Overview
This week we chat with antiques and collectibles seller Stewart White of Franklin Hill Ventures. Learn how started selling and collecting and how he manages his business across multiple platforms while also managing physical inventory across multiple local antique malls.
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 https://anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@listperfectly.com.
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Transcript
Liz:
Welcome to The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. Today, we get the opportunity to speak with community member, reseller, Stewart White. He is the owner of Franklin Hill Ventures based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Stewart owns booths at two going on three antique malls and is an online seller that has expanded his business to a couple of different platforms that I’m super excited to talk to him about. And we’re gonna talk to Stewart about going from a full-time non-reselling career to full-time selling. Welcome Stewart.
Doug:
I think we’ve been wanting to have you on for a while, so it’s good to get you and thanks for coming on. And you know, you’re a big List Perfectly fan too, very active in the List Perfectly community like Liz said. So tell us, when did you start selling and what introduced you to online sales?
Stewart:
Well, I’ve been a collector my whole life and I mean, going back to when I was a little kid in the early seventies, my mom used to buy me baseball cards and football cards. So starting in about 1973, and that kind of started this lifelong love of collecting everything. I mean, I collected everything from the cards to matchbooks, to stamps, to coins, to post cards, even sugar packets, which is not something most people collect. You know, you think of sugar packets now just have you have your white, pink and blue. But back in the day, you know, they might have birds or presidents or animals or all these different things that you could pick up different places. And I’m not even sure what happened to all the stuff I collected at various points in my life, but that was kind of how I got started in this love of, you know, getting stuff. And then as far as selling probably my first experiences were in junior high school. When my mom would make brownies, I would actually take those brownies package ’em up and take ’em to school and sell ’em to my friends and other people in the school. And then I kind of branched out to, you know, going to the convenience store before I got on the bus in the morning and I would buy bubble gum or jaw breakers or other types of candy and, you know, sell those, I wasn’t quite the guy, you know, with the trench coat selling pins and watches, but, you know, it was pretty close. And then, you know, past that, I don’t know if either, I mean, y’all are probably old enough to remember it, but the grit newspapers, you’d see ’em in comic books. You could order those and sell those and go door to door.
Stewart:
And I used to do that and wrapping paper. I also did all these little different things that I did in junior high school then, you know, kind of took a break, really didn’t do anything in high school or college. And then when I graduated college my roommate at the time we opened a sports card booth in Nashville and did that for a year or so. And I kind of hated it, cause I got so burned out on sports cards. I just sold everything I had and I don’t really have, I don’t do anything with sports cards anymore to speak of, but as far as eBay and online selling, I really have my wife to thank for that. You know, once we had kids, she started buying and selling on eBay. She was, you know, buying clothes and then selling clothes. And this was probably in 1999. So this was back, you know, when you had to take the pictures, take ’em and get ’em developed, you know, if you added pictures to the listing then, you know, get the pictures back, scan ’em in. I think you might get ’em on a CD. And then I don’t remember, it was so long ago. But you know, she was really the first one who was selling online. And then we just kind of went along doing that as a hobby for a while. And then sometime around 2014 is probably when I got semi-serious with the whole online reselling and then in 2018 really started to focus and then, you know, brought us to now when I, you know, have gone full time with it.
Liz:
Fascinating. So Stewart is the OG kindergarten hustler and that carried all the way through the whole time. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m like, if you could take mom’s brownies package ’em up and sell ’em to all the kids and then package up the gum. Yeah, that’s a little bit of hustle going on there probably for your entire life.
Doug:
A young entrepreneur.
Liz:
Yeah, that was a lot. So you’ve really been selling your entire life. We met at BOSS Reseller Remix. We communicated online like a lot of us resellers do in Facebook, Instagram, whatnot, but we got to meet in Vegas and I learned that you recently, you know, left your full-time position outside of reselling, but I know you’ve been selling probably full-time even when you had that full-time job, but now you’re a full-time reseller. Tell us about that shift. Was it forced? Was it retirement? Was it “I’m ready to take this on?”
Stewart:
I think more than the third one. First off, just like you said, I mean, people say, “oh, you’re full time reselling now.” No. Now I just no longer have two full time jobs and I actually feel that I’ve been able to free up some time just because I was, you know, if I’m working eight hours at my real job and eight hours reselling, 16 hours now, now I can work 14 hours reselling I’m still ahead of the game. So yes. I mean, it wasn’t necessarily forced, but I’d been working at a hospital in Chattanooga, which is about close to two hours from Knoxville. So I was driving down there a couple of times a week. I mean I was working from home maybe a day or two driving down there two or three days and really after four and a half years, that that just got really old then plus all the COVID stuff, being in a hospital, you know, just not a lot of fun so I knew something had to change and I mean, I’ve been dreaming of doing the full-time reselling for a good while and you know, I have a very supportive spouse.
