Overview
This week we talk with Danna Crawford about her vast knowledge of vintage, antiques, and collectibles! Danna is the owner of powersellingmom.com, co-host of the Flip it or Skip it podcast, an eBay and reseller educator, and so much more! We also have Seller Shoutouts, and 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.
Here’s this week’s 30% OFF coupon code: powersellingmom for 30% off a new List Perfectly subscription, or an upgrade!
Links
thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast
Seller Community Podcast on Anchor
Episode Twelve Links
powersellingmom.com
WorthPoint
WorthPoint Treasure Hunts
Flip It or Skip It Podcast
cutecaseresell Facebook
cutecasresell TikTok
Hello Alice
eBay Seller School
eBay Seller Events
Transcript
Intro
Doug:
Hey, Liz, how’s it going this week?
Liz:
Hey, Doug, it’s going great. I’m getting some listing done, getting some shipping done, learning about platforms that are new to me based off of last week’s episode. Expanding a little bit, and getting ready to take a long weekend getaway. How has your week?
Doug:
Good, good, happy anniversary by the way. It’s Liz’s anniverary so she’s going away.
Liz:
It’s our 27 year anniversary. I mean my marriage is vintage. My wedding…I feel like our marriage is like halfway to being antique. And your week?
Doug:
I sold some stuff this week. Let me see..I sold a book of bar jokes. I sold some Richard Nixon coins, a Social Distortion live D, and a couple other books. So a wild mix of things.
Liz:
Wow. Yeah, mine’s just been the normal stuff, but it’s been pretty good. I actually reached out toa lady that I follow on Instagram. We were chatting. We’ll talk about her later in this episode, but she reminded me, you know, I get on Instagram and I posted at this point, I just post, I try every week. It’d be like, “hey, here’s my 10 highlights of the week that sold.” Yeah, I missed the last week. I guess I just got busy. I haven’t been on Instagram as much. She’s like, “hey, are you going to do your what’s sold?” And I was like, “oh my gosh, like you read my stuff?” So it was like, “Oh my gosh. Now I felt so obligated.” I’m like, at least one person reads my stuff of what’s sold. I want to get this out. So yeah, it’s been a normal week.
Doug:
Speaking of that, people are listening to the podcast too. That’s very exciting. We’ve had some really great comments this week. My favorite was the, I would listen to two to three episodes a week, which would be a challenge, but I don’t know. You never know. You think we could do three a week?
Liz:
You know, if we didn’t have other jobs…I think that we have enough content. There is enough selling content out there to do three episodes. We just don’t have time.
Doug:
We’ve definitely got the content. We’ve definitely got the guests. So you know, a lot of great stuff coming, but speaking of great stuff, Liz there’s something about a contest I saw out there. Is there anything you want to remind our listeners of?
Liz:
Oh my goodness List Perfectly…so we know that they do their Mystery Seller Giveaway boxes. So that is still going on. So make sure to check Instagram, make sure to check the List Perfectly group. However, they are always, there’s always a lot going on. List Perfectly, but they’ve, they are giving away a laptop and a ring light. So the laptop has a Samsung 15.6 inch Chromebook and then some specs that I don’t know what it means, but it’s a powerful tool. You can run List Perfectly on it. And one winner will be chosen on Friday, May 21st. And you can go to Instagram, follow @listperfectly, and they do have the contest rules there. You may also get additional entries for the contest if you join the List Perfectly Facebook group and follow the directions.
Doug:
And so I doubt I’m eligible, but if I win, that could really help me up my Instagram game, Liz…
Liz:
Have to start doing Instagram videos
Doug:
Apparently I’ve got to do something. How to do reels. Got to do the reels here, where I’m out there.
Liz:
You gotta get Kevin and Moose.
Doug:
Yeah. Kevin and Moose. People will come see them. Not me.
Liz:
Doug’s dogs, Kevin and moose. You guys. So would you follow Doug if he posted videos of Kevin and moose?
Doug:
Well, should we get started?
Liz:
Let’s get started Doug I’m Liz…
Doug:
And I’m Doug.
Liz:
And welcome to the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. This is episode twelve, Doug!
Doug:
Twelve wonderful episodes!
Liz:
We’ll see how we can correspond the number twelve into this episode. If this is your first time listening. Welcome and thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening. The Seller Community Podcast is produced by List Perfectly every week for your enjoyment and show notes for this podcast are found at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. Now let’s get into the show…
Doug:
This week. We’re super excited to welcome Dana Crawford to the show. She’s from the powersellingmom, WorthPoint and much more, but you’ll learn all that. We’ll have seller shout-outs and we’ll have the news. So let’s get started with our featured guest Danna Crawford.
Vintage, Antiques and Collectibles with Danna Crawford
Liz:
We’re joined today by Danna Crawford. Danna has been an eBay seller since 1997, is an eBay selling coach and mentor via her website, powersellingmom.com. We will hear about her journey with the well-known seller tool WorthPoint and with everything else she does. She is co-host of the Flip It or Skip It podcast. We’re her and co-host Wayne Jordan, talk about buying and selling antiques and collectibles. We’ll get to that, but first, welcome to the seller community podcast Danna.
Danna:
Thank you so much.
Doug:
Welcome. Thanks so much for taking time.
Liz:
So I’m super excited about this today. I was actually telling some friends of mine, some reseller friends “Oh yeah. You know, we’re, Doug and I are going to interview Dennis Crawford.” They’re like, “Oh my gosh. Seriously, like Danna is like, OG, everybody knows Dana Crawford who has been selling on eBay for awhile. What I really love is 1997, these years. And you’re, so everything is so relevant today, changing with the times, but still selling stuff that’s sold from 1997. This is something that I really, really, really like about talking about antiques, collectibles and being so relevant in the community and selling.
