March Cadena joins us and explains how she covers all sides of reselling in her multiple seller resources across social media and YouTube, in Spanish, for Spanish-speaking sellers.
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the e-commerce resource for the seller community across all platforms and a hub for information on growing your business. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com, leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@listperfectly.com.
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Clara: March Cadena sells mainly on Poshmark, eBay, and Depop. March and her husband were able to quit their nine-to-five jobs to focus on reselling and helping other sellers, most notably on YouTube and for Spanish sellers, a market where there is a huge opportunity. We’re very excited to have March Cadena on our show today. Welcome March!
March: Hi, List Perfectly family. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Doug: It’s awesome to have you. Very excited to talk to you. Let’s start with the basics. How did you get into online selling and what was your very first sale?
March: Okay, great question. So, actually, my husband had been telling me that I should look into online reselling. And as a good wife, I was not listening. So I was in between jobs and I was applying to different jobs and I was mainly working within the medical industry. I wanted to stay on that path and I kept looking for different jobs cuz the job I was in shut down went out of business. So I was kind of cornered into it because I wanted to work and I wasn’t finding the job I wanted.
So then my husband’s like, you know, I mentioned it before, why don’t you just give it a try? And we had storage full of just, I don’t wanna call it junk, because we did sell it online, so things we didn’t want anymore. So I have free time. I’ll get rid of some of our stuff. Stop paying for a storage unit that we don’t need. And you know, we’ll see where it goes. Kind of like on a meanwhile basis, right? So the first item I listed and sold was an ink cartridge. An HP ink cartridge, and I sold it within minutes. I wanna say seconds. I sold it for so low. I didn’t know anything about online sales. I didn’t have knowledge on pricing and comps and none of that.
So basically what I did, was I went on YouTube. That’s why I love YouTube. I went on YouTube, researched how to make a listing on eBay, and I just kind of followed step by step. That’s why I love tutorials and that kind of video because I learned a lot. I just followed the video. I listed that ink cartridge for an insanely low amount of money, so it sold within minutes of my posting it. So that got me so excited. Right. And I’m glad I did. I’m glad I undersold it because it gave me that kind of feeling empowered to continue listing, right?
Clara: What year was that if you don’t mind me asking, what year?
March: That was June 2015.
Clara: You mentioned you started on eBay first and then you expanded. What was the second marketplace or platform you tried?
March: Poshmark. Poshmark was my second platform and it became my primary platform after a few years. I was selling on eBay for about three years, so about 2018, my husband again, researching and doing his work again. He’s the planner and I’m the maker, I make things happen. So he’s like, check this platform out. I don’t like change. I’m scared of change. So I’m like, no, no, no. , we’re good on eBay. We’re doing good. The sales are great. Why are we gonna pivot? We don’t need to. You know, just check it out. See what happens. So again, I went to YouTube, started watching videos, and I’m like, okay, sounds good. So then we pivot to Poshmark and it kind of like, it took off really fast. Poshmark took off really fast. So then it became our primary platform. Meaning most of our income is coming from Poshmark.
We’re growing eBay again. It’s been a journey. It was eBay, our first platform. We were strong in it. I moved to Poshmark. It became bigger in sales. So I kinda abandoned eBay a little bit. I shouldn’t have done it. And it’s been a couple of months since I jumped back on eBay we’re trying to juggle both and keep ’em both at the same level if possible of sales.
Clara: That’s amazing. So Poshmark. eBay. eBay or Poshmark, you know, we’re still in between, right? But have you tried other platforms?
March: Yeah, I’ve tried other platforms. I just started selling on Depop. I’ve tried Facebook Marketplace, and they are all good platforms. The only thing that it is is just how my brain works. I guess. I need to focus on not more than three platforms at a time, or else I get lost. So, I’m focused on those three right now, which are eBay, Poshmark, and Depop. And then maybe by next year, once I can get a grip on those three, I can start expanding to more platforms. But for now, we’re kind of focusing on growing the platforms I’m in at the moment.
Clara: That’s very smart. March. What do you mainly say March, please?
March: I mainly sell shoes and clothing. That’s basically my two products.
Clara: Would it be modern or is it vintage or do you do both?
March: So, for shoes, it’s fashion shoes, modern. New women’s shoes. I don’t sell sneakers or brands like Nike or none of that. It’s mainly women’s fashion, shoes, and clothing it’s also fashion. It’s modern clothing. My husband does like to search for vintage t-shirts. He likes those. So those are the kind of products we’re trying to bring to Depop, cuz I know that’s a good platform for that kind of product.