Stewart:
I mean, it seems like anytime I’ve made a major change in my life, it’s always been at, you know, “the worst time possible.” But I mean, I have learned throughout life that if you wait for the right time to do something, you’ll never do it. You know, whether it’s getting married, whether it’s having kids, whether it’s going full-time reselling, you can always think of a million reasons not to do something. So, you know, at some point you gotta take a leap of faith. So, and when I say that, you know, that doesn’t mean just, you know, jump in without doing any planning either because I mean, I’ve been planning for this a long time and I saved a good bit of money to replace my salary while I tried to ramp this up. We had gone on my wife’s insurance, there’s a big hurdle for a lot of people looking to go full-time, you know, the whole insurance thing. We didn’t switch because of me going full time, you know, there were other reasons for the switch, but it worked out that, you know, we were on her insurance so that we didn’t have to worry about that. And do you know, I did a lot of preparation and really just, after talking with my wife a lot, we’ve grown the business to a point where I think that we can now take that next step and grow the business to where we need to, to make it a self-supporting thing. And hopefully one day, she’ll be able to leave her job too and come and be one of those super seller spouse couples that you see on YouTube. But,I mean, she already helps out a lot.
Stewart:
I mean, I would say this is more my business but she definitely, as far as making the booths look good and she helps with the sourcing and if I happen to be out of town she’ll package and do those kinds of things. So, you know, that’s been very important to have a supportive spouse as well. You know, discovering List Perfectly was another, it was a huge part of me being able to do this because I mean, my sales at the end of 2020, just really ramped up due to the cross posting.
Liz:
When did that shift happen? It was fairly recent, correct?
Stewart:
September 3rd was the day, and was my last day at the hospital. I’ve only been doing this now for what, the three months at the end of 2020, and then this month, or I guess four months so, you know, yeah, it’s, I’m relatively new into it.
Liz:
But like you said, you’ve been doing this well, you’ve been ramping up, so it’s not like you just, you know, left your job and then said, “Hey, let me throw something online.”
Doug:
So Franklin Hill Ventures and adventure in shopping. So where did the name come from and what now? I wanna know what’s your most adventurous shopping experience?
Stewart:
Well, first off on the name, I mean, it’s not because my name’s Franklin Hill, which is what most people think when I’m jumping on YouTube or in groups, it came from, you know, when you take pictures and you load them to Facebook or other places, and it tags those photos for location. When we first moved to Knoxville and we’re uploading stuff to Facebook, it would always put the location as Franklin Hill. We had no idea where that was. I grew up in Knoxville and I had never heard of Franklin Hill. I mean, it’s actually, well on the other side of the interstate from us. So I’m not sure why it was tagging our pictures, but when we were looking for a business name back in, I don’t know, I think 2014 when we came up with the business name, we just liked Franklin Hill and Ventures kind of flowed.
Stewart:
So that’s where the name came from. And as far as my most adventuresome shopping, I’m trying to think. I mean, I’ve been in some pretty unique places, probably this house that we bought out. I was working at my antique mall one day. I worked behind the counter every Saturday and they knocked some money off your rent. And you also get an opportunity to meet a lot of people looking to sell stuff for just, you meet a lot of interesting people. And this lady came in and asked if anybody was interested in buying a few things she had. I’m like, “sure.” And I gave her my card and she called me later and we went to her house and she had a few things in her garage and we ended up buying everything in her garage. But then she said “well, I’ve got a house that I’ve gotta be out of in three weeks. The realtor told me we’ve gotta move everything out. And you think you might wanna buy some stuff there.” So we went to this house and nobody had been there for three years. So it was completely disgusting. I mean, you know, there were dead rodents around and, but I mean, this thing had, I mean, antique furniture, all kinds of stuff. And she was gonna pay somebody to come clean it out. And I said, “Hey, I’ll give you $500 if you just let us clean it out for you and, and we’ll take it away.” And, you know, we’ll take everything out of the house though. So we ended up taking two weekends. I think she had to be out by that second week, Monday. We rented a U-Haul, got everything out, made a hundred trips to the dump, but ended up with five or $6,000 worth of stuff. We ended up making out of that house. So it was a dirty job, but in the end it was worth it.
Liz:
That’s the sweat equity that goes into the job. Right.
Stewart:
And, and then the other interesting thing talking, you know, just relationships or everything in this business, my wife was out with the truck when we were in the driveway. And these two ladies walked by who were just walking in the neighborhood and said, “Hey, we’ve seen y’all out here. What are y’all doing?” And you know, “we’re cleaning this house out.” “Oh, I might have some stuff.” And we’ve gone back to two other houses in the neighborhood now and gotten some pretty big hauls that way as well. N.
Doug:
Nice, nice.
Liz:
That is awesome. I love those
Doug:
It’s a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.
Stewart:
It was fun. You know, a lot of dead bugs and several dead mice and a couple of dead birds later, though. It all worked out.
Doug:
What did those sell for <laugh>.?
Stewart:
Those were not big sellers.
Liz:
Taxidermy. Did you save ’em for taxidermy? <Laugh>
Stewart:
They were already pretty well mummified.
Liz:
So Stuart, you told us a little bit about how you got started selling and your love of the older things you could sell. Anything you sell, mostly antiques. How long have you been antiquing seriously?
