Overview
In this news episode, we discuss recent Poshmark woes, how the reselling of secondhand goods has become competitive and some exciting eBay meetups that are fast approaching. We also get insight from Liz and Doug on a recent article titled “What I Wish I Knew Before Starting My e-Commerce Business”.
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 listperfectly.com/podcast, leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@listperfectly.com.
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Links
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coloradoreworn Instagram
coloradoreworn linktree
snoop.dougie Instagram
snoop.dougie linktree
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S2E3 Links
BOSS Reseller Remix VIRTUAL Meetup: Learn About Seller Hub Performance
Colorado “A night with eBay” in person event in Colorado
Americans are finding it harder to resell their secondhand goods as inventory swells
What I Wish I Knew Before Starting My E-Commerce Business
Transcript
Doug:
Loyal listeners. You know, we warm up before we record and we were just talking about diets and cheese. My wife and I are on a new diet for January. We’re doing Dry January and we’re doing the Whole 30. So we cut out dairy, cut out booze. I do like my wine at night. So it’s been a challenge. I think I’m a little grumpy, little bit of a headache. I’ve still got the coffee. That’s good. I can do coffee and tea. We’re gonna detox. I’m already down several pounds, which is frustrating to my wife.
Liz:
Wait, how many, how many days have you been on this? Like one? What’s today?. Oh my gosh. The 11th we’re already halfway through the month.
Doug:
11 days, but I’m gonna stick with it. I go through these weird phases. Like last year, Liz, Liz knows me. We’ve known each other a couple years. Last year, Liz, Super Bowl Sunday. I decided I’m going dry. And so I did, I think three months dry.
Liz:
Oh my gosh.
Doug:
And I did miss my wine.
Liz:
I’m very sorry about that.
Doug:
<laugh> I know it was tough. And then I came back, I came back big.
Liz:
I’m not a big drinker, but I do like wine. I do like margaritas. A well made margarita on the rocks I should say. And I like just an original Moscow Mule. So those are kind of my go-tos right now. But I can do without them and not even think about it.
Doug:
No Irish Mules with whiskey?
Liz:
No, no, no. I don’t know. Maybe I can throw an Irish Mule in there somewhere. I don’t know, be a little adventurous. So we were on consignmentchats’ reseller resolution episode. And I did share with mine that I want to be healthier. However, Liz loves food. If you don’t know, in my previous life I was in the Air Force and I don’t think I’ve ever said this out loud. So my last nine years in the air force, I was an enlisted aid. I went to culinary school, I guess someone told me I know how to cook. I hate cooking, but I love food. I pulled it off for 10 years. I pulled it off. I did dinner parties, all the shabang and nine yards, and did it in DC, but I don’t really enjoy cooking, but I love eating. So I don’t do well with diets.
Doug:
There you go.
Liz:
My reseller resolution was to be healthier. And the reason that I want to be healthier is I can concentrate better and I can get more work done when I feel better. So it’s not about weight. It’s not about, I don’t know, bodybuilding or whatever. For me, it’s about feeling better and when I feel better I can do more. So that’s my goal. So I have been working out more and I’m not talking about going to the gym and power lifting and stuff. At the end of 2021, I got a Peloton bike and then life got busy and I rode it once or twice and life got busy and then I got sick and I didn’t really ride a whole lot. So now I’m back to it. Right? So I’m on the Peloton. I didn’t buy it for a new year’s thing, but I’m, I’m on it. And I’m trying to work out every single day now. So yeah. I’m so sorry you have to give up food. I’d rather go ride my bike for an hour <laugh> and have my wine at night and eat my cheese. So enough about us. <laugh>
Doug:
I’m trying to get my girlish figure back, Liz.
Liz:
Okay. Well, I wish you much success with that. And I promise the next time we record, I won’t bring my snacks <laugh> so that you can see me eat my cheeseburger and fries.
Doug:
Oh, geez. Let me take a bite.
Liz:
Yeah. Would you like a bite of my cheeseburger? <laugh>
Doug:
So speaking of that though, I was thinking I’m kind of burned out on the resolution thing, the new year thing. That reminds me, we had an interesting happening last week when we did our news episode, cuz we recorded a segment that, and sometimes this happens ladies and gentlemen, sometimes there’s breaking news and sometimes there’s changing news that we have to change. We had recorded a segment on Poshmark. We had to pull it. So let’s let’s start, uh, oh wait, welcome to The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly, I’m Doug.
Liz:
And I’m Liz
Doug:
And this is, we’re gonna talk about some stuff <laugh> we will not categorize this episode.
Liz:
And this is our news slash info episode for the week. And clearly how Doug and I like to eat food is where we’re going with this whole episode. Just kidding. So new year, season two of the podcast, we announced last week that we will be doing two episodes a week and that we will be splitting these episodes and kind of an interview type episode and a news type episode. Well, in last week’s news episode, we had recorded that Poshmark was doing daily deals. They were giving out $5 a day if you listed in this category, it was a great thing. Resellers, rejoice. It was all over the community and, before it was supposed to air, I had to text Doug and say, “we can’t talk about it.”
Doug:
Yeah. You gotta pull that Poshmark stuff she said.
Liz:
Because they quit doing it without notice.
Doug:
So Liz, can I read the message from Poshmark?
Liz:
So, okay. Let me preface this. I’m gonna let you read it cuz I have a feeling you’re gonna do this in like a Poshmark voice or some type of accent that I could not pull off. So let me preface…
Doug:
We like Poshmark.
