Overview
In episode four, we chat with Theresa Cox, clubred97, about her seller journey, and experience with List Perfectly. We talk seller mentoring, eBay Seller School, and seller resources. We discuss the eBay Seller Update, and have some Seller News.
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.
Links
thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast
Seller Community Podcast on Anchor
Episode Four Links
BOSS Facebook Group
eBay Selling Basics Nothing But eBay Basics
Ilovetobeselling.com
Shipping on Marketplace Facebook Group
eBay for Business YouTube
eBay Seller Update
eBay Seller School
eBay Community
Transcript
Intro
Liz:
I’m Liz…
Doug:
And I’m Doug, welcome to the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. This is episode four, four weeks in, a month. Very exciting. The Seller Community Podcast is produced by List Perfectly every week for your listening enjoyment and your listing enjoyment and show notes are found at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. So that’s where you’ll find the links and supplemental info. You can stream it there. Let’s, let’s get into it. Liz.
Liz:
So Doug, this week, we are talking with Theresa Cox from club red, 97. We’ll talk seller community, um, eBay list perfectly and so much more. We also want to get into a little bit of seller mentoring. Talk a little bit about eBay seller school and other resources for the selling community.
Doug:
We’ll have seller shout outs. We’ll answer some seller questions. We’ll have the news.
Liz:
Let’s get started with our feature guest, Theresa Cox.
Theresa Cox
Liz:
Today it is my pleasure to welcome to the show. The one, the only known as club red, 97, Teresa Cox, Theresa. Welcome so much. Thank you for joining us today.
Theresa:
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here. I’m excited for this podcast. I’m excited for what you guys are doing, bringing all the online, selling community together. It’s going to be fabulous and I’m excited for you.
Liz:
Well, thank you so much.
Doug:
Yeah. Thanks for being here. It’s very exciting,
Liz:
Theresa and I do know each other, we met back at eBay Open. I remember it was my first eBay Open. I knew nobody. I was a brand new full-time seller. I was in the audience. There was this lady on stage, all red. And I remember I was just listening intently and I heard, you know, what “shut up and list.” And I was like, that’s my kind of sound shut up and list. Like, how easy is that? Right. Fast forward to the last night of eBay open we’re at Brooklyn Bowl somehow through the concert and the loud noise two hardcore eBay sellers are in the middle of all this talking about shipping to APO addresses.
Theresa:
Yelling.
Liz:
So that’s how I was introduced to Theresa. You know, I remember leaving there. I’m like, I just talked to the shut up and listen lady.
Theresa:
I am happy to be here. I’m happy to help support you with this. I think this is a fabulous idea. I love what you and Doug are doing. Bringing all the different communities together, cause we really are one big reseller community and you and I met each other through the eBay community, which I think is the biggest and the best frankly, just because it’s been around for awhile, you know, it is. I am part of the eBay community. I love that family. I call them stranger friends. Yeah.
Liz:
And for me to Theresa, it was kind of similar to what Liz had said. So I was on the community team and then we, my first eBay Open, you were on the list of people I had to meet and I’m pretty sure you were at the top. And we met and I was very overwhelmed at my first eBay Open and you were very nice and kind.
Theresa:
Well, thank you. You’re too kind. And I do, I really am an eBay girl and I really do love my eBay seller community.
Liz:
Yes, and I was going to say, so, you know, we met through eBay, but our friendship has grown beyond, beyond just knowing each other. And it’s also grown beyond just selling on eBay. I think the two of us have both, you know, found this huge online community of resellers across multiple platforms. You’re very active in the reseller community at large. How do you stay so active? Where do you find the time to learn all of this and stay active across all of the platforms?
Theresa:
You know, um, I like everyone else, you know, this is my, uh, this is what I do. This is what I love. It’s my passion. It is my full-time job. And so how do I stay active? I have a Facebook group and a local meetup group that focuses mainly on eBay, but we allow questions and posts from all online selling platforms. And you know, Facebook for all its faults it still remains the best, social media site for groups and communities to communicate, share information, share pictures, ask questions, post a picture of a signature and ask somebody what it is. It’s just the way that Facebook allows threads to stay together it just makes it the perfect platform for what we do. And so, you know, um, it is, it is a way to meet friends and we add new members too.
Theresa:
And Liz is also, she’s an admin because you know, we’re friends and she’s a great, she’s a huge asset to the reseller community as well. And so she’s an admin in our BOSS Facebook group and, and so, uh, we share ideas and, and help other sellers and ask questions ourselves. And, you know, monthly, I do have a, well before the pandemic, we met monthly for a eBay sellers, local meetup group. And so actually I just announced this morning, we’re going to start doing them virtually this year. So yeah, so that’s, that’s why I stay connected with it. And you know, just, expanding to, I mean, other Facebook groups where I contribute with my eBay knowledge or my other seller knowledge, it’s that connection, that community connection.
Liz:
So why do you think it’s important for a platform to stay connected with its seller community? And who’s doing a great job at that and who isn’t in your opinion?
Theresa:
I think that the seller community is the backbone for every platform. Now to give you another answer that you might not get from any sellers is I think it’s important for every platform to reach out to their sellers, to get feedback and information on, on what works and what doesn’t. So sellers provide suggestions and tips, ideas to make the platform better for all. And eBay is good at it in the sense that I do work with a lot of teams. I mean, I like to, to reach out, to tell people like, “hey, it would be better if you have this button at the top or than the bottom, and this page is too wide and this would be better if this word,” so List Perfectly as another company that’s doing it well, in my opinion, we have a Facebook group and, they have a feature request button right in their, online site. And so if you have an idea, suggestion, you can easily submit it. So I think that those kinds of things are things that if you’re a developer and you’re a programmer or an engineer, you may not think that it’s important, but for a seller that’s, you know, constantly listing things right. In a row, it’s easier to do it alphabetically to find the color red. So why would you want to list anything that wasn’t red? Scrolling up and down to find where it is in the list?
