Seller Club Podcast
Seller Club Podcast
Episode 78: To Grow, To Scale?
It's feeling a whole lot like summer around here, and today we are thinking about growth as the grass gets greener and the flowers bloom outside. What does it take to scale? Is it really as simple as listing more, faster? How are growing and scaling different, and which one makes sense for you? This is one of those shop-talks that looks at these questions and more from lots of different angles. Join in the conversation and see what rings true for your store and your goals!
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Stellar Club Podcast episode number 78. Drop that beat. What's up everybody? How are we doing today? Hannah, Ken.
SPEAKER_04:What's up, Glenn?
SPEAKER_00:What's up? What is up? What is up? It is hot. It's hot. It's windy. It's still windy outside. It's still getting people uh riled up on the allergies, so it's hasn't been good over here.
SPEAKER_04:We are all fine in my adorable little rural hamlet, but a giant tornado ripped through St. Louis and did billions of dollars of damage. So that was crazy. They normally don't like touch down in St. Louis.
SPEAKER_02:Like it's they build up there, right? They usually build up starting. Because crazy enough, that tornado hit Somerset, Kentucky, which is 25 minutes away from our friend Brad and Emily.
SPEAKER_04:It was a crazy storm.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and um um so we were on our way home from Nashville, and they didn't have power and everything like that. And once you start, you know, seeing definitely prayers for all those that got affected to the tornado uh by the tornado. Yeah, that was wild. Because I saw photos that the tornado just ripped like they landed, it landed for an hour straight and just ripped through. And I was like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We had we had like we were okay. Like our property, yeah. The weather, I mean, it was definitely tornado weathering. Yeah, it was hailing, a bunch of trees were came down, like whole huge old trees. Like it was really a lot of damage, a lot of power outages. So yeah, it was not a fun time for this little section of the country, but that was like um, you know, a few days ago at this point.
SPEAKER_02:Um do you guys do you guys get any of that Glenn? Tornado Day?
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_04:They get dirt devils.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we get a bunch of dirt. Sandstorm. Sandstorm, yeah, sandstorm, sandworm. Kind of like Beetlejuice, yeah, like sandworms that come out of the big old desert. Just kidding. No, um I was like Tremors? Tremors. Tremors, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Tremors is like one of my all-time favorite movies. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna throw it out there.
SPEAKER_02:I'm actually surprised they haven't uh remade it yet, or like part of it.
SPEAKER_04:Well, there's like three or four of them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The mountains save us a little bit, so okay from from that kind of stuff, but not really a lot of uh natural disasters. Um compared to like you know, when I see unnatural ones. Yeah, unnatural ones. When I see Florida and see like hurricanes and stuff like that, man, a family like in Florida or even like you know, other parts of Texas too. You can it's just crazy. I can't even imagine being through any of that stuff. I guess because I've never really seen it.
SPEAKER_04:It seems really scary. I mean, yeah, I grew up here where there are a lot of tornadoes generally, but yeah, hurricanes seem like next level. That seems really scary to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, super scary.
SPEAKER_04:And like mud slides also seem scary. Um, speaking of El Paso, I always laugh, Glenn, when I sell like a pair of sneakers, for example, to someone in El Paso. I'm like, why are you buying it from me? You can probably buy this from Glenn.
SPEAKER_00:Like, don't they have anything out there?
SPEAKER_04:And and for whatever reason, I this isn't just El Paso, but if I see like a town, you know, come up on a shipping label that's like I know someone who lives there, I have to check and make sure it's not them. Like, oh my gosh, did Glenn buy sneakers from me? No, of course not.
SPEAKER_02:That is true. Always funny.
SPEAKER_04:I have to check.
SPEAKER_02:Like, crazy enough, I've seen three El Paso offers game through within the last week. What? Yeah, we just like shorts, you know, like apparel.
SPEAKER_00:They shopping. I guess they got some extra money to spend.
SPEAKER_04:So, Glenn, if you could just please stop being so consumeristic and shopping our stores all the time.
SPEAKER_00:That's true, that's true. Well, here's a question for you.
SPEAKER_04:You don't need that many.
SPEAKER_00:That's true. Who who um I guess have you sold to anybody that you could recognize name-wise, like celebrity production company, um, you get an eBay sale, you're like, what? I I recognize this name. What do you anybody you've sold to?
SPEAKER_04:I one time sold, this was like years ago, I think it was a Katy Perry, like a limited edition Katy Perry poster to like a really cool recording studio. It wasn't a person, but I recognized the studio, and that was like kind of neat. The other one, um, which everyone who is a fan of Hamilton, just like go on this tangent with me for a second. I'm a huge fan of Hamilton. I'm related to Alexander Hamilton, and I'm totally obsessed with the show and have been forever, like since it came out. Um but yes, uh, my mom's main name's Hamilton.
SPEAKER_01:And we are like, we are literally those of those Hamiltons, which is super exciting.
SPEAKER_04:I did the genealogy like just to make sure because I was super excited about it. But anyway, um, I love it. I also have no chill at all. So now I just say, like, well, I got that from Alexander, obviously, because he certainly had no chill. But um anyway, the guy who played who originated the role of George Washington on Broadway, Chris Jackson, who is amazing and also fun fact, is from Southern Illinois, also. Um, one time I sold a Hamilton like wall calendar to one of his relatives. And I think, I think they were maybe in New York, I can't remember, but they messaged me and said, hey, my relative is on page whatever of this calendar, and I'm trying to buy as many of them as I can to like give out to the family members. And it was like a year or two out of date, but it had, you know, his like big George Washington like profile on one of the months. And I just thought that was so cool. And I was like, well, I freaking love Chris Jackson, so I'm super excited to send this to you. This is so exciting. But I don't know like if it was like his cousin or his aunt, or I don't know who it who it would have been, but they were super nice. But I love that they told me that because and they weren't trying to like get it for free or a discount or anything, they just like wanted to let me know for fun, which I super appreciated. It was awesome. Yeah, so that was the closest, most famous person. I love you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I just I just I couldn't find the other one. The other one was a uh he was a second stringer NFL player. Um played for the Jets. I I couldn't find it was one of those untouchables that we found at Marshall's and what size? The cleats. Huge? It was like 14, you know, like 14. Um I know it was green, so it kind of was like okay. Um I only knew because it had like a some like practice facility, you know? And I was like, and it was like New York or something. So I googled the name. Um I saw that. And the other one, I just look it up. I have the um I have the message. Um it is for the CEO's office of West Coast Records.
SPEAKER_01:Uh that's cool.
SPEAKER_02:So and they messaged, you know, me that the CEO requested it. It was the Supreme, the World Is Yours desk lamp. Uh how much was that? They paid$408, and I got it on Supreme when you I used to have a bot. Um, I think it was$200 or$225. So no best offer, just straight buy it now. Oh, straight by it now. Straight bought it, straight bought it. I mean, CEO requested it, you know. CEO probably, don't lowball, you know. Don't put a bad name on our company. Straight buy it.