New Speaker:
Yeah, no I love Poshmark. I’m good. I’ll be the first. We can have a whole segment on Liz and Poshmark. If you’d like anyways, like we, maybe we can do a whole, so let us know if you would like to hear an episode on how Liz became an eBayer and now sells on Poshmark anyways.
Doug:
She quit three times, ladies and gentlemen.
Liz:
Yeah. Poshmark announced they were gonna do these daily deals. You’re gonna get $5 for listing in this category. The seller community was excited about it. There was a posting in all the groups I was in that talked about Poshmark and then they stopped. I actually have $35 pending cuz I participated in the first like five, right? And then they stopped and then the next day nothing came out and then the next day nothing came out. I decided to check Poshmark’s Instagram account. And they were talking about some January listing challenge. And in the comments people are like, “what about the daily deals? What about the daily deals? You haven’t talked about the daily deals” and this was Poshmark’s response buried in another post about another campaign they were doing. Doug, take it away.
Doug:
“Hi there. Thank you for flagging. Due to high demand and interest, we’ve had to pause daily campaigns for the time being. Our team is actively working on how to make daily campaigns in the future.”
Liz:
In the future. Not today, no announcement. I didn’t receive an email. If other sellers have received an email, I have not heard about it. I have not personally received an email. What do you think about that Doug?
Doug:
Well, now I’ll say a couple things. At least they’re responding, but it’s kind of like they’re trying to keep it on the, on the QT, trying to cover it up a little bit. They should have just, and I’m all for just coming out with a response and it’s just putting out something and saying, “Hey listen, the program was super successful, overwhelmed, blah, blah, blah.” But you gotta put something out. And then it kind of concerns me that people are, if you’re owed $35 and you multiply that by the number of people that were participating in this, there’s probably a lot of money owed that they should be paying out.
Liz:
Yeah. And my thought on it is, “Hey, it was really cool. It was a fun way for the community to talk about things like, did you get, did you list in the sneakers?” And it was a good motivator, right? I think that they did become overwhelmed and I am a person, I don’t feel Poshmark owes me anything. Like they did it. They took it away. It is what it is. It would’ve been nice to notice. Be like, “whoa, this was a huge response to this campaign. We don’t know how to handle it. We’re gonna have to pause it. Maybe we’ll try it again. Some other times stay tuned.” Cool. Even though they didn’t announce it, whatever. No big deal. If they don’t end up paying out, which I believe they will because some sellers have already been paid out. Mine is currently pending and that’s fine. You know what, if they don’t pay me out and they don’t live up to it, worse case scenario, I have stuff listed on their platform that can sell.
Doug:
That’s true. Yeah.
Liz:
So, okay. I have stuff listed. It is what it is. That’s what happened with Poshmark last week. So if you saw that Poshmark was supposed to be mentioned and you didn’t hear it mentioned it wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t a game, we had to pull that last minute.
Doug:
We love Poshmark. But one of those things that could have been handled better, it’s like we could have a new segment where we’re “Really Posh? Really eBay?” We’ll do it across everybody.
Liz:
Right. I think that if you are a reseller that happens with every platform every week we run into it, it is what it is. But responsible reporting. We didn’t wanna tell our listeners that this was going on when it wasn’t.
Doug:
All right, Liz don’t freak out. Okay. But I decided the other day that I need to be attending more seller meetups and you know, virtual seller meetups, I registered for the BOSS Reseller virtual meetup. Yours unfortunately is not virtual it’s in person only cuz it’s very fancy. I can’t attend via a holographic life size. Meetups are rolling back. There were a few listed on there. I thought I would see more meetups listed at sellerevents.ebay.com. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about that site. We wanted to talk a little bit about your meetups and kind of the thinking behind all that.
Liz:
Really first for those that don’t know I am in Colorado Springs and I co-host an in person, well we’re just now getting back to in person, meetup and they are eBay centric, even though we don’t just talk about eBay. We talk about reselling. We talk about other platforms. The last in person meet up we had, I think, nine of the 10 people that attended crosspost. So they’re on different sites. So the days of just being one platform centric are pretty much over. And you know what? eBay’s cool with that. However, they do have the largest platform where sellers that have meetups can come post about them to reach the entire seller community that has a registered eBay account. So go to sellerevents.ebay.com. And when you scroll down to the bottom, you can pick your region and it’s going to be up to the coordinators, whether they want this event to be virtual or they want this event to be in person or some meetup coordinators have both.
Liz:
And my co-host Robin, Robin Gamie, hey, shout out to you girl. She is really good about that. Our in person meetup, since coming back, she has done a virtual option for in-person events. So if you’re not in Colorado or you can’t make it in person, there’s a virtual option. So when you go to your region at the bottom of that sellerevents.ebay.com page, you can pick your region, click around, register for a couple of different meetups. And go through and scroll through and see which one kind of aligns with you. Two big ones that I’m gonna shout out because they’re near and dear to my heart. And so two of the ones that are happening, the soonest is the BOSS Reseller Remix virtual meetup. So if you are listening, so if you are listening the day this episode drops Wednesday, January 12th, this virtual meetup will happen at 4:00 PM MST.
Liz:
You must go to sellerevents.ebay.com and register to get the link to go to this virtual event because that will be held on the eBay site. So the BOSS virtual meetup is sponsored by Theresa Cox, Vikki Egan and Katy Zilverberg. This is a spot for people that attended the BOSS Reseller Remix. And for those that could not make it to the event that was held in October. This is open to everybody. So go, it’s not too late. If you’re listening to this Wednesday morning to go and register for a 4:00 PM mountain standard time event, they are going to do a Seller Hub deep dive with one of eBay’s product managers, I’m gonna butcher his name. So I’m not even gonna attempt it. Greg bless you for teaching us about the Seller Hub performance tonight. I will be there. I wanna learn more.