Liz:
I noticed, you’ve mentioned eBay a couple of times. For the two of us and well, Doug has worked there, but eBay is our native platform. We know you’re a big eBay fan. I’ve rolled into Phoenix to visit. And I’m like, I need to find out where she lives. Let me stop and text her. And I look up at front of me and I see a license plate that says, eBay girl. I’m like, nevermind, follow that car. That’s in front of me because I knew it was you. Right?
Theresa:
Yeah. Liz, found our rental car. I was headed over to my Airbnb where a couple of other sellers were meeting us. And, she texted me. I think you texted a picture of my car. Like I’m following you.
Liz:
You’re a huge fan. Can you tell us a little bit about that, about your enthusiasm and really love for the platform? You’ve been on the platforms for over 25 years.
Theresa:
Yeah. So eBay is where I started. 25 years ago. I will always be an eBay girl because of that and because of the fabulous eBay community. And I think the eBay community differentiates eBay from all the other platforms. I love that the eBay executives make themselves available to sellers via social media. They’re in Facebook groups, they respond to issues or questions when they can, a lot of the execs will, make time to meet with sellers. I mean, if you have a chance to, and not even just the executives, the employees, I mean like Doug. Doug’s job was to be part of the community, but, you know, just to reach out and to listen, to recognize there’s a lot of sellers that just want to be acknowledged that what they do is real and what it matters. And it’s, it’s, you know, I’m fortunate enough that I don’t have that situation, but, you know, we, we all went into it, sellers where, you know, I’m a spouse or significant other isn’t as supportive of what they’re doing because they don’t see the value. So that’s another instance where, you know, having been in the community is, is it just differentiates from the other platforms. I think it’s part of the eBay foundation. I think it’s part of eBay being around for so long. But eBay definitely created the roadmap for it. That’s for sure.
Liz:
That I agree with, I mean, I would have never met you had I not gone to an eBay event, Doug, I wouldn’t have either like you, you know, starting a meetup. That’s how I met Doug is through eBay meetup and at an Open. Right. So definitely those events.
Doug:
What’s your single, if you had to pick one single favorite, eBay memory?
Theresa:
I’ve got two that stick out immediately. One is, you know, from the seller side and one from the employee side. The first of course is when I was asked to speak on main stage at eBay open in 2017, I was up there for, you know, all of three or four minutes talking with Bob Kupbens about promoted listings, but the rush of hearing my selling colleagues and friends cheer me on as they called me up to the stage was a feeling that I’ll never forget. And it’s a feeling that I wish all my seller friends could experience at least once in their career. And it was just, it was, it was this special treatment I got, I mean, literally I was on stage for three or four minutes. That was so much fun. I would have never thought that doing a photoshoot could be fun for me.
Theresa:
And it wasn’t, it was just, it was a blast. And I can look at those pictures and remember how much fun I had doing that. Another one has to do with an invite that I got with two other sellers to speak at Jay Hansons, all hands meeting at eBay’s headquarters. And we were asked to talk about our experiences with a few different products and answer a few questions. And it was a pretty low key type of meeting until Harry introduced the sellers and invited us up on the stage and all of the employees in the room, this was an end. If you’ve ever been to eBay headquarters, it’s the big room right off the main lobby. It’s what they use for special events. And it was packed. And when Harry called us, introduced us and called us up on a stage, every employee in that room stood up and cheered and whistled for us and gave us a standing ovation and embraced us as if we were rockstars.
Theresa:
And I was like, that was just such a different, like, that was an emotion I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect that kind of a welcome. We answered questions on stage and did our thing. For sellers that think that eBay doesn’t care about us, I’m here to tell you that the people and the employees do and the teams that work tirelessly on specific products, they do, they want to be a part of creating the platform that helps sellers succeed. And I wish every seller the opportunity to feel that from the employees and if they are active and attend any eBay Open or any eBay sponsored event, I encourage every seller to go to attend, to talk to the employees because you will, you will really feel what they feel like they want us to succeed. So I, I mean, I get it. I take it a little personally when somebody says, you know, eBay doesn’t care like, yeah, you don’t understand they do, because I know David and I know Shelley and I know Twan and Harry and like, they all care.
Liz:
Yeah. That’s awesome. I could, I mean, I see your pictures. I’ve seen the pictures, right. And every time I look at them and I can see the room and I’m like, if you like pan out to the members of the audience, like the employees at eBay, they, their smiles are just as big.
Theresa:
I’ve visited eBay headquarters, AKA the mothership, a number of times, it’s a magical place for sellers. And I’ve always been treated like a VIP whenever I go, if I show up on my own, or if I, if I’m invited by an employee or an executive. EBay employees love and value sellers input and feedback, and employees truly feel honored to have the opportunity to speak to sellers and hear what they have to say. And they want to hear from us. They want to know what we like and what we don’t like and what we think could be made better. Now that said, eBay is a huge ship. And if I say, “Hey, it would be great if we had this,” you know, it’s not that easy to just go and make this happen. And I’ve learned that by working with the different teams, because I think, well, it’s just easy. I tease them all the time, right. Click insert column, and you’re done. Right. And because it’s so big, it’s so complicated. It’s, it’s just, it takes a long time for somethings to get fixed that we think are just little.
Liz:
You know, I can second that, you know, I did meet Doug, eBay sent him out, to help start this meetup and together, and really just to interview, write about eBay sellers. And one of the inputs, I was like, “Hey, since I have your ear, I know your community content, but you know, it would be great to have,” because I was showing him my process as a seller. “It would be great. If on mobile, we can have the custom ski right there on the sold.” It took a year. But as soon as I saw that I was pulling inventory one day and I looked at my phone, I took a screenshot and I immediately texted. I was like, Oh my gosh, you made this happen. Like this happened. I’m sure that there were about 3,000 or 7,000 other sellers that may have inputted that
Theresa:
It doesn’t matter whether it was yours, yeah. It’s like sometimes I tell people all the time, sometimes it takes 3,000 people making the same request for eBay to realize that, hey, this is what sellers want.
