Overview
This week Liz and Doug talk to young entrepreneurs Jesse and Austin Smith of @yesterdays_fits about how they launched a brick and mortar store and tied it into a growing online business based in Las Vegas.
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the #1 resource for the seller community across all platforms and hub for information on growing your business with List Perfectly. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast, leave a message or ask a question at https://anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com.
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Episode 39 Links
yesterdaysfits.com
Yesterday’s Fits Instagram
Yesterday’s Fits eBay Store
Transcript
Intro
Liz:
Welcome to the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly! This is episode 39. Do you like that radio voice?
Doug:
That was good. I do like it. You do have a voice that you switch.
Liz:
I do, huh? That’s my mom voice – that’s a mom voice when she picks up the phone. Any moms listening that have ever had to answer the phone in the middle of yelling at their kids will totally understand that.
Doug:
It’s also Liz’s military “talking to the general” voice.
Liz:
Yes. Yes, it is that too. I’m Liz.
Doug:
And I’m Doug.
Liz:
Doug, what’s going on this week?
Doug:
Oh, Liz, you know, we’re busy. We’re keeping busy. Last week we did a lot! We had our BOSS Reseller Remix recap episode, and we did our fabulous live stream – both very fun. You know, we talked to a lot of people at the Reseller Remix and a couple of the dudes we sat down and talked to – I use “dudes” because they are dudes, I like these guys – Jesse and Austin Smith, the owners of Yesterday’s Fits. I’d heard about these guys before we went out. I wanted to get to their store, but I didn’t. But they came in – they had a panel at the Reseller Remix, and then they came in and talked to us, and it was a great conversation.
Liz:
Yeah, you know, I was so happy that we got to sit down and talk with these two. I did not get a chance to listen to their panel, but I know of them from Katy, because she does talk about them a lot. They’re local to our friend, Katy Zilverberg. I found out about them through her, and she’s always had the most positive things to say about them. So I did know a little bit about their story, but once we got to sit down and talk to them – their story is so, so, so inspiring. I hope that our listeners really get to enjoy this conversation as much as I did.
Doug:
And I loved, too, that their dad was in with us and he was smiling the whole time, so proud of them. And I got to – as a dad to a dad – speak to him, “How proud are you of these guys? They’re so well-spoken, so successful at such a young age, so dedicated and driven. Getting to do what they wanted to do.” That was a cool aspect of it for me as well.
Liz:
Their mom came and watched them also. Came into the Remix and watched them onstage. Just how freaking amazing is that, right?
Doug:
A family thing. The whole family was there.
Liz:
Yeah, I thought that was really awesome.
Doug:
It’s a great interview. They dropped some news, too, that’s interesting. Again, it’s another great, inspiring story.
Liz:
I agree.
Doug:
All right. The Seller Community Podcast is brought to you each week by List Perfectly for your enjoyment and your listening pleasure, and Show Notes are always found at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast.
Liz:
Be sure to stay tuned after the interview, as we do cover some List Perfectly and reseller news. Now, let’s hear from our guests.
Jesse and Austin from Yesterday’s Fits
Liz:
In the studio today, we have Jesse and Austin, co-owners and streetwear sellers from Yesterday’s Fit. Jesse and Austin started helping their mother, Michelle, with her eBay business when they were only six and four years old. By age 12, Jesse already had his own eBay store, beginning the groundwork of what was to come. The brothers joined forces in 2016, when Jesse and Austin completed their first pop-up, selling current and vintage streetwear. Yesterday’s Fits, their brick-and-mortar shop, opened its doors in Las Vegas in 2017 – and the rest is history. Jesse is an old soul with a love of vintage, while Austin brings balance with his expertise in current streetwear trends. Now 25 and 23, Jesse and Austin have built an Instagram following of 35,000 and counting, are selling their stock on five online platforms, have formed partnerships with multi-million-dollar brands, and each bought their first houses in the last year. Jesse and Austin, welcome!
Jesse:
Hello, hello!
Austin:
How you doin’?
Doug:
Thanks for being here, guys. So, big question – who needs to go to school, right? Nah I’m just kidding.
Jesse:
Not us! (laughing)
Austin:
Well, at least finish high school.
Doug:
Yes. (laughing) Introduce yourself – anything to add onto Liz’s intro?
Jesse:
I’m Jesse. I’m 25. This is my brother, Austin. Pretty much raised here in Vegas – part of why I wanted to do the story here (was to) really talk about our community, and (how we) just grow together with them.
Liz:
You learned eBay from your mom – or specifically, your parents, correct? What sparked that interest in either of you? Was it just one of you and you pulled the other one in, or did you both have a genuine interest as you grew?
Jesse:
At the beginning, there wasn’t really an interest at all. It was just – you were young, and they needed a little bit of help. It mainly started out just with us taking photos. It was a way for us to all spend time together and it helped out. And so, as the years have gone on – he (Austin) takes care of the social media aspect, and I take care of the online business part of it. He absolutely hates selling online (laughing) and I’m not a huge fan of it, but it’s what pays the bills. Like a necessary evil, I guess. We love it. It’s been able to create the space for us, and we never have to work for anybody ever again. And at 25 and 23 – really, 21 and 19, when we quit our other jobs – we can confidently say we never have to work for anybody again.
Liz:
So, 21 and 19. Is this when your venture with Yesterday’s Fit started?
Jesse:
Yes.
Doug:
What were your jobs before this?
Austin:
I was working at a restaurant down in the LINQ, which is right on the Strip. I was bussing tables and working as a host. But I would do that from – when we first opened the store – I’d be doing that from 10 PM to 6 AM. And then I was at the store from 10 AM to 6PM. Got four hours in between each, so – literally got used to the power naps, the two hours of sleep here and there, because you still had travel time, and you still got everything else.