Liz:
I am an experienced seller, but I always learn something new. When I hear presentations from product managers. When I thought I had a handle on a product, I always learned something new or took it to the next step. So I am excited about this. Again sellerevents.ebay.com. Look for the BOSS Reseller Remix event tonight. The next one will be a Night With eBay and that is co-hosted by myself cell Robin Gamie from the Colorado Springs meetup. And <laugh> Dave and Laurie Bilyeu from eBliss Reseller Solutions in Denver. I thought we would at least get the applause.
Doug:
Ladies and gentlemen, please hold your applause.
Liz:
Thank you.
Doug:
I’m sorry, Liz.
Liz:
Oh my goodness gracious. I’m sorry. What am I gonna do with you? So what’s really cool about this event is this is an in-person event, A Night With eBay. They are not gonna be there holographically Brian Burke and Rebecca Michals will be in person at this event, right? So we’ll be able to spend a couple of hours with with eBay’s community leaders, spending time with them, learning more about eBay, feeling that connection. Something that’s really cool if you are in Colorado or the surrounding areas. And I want you to know that we have an eBay business owner that drives three hours to our meetup. She is amazing. Freaking amazing. And Chelsea, if you’re listening, I cannot wait to see you and introduce you to Brian and Rebecca on the Colorado meetup night that’s gonna be January 26th. Again, it’s at sellerevents.ebay.com. You can find either the Colorado Springs or the Denver one to register, you do have to register.
Liz:
We have this at a place that can handle the amount of people that we expect to turn out. We’re not sold out yet. So don’t think that, “oh, I’m never gonna be able to get a ticket” because you can. But we had to choose a restaurant and restaurant’s nowadays with capacity and whatnot. We had to buy food, which means you have to buy a ticket, which will cover your food. So know that we’re not just charging money because we can, we are charging it to cover the cost of the food that we’ve had to pay for out of pocket.
Doug:
There you go. Gotta order a minimum amount of food to get that room.
Liz:
Yeah, and it’s gonna be well worth it.
Doug:
Yeah, those are always great. And it’s gonna be great to see Brian Burke and Rebecca Michals in her first seller face to face experience. She’s super cool. So it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be a good night. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen earlier, I was like, “I’ll be there, Liz. I’m just gonna come in a Zoom.” And she said, “no, it’s very exclusive. It’s in person.”
Liz:
So, I don’t think you have a suit nice enough.
Doug:
What’s that?
Liz:
I said, I don’t know if your suit would be nice enough to meet us at the Viewhouse Bar and Pub.
Doug:
My jeans and t-shirt and my blazer.
Liz:
I do wanna say that these two events aren’t the only events happening. When you go to the seller events, go to seller meetings. I’m sitting here looking, there are meetups in New York, there are in person, there are virtual and they go all the way through March. So make sure that you’re looking at that page. If you are interested in connecting with other sellers, I know this is eBay. I know that at our event, on the 26th, we’re gonna be talking a lot about eBay. We’re only gonna be talking about eBay, but that’s not the only thing that we talk about during these meetups. If you are somebody that doesn’t have a meetup in your local area and you’re interested in starting one, shoot me a DM on Instagram and I’ll help you out. If you wanna start in person or virtual, I can help get you in contact with the right people to go ahead and set this up. Or you can go to sellerevents.ebay.com and filter your way through to register for that. Or just shoot me a DM. I normally get on Instagram every day. Not always. So it might take a day.
Doug:
And seller events.ebay.com, log into your eBay account, go there. And like Liz said, go through, especially the virtual stuff, or you might find something local. But if there’s a topic that you know is interesting to you, sign up, you’ll learn something, you’ll connect with other sellers. And what’s nice too, is that this site gives you a means to not only connect with other sellers to book and track your meetup, but it gives you a presentation mode as well. Right Liz?
Liz:
Yeah, you can do everything directly. So if you do it virtually, it’s all handled right directly on their platform. So if you’ve attended any eBay events, I can tell you that the BOSS Reseller Remix one tonight will be on the platform that eBay uses. It’s integrated. It’s called Bevy. You’re not going to an external link. It’s going to be just like when you attended eBay Open, just when you attend the monthly seller check-ins it’s gonna be on the same platform. So it’s all right there.
Doug:
And here’s the inside info. So Liz did, you know, I used to work at eBay?
Liz:
Wait, what?
Doug:
I know. So anyway, I was at eBay on the seller engagement team and we worked with seller events. So way back when they were planning this, I was still there. This whole platform. And the purpose of this platform is to make it easier for eBay to participate with you and your meetups to help you promote them. And that’s the reasoning behind it. If you want eBay’s help and participation, they want you to go through this platform. So that’s kind of what the thinking is like, they’re trying to be more efficient. They’re trying to be able to connect with you, trying to be able to engage with you. And yeah, frankly, they, it helps them to track the meetups, helps them track what’s going on. And that helps you too, as a meetup organizer. So if you’re an eBay meetup organizer and you’re not listed on sellerevents.ebay.com, you’re gonna wanna get over there and register. And then if you’re interested, like Liz said in starting one, you can also go through there or PM Liz. And as you know, that’s how Liz and I met over meetups, in a bar. <laugh>
Liz:
We were in a bar talking about meetups.