Liz:
Right. So the point is definitely bring it up and Theresa, and I know you can attest to this too, but when you’re listing on eBay, there is a Tell Us What You Think on most pages.
Theresa:
On every page, there’s either a comment link, or Tell Us What You Think, feedback something along those lines. If you click on that, what that does is it takes, it creates whatever information you send to them. It sends it to the team that is responsible for that page. And every team that I’ve ever worked with has always made it a point to tell me, we read every single one of them. We may not respond to them. They don’t respond to most of them, but they read every single one,
Doug:
You know, and honestly it’s like you said, Theresa, they want the feedback. And they look at the feedback. It’s super important that people know about that and that they can give that feedback directly to the teams or when they put the emails out that they, you know, they want to get that feedback or do they launch something in the online community? Where do they want to hear feedback? They really do want that feedback though, too. And it’s important because a lot of eBay employees don’t really get to interact with sellers. So when they do, they’re super excited, you know, when they do events or when sellers come on site, it’s great for them to touchbase with the sellers because they don’t see them a lot, unless you’re on like literally the seller engagement team or the community team that also fosters, you know, to me, there’s the online community and the offline community, which is part of the bigger community.
Liz:
So that’s amazing. And we’ve done so much talk about eBay, but as I sit here and I think about it, you know, there’s Theresa pre eBay, like this amazing journey into eBay. Would you mind telling us what you did before you started eBay and then why you started eBay?
Theresa:
Absolutely. I mean, I had a full time 30 year career in higher ed doing finance and operations. And I started out, working in my local community college in Torrance, California, El Camino. And then I moved to university of Southern California in 1994. So that’s pre eBay. Yeah. And then I remember at the time, so I was in the engineering department and I worked off campus, offsite. We had a computer science institute, so these were all the computer geeks. And I was hired in December and I didn’t have any vacation time. So everybody’s gone for the holidays and I’m sitting there and I’m searching what they called Archie servers and Veronica servers. This is pre internet. So because I was working in higher ed and we had government DARPA contracts, like we were connected and it was all texts. And you had to learn how to do this.
Theresa:
And I remember the poor guy in my office, in the office next to mine. He showed me a few things with HTML. I still know those codes, how to get around it. And that’s what I did. My first two weeks I worked at USC no one was around. And so, you know, fast forward to, I had a project where I needed to get rid of some inventory. And somebody said, suggested, you know, hey, there’s this new thing called eBay. And so I started selling old, next computers, which were the precursor for Steve Jobs to Apple. And because we were in higher ed, we had these, you know, computers, some of them were fairly new and we were changing, switching over. And so I started selling them on eBay and, four and putting the money into our surplus fund. And that’s how I got started. And then it wasn’t too much longer back then your email ID, your eBay ID was your email address. When I started selling personal stuff, I’m like, I don’t want people at work to type in my work address and find out what I’m selling from home, so I created my now clubred97 account. And, for years I sold as a part-time seller. And , I just did it on the side and I made about 800 to a thousand dollars a month for years. That was my play money. And I’d have 500 listings. And I, you know, it was like, Oh yeah, this is great. Like, and I never even thought about making it bigger until 2012. I went to my first eBay on Location in Denver, Colorado. And I sat at this table and I went by myself. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know how to connect with anybody at this eBay on Location, but we were at this dinner table and there was a husband and wife team. And, they were sitting there talking about how they were making $30,000 a month selling, military surplus and sitting at that table. Like that’s when the light and to me being in finance all my career, I’m like, why didn’t that light bulb go on before this ?Literally changed my whole process. My thought process changed what I was doing. And from that point forward, I started listing and selling as, as a more of a way to make money instead of just play money. And so I did leave. I left my, I left USC, went to UC Irvine, moved to Arizona, went to Arizona state, and I left that full-time career in 2015 and never looked back.
Liz:
That’s just amazing. But I do want to backtrack just a second to something that you said, you said clubred97. I know 97 isn’t the year you started selling, because like you said, you sold under the school’s ID or the school, your school address, but it’s club red. Could you tell us why red?
Theresa:
W d is my favorite color. My ID all those years wasn’t clubred, but I have to tell you when I moved to Arizona, I bought this ridiculously large house for one person. And, I had this backyard oasis, and the first time I had friends come over, I had this pool in my backyard and I just moved in. So it wasn’t done. There was no landscaping, there was dirt, but my friends, they nicknamed it. They said they were coming to Club Med. And before you know, it Club Med turned into Club Red and it just stuck. And then one day I was listing, cause I started selling on eBay. I started selling red things and I just decided I’m like, Oh, clubred would be a great eBay store. And of course clubred was taken. So I just added the 97 because that was a year I started on, started that account. And so I’m like, oh, this would just be easier for me.
Liz:
And you continue. We joke, I know you send me stuff all the time. You joke. You’re like, well, if it would have been red, it would have sold for more. And you know what there’s days I think you’re right.
Theresa:
How is it that you got $35 for that? And I only got $10 for this. I’m like, “because it’s red.”
Liz:
Exactly.
Theresa:
We’ll pay more money if something’s red, it makes perfect sense in my mind.
Speaker 4:
So tell us about your workspace, your setup, and what, what high level tips you have for listeners?