SPEAKER_00:So what about you, Glenn? Um, I've only the three that I know of are all NFL related. Um the first one was the same thing, kind of like yours. It's it was to like the Las Vegas Raiders like facility, and then kind of like attention, the player's name.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh he was like no, he was like a second stringer. So that one I don't really know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, well, I guess you would you would think uh second stringer would be scouring eBay. I know. They probably couldn't request and be like, yo, get me this cleats. Like, no, you're just a you're just uh you're just a backup guy. Like, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's two of them. So one of them is a starter on the 49ers. Oh um, and he bought cleats, I think I sold them for like 230. Um, they're like a gold and like camo.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, gold and gold, huh?
SPEAKER_00:Gold and camo camo or olive or something like that.
SPEAKER_02:And uh the is it the camo menace?
SPEAKER_00:I think so. I I don't remember that one. Uh it might have been that. But I I was like, that name sounds familiar, and who's buying like these cleats? You know what I mean? Like oh, he bought a bunch. No, he only bought that one. But I was like, let me just look this up real quick on the address. And sure enough, it was like a$2.3 million home. And I was like, it has to be I love that.
SPEAKER_01:Let me just get on and do it really fast.
SPEAKER_02:Just uh judge their house.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then the other one was actually a Miami Dolphins player. Um and he's actually a starter, but he bought well the name is his name, but he bought the jersey of him.
SPEAKER_04:That is hilarious.
SPEAKER_00:So I was like Maybe he was like, What was this? Who was this? I don't know if I can we say their names or no, is that bad? Is that bad for me?
SPEAKER_04:No, it's protected again. And you're not saying his address.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're they're they're starters. People who start. Is it Dan Marino?
SPEAKER_00:Starter?
SPEAKER_02:No. I wish imagine.
SPEAKER_00:I shipped myself over there. Was it cool? I wish. I wish delivering surprise. I'm a dolphin fan. Can I hang out? Please get out of here, sir.
SPEAKER_04:He seems cool.
SPEAKER_00:But I would think that they would wouldn't the team have some sort of deal? Right, right.
SPEAKER_04:Can't the team just, but what if, what if he like okay, actually, actually, we're gonna turn this into a thing really quick. Okay. Come up with your like story of why he was getting this jersey in this way. Like, I'll go, I'll go first to give you a second. I think he was lounging around in his jersey. He knew he shouldn't have been, because it's for special occasions only, right? Like especially games and things like that. And he's just imbibing in just a glass of red wine and he accidentally dumps it all over his jersey. And like, he's busy being a professional athlete. He doesn't know all the secrets of like getting stuff out of the laundry, right? Like getting stain out of your clothes. So he panics and he's like, How fast can I get a new jersey? And without like outing myself and getting in trouble with the team or whatever, because I ruined my jersey and I shouldn't have been wearing it, but I just wanted to drink a glass of wine in my jersey. I think that's what happened. So, what do you guys think happened?
SPEAKER_00:Or it could have been like chicken wings or something, and he just got a sauce over it. Sauce, yeah, something.
SPEAKER_03:Lost its sauce.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I I think a lot of displayers, um, well, this is a real, I think this is a real situation.
SPEAKER_03:A lot of displayers played Excuse me, mine was a real situation, yeah. Yeah, yours was real too.
SPEAKER_04:It's the most probable situation.
SPEAKER_02:Well, go ahead. I I I let the listeners to judge if this is more probable. Um, a lot of displayers played in this cleats while they were in college. So they go to pro, and most teams have you know equipments. Um and you know, to point out the shoe that we were selling before, those were Nike Untouchable Pro 2, and some were Nike Untouchable Pro. By the time they got to the pros, now it's Nike Untouchable 3, and the three don't fit their foot right. And or they're superstitious. I've gotta have those exact ones that I won and played my best game.
SPEAKER_04:But this was a jersey.
SPEAKER_02:Same thing. Same thing.
SPEAKER_00:I think the real reason is Fanatics only has a 3XL and they bought a medium, and so maybe he just really needed a medium for his maybe a cousin was coming to him.
SPEAKER_02:It's gonna be a gift, right? Like, yo, it's like, yo, give me a jersey.
SPEAKER_04:I'm gonna start getting jerseys with my name on it and giving them to all of my friends.
SPEAKER_02:They'd be like, no, like I'm not giving you the real ones. Let me just get you an email.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, can I give you one alternative?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER_04:What if he was having a giant statue of himself erected in the middle of his circle drive of his mansion and he needed it to wear his jersey on game day for good luck?
SPEAKER_00:That makes sense, but it's a medium.
SPEAKER_04:It's not a huge statue. He's not he's not there yet.
SPEAKER_00:So ostentatious to me. It's like it's kind of like the little Iverson one they put outside in the 76ers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, the little guy. How big is it? Like a four-foot statue?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. It's like up on a pedestal. It's just forced perspective. So it looks big. It looks like it's life size, but it's not. It's like a little smaller.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, it's that word.
SPEAKER_04:That's probably what happened. Probably what happened. Okay, anyways. Yeah, I'm just a fun game.
SPEAKER_02:I'm looking at like my my um my email and just typing Nike untouchable because most of those are the cleats that we sold. And man, we we we picked up bad sizes. It's like 12 and a half, 13, 14, 16. Yeah. Actually, to True Stow. Oh, there's one 14 and a half. That is bad. Yeah, that's tough. Um, crazy story. I sold my last Nike Untouchable that I brought here to my new house from the apartment, and that was what, 2019? Was the when I moved. I sold the last one for$98. Dang, it's and it was$60.99.
SPEAKER_04:That's pretty good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's good. I I felt like Anna.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you're willing to wait six years to sell it.
SPEAKER_02:For the price, for the price.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's not that's what I had to say.
SPEAKER_04:You know what? I have a story about that from this weekend. Um, just really quick. Oh, well, actually, one more thing about famous people buying our stuff. Um, I would argue this person is definitely eBay famous, but I did have Adam Ireland, who used to be R VP and US general manager, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, he's a VP for Collectibles Now.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, VP for Collectibles Now. But he ordered something from my store, um, I guess it was a year or two ago. And it was so funny because I saw him in person like shortly after that, and he like, he was like, hmm, does this thing look familiar? You know, like and he had it was like Did you know it was him? Yeah. So I did like a double take when I decided to ship it to him, you know? But it was just so funny. And I thought, okay, this is like, but if I hadn't been paying attention, right? Right. Like this is uh just a word to the wise, like make sure you do a good job packaging your stuff because you never know when it's an eBay executive ordering something from your store. See, I but it was a little collectible card. Um he's like a he's a collector, so it was really.
SPEAKER_02:I think those are uh like I think I've sold some. And I'm just not the that detail oriented to wear. Um the only time I actually go and do what Glenn did is like, you know, go check their address if this is a safe place or something like that. Is um when it's an expensive item. Yeah. It doesn't go through AG.
SPEAKER_04:You're like, does this make sense on paper?