Danna:
It’s amazing how far eBay has changed and the platforms of selling online over the years. So it’s really, it’s fun that I’ve been able to witness it all and be a part of it.
Doug:
Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you came into e-commerce. You were a very super early adopter.
Danna:
Well, it was all about needing to make money, to feed my kids. So that’s how it all started. I was a single mom, three kids, three jobs. I worked for Girl Scouts of America and the local park district and I was waiting tables. And then I started, since my ex-husband would take the kids every weekend, I started doing flea markets and I would collect junk that people left out in the trash and load it all up in my van and take it on the weekend and sell it. And then Beanie Babies came into play. Of course. And then, yeah, and then I would take my Beanie Babies to the flea market. And I started doing toy shows around the Chicago area. And then one day I hauled all my crap to the flea market. And somebody said, did you hear about eBay? And I was like, no, I don’t even have a computer. What is that?
Doug:
Do you have a niche? What’s your feeling on the term “niche seller?”
Danna:
It’s funny because so many people hold back and they won’t start selling because they think they need a niche because they think that that’s the way to proceed, but it’s not, I don’t, I don’t feel it’s necessary. And I’m actually proof because I don’t have a niche I’ll sell anything and everything that I feel I can make money on and will help pay the bills. And that’s how I got started. And of course it was, it was Beanie Babies. And I was also into Star Wars. I had a huge collection, a personal collection of Star Wars and one by one, I quit all three of my jobs. And then I started selling out the Star Wars and, and the Beanie Babies. And I did keep all my Princess Leias though.
Liz:
So I absolutely love that for, you know, with all the jobs, the flea markets, like you said, Oh, eBay. I don’t have a computer. So clearly you got a computer and you killed it. And the Beanie Babies, that was a huge.
Danna:
It was, it was, but I’m like, I’m what you call a jump in girl. You know, if an opportunity knocks I’m on it. And I don’t think about it, I just jump in. And a lot of people hold back, they overthink it. They think, “Oh, I can’t get started. I got, this has to be perfect. And that has to be perfect. And I need a niche and blah, blah, blah,” and relax, jump in.
Liz:
You jumped in, powersellingmom. Talk to us about that. How did, how did that become to be, how did that brand become to be?
Danna:
Well, actually people kept asking me questions about selling on eBay. And I assume, I mean, I was always learning new strategies. Like the first strategy was okay, people are making more money if they accept credit cards. So I got a merchant account. People are making more money if they sell internationally, okay, I’m going to sell internationally. And pretty soon people were, I started realizing that if you had a brand, people started to notice you more. So I decided to come up with a brand and the powersellingmom domain was available. So I grabbed it and ran with it. So in 2007 is when the brand really took off. And I just stuck with it. Now it should be powersellinggrandma, but…
Liz:
Well, I think powersellingmom, fits you to a T.
Danna:
Thank you.
Doug:
It’s a funny, you’ve been consigning for quite a number of years. So how do you advertise your consignment services?
Danna:
Yeah, so as business slowed down, I learned that I, if I helped people sell their Beanie Babies, then I could help them make money. In the first one was a girl. I helped her buy a car with her Beanie Babies. And so I just took a little percentage and sold dollar beanie babies. She was 15 gonna be 16 and you know, wanted to buy a car. And her being babies helped by her car. And so I thought, Oh, I’m onto something with this consignment thing. So I put a little ad in the Chicago paper saying, “I’ll sell your, I’ll sell for you, bring your items to me.” And it took off from there. And I just loved it because I didn’t have to work so hard to go out and pick. So now I it’s grown so big that I actually had to take my phone off my website and people are shipping stuff to me from all over the world. And it’s nice because I can be a little bit more picky about the items that I accept and, you know, I know, no, sorry, I can’t take those humbles. So tell me
Liz:
A little bit more about powersellingmom.com. You do offer, give information and have services on that site. Tell us a little bit about powerselling mom.com.
Danna:
Well, the brand also turned into an educational website, so I enjoyed helping sellers back then. It was about making money by charging fees for learning. And it was like, no, I’m not going to teach you how to do eBay unless you pay me. And so, you know, I kind of grew out of that and it was like, okay, this is ridiculous. We can teach and learn together. And so my, my motto, my tagline became, “there’s plenty of eBay for us all to be blessed and prosper.” You know, if you get greedy, you lose. I felt that powersellingmom could not only reach out to moms. I also own power selling dad.com. If you type that in, it’ll bring you to mom. So, you know, so it’s all about education and sharing your knowledge because if we quit learning, we die. So you have to keep learning. Every day is a learning journey. And I don’t know everything. So I, I continue to try to learn. And then I share it on my website as much as possible through videos. Then the eBay Education Specialist program came into play and I went through all the way to the top became their certified business, I went through their certified business program. There are only like 28 of us in the country that went through that process. And it was very rewarding and eBay promoted us. So it was even better. So we got, got to go to eBay events and speak and, and I fell in love with public speaking through all of this. And I still do of course, but, eBay closed up the program, right? So that was a bummer. I still carried on though. I still did my thing, but now it’s a little more challenging. I had to work a little hard on marketing and promoting my eBay website, my, my eBay store promoting my consignment business. And I just had to work a little bit harder.
Liz:
With that kind of eBay set that foundation, even though that, that eBay educator program has gone, that you were part of that foundation, right. That they started and you were able to grow on your own. And like you said, you had to advertise all of that on your own. How do you keep up with all of the advertising across the avenues that you cover?