Stewart:
I mean, really for like true antique and vintage stuff, not really that long. I mean, I’ve always liked history and I’ve always liked old stuff, but I really wasn’t buying glassware and China, all the things that I sell now, probably until around 2014, when I went to my first auction, my first in person auction and I went to this thing and I was hooked. I mean, I go in there and, you know, there’s probably 75 to 100 people in there. And, you know, over the time, over the course of the evening, the numbers dwindled down and kept getting smaller. And by the end of the night there’s like six people there including me. And they have like six tables left and I guess they just, you know, start auctioning off these tables all at one. It, so I got three whole tables of stuff, some good, some bad, but three tables of stuff for $5.
Stewart:
And from that point forward, I was just hooked. I mean, my wife thought I’d lost my ever loving mind when I came home with my whole car, just packed full of all this stuff. <Laugh> but that’s kinda what, you know, ignited the fire as far as just selling what I sell today was that particular auction. And you know, before that, I dabbled in the liquidation stuff, going to liquidation.com and buying return pallets. And, but really, I just didn’t enjoy it. I’m not like a game person or anything like that. And that was what a lot of those lots were, electronics. So I really found my passion when I started buying the antiques and have just gone from there.
Doug:
So is there anything you specialize in or any era you look for or is it just general antiques and collectibles?
Stewart:
I mean, I really sell under the whole broad umbrella of vintage and antique. If I had to say certain things that I, Ksell the most, I specialize in, it would probably be China. Like my wife calls me the China King of Knoxville or Replacement West. I mean, she likes it too, because on holidays she’ll come down to the basement in my office, I mean, I know you’re Liz in the basement, I’m Stewart in the basement. She’ll come down to, you know, where we have our inventory and she’ll pick out, you know, a China set for Thanksgiving or Christmas. As long as she doesn’t break a piece, we’re okay. <Laugh> And then just in general collectibles, you know, a lot of figurines and I’m talking mainly about my online stuff right now, you know, so China figurines, glassware. Looking around, I can see my inventory bins where I’m sitting here and there’s a lot of China.
Doug:
You’ve got the physical stores, the physical spaces, and then obviously you sell online. How do you manage both and what are some of the challenges?
Stewart:
So, yeah, the biggest challenge is probably just sourcing enough to keep two booths now and soon to be three booths full as well as all my online things. I mean, right now I have just about 750 things online you know, then plus countless, however many hundreds or thousands of things I have at the booths. And when COVID hit most of the, in-person auctions in the Knox went away. They all went online and at first it was gonna be a temporary thing. And, you know, you’d ask ’em, “oh yeah, we’ll go back in person at some point,” but they quickly discovered that overhead goes down and they get more doing it online. So there’s only like one in-person auction left around here. And now it’s so crowded that it’s harder to find stuff. And then online just the prices tend to go higher. So just sourcing in general has become more challenging. Now, I feel like I am fortunate. In Knoxville we have really good thrift shops. And I mean, I read the horror stories of a lot of people online about how expensive they’ve gotten and, you know, knock on wood to this point in Knoxville, we’ve at least got some local or semi-local, you know, thrift shops that still have reasonable prices. And then just a personal challenge for me right now specific to the booths is just not having a vehicle large enough to move like large pieces of furniture. So right now, if we want to go get like a huge, like a big sideboard or a China cabinet or something, we have to go rent a truck, you know?
Stewart:
So you’re talking about adding a hundred dollars to your cost to goods sold. So, we’ve been thinking about trying to find a box truck, but I don’t really know why, but my wife’s not really excited about having a box truck parked in the driveway. So Then you’d have to park it at a storage facility and all this. So, right now that’s probably my biggest challenge is, but really I look at the booths, they really compliment my online sales very well. The biggest benefits to having booths in my opinion, is it’s an outlet for larger items that would be hard to ship on Facebook. You know, things like artwork that I don’t feel like sell that well online. I sell a ton of artworkout of one of my booth locations.
Stewart:
And as far as me trying to scale my business, I think it’s easier to scale by adding booth locations. I mean, I’m trying to grow my online presence as well, but at some point, you know, there are many hours in the day, and if I double my listings in turn that doubles my sales, well, that’s also gonna double my shipping packing times, you know, listing times all that, that’s just difficult to scale. So, you know, until I get to the point where I feel like I can hire somebody to help with the online stuff, the booths have been the easiest way to try to scale my business. And, you know, it’s really take it out there and forget it. It’s, it’s not like a flea market where you’re manning a booth or manning a table. It’s it’s, you know, somebody staffing it all the time. AndI do work atmy Clinton location every Saturday or most Saturdays as the cash register person. So, you know, I get money off my rent for that. And it’s also been a great opportunity, as I mentioned earlier, to meet people and I’ve developed so many relationships and really found so many sourcing opportunities that way.
Doug:
So have you ever sold anything online and had to run down to the shop and pull it off the shelf?
Stewart:
No. Now I don’t, you know, like where I cross post between my online marketplace, I don’t ever, I don’t ever like to list stuff that I have at my booth. Now we do have dealers who do it because I’ll be working on Saturdays and somebody will call and say, “Hey, can you go to my booth and pull this off the shelf?” And, you know, I’m like, “really?” You know, it’s, <laugh> no, I don’t do that.