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, yeah. And I actually, because you know, like I have to put like a signature confirmation or insurance. Right, right. Just in case, you know, because there's sports pirates out there. So, you know, that's there are I do that, and then and then people and that's when you see their house value.
SPEAKER_04:And you're like, holy cow. Okay, yeah. I think we're good. I think we're good. So, I mean, that's not everything, but it's context clues, right? Yeah, um, oh yeah, so this weekend I was headed up to the Central Illinois Resellers Meetup. Shout out to that fun group. We were doing a goodwill bins like meetup day.
SPEAKER_02:Where'd you guys go to breakfast, by the way?
SPEAKER_04:In the parking lot. We tailgated.
SPEAKER_02:Oh we had So y'all really had breakfast at the bins.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, we did, not in the bins or from the bins, just to be clear. But we had the sweet option was donuts, and they were super good, like local donuts. And then the savory option, I made some uh caramelized onion and gruy or scones and just made them myself and brought them in. They were so good. But anyway, um, I was going up there, I was headed up. It's like almost two hours from my house. So it was kind of a haul for me, but it was really fun, and those bins were really good. So it was, I'll definitely go back. But as I'm driving, I see a notification come in that I sold this set of three, it was like this vintage set of three waterfall, totally clear Lucite tables that I got at an auction, like within the last year for sure. But I priced them high, you know. I paid 20 bucks for them and I sold them for 300. But I've had like multiple lowball offers. I even put them on marketplace for a while because they're kind of bulky, so now I have to deal with shipping them. But I was just like, no, I'm still gonna wait and see, you know, if somebody will actually buy this for what I want because this is in line with what the comps said, you know, and I've rechecked the comps, it's still been in line with it, but it's just a smaller pool of people who is interested and willing to you know pay what they're worth. So, but it happened, and I was so glad I waited because I just turned 20 bucks into 300. So that was worth worth the wait for sure.
SPEAKER_00:There we go. That's what I like to hear.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Making the big buff.
SPEAKER_04:Great sale, best sale of the weekend for sure.
SPEAKER_00:All right, should we should we get into our main topic?
SPEAKER_04:We probably should.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we did talk about eBay uh selling to celebrities, kind of, but you know, we're making our way towards the main topic. This topic is about scaling. There was like a there was like a post, a Reddit post talking about scaling, and someone was saying that they hate that the main or only response they get I guess most of the time the response is just list faster.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And a lot of people were comparing it to like I don't know, learning how to walk compared to running. Like all you're doing is listing more. But is that really a way to like scale up the eBay business?
SPEAKER_04:And how do you do it properly or in a way that is not over I don't know, like you're or you're overstressed about sourcing, I guess, or maybe spending a lot of time with a rift or how you proportionately scale and not overdo any one part of it.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. So that was my uh kind of thought process, and also I thought it was an interesting conversation to have. And I felt like I was kind of in that same boat though. I mean, uh me talking to Kenny and figuring out, you know, on like uh I guess buying time in a way, right? To get more listings out per day. Um, but is that really the way to to scale? I mean, I definitely think it helps to get more sales in and everything, but you kind of have to get into a mode where the inventory has to be steadily, I think. And there has to be a way to be like hands off on certain uh things. Yeah. So that's also tough. What do you think, Anna? And then we'll go to Ken. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Just about scaling in general. I mean, I do think just list more faster is oversimplified. I also feel like that is probably um okay advice if you're scaling from like super part-time hobby to like you know, moderate, like what would that be on list?
SPEAKER_02:What would that be on listings and how many listings are we talking about?
SPEAKER_04:Like, well, that super depends on like your ASP, really.
SPEAKER_02:But when does the bottleneck happen?
SPEAKER_04:When does the bottleneck happen? Well, that's I think that's the the hard part of this equation because it depends on like kind of like what you're saying, Glenn, like how automated are a lot of your of your tasks. Like, like for me, when I think about my store, it's like, okay, I'm there have been times where it's like I'm shipping a hundred things a week, right? And in those weeks, like I don't really have time to source and list. I'm pretty much shipping, right? And like doing basic like maintenance um and administrative stuff in the store, and it's taking up most of my time. So I think it it depends on like the totality of circumstances in a way. Like, okay, if you're selling postcards only, right? Right. Then maybe you do need to scale up by going, like, well, I need to get 10,000 postcards in my store.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But if you're doing like bigger, bulkier things, or even like things that are much, it's like, are you trying to have a high volume store where you're selling a lot of stuff for cheap or fast, right? Are you trying to do like more curated, higher dollar, but like, you know, it it just kind of depends on like all of that together. But but I think the cool thing about it is your path to scaling your business is gonna like look different in these different areas from somebody else's version of scaling. I think probably what they all have in common is what Glenn was starting to talk about, about you know, being able to essentially like replicate or duplicate uh yourself, right? And having other people or other automated processes or whatever be able to like physically execute like some of the stuff that you were doing, you know, in your business, you were doing it all yourself before you started scaling. Like when I think about any other business scaling, it's like pretty it it feels pretty inevitable to think, okay, well, that's gonna equal expanding your team and then replicating your tasks to that team, you know, or specializing people in that team to certain parts of the ta or certain tasks in the process or whatever. So there's multiple ways to do it for sure. Um but I think the big thing is like when you think about the idea of scaling, it's like you're you're you're sizing up like an order of magnitude, right? Like you're going from one state of like maybe like small hobby part-time to like this needs to be like ten times what it is. And if I am the same one person with the same number of hours to put into it, then obviously somebody else's efforts and hours are gonna have to be entered into the equation. Or I'm gonna have to get way more efficient at what I'm doing, which could mean automating processes, it could mean sourcing higher dollar items. Um, it could mean just setting up your whole sourcing situation in a different way, or having a VA do some of your administrative stuff in your listing, or um at a certain point, it's like, are you gonna are you able to scale to do and to make enough change by yourself that you can scale the business up if you're starting small? I think yes, but you're gonna be putting in more of your time and effort, obviously. If you're already there and you're already maxed out, then I think in most situations, the only way to scale is to involve other people's time and efforts.