Jesse:
And then I worked at South Point as a bellman. So, taking people’s bags and all this nonsense. But we did that for about 9 months while having a store.
Austin:
Was it longer than that? I was still working for a year and a half.
Jesse:
Oh, okay. I was luckier, I got to quit after 9 months.
Austin:
Our schedules were so crazy.
Jesse:
Because his schedule was more set than mine. Basically, I worked graveyard (shift) also. My shift would start at 10, but sometimes it’d be off at 2 or 4 or 6 or whatever. So, I would call him, if he was still at work and I would get off early, and be like “Hey, go home, sleep for an extra couple hours. Then when you come in – I’ll just go straight to the shop, get started – then when you get there, I’ll go home and sleep for a few hours. And then I’ll come back and close the store and you can go home and sleep.”
Jesse:
And it was literally like – we were the only two that were doing it for a long time. It would get to the point where I would get called in, and then he would get called in, and I’d have to call my best friend who knew nothing about fashion, and he would go watch the store by himself. We taught him how to use the register and that would be about it. And it’s funny because now he actually works for us again, listing on eBay and stuff for us. Four years ago, like I said, he knew nothing about this. And so, when we think about it now, we’re like – we really left a whole store with this dude that had no idea about anything we were doing. It just goes to show how we were so dedicated. We wanted it to work so bad.
Austin:
We’ve got it down to the point where you can literally – we’d figured out every penny we had to have in order to keep the store open for a day. So, we knew we had to make at least $59 a day to keep the lights on, stay open for the next sell day. And if we made that, then we were good.
Jesse:
We were happy.
New Speaker:
Yup.
Jesse:
That didn’t even cover our own expenses at home though.
New Speaker:
That was just for the summer.
Jesse:
We were paying our own bills from our other job(s). There were days that we did zero sales and not a single person came into the shop. And that was super heartbreaking at the beginning. It was like, nerve-wracking because we were like, “Okay, well I just called out of a shift to be here because we had nobody else to help, and I just missed out on a hundred dollars off my paycheck plus tips.” Obviously, it’s worth it now, but yeah, a little scary for sure.
New Speaker:
Consistency is key.
Doug:
Where’d you guys learn all the business stuff? Or did you make it up as you go?
New Speaker:
So, one – parents. Two – trial and error. We learned a lot through trial and error. As we started growing here and there, we had a lots of friends who learned from their trial and error and were like “yo, don’t do this” or “do it this way more.”
Jesse:
But like we said before, we were 21 and 19. We were both going to school for business.
Doug:
Okay.
Jesse:
The furthest I got was to a level two accounting class. It was just basic business; you know what I’m saying? Like nothing serious. And a lot of it was – my dad had done my taxes, so I was able to ask questions. But at the end of the day, he was saying, “You need to go get a tax person, I don’t know how to do this stuff.”
Liz:
(laughing) Solid advice.
Jesse:
Even with the business. I mean, we ran everything through cash for like the first three or four months until we realized, hold on, we need a card processor. We need the ability to take Cash App and PayPal and all these different things. It was just like, something had happened that day, or we’d get a letter in the mail and it’s like, “You owe this person this much money” – where the hell did this even come from? “You’re doing this wrong; you’re doing this wrong” – so a lot of it was trial and error. We kind of mentioned this off the podcast, but like – we had the wrong business license for the first two years and had no idea.
New Speaker:
And clearing taxes and all those things – we were doing everything the right way, but we didn’t even have the right license. It wasn’t until we got our new tax person and went down to the government building and everything, and they were like, “Oh yeah, you should be doing this instead.” And we were like, “Aw shi -”
Jesse:
We ended up overpaying like almost $50,000 in taxes because we were filed as the wrong kind of business.
Liz:
Wow.
Jesse:
And so, like I said, trial and error. But when we got hit with our taxes that we owed, the next year after we fixed it – it was a fraction of what we owed (before). I literally was driving in my car when our CPA called us, and I was like, I almost started crying. We had set off so much money to the side to be able to pay (our taxes). And now that’s just an extra paycheck for us? It was like we got a bonus.
New Speaker:
And now we’re actually getting returns, which is – insane.
Liz:
That’s great. So, I think – family business, family drive, hard work. You have a passion, you decide – Yesterday’s Fits. I’m sure that we can sit here and talk for five hours because that’s really what I wanna do because I really wanna learn a whole lot more. But we’ll fast forward – Yesterday’s Fits. Tell us about the store itself. What was the beginning concept? What did you go into Yesterday’s Fits – or, maybe it wasn’t Yesterday’s Fits when you opened it? Tell us what that was like: opening up, what the concept of your store is, and how it’s going.
Jesse:
We were doing pop-ups and I had an Instagram account called Vegas Vintage Thrift, which is not appealing for the ear at all. But we were literally just set up as that. I still have our first business card for when we did a pop-up. There’s a store out here called Urban Necessities that does shoes mainly, but all streetwear. And we actually got – we walked in there to do some shopping. One of the employees like the jerseys that we were wearing. Started talking to him and he put us in touch with the owner. And the owner loved us.
Jesse:
We started selling stuff we introduced to the owner. Because we were thrifting and doing eBay and stuff like that. But the owner was actually having – they were having their two-year anniversary and they were doing this big thing where they were letting people come in to set up their booths or whatever. And he was like, “Hey, I really like you guys. I want to put you guys right at the front door of our store.”
New Speaker:
We had the prime spot, the first stop right at the door. And so, every time he walked out, he would stand next to us, check on us, how we were doing. We were also the youngest ones set up there, and he really loved the whole market we were bringing, because he had never ventured into it.
