is in advance if I'm looking all over the place
I'm using a um an iMac computer the little camera is at the top I'm not too sure where to look
because I don't want to be looking up here I don't want to be looking over there so when I'm
actually looking dead at the screen it looks like I'm looking to an angle so apologies in advance if
I look a little bit weird uh I promise I'll get an external camera when I do a next video like this
so I can know where I'm looking at so the basis of this vi
deo is actually had someone reach out
to me on Instagram a couple of days ago and they asked me they said hey Mr octopus um I'm looking
at going fulltime I'm not really enjoying my job um what would you recommend you know you know
you've been doing it for a little bit um can you please give me some thoughts on on the matter
what it came down to is basically I spoke to them a little bit I I had a bit of a a back forward
with them those different things I wanted to have a little bit of a conv
ersation with them well you
know an audio conversation just to basically delve into it a little bit because the thing is though
that when you speak to someone on Instagram or you speak to someone on email or you speak to them on
YouTube comments as I I I reply to a lot of the oh I think I reply to everyone's comment is that you
know it's very hard to constru the meaning behind what you're trying to get across or it could be
you know taken the wrong way or as numerous people have accused me
of before having an abrasive
personality uh which I can guarantee you it's only semi true like you know it's a bit of an alter ego
characterization but you know realistically like I've said numerous times in the podcast before
is that I would rather you cry then you become destitute right so basically that's a big thing
for me and this is something that I was trying to work out with this person that was emailing me is
that the Crux of the conversation was that they've become dis very disill
usioned with their job uh
they don't want to continue in that capacity they don't want to continue in that role they don't
want to continue with that company therefore they want to get eBay reselling um being being um the
annoying person that I am I actually did a bit bit of Google searching because they're actually their
instinct Grand handle was actually their name and I actually tracked them down to the Facebook
groups that we um Granny and I normally reference when we're doing our YouTu
be videos so basically
they popped up you know several times in the last month and basically uh if I say basically a lot
apologies in advance it's my kind of my filler word I try and use basically a post um so if that
does annoy you and you probably will recognize it now where I say basically all the time apologies
in advance it's a nervous tick that I've got in the last 15 years I haven't been able to get rid
of it uh so what they did they've been asking a lot of generic questions which is
fine yeah and
I've never had any issues with generic questions like granny and I say normal times is that I
would rather you ask the question realistically there's no such thing as a dumb question um
you know there's no such thing as you know a stupid answer either but what it comes down to
is that you know you really need to have all the cards on the table when it comes down to full-time
reselling right um so there you go I just did um so you can you like to have a little tally if you
kn
ow basically you're um but what it comes down to is having all your cards on the table knowing
where your financial situation is knowing what your family situation is what all these different
things a lot of the mistakes that I made uh going full-time when I did uh was because I didn't know
where I stood um in the basically the grand scheme of things you know I I've been selling on eBay
on and off and I've said numerous times about 2007 that I first started selling might have been
before bu
t that's what I really first you my first memory of selling on eBay I think I've St before
I used to import arcade boards basically like you your arcade machines takes you know PCV boards
I used to import those into Australia um quite cheaply from a lot of European countries than sell
them for markup so you little bit of reselling without knowing I was doing reselling and that was
just purely to fund my arcade machine collection um so basically that's what I enjoyed and that's
what I used t
o offset that so Mrs o wouldn't get angry from spending our funds but I suppose
going back to that you know and then you know Flash Forward a couple of years around about 2013
around 2014 I started University through work so basically they put me through University um I did
a course was basically an online Commerce course and a little bit of background information to this
and this is where my EBAs journey I suppose you know in its current interation has begun was that
you know we had to cre
ate a hypothetical you know assignment course um hypothetical business and
what you would think hypothetically would happen like you roblocks and all these different things
from these different things then what I did is I thought well you know Screw doing a hypothetical
is I actually ran a a proper you a Lego business right so I imported Lego I bought Lego locally
and sold it and you know was doing you know stupid amounts of money in my first year so My First Year
and this is how eBay has c
hanged over the last you know last 10 years um especially like if we go
with the 2014 date I would go to Toys R R Us you that old shop that exist before it closed in buy
a Lego set for $20 put it straight eBay for $40 for free postage not knowing what I was doing yeah
like I had a bit of a customer service background so I knew how to take care of that um not really
big on the finance background so I had to learn that along the way so I put it on for $40 uh back
in those days there's no such
thing as promoted listings right and eBay used to do 15% off coupons
purely funded by eBay once a month so um and like literally we put it on at four o'clock after I
finished work then 5:00 was sold so I almost had enough time to you know to sell the item then run
down to the post office off and send it so I was doing this in ludicrous amount of times um in that