SPEAKER_00:And that's where you have to like that's where someone was also saying, well, now I'm paying like this person to list for me, now I'm paying this person to ship for me, now I'm paying this person to take photos for me, and so your piece of the pie wasn't bit as large as it was in the beginning because you were the only one doing the work, so you're getting 100% of the profits that come back. Right. Now you're a little bit here and then a little bit there, and then a little bit there, you know, is so now you're getting less and less of it, but I guess more sales uh technically should be coming in. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Right. If your top line is getting bigger, and if those other efforts that maybe you're paying outsourcing and paying for, like if you can compensate for that loss of profit um by sourcing cheaper, for example, right? Like, for example, I know some uh like pri primarily clothing resellers who started out doing everything themselves and then eventually it's like they automated or they had a a VA do like finalize their listings, right? Or like get their listings uh they would just take the photos themselves. The the VA would put the listing together and make it go live, I think. Um, but basically do the listing process almost all the way through or all the way through. And that was like a fixed expense that they had, right? It's just a certain number of hours every week. This VA would be doing it. So that was like a line item in their business's budget, right? So but then also they started paying someone to source for them at a place like the Goodwill Bins, where it's like you're paying for like bulk like bulk by the pound prices for stuff, but you're not having to spend your time digging through the mountains at the bins. Somebody else is already there doing it and they're pulling out the stuff that they know you would want, and you're paying them for their time or whatever, or maybe perk piece or whatever. But like it's so cheap that if you had spent your own time out at the thrift store, you would have paid five or ten times that amount for that item at the thrift store and spent your own time. See what I mean? Like it's the it's everything together that you have to consider. So you have to get creative about that. Like, if you're going to ha incur a further expense over here, where can you account for that somewhere else in the process to make it like to preserve the profit that you're making that you live on, right? Or that you get to pay yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Kenny. Yeah, I agree. Well, here's the thing though with Ken though, is that he paid I mean you have had like workers help you ship, yeah, put things. I mean, you've helped somebody put racks together and get inventory in or like I don't know, it's yeah, I I I think it's the listing more, I don't think it is the I think that's the easiest kind of like thing that pops out, right?
SPEAKER_02:Because obviously um quote unquote for a lot of people that's the painful way of getting their items uploaded. But if it was something that was really worth of value, then nobody has complained about listings. So I guess for the lack of a better word, is if you're gonna make five hundred dollars on this item and it takes you an hour to list, and you do that every hour, quote unquote, eventually you're gonna make five hundred bucks an hour. Because once that item starts selling, then your sell-through starts moving. You know, given that if the situation is one one-to-one, if it this is a desirable if this if you're selling an item that will sell within 90 days, what you list per hour will be technically your pay per hour. So to make it simple, if you're selling a hundred if you're making a hundred dollar profit on each item you list every hour and it sells every 90 days, after three months, that's what you're gonna make. Now, eventually, I don't think that's a real bottleneck. The bottleneck of scaling is really finding that repeatable item that you can make that X amount of profit. And that's why in the other way, when Anna mentioned if you're gonna go into volume game, then it's gonna be a lot more complex because even if it's a smaller item, you have to do it in such a scale that you're gonna require a way bigger operation than you think. Because when Anna said, like, it's gonna have to make sense money-wise, right? Like, for example, if you're tacking in let's just say a dollar per item to list, a dollar per item to to to photograph, let's just say, and you bought it for a dollar, if this thing sells for fifteen dollars and you're clearing five to eight bucks, yeah, scale it. But really, if you scale it times ten thousand items, that's a way bigger operation than everybody thinks.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_02:Like let's say let's say you have a thousand, a ten thousand. I mean you you you've had ten thousand listings, right? And at ten thousand dollars, if you're making five thousand uh five dollars each and you're churning this every 90 days, I don't think it's still enough to cover a whole cruise. To do it, so I feel like at that range you have to do 50,000. You know that that jump to scaling is way bigger of a jump, and I feel like that's where I am right am at right now. Anything bigger, if I if I just if I double my business, I think I'll be fine, but to really hire in another person, I need to like forex my business to comfortably pay him, and not just like you know, pay people part-time, but to actually have a manager, you know.
SPEAKER_04:That's more like I was just as you're talking, I was thinking, well, are we talking are we really talking about scaling or are we talking about growth? Because growth is like like think about reinvesting in your business, right? It takes resources put in, whether that's time or money or whatever, to grow, but scaling is supposed to be you're seeing like a an exponential type, like a big, a big growth in your profit without a lot of extra effort. Like, like think about email marketing, right? It's the same effort to send one email as it is to send a thousand emails. Right. That is scaling. So like that, I think in a product-based business, like it is hard to think about scaling, but really like for us, I feel like the thing that which I mean you still have to factor in cost of goods here, I guess. But when you think about like, okay, if you are, you know, like I think about multiple quantity. Like if you have access to buy 10 of this thing and you're just buying one of it, in a way, maybe like going deeper into some of that is a way of scaling, where like, at least in terms of creating the listing, you're only doing the work once, but you're still doing the work every time to ship it. You're still paying for each one in terms of cost of goods. You know what I mean? So, like, I think like there are certain tasks or certain parts of running the business that lend themselves more to like truly what scaling is versus like just growing more or just like doubling or quadrupling your business. So, which is not exactly the same as scaling, but I don't know, like now that I'm thinking about it, they're kind of different.
SPEAKER_02:To define it, right? To define it, I think the simplest way that I saw here is growth means doing more with more. That's growth. Scaling means doing more with less.
SPEAKER_04:Or the same.
SPEAKER_02:Right, or the same to to to your point, there has to be like a mathematical equation that makes sense. Let's say if Glenn wants to scale and he only wants to spend eight hours a day, but to afford five people within his operation, he would still need to clear the same money on that eight hours of work. Right. And that is hard to do without any external capitalization because to churn more products to pay for the dudes that are gonna be working for you or the ladies, that has to be a 10x operation at least. Now, and not talking about storage this now, you know what I'm saying? Like, and and again, and as soon as you add storage, another expense.
SPEAKER_04:That's it. It's like the physical products, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's harder.
SPEAKER_04:But then like, uh, you know, I'm thinking about a friend of mine, um I don't know if he'd want us to mention his name on the show, so I won't, but you know who you are in Tulsa. But he he has like, you know, a lot of space for storage, for example, like that's already a fixed part of his business in a way. So I I mean that's kind of interesting to think about too in terms of scaling. It's like, well, if your efforts or resources in all these different areas, whether it's capital or like your storage space or your time or your shipping supplies or whatever it is, right? Like if you have like a fixed abundance of one of those things already, then you're not gonna have to really worry about quote unquote spending more of that. Like he has plenty of space. If he wanted to 10x's business, it it wouldn't be any trouble because he already has the space.
SPEAKER_02:But now he just has to figure out supply.
SPEAKER_04:Right. Supply and like and the time of like grinding out all those listings, right? Like that's where it would have to be. I don't know. So I feel like it's really hard to find like a clear-cut answer to like how do you scale a business like this, truly in the sense of scaling it, not just growing it.
SPEAKER_02:So we all know what about growing it, but let's let's put it this way Growing is just growing to six figures net is just growth.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just growing counting out all the listings, right? Single items, multiple quantity items, everything goes listening, right?
SPEAKER_02:It don't matter, right?
SPEAKER_04:Let's say growing like year over year, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's I I think if we had to do it again, all of all three of us would agree that to let's say 50% net, and if we're doing if you want to do six figures net, we gotta sell 200,000, right? Our our selling cost would be 20%, our our our net will be 50, and our buy cost, our cost of goods should be only 30%. I think that's very doable up to that range with a person and a half. Right? A person and a half, meaning there's gonna be 60 hour weeks and 70 hour weeks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And or a spot, you know, contractor. Like okay, I have this giant hall, I need someone to come in and be my extra set of hands, and I'm gonna pay you by the hour for like a project, like project-based work.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, to intake, yeah. That's and and and I think that's a right, we all agree that's that's the growth mode.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:1.5 person,$200,000 a year business.