Doug: And so you’ve just been talking about growth expansion. Hand in hand with that, if you had to pick one single accomplishment you’re proudest of so far, what is that?
March: It would definitely have to be the fact that I’m able to live off of reselling and make a full-time income on it, just because like I mentioned earlier, I did not believe that reselling was an actual job when I didn’t know anything about it. I thought it was like just a little side hustle type of thing. And there are a lot of people that do it as a side hustle, and that’s totally okay. But I never thought it could go beyond that. So the fact that I’m living off of this, our household is being provided by online reselling, that’s like the proudest moment for us, for sure.
Clara: Are you making any income, you know, as a content creator?
March: Yeah, I am. There is something coming in, I can’t call it a main income yet, but yeah, of course, of course. And we’re working hard to hopefully one day get there right where we can have that considered as a full income. That will be great. That’s a dream. That would definitely be an accomplishment as well.
Clara: Now let’s talk about your husband, please. So he’s part of the business as well. Please tell us how he helps out or how the dynamic works between both of you.
March: Yeah. So, truly it’s, it’s been a partnership since day one. He’s always been behind everything. As I mentioned, he’s the one to like, kind of bring it up, try online reselling and such, and every step of the way he’s been there, even when he was working a full-time job, he would get home and then after an eight-hour shift, he will put five, six hours into the business, right? And he did this for many years.
I used to get that question a lot before. Is your husband full-time in the business? And even though at the time he had a full-time job, I always say, yes, he’s full-time because the hours he was putting in were considered full-time, even if he had at that time another job.
But, Thank God now we are both in it full-time, in time. Having the full day focusing on our business, it’s been great. It’s been challenging. Of course. It’s a tough transition to make, right? Where you’re receiving a paycheck every week or every two weeks, and you’re counting on that and then moving to your online sales, if there’s anybody watching us that it’s thinking of making that switch, make sure you make it smartly and have a strategy. Don’t just jump into it. Don’t just think I’m gonna be able to do it. Make sure you do take your estimated guess and make sure you’re yourselves covered, you know, what needs to be covered and such. It’s best to do it that way, you know, and, but it’s great.
After you make that decision, you do go through a learning curve and not having that secure paycheck come in, but, it’s good. It’s a good thing. You’ll enjoy it and make sure also you have that consistency in your business that just because nobody’s there telling you what to do or you think nobody’s going to fire you if you don’t get things done as you would in a regular job, right?
You’re scared your manager’s gonna come in and fire you because you didn’t take care of your work. We’ll see it the same way. This is how I see it. If I don’t list, eBay’s gonna fire me. They won’t fire me. But I take that as eBay fired me because they’re not showing my listings as constantly because I’m not giving eBay what they need.
Clara: You take your partnership with eBay very seriously shows that you, that’s why you are hyper-focusing on three marketplaces because you really put everything out there for these marketplaces. That’s incredible.
Doug: Speaking of those pearls of wisdom, those were great seller tips. And that’s kind of what you do. And you talked about how you want to get there, you’re monetizing the content you’re putting out for sellers, so you do a ton of that across your social media in Spanish. So tell us about that, please.
March: Yeah. We’ve realized that there are a lot of different sides to reselling and, I’ve learned that along the way such, as shipping, inventory, even just business knowledge and accounting, and all these things that go beyond just making a listing, right? So it took me a great while to learn all these sides of the reselling business. It was a long journey and I’m still learning. We’re always learning. So I wanted to create a space where all the sides were being covered in one place. And I try to keep that in my channel, that variety of different topics all within reselling, but, covering all those different sides that I had to learn in this channel and on that channel, in this other channel, I wanted to keep one place where all that was being taught. And that was the main idea for our YouTube channel.
Clara: That’s great. Now I’m curious, so March, if I’m not mistaken, the majority or all of your content is in Spanish?
March: Yes it is. So number one reason for that being is because my first language is Spanish, and I feel that I can express myself much better in Spanish, and I can just let out the information, in a better way in Spanish. And also I couldn’t find any instructional videos in Spanish, regarding eBay or reselling. So that really caught my attention and that’s why I decided to do my content in Spanish.
Clara: You are such a good teacher and for me, you sound perfect in English. One thing that I learned, okay here is that accents make you very unique. So you could have done English and Spanish, but now you are dedicated exclusively, are you still thinking you’re gonna continue with that exclusivity in Spanish only, or do you think you might branch out to English?