Theresa:
When I sold my big, beautiful home, I had this amazing office with lots of, built-ins and, and, and desk space and everything. And it was just the perfect, I, I know that for me, a U shaped desk is where I work the best. U shaped, just the thing for a high type level tip. I will tell you that the inventory system that I have now still, I’ve been doing this for three and a half years still the best ever. And I I’ll explain it if I can, it’s better with visuals, but let’s see if I can do it verbally. So after selling for 22 years, I have my inventory all on rolling racks, six shelves, 48 wide, 18 inches deep, and whatever that turns out to be 72 or 78 inches high, having them be rolling is the key. And the other key is that I have boxes. I don’t use the plastic bins with the lid on them because they don’t fit on these shelves, there’s too much, too much dead space. And so I use, paper, cardboard boxes because they have straight sides and I can fit three 14 inch wide boxes on a 48 inch shelf, keep my inventory sorted. So all the Christmas things were together and all the Easter things were together. Well, anybody that sold different sizes of the same item knows that when you go to pull a size small, because you’ve sold it and you accidentally pull a size medium, it’s a real drag cause then you got to get the return and you got to pay for it. And so what I started doing with this, um, with this new inventory system is I just mix everything together and I try not to put similar things.
Theresa:
So if I’ve got a black sweatshirt and a blue sweatshirt, they will not go in the same bin. A red cup and blue shoes and red Christmas Garland, and, green beanie, all those things can go in the same bin. And then you use your custom SKU to notate that. And the other thing is that I always have bins. I probably have seven or eight of them by my desk right now, cause I’m finishing up an inventory project, but I got an, I got to return in yesterday. So Christmas lights I saw now, normally that would sit on my desk until I had a pile and then I have to take it and I’d have to go integrated into the inventory because the Christmas lights go on this shelf and the clothing goes over here. And now it’s like, I just find it in my listing. I changed the item number. It goes in the box and my desk is clean. And so that is the inventory system that I found that is working the best for me after 22 years of trying several different methods.
Liz:
So Theresa, I learned everything I knew about inventory management from you. And once I implement it, now we’re a little bit different. I do the clear bins. I have different racks because every seller is different. We take totes and there’s a lot of different colors. I’ve got shoes with mugs, with shirts because when I go to 280 and I sold a green polo, I don’t have to dig for it. I can see it, you know? Um, and that was really a game changer because I used to be the person to put all the jeans together, all the black t-shirts together. And I have saved so much time just from that tip alone. Thank you. If you’re a newer seller or your a part-time seller or only have 20 listings get into this habit because you will grow. And if you don’t, that’s fine. At least it’s organized. Right. Um, but if you do plan to scale, don’t think that you’re too small to not have an inventory system. If you just have tote one or box one or drawer one, make a habit of it.
Theresa:
Yeah. You need to be able to tell. Cause I mean, I knew where my inventory was when I had, you know, three to 500 listings and I knew, you know, where to get the red cup from and the blue jeans or whatever. But I tell people if you had to call and have somebody else go pull an item for you, you need to be able to tell them where to go and what to get. And, I’ve tested this out a couple of times and it’s worked, I need you to go to bin 31 and I need you to pull out the black shirt and you know, and then, there’s a couple of, check things, make sure it’s an extra large and, you know, make sure it’s a Ralph Lauren, whatever it might be. But you know, it’s easy to find that black shirt. And my theory when I moved was if I just sell on eBay full-time for a year, could I make a hundred thousand dollars and do that instead of going to get another job. Well, you know, that was all great, but I don’t work full time on eBay. I haven’t worked full time. You know, there’s some days when I’ll work, you know, 15 plus hours a day and there’s some days when I don’t work any. Yeah. So I still keep up the spreadsheet. But you know, like when I sell something that I wore in my work rotation for five years, I sell a skirt for 40 bucks. I’m like, what?
Liz:
And you paid $20 for it right?
Doug:
And you know, I have a lot of, I’m still selling from my garage and I have a lot of stuff that I’ve just collected over the years and I’m getting to the point where I don’t need it. And I’m literally selling stuff that’s been sitting in boxes for like 20 years. And it’s like, you know, even if I get 10 bucks for it, some of it I’ve gotten a lot more for it, but it’s just interesting.
Theresa:
It was like my, like the Mickey Mouse sale that I did. I mean four things from my Mickey Mouse sale sold for $225. And I bought the set for $30 on eBay in 2003.
Liz:
A little over a year ago. You told me about this company called List Perfectly. How did you get started with List Perfectly? And when did the light bulb? I mean, because I know the light bulb went off because it went off with me too. And I see it every day with people that learn how to crosslist. So, and what was the light bulb moment for you?
Theresa:
Fortunately, for me, the, the co-founders of List Perfectly Clara and Amanda live in Phoenix and they showed up to my eBay sellers meetup group one evening. They were talking to me and introduced themselves and were telling me about this product that they had to help sellers list faster, quicker, easier. Took us awhile to come up with a date that we could get together and they could show me this product. And when they did, I immediately saw it. And I, well, I won’t say I didn’t see where they’re at now, but I absolutely immediately saw the value in the reseller community. And so that was in February of 2019 and it took us a couple of months wherever they were, they were in the final stages of doing what they were doing with it. I, tested a couple of different things out, worked with them, did what I did like, “hey, it would be better if we did this…This is great. But what about the 4,000 listings that I already have, blah, blah, blah.” And they went and worked their magic. I started using it and I loved it. And then, I encouraged them to go to eBay Open that year we did. Because you know, it just, basically after that eBay Open, they did a couple of, YouTube shows and it just took off, just skyrocketed. And so I have been a List Perfectly early adopter. It is truly a reseller’s gamechanger. List Perfectly came along and showed me how quickly and easy it was to import my eBay listings, because that was key. I didn’t want to have to recreate these listings. I think in the beginning I didn’t even import it in the beginning. I just express crossposted most clothing from eBay to Poshmark, to Etsy and Maccari, and then, you know, when Poshmark made household items available, I started doing that and yeah, and then as List Perfectly grew and more platforms were added, I’m like, well, let me try that out.