Liz:
You know, I dabbled in having a booth. And I struggled with that. I think that I only did that with maybe one or two items that were more money. And that was a hard decision to make. Cuz like you said, like Doug said, you don’t wanna sell something and then run down to the booth to a physical location and have to get it, especially if it’s not like within two minutes of you and they’re not open 24/7 <laugh>.
Stewart:
Yeah. And you would not, I would not be a very good friend of the people working if I was calling all the time asking, “pull something off the booth.” I mean, and my booths are an extension of my online marketplaces. I mean, while I do sell, I mean I sell furniture out of there and artwork, but I have a lot of the same type of stuff too. I sell a lot of knick knacks and smaller stuff out of the booth as well. It’s not just all big stuff, I don’t really have a formula as to what, I just kind of have this gut feeling, “this is going to the booth” and you know, there’s times I might pull something from the booth and list it online if it’s been there a while or vice versa.
Liz:
That’s smart and something that you didn’t mention that I saw because I follow you on social media, on Instagram, not in a stalker way, in a reseller way. But you also have private label items.
Stewart:
We do. We do a line of jams and jellies and barbecue sauce and pickles I believe were also in there and it’s a Franklin Hill Farms product. And I mean, I’d been to all these other tourist destinations and they always have these private label jams and jelly. I mean, they’re not making them themselves. I mean, I don’t know that anybody would want to eat a jar of jelly that I’ve made <laugh>. But so, you know, I just started doing some research and found an online, Amish owned company that did private labeling. They’re up in Pennsylvania. My wife designed the label and we sent it to ’em and they incorporated it into the labels that go on the jars. And yeah, we started doing that and it’s, it’s really worked very well. I guess I got lucky with the private labeling company I chose. I mean, they were, it’s really good. I mean, get so many repeat customers on that, the items. And we have people, we have this one lady who comes through from Nashville for work once a month and she stops and buys like 16 jars, every time she’s there. And my biggest challenge, especially with our peach butters, is not to eat all my profits <laugh> because the peach butter’s incredible. You know, it was kind of a leap of faith on that one. We didn’t know if it would work and it has worked out very well.
Liz:
But what I love is you saw an opportunity and you tried it and along with that, you are active on social media. Tell us about that. How do you incorporate that into your sales?
Stewart:
I mean, I do believe that in today’s world, you know, social media is an absolute must if you really wanna maximize your reselling game. I mean, it’s basically free advertising and it’s also an opportunity to potentially, even if you’re not actively trying to sell stuff and I do actively sell on Instagram now, thanks to List Perfectly being able to cross post. And I believe somebody on one of the two tiers actually bought something from me off Instagram before I have <laugh>. And so, you know, I do get some sales and I did get a cell the other day from somebody where I’d put a video on Instagram and they saw something in the video and reached out to me and said, “Hey, I want that canister set.” And so I made a sale, you know, through a video I made as well. So even if you’re not actively selling, there’s always the opportunity to make sales. I try to kind of mix and match. I mean, I try not to make every post, just one from List Perfectly. That’s a product I’m selling. Now my kids get onto me sometimes like “You post too much on Instagram. You know, it clogs my feed up” and I said, “well, you know, trying to sell stuff.” So people follow me. So it must not be that bad for them. But I do try to mix in, you know, some quotes, personal things, you know, whether it’s pictures of me or pictures of me and my dog, or occasionally, you know, with the family, just to kind of put a human face behind, you know, Franklin Hill Ventures. And, and so it’s not just me out there selling, but they see that I’m a real person. And I think that’s helped just to humanize those, those social media feeds.
Liz:
And it works. You put that. I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I was scrolling my Instagram feed. I was like, “oh my gosh, I need that shirt.” Oh, it’s my size. “Oh, Hey, you know, it’s Stewart.” yeah. I wanna buy that. It was like the right place at the right time. And was I actively searching for that t-shirt ? No, but I saw it and I’m like, pretty much have to have this t-shirt. So that worked out great. And that is one testament to posting your items for sale on Instagram. I hardly ever post my things for sale on Instagram, very occasionally, but the times that I have I’ve made a sale.
Stewart:
Yeah. Really only have PayPal fees. There’s no other fees, you know, for selling. So it’s an inexpensive way to sell stuff as well. And, the great thing with List Perfectly it’s, I mean, Instagram literally adds 10 seconds to the entire listing process. So it’s not like you’re investing a lot of time.
Liz:
Yeah. I love It, that they pull in the 10 pictures.
Stewart:
Now that was a game changer because that’s, I really did not actively sell on Instagram before that because, you know, it was just hard to disclose everything that might be an issue or just, show all the pictures. So, yeah, it’s when they went to 10 pictures, just when I added all the selling verbiage to my Instagram posts.
Liz:
That was a big change for the good. But you’re not just on Instagram. What other social channels are you on?
