the instant gratification you were talking about.

Oh yeah, people want their stuff like yesterday.

Yeah.

I mean it's amazing.

Okay.

And if they're in Australia, they can have it yesterday.

That's a good point. So, so step one is find your niche, have inventory, build the inventory, find ways to, to, to flip it. Which I assume means buy low, sell high, quick, be ready to ship super fast. You have to have the inventory in stock and the packaging, everything lined up. What about like other gear, photography equipment, lighting, anything like that's necessary?

I would, I would back it up. I would back it up one step and say you got kind of a zero step here. You want to start off while you're looking for your niche. Start off by just selling stuff you have around the house, like those TVs you don't listen to anymore. You know, those clothing that doesn't fit and you never wore it and still got the tags. You know, your electronics, your outmoded electronics. Last year's. Last year's stuff is still pretty hot on ebay because a lot of people are happy to buy last year's electronics.

Sure. Because it's cheaper and maybe they need parts for their existing electronics. Right. They can.

Well, you can sell something just for parts. There's a. There's a whole condition. A whole condition category for that. But you want to. You want to be learning. You want to be learning the business while you're looking for that hot niche so that when you find that hot niche, you are ready to ramp up.

Yeah.

Oh, that's genius. That's genius. Ebassy, we're at our limit here on time. Any final thought you have for our listeners, and then we want to learn how they can get more about you. But any final thought you'd have. If someone's listening now and. And fired up to have a profitable ebay business, what's your final thought for them?

My final thought is find something cool to sell, be good to your customers and have fun, because it is. It's a great way to make a living.

And paint your hair all different colors.

Yes.

As you can paint your hair. Oh, they're not all different colors. It's the ebay colors. Red, blue, yellow, and green. Just like the logo.

I love it. So here's my tip for you. I think you should remember those movies on television? They tried to do 3D movies. You put in those glasses you had to get at Burger King. One was red, one was blue, and then.

Oh, I love those.

Yeah, I think you should in your hair, in bed. I love Mike, but only when people put those glasses on can they see it. That's my idea for you.

Well, you know, it could be done. I shaved the number 20 into the back of my head for ebay's. We are 25.

You are so awesome. Hey, E. Betsy, before I let you.

Go, electrons and some LED lights in the brain. There's nothing between friends.

Where can people learn more about you and maybe get educated?

Well, they could go to acquisitor inquisitory.com that's. They can see my ebay store there. For my. For our client. A C Q U I S a T o r y acquisitory.com and you message me through ebay and you pretty much find out everything you want to know. And your store should speak for itself.

You are wonderful. Thanks, E. Betsy.

Thank you.

Buy something from me, I'll give you the best buying experience ever, and then you'll really get to know me.

I Love it. I. All right, we'll see you later.

Thanks for having me on.

Bye.

Bye. Bye.

All right, Christina, punch me.

There you go.

There we go. That was cool.

That was cool, right?

Yeah, I like, I want to do more of these type of interviews where we talk about someone with a specialty in a thing like that. I'm a little bit excited. I almost want to do a little bit of ebaying now.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Your house, we could sell. I'm.

I'm like, pretty sure we'll clear out your. I mean, I don't know how much I'll get for it, but.

Yeah, I think I can think if I could sell. All right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna recap what we learned in just a minute. Do we have a member? Shout out Christine. Or not?

Not today.

Who's our newest member that came in yesterday?

Oh, gosh, Suzanne. I. I don't remember her last name.

I know Casey joined Susan. We. I think about two or three people joining the last.

Yeah, we.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Family's a growing.

Beth Crittenden. She loves us.

Shout out to Beth. She's. She sends these funny emails. She's like happy dancers. Like jazz hands in it. So shout out to Beth, and we'll tell you what Profit first professionals are in a minute. But Beth, Casey, any of these, Susan, these are folks that are getting up to speed very quickly in Profit first and will be the next generation of people driving profit in your business. Well, we'll talk about that, too. We'll talk about what we learned. But first, I do want to thank our corporate partners. So real quick, thanks to Fundamentals, they're a one stop shop for loans. Fund a box. It's a cash flow accelerator. If you have an invoice that's not collecting, Fundabox will give you those entire funds. Receipt bank. It's a way to get rid of that shoebox once and for all. And you can scan in your receipts and sync it right up with your accounting platform. And then nextiva is a voiceover IP phone system. I shouldn't say a. It's the voiceover IP phone system. They are extraordinary. Okay, who wants to go first? Who wants to go first?

I'll go.

Okay. What did you learn?

So my biggest takeaway, and I think it's really inspiring, is that when they started it, they based it on the golden rule. They based it that they trusted people to be good and that this would work. And it did work. And that's amazing to me. Yeah. And then I feel like Betsy is living it out by being the best possible customer service deliverer. You know, I feel like she's living their purpose.

Yeah. I mean, you could hear her energy.

Oh, yeah. The faith in humankind has been restored.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good takeaways.