Danna:
Well, thank God for social media. I mean, I was all over Myspace when, when Myspace launched, I had like 20,000 friends on Myspace and then finally Myspace got hacked, but before it got hacked, Myspace was number two in my search on eBay getting traffic. So eBay was number one and Myspace was number two. And that’s how I learned. Okay. If I put links out, I shared and I kept putting links out on the items that I was selling. I would get so much traffic to my eBay store and my sales went up. I mean, Myspace was great until I got hacked. And then only Tom was my friend. And then that was, I didn’t go back to Myspace because then, you know, Facebook came into the pro play and, and so on, and Pinterest and Instagram is my true love. You know, there’s, there’s so much, so many different strategies for marketing besides YouTube and, email marketing became a huge, important factor to me as I grew my business. I soon learned how important email marketing was because you were capturing an audience that already wants to hear from you. They’re already dedicated and they’re on your email list. So I can’t recommend enough on the importance of list building and email marketing.
Doug:
So let’s say you’ve got somebody out there that wants to get into the consignment business model. What tips and tricks do you have?
Danna:
First thing I would suggest is to get a contract and a contract will help you, sort out your thoughts, number one, and it’ll help you fine tune. What, how much you want to charge, how much commission and the rules. So it’ll set up the rules up front. If you go to powerselling mom.com and go to my Consignment page, I have a contract on there. You’re welcome to download for free. And I tell people, just go download my contract and feed off of it. Just, just make it your own use, whatever you want, skip whatever you want, but it’ll just give you some good ideas on how to charge and you know, what kind of a direction to go. The other thing is, do not sell for family members because don’t sell for family and close friends because they won’t be your friends for long because they all think their stuff’s worth millions. They’re going to bring it to you and think that you’re going to sell it for millions. And then when you don’t, you’re the bad guy. So I’ve learned with my close family and friends, I’ve taught them how to research. So when they, you know, I’ll say, okay, go look it up. Let me know what you think. If it’s, if you think, you know, 50/50, even if your family member it’s 50/50, and except for my children, of course, we accept that.
Liz:
When did you find that you wanted to become an eBay educator?
Danna:
It was, it all started with people that kept asking me questions and my, my eBay store, actually, I named it Ask Danna. Everybody kept asking me questions. So I was like, okay, let’s go with it. So I even started a little website called askdanna.com. I had a membership and I only got one subscriber. He would never ask me a question. And so that I’d write to him. I say, not many questions today. I’m here for you. And so then finally I would just go research stuff and send it to him. I felt guilty taking his money and he wasn’t asking me any questions. So that didn’t work out too good, but that’s how we learn. But that’s how it started because just people kept asking me. So I just kept answering. And then I went through the Education Specialist program and then of course I learned how to charge money. And then, you know, then it was like, okay, I’m over that now. And life shifted a new direction.
Doug:
And so let’s talk about WorthPoint. So tell us what WorthPoint is and how does WorthPoint help sellers?
Danna:
Well, WorthPoint is a tool that provides data of, of all of when I say data, some people get confused, but data means sold listings of from eBay and from about 300 plus other auction houses. And it pulls all of that data in of sold items from everything you can imagine. Well, antiques collectibles, vintage types of items, even in clothing, vintage, clothing labels, things like that. It holds all of these, the status so that when it’s time to research on eBay, we can only go back. You know, some categories can only go back a little while, but on WorthPoint, you can go back 15 years. It actually helps me like as a consignment seller, especially time is money. So when people, I have to look up and research, I want to do it quickly. I don’t want to waste a lot of time. So WorthPoint became my go-to tool. And then one day they offered me a little position to manage their treasure hunts around the country. And then I, of course, I took advantage of the opportunity to travel because I’ve just been in my little powersellingmom world here. So it’s been a great opportunity. I’ve been with WorthPoint now four years. Um, I helped them with their treasure hunts and their different events, their webinars, podcasts, those kinds of things.
Liz:
I hear people all the time. Oh, but I have Tarapeak. And I think Teraeak’s a great tool it’s now available for everybody. But WorthPoint is just so different. Like, like you said, you get all those that past history and when you’re selling antiques and collectibles and the vintage, you know, there might only have been one or two sold in the last 15 years or, you know, and you’re, you’re going more than just on eBay.
Danna:
Well, my favorite example is I had a Batman statue that was a bronze statue and it was super cool. I love selling comic book stuff. Well, anyways, this was really rare. Couldn’t find one anywhere looked everywhere. Of course, WorthPoint. There was one that sold two years ago, and two years ago it sold for $5,000. And so it gave me a starting point and it gave me the keywords to use in that title. It gave me the category to put it in and the history I couldn’t get anywhere else. So I learned a lot about the statute. So I actually listed it at $8,000 with make an offer. And I sold it for $7,200. So now when you go to WorthPoint and you search Batman bronze statue, I’m still the highest one sold.
Liz:
What’s your favorite WorthPoint feature?
Danna:
That is really seriously tough because I love, they just rolled out the dictionary and the dictionary is growing while we speak. And it’s just so helpful. Probably I still use the price guide. That’s that still is my number one resource. I used it all weekend. I listed on eBay all weekend. That’s, that’s what I look up the majority of my items with. But when I need to go that step further, like if it’s an Asian or a Japanese or a mark that it’s like, what the heck does this mean? And so I can go in and research the mark and then identify the year it was made the location and add all that to my listing, which is so helpful. And they have a library too. And the library is just loaded with books. So back in the day, I don’t know about you, but like when I used to sell Hot Wheels, I used to have to have books of, okay, what does this red line mean? And what does, you know, what does this, I don’t know, one car, I know the blue car from the black car, but so I had to learn all these cars so that I could put those proper descriptions. And now I don’t have to have this library in my home. I can just log in to the library at WorthPoint. And you can read all the books there
Doug:
After all your years selling and teaching on eBay eventually you branched out to the other platforms, like I think Etsy. And so what made you decide to expand? How did you decide to grow your selling resume?