March: That’s a great question. When I started my first couple of videos, I made the same video in English and made the same video in Spanish. I don’t know, it was meant to be, I guess it was meant to be. It just took off in Spanish. So for now, I think I’m gonna stay in Spanish. I don’t know if things could change in the future, but for now, I think Spanish is the way.
Clara: That channel has incredible and great tutorials.
Doug: So I’m curious, March, do you think that the marketplaces are missing out on working with Spanish sellers, Spanish buyers?
March: Yeah, that’s a great question. Something I’ve learned from working with the Spanish community is that we’ve done a great job adapting to the English world we live in, which is, online resellers here, being in the United States, it’s primarily in English, right?
So I think we’ve done a great job adapting to that and knowing that. It is what it is, right? We live here in this country and we need to learn how to adapt. Also, I do have a Facebook group dedicated to reselling. And a lot of people ask questions there, right? We’re dealing with questions every day, and I hardly get any questions about English being a language barrier, which I know it is. It’s a fact. I guess we don’t focus much on that. The questions we regularly get are the regular questions that anybody else has while reselling. So that tells me that we’re good at adapting. And if there is an English barrier situation, we do have a tutorial on how to use it, like Google Translate, right? And people jump right into that. Oh, great, that is very helpful. They could continue on themselves, for instance, using List Perfectly, right? Like when they’re doing their listing in List Perfectly, they already know the fields and what they mean. So they could just use that and then export their listing. And they don’t have to deal with all the other little questions in writing that eBay would have or Poshmark would have. So that’s something I’ve learned that we have been able to adapt.
And of course, if eBay were to give us some sort of information tutorials or articles in Spanish, that would be amazing. We would thrive on those, of course. , if eBay’s listening, you know, of course, we would love that. Or Poshmark. I think that’s why they love our channel or other Spanish channels because they don’t get that information directly from the platforms. That will be a great way to attract more Spanish-speaking resellers.
Clara: What recommendations do you have for sellers that wanna reach more Spanish buyers?
March: I guess as a Spanish speaker and buyer, I would say we want what everybody else wants. We want a quality listing, good prices, and fast shipping. We just wanna get the deals and wanna get the best deal on the items we’re buying. We want what every other buyer wants, which is good stuff.
Doug: So March, we don’t always bring this up, but you are a particularly big List Perfectly user and advocate. So can you please tell us about that?
March: I started using List Perfectly because I needed it and it’s kind of a funny story. Me and my husband were talking about List Perfectly. We were watching videos, to see how it works. And then within those days that I was doing the research of List Perfectly, List Perfectly reached out to me and I was like, oh my God, it’s so meant to be like, I need to use this tool. So I started using it for my own personal use and started working with it, learning it.
And my mind was literally blown. And I’m like, I have to share this with the community, and something about us and what we want in our channel is we never want to share anything that is not something we are using or that we think is helpful. And that’s my honest truth that goes with our values in our channel.
I told my husband we need to share this with everybody. Yes, List Perfectly is great. It has helped me to be able to manage so much inventory as we have. We have two warehouses and a lot of inventory. We couldn’t do it by ourselves. How do you keep track of what comes in and out and sell on multiple platforms and have different accounts within one platform? It’s a mess, it’s madness here. Believe me when I say that. So the only way we were able to do that and grow in that way was through List Perfectly. List Perfectly gave us that stepping tool to come up in our business because we weren’t able to sell in one platform, multiple accounts without something.
It’s a hundred percent meant to be. And also that’s why we took the time to have those webinars. So once a month, every second Monday of every month, we have a List Perfectly webinar through Zoom, also streaming through YouTube. There are so many tools and there are so many features that we could use from List Perfectly that I didn’t even know they were available to me. Now that I’m doing this webinar, I’m finding out all these little details that I did not know that I was able to use. So I’m learning and I’m taking the time to teach others because I genuinely think and believe that List Perfectly is the tool for a reseller to be able to grow their business. There’s no other, and I say that from the bottom of my heart because I’ve experienced that.
Clara: I wanna get feedback about live sales and live shows. How is that going for you and where are you doing, I’m assuming Poshmark or Whatnot, I’m not sure.