first year I cracked $100,000 selling Lego that market quickly dried up a couple of years later
and what something that I learnt
very quickly on is that you need to be constantly changing and
adjusting what you the direction of your business um had a new competitor come in in the Lego space
like a direct competitor I suppose just another eBay account um at this stage I was probably if
you get off the the quality listing report these days was probably the top 10 of Lego um because
there's no real big Lego retailers on the St eBay at that stage um so basically it's new competitor
and I was really cocky and I think thin
king well you know he's selling a loss really didn't take
into consideration loss leaders basically a loss leader is where you sell something and a loss
or it's funded from you a different source so if you're taking profit from you know pile A then
running loss at pile B you know it kind of works out from that perspective and it's primarily
to build a customer base and to build feedback right so basically this person was doing that um
I didn't really take into consideration what was going o
n and didn't really think too much of
it CU like I said I was cocky and I was quite comfortable where I was in the eBay space in that
time and he obliterated the Lego market so my Lego eBay account at the start sorry at this stage
is around about 4,000 it's kind of lying a bit dormant um and he's up to about 36,000 feedback in
that same period of time and he's he's wiping the floor with Lego at the moment so I would be quite
surprised if he's in the top top three of Lego in Australia this S
t so be very mindful is that when
you especially if you enter a market as I'm doing it part time at this stage is that you constantly
need to be evolving you constantly need to be looking at your competitors you constantly need
to be looking at doing everything I know a lot of people in the YouTube space um and a lot of people
in the Facebook Market groups is that resellers if you if you break it down to the simplest of terms
they're competitors okay so realistically I know that we we all h
ave a gentleman's agreements where
we all help each other out and we you put out free YouTube videos where you know I talk about
Skylanders and how fantastic they are and how profitable they are in some capacity so basically
there you go there's another one get your little tick out um you know Skyland you are plentiful but
like 99.9% of them are completely worthless like this guy probably $15 $20 right but there's about
four or five different variants of this guy that's completely worthless
um so just be very very
mindful of what you're actually ingesting from the YouTube space especially if you're looking at
going full-time I don't want people to especially me and Granny we we try and as much as we try
and lay some information um we we try and do it for the betterment of of people I'm not going to
say community because I don't like throwing that word around so I don't think like you know that
anyone should be following me each of their own um but granny yeah Granny's fantast
ic so you by
all means give her you Channel a sub give her a like all those different things she's fantastic
um you does little videos have to videos they're fantastic so like I said you don't unsubscribe I
need all the subscribers I can get but yeah like said that I don't like using the word Community
all those different things because it kind of to me it kind of um you know throws you in an
undeserving position right because I don't want to be seen as leading a community I don't want to b
e
seen as influencing a community realistically and I think the Crux of what granny and I set out to
do at the first place just Sidetrack if you can't work out I probably got undiagnosed ADHD is that
we're trying to you know put people in a different realization that you know what you watch or what
you consume through YouTube or Facebook Market sorry Facebook groups and all these different
things aren't necessarily the one way and only way of doing things you need to look at it from
differ
ent perspectives and see the uncontable biases that the people actually delivering that
information have so you know for me example um you know I might be talking primarily at Lego
and I you know I'll talk about Lego or I'll talk about all these different things because I don't
sell in that market anymore um so be very mindful is that if people are telling you what to buy or
telling you what to do you really need to do your own research and that goes back to this fulltime
equation is that i
f that information's out there and especially my videos only get two or 300 views
so I'm not to worry about you know the Skylander Market falling down but you know if you know the
Aussie flipper or two Aussie thrifter or you back from burnout starts talking about a product um
talking about a bolo and all these different things there's a good chance that that's going
to dry up very quickly after that video comes out because they got 10,000 20 30,000 40,000 views
right so a lot more people ar
e looking for that product and then they'll start undercutting each
other because it's not selling quick enough then we'll basically become a noo it's happened time
and time again so just be very mindful if you if you see a bolo list out there or the top hundred
bolos and all those different things be very Mindful and look at the view count as well of that
video if it's got hundreds of thousands of views there's a good chance that list is completely
useless now so going back to the original
topic sorry I got the sidetracked so this person
reached out to me asked me um what they want to do what they're looking at basically there's
another one um they're quite green they've only restarted reselling in the last 6 months by the
looks of it which is not bad in itself you know like if you have had previous business experience
on all those different things so you know a bit more conversation bit more conversation um like
I did create a bit of a list for what I would suggest for this
person so this I'm just going
to dribble it off now so I apologies in advance I I'll try and fix it up in editing but like you
what you're probably going to see is what you're probably going to get so what I do is learn the