Danna:
Well, as, as we mentioned, people keep asking me questions and they would always ask me about Etsy or they would ask me about, and I’m like, no, my eggs are all in that eBay basket. And they’ve been that way forever. And it’s worked. I wanted to learn about other platforms. So because people are asking me about them and I like to teach. And since people are asking, let me learn so that I can teach firsthand. I thought, okay, where do I start? And I heard about Poshmark, my daughters love Poshmark. There’s, you know, other sites Mercari and I didn’t know how to use any of them. I Googled it. And I found List Perfectly. And so when I found List Perfectly and I thought, well, how does this work? And I’m the jump in girl. So I jumped in and joined and I was like, Oh my goodness “I love this Chrome extension.” I mean, I just loved the way that it brought in that Chrome extension. So I could just click each eBay listing. I was seriously, I was so blown away that I actually called the CEO at WorthPoint and said, you’re not going to believe what I just discovered. Cause he had been thinking about doing etsy too. And so I, I said, well you’ve got to do this? This is amazing. And he said, okay, you check it out. You learn how it goes and let me know. I’m like, okay. So now List Perfectly has been a part of my reports with WorthPoint because it’s, it’s turned into my go-to simplification system for getting my items from eBay to Etsy. And I actually went through the List Perfectly list and I joined every single website that even though I didn’t even know, I didn’t even know what half of them were. And then some of them were like kids’ toys and kids, children’s clothing, like kids something. And I never heard of that. So I was like, Oh, I’ve got some Disney lunchboxes. I could put them on there. So I just started listing, I listed something on every single site. Cause I wanted to know how it worked and I wanted to be able to tell others how it worked. So I’ve been experiencing it and it’s a fantastic, brilliant tool.
Liz:
And you have a podcast Flip It or Skip It. Tell us about that.
Danna:
Yeah, actually Wayne Jordan, he, he actually the Flip It or Skip It was actually his idea for the name. We talked about doing a podcast. He mentioned doing a podcast and I said, yeah, I used to have powersellingmom radio back in the day and, and over at Blog Talk Radio and I used to do shows there and Griff was on it and I’d have eBay staff on. And so I knew a little bit about podcasting. I thought, yeah. My favorite subject is, is stuff that we sold and stuff that we suggest to flip. Yeah. It’s been so much fun. We talk about, we just did one the other day and we, we we record every Wednesday and we hit in our first, less than a month we did over a thousand downloads. So that was just so rewarding. We, when we hit that many, but we’ve got a little fan base going and people are like, when’s the next one coming? And so yeah, if you just go to Fli[ It or Skip It or go to your favorite podcast player, that’s how I usually explain it, go to your favorite podcast player and look for it and you’ll find it. Wayne is so cool. He a retired auctioneer. He’s also has experience as a vendor, a seller of antiques. He used to do furniture restoration on antiques and antique furniture. And he just has such an amazing knowledge. His knowledge is so helpful. So I think we compliment each other pretty good. And it’s fun because he brings in the history behind items that we’re talking about. Like, I don’t know if you listened to trucker hats, trucker hats was an interesting episode. So we kind of, we go into different things. We just did Christmas ornaments and, fountain pens. You know, there’s just, it’s never ending. We’re not going to run out of the topics.
Liz:
No. It’s segmented into exactly that trucker hats, fountain pens, you know, you can really learn a lot in 30 minutes.
Danna:
Right. And, and learn what to flip or to skip. So that was the whole point.
Doug:
It’s a very niche audience with all that stuff. So it’s like insane trucker hat collectors and insane fountain pen collectors, Star Wars, collectors. And if you don’t know what you’re doing, like my wife and I were going through stuff yesterday and there was a recent era X Wing and I was going to list it. But my wife said, “do you want to list this?” I said, no, the last time I listed something star Wars, I didn’t know what I was doing. And I got a bunch of messages back advising me…
Liz:
So Doug, have you heard there’s this tool called WorthPoint that you can subscribe to and it’s going to tell you all about it?
Danna:
There does seem to be a collector for everything, doesn’t it? Somebody is out there. I know one of my biggest clients is from Canada and she emails me like small boxes at a time, just mails a few things at a time, which I’m happy with, but her mother was best friends with Janis Joplin. And she sends me the coolest stuff. I mean, it’s so cool. And she sent me a piece of paper. It was a simple piece of paper that had writing on it. And it was from an acid concert in Canada. And you just never seen anything like it. And I couldn’t find anything on it, of course, but on WorthPoint I did find a little bit of something similar to it, but I ended up selling that for $3,000. A little piece of paper because Grateful Dead attended. So see you get to like, hold that history in your hand without actually having to collect all you get to, that’s such a, it is fun. That’s exciting. It is fun to be a consignment seller. It is.
Doug:
Okay. So now we do this every now and again, but we wanted to do this with you. We have what we call rapid fire questions. So we quick ask and quick answer.
Liz:
What was the first thing you sold online?
Danna:
Beanie baby.
Doug:
Which Beanie Baby though? Do you remember?
Liz:
No, I don’t remember which one.
Doug:
All right. So what was your most memorable sale?
Danna:
An enema bag.
Doug:
All right.
Liz:
What was memorable about the enema bag?
Danna:
People kept emailing me, asking me for the measurements of the attachments. No, that was my first lesson. I thought it was a hot water bottle, but I found out that you could make more money If you called it an enema bag.
Doug:
What was the highest priced item you sold?