Doug:
We were walking to a bar. No, actually we met at eBay Open and we discussed…
Liz:
Walking from a bar to a bar.
Doug:
That’s right. Liz’s interest in starting a meetup, her legendary meetup.
Liz:
Right, right, right. Speaking of meetups really quick before we close this up, I do wanna say, so we do both in person and virtual, since we’re gonna have the in person later this month, we did a virtual one last week and I met a new seller that lives in my area. We share the same post office, super cool seller, learned from him. We all got to chit chat and that, that’s what this is really about. I got to learn about a seller in our area and he’s super excited when we come in person. So thanks Travis for showing up for the meetup.
Doug:
Nice. All right. Should we move on?
Liz:
So now that our eBay commercial is done, yes. What else do we have to talk about today, Doug?
Doug:
So, there was an article, interestingly, an article that List Perfectly was included in and it was about reselling. And I guess you would say some of the challenges, but this article got a lot of notice and it got a lot of notice in seller groups across the board.
Liz:
I think I saw it in probably six or seven reselling groups that I’m in, that it was shared to.
Doug:
And this article was on the Yahoo News Money section and it was entitled “Americans are finding it harder to resell their secondhand goods as inventory swells”. To me, when I first looked at this, I thought it was kind of a double, like a double edged sword type of thing, you know, addressing supply chain issues and you know, I don’t know, but also implying opportunities to pivot.
Liz:
Well, yeah. And so I saw this and I was, I saw the headline and I was like, wait a minute. It’s not harder to resell second hand goods. It hasn’t been, but this is what I noticed they were talking about. So they did talk about selling secondhand goods and people clearing out their closet and I mean, being sustainable has become trendy. Sso people are all about thrifting and used fashion. So what happened is during the pandemic, people are like, “I wanna downsize, I don’t need these business suits anymore.” There’s this huge shift in people working from home now. And there’s a big shift even in, well, I shouldn’t say all of corporate America, I’m not corporate America, but I have family in corporate America. And a lot of ’em aren’t wearing suits and ties to the office anymore, pencil skirts, and a blazer probably have been traded in for jeans and Birkenstocks.
Liz:
And, and like I said, a lot more online, it’s just become more common. So what do people do with these used clothing items is, and this is what the article really talked about a lot. They did not name it, but I will, they were talking about clean out bags and clean out bags are connected to thredup and they are probably the largest online used, I don’t even know what to call it, I’m gonna call it a thrift store because that’s pretty much what it is. An online thrift store, I think that that’s even what they tell themselves. As I have sent items into thredup. See, I don’t, I wanna call it thrift up for some reason. It’s easy, it’s convenient. And they even quote this in here that this one seller, “just put everything that I wanted to resell in a large clean out bag and shipped it from my porch” said the mother of three from grand rapids, Michigan. And she made at least a thousand dollars a year in cash and credit as a consigner. It was convenient and easy. So not so much during the pandemic when it became trendy to be sustainable consignment shops, both in person and online started getting pickier about what they would and would not take said, hoik noting one online resale platform stopped sending clean out bags and even turned down some of her brand new items with tags.” Again, they did not name, thredup is my best guess that it is thredup because it is a clean out bag and that’s what they call them. I have noticed this too. I started sending in really just some of my inventory. Quite honestly, I had no problem getting inventory at the very early stages of the pandemic when thrift stores weren’t taking stuff. I bought about a 2000 piece clothing lot and one of the ways that I got rid of ’em was ordering a bunch of clean out bags from thredup, which I now can no longer get. So they talked a lot about that.
Doug:
So, Liz it’s like, that’s the interesting thing because the headlines are a little misleading and it’s cuz this is kind of like about sellers doing it on their own sellers, doing it through consignment shops, right?
Liz:
Where I am, I do this on my own and I’m not seeing a problem moving secondhand goods. And the people that I’m in the community with are doing well.
Doug:
Let me read the quote from Amanda. “It’s starting to show,” said Amanda Morse, co-founder of List Perfectly, which helps sellers list and cross post products from used shoes to electronics on 12 major online platforms from Tradesy to Poshmark. “AI, which is where the industry is going, is making things worse because you’re removing the human component in eliminating personalized service.” Morse said, “Plus, if you do one thing, AI doesn’t like your banned from the site.” More resellers are doing it on their own, said Morse, who with her business partner Clara Albornoz has been in the resale business for a combined 40 years.”
Liz:
Well, and then it goes on to say others like Holik is simply donating her gently used items and she is not alone. So instead of sending it to thredup or places with clean out bags that she used to be able to do now she’s just donating it. And that’s what Amanda was saying is resellers are doing it on their own now. So resellers that’s where they’re talking about the AI, right? Or they’re taking the human component out of it. When you’re just saying, “we only accept this brand, but we don’t accept any of this brand.” As, as shoppers, as thrifters, as resellers, we know what we’re looking for and we know what our consumers want and we’re not AIing our way. So AI artificial intelligence, right? So we’re not bots. We’re, we’re getting that human aspect to it, to where we know our customers. I know that this brand doesn’t sell, but if you can find these, this brand, I will pick up in this color or this style, right? So I’m adding that human factor, that human intelligence into play when reselling items. So while it may be harder, like this article says for sellers to resell their items, it’s not as hard for resellers to resell their items. Does that make sense, Doug?
Doug:
I believe so. <laugh>
Liz:
But this is a great article. Cool to think about really when you’re out thrifting and it is true consignment stores, big thrift stores are inundated with secondhand items and we, the human bringing the human component to it. I mean, we know what our buyers want
Doug:
Or the bins Liz, the bins.