platform like if you're looking at selling on eBay um in the States you got Mari you've got um you
know Poshmark you've got all the other platforms as well in the UK you've got deop and I think
there's a couple others you know if you're in the UK please put them down be
low because I'm not
really fav with the ones in the UK there's only a couple of channels I watch from the UK and um they
just normally talk about eBay now you got deop over there so so learn learn the platform you're
using a lot of questions that I see in Facebook groups especially from people that you know that
are quite green and are looking to go full-time because like I said they're disillusioned
from their their job that they're doing all these different things is that they don't know
the
platform they don't know the policies they reach out straight to to Facebook groups uh to YouTube
you know content creators and all these different things uh you know Grady and I copped a lot of
flak a couple of weeks ago in regards to our let the um in regards to our Facebook market Facebook
group video we did so basically we're we're saying that you need to do your research and this is you
know infinitely um relevant for those people that want to go full-time right so basically there'
s
another one um you want to make sure that you know the policies back to front and if you don't know
don't go to Facebook groups don't go to content creators don't reach out to be on Instagram you
know by all means you know you can I'll give you the answer if I know it but your first point of
call should be face uh eBay sorry so you need to go back to that platform and go hey look you know
hit up their customer service team you know get on the chat if you're on eBay Australia and ask
them
say hey look this is the question I've got or this is the predicament in um you know we've got a
public holiday and the post office is closed what what do we do in this respect or I've had this B
negative feedback what can I do to resolve this um because what will happen is eBay will actually
tell you over the chat you might take a couple of times to flesh out you know someone that actually
is willing to to talk to you for a little bit more than short sentences because a lot of these
um yo
u know customer service representatives are offsh short I've got some you know great
stories about the ones I spoke to in Co um but they're they're fantastic right so don't be rude
to them you know they're doing the best they can because the language is sorry English is not their
language um so you know give them the patience and you give them the respect that they're due but ask
them what the question is because what will happen is that eBay will send you a transcript to your
email and wil
l be on on file on their end as well of what you've actually been told so if something
happens that you know your account gets suspended yes it does happen go back a month ago I'll put a
video up here somewhere um to you know basically show you what someone did lose their account
over something so trivial um you know and if something does happen you know you followed the
guidance to a te and something has happened you can go back and say hey well look you know this
is the transcript that I'
ve had with you know Joe blogs um this is the point of you know stuff
he's told me this is what I've done to a t make sure you have done it to a t um then what this
is what the outcome is so can you please give me some indication of what I do from here so you're
covering yourself because if you go to eBay and say hey look I spoke to the octopus on Facebook
group and he told me this eBay is not going to care like realistically you've got no grounds to
stand on is that why would they care you
know I don't work for eBay so you know what I'm not going
to give you the wrong answer just to be you know play Silly buggers but what it comes down to is
you need to get from the horse's mouth then you're somewhat covered right so you got more of a ground
to appeal a decision or you know you said hey look you negative feedback this person you know tried
to scare me all these different things these eBay you need to go them first right so basically
look into these for consideration um so th
at's something to always do that was that one um look
to YouTube for light inspiration uh and not as a house to guide right so I I see a lot of videos
come at the start of the year as like hey I'm starting my eBay store from scratch or I'm doing
a $5 challenge I'm doing I'm actually doing a $10 challenge but I'm not going to talk about that
today um you know I'm doing all these different things you know I'm trying to fund America trip
with you know $5 and all these different things um be ve
ry mindful of those videos because they're
not giving you the nuts and bolts of what goes into these different things right so like I said
there's a lot of phenomenal people out there I don't think anyone's doing it to mislead or to
um you know cause Carnage in the Market Per Se they're just doing it for entertainment purposes
only if you watch it from an entertainment point of view fantastic like you can't go wrong so just
do that um cash flow cash flow cash flow this is something that I r
eated to this person because one
of their comments was saying hey look I can't you know is there any way to expedite payments from
eBay because I've got it set to daily but when I make a sale on Friday I don't get the money till
Monday excuse me something on lines of that so basically what they're they're having problems
with their cash flow and you know and when I did question them about that we did have a lengthy
Instagram message session um they're basically what they're doing is they're
buying a lot more
stock than they're out taking so they're buying very s slow sell I'll start again very slow sell
through items there we go finally got it um like clothing clothing you know and grumpy granny was
talking about a video the other day she bought a couple of pieces of items and they had a 365 day
sellr rate um I in the previous podcast that I'm trying to look at things that will sell within
you know idealistically you know the same day um or you know worst case scenario the 90
days
um once a big hit that 90 days depending on the Rarity the scarcity of that buyer for that