Danna:
It was a replica to the Easy Rider motorcycle for $25,000.
Liz:
I might know the answer to this question based off of some information from a podcast that you did, but what was the hardest item that you’ve shipped?
Danna:
Someone had consulted with me that they couldn’t sell a tanning bed. It was, she couldn’t sell her tanning bed on eBay. And, and I went and she paid me. I went in to check out why she couldn’t sell this and do my research. And first thing, she had local pickup only. And that’s the mistake that people make is they’ll have local pickup only when you cut yourself short to people, don’t mind coming over from the next state, you know, or, you know, things like that. So the biggest thing I ever sold was, um, a tractor engine. It was a tractor engine that someone found in, their orange orchard. And so when they bought the property, somebody just dumped it, I guess, in their orange orchard. And of course I couldn’t bring it home. So I had to go, I had charged them a fee to drive to them, and then I took pictures of it and then got it listed on eBay and said, we’ll ship anywhere in the world. Buyer makes arrangement for shipping. And some guy from Wisconsin came and picked it up with his semi. So see, you don’t have to go through the problems of freight shipping or shipping. You can, that people are willing to drive and pick those things up. If I could start my eBay life over, I would sell furniture and car parts.
Doug:
If you had to pick one item as the most interesting thing you’ve consigned for someone. What was it?
Danna:
Have to be my favorite, the bronze Batman. Yeah. Bronze Batman was my all time favorite.
Liz:
Do you have anything to add for our listeners?
Danna:
First treasure hunt of the year is June 11th in Atlanta.
Doug:
Yeah. What’s the treasure hunt. Tell us about that.
Danna:
Well, the treasure hunts are organized by myself and every month we travel to a different location and they’re not just flea markets. We go to specialized, antique shows or collectible shows. Sometimes we, well, we go to Papermania in Hartford, which is so much fun. If you ever get a chance to go to that. And it’s all, uh, posters and anything to do with paper, all the vendors. And so WorthPoint goes to these treasure hunts and they’re free. So people sign up if we’re coming to it, or if we’re going to do a treasure hunt near you, you register. And then we meet at like eight, nine in the morning and we have a little meeting and then we either use the eBay app or the WorthPoint app. And we all hunt for treasures. And then we meet back for lunch and we do a little show and tell, and we talk about what we found and how we’re going to list it. And some people go that are just collectors. They’re not resellers, but the majority are resellers and it’s just so much fun.
Liz:
And where can our listeners find information about treasure hunts in general? And when’s the next one?
Danna:
Well, if you go to worthpoint.com/treasurehunt, you’ll find it. And the next one is June 11th in Atlanta at Scott’s Antique Market.
Doug:
Thanks for joining us, Danna, and you can find Danna at thepowersellingmom.com, and at WorthPoint as well, and then listen into the Flip It or Skip It podcast, which is super cool.
Liz:
Oh my gosh, Danna. Thank you so much, so much for joining us. I appreciate it a lot.
Danna:
Oh, I appreciate it.
Doug:
This was a lot of fun.
Danna:
Yes. Thanks.
Seller News
Doug:
Let’s take a look at what’s in the e-commerce news this week. What’s the word on the street Liz?
Liz:
Doug. So last week eBay released its earnings announcement. Oh, Jordan Sweetnam Senior Vice President and General Manager. Americas posted some great information on Facebook. So here’s some highlights that really stuck out to me. Okay. So it was another strong quarter with a 24% GMV growth and continued expansion of the buyer audience. So I think that’s a pretty good growth. He also noted “since launching our authentication guarantee program in Q4, we verified hundreds of thousands of sneakers, and we’re seeing buyer satisfaction above 80 as a result, sales of sneaker values above a hundred dollars, grew at a triple digit rate once again this quarter. And we’re expanding our engagement with gen Z and millennials through a wide range of social channels.” Doug, I think we talked about that.
Doug:
We did touch on that a little bit, but I’m going to stop you now because I know that you’ve participated in this sneaker program. So how did it work out? What’s your sneaker story Liz?
Liz:
So, well first for those that don’t know, sneaker authentication on eBay is for both new and used sneakers above a certain dollar amount. So I knew for instance, used is now $150. Okay, this is automatic and this is the asking price, not the selling price. I had a pair of sneakers. This was before they raised the price to $150, it was a hundred dollars. I’ve had these sneakers sitting around for a while. They were on sale. They came off of sale. Somebody offered me $85 for these $100 sneakers because men’s, and women’s sneakers $100 or more. There’s no final value fee. I like selling the sneakers over $100. Well, I accepted the offer and they still have to go through authentication. It is the asking price. So if you have those sneakers and Doug offers me $5 for them, they still have to go through authentication. Neither of us can opt out of this program. We went through that. It took about three weeks to get to my buyer because there was a little snafu we thought authentication and they kind of got backed up because the program has been so popular and I get it. They have to do authentication. They have to stay relevant with the Gen Z, with the millennials. They have competition from other platforms in sneakers that are doing this exact thing. The buyer opens a case. Doesn’t fit, whatever. I take returns. But, and that’s all it said. It just doesn’t fit. I look at my Seller Dashboard and it shows as a case as doesn’t match the item description. So it’s a false item, not as described. Thankfully I do have Concierge service from attending eBay opens in the past. So I was able to get a call back within like a minute, both customer service and the authentication team, both assured me. It’s just the way it shows up on your dashboard. Didn’t buy it. I asked like five times I kept my, I don’t really, I just keep my cool, I mean, it’s, it’s 85 bucks. Right? I want to see how this process plays out. I love tinkering with this stuff. They’re like, no, it’s not going to come out of your pocket. It’s not going to go against your service metrics. It’s simply a case because it goes through authentication. Okay. All right, fine. So it took me about a week and a half to get them back and I did get them back. Same condition. It still had the eBay Authenticate tag on it. And the little card that says that they were authenticated by eBay and they were returned in the condition. I went to go check my service metrics and eBay was right. It’s not there.