Liz:
Oh yes, trust me. There are so many used clothes to go around and it’s really, and I will say Doug, over the years, I’ve been doing this a long time. I have become a lot more picky because my buyers have become more picky over what I sell and what they buy.
Doug:
There’s a lot of choice out there now.
Liz:
There is. But how cool is it that Yahoo Money published this article about secondhand goods and it’s made its rounds to different Facebook groups and on Instagram, and List Perfectly, Clara and Amanda. There they are. Once again in another huge article.
Doug:
There you go. A lot of exposure. Yeah. So speaking of evolution, monetary related sites, entrepreneur.com ran an article that I thought was interesting, and I wanted to talk to you about. “What I wish I knew before starting my e-commerce business.” And so this is interesting too, because it’s, you know, it’s basically going back to, “Hey, don’t you wish you knew this don’t you wish you knew that?” So a couple different things I wanted to talk to you about with this. I wanted to see if there was anything you wish, you know, back when you started, we can go through this and discuss the high level points. Then I wanna talk a little bit about, we’re seeing it more and more people getting back into it and we’re seeing a lot of, “oh, well, when I used to sell things like this,” or really seeing things like, “well, I don’t offer returns. I’m not gonna offer returns.” You know, this kind of touches on all of that. So let’s start with Liz, is there anything you wish you knew now that you didn’t know back when you started?
Liz:
When I started selling, it wasn’t my goal to become a full-time seller. It just happened, but I wish somebody would’ve have grabbed me super early and said, “be ready for change.” “Just because you learned something today and you’re doing it this way, don’t think that it’s gonna be that way forever.” Be prepared for change. Whether it be on a platform, whether it be from customers, whether it be from inventory, inventory, like gathering your inventory, things will change. I was hard headed about that in the beginning, I think over the last six or seven years.
Doug:
What Liz hard headed?
Liz:
If you, when you get to know me, you’ll understand that statement. I mean, and I’ve gotten a good handle over it, the last six, seven years. I’m totally down for that, but I wasn’t always this way, but that’s what I wish somebody would’ve told me early in my selling days is “be prepared.” And as much as I overuse this, the word is pivot. So whatever you are in Colorado, and you hear the flooring commercial you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when these little girls are yelling, “pivot,” but anyways, but I wish somebody would’ve told me that.
Doug:
That’s from a Friend’=s episode where they’re trying to move the couch. “Pivota!”
Liz:
Yeah. I can see that episode in my head.
Doug:
Yours is much better than mine. I mean, that’s a good one, like always be able to learn, always be able to pivot, you know, to adjust your business. Mine was, I guess my big thing is, don’t be so intimidated. I was super intimidated by shipping, you know? And it was just, that was my main thing is I wanted to get it all down and know everything before I got into it and was like, get into it. It’s okay to make some mistakes. It’s not gonna be the end of the world. That was my big, I guess that would be my big thing is don’t be so scared about shipping. Yeah. Now I gotta get over my fear of measuring clothing.
Liz:
So some of the best lessons I’ve ever learned came from my mistakes. I mean, did they cost me money? Did they cost me money? Sometimes? You know what? I call that tuition. I messed up on shipping because I didn’t know about dimensional weight. And I had to pay $45 instead of $20. That was $25 tuition. I earned my certificate that day.
Doug:
There you go. All right. Yeah. I had a couple of those too. So <laugh>…
Liz:
Yeah. But we learn.
Doug:
Yeah, we learn.
New Speaker:
Yeah. So this article is called “what I wish I knew before starting my e-commerce business” from entrepreneur.com and the first one is “drop shipping is tough.” Doug, have you ever drop shipped?
Doug:
No. I mean, I’ve frankly done a lot of research on it and there are a lot of, you know, there are a lot of courses out there, a lot of pundits that’ll try to get you to do it. And it’s just, it’s appealing, but it’s not appealing to me. It’s not my thing, but I totally understand.
Liz:
Yeah. Dropshipping isn’t my thing. If it is yours kudos to you, we all have different business models. There’s nothing wrong with dropshipping as a matter of fact. I think the most I’ve ever learned about dropshipping, I’ve learned on like 32 second TikToks.
Doug:
I do know sellers that do very well dropshipping, but it’s just not, it’s not for me.
Liz:
They even say, “this is a tough way to introduce yourself to the e-commerce space because there are so many moving parts. You need to create an online store, find products, advertise your store and provide customer service.” So this is a line that kind of goes back to what we were just talking about this “baptism by fire in the e-commerce world, isn’t for the faint hearted or lazy entrepreneurs out there because you need to learn multiple skills at once and quickly.” And I mean, quite honestly, baptism by fire. That’s what a lot of us do.
Doug:
It’s not a great way, it wouldn’t be a great way to start online selling. You have to find a source. You have to be real careful with the rules on the sites cuz it’s touchy and then, you know, the other big thing I’ve seen is like, you really have to be to keep up on what’s what’s selling, what the trends are, the seasonal trends. What’s hot, you know, there’s not always gonna be fidget spinners that come around.
Liz:
Oh my gosh. Fidget spinners. Wow. That took me back.
Doug:
We all probably have a couple laying around.
Liz:
I think I have an eBay fidget spinner actually. <laugh> So the next one is people want fast shipping.
Doug:
Yes. That’s definitely true.