particular item I'm just going straight to you know straight for the throat and price markdowns
and all those different things because there's no use having an item sitting on your store
becoming dormant um just because you want to get top dollar because you've seen it on a YouTube
video you know it's a massive bolo you want to get top dollar it's not going to be the case just
clear it out get
the money back um and go from that and yeah like take look at from a big picture
right like yeah if you you know sell something for you paid $5 at the op shop and you can only get
$10 free postage postage with it you're going to lose money in that scenario right but the fact of
the matter is that you're hopefully buying other items that have a higher profit margin so you
can offset that little loss don't make it more than more often than not but you can offset that
loss with those big profi
t items so don't don't have these items sitting around in the death Pole
or do all these different things you know if you do have a death pole yeah might be a case of just
going through it once a month and just clearing it out and redona things or you know if you don't
like don't pick up things you don't want to list like I do it all the time right so like you know
previous you know puzzles and all these different things that you know grumpy granny screams at me
all the time for is that you
know I do it because I romanticize oh this looks fantastic this you
know has a sellr history this has got you know items that are actually selling actively you
know in this condition but like for the puzzle for example it's a 3,000 piece puzzle so yeah
we're going to dedicate you know a whole weekend you know let's say 24 hours over the course of
a weekend to to do this puzzle to sell it for $100 and then that brings it down to what four5
an well probably even you $4 an hour uh for for tha
t return on investment so you kind of want
to not not pick up those project puzzles pieces or project pieces um so basically make sure you
have your cash flow uh squared away is the Crux of that one so basically cash flow cash flow cash
flow if you don't know how catch flow is go on go on the internet Google these things you know
ask an accountant ask you know someone in the business space like I said don't go to you know
these self-proclaimed YouTube um Amazon courses and all these other c
ourses that are floating
around that charge you you know 20 bucks a month whatever it is to to you know basically learn the
secrets and all those different things because they're more often than not they're not fit for
purpose for your particular purpose right so I'm not saying across the board but they don't take an
individual's capacity on board they'll basically look at it from you know what fits the many kind
of puzzle piece uh defined goals this is something that I caught up with mysel
f um before I actually
went full-time reselling though is I didn't have really any goals down path other than you know I
wanted to replace my full-time income so before I left my previous occupation and a lot of people
know what it is goals Down plan you know you need to have something that your business want to work
towards you know if you're wanting to look at going replacing a full-time income it's not going
to happen straight away so basically you G to need to you know set like daily go
als s goals daily
listing goals uh weekly sales targets and all these different things and revise it on a regular
basis be mindful of what's going on in the economy at the same time you know you really want to be
looking at it from a macro perspective to say hey if I'm selling Lego for example you need to be
looking at you know does Lego sell all this time of the year you know learn your your platforms
eBay has like a terap system which is a fantastic research Tool uh it will give you an id
ea of
what's going on so you know if you if you're looking at getting into the jeans Niche which what
this person was for all for some reason is that yeah it's good now because we're moving into the
Colder Weather but if you're actually starting up in November you're not going to be really selling
that many jeans over the summer period yes you will still sell some jeans but you just be very
mindful um and realistically have some realistic goals of of what's actually going to sell what's
wh
at's going on and you know what's available to you you you really look into stock management and
stock availability as well um a business plan uh I was guilty of doing this or not doing this
when I first started as well is actually have you know write a business plan if you don't know
A business plan is or you don't know how to write one chat GPT is probably the best thing you're
going to do go in there write me a business plan for eBay looking to make you know $2,000 profit a
week and you
know punch in the variables and all these different things and it should print out you
know a punch out a you know comprehensive business plan don't just print off what chat gp2 is go
through read it uh then obviously make adjustments what's going on as well just be very very very
mindful is that you need to be looking at it from this perspective not just you know like this
spreadsheet can't this is enough reach out to TOS the THS because they got a fantastic spreadsheet
um I think Chris fu
rong and Ethan R shock if you're in Australia as well um they have done one
uh but like I said I I use a 203 FS one and they are fantastic and like I said there's probably
spreadsheets all over available over the world for reselling so or have some sort of platform I
know in America that they've got reseller Genie I think it is and basically attracts all the all the
data of what you paid for it uh what you sold it for you know all your profit margins and all these
different things we don't
have anything like that so basically I think the best course of action
would be a spreadsheet make sure you document everything onto it so the sale price if you're
taking money at the ATM keep all your receipts you know all these different things download data
and all these different things and engage in an accountant chat GPT sorry chat GPT accountant
and CPA uh that's what you want to be doing the next step so this is what you want to be doing