Theresa:
I mean, Liz, you’re the one that tested out Kidizen for me. And you know, you were the one that, that answered all my Kidizen questions in the beginning. And so you know, it’s, it’s a great reseller tool. It is a gamechanger in the sense that I’m not listing anything new on these other platforms. I’m just getting more eyes, different eyes at the end of Q4. I haven’t done my end of year numbers yet, but at the end of Q4 last year, I did a quick and dirty and added up my eBay sales, my Amazon sales and then everything else. And I averaged on all the other platforms an additional $2,200 a month on platforms that I wasn’t selling on. List Perfectly, it makes a big difference. And I tell people, it’s not that I went out and bought new inventory or different inventory listed on these sites. It was the same inventory. Yeah. And believe it or not, even though I am an eBay girl and I shop on eBay, there are people that only shop on Poshmark and only know how to use Mercari and only know how to do Etsy. And so now on the flip side of that, I will say that because eBay is a more complicated platform compared to how quickly and easily it is to get started on Mercari or Poshmark. And in some of the other ones, eBay and Etsy are pretty complicated for the poshers, the Mercari sellers, the Depop, whatever those people want to get in on the eBay platform, List Perfectly makes it much easier. And it’s not this big elephant that you have to conquer. You just, crosspost your stuff in List Perfectly and then, or express cross post it from whatever site you’re at to eBay.
Theresa:
List Perfectly does it for you. So huge, huge gamechanger for the reseller world. They’re doing all the heavy lifting for you. That’s how I feel like all the heavy lifting is done. I get to add my little sprinkles to whatever platform I need to. I love that. And then, and then it’s done, right? But like all the heavy lifting like it’s done and you, I mean, you know, you’ve been very successful. You’ve been very giving to the community, answering the question, well, h ow to work with Poshmark and what you need on Mercari and how this went. I’m like, yeah, I still, I still don’t get Mercari. I still don’t get Poshmark. I think Poshmark is needy.
Liz:
List Perfectly has opened my eyes, not just to different platforms, but to this whole reseller community outside of my norm, that was eBay. Right. So it’s not that I know this stuff, it’s that I’ve learned this stuff from other sellers. I know Doug he’s had great success with Mercari.
Doug:
Yeah, I do like Mercari and , you know, so I like Mercari. It’s easy to list on there, you know, and some of the things we talked about earlier, it’s like, they’ve definitely got some things they need to work out. They’ve got some especially pricing and promotion bugs, but I like that it’s easy to sell and I’ve actually done better on there this year than I have on eBay. And, you know, I sell like CDs and video games and small collectibles and things like that. And my process is I would list on eBay, go over and list on Mercari the same listing. And it was, it would take me like half an hour to list an item on both of them. And then, you know, Liz now is, is putting me through the process of learning List Perfectly and her great tip was to start on eBay and then, you know, list all your stuff from there. Cause obviously we all know eBay requires the most stuff. And then, you know, and the interesting thing too is, is, you know, from an eBay perspective List Perfectly makes it easier for people to list on eBay. And that’s one of the big criticisms of, of eBay is it’s tough to list. It’s a little tough to learn the ins and outs and you know, that’s a lot of the pushback they hear from sellers. So that was a great, I mean, that was a great tip from Liz and she’s, you know, she’s still guiding me through my journey. I have a couple, um, she sets little goals for me, so I have a couple of goals I’m working on. So that was a great tip. But what, Theresa, what’s your favorite overall List Perfectly feature?
Theresa:
There are so many because you know, I love the, the Request Feature. I make a lot of requests to List Perfectly. Some of them are fulfilled are, you know, on the roadmap. When I make requests, I have no idea. I’ m not a programmer. I have no idea how easy or how difficult every request is. I just say, “Hey, this is why this would be great.” And then, you know, I expect them to wave their little magic wand and make it happen. I mean, I really do love the product. I know people are probably tired of listening to me talk about it, but being a game changer. And you know, like I said before, I sold before List Perfectly, I only sold on two platforms. Since List Perfectly, I sell on all of the platforms, List Perfectly supports. And, um, so, you know, I would say the feature that it wasn’t, it wasn’t the way they started out. They did not start out to be a cross posting tool, but that’s what sellers really grabbed, grabbed onto. And it took off, but that is one of my favorite features because it did get me on all these other platforms they’re on, List Perfectly supports 11 platforms. As of now cross posting. It’s so easy because I’m native to eBay, the most difficult one, I cross-post to Etsy and Depop and Mercari and Facebook Marketplace has been very profitable for me, this Q4. And I’ve really liked that platform. So yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, it makes it easy for someone like me that has 5,000 listings, because I can go into my eBay store. I can go into my category of let’s just say men’s shoes and I can decide I’m going to cross post men’s shoes. And then I can just click on my men’s shoes, import those into List Perfectly, and then cross, post them to all the sites, just the ease of it. But crossposting by far,
Liz:
I was just sitting here thinking about the cross listing. Do you remember when they went and they added the bulk crosslist or do you remember List P erfectly before you couldn’t even do bulk?
Theresa:
Yeah. One time. And I was like, oh, and yeah. So bulk cross posting. I mean, it makes a difference. Internet speed, computer speed makes a difference and they have absolutely improved it. So even if you have slow internet speed, it can work and it can work. I can easily, I can hit my 50 men’s shoes, walk away, make dinner, come back and like, thanks. Crossposting. And it’s like, it’s okay.
Liz:
Right. So Theresa, you are extremely active. Both of us are really active in the List Perfectly group on Facebook. If you’re not there, you’re listening, please join us. But in this group, weekly, Theresa does a Pro Tip. Now this Pro Iip can be about any marketplace. It can be about List Perfectly. So I’m going to put her on the spot. Theresa, would you mind sharing a Pro Tip with us?
Theresa:
To take pictures as if there are no descriptions and describe your item as if there are no pictures.
Doug:
Where can we find you?