Jesse:
I don’t know exactly how old he was, but I know he was like early forties. And so, he was so in love with it because we were selling stuff that he grew up on in the 90s. And so, he was like, “Yeah, we’re gonna do this.” We ended up setting up there and I was still twenty at the time. He (Austin) was eighteen. And then my best friend set up with us, just to help us out. But that day we ended up doing 3500 bucks.
Liz:
Wow.
Doug:
Nice.
Jesse:
And this is off of vintage stuff. The vintage market right now is insane.
New Speaker:
It was off a few tees and mainly basketball jerseys.
Jesse:
We sold over half of our inventory and that was kind of an eye-opener for us. And so fast forward a little bit, a few months later, we end up doing another one at a shop that he (Austin) was working with – another shoe store. And then we did another with them for Valentine’s Day. Every time we did one, we made an extra thousand bucks or something like that.
Jesse:
It’s funny, I actually went through something – part of my personal life, with my girlfriend at the time. We’d been together for a long time. So, I was just being like a little loser, just driving down the street. And I drove by an empty lot. This was the first time we had hung out together in like a month, my girlfriend and me. We were driving by, and I was joking around. I was like, “What if we opened a store right there? Like Austin and I.” And she was just like, “What do you mean?”
Jesse:
And I was like, “Well, we’ve done these pop-ups. We’ve kind of talked about doing a store before, but never was serious about it.” And she goes, “Well, why don’t you call the realtor? We’re not doing anything. We can’t go to dinner for another two hours or get some reservation or whatever.”
Jesse:
I call him (the realtor) and he’s like, “Yeah, I can be there in 20 minutes.” So, we went in and – Austin has no idea.
New Speaker:
I’m in my business class.
Jesse:
This is like 3 o’ clock in the afternoon or whatever. It was so disgusting. Literally like – terrible part of Vegas, 80s green carpet. One of the doors, the glass was shattered so it was wood. There was a giant hole in the wall from a person who’d crawled through there and broke in and was squatting in there.
New Speaker:
Like they had literally punched out the hole in the wall. Our back door had to be rewelded ’cause it wouldn’t open.
Jesse:
Literally, I can feel this feeling again. I had like butterflies. And I was like, “This is perfect.” I’m in love with it.
New Speaker:
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Jesse:
My girlfriend’s looking at me and she goes, “Are you sure this is what you guys want?” And I’m like, “Yes.” I said, “How much you guys asking?” They’re asking like 1200 bucks or 1300 bucks, something like that. And she’s telling me, you know, “Can we do that? With the apartment too and blah, blah, blah,” and I was like, “Yeah, I can do it.” Like I know I can.
Jesse:
And she was like, “Okay.” So, I told the realtor, “Let me call my brother and let me get back to you tomorrow.” So, we’re driving – maybe two minutes after we get in the car and I’m calling him (Austin). I’m like, “We’re going to open a store.” And he’s like, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Jesse:
I was just like, “We’re gonna open a store.” He goes, “Are you serious?” And I said, “Yeah, lemme call mom and dad and we’ll run it by them.” We call them and they’re like, “What are you doing? Are you gonna do this with school or…?” Like all the parent questions.
Liz:
Yes, yes.
New Speaker:
The proper questions.
Jesse:
I could hear hesitation in their voice, but it was more so like, “Are you sure?” It wasn’t them saying, “Don’t do it.” But it was like, “Are you SURE?” And I was like, “Yeah.” So, I called (Austin) back and I said, “We’re gonna go put the down payment on it tomorrow.” And he’s like, “I haven’t even seen a spot. Like, are you sure this is what you want?” And I was like, “Yeah -”
Doug:
(laughing) “You don’t want to see it.”
Jesse:
Yeah! (laughing) For me, like I said, I was at this spot where I just wanted something for myself, because I had just went through that. I was 20 years old; you know what I’m saying? I was heartbroken and I was just like, “I want something.” Luckily, everybody supported me. He (Austin) hopped right on board and was like, “Let’s do this. I’m super excited.” And yeah, that’s how it started.
New Speaker:
We opened with a little less than five hundred pieces of clothing that came from our closets. And I got rid of thirteen pairs of my shoes.
Liz:
Wow. But five hundred from your own closet. So, that tells me a lot.
Jesse:
(laughing) Well, we had thrifted, it wasn’t all from our closets. But it was from about two weeks though – like, we went hard. We had one friend that thrifted also, and I just said, “Hey, stop selling on your own for two weeks. I’ll buy everything you find.” I would say he found us about 150 pieces. Then the rest came from our closets, what we were personally wearing, or stuff we found in those two weeks.
Jesse:
Because that’s what they said, like – “Hey, we’ll go in and patch up the wall. We’ll make sure the plumbing works, but that’s all we’re going to do.” But yeah, that’s what we opened (with). And when we were talking about the business licenses and everything – we actually put blankets all in front of the windows and we were selling like we were in prohibition or something.
Doug:
Like a speakeasy.
Jesse:
Yeah! We would just sell stuff super secretly for like two months. And then when our license finally came through – the wrong one – but our license that allowed us to open the doors came through and that’s when we started.
Doug:
So, you guys were selling online first and doing alright.
Jesse:
Yeah. I’d lived in Reno for a year of college. I had pretty much done it with my roommate and myself. We were making enough to pay our rent. And we each – I actually worked at a Savers thrift store. And so that helped a lot – got a 50% off discount for that. But I had already gotten to the point where I understood about how much I would need to live off, selling online. It wasn’t a lavish lifestyle at all, but at that time I was 18, 19.