SPEAKER_04:$1.5%, right?
SPEAKER_02:That's hilarious. And and when we say scale, to go from six-figure net to even revenue set seven figures to revenue a mil, that is scaling. Because you have to spend, let's just say if you're netting half, you have to spend half a mil in products. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:To put yourself in the position to put yeah, to sell half a mil in a year. I mean, a full.
SPEAKER_04:This is like where I do really appreciate. I mean, I'm an pretty much eBay only seller, right? So, like, from my in my view, it's this is an eBay, a compliment for eBay, I guess. But like, this is where I do really appreciate, even thinking about eight years ago when I started my store, happy anniversary to me, that um how far like the platform has come in making things more efficient and more accessible. I definitely can list way faster than I could. Back then, not just because I have more experience, but because the platform is better. And when you think about the possibility of either growing or scaling, like that is super important. What, you know, what can take even 30 seconds out of one of your processes, fewer clicks. I mean, they're like all about innovating that stuff on a regular basis. But when I just think back to like when I first started, which relative to some of our friends, isn't that long. Like some people have been selling for 30 years.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And just think about how much more efficient it's become. That's made it way more possible to grow and scale without so much extra effort. And I really appreciate that. Like I there's only so much I can do as a one-person show, right? Um, to try to make things efficient.
SPEAKER_00:So I think where I'm where I'm stuck at the moment is, you know, I have a lot of one-off jerseys that sell really good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But they take the most work because their clothing, I include measurements, and they're one-offs. So, you know, you're talking about one listing for one product, which is very similar to what Anna would do as well, right? We're doing one full listing. Right now, the way I could technically scale up would be on the hats side of it to where I have more 20 snapbacks of the same hat, I make one listing and I have a quantity of 20. And I can just milk the listing until I until you run out of it. Yeah. Or die. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_02:Like you just No, I mean, we've had this conversation before that if you're selling one hat every 20 days, yeah. Or I mean one hat every month, you're gonna sell 12 of these hats every year. Right? So so put it this way, if you have 24, if you have two dozens, you're set for two years. Right? You could have it in a uh kind of like a retirement plan kind of situation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That you know, like our goal was like what um by the time you hit what 500,000 um of listed value, you could cruise control and just have a nine to five.
SPEAKER_00:The problem is I think there's three issues that come into play though. Number one, sell-through rate. Because it is a way lower. I mean, the sell-through rate on hats, you know, I just typed in the other day. Um, what hat did I get in? I think it was like an angels fitted hat, and there was 20,000 results.
SPEAKER_03:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:Just for angels fitted in general.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um and then when I looked at the listings, there were, you know, some from China, there were some bootlegs that were listed in there. There was undercutters that were like selling it for like 24 free shipping that I would make not much at all, you know. Right. So those come into play. The um I guess competition for one, the sell-through rate, and of course, the um I was gonna say holding all of those items as time goes on.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because I'm gonna get new shipments every yeah, your storage is gonna get bigger and bigger.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the storage is gonna get out of the way. The storage requirement, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because I'm not selling as much as I am, let's say, on the whatnot side, to where you know I'm selling 200 every Tuesday and Friday. So I think that's and then I guess another issue would be like styles.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, because fashion kind of comes and goes. So like right now it's like A-frames, people love A-frames, cream color hats, camo hats.
SPEAKER_04:Comes and goes and comes back.
SPEAKER_00:And comes back, true. Um, there was a guy, man, I saw on Whatnot, really random. And he was selling hats from like 2004, 2008, and like these styles were so like uh kind of Flatbill, right? Yeah, Flatbill, kind of like like a logo is like on the side.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Like it just reminds me of like crooked, like crooked design.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like just so 2000s that it's like I don't know how well they sell now. I mean, maybe they do sell well, maybe they don't, but he had a ton of like boxes full of them.
SPEAKER_02:You can't you could even um bring up the argument if you're selling anything electronics or um you know some sort of even cameras that have updates or cell phones, right? Over time, it will lose value. Yeah, look how cheap TVs are now. Yeah, I know exactly, right? Imagine if you stocked up on like flat screen TVs when there was a clearance and like I'm golden. Yeah, I'm gonna open this five years later. Um and that it that is why, like, huh? That's why we like sneakers. Because well, you you just gotta find the ones that are timeless. There's gonna be designs that are timeless, and you just can't overpay. I feel like I put it this way: can we buy anything that's 80% off and not lose money? Would you agree? On anything branded products? Uh we can't, right? Overall? Yeah, overall. Would you agree? That's a good strategy.
SPEAKER_04:And no, I think some things you definitely still can't lose money.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. I mean, you can, you can still.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you could still.
SPEAKER_02:But most, like generally speaking, like you're out you could average out and not lose money.
SPEAKER_04:Probably on average.
SPEAKER_02:If you paid 80% off, you know, on a brand new with tag item, it's pretty hard. Because at some point somebody's gonna pay half off of something, or worst case scenario, break even, you know, selling uh uh selling a Nike t-shirt at 80% off, it would fly. Selling a Adidas Sambus for 80% off, even if it's out of style, it would it would still fly. Um yeah, I even said that. That's a compliment to Adidas. I'm literally selling Ultra Boost for 160 retail and I'm selling it for 40 bucks. So that's still over.
SPEAKER_03:I'm making I'm making a few dollars at that point. Just a few dollars.
SPEAKER_00:So so yeah, um I mean I've thought about your retirement plan for so long because I'm like that would be cool just to have the one listing and that's it. Like, I don't have to constantly be doing so many listings and I could just you know milk my inventory.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I'm kind of like, is that should I be doing that? Because the last four months, my profit has been almost nearly the same. Mr. Consistent being consistent. So how do I so now I'm like okay how can you bust through up?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, how do I add another?
SPEAKER_04:Well, how do you get to the next level to make that consistent, right?
SPEAKER_02:And get that to consistent. No, no, I 100% agree because um I mean in the eBay world, you know, like in in in my line of mix of inventory, it's definitely not consistent. Like, first three months of the year, Q5, you know, hitting numbers that you know everybody loves, but now I'm 20% down, you know, last 30 days, and it's just gonna get worse through summer because of I'm selling more tank tops and shorts compared to jackets. Um so I think there is the the again, if we're stocking under seven figures, the only way to bust through the next level is to grind more.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I that's kind of true, but I just want to throw this out there. Like it's not I'm not even necessarily disagreeing with that, but I was just thinking, okay, like what you're saying, Glenn, like you're on this one this plane, you know how to consistently maintain this plane that you're on. You want to be on the next plane.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, same. All of us.
SPEAKER_02:You can buy a ticket to the next plane.