Stewart:
So, I mean, I would have to say Instagram, you know, it’s where I put most of my effort, mainly just because of the integration with List Perfectly. I mean, it’s the easiest one, in my opinion. And then I also have it set up, you know, where all my Instagram posts automatically go to my Facebook business page. So those two kind of go hand in hand. I mean, I’m also on Pinterest and of course all myPoshmark listings go directly to Pinterest and I’ll post, you know, I’ll occasionally try to be active on Pinterest, just going out and pinning some stuff, just so it looks like my account’s active. I mean, I am on YouTube and kind of on TikTok but you know, don’t do a whole lot there. I mean, I don’t dance on TikTok yet, but you know, maybe one day <laugh>, in fact I told my wife, if we ever resell together, you know, we should start some kind of, husband and wife dancing/reselling channel.
Liz:
Doug would duet you across the board.
Doug:
Yeah. I’ll duet you <laugh>. And so is it safe to say Instagram’s your favorite social platform?
Stewart:
Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s where I post the most and it’s the one I spend the most time on now. I’ve tried to not get sucked into the TikTok world yet.
Liz:
So, tell us about your YouTube channel and how it’s going.
Stewart:
Well, I think it’s going well. I started my YouTube channel more for me than with any goal of ever getting to where I monetized or having a million people watch me. I’ve really never been comfortable on camera or even really hearing my own voice. And YouTube was a way for me to, you know, kind of get outta my comfort zone and put myself out there. And I mean, from that standpoint I think it’s gone well. And I mean, a few people have followed me and I do get a few on my videos. I do consider myself a reseller who happens to make YouTube videos. I mean, I don’t ever have aspirations to be a, whether it’s, rockstarflipper, primetimetreasure hunter, these guys who just have hundreds of thousands of followers. And they’re really good, I just, I don’t feel like I’m that kind of person, so right. I’ll probably keep making ’em and more for myself than anybody, if people wanna watch ’em and learn a few things. I mean, I’ve made a few List Perfectly videos, which I think have been helpful to people. And, but most of my videos are just, here’s what I’ve sold. And I have done some unboxings, some stuff that I got from another reseller, but yeah, overall it’s going well.
Liz:
Not all of our listeners are into antiques and collectibles. A lot of them are, you know, clothing or accessories, you know, all kinds of different categories. As a clothing seller, I always like watching videos of, you know, when you, when you’re unboxing or what sold, I like to see what people sell outside of my category. Right. So I’m like, wow, I never knew if you were to show a video of these pens, I could be like, “oh, I had no idea that those were valuable and he’s selling them.” That’s a great thing for me to look out for to expand my business. And that’s what I like about the seller community that shares this knowledge across all the different categories.
Stewart:
Yeah. I mean, and there’s, there’s a lot of YouTubers out there. I mean, there’s some who are very educational, some are entertaining, but still within the reselling world, and I’ll find myself occasionally while I’m listing, you know, I’ll pull up videos, whether it’s, what’s sold or how to sell this and, and it’s been helpful. So it’s a good resource, but more often than not, I’m just listening to music while I’m listing.
Doug:
I was just looking at your TikTok, so good work there. Nice. Do you go native to TikTok or do you add up your other videos?
Stewart:
No, I mean, well, I’ve done a little bit of both. Some of those booth walkthroughs have just been, they’ve gone straight to TikTok. You know, most of ’em have been things I’ve had on YouTube and I’ve just chopped them down to go on TikTok and took away my voice and added some music.
Doug:
Now that booth walkthrough is a good idea.
Liz:
What was the background behind TikTok? Is there a goal to grow it into an audience to sell your items, or really just a way to communicate with the community?
Stewart:
I don’t know that I really had a goal. I just heard Doug talking about it. Talked a lot and thought, “oh, you know, if Doug’s doing it, then maybe it’s something I should be doing as well.” <laugh> I don’t know, you know, I didn’t even have TikTok installed on my phone until probably a month ago and thought, “well, I’ll give it a try” and have done a few videos. So I don’t, I don’t really have any goals yet for TikTok, maybe one day, I’ll use it to sell. And I have thought about, the whole world, you were talking about the social selling on one of your previous episodes and, whether it be, live sales on YouTube or live sales on Instagram. I mean, it’s something I’ve thought about in the back of my mind, maybe looking into, but I haven’t done anything with that yet. I know on YouTube, I probably don’t have enough following to do anything there on Instagram. Maybe. I think I’m up to 1800 followers or so, so maybe that’d be enough of an audience, but I think, you know, once you hit, you gotta have thousands of followers I’ve heard before. It really becomes a viable option to go live and get enough people to support live selling.
Doug:
Good idea for the future. Definitely something that should be on the radar, I think.
Liz:
Because it sounds like you have so much time on your hands to be able to do that. Yeah. <laugh> I mean, you sound super busy. It is hard to add all that stuff in.
Stewart:
Yeah. I mean, and you know, when you start doing videos, even if you’re only doing a little editing, cause I don’t do any super editing, but it does take time to go through and take out stuff that you don’t want people to see or whatever. And that’s why I don’t know that I’ll ever be just huge in the YouTube game because I mean, reselling my passion and I don’t wanna spend hours a day doing videos. That’s gonna take away from that.