What'd you get Christina to start super slow and look like a buyer Bazinga. Because I mean, there's so many times. But no, I mean, you get so ramped up and excited about doing something new and you're like, oh, this is going to be great. And then you just jump into it and then before you know, you're in over your head. And I like that now, now they have coaches or educators that kind of walk you through the process and really force you to take it slow so that you know what you're doing. I think that's good.

Yeah, I agree with all that. Me, I think the big mistake I did right in the get go, as I said, this other stuff is boring. It was just this long bio and it's actually now as I'm reading through, as we're going along, there's so much more stuff she's done with ebay. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable how engaged she was. So first of all, lesson one is talk to a guru. Like, she taught me more about ebay in a 30 minute interview than I could do, you know, studying this for six weeks on the Internet.

Right.

So true. Step one is actually read their entire bio and know the type of quality person you're talking to. Second was buy first. I thought that was a great lesson.

Yes.

Experience what you're about to deliver and niche product products. Like, I'm convinced because she knows the Chuck Taylor market and all the gear. That moment happened that someone was dumping all this Chuck Taylor stuff and she was the first one there.

Yeah.

And swooped up. But that would never happened if she was doing a thousand products.

Right.

And I want to go to the bananazilla or bonanzilla.

Bananahammock.com.

That'S what you call your new boyfriend, isn't it? No. Oh, my God. That's funny. That probably is a sight. All right.

Okay.

All right, let's get back to business.

Right.

Where there's so many things I gotta do in here.

So we want to know what you guys learned from this episode. So go to profit first, podcast.com or anywhere that you're listening. Leave us a little comment in the comment box. We love hearing from you.

That came on loud. Keep going.

Well, no, that was It. And then I was also going to say, say, we got to talk about this, you know, fine and dandy thing that we work for.

Oh, yeah.

Professional.

Who do we work for? Prof. First Professionals. I work for myself. You're like me. I'm my own person. Don't make me feel like it's private. First Professionals. Yeah, we have fun here. We got Revenge of the Nerd Night coming up.

Yes, I do.

I really can't wait.

I know you're so pumped.

I, I'm, I think I'm overly pumped and I'm a little bit.

You're going to be underwhelmed.

You're going to let yourself down.

I've seen this before.

This movie is so stupid. I know every single team. I think I'm setting up people for disappointment.

Do you feel pressure when you introduce somebody? Like, I, I'll do it if I introduce somebody to movies or music or something.

Totally.

And I'm like, oh, maybe it's not as great as I think it is. And they're going to hate it.

I mean, yeah, Ganga D was amazing.

It's the best thing ever.

I just.

But here's one thing that I say is the best thing ever, and I believe it's Profit First Confession. I was on stage two days ago and I'm like, I'm telling you, my friends, you can do Prof. First on your own. Own, but you can also go to a gym on your own and work out.

True.

How's it? How you doing? And most people like, well, I really, I know I should, but I don't. I say, who here has a trainer? A few hands go up. I say, how often do you miss? Like, never. I know, yeah. I said, what exercises you do? They say, exactly what the trainer tells me I need to do.

Right.

Well, that's what Profit First Professionals is. It's that, that trainer to drive profitability in your business. They know how to do those exercises so you're doing it safely. They know how to build the momentum so you build financial scale, strength. And they know the ins and outs and they have a wealth of background and knowledge and access to other people. So you're not the first going through profit first. You're the one millionth or whatever, 100,000. But you ain't the first going through this. That's what a Profit First Professional is. Our organization is growing in membership, meaning we have more accountants, bookkeepers and coaches doing this than ever before. And the reason is because there's more people interested in driving properly. So call us now. We Got new people join on board. They're getting trained. They're gonna be ready to officer raises in about six months because they go through some grueling training. They have to do proper or business themselves. But we have another 150 people, whatever, that are already trained, already out there serving people. And they're ready to serve you. Yeah. Go to profit first professionals dot com. Step one. Step two. Click on the find button, then you fill out the form. Once you fill out that form, we'll make an introduction and you're off to the races, my friends. You will be more profitable than ever before. So do it. After you buy your Chuck Terrace's E. Betsy. Go to profit first professionals dot com. Click on that form, fill it out, and you're off to the races.

Do it.

I think you have a sound that says that.

I know that's what I was trying to say.

Let me see. Is there. Do I happen to have a sound that does. I do it. I don't think I do it. I love that guy there. All right, y' all, let's get out of here. Bye.

Bye. Can you play it? Play the. Do it for the whole thing.

You got it. You got it.

You got it.

This is for Christmas, Christina. And for everyone listening.

Do it.

Just do it.

Yesterday you said tomorrow, so just do it. Make your dreams come true. Nothing is impossible.

No.

What are you waiting for?

Do it. Just do it. Yes, you can.

Oh, my God. I love that. I love that guy.

My favorite.

It gives me chills.

Make your dreams come true.

Like if I was at home and like, I'm struggling to get up and say, I don't know if I really want to go to work today. I want. Do it in my face. Okay, I'm in. All right. Now we're gone.

Bye.

See you.