SPEAKER_04:A one-way ticket on some plane somewhere. Um, but no, like my monthly like gross and net um revenue like this year compared to last year is about double what it was last year. Now, granted, last year was very slow for me and like overall, the last couple years, like ever since I moved and all that chaos multiple times. Um, it's just been slow. It was like lower. But the thing that really so I feel like I have now gone back to possibly possibly the highest plane, or at least where I was pre-moving, right? Like, and the thing that got me there quickly, and this I wouldn't say this is scaling, but it is growing, is is paying up more for better inventory. And because I have not been working twice the amount of hours, you know, like doing um or running my store. If anything, um, I've done some intense 60, 70 hour weeks like Ken was talking about, and then I've done way less than I normally do every single week. And I was working so hard for like half of what I'm making now in the last two years. So there's also like there's kind of that too. Like, I wonder what that would look like. You know your inventory really well, but could the answer can you add something?
SPEAKER_02:Can you add iPads basically?
SPEAKER_04:Where's the truckload of iPads? That's what I'm asking. No, but like, could you I don't know. This is a real question. Like for where you are in your business, is it possible that knocking off the bottom 20% and expanding the ceiling of your inventory value 20%? Like, would that shift you up to another plane for the same amount of effort?
SPEAKER_02:Quote unquote, it's the same amount of listings, right? But it's higher value. Which would be the jerseys. The jerseys are way higher value. Right, right.
SPEAKER_04:They are one-offs.
SPEAKER_02:But but but those would be more worth your time to tackle.
SPEAKER_04:I really want to make an actual equation about this because here's the thing. I mean, this is bringing me back to something we were talking about earlier in this conversation with like the hats, for example. You got the one listing. Yeah, this is the dream, right? You the one listing, you just keep selling stuff from that one listing at infinitum. But you still have to do the work of shipping it every time. You still have to pay the cost of goods of buying it every time. So, really, the only place that that's saving you a lot of effort is making the listing, which doesn't take that long. So, is it possible, like if you could if you could evaluate that item based on like all the time you spend shipping it 20 times and the the and all the money you spend buying all 20 of them, you know, and compare that to one jersey?
SPEAKER_02:Like how you would consolidate it, right? So I'm um Anna, correct me if I'm wrong. So let's just one, let's say. Yeah, okay, right? So Glenn's play it out. Let's play it out. Okay. So five, would you say what would be your average profit of a faster selling hat if you want to move it fast? How how would it be like five dollar profit? Maybe ten dollar profit? Yeah, probably say like five, seven, ten.
SPEAKER_03:Five to seven. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:All right, let's let's do on the bottom end five dollars, right? Okay, and you have to ship it twenty times. So that would be five times twenty, that would be what, a hundred bucks, right? Yep. And would you agree that the jersey takes twice as long or three times as long as the hats?
SPEAKER_00:To list to list to list.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yes. But you only ship it once, not but you only ship it once. Could you make a hundred bucks on a jersey? And I know the answer, you need to confirm this. I can. And I will.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I can, but not not as consistently as buying 20 hats, of course. 20 hats is easier to obtain.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh. But is the whole problem here that you would have to give up some of your beloved consistency?
SPEAKER_00:Um just buy more and more and more of these jerseys.
SPEAKER_02:Oh man. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But but I'm also losing time on listing because I need help on the listing.
SPEAKER_02:That's why not well, not quite, because the time that you would spend on shipping, you just shifted it on listing. Right. And you still less.
SPEAKER_04:And you it's less to store.
SPEAKER_02:Right, because unless that is a good equation. That is a good equation, though. Like, and to scale, okay, 20 and one, right? 100 bucks is cool to make. But if you want to make a hundred thousand, you gotta have a thousand jerseys.
SPEAKER_04:Or twenty thousand hats.
SPEAKER_02:Or twenty thousand hats. I I think I I I we can list a thousand listings unique in a week and not sleep and sleep less and be done.
SPEAKER_04:How many shipping? But how fast is it to get a thousand jerseys?
SPEAKER_02:And that is the kicker. That is the kicker.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, which you don't have to answer that on the air. So then that would be the challenge, right?
SPEAKER_02:That would be the challenge. Yeah, that would be the challenge to how can you uniquely find more items that can make you a hundred dollars, even if it's harder to find, you might have to be creative about it and not just rely on the sources that you know now. Like, let's let's not let's think that there's abundance of this item. And because there is, it's just a matter of you just don't know where to get it yet.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean, and remember too, the goal is not to break even there, it's to make more on the jerseys, right? So you have to figure out approximately how much of your time spent, you know, shipping and sourcing 20 hats versus sourcing and listing a jersey, right? Would it be like because you want to net positive on the jersey side, you don't want it to be equal. You want to be able to three jerseys in the time that you could do 20 hats, right? Like that's how it should translate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But it's it's just I I heard this a long time ago, I think on the Scavenger Life podcast, shout out to them. I love them so much. I wish they would come back. But um, that somebody they interviewed one time was talking about they estimate that every item they spend 30 minutes of their life on that item and to like on average, right? What across sourcing, listing, and shipping and whatever else they have to do to like deal with that item. Um and I don't know what that those numbers would be for you, but you could literally time it for each type of item and see.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting. And and also you have to like just look it up uh in a scale. Like I would have a hard time doing that because I work sporadically. Yeah. But Glenn probably would have a better chance of timing it than me because he's he's a timed man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But then you get into like bonus uh revenue recoup by eliminating a storage unit, right? Or um even the time it takes you to go to a storage unit. Like, I don't know. Obviously, this is not something that happens overnight in these cases. Like you have to gradually replenish with different stuff. And I feel like I'm preaching to the choir entirely, but I will just say, like, this is recently in the last year or six months of my store, what has totally revived my store. Because you've purged the I do think it works, yeah. Yeah, I do think it works.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I I I think so. And that was that was kind of like the strategy that I used as well to scale my business. I didn't I didn't have more items in my first three years, I just had more value in my ASB. Uh my ASB climbed from 60, uh, I mean it went as high as 200 to now 90. You know, so there is some value to that swing. The 200 ASB is just harder to achieve because though those items are quote unquote the items that I want to source would put me on a less ROI items, uh, right? Because like if we buy retros right now, it's you know it's pretty low ROI.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and it is all relative because I've basically come up from the other side of that scale where because of a slow couple of years with a lot of like semi-liquidation and whatever, you know, just trying to like downsize my inventory. I think my ASP going into this year was like, I want to say it was like$25 or$28 or something. Month over month, it has gotten higher and higher. This month so far, my ASP is$53. Like that's literally almost double what it was. Um, and that and that does like, yes, I am spending more time, or or not more time, but I am spending more money on these items. But because the ROI is good on them, it's like why wouldn't you spend money? Right? Yeah, my net is scaling up with that, you know, like it is it is going in the right direction. Like all of those are going in the right direction. So what are your thoughts, Glenn, now that we've told you what you should do and asking you around about it?
SPEAKER_00:Um, I think that has to be the net I think to break out of what I'm making right now for the last four months would be obtaining somehow more jerseys and then getting help on the listing side of it to get more listed. Because I already knew that I was falling behind on the listing part because the photos are getting done because I have someone doing it, so that's like their main job is to get it done, so they're getting that done. But on my side, I'm not getting that part done because you still have to do whatnot, right?