Doug:
Earlier you were talking about previous podcast episodes and thank you for being a fan of the podcast and such a long time listener. We appreciate it. You are also a big List Perfectly fan and cheerleader. So how did you discover List Perfectly? And just in a nutshell, how has it changed the way you do things?
Stewart:
Well, I discovered List Perfectly through Courtney at BOLO buddies. I don’t know if I saw a video where she mentioned it or something on her Facebook page, but in any case I used her code to get 30% off my first month. And I was on the simple plan. I think when I first started out for about two hours and quickly discovered that that was, it’s not gonna cut it for me. So I jumped straight to the pro plan and I’ve never looked back. I mentioned earlier that List Perfectly was a big part of me being able to go full time. And I started using List Perfectly in August of 2020. And if you look at my sales graph, I mean, you can see when I started using it, I mean, my sales really started going up before List Perfectly. I didn’t cross post. I sold it on multiple platforms, but I never put it on, you know, if I put it on Etsy, I did not put it on eBay. And those were really the only two that I sold on. My thought was always kind of like, “I don’t want somebody seeing this on Etsy and then knowing I sell it on eBay.” You know, in reality people, who shop on eBay shop on eBay and people, who shop on Etsy shop on Etsy and, you know, for the most part, they don’t, they don’t mix and match, but right. So List Perfectly did a couple of things. I mean, it helped me get all that stuff that I had listed separately on those two platforms, all cross posted to Etsy and eBay, but then it also, you know, opened my horizons to all these new platforms that I’d never sold on before. You know, so since I started using List Perfectly, now I sell on eBay, Etsy, my two original platforms, Poshmark, Mercari, Depop and Facebook marketplace, and then throw Instagram in there as well. And then I also have an Amazon account, which I’ve been kind of dabbling in. I’m trying to decide if I’m gonna continue that but I do sell there right now. So it’s, you know, it definitely expanded my selling horizons by a lot. And I know it gets talked about all the time, but for anybody considering List Perfectly, I know the pro plan sounds expensive on the surface, but it pays it itself back for me within the first day of every month almost.
Liz:
I hear that a lot for people like, “oh, well I only sell on two platforms” or, and you know what, I know sellers that only sell on one platform that use List Perfectly just for inventory management. But a lot of sellers are like, “well, I don’t wanna go on 10 platforms.” And that’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to, you can stay on your two or your three, or you can be like Stewartand be like, “Hey, I’ve got a handle on this. Let me just go, you know, to 5, 6, 7,” whatever you, the user wants to do for you, the seller wants to do.
Stewart:
To build on that list, I mean, the, the incredible thing about List Perfectly that I think can’t be stressed enough is that if you are selling on two platforms and start using List Perfectly, and if eBay’s already one of those platforms, those other five platforms, they literally add, I mean, this assumes you’re using the centralized catalog in List Perfectly, but to list to those other five platforms literally takes 30 seconds if that per platform, because eBay’s really the only one, with what I resell that takes much time to take the listing from List Perfectly and have to add some more information. Everything else is pretty much, you know, just, you know, boom, boom, boom, and it’s listed. So I would encourage people to consider selling on those other platforms and, and other than Etsy, none of ’em cost anything, you know, Etsy does have the 20 cents per item listing fee. So I tend to be a little choosier about what I put on Etsy. But on other platforms you don’t pay until you sell it. So, you know, it doesn’t matter if you have one or 200 items in your marketplace.
Liz:
Right. And you’re getting all those different eyes, just like you said, you know, somebody that shops on Etsy may not be shopping on Depop or somebody, if you’re only on eBay, you’re missing all the eyes that may be on Grailed. But if your items are there, you’re getting that many more users that are looking at your items that could potentially purchase it.
Stewart:
And, and it’s funny how often, like, I’ll go one week and sell 20 things on eBay, and the next week may sell one thing on eBay and 20 things on Etsy. And then you know, it’s, you’re kind of getting to ride the peaks of each marketplace too rather than sitting there and waiting for eBay to pick back up.
Liz:
Yeah, I, I feel that too, in my sales and you, you have pretty much mastered List Perfectly by now. I know you’ve helped a couple users I’ve seen in the Facebook group, and you do share some tips and tricks with our community. Do you wanna share any List Perfectly tip or a trick?