Liz:
It doesn’t count against me. I didn’t pay for return shipping. So it was very confusing with this. My buyer was a state away from me that I had free shipping. And I was like, Oh, hey look, my buyer is in New Mexico. Okay. It’s going to cost me like $8 and change to ship these shoes. Well, they had to be shipped to authenticate, which is in New York. So that up to my price to like 14 bucks. So I mean, whatever it, not a big deal, but if you’re running on super low margins that can make or break taking an offer. So you have to know that it’s the asking price. So if you have a pair of sneakers that hits that threshold for authentication and you take an offer for a lower price, it still has to go through authentication. As of now, Jordan goes on to say “to help meet the massive growing demand for authenticated products like sneakers. We are opening an additional authentication center in Las Vegas this month.” So the center is going to be critical to rapid scaling the expansion of authentication guarantee, serving the West coast hub to our community.
Doug:
And that’s a good pivot, but eBay, they’re not always known for their super quick pivots and three weeks turnaround time for that is kind of ridiculous. Especially with somebody like Stock X, who’s all over the news right now, they’re doing really well and a billion dollar something company. And that’s all they do. It makes sense for eBay to be leaning into this. But, you know, it’s, that’s a really good pivot. I’m impressed that they did.
Liz:
Yes. So buyers are going to be able to get their sneakers faster. They’re going to be able to be processed through authenticate faster. And I hope that, so, and I hope that they’re able hopefully to do another pivot, you know, give buyers or sellers the option to opt out. Yeah. I mean, that, that would really help, especially like, especially for these, these shoes were like mainstream, they’re not like premium Adidas that I sold. Right. I sold them for $85. They’re not some fraudulent type of a shoe that I was selling they weren’t the $800 shoes. So it would be a nice option.
Doug:
You know, maybe you get a little badge or something, but sellers tend to not like dictates from the platforms, especially eBay because eBay kind of leans towards that. So I think it would make for that, you know, not to be a requirement as well, if you’re selling those kinds of sneakers.
Liz:
Yeah. I mean, but I get it. I get it. Maybe, maybe down the road, maybe they can look into that. Who knows maybe they already are. But anyways, that was my fun sneaker selling story and gee whiz. So if you’re selling sneakers and you have them priced at 99, 99, you need to up at 200 bucks to pay a fee.
Doug:
Little workaround, sneaker workaround. And then also Liz. So trading cards have really exploded over the past year or so. So trading cards are a big part of eBay’s collectible business and they’re trying to be a market leader in the category. So they’re leaning into that as well, just like they’ve done with sneakers. So they want to give you wider selection across all the price levels for all those different kinds of trading cards. So I guess it’s sports cards, magic, the gathering cards, Pokemon cards. You referenced Pokemon last week. Liz, I don’t know if you remember, but there’s been a lot of growth in the category. eBay seeing a lot of potential down the line. So GMV for trading cards, topped $1 billion, $1 billion in Q1 at the amazing. So half of 2020 records, setting volume, active buyers of training cards, doubled and existing buyers purchase more items at higher prices than last year. And eBay continues to make improvements in that experience. So they’re kind of pivoting there as well to simplify the process. They’ve launched an image based scanning experience for many of the top selling trading cards. So Liz, you can break out your binder of Pokemon cards and scan them easily into your phone.
Liz:
But I think what’s really cool is that with this image based scanning is that you’ll be able to more easily identify your cards. Yeah. So what eBay is doing is they’re providing a standard trading card envelopes, which is a special pricing in the trading card category, so that you may ship your cards at a lower price instead of having to ship First Class to get that tracking, they now have standard treated card envelope pricing so that your item can track, but not have to spend the $4 for First-Class shipping. And they have also announced that they are going to be expanding that to more categories. It may be active. Now I don’t really sell in that category.
Doug:
So a couple other tidbits, Liz, right? So first one is Terapeak’s now free, no store subscription is required and that’s huge, but we actually decided that we’re going to do a Terapeak episode down the line.
Liz:
Yeah. I think Terapeak needs its own conversation. We just heard Danna with WorthPoint, which is a super powerful tool. And like she said, it’s an app too. So you have the app on your phone, but it is kind of niche. Right. And Terapeak is just eBay while they’re similar. They’re very different. So, so many reasons to be using Terapeak if you’re an old school seller like me, I know a lot of my friends that use the before Terapeak, before Terapeak was Terapeak when it was Terapeak. Do you remember that when they had Terapeak and the Terapeak disappeared and Terapeak came back, so sellers that use Terapeak religiously before Terapeak went away and came back, don’t really like this new experience I never used Terapeak before it went away. So I have nothing to compare it to. So I think it’s a really powerful, it can be a powerful tool. Can it be more powerful? Of course it can, but it is what it is. And it’s now open to all users.