Theresa:
So, yeah, so I’m very active in the List Perfectly Facebook group. I have my own Facebook group BOSS (business for online selling success). I am, if you’re local to the Phoenix area, I run the EVs East Valley, innovative eBay Sellers. You can find us on Facebook. There I am numbersgeek on Instagram and Twitter.
Liz:
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. It’s really exciting. You know, you like again, selling legend so it’s an honor to have you on,
Theresa:
Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed being a guest on your podcast and I wish you nothing but success. This was fun, and I know that your other guests will have just as much fun and, um, you know, good luck to you. I think this is going to be a fabulous success for you too.
Liz:
Thank you, Teresa.
Seller Mentoring, Seller Resources, Seller Community
Liz:
So Doug, you know, selling is such a solitary business. And a lot of times we’re at home working at this alone without a lot of connection. And I know what I found is that resellers are just such a great bunch of people that are always willing to help.
Doug:
You have been my seller mentor for, I would say more than a year. We met and we were helping you set up a meetup. I came out there and hung out with you and some other sellers, but particularly you, I hung out and kind of documented what you did, but learned along the way. And then you’ve just always been there to answer questions for me. And you’re still always my go-to because, you know, you sell everywhere. You’re my selling expert friend, but you’ve really been a big mentor to me.
Liz:
Which totally blows my mind. You know, I’m like, Oh, why would somebody from eBay want to take tips for me? eBay understands sellers. I did get that from eBay, but also that’s not their full-time job. And I know that eBay does lean on sellers.
Doug:
I feel much more connected now with the seller community because I’ve been selling for a year.
Liz:
I’ve noticed actually over the last year, myself, to have felt more connected to the community because we spent a lot of time at home by ourselves. There were no Posh and Sips that I could go to. You know, I can’t meet with that community at the, at the coffee shop. I know eBay, wasn’t going to do Open this year, but they were going to do UpFronts and they were actually coming to Denver. And then of course, that couldn’t happen. I’ve seen quite a bit of online activity of sellers creating really just becoming and making their own communities. eBay just, this was in February had the very first totally open monthly update from eBay. So you can go to sellerevents.ebay.com and you can find these monthly meetups, you can sign up for it and watch it live.
Doug:
So when I was at eBay, a lot of the presentations I would give would be based around community and then the resources that sellers have available at eBay. But there are so many resources across the board. A lot of sellers don’t know that there are these options out there to connect online and to connect virtually.
Liz:
Just recently in the last year and a half, I’ve become more active on Instagram, which as platform I really enjoy Instagram. You can follow so much on Instagram. YouTube has a lot of great resources for sellers. I follow all of the platforms that I sell on. So eBay has an active YouTube channel, List Perfectly has an active YouTube channel. Poshmark has a somewhat active channel. And of course, all of your favorite sellers that have YouTube shows. Two things that I’ll say with YouTube is to check the date and second always trust, but verify Facebook pages, Facebook groups, you know, and I also follow each platform that I sell on Facebook. Also TikTok. I’m not on there enough, but there’s some, there’s some great content creators on TikTok that that does with reselling, um, Clubhouse. There’s, there’s some things going on on Clubhouse, but my most recent favorite really over the last couple of weeks have become, has become LinkedIn. I’ve actually found that I’ve gotten some really high level detailed information from LinkedIn. Also. I wouldn’t use that as my sole source, but I’ve really enjoyed that.
Doug:
Yeah, it’s an, it’s a little more businessy, but you’ll see a lot of like e-commerce and platform news on there and the platforms are active on there. So you’ll get a lot of the news. And you know, like Liz said too, is like, there are a lot of sellers out there putting out content across the board, go in and to the various social sites and search the hashtags, like seller community and just, you know, follow, follow some of the people and, you know, see what you like. And you’ll learn some stuff. Let’s talk about Facebook groups for a bit. Cause those are kind of like mini communities they’re on Facebook. So some of them are open. Some of them are closed. What are some of the Facebook groups, Liz that you help out in? And what are some that you would recommend to new sellers and then seasoned sellers?
Liz:
I help out with one and that’s BOSS (business for online selling success). I am active in the List Perfectly group because I use List Perfectly every day. And I love seeing the light bulb come on on sellers’ faces when they learn something new about the program. And they’re like, Oh my gosh, you mean I can do this? Kathy Terrill has one that’s Online Selling Basics, nothing but basics. And then she has one for, for new eBay sellers go to, Ilovetobeselling.com. I’m a member of a lot of selling groups. Another one that’s actually run by Facebook marketplace staff is called Shipping on Marketplace. And that’s where I get all of my news and information about events and news that’s coming out with marketplace.
Doug:
So there are other communities out there, you know, I’m partial to the eBay community. Cause that’s where I came from. And it’s at community.ebay.com. So, you know, the, the advantage there is you get the news and get the announcements. That’s the main place where they put out announcements for sellers. Some of the other platforms have communities, but not as robust as eBay has because eBay had some form of seller community. since the very beginning, the seller community is virtual and offline. I really got connected to community, was really through, I think, the offline events then making, making that connection. So people knew me from the community team and then they knew me from the podcast and then it just kind of bled over into everything that I did online. And I pretty much, you know, especially over on Instagram, you know, because I left eBay and now I feel like I’m really back in deeper than I was even when I was at eBay because I’m selling now. So I’ve got that deeper understanding,
Liz:
Like you said, you, you became a trusted seller source, right? So sellers would come to you and say, “Hey Doug, I’ve got this problem. Can you help me?” “Hey, I’m not sure. Let me go ask this person.” What were the conversations like at eBay? Not with, not with sellers, but you would get conversations from sellers. Did eBay come to you and say, “Hey, Doug, what’s going on in the seller community?” What does, does eBay listen to the sellers?