Stewart:
I don’t know if this is a trick, but I mean, the biggest tip is just use it to expand your reselling horizons. I mean, it doesn’t cost you anything else other than a little bit of time. And when I say a little bit, I mean, a little bit of time to expand other platforms that you’re, you’re not selling on. And I mean, I guess as far as a trick, I mean, I mentioned this in the Facebook group the other day I mean, I was already using List Perfectly as my file transfer engine for any pictures I wanted to get from my phone to my computer, whether it was something I was selling or not, because it was a lot quicker than plugging it into my cable or doing whatever. So I started thinking, you know, I’m already uploading all these images that have nothing to do with reselling, could I start storing my receipts in there? You know, cause I’ve got these envelopes, you know, just stuffed with receipts that I’ve always done up until this year. So this year I’m starting to create basically a listing for each thrift shop I go to along with the month. So I have one called “Goodwill 2022 January,” you know…is a local Knoxville, you know, name the same. And then I’ll create another one in February. And since you can put 30 images per catalog entry, I very rarely go to the same thrift shop more than once in a day. Although I have done that before, I’m not gonna have more than 30 receipts from any given thrift shop in a month. So it should, you know, store that now, you know. Somebody brought up the point, why would you wanna make it easier for the auditor to go through your receipts? If you get audited, you know, just throw them the envelope. Well, you know, maybe that’s a valid point, but for me being an organized person, I like to be able to go back and, you know, quickly find my receipts. So we’ll see how that works. I mean, it’s a brand new process for me but you know, we’ll see.
Liz:
That’s a smart way to utilize your time and a tool that you’re already using. It’s in one spot.
Stewart:
Yeah. I mean, and it’s amazing just to get on the group and just see all the ways people have learned to use List Perfectly. I mean, they definitely do not box you in, that’s for sure.
Doug:
Clara brought that up on a call yesterday about you scanning your receipts and finding different ways to use the program.
Stewart:
Yeah. Who knows, maybe they’ll just have a receipt area, you know, one day based on that.
Liz:
So look at that. Clara was talking about you in a meeting yesterday.
Stewart:
That must have been, when I had my ears burning…
Doug:
<Laugh> So what advice do you have for someone that is starting out selling online?
Stewart:
Well, probably the number one thing would just be to start out with something you love. I mean, you’re gonna have enough to worry about just learning all the ins and outs of reselling, learning all these different platforms, learning about sourcing. And if you’re not selling something that you already love, I mean, it’s going to quickly seem like a job, it’s just not gonna be fun. And I think, first and foremost, when you go, whether it’s going to BOSS Reseller Remix, or getting on the groups, you can tell most of the people who do this, do it because it’s what they love. And you can tell the people who don’t, I mean, you can tell they’re not having fun. You know, they’re probably not gonna last long. So, that would be probably the number one just, start out selling something that you like or something you know about with that being said, as you grow, at some point you do have to start expanding your horizons and getting outside your comfort zone. The good example is, you know, what we talked about earlier with my jams and jellies and my private label, Franklin Hill Farms products. I mean, I didn’t know anything about that stuff. I mean, I had to do some research about, do I need separate liability insurance cuz I’m selling food now or this or that, but you know, just kind of think outside the box and look to expand beyond what you’re selling. You certainly don’t wanna just be in one niche because you know, that may go away and then you may not have a niche to sell in anymore.
Liz:
So Stewart, what is next for you and Franklin Hill Ventures?
Stewart:
I mean really just, you know, working to continue to grow the business. I’ve doubled my revenue since 2018 with approximately 40% of that being in 2020 and then another 40% or so, in 2021 and I know 40 and 40 doesn’t sound like it equals doubling, but it does. I mean, my goal is to grow at least that much again this year. I guess to accomplish that, I’m looking to double my listings online. So I’m around 750 now. So get to at least 1500, which the more you, it just gets hard because that whole snowball, you start and more, and then you gotta list more to keep caught up. So I’d like to increase my Instagram followers to 2,500, which is kind of the number I came up with there. I’m adding the third booth location, which is a big part of being able to maintain that growth. And then the last thing is I was thinking about setting up a Shopify site to start playing around with doing some selling on my own. I mean, since it’s another platform List Perfectly will target and I don’t think it’s that expensive to get the Shopify, and then you can do things like, linking in toTikTok or some of the others, Instagram. I know you can link to those. I feel like my brand’s starting to get out there enough to where I’m at a point where I can at least consider doing that and you know, maybe that’ll even help build the brand more and then just continue to be a resource for other people in the reselling community. I learned so much from other people, whether it’s, you know, you and Doug or people y’all have on the podcast or from the List Perfectly group or any of the other number of Facebook groups that I frequent out there.
Stewart:
And I just want to, you know, I learned so much from them. So really I want to keep paying that forward to other people as well. Finally, you know, just looking forward to going to the BOSS Reseller Remix again, and you know, doing some more networking and meeting more people. And I mean, as you know, I was on the fence about whether to go or not, and that was the best, well, one of the best decisions I made last year was to go to that. And you know, we’re hoping to go again this year and hoping to be able to bring my wife, both of us will be there. So that will be an incredible experience. And if anybody’s listening who has not heard of it or had heard of it and wanted to go last year and couldn’t, I would encourage you to go, it was worth every penny that we spent.
Liz:
I was gonna ask you about that because I know you’re like, well, especially when you’re making that transition, right. And you’re trying to grow your business, you have to factor in that. Is it gonna be worth it? I don’t know anybody, is it gonna be worth the time, is it gonna be worth the funds and it was for you.
Stewart:
And that’s what made the decision so difficult. I mean, I went full time on September 3rd and then, BOSS Reseller Remix was, whatever date, October something. So I’d literally only been full time a month and, do I want to go spend a thousand dollars on airfare to get out there and you know, another, whatever on hotel room and food and drink and you know, gambling and you know, whatever other vices there are in Vegas.