New Speaker:
First year, I was sleeping on his couch. There was no point in me spending the money on an apartment that I was only going to be in for, max, 8 hours a day. And that’s max. So, they live on the other side of the city – my parents did. There was no point in going all the way back over there because I had at least 30 to 40 minutes of drive time, where he (Jesse) was 15 minutes. So, it was not lavish at all, but it got the job done.
Doug:
So where are you selling online now? And then, tell us about what you’re doing on social a little bit too.
Jesse:
So, we sell on five platforms right now. Our biggest – we have our own website, so we just do Shopify or e-commerce through there. And then – eBay, and GOAT, for shoes. StockX, (also) for shoes – not as much StockX but we do utilize it. And then we use Etsy, and Depop a little bit. Not as much as we should, but there’s only so much time in the day.
Liz:
Exactly, exactly.
Jesse:
Shopify and eBay are our two really, really big ones.
Liz:
Okay. And I would imagine that your social media platforms drive a lot to Shopify.
Jesse:
Yes. So, we post all of our product on Instagram, whether it be an actual page post in our (feed) or a story post. And so, our story posts is where we usually post like – the brand-new stuff we get, we’ll post it on there because it only stays up for 24 hours. So, we’d do it on there at a lower price than what they’d actually pay in-store for.
New Speaker:
So, for the next day – if the shirt is worth $40, we know we paid $10, we’ll put it on the story for $25. So that if someone wants to grab it for $25, they have the opportunity to make some money off of it. We made our money. So, you get a happy consumer, a happy seller, everything like that. And it’s all within the next day. And then if it doesn’t sell, we raise our prices and then it’ll still end up selling. Because it goes back to that real market value.
Liz:
Right, right! Applause from our audience for that great job. And I would imagine, if I were somebody looking at your Instagram and I saw that story, I’m not just buying that one shirt.
Jesse:
We have customers that we have, like, boxes for. Because they buy so much that we’re just like, “Hey, don’t pay the shipping every time. Like, we’ll start a box for you. When it fills, we’ll ship it.”
Doug:
Nice.
New Speaker:
They’ll buy two pieces this day, they won’t buy anything the next day. And then they’ll get six pieces the next day after that. It’s easier – if you know, guaranteed, that they’re gonna to come back, it’s worth it to build up on this so they save on shipping. Because shipping is $7 to $10 for every item you purchase. It adds up if you ship it individually. So, this way, they save money, and we save time and money and everything like that.
Doug:
So, I’m looking at your website now, and it’s interesting to me because my daughter is sixteen, and now she’s – and you know, vintage stuff is in – so she’s going through my t-shirts now.
Jesse:
Oh, nice!
Doug:
So, she grabbed one of my Duran Duran t-shirts and she wanted to wear that. And she wants to wear – she’s got her eye on one of my Smiths shirts. But the interesting thing is, she grabbed my – I know. (laughing)
New Speaker:
If you’re listing to this, don’t touch the Smiths shirts.
Doug:
If you guys get any through though – I mean, I’m a gigantic, like insane, Morrissey fan. We were down at – we drove by Caesar’s Palace the other night and I freaked out like, “Oh my God, Liz, Morrissey did a week-long residency.” And they have a store there. And the Morrissey store was the most profitable pop-up shop they’ve had in Caesar’s history.
Jesse:
Wow.
Doug:
And I was like, “Liz, is it still going to be there? I wanna go for Morrissey stuff.” I probably should have put more effort in. But then we went over there last night and I kind of looked around, but we ate dinner and then we left. But anyway, I digress. Yeah, I’ve got several Smiths, and I’m gonna wear a Morrissey shirt tonight.
New Speaker:
We do get Smiths tees.
Doug:
Alright, that’s good to know. And what was interesting too – Liz is gonna freak out because I’m digressing, but –
Liz:
(laughing) I do not!
Doug:
But the Morrissey shirt I’m wearing tonight was a bootleg I bought outside for ten bucks. Better than all the shirts inside.
Austin:
I believe it.
Doug:
Yeah. But anyway, back to my daughter, but it’s –
Liz:
No, it’s okay, you said that and they just, like, popped out of their chairs like –
Doug:
Well, I’m glad you know who Morrissey and The Smiths are. Yeah, I actually did get rid of some of my old shirts. You guys don’t even want to know the shirts that I had that I got rid of at one point.
Austin:
I can imagine. I’m scared to know.
Doug:
Yeah, I’ve seen some of them online now and I’m like, “Shit, I had that shirt.” Sorry.
Austin:
Well, if you have any that you’re looking to get rid of, just let us know.
Doug:
(laughing) Alright, I’ll let you guys know. Yeah but, it was funny. My daughter grabbed my Duran Duran shirt and she’s like, “Okay, who’s the singer?” And we told her, and then she’s like, “Okay, well I know a couple of songs in case” – because she has a little bit of anxiety in case somebody asks her. You know, Kendall Jenner is not wanting to know who the singer from Metallica is.
Austin:
It happens all the time now. When people come into the store and they’ll be buying stuff – you can hear like, their friends are talking and they’ll be like, “Do you even listen to them?” Like people wear Metallica tees, and I know people will go up to you and be like, “Name 3 Metallica songs.”
Jesse:
It’s like, I don’t know, so I don’t wear this stuff. (laughing)
Austin:
It’s just funny, though. It actually happens all the time.
Jesse:
But I think, well, I’m not wearing this, but I’m also anxious that someone’s going to ask me. I’m scared.
Liz:
I think it’s you! (Doug)
Doug:
(laughing) That would ask – “Come here!”
Liz:
No, I think it’s YOU that’s not thinking about it.
Doug:
What am I not thinking about?