Liz:
People want fast shipping. Really? Why? Because people have been spoiled by Amazon Prime’s two day delivery. I don’t really know. I don’t have the history of Amazon Prime and two day delivery or same day delivery, even. I know I ordered something for Christmas. They’re like, “okay, it’ll be there by 10 o’clock tonight.” And I’m like, “what!?” That’s not the norm for where I live, but whatever, that was pretty cool. So the unfortunate thing is sometimes your customers will expect the same shipping options and speed as Amazon. You know, I agree with this to an extent. I am very fortunate because I sell on different platforms. It really depends on what platforms you sell on. So do you want me to do a whole Liz story? How long? How long do I have Doug? How long you kids got?
Liz:
How long you kids got? You wanna keep listening? Here’s my story about fast shipping. When I started selling, I did it part-time. I had a very busy job and I was afraid that my shipping metrics in eBay would go down because I would lose Top Rated Seller. So I had three day shipping. I would typically ship the next day, but I had three day shipping, and that covered me in case let’s say I printed out a label and I couldn’t, I got busy and I couldn’t make it to the post office that day. So it worked for me. I was still selling thousands of dollars a month. Right. And it worked for me then I still had buyers, but guess what? That was eight years ago. Nowadays we’ve got sellers coming on board 18, 19, 20 years old. They’re like “I’m shipping within an hour. I’m going to the post office three days a week.” Dang. My competition just got rough. Right? So I have to compete with that. This is not the same world I was selling in eight years ago. So when I first went full time, I held onto that three day. If you sell an eBay, know that you are not gonna lose Top Rated Seller. if you have three day shipping, that’s not a factor. That’s top rated plus that has to have one or same day shipping. So you can still keep your Top Rated Seller, but now Posh gives you a couple days. Mercari gives you a couple days. Facebook Marketplace gives you a couple days. All of the other platforms give you a couple days. eBay holds you to your metrics. When you do same day, one day, two day shipping, three day shipping, it’s fine. It just gives the buyer the estimated delivery date. If you do five days or more, a red banner will go on your listing saying delay, gosh, I cannot remember the name, but you will get a little, it will show buyers a little red announcement saying, you know that this is gonna take longer to ship the normal, but it does respect your five day shipping time. And you can do it.
Doug:
Keep that in mind. And that’s what I would say. So my perspective on this is twofold. So if that works for you, if that’s what you can do, I mean, it’s difficult. I mean, I’ve had challenges. I have, I think, two day shipping and I’ve had challenges. There’s so much competition and so much choice out there. You’re also maybe losing some sales cuz they can be like, “okay, well if I can’t get this and I can get this sooner, I’m gonna go over here and buy it.” But you know, it’s also, but do what works for you.
Liz:
I see both perspectives. Okay. So if I am selling this unique, one of a kind only two listed on eBay, blue portfolios are same day shipping versus two day shipping really gonna matter. Or if I’m the only one or I’m one of the few, probably not. If I am selling this blue phone case and there are 5,000 listed and people want stuff fast and I probably wanna look at my market. Right? So that all plays into it. And I understand that as a seller.
Doug:
Now that portfolio’s valuable because you’ve written in it.
Liz:
Oh that has secrets in it.
Doug:
So it’s collectible.
Liz:
That’s got secrets. Yes. That is a collectible notebook.
Doug:
Liz’s journal.
Liz:
So, Doug people are listening and for those listening, you have to know that we record this, but we do it via streamer so we can see each other. So Doug and I can see each other right now as you’re recording this and I’m showing him my notebook. Yes. So what’s
Doug:
Next, Doug, this is kind of a, to use the word of the day “two-fold.” This ties into what we’re kind of talking about and then a bigger type of thing. So obviously you hinted at this in the last point is like Amazon Prime has really changed the game across the board and set buyer expectations. But also, you know, the next point in this article is to get ready to compete against Amazon. Amazon sells everything. You’re gonna have a lot of competition with Amazon. And the thing that Amazon does, and everybody knows it, but Amazon competes against its own sellers. So they have their own brands. They’re increasing those. They even have clothing brands, Liz, shoe brands. And so they’re increasing that kind of stuff. And they compete against their sellers and they get seller data and they will undercut the listings that they have on the site. So, you know, if you’re selling online, you’re competing against Amazon, not only on the platform, but in terms of those perceptions, it goes back to you’re competing against Amazon Prime, people getting stuff quick, shipping, you’re competing against choice, shipping price, exposure. Amazon gets amazing amounts of traffic. So basically if you’re selling online, Amazon’s one of your competitors, even if you sell on there.
Liz:
Yeah. And, and again, I will go back. I totally agree with you. And I will tell you, if you haven’t heard by now, Liz made the shift from coloradoreworn. I’m still coloradoreworn, 80% used. And now I’m 80% new with tags. So my competitors could be the newest tags people. My used stuff, I’m not really worried about. If I’m selling antique fishing lures, I’m not worried about Amazon. I’m just not. If I’m selling brand new fishing lures, that’s the hottest and greatest, I probably might be worried about Amazon, but I’m not. So that’s great. Which leads to the next one is if you can’t beat, ’em join them. And they’re talking about Amazon FBA. If you’ve never heard of this term and you are keen to build an eCommerce brand, go to Google and start researching. Amazon FBA is an eCommerce model, which allows you to white label a product, ship it to Amazon’s fulfillment center, create a listing and put your product in front of millions of customers on Amazon.
Doug:
And FBA is literally fulfillment by Amazon.