Liz:
But yeah, all the fun times if you wanna know, get to Instagram <laugh> yeah.
Stewart:
Luckily that video of me dancing on the street in Vegas never got much traction. So <laugh>…
Liz:
Well now, now that you mention it, Doug can put it on TikTok.
Stewart:
It shouldn’t have been me in there anyway. It should have been Casey, the rockstarflipper, cuz he was standing right in front of me and he just stepped out of the way at the right time. And the guy like pointed and you know, and then it’s like, and then of course everybody’s cheering and you know, what can you do? So it was fun.
Liz:
Well, and you go to this event, you are just starting off your full-time venture, like you said, right? Like you’ve always sold. It was your new full-time job because you were already full-time before, but you didn’t know anybody. You went kind of blindly. Did you walk away with, it sounds so weird saying reseller friends, but with connections and networking and really business partners in a sense?
Stewart:
Oh yeah. I mean, definitely I kind of found my tribe out there. I found my big tribe of everybody who was there and then there were, you know, there were a group of 10 or 12 of us who kind of hung out together and got to know each other better. And I’ve talked to several of them since then and you know, looking forward to continuing those relationships and meeting even more people next year.
Liz:
That’s awesome. We will definitely see you there. And we hope that your wife can make it too so that she can experience this. Cuz it is very hard to explain to somebody that’s never been, just the amount of knowledge you can bring in and the networking.
Doug:
And OBVS we’ll do some dancing TikTok videos.
Liz:
<Laugh>
Stewart:
Right. Yeah. Next year I’ll just put it all on the Underhill’s credit card. So <laugh>…
Doug:
Exactly!
Liz:
Exactly. Yes.
Doug:
“I’ll have a steak sandwich and a steak sandwich.”
Stewart:
I appreciate y’all having me on. I mean, it’s like, I looked at last year’s guest list and I’m thinking you have the CEO of Poshmark and then like all these high people in eBay and people running the BOSS Reseller Remix. And then, you know, you get Stewart in the basement here. So…
Doug:
No you’ve been on the list for a long time…
Liz:
Liz in the basement interviewed, but that’s what I love about our podcast. We don’t limit, like we, we’re not set in stone. And I think people like to hear from a…like me, I like to hear from a variety of people. I don’t wanna hear a podcast with just YouTubers. I don’t wanna hear a podcast of just CEOs. Right? Like I want a mix, I want everyday sellers and CEOs and YouTubers and podcasters. Like I need everybody. Right. That’s just me. I don’t know.
Doug:
For me too, with the antique thing, my best friend’s an antique dealer, or he’s done it forever. And I, so I have some kind of view into it and we talk a lot about particularly eBay and it’s been. It’s interesting to me because he talks about how with antique sellers, a lot of the rules or recommendations don’t apply to you guys. It’s like, cuz a lot of the stuff you’re selling is unique stuff. And it’s like, “oh, well I’m not gonna offer….” He sells some high end stuff and he’s like, “I’m not gonna offer returns on blah, blah, blah.” I remember one time I spent the night at his house and slept in the living room.
Liz:
You had a sleepover. That’s so cute.
Doug:
Yeah, it was. Yeah. We’ve been best friends since junior high. So I slept on his couch then I didn’t know that the coffee table he used was a Puritan wakeboard where they would put dead bodies out. But I did know thatI was sleeping under a full size. I don’t know, they call them something. But basically the big crosses with Jesus on them from a church and it was like full size. I don’t know what they are, it’s not a crucifix cuz that goes around your neck, but the full size thing. I woke up and like Jesus was staring down at me. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it startles you for a moment.
Liz:
You probably needed it.
Doug:
Yeah. Probably balances each other out. Stewart, thanks for joining us today and telling us about Franklin Hill Ventures, your adventures in selling your antiquing adventures, your challenges versus your online stores versus your offline stores and just your whole selling journey. Thank you very much.
Stewart:
Well, I appreciate you having me and this hour flew by. I really enjoyed talking with both of you and looking forward to seeing what the rest of 2022 has in store for the podcast. Cuz that’s my go to, well, it used to be my go to listen every Wednesday morning and now I get to listen to it twice a week.
Liz:
So we can’t wait to see where it goes either. <Laugh> and also we’ll see you in Las Vegas for the BOSS Reseller Remix in October. All right. Thank you for joining us on The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. You can find us at listperfectly.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. You can also email us at podcast@listperfectly.com. You can post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/listperfectly use the #sellercommunitypodcast. Mention me or mention Doug.
Doug:
You can listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure and subscribe, tell your friends, and if you’re on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a review. You can also follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Liz is @coloradoreworn. I’m @snoop.dougie and of course follow @listperfectly. Also you can use our promo code podcast, P O D C A S T for 30% off your first month of List Perfectly or 30% off your first month upgrading your plan.
Liz:
All right, Doug, I’ll see you next time.
Doug:
See you next time.