Liz:
Everybody else is wondering, “Oh, if I wear this, do I know that person? You’re the only one -”
Doug:
‘Cause I’ll go up to somebody in a Ramones shirt. And I’ll be like, I saw the Ramones twice and bumped into Johnny Ramone coming out of the bathroom at the House of Blues in Hollywood.
Jesse:
Wow.
Doug:
Name three songs, something like that. I’m 51. So, I saw a lot of shows back in the day. Yeah, but I’ve got Misfits, Metallica, Nirvana. I see a lot of those on the celebs.
Austin:
Yeah, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Doug:
You’re right.
Liz:
Pretty much all the t-shirts that we threw away.
Austin:
Yeah, exactly.
Liz:
So, I’m sitting here, taking it all in, listening to this conversation. And I know earlier on, you told us at the beginning, it was a struggle. I’m going to assume that it’s not that big of a struggle anymore.
Jesse:
Different struggle.
Liz:
It’s a different struggle. What was that transition? What made that struggle different?
Jesse:
Like I said, it’s two different struggles now. The first one, what made it different was Austin and I quitting our jobs. It was literally just getting the balls to do it – sorry, but just literally doing that. ‘Cause mind you, I was making $100 or $200 in tips a day.
Austin:
I was doing about $200 to $300 in tips a night. And that was working five days a week. So, you see, it’s hard to leave that. And it was instant cash – at the end of the night, it’s not taxed. It’s a straight tip.
Jesse:
Especially at our age, too.
Austin:
To make that every night and still get a paycheck? It’s hard to leave that. Because you bank on it. Like, “Okay, I made $200. Tomorrow I can go get my lunch and dinner paid for.” And I don’t even have to worry about bills, don’t have to worry about anything like that. So, it was hard to leave that.
Jesse:
But I think we were either – we were there, but we weren’t physically there because we were so tired, or we just didn’t have the help. We didn’t have these relationships with people that could help us (get) to what we needed. Like we had people that can watch the store. Even our parents can help us watch the store if we needed to, but – it was the ability to consign, do the trades, really run the business. Even just paying the bills, all that kind of stuff.
Jesse:
And so, that struggle to me was when it was like, “Okay, we have to quit our jobs. We can’t stay one foot in one foot out. We really have to do this.” And it only took about a few months after I quit my job that we saw such a drastic change. And then he (Austin) was comfortable like, “Okay, I can quit also.” We just decided – like he was making a little bit more than I was. So, we were like, “Hey, let’s keep you at your job. Let me quit first.” So then that way, “Hey, if we’re a little bit low on rent, you can work a few days and we’ll get it taken care of.” Once we both quit, that’s when it was just such a drastic change. And that struggle was just completely gone.
Jesse:
There is not enough time to do everything that we want to do – or every opportunity that comes up. We’re trying to expand right now. So, we’re trying to figure out flights from here to there –
Austin:
Business calls, Zoom meetings, getting in touch with all the lawyers while still running this store. Have to manage eBay, have to manage the website, have to manage the Instagram.
Jesse:
It’s more than just selling clothes.
Austin:
Now it’s a real concept that you have to create a team to help with everything. It’s not just us two anymore. Now we have to start getting other people to work with us and really grind with us.
Doug:
Did you guys have something you wanted to be when you grew up, or some dream?
Jesse:
Well, I wanted to be a basketball player and then I stopped growing. (laughing) Like I’m good enough to be better than most guys in a regular gym, but nowhere near professional level.
Doug:
Alright.
Jesse:
I knew I wanted to do something of business. I didn’t know – we’ve always resold and stuff like that, but I never really thought when we were younger, that that’s what we were going to do. I went into Business Management and Marketing Sports. Because I figured, if I’m not going to play, I want to be in the atmosphere. And that’s still like a dream of mine – like not to do the work of it, but just to be at the games all the time. Because we love sports more than anything. That was me, and then, like I said, I stopped growing, so I was like, “I better figure something out.”
Austin:
And then for me, I was very involved in the whole kitchen scene, the whole restaurant scene. So, I did catering for nine years. I moved to Wyoming to be a sous chef. After a month of being there, I got promoted to a head chef. Was there for four months after that and then came back to finish my senior year of high school. Planned on being a chef. That’s why I went and got the restaurant job, because I was gonna need every bit of experience. So, I’ve been a host, a busser, food runner, barback, sous chef, head chef, line chef.
Austin:
So that was where my whole mind was going. I liked it, and I liked my shoes. I was in the kitchen breaking in my Jordans. I’d always get the comments of like, “Why are you in those?” I was like, “It’s just what I like.” It’s my whole scene for it.
Austin:
And so, in high school we had this thing called “Personal Project.” So, your freshman year through your senior year, you work on one project. And every year, at the end of the year, you have to develop that one thing. And I built this whole business plan to basically have my own bar and room. And it was kind of like an Applebee’s type of style of Buffalo Wild Wings, with all the stuff that’s on the walls that you can buy – you can buy the clothes, buy the frames, the jerseys, stuff like that. So when (Jesse) brought up the whole store idea, that’s where my mind went first. I was like, “Okay, this is gonna be my start into it and we’d go from there.” But I always thought I’d be a chef.
Liz:
I think that most resellers, that’s kind of a theme, right? Like, I never, in a million years thought that I would be doing this.
Doug:
You just fall into it, kinda thing.
Liz:
You do. It’s either – well, what were we talking about last night, Doug? It was, you either do it out of desperation or you had a plan, or you fell into it.
Doug:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, look, I mean, Liz is twenty-eight. I’m 51.
Liz:
(laughing) Thanks Doug.
Doug:
And you know, we’re podcasters. Biggest piece of selling advice that you would give to somebody starting out.