Doug:
And that’s good. It’s data that is there for you to take a look at and it’s not going to be for everybody. Some people don’t want to go that deep, but you can take a look. It’s kind of an analysis of your listings, what you’ve been doing. And then it will include recommendations of where you can improve. So, you know, it’s worth, at least taking a look
Liz:
Terapeak has two sections. So there’s Terapeak research. And that is what has been released free to everybody. And the other part of Terapeak is still just for store subscribers. So I know we’re going to do a whole episode on it, but here’s a, here’s a challenge. This is why Terapeak when you search eBay and your cause we hear this all the time. How do I do comps right? It’s in every Facebook group for every platform. And everybody says, Oh, let’s see what it sold for on eBay. How do you get a comp well, every platform either you can’t get a comp or you’re not getting accurate data, for example, on eBay. If you go to, if you type in your item and you go to sold and you click by highest first, that’s how a lot of sellers search. So there are some sellers that have the out of stock option enabled on their account. And a lot of these sellers are multi quantity, sellers or sellers that get replenished doubles or sellers that simply don’t want people to see what they sold. So what happens is when you do a sold search, those items are not getting shown to you. I just had an instance, a friend of mine is like, Hey, I sold this. They’re like, can you see it in the souls? And I’m like, no, I went to Terapeak. And I found it. Why? Because the out of stock option was on also when a seller sells an item via seller initiated offer or offer to watchers, eBay will show you the price, their original asking price and not the price they sold it for. So you may think that that awesome pair of boots with sparkles, it all sold for 300 bucks. No, that’s just what I was asking for. But I gave Doug a friends and family offer for $150 and he bought them. I thought you would enjoy that. Yeah. So, so that’s two reasons to use Terapeak.
Doug:
So what I’m going to do Liz, since I’m just going to wait for you to learn it and then I’ll listen to the podcast and then…
Liz:
No, Doug, I think that we’re going to have to have somebody that is definitely more versed on this than I am, because I know that I do not use Terapeak at its fullest potential.
Doug:
Okay. Well, that’s exciting. That’s going to be a good upcoming episode and you know, maybe we’ll expand it to looking at your data and all of the sites, you know, well selected sites, not 11, again, important to take a look at that data and do some analysis. And each of the sites has a little bit of something, but that data’s out there. And then Liz one other quick tidbit, there was the Seller Monthly Update last week and that’ll be archived on the eBay YouTube channel. So go see what you missed there. You can go to sellerevents.ebay.com to sign up for the monthly touch base that they have, which is a great thing. Now it’s nice that they have that, that they’re communicating what’s going on being very transparent, you know? And, hopefully that continues up until 2022. And hopefully the return of eBay Open.
Liz:
eBay Open 2021 is virtual.
Doug:
Anything else, Liz that fits in the news this week?
Liz:
Yes. There is one more thing on May 11th, stay tuned on List Perfectly Instagram. And in the Facebook group, I am going to go live with Amanda, Clara, and Alex of List Perfectly to talk about keywords, hashtags and searches, oh my! We love our hashtags. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to break it down and really pick Amanda, Clara, and Alex’s brain about hashtags, tags per platform and social media, because they’re a little bit different. We talk about tags all the time. Doug. So yeah, definitely stay tuned. Check Instagram, check the Facebook group for timing on that. That’s going to be on Tuesday, May 11th.
Doug:
Very exciting. I will #tunein. All right. Thanks for that, Liz. And thanks for all the news chock full.
Liz:
That is all I have this week, Doug.
Doug:
All The news that fits.
Seller Shoutouts
Doug:
So we’ve got a few sellers shout-outs this week, but I’m going to hop in Liz. Apparently, I heard that you forgot to tell everybody What you sold this week. And there was a bit of a ruckus on social media. Can you tell us about that?
Liz:
It was a ruckus from the one person who apparently reads my posts, and she’s amazing. Yeah, I actually felt pretty bad. You know, been putting Instagram on the back burner for the last two weeks. So, it really motivated me when this individual was like, “Hey, where’s your post about what’s sold?”
Doug:
Oh, there you go. It’s good to have a listener. I look at your stuff too Liz so you have at least two.
Liz:
Well thank you. Yes. Only if they’re shiny boots, but what’s really cool is, but we’re both, you know, small business owners. I follow almost all resellers and resellers are small businesses. So I think that’s really cool that we help each other out. And I love watching what, seeing what other people sold too.
Doug:
Yeah. And we know a ton of sellers, so we know a bunch of small business owners and we’re now in the middle of small business week. We are in the middle, but it’s not too late to celebrate and use the tools available and the advice of Liz O’Kane and the color commentary by me to your small business…
Liz:
You know, thinking of small business, we, and being a reseller. Sometimes that’s hard for others outside of reselling to really see selling as an actual small business. But sometimes resellers have a hard time grasping the concept that, yeah, they are indeed a small business. Our friend Brittany Hatcher posted in the Facebook group and man, she just nailed it. So Brittany Hatcher is @cutecaseresell. We’ll put the link to her Instagram, Facebook and TikTok in the show notes, but she jumped into the Facebook group and she just gave us a message really quick. I will not do it justice if I just read it. So let’s take a listen dog.
Doug:
Let’s listen in with the power of technology, Liz.
Brittany:
So I’m in some reseller groups on Facebook for business purposes. I always get good info. I can recruit people to sell to other kinds of things. And a common question, um, is people ask what do you tell other people who say that reselling isn’t a real job? Tell them? I don’t tell them nothing! I don’t care nothing about what people say! Mess around. I sell them the clothes they got on their back.
Doug:
Oh, that was good.
Liz:
Oh, it’s just, she nailed it. She nailed it.
Doug:
So Liz, there’s a ton of great small business resources out there. And I know that you’re a resource and I became aware of this Hello, Alice from you when you were awarded the eBay grant. So how’s that going? How’s Hello Alice going and what are the resources that Hello Alice has out there for small business owners like ourselves?