before you even start selling right um get al
l these different things get them all squared away
before you start ramping the business up look at emergency savings um what will you know what will
happen if you don't get you know sell an item for two months or three months or four months you need
to have that that stock p in the background just make sure you get some savings I'm not going to
tell you what it is what I recommend I've heard a lot of people throw around the six months 12
month um you know savings behind them yeah it's it's
probably the best cause yeah probably the
more money you got behind you the better um yeah so that's something to do and constantly look
for new opportunity so if you if you can't work out the way this video is going it's probably I
wouldn't recommend full-time reselling you know especially in this economy especially for this
person even for myself right so realistically about two months ago I returned to full-time
work after you know working full-time reseller for two years um and you kno
w it's taken a lot
of stress off my plate you know I was watching a couple of videos from media madman uh he's a new
Australian YouTuber reseller as well he left his employment because he was um you had a lot of
stress going on at the time yeah realistically what I what I've told this P person you know
dissatisfaction with their job is that look at other opportunities don't just be bogged down
because you know and you and my situation was very similar to Media madman is that you you become
very disillusioned with the the the corporate world and all these different things because of
one organization right like find another job you know even if it pays less you know you're still
probably going to make more money than you will on eBay uh make make yourself happy and just be
mindful of that you if you are making a malzer of money if you're making1 130,000 $140,000 a year
there's probably some sort of stress Al line with that position right so you're not going to get
$120,000 for
free you there there will be some hard decisions and there will be some you know
mistakes that you make or you know something that's align with that position that makes it you
know guar that much money uh skills building as well so basically if you are looking at selling
you know full-time and you wanting to pursue down this path look at building your skills so what I
said to this person as well is that if you do go full-time or you are looking at eBay and you're
looking at moving to anoth
er job use your use your experience as eBay to you to page your resume
like don't embellish things but yeah if you done about you know customer service you've done you
know like stock management you've done you know Logistics you've done all these different things
you could probably you know you know bring into your res space and invest in other opportunity and
wealth building activities this is something that I'm that I was guilty about is that I would you
know get all my money and reinves
t into stock you know just rolled and roll and rolled it was wasn't
actually paying myself over that two years which you know wasn't the best way to run a business
but you just be very mindful is that you know like I did a reaction video a couple of weeks ago
is that if you eBay store gets banned how are you going to liquidate that stock you know if you got
$100,000 worth of eBay price stock um someone's not going to come to knock on your door and
give you $100,000 for that St if you're goi
ng to liquidate you're probably about $20,000 or maybe
even less 15 $110,000 for that 100 Grand worth of stock so be very mindful is that you need to be
looking at other opportunities and other things that you can actually generate Revenue sources
from so Blake and I have spoke about this numerous times is that you know going back to work or if
you are doing full-time reselling you and there's you you do your your reselling component by 10:00
and you got the rest of the day to your you know
look at doing Uber or look at Uber Eats or you
know something else to to kind of fill in that Gap just to give you a little bit of extra income
um but yeah that's what's going on so basically my advice to this person like especially in this
economy um not I wouldn't recommend going fulltime and like I said it's a basis for everyone's you
know everyone's different everyone's opportunity uh is different you know I live in the capital
city so I'm living in camra um what I hear a lot from is t
hat people don't know how to go you know
stock you know stock issues are the problem but then you know the people respond to that saying
well you need to go further a field you need to go further a field when does it get to the point
where you're going too far like it's negating you know if especially if you're you know filling
your tank up you know four or five times a week just to get that extra stock you know all those
different things but what it comes down to is I think that you know p
eople should still remain
in the corporate environment if not you know work in some way like keep bouncing between jobs
until you find one you like but be mindful of you know potentially use reselling you know from
a capacity maybe from a a replenishable Stock B perspective um you know like if you can order
you know bulk in for example if you can bul you if you can sell envelopes for example uh you can
get them in in stock you can sell them and they sell pretty quickly just do it that way t
hen you
know it's almost like a set and forget exercise you just basically order your stock in put it on
eBay and then send it out as you go there's no requirement for you to go out and you purchase
stock and all these sort things um and niches if you're looking at getting into things look
at tery can go from all those different things but I'm very curious to see what you think um you
know put in the comment section field below just to see you know what what use it is it you know
would you
go full-time reselling or would you remain part time but um yeah be quite curious but
anyway um thank you again for watching and uh if you liked it please like comment and share and
uh don't forget to check out grumpy granny bye
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