Austin:
It’s not about making a million dollars off of one piece. It’s about moving more pieces to get that client to come back. Yeah, you can make a hundred dollars off of one shirt and it takes you two months, or you can make $20 off of it, turn that money you just had into buying 4 other pieces, where you’re going to make $20 off of them. But now you have five happy customers instead of one. And you got them to be looking for you to help provide what they’re looking for. So, moving volume is more important. It’s more about quick flips instead of sitting on it and waiting. It takes too long.
Jesse:
For me, it’s just consistency. Like post. If you strictly want to sell on eBay – ’cause I’m sure most of your listeners do or if the people at this convention do – just post every single day. I don’t care if it’s one item, five items, its however many you get done. But it is – as much as they don’t want to believe, there is an algorithm. However, that works, I don’t understand it, but I know it exists for everything that’s online. So, the more you post, obviously, the more you boost that. So that’s something, even with me for our eBay account – I’ll make sure that I list twenty items a day. We’ll sell ten items a day when I’m doing that. High dollar items, low dollar items. But if I go 2 or 3 days where I don’t list anything, we’re selling two items a day, So it’s all about that.
Jesse:
Even if you only have 50 to 100 items, like, break it up. If you go score some – you find twelve pieces in a day or whatever. Break it up so you’re listing 3 or 4 of those items a day. Even if you do all the work on one day and then you just list it remotely from your phone or whatever but break it up. Do items every single day. And if you’re on social media, post every day. Instead of posting five things in one day – that’s all you have – post one thing a day, repost stuff in your story so other people are seeing it. It’s just all about the systems.
Austin:
It doesn’t happen fast. The whole resale game is not about quick money. It’s more about long-term money, you’re in it for the long run. So, if you’re looking to do quick money, you’re gonna have a problem, because you’re gonna find your financial investments are flopping in and out. You do well on one piece and then terrible on the next one. If you plan for the long run, you’re always consistently, slowly going up. You’re not leaving room for that error – instead, you’re working your way through it as you go. Instead of finding the error that you missed two months down the road.
Liz:
Instagram, we talked about Instagram. Are you on any other social media platforms? Or do you stick solely to Instagram?
Austin:
We have other platforms. Instagram is our biggest by far. We have a Facebook, but we’re terrible at using it. Um, I mean like we have a Facebook we’re terrible at using it.
Jesse:
We DON’T use it, that’s what he’s trying to say. (laughing).
Austin:
We have a Twitter. Tik TOK is probably our next big thing right now. We don’t know why, but TikTok is the way to go right now. If you can capture someone’s attention in six seconds…
Doug:
We can talk about that.
Liz:
(wheeze) You said TikTok, and his face just went –
Jesse:
Seriously, so our first good experience with – well, it’s all been good, but our great experience with TikTok. We were doing videos. We were trying to get our followers from Instagram onto TikTok. It’s slowly transferring over – we got about 35,000 on Instagram and 6,000 on TikTok. We were making videos, constantly getting about 1000, 2000 views or whatever. And that was cool. It was translating, it was getting sales on our website and everything.
Jesse:
And then out of nowhere, I made this goofy video about a sale that we were going to have the next day. It was just sporadic. I literally walked up, and I said, “Hey, we’ve got a bunch of $5 items. We’re gonna do a sale tomorrow.” This was on Friday night, six o’clock at night or whatever. Let’s just do a sale tomorrow, just clean out some of this – but not like this giant sale that’s promoted. Just like a “Hey guys, we’re doing a $5 table tomorrow. Come by.” I threw one Fortnite Astroworld Travis Scott shirt in there. It sells for like forty bucks. And I just threw it into the pile like, “Hey guys, this will be in our $5 pile tomorrow.” It blew up and got like 170,000 views overnight. And the next day we had a line of people that we’ve never seen before wrapped around our building.
Doug:
Amazing.
Austin:
And then we had people coming up to our counter, and they had a handful of things. And we’d be like, “Oh, is this your first time coming in here?” and they’d be like, “Oh yeah, we saw you on TikTok yesterday.” We were like, “What? Like, actually?” And they were like, “Yeah.” There was probably a 20-30% margin of our customers that day (that) all came strictly from TikTok. They had never heard of us; they’d been living here for years. And that was what caught their attention.
Liz:
That 30-second clip.
Jesse:
Yeah, if it was even that. It just happened like that.
Doug:
If I was you guys, I would keep doing stuff on Instagram, and I would start posting insanely on TikTok because the algorithm’s insane. It adjusts, just like this, and you can post stuff and you don’t have to have a ton of followers to get something (to) go viral. I think TikTok’s the spot right now – and social commerce. You’re going to be able to sell from there. You guys are smart.
Jesse:
So, what I like about TikTok too, is you can link the website.
Doug:
That’s true.
Jesse:
On a lot of social media, you can’t do this.
Austin:
My roommate works at Honda. And he likes to do TikToks with different cars to drive, and just do reviews on it. But he works in the garage now and he did like, oil changes. He literally did one video where it was 6 seconds long. All he did was take the oil cap off, and so oil started coming out, and put sound on it. Overnight, it had 1.3 million views.
Liz:
Wow.
Austin:
And he translated it to a couple thousand followers, and it was all just off that one. So, the next day, he did the same thing, just with a different car. One million views. We were just like – and he has less than a couple thousand followers. He only had a hundred or two at the time. And it’s just – TikTok is insane. You don’t have to have followers. You don’t have to have anything. You just have one video, and it can be 6 seconds, or it can be, now, a minute. And it can blow up.
Jesse:
And that fact that it’s mobilized.
Liz:
You have to find a time to use it. And especially when you have a product like yours, and that is your main customer base. It’s like crazy ideas. And I constantly have dreams for companies like you to get those viral TikToks and explode because it can happen.