Liz:
Yeah. So it’s going great. Um, actually anyone can go to helloalice.com and sign up for an account, it’s free. Hello Alice describes themselves as “whether you’ve owned a business for years, or you just had a brilliant idea in the shower. Hello Alice is here to help you start and grow your company. Hello Alice works by matching you with opportunities locally and online that will help you start and grow a business. Think of Hello Alice as a sidekick to your superhero, the advisor and cheerleader who will help you find your path every step of the way.” Really. That’s what I find. You can go to helloalice.com, sign up and they will send you emails almost every day on opportunities for grants, for online classes, everything to help you and your small business succeed. They have a place on their website that’s called Business for All, and they help. They’ll help you connect with people in your community. So if you’re a clothing seller, if you’re a restaurant, this isn’t just for online sellers. When you go on that site, look around, there are different communities and different opportunities for grants funds and free classes. So I also saw this. I was led to this website one way or another called Constant Contact and I found these five ways you can celebrate Small Business Week. I know we’re halfway into it already, but they shared these five ways for you to celebrate your small business. First, share your story. Let friends and family and anybody in your social network know that you are a small business. The second is say “thank you” to the people who keep your business going. Gratitude, always, especially your mail carriers places you shop at. Number three is invest in education, different ways to learn Doug.
Doug:
You always want to be learning, always want to be improving yourself. You know, there’s a bunch of free resources. You’ve always got Google. We love sellerschool.ebay.com, but learning from other sellers, I think is important. Like if there was a podcast that you listened to like a seller community podcast, you could learn a lot from that or get a mentor. Like my mentor Liz…
Liz:
You look at sellers like Danna, who are selling courses. She has 20 plus years of knowledge and experience. And she is so ingrained into the business of selling. It may take you a year to grab your footing that you could learn from somebody like Danna in a month. And time is money. Invest in education. Sometimes education isn’t somebody teaching you something. Sometimes education is putting away an hour to learn eBay shipping. Number four is partner with another small business
Doug:
Connect with the seller community, the greater seller community on social media, across the board, all the different sites. Wherever you prefer to connect, there’s great stuff on Tik ToK, lots of seller tips like Liz mentioned, follow the hashtags, #sellercommunity. Obviously we always talk about the List Perfectly Facebook group. That’s a great resource, but there are a bunch of other Facebook groups out there and it’s not, you know, it depends on how you want to digest content. There’s plenty of stuff on YouTube. There are plenty of courses you can pay for, but there are also a lot of sellers that just do little daily, quick tips and tricks. Obviously there’s The Seller Community Podcast, but a lot of the platforms have their own resources and it’s just always be learning and just always be up on the latest changes. Always be willing to evolve.
Liz:
Think outside the box, partner up with maybe another seller and do a live sale together. I’ve seen live sales where, you know, one seller will help out the other seller as far as keeping track of sales and they do the same for each other the following week. Sometimes you just need to help each other out.
Doug:
That’s the beauty of the seller community that really struck me early on is how willing sellers are to help other sellers. And if you have a question, if you need help, just ask, I think it takes a certain type just to always be willing, to learn, willing to see what other people do and then willing to adapt as well.
Liz:
Totally agree. Yeah, no, I’ve like I said, I have to reach out. We can’t do this alone. You can’t do it. I mean, you can, it’s not as fun. And you learn exactly from others and their successes and trial and errors. Number five is get the word out. Let people know that you are a small business. You are a reseller. I knew at the beginning of the pandemic, getting inventory for some resellers was hard. So they got the word out by simply creating ads. Most sellers that I’ve come across had positive feedbacks, got a little negative. But you gotta take the bad with the good, but they got the word out. Hey, I’m a reseller. If you’re cleaning out, I’ll take, I want to sell your stuff for you. If you want to give it to me and people in their community were like, okay, I’m going to drop three trash bags off on your doorstep. They would, that would have never happened had they not gotten the word out? And some of those sellers now have clients consignment clients from ads like that. Yeah. So really quick, the five ways you can celebrate small business week: share your story. Number two, say thank you to the people who keep your business going. Number three, invest in education. Number four, partner with another small business and number five, get the word out.
Doug:
Selling online, whatever level, whether you consider it a hobby or not, you’re still a business. And there’s still a lot of things to think about. So you always have to be learning like Liz said, but you have to think about customer service. You have to think about sourcing. You have to think about marketing. You have to think about platform changes. You have to think about sourcing and balance all those things in. If any, even if you’re just selling a little bit, you have to think about all those things. Then it’s important to think of yourself as a business.
Liz:
Yeah, I do put in a lot of hours and I work hard, but you know what I like what I do. Yeah. I enjoy it and I can be flexible and be like, I don’t really want to work on Wednesday. I’ll just ship out and answer questions and I can. That’s what I love about this.
Doug:
Or take a trip…
Liz:
Or take a weekend anniversary trip.
Doug:
Great. Well, happy anniversary to Liz and John for your 27 years of wedded bliss during small business week.
Outro
Liz:
Thank you for joining this week on the Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. This week, we talked to Danna Crawford of powersellingmom and selling online, WorthPoint, her podcast, and so much more. Thank you again, Danna.
Doug:
We had seller shout outs and we had the news.
Liz:
You can find us at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/seller community podcast. Or email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com. You can also post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group. Use the #sellercommunitypodcast and mention me or Doug.
Doug:
You can listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe and tell your friends. And we’d love for you to leave a review at Apple Podcasts. You can also follow us on Instagram @coloradoreworn. That’s Liz, @snoop.dougie. That’s me. And of course @listperfectly. And then again, the list perfectly Facebook group is at facebook.com/groups/listperfectly. All right, that’s it. That’s it this week. All right, that’s it. So we’re going to get Liz on the road to her trip, have a great trip, happy anniversary. And we will.
Liz and Doug:
See you next week.
Doug:
Oh, we almost got it. That was good. All right. Thanks Liz.
Liz:
Thank you, Doug. Everybody have a great week.