March: So the live selling, I’ve tried it in Whatnot and Poshmark both platforms. I actually had that going because I wanted to show or teach my subscribers how to do it so they could have the opportunity in case they wanted to try something new. But to be honest with you, I’m a huge introvert and I am not good at it. It is not for me, a hundred percent is not. So I just did a couple of shows to get those videos going and get the knowledge of it, but it is not something I do on a regular basis or something that I’ve implemented on my business to grow my business.
Doug: Live sales are not for everyone. I know some sellers that don’t really enjoy it either, but you do shine on your YouTube channel for sure. So tell us about that and what can sellers expect to find there?
March: They can expect to find, as I was mentioning earlier, all sides of reselling. So we have the step-by-step tutorials, right? We cover different platforms, like how they’re shipping works and their return policies. We’ve covered sourcing, we cover listings, photos, titles, descriptions, et cetera accounting, and taxes. And we also have a live Q and A on Wednesdays.
So we try to cover all aspects, but what we try to do is to have something or teach something on every video that you can implement in your online sales business today. At least a point or two and advise what you can go ahead and do today to change or help your online reselling.
So we try to show the good, the bad, and the ugly of online reselling, being very honest with what online sales are. Something I’ve learned on this journey of my YouTube channel is that, for instance, let me give you a quick example. Like I used to show or post about myself every day on my social media to motivate people that it is possible to do this full-time right? But then I stopped doing it because I learned that it takes a little bit more than motivation to succeed. That’s my experience. So rather than just throwing out motivation, I wanted to make videos that are practical information that again, you can apply on your online sales today. So we’re huge believers that of course, you need motivation to start, but then if you work hard and again, you give your business the respect it needs and deserves, you can get very far. And that’s the value we try to show in our YouTube channel. Teach you how to work hard and how to do it.
Clara: So on Instagram, you’re March Cadena on Facebook, your March Cadena, and then on Facebook is Grupo de Ayuda?
March: So you could find me everywhere as March Cadena and then the group is, yeah, Grupo de Ayuda Ventas Online. And that’s how you could find us there. And again, there are admins and the community is very active, so if you have any questions and you’re stuck while you’re listing and you have a quick question of, oh my God, what do I do now? You can always go to the group. And, just go ahead and ask your question there, but it is all in Spanish. You have to speak Spanish, or read Spanish. Maybe you don’t speak it, but if you know how to read it, it will be very helpful to you as well.
Clara: We’re coming to the end of our session, but this is the part that we leave open to you. What would you tell our audience, our listeners of the Seller Community Podcast regarding you and your reselling journey, or maybe a tip? Anything you would like to add, please?
March: Yeah. Thank you. So actually, I’ll let you guys know, reselling is hard, to be successful it’s hard, but it is possible if you have discipline and consistency. It is possible. It’s not as hard as sometimes we make it seem. I mean it in a way that sometimes we focus on the wrong thing, and that’s what makes it hard. But if you focus on the basics, on the quality listings, on respecting your job, having good pictures, and having good titles are so important. If you don’t have a good title, people can’t find your item. It can be the best item in the world, but if it can’t be seen, your work is gonna be in vain, so focus on what’s important.
We live in an age where there’s a lot of information coming in. And we tend to focus on the wrong information. We need to niche down to the information that’s really gonna help us grow our business. And it is possible. And of course, you have to have tools that will help you, especially if you wanna grow your business.
If you are already a reseller, and you’re doing pretty well, but you want to bring it to the next level to do that, you need help. And the way I was able to get that done and the help I got was List Perfectly. I say it with honest truth a hundred percent. And so tools are important. So find the right tool. And let me tell you, List Perfectly is one, make sure you check them out, their YouTube channel, and their resources as well.
Doug: Well March. This was great. It was great to meet you. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you for what you do for the seller community. And I love the niche. I’m a big supporter of Spanish content and Spanish sellers and Spanish buyers, and I love that you are putting out that focused content that frankly, the marketplaces are missing out on. It’s a huge, huge opportunity.
March: I greatly appreciate it. I love what you guys do as well. I love your podcast and you know what, something that I love about your podcast is it is so relaxing. As you can tell, it takes a lot to calm me down. I’m pretty much up here all the time, so when I listen to your podcast, it’s so relaxing. I can be listing and listening to you guys. It’s the perfect combo, to be honest.
Clara: Thank you, March. Thank you for making time. We’re gonna do a teaser. We’re gonna do a podcast with March, the first podcast in Spanish for the Seller Community Podcast, we’re gonna do it with March Cadena and I can’t wait to do this session soon.
Thank you, March. Thank you, Dougie.
Doug: Thank you so much.