Austin:
Yeah. And the bright side behind it too is – it puts a face to a name, more than anything.
Doug:
Yeah, exactly.
Austin:
You get people in it; you get them active. If you buy products from somewhere you don’t know the story behind, you don’t know who they are – you’re more inclined to not come back. Whereas if you see a face and you know what’s going on behind those, you see how they move in business and how they move in life. You’re more inclined to come back to them and continue supporting.
Liz:
Yes.
Doug:
Well, that’s like you said, too – you guys want to develop relationships with customers ’cause that’s a smart way to do it. And people are gonna be loyal. They’re gonna come to you. And that’s a great way to do it too.
Liz:
What is next for Yesterday’s Fits?
Jesse:
Next? Immediately, we just bought a spot, a few spots down from our brick-and-mortar location that we’re using for expansion for our e-commerce. We call it “warehouse.” That’s where we’re gonna be doing all of our eBay storage, our listing. It’s actually cool ’cause the plot has eight rooms in it. I think it used to be an old office building. So, we’re gonna be able to do content in one room, do all the photography and everything in another room, and then storage in the other ones. Then immediately after that, we just signed paperwork to be able to open a store in Miami.
Liz:
Nice!
Jesse:
That is coming up and hopefully it will be open in January, February as long as there’s no road bumps.
Doug:
That’s awesome. Congrats.
Liz:
Jesse, Austin. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am so happy for your success and what’s to come. Definitely following you – gonna get on TikTok, maybe we’ll make one, one day. I think we just tried to make a live TikTok, and it failed. We gave up. (laughing) So maybe you can help us get online here in a minute. But again, thank you so much.
Doug:
Yeah, thanks guys, it was cool having you. And yeah, congratulations and best of luck on everything.
Outro
Liz:
Oh my gosh, Doug. These guys are simply amazing, and I wish the absolute best for them. What a great, great interview.
Doug:
Yeah, and so fun to talk to – cool story, they’re doing cool things. I think we will keep in touch with them, and at some point we will get out to their store – maybe next year at the Reseller Remix. You too can follow them on Instagram and TikTok @yesterdays_fits and check out their website at yesterdaysfits.com. Their flagship store is in fabulous Las Vegas.
Liz:
Yes! So we’ve got some news this week! A little bit of news, and then we’re gonna close it out – but we have some news. I will bring the first bit of news – great news, I do not have to be the bearer of bad news this week. Normally Doug puts that on me, but I’m gonna get ahead of him this week. List Perfectly users – so, every plan has some sort of photo-editing feature. Depending on the plan that you’re subscribed to, of course, you get a little bit more with each plan upgrade. For the Pro Plan, List Perfectly has PhotoRoom integrated, which means that PhotoRoom, directly in your List Perfectly listing flow, can remove the backgrounds of your photos. When this was introduced a couple of months ago, you got 500 background removals (per month). Well, this past weekend, List Perfectly announced that they have doubled that to 1000 background removals per month – and that runs on calendar month. So, you get double the PhotoRoom background removal integration in your List Perfectly Pro Plan for 0 extra dollars. They’re just including it for you.
Doug:
And that’s a lot. 1000 is a lot. That maybe even comes close to covering Liz’s listings! And PhotoRoom’s rad. If you haven’t seen it – I mean, it blows me away. I know I say this over and over, but it’s true. It’s the best photo background remover tool that I’ve seen out there.
Liz:
Yeah, and some people are paying $10 a month simply for PhotoRoom. So if you’re one of those people that are using List Perfectly, and you’re not on the Pro Plan, and you’re using PhotoRoom, you might want to look into if a 1000 removals a month will work for you. You can make that upgrade to the Pro Plan, get all of the other benefits and features that comes with it, and simply use your background remover directly in your listing flow. So something to consider, but that was a big announcement this week.
Doug:
That’s a big one. I like that one – a big List Perfectly announcement. And then we have a couple eBay news tidbits. So eBay started testing immediate payment for offers. We talked about this a little bit, but tell us about that, Liz.
Liz:
Yeah, so we talked a little bit about it in the livecast, but a couple of sellers – I think I first saw it on Rockstar Flipper’s YouTube – that somebody had sent in a screenshot. When they went to go make an offer, it asked for their payment information upfront. So eBay is rolling out, testing, or starting to make immediate payment for all listings required. It’s something that eBay has talked about for the last year, saying that they’re gonna get it rolling out. It looks like it’s starting.
Doug:
That’s cool. All right, Liz, can I take this next one?
Liz:
You take this next one, Doug!
Doug:
Because you know, even though my son says that my TikToks are so weird and I don’t know what I’m doing – which, I’ll kind of agree with him, I gotta up my TikTok game – but I do love TikTok. Liz, did you know that TikTok is now available on Amazon Fire? So you can use your Fire Stick in the U.S. and Canada, and you can access TikTok.
Liz:
I did see that! But why is this cool, and why should sellers think about this?
Doug:
Things like this – these integrations are always kind of a precursor of things to come. So it’s interesting that you’re gonna be able to – and you know, people use TikTok for different things. Obviously if you want to scroll through and look at videos – that type of thing, there’s so much on there. And obviously for us – the thing we always think about is the application to online selling and online buying. What’s Alexa gonna do with Amazon? Are there some other partnerships coming up? Are you going to be able to buy and sell? I would imagine if you’ve got full interactivity with your TikTok, at some point, you’ll be able to buy and sell via your Amazon Fire Stick – via your Amazon Fire TV, via TikTok. Because they’re really starting to push online selling.