Liz:
Yes. I agree with the headline of, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” I’ve tried Amazon. I never white labeled anything. I have a member of my meetup group that does white label FBA and she is very successful at it. It’s not something I’d wanna do. <laugh> I mean, I guess if I was starving and I needed the money, I’d figure it out. Right. Or if I wanted to make an extra billion dollars next year, I’m lying. I would love an extra billion dollars next year. And I would do white label for that.
Doug:
I could attend your meetup if I had an extra billion in person, and buy everybody dinner.
Liz:
You’d buy everybody’s ticket, that would be wonderful, Doug. But you don’t so you won’t.
Doug:
Because I don’t have an Amazon FBA, that’s what it is. Exactly.
Liz:
So, I mean, well, I agree with, if you can’t beat, ’em join him. That’s kind of the road that I had to take when I made that shift from part-time to full-time that first year I’m like I did through three day handling. Well, now my stuff’s slower, Amazon FBA was coming up. The quicker shipping times were coming up. I’m like, “man, people kind of do want this stuff a little bit faster.” Maybe I should offer, and I was in a position to where I could do next day handling and I still am. So now I do wanna backtrack a little bit and say, I have friends that have two and three day shipping and they keep it that way and they sell just fine. So I’m not saying that’s the end all be all, I’m saying, get a feel for your business and do whatever you can handle that makes the most sense to make the most sales.
Doug:
And so Liz didn’t try to, didn’t choose to join him. Liz chose to try and beat them.
Liz:
I’m gonna beat them. Exactly. Beat them. So, no, I actually, I joined all the sellers that were doing, you know, next day handling. I cannot keep up with the same day handling as much as I’d love to. I mean, it’s just me.
Doug:
You got a life too.
Liz:
Yeah, exactly. And you know, it is what it is.
Doug:
And again, I know a lot of sellers that make a lot on Amazon. I know a lot of sellers that make a lot doing Amazon FBA. There’s a lot of stuff out there. So if it’s something you wanna look into, I mean, it can be a good side hustle, but I tried to list on Amazon. I didn’t like the listing flow to be honest with you. So it was kinda like for the volume that I sell, it doesn’t affect my business to not be selling on Amazon. But I know a lot of sellers that that’s, you know, their main source and there’s a lot of headaches associated with Amazon, but you can make a lot of money there. Dropshipping, FBA, takes a lot of time, a lot of research and it’s a lot of work.
Liz:
It really is. As easy as it makes it sound it is a lot of work. I’ve tried it just on a couple of items that I’ve had around here, you know, merchant fulfilled, which means that I ship it. Let me tell you the amount of returns, I got slammed. It was harsh, especially in clothing, which speaking of returns, this is my lead in. Entrepreneur.com, you can call me and get my advice for your next article because you missed out, one of the biggest components that all eCommerce sellers face day in and day out is returns. Yeah. Right. So, Hey Doug, how much time do I have?
Doug:
Yeah, that was the missing component. Amazon, you can return no matter what, right? I think so. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about that, but that’s another, that’s another Amazon Prime thing that has shifted perceptions is people expect returns and not all sellers wanna offer returns, but tell us your story, Liz. <laugh>
Liz:
I feel like I should start a campfire and offer up some smores. It’s like story time with Liz. Nightmares, right? What are they campfire stories?
Doug:
Is that, is that? No…
Liz:
Oh my gosh. Doug, are you sleeping? <laugh> are, are our listeners still here?
Doug:
We’re in the outdoors, Liz.
Liz:
Okay. We’re just gonna do lessons with Liz. Is that gonna be a segment? Liz? Can we make that?
Doug:
Okay. Do whatever you want. It’s your podcast, halfway.
Liz:
So this is my half. This is my half. And I feel like I’ve taken up like 90% of the podcast.
Doug:
Welcome to lessons with Liz.
Liz:
Lessons with Liz. I am Liz. So one of the things that they didn’t cover was returns. And I did not accept returns, dead set against it. Not taking ’em. I’m not Nordstrom. I’m not Walmart. You bought my used item. It’s yours. You keep it. I showed pictures. I told you it had a stain. No, I’m not taking it back, but that was me for so long. Right? What it really, really was, was fear. There you go. It was fear of losing money. It was fear of having to refund and it was kind of a point. I mean, you got this stuff cheap and it’s used, and here you go. I made the shift to take returns. When I went full time, about six months, it was not immediate. It was about six months after I started full time that I started taking returns and I was afraid.
Liz:
Yeah. I was afraid people were gonna rip me off. I was afraid people were gonna lie. I was afraid I was gonna get back other items. And I was afraid of losing money. Like could my business sustain that? Yeah, I have probably had in the last, I don’t know, I’ve been full time, six years. So I’ve probably had three bad returns in six years. The reason that I decided to take returns is I didn’t want the man to be right. And the man being eBay, eBay telling me, “but my data shows,” what does your data know about my business? Right? Yeah. I was so hardheaded. And I finally got to a point in selling that I’m like, “you know what?” I started, you know what it was. I started finding the positive community to hang out with. I found other resellers that told me it was gonna be okay. And they were right. My life got so much easier. Not worrying about it. And when somebody’s like, I’m returning this shirt because I didn’t like the shade of pink. You know what my response was? “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. Absolutely return it.”
Doug:
And then when you get that shirt back, what do you do with it Liz?