SPEAKER_02:At the same time, so you cannot let that go. You cannot let the hats go yet. Yeah. Which which in a lot of people's situation, if they cannot afford to hire more help, that's what you would have to do. You know, like let's just say you you know, you have bills to pay, you're you're just making it, you're just breaking even. That's why a lot of people have to take two steps back. It's like, okay, I'm not gonna stream as much, I'd have to list more and not notice the effect until 90 days. Because usually it's yeah, not 60 to 90 days before you really notice the work that you've put in that first 30. Yeah. So so to your point, that's why we we we were talking about on I mean off-air that what if we could develop a listing system that somebody takes the photo, uploads it, and somebody basically takes it to 99% done, and all you have to do is upload it and set your price. Yeah, um, and I think that's so doable, and there's a lot of people that are doing that. It's just a matter of this, are just way more valuable items, then this we just need to be a lot more careful.
SPEAKER_04:Careful, right? Because there's a lot of VAs now who specialize in listings, though.
SPEAKER_02:I mean it's like it's just that, yeah, it's just that we may have to just train AI to deal better with higher right, because I've made that mistake before, and that's why I've really restructured it. When I had help, the the assistant uploaded it. And because they didn't know comps better, there was a similar comp that basically made me lose 200 bucks on that listing. And whose fault that was it was mine, and border and and to to blame it, it was JC's fault that we figured out because she should have been the one uploading it final and not the assistant. Assistant takes it to 99, you take it to the 100. So I think that's where a lot of people have successfully um duplicated or bought back time. It's like, yeah, it's cheaper to hire VA, but don't make the VA do the 100% work, you know, like the at least the pricing. Or because you know, like a lot of them don't know what your cost is or how rare do certain items, you know. So I also I have a question for you about the jerseys.
SPEAKER_04:This is a real question. As far as jerseys are concerned, is it very much standard to have to include actual measurements for that jersey? Uh for the most part when it's new with tags and it's a certain manufacturer. I would say yeah. I'd say yes.
SPEAKER_02:I mean it because it varies on era and style and colour.
SPEAKER_00:I know, and it's kind of it's because like hockey jerseys fit weird, and then like the basketball ones now, Nike does them. They're really like I feel like uh even going on like the Nike site and fanatics and things like that, did you have like a generalized and they're not even really correct when you like medium is this, and then you're like, what?
SPEAKER_02:Well, so it's it's so like range, right? They the manufacturers don't even right size their stuff anymore.
SPEAKER_04:They just like well, maybe not, but here's what I found. Like, I was, I mean, especially with like pre-owned clothing or pre-loved, sorry, pre-loved clothing. Um, I would measure everything because it's like, well, you don't know if this person's their shrinkage, right? Yeah, if it was in the dryer or whatever, right? Um, and people really do want to know the their qu the question they're trying to answer is is it going to fit me, right? So since I've been doing a lot more retail arb, I have been doing here's the size chart from the brand.
SPEAKER_02:From the manufacturer, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And uploading that in the photos. And I have barely had any questions about fit. And what I do like about that, because like there, for example, there's a lot of like free people stuff that's supposed to be oversized and baggy, but the way that their size charts are word is it's like our medium is made to fit a person with these measurements. So it's like the measurement of this is gonna look huge and not be right. But jerseys don't have supposed to fit on you. This is meant for this size of person. So I really think that's. Even more helpful. And if you're shopping on a retailer's website, that's all they give you. True. They don't give you pit to pit. You know what I mean? So, like, I I was like, okay, I was really hesitant to do that at first because I was like, well, I always measure clothing, like, duh. But I'm very surprised to report that I hardly ever get questions about can you please measure this thing when I've provided that measurement chart? And I've hardly had any returns for or I don't do returns.
SPEAKER_02:So it's what if you just proactively do it ahead rather than having to pull it out and measure it when somebody asks for a measurement.
SPEAKER_04:Well, one of two things, I will either just not answer it or say that's information's like not available, just see the size chart. Or if it is a really valuable item, for example, every single time I provided that measurement, they don't buy it. And I'm like, now I feel like I've wasted my time pulling this item out and measuring it. Yeah. But that's way less time spent than measuring every single thing I've listed. You know, like the amount of people who will buy it without having measurements.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that is a true statement.
SPEAKER_04:And I guess that would be a lot of people that outweighs the ones that ask.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that would just be the yeah, the outweigh of things. Um I get questions all the time, like what are the measurements?
SPEAKER_00:And I'm like, dude, they're there in the photos. And they don't even have them.
SPEAKER_02:So they don't, yeah. They don't see them yet.
SPEAKER_00:So maybe that's a good idea too.
SPEAKER_04:Well, that's one of those things I thought, okay. Well, honestly, like that makes it slightly less accessible in a way, but also like I'm still providing a measurement guide, which is from the brand and should be correct.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So that's not nothing. But you know, maybe that's okay. And I just wait for the person who doesn't need those measurements to buy it. Yeah. And so far, it has been way less effort to list clothing because I haven't measured anything really that's new with tags. So maybe.
SPEAKER_02:That's not the bottleneck right now, though.
SPEAKER_04:What?
SPEAKER_02:The measurement is not a bottleneck.
SPEAKER_04:No, but for Glenn, if he's trying to do a lot more jersey listing, that is a bottleneck for listing a bunch of jerseys. Not really. If it takes way more time to list a jersey than a hat, that's pretty much a big thing.
SPEAKER_02:Everything that we sell right now has has measurements and it hasn't been a bottleneck. I think it becomes a bottleneck at like 8,000 listings.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, but like, but think about just going, okay, measuring or like measuring a hat once and having 20 of them versus measuring three jerseys and the amount of time that takes, right? Just purely from like the listing process standpoint, if all you had to do was. Yeah, it's just time. But what I'm saying, Glenn, is maybe that could be something that you could like, because I would consider doing measurements pretty much above and beyond customer service. But like you said, people half the time don't even see them anyway, and they still ask you, which is really annoying. But what if you were to like just A-B test this and just do a run of jerseys where you just upload the size guide and you don't do the measurements and see if it's worth the squeeze or not to do them? Yeah, like yeah, that could expedite the process a lot if it's not worth the time to do it.
SPEAKER_00:He could probably knock out more jerseys per day photo-wise, you know, by not having to do that.
SPEAKER_02:Is the hesitation because you pre-pack them and they're not stored at your house that if somebody has to have a measurement, then you have to go pull it, right? Was that a reason? Yeah, because I don't have it with me. I mean, I don't know. That's the that's the reason why for me, because I run a pre-pack situation, everything pre-packed, I don't want to reopen things.
SPEAKER_04:But it's this is anecdotal for sure, but it seems like nine times out of ten, when I when I I don't pre-pack my stuff, so I can pull it and measure it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_04:When I do, the person who wanted the measurements doesn't buy it. Somebody else who didn't care about the measurements does buy it. So it's like they don't end up buying it anyway. Someone else is willing to buy it without the measurements. Why am I doing it?