Liz:
Yeah, that’s exactly what crossed my mind. We’ve been talking about TikTok for sellers. We’ve been talking about the beta testing for Shopify. This is what I find really cool. So you can just go – if you have a fire TV, you can just say, “Alexa, open TikTok,” right? Here’s the difference: when you’re on your phone, scrolling TikTok, you literally have to put your finger to the screen and swipe, right? I’ll get on TikTok and I’ll scroll on my phone. You have to put your finger to the screen, and swipe, swipe, swipe. Every once in a while, I’ll put my phone down. I’ll have to go do something, and my AirPods are in, and my phone is sitting on the counter, and I’m listening to the same TikTok – over and over and over – until I can get back to my phone to continue swiping. I don’t know if that’s just me! I know I probably have some tolerance level, but whatever. What I like about this is you can just say, “Alexa, open TikTok” and your Fire TV will open TikTok. And you can view your TikTok feeds from your “For You” or your “Following” (pages). And it will automatically scroll for you.
Doug:
That is nice.
Liz:
So, if you’re in the kitchen making dinner and you’ve got your TV on, it can just automatically update for you. And if you’re somebody selling something, and you show up on that “For You” page or the “Following” page, you’re gonna be playing!
Doug:
What you said, too, is triggering me, Liz – not in a bad way! You said “Alexa” a few times. So what you have to think about is voice shopping, because you can shop via Alexa right now on Amazon. This happens regularly – you get a notification and you’re like, “Oh Alexa, what’s my notifications?” “Oh, by the way, Meredith, you need to order more aprons” – you know, things like that. But voice shopping is a whole new emerging thing on Amazon, and hopefully expanding from there. I mean, it’s an Amazon tool, but think of the Google tools as well. And then Siri and all that – you can shop those ways. And Google had an integration with eBay. That’s another avenue that’s kind of been lagging a bit, but I think this is the next gen stuff. And you’ve got to think about how all these things are getting to different levels and to different things. Then you start thinking about the metaverse and how everything’s gonna be virtual and maybe we all become little Bitmojis –
Liz:
Doug…let’s slow down…I think that the whole metaverse – that’s just a whole ‘nother episode.
Doug:
Now wait a minute, Liz.
Liz:
Oh no.
Doug:
Do you have a Bitmoji yet? A little blonde Bitmoji?
Liz:
I don’t know what Bitmoji is – I don’t know. Maybe?
Doug:
You may be shocked, but I have one! It’s got the glasses, it’s got the hair –
Liz:
Is it that thing you make on Facebook? Like in your stickers or something?
Doug:
It’s literally a little cartoon version of you. That’s gonna be the metaverse. Liz is gonna go around, getting into adventures, traveling the world –
Liz:
An exhausted cartoon character of me does not sound like fun.
Doug:
That’d be “Kung Fu Liz,” traveling the world, getting into Bitmoji adventures.
Liz:
Oh my goodness. Yeah, I think that that’s just a whole other conversation for another episode.
Doug:
You need a Bitmoji. The metaverse is coming, folks!
Liz:
For now, we’re gonna have to deal with TikTok on your Fire TV.
Doug:
Liz is trying to reel me back in.
Liz:
Reeling you back in, Doug! I think that’s about all the news that we have for this week. Going back to Jesse and Austin – I mean, what a great interview! We wanted to give you as much as possible from what they had to share with us.
Doug:
Another action-packed episode, Liz.
Liz:
I hope everybody enjoyed that interview as much as I did. And thank you so much for joining us this week on the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly!
Doug:
We had Austin and Jesse, a List Perfectly update, and even some exciting seller news, Liz.
Liz:
And as a reminder, you can find us at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. Or, email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com. You can also post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook Group – use the hashtag: #sellercommunitypodcast, or tag me or Doug.
Doug:
And remember if you want podcasts stickers, just send your address to podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com. Say, “I would like stickers” and we’ll send you some stickers. Don’t get crazy! If it gets out of hand, I’ll have you send a self-addressed stamped envelope. Also, remember you can leave us a message at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. And leave that message! You get 60 seconds. You can leave a comment, leave a message. Tell us why you think you should be on the show. Episodes drop every Wednesday. Listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe, tell your friends, share the love. And if you listen to us on Apple, we’d love for you to leave us a review on Apple.
Liz:
Yes, we would! Also, if you’re on Instagram or TikTok, you can follow us on either. I am @coloradoreworn on both. Doug is @snoop.dougie on both. And of course, be sure to follow @listperfectly on both platforms.
Doug:
And you know what, here’s the teaser – we need to get to 1000 followers so we can go live. There you go. Across the board. The craziness will ensue!
Liz:
Doug doesn’t even post on TikTok, but he’s so excited to get a thousand followers. Give your followers something to watch!
Doug:
I gotta get into the “Liz spin” and stuff, fancy stuff like that. That’s why my son’s like, “You just post a weird graphic and used an old song, you need to up your game.”
Liz:
Okay, Doug, look, we’re friends, but he’s kinda got a point.
Doug:
Yeah, I know, I know. I gotta do it.
Liz:
I know, who’s got time, right? We’re busy recording and selling stuff.
Doug:
Alright, Liz –
Liz:
Get some background music –
Doug:
I’m gonna get my crop top –
Liz:
Nobody’s asking for crop tops and yoga pants!
Doug:
Well, you never know who might ask –
Liz:
We can leave the crop tops and leggings. Nobody’s looking for all that.
Doug:
I don’t want to perpetuate a TikTok stereotype, Liz…
Liz:
Yeah, I think we’ve moved on from that. Okay, bye.
Doug:
Byeee ~
Liz:
(laughing) We should end every episode – okay bye. Thanks, Doug. And we will see you next week!