Doug:
My personal cell phone number was on my business card. So I would hand out my business card and, um, people would have my eBay email. They’d have my cell phone number. A lot of times on Instagram, I would get messages, people needing help. But a lot of times, yeah, they would come to me and be like, “hey, we need sellers for this or ask about this” or, um, talk to the sellers that, you know, cause they know that I knew a lot of sellers sometimes when we were launching a new program or when we had some something we needed feedback on, you know, some of what my team did, I think helped revitalize eBay’s connection with the seller community. Everybody would always tell us, wow, Amazon doesn’t do anything like this, eBay is the only platform that sends people out. And we got a lot of feedback that it was great to be able to start putting faces to eBay. Again, we ramped up from there getting into meetups and other events. That’s what community is all about is like just connecting, being able to get help, being able to talk to people. And that’s, what’s great about, you know, all these, resources that sellers have.
Liz:
When I came on board as a full-time seller, when I really started paying more attention to community. And I think that that was right around the time the community outreaches really started. Again, I know that eBay has always done it, but as far as going out and going to the actual meetups and kind of immersing in that.
Doug:
So anyway, I think the point overall is there are a lot of resources out there and find out what works for you. Not everything’s going to work for you. Obviously we hope you will listen to the Seller Community Podcast weekly, but we are just one of the many resources out there, always ways to learn always mentors to help. So do you have a seller mentor who mentored you and how did you learn?
Liz:
Honestly, I feel like the community mentored me. I was what you were talking about when eBay was some of the first to do online communities before there were Facebook groups. I was actually a member of different groups within the eBay community message boards. One piece of advice that was given to me and I cannot remember where I heard this, I’m sure it was probably in that message board is find somebody that’s a step above you where you want to be emulate them. That doesn’t mean copy them. That doesn’t mean steal their trade secrets. And then once you reach that goal, you find the next big seller that you admire that are doing things the right way that are succeeding. What best practices are they using? That’s making them successful, implement those into your business if that works for you
Doug:
For me. And I think for a lot of sellers, the best way to learn is just to do it just list as they say, shut up and list.
Seller Update
Doug:
So Seller Updates are always interesting for me, Liz. I used to go up there and Alan and I handled the community side of things and I did that for like four years. We’d be up there and I don’t know the other side of things. So you have to tell me that too. So, you know, I’d be up there and we’d be in a war room, which isn’t a great name. We’d be there, we’d launch everything and we’d monitor the communities and launch, you know, monitor social, all the comments across the board. These usually would last one day and maybe bleed over into the next, depending upon the update, but all day have meetings and the teams from around the world would report in and we’d be like, okay, here’s what we’re seeing. Here’s, you know, the types of things, here’s how we want to respond…but you know what I’m going to say, Liz? So we’re on the opposite side. We can tell what we think is the good, the bad and the ugly. But before we do that, so tell, tell me a little bit about the other side, like the seller side, when this comes out.
Liz:
Yeah. So on the seller side of the update, I just thought that it was just some random update because eBay needed to update policies. I learned a little bit more about eBay, became a little bit more involved. I could tell that there was kind of a cycle. We could expect a Spring Seller Update and a Fall Seller Update. There was that one or two times where they told us like a week in advance, like, “hey, we’re coming up with an update next week, stay tuned.” eBay does have a group of sellers that they actually, you know, kind of confide in, but we do get to get feedback and ask questions and clarification so that when it is released, they just get the seller perspective, which I think is really cool that I can say, “oh, what did you mean by this?” You can always find any announcements that eBay makes public in your Seller Hub. Yeah, I think it’s under Seller Announcements…
Doug:
But the other thing is, is so they do these seller updates because it used to be, they would do little updates all the time. And finally sellers were like, can you just like group them together periodically, maybe quarterly?
Liz:
When eBay makes these announcements, it’s a whole group of them. eBay has broken this down into four different categories, the Listing and Promoting category that they have updates to Fees and Financials category or Running Your Business category and a Key User Update category. I didn’t find much bad, right? Like there’s some things that sellers, aren’t going to be happy about. Biggest announcement for me, eBay store, the new zero insertion fee. Allotments has gone up big time. You can go and look at the chart. We’re going to link this in the show notes to where you can find all of this information. A starter store is the same. It’s not changing. A basic store, went from 350 allotted fixed price listings to a thousand, a lot of fixed price listings. The premium store, which is the store that I use went from a thousand listings to 10,000 listings.
Liz:
So an anchor store went from 10,000 listings to 25,000 fixed price listings, the fees that, and I always go over a thousand. And so I do pay an insertion fee for every listing over a thousand, which that’s going to save me a lot of money. Remember that when you have a store that, your basic store and above they come with final value fee discounts and you get quarterly eBay branded store supplies, coupons, depending on your store level. So on top of these new increased, fixed price listings stores, you also get access to Terapeak and Store Manager to include Promotions Manager and more so you get to mark down items, you get to run sales. So eBay used to have a codeless coupon. They’re now coming out with a coded coupon to share. So this is it’s actually really cool.I can see a huge potential in these coded coupons.
Liz:
They’re going to work hand in hand, with the other tools that you’re going to use, you’re allowed to set a maximum budget for a promotional campaigns. You can start a campaign with that coupon and say, “hey, look, once this coupon reaches a hundred dollars, shut it off.” Along with the promotions, a promoted listing credit for select stores and for eBay top rated sellers that is going away. There has been some confusion in the community that their top rated plus final value fee discount is going away, but that is not going away. That is just the promoted listings credit for select store sellers and eBay top rated sellers, not surprising fees are going to go up. I think it probably goes up every year, every couple of years. Most categories on eBay are going to go up 0.2%. So for most categories, if you do not have a store, most categories will be 12.5, 5% final value fee on the total amount collected. If you have a store and you’re in managed payments, that’s going to be 11.7% in most categories. So that 0.2% raise in final value fees for most categories is probably really the only downside along with the promoted listing fee quarterly credit, which for me was $10.