SPEAKER_02:All the time, but wouldn't you want to scope everything now while you have the time?
SPEAKER_04:Not if it's a waste of time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, right. I mean, that is that is a point. Like that I would like to know the percentage of hours money to, you know, like the the success rate of measurements, right? Because like obviously Nike.com don't have, but they have it, but they have a giant marketing arm that does that for them.
SPEAKER_04:It would be interesting to be able to. That's why I'm saying I think Glenn should A B test it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because then you could see what are the are there any meaningful differences in these two groups of jerseys and how they sell. Like, because I in my mind, like that was always a given. Like, well, of course it's gonna sell better if I include measurements, but I don't know if that's true. It doesn't seem like it is.
SPEAKER_00:We don't even have the data to really back that up either.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that would be a cool yeah, the data like my anecdotal, you know, observation over the last year.
SPEAKER_02:We should have a uh we should have a guaranteed fit. So so parts has this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And parts has data that their parts sells more if it's guaranteed fit because the manufacturer did it already. But I wonder how that would translate to clothing if they did that. Um, because obviously I think there's data for AG that sells more because it's for sure authentic. Um that is true. That is uh that is a good question to ask the fashion team because that is a big category that they're spending money on right now. Yeah, and we should write that down and we should find the VP of fashion and be like, hey, I got a question for you.
SPEAKER_04:We got a question. Yeah. I mean, I love questions like these, but yeah, I think in the spirit of just how can you reduce if you're gonna make a big change and you're gonna give up some of your consistency potentially, how can you reduce the friction and get the most bang for your buck making that change, right? And potentially just increase your revenue because of the time factor.
SPEAKER_02:How how many jerseys listings that you have right now?
SPEAKER_00:Um actual listings, let me see. And the funny thing is that listing does take time, but in reality, a lot of it is just sell similar for my own. I don't even find like individual comps. I'm just selling similar because I only sell the same three brands of the jersey anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, it's so there's a ton of research. I think listing is yeah, unless it's very rare, which you would know. Yeah, listing it doesn't really make doesn't take that much time. It's just the quantity of it, right? Like if we're dealing with a hundred, three minutes times a hundred, that's three hundred minutes. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? It's like, oh, I can list three uh five items in three, you know, three minutes at a time. But now if it's times a hundred and times a thousand, then that's somebody's full-time job.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, which I'd rather be buying at that. Yeah, you would spend not necessarily sourcing, but yeah, like seeing how I can obtain more of this with the connections I have and stuff. So yeah. That's where I'm kinda at. Um but right now I have 860 listings, but they're not all jerseys, but I think jerseys.
SPEAKER_02:Like right around there.
SPEAKER_00:Um probably a lot less, I would think. 610.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:That's like hardly any.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:How could you double that? 1200 lists 1200 jerseys. Can you buy 600 jerseys in a month?
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, I don't know if I can. Hats I can and jerseys I can. Right, right.
SPEAKER_04:But doubling that in a month would be really fast too. Like, what if you did what if you got to 900 by the end of the month? What if you 150% did it?
SPEAKER_02:Add 300?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Could you do that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that'd be like that'd be like what? Possibly. Hmm. That'd be like 10 jerseys a day. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I love this for you.
SPEAKER_02:I love this. That is uh interesting. But but again, we're thinking about like getting to the next level next month. But also, too, you could get to the next level. Yeah, and and and also we're not talking about ten dollar items here. We're talking about what's probably jerseys ASP, 150 bucks?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, most of them, the lowest, you're talking about like 80 to 100.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it's a hundred ASP, right? Like adding 300 jerseys, that's$30,000 potential profit and pocket, right? In in in when we're we're making oversimplifying it to a month, right? But yeah, technically, if you did that this year, that's bumping your, you know, that could bump your if you're netting 100,000, that's your 30% race this year. And if you're made, you know, so that is uh if you double it, then you double your salary.
SPEAKER_04:And then you can maintain that new plane. So okay, this is maybe a good like final note. I know we need to wrap this up, but I really think there is something powerful on the psychology side of life where when you take a problem, like like in this case, it's like the about sourcing 300 additional jerseys in a month. That sounds like a big challenge. But when you start turning your brain on to how can I get 300 more jerseys in a month? That's way different than thinking over and over again, like, man, it would be really hard to add 300 jerseys, or like, I don't know how many more jerseys I could get. It seems like it would be a big challenge. But when you start thinking, if it if my life depended on it, could I get 300 more jerseys up? You definitely could. You'd find a way. But that might mean thinking outside the box, sourcing somewhere else, paying a little bit more for them, or making a little less here and there. A lot of different ways that your kind of your mind will not recognize if you're thinking about the negative side of the statement instead of thinking, how can I? Like what is what would it like how can like now you're looking out for those 300 jerseys rather than you know, continuing to reinforce the idea that it would be really hard or you don't know how. So that's not just like a critique on you at all, Glenn. That's just like a human nature. Yeah. But everybody, every one of us is always like setting goals and and having challenges. And I think it's really important, it is really important, like this is documented well in psychology that it's really important how you frame that and think of it, even just to yourself. Like what's your framework? How can I find those 300 jerseys? Where can I look? How can I get it done?
SPEAKER_02:Because at the end of the day, if you're focusing on the solution, I mean to the possible solution of your current problem that you're trying to solve, worst case scenario, if you fall short sourcing 300, you'll get 100, it's still a race. You know? Um and and sourcing a hundred might not really take that much more effort compared to how you're envisioning three hundred or adding a thousand. Um, because you could literally stumble upon a guy that's offloading a hundred jerseys in this month and you're done. Uh then what about, you know, running ads, you know, and be a buyer? Um, you know, that would be a a cool scenario on I like that Anna and how you said changing the perspective and your psychology on instead of just thinking about how can I get to the next level, go deeper and say, okay, what are my constraints and what are the options that I can do, right? Perfect sample. We talk about Glenn can hire more people to list faster. That's one. And or spend more money and time or one or the other to source more. And once you figure it out, next level, baby.
SPEAKER_00:Next level, TV.
SPEAKER_04:So listen, if you're out there listening and you want Glenn to hire you, just let us know. Or if you have 300 jerseys, let us know.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. If you have jerseys, hit us up. Hit us up. We'll send you to Glenn.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh. Um, also, I think we can officially announce that we are, we the seller club podcast, our sponsors, bronze sponsors of eBay Open 2025, and we will see y'all in Vegas. There we go.
SPEAKER_02:We're gonna have a booth there, baby.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, come see us. We'll tell you way more later, but it's gonna be exciting.
SPEAKER_02:Before we wrap this up, we want to thank our proud sponsors, eBay. Make sure you follow them at eBay for sellers and also get your books straight with Seller Ledger. Make sure you follow them at Seller Ledger on Instagram, check them out, get test it, get a free trial, and we will see you in the next episode. Peace.