Liz:
You relist it. You just relist it and sell it again. Here’s my point. If it sold, once it was desirable, that means your title was good. SEO, your description was correct. Your point was right on, your shipping was okay. If people found it and bought it once they’re gonna find it and buy it again. You did everything. Right? What it cost me was the time. It would’ve cost me more time fighting that with a buyer than it did just saying, “okay.” And back then the return process wasn’t automated. Now it’s all automated. Somebody’s like, “I wanna return it.” It sends them a return label. They return it back. I got it back. I refund, it gets relisted. It’s like two clicks of a button. Not a big deal. I get it. If you are in that mindset right now or I am not taking returns, I’m not doing it. Can’t make me do it. I know, I was right there. And I’m here to tell you, it’s not that scary. It is a part of doing business. The way I see it is if I lose, let’s just say I lose $5 on a sale. It’s a part of doing business. It’s just like me having to buy tape, right? To package up my items. It is a business expense. I know it’s scary when you’re not making as much money at this. You don’t feel you should be making or you’re trying to build up and I get that. There’s gonna be setbacks. This is just gonna be one of ’em. Don’t see it as a setback. Again, it’s tuition. You’re learning. I can tell you my return rate and I do new and used clothes. Men’s and women probably, it’s a high return rate, right? Industry-wide.
Liz:
Mine stays under 5%. And I will tell you, they come in threes. <laugh> so everything happens when I get one return guaranteed, the next week I’m gonna get two more return requests and then it’ll be crickets for not one return. And then I’ll get three…you’re a little bit late on that, Doug. But I appreciate it. That’s true. So anyways, that was lessons with Liz. There you go. Some of you are gonna say I’m full of doo doo, but whatever, you’re gonna get there, it really is. But that is what I wish I knew before starting my eCommerce business. Something that entrepreneur.com left out was returns, which I mean, I really could go on. I was in a discussion with another reseller in a Facebook group about this and she had a return and yeah, the buyer was wrong. She’s like, “I don’t take returns and they to do a return and I don’t wanna take it.” And it wasn’t ruined. And I was like, this person was ready to quit eBay. Yeah. And I’m like, “wait a minute. You’ve been selling for 19 years and you’re gonna let a $30 item off of principle ruin your entire business. Yeah, I get it. I’ve gotten frustrated. I’ve gotten mad. I’ve told this story, but it’s easier to just take it and move on, take the return back, resell it. And it takes up so much less brain space to where you can concentrate on building your business.
Doug:
And it can be frustrating and there’s bad. bad buyers, but there are bad sellers too. And then absolutely a couple things there, like you said, it’s part of doing business. And then for me too, it’s like, I’ll see some stuff like, “well, I get returns all the time.” So then, you know, there’s a trend there. You gotta look at, maybe you’re not describing stuff enough. Maybe you’re not being accurate in your descriptions. It’s like, what are the reasons for your returns? You gotta look at your data. I have heard stories about people returning bricks, and I have heard stories even from you about people tearing a different item of clothing and returning it. That’s a bad buyer and it sucks, but it’s gonna happen. That’s part of doing business from my experience.
Doug:
Most of the people like, like you had said, most people, if they buy something, they’re interested in it. If it’s not necessarily what they wanted, they expect to be able to return it. And you know, my volume and my margins are much different than yours. If I get a CD, a music CD back, a book back, a movie back, I just relist it and it sells. I’ve done it, I don’t know how many times. I think my rate was like 2% returns. I haven’t had a not as described, a couple compatibility issues with some video games, stuff like that. And it’s like, okay, couple times I’ve been like, “just keep it.” And I’ve refunded the money because I’m trying to, trying to also think about, you know, keeping customers, doing good customer service, you know, thinking, trying to think of even as minuscule as I am trying to think of myself as a business, but you know, look at the data. But if you’re selling like one off crazy things, like, I don’t know, horse saddles or something like that, you know, you don’t have to offer returns, but it’s definitely recommended. It’s expected. Not all the sites facilitate returns.
Liz:
Well, and that’s what I was gonna say. If you’re listening to this, because we have sellers that listen to these podcasts that have never sold on eBay, they are selling on Facebook marketplace, Mercari, Poshmark, none of those even offer sellers the option to accept returns. So if you’re a seller that sells on those sites and you’re looking at eBay, it sounds so scary. And I get it because that’s not your norm. It’s a norm on eBay, and here’s the thing that I see a lot too. People say, “oh my gosh, I hear so much about returns on Facebook and sellers having problems.” Well, let me tell you that’s because people don’t go to Facebook to say “I had a great transaction.” Yeah. There’s no, like that’s just like saying the sun came out today. Okay. That’s not an exciting post. So people don’t go to Facebook or other communities to say “I had a great day.” Right. Or they go to say, “Hey, I had this problem buyer,” but their last 400 transactions were probably totally fine. Yeah. So you’re only hearing about the one and when 10 sellers do that, it makes it seem like it’s a horrible situation.
Doug:
It’s the negative ones you remember. The one bad review.
Liz:
I know, I know. So yeah, in the news this week on The Seller Community Podcast.
Doug:
All right. Anything else?
Liz:
I think that covers it for today, Doug.
Doug:
That’s all the news that fits Liz.
Liz:
Thank you for joining us on The Seller Community Podcast news edition from List Perfectly. You can find us at listperfectly.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. You can email us at podcast@listperfectly.com. You can post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group, facebook.com/group/listperfectly. Use the hashtag #sellercommunitypodcast and mention Liz or Doug.
Doug:
You can listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure and subscribe, and tell your friends. And if you’re on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we’d love for you to leave us a review. Also, please follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Liz is @coloradoreworn. I am @snoop.dougie and of course @listperfectly. You can always use our promo code podcast, P O D C A S T for 30% off your first month of List Perfectly or upgrading your plan.
Liz and Doug:
We will see you next time.