Doug:
And then, so Liz, you know, you talked about more exposure for sellers to the tools that they have, like promotions manager and the analytics tools and Terapeak. And it’s like, you should really use those tools because, you know, promotions help get more eyes to your listings. You should really look at your metrics. So, and it’s, you know, goes into what we always preach about. Think of yourself as a business, look at those metrics, see what’s actionable for you and just kind of, you know, learn what you can from those and do some promotions.
Liz:
Yeah. So definitely go to the eBay for business YouTube channel. And there are some tutorials, Terapeak the new sourcing guidance, performance tab updates in Seller Hub and especially all of the campaigns in promotions and promotions manager, something else that is changing that a lot of users are experiencing or will soon experience is the new unified listing experience right now user, most users can toggle between the normal or what we know is the listing flow. And then the new unified listing, this is going to mirror more of a mobile device. Look, this is what I recommend to users go into your eBay listing flow on desktop, opt into the new listing flow. Use it for two listings and see what you think. eBay is listening to your feedback. They want your feedback on this as with anything. If you’ve been selling online for a while, you have to expect change, especially in the way we’re doing business as commerce. Ecommerce, the internet, and our buyers change.
Doug:
And you have to, yeah, you have to evolve too. If you want to be successful. Even if you’re, you know, a small seller, you have to learn and evolve. And this is, this is a great example. Well, one other thing I see hopping out is the, eBay Bucks is going away and they’re going to convert that into a rewards credit card. So what do you think about that?
Liz:
eBay Bucks would give you 1% back in eBay credit essentially to use during a certain time on everyday purchases. And then they would do certain campaigns, like 5% eBay bucks between now and Wednesday. Yeah. So what they’ve done is they’ve done away with the 1% every day, and then they’re going to open up to you for you to spend, whenever you want on your credit card, they’re still going to have the campaigns and you can earn on their credit card.
Doug:
What else? Anything else that sticks out?
Liz:
And just to know, eBay does state that managed payments will be for all sellers this year. So 2021, all sellers will be in managed payments. So that stuck out. I know that people have been waiting for that. I’ve been on managed payments and it’s been fine. I can’t complain about it. I think that every platform that I sell on has some type of a different payment where I’m not paid immediately. And I’m okay with that. I get it. What I love is my buyers can pay a handful of different ways. They don’t have to open an EA, a PayPal account and pay with PayPal. They can use Apple pay, they can use Google Pay, they can use Visa, they can save their payments. Yeah. Right on the eBay site to make a quick purchase. And that I appreciate the selling fees and expenses will be collected from your earnings. So eBay is moving away to a total fee netting to where your fees will be taken out of your sales instead of, instead of having a bill every month. eBay does recognize also that the unpaid item process is a pain point, no other platform right now will you have, “I’ll buy today, but pay you next Tuesday” and then they don’t pay. And then you have to go through an entire process. They can’t fix it overnight, but they’re making steps to improve that. And they’re moving it to a one-step five day process.
Doug:
Well, that was the 2021 Spring Seller Update overview from Liz. I’m glad that I could provide some color commentary and random references in there, but thanks Liz…
Liz:
But no, Doug. Seriously, thanks for the insight of what happens on the eBay side. Um, I think as a seller, it’s always interesting to hear what’s going on on the other side of the table.
Doug:
It’s true. And you know, I miss the free lunches and donuts too.
New Speaker:
I’ll send you a box. Sorry. I just like I in cake donuts though,
Seller News
Doug:
Liz this week, we have List Perfectly news. So a couple of milestones, we hit 5,000 listeners in the List Perfectly Facebook group. Tell us about the group, Liz, what else can sellers find on there?
Liz:
Yeah, so the Facebook group is a great resource, tips, tricks from other users that have been in your shoes and it’s also a great place to cheer each other on, we have a lot of actually new sellers in the group, not just new to List Perfectly or new to one platform, but sellers that are just getting started into selling on e-commerce.
Doug:
Yeah. And it’s not just List Perfectly questions. You can come on there and ask questions about platform selling, you know, selling online a lot of great help on there.
Liz:
And it’s also a great place to get up to the minute news on List Perfectly, new features, new releases…
Doug:
List Perfectly also hit a big Instagram milestone this week, breaking 20,000 followers. And so that’s amazing another milestone, huge growth for List Perfectly. And then that’s where the mystery box giveaway stuff happens too, right?
Liz:
It is. So that’s where actually a lot of…I like going there for the mystery box giveaways, the seller shout-outs also in Instagram, they have their super seller sessions where they interview sellers in our community, really just fun and games too…
Doug:
And yeah, they do super, super cool little interactive games via Instagram stories where you, you download the picture and you, you know, mark stuff up or for you write stuff in it. And then also they’ll do stuff like they’ll take listings from other List Perfectly sellers and, kind of spruce them up a bit and share them. So it’s just, you know, super active, interactive way to again, communicate with List Perfectly. I think that’s all the news that fits this week, Liz.
Outro
Liz:
Thanks for joining us this week on the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. We got to talk to clubred97, AKA Theresa Cox and Doug and I talked mentorship and resources sellers should be aware of.
Doug:
We had seller shout outs. You got a weekly List Perfectly tip.
Liz:
And to wrap it up, here’s the stuff we have to say because we know you love scripts.
Doug:
I do. So you can find us at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. You can leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. Email us at podcast@listsperfectly.com. You can also post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group use the #sellercommunitypodcast and mention Liz or Doug.
Liz:
You can also listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe and tell your friends. You can follow us on Instagram. I am at coloradoreworn. Doug is snoop.dougie and of course be sure to follow @listperfectly. And of course you can find us on thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast, where you’ll be able to find show notes and links.
Doug:
All right. Here’s the hardest part every week. Let’s see if we can do it…
Liz and Doug:
See next week.
Liz and Doug:
Not bad, not bad.