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Jess & her hubby Johann play storage wars in real life! After buying a unit at a storage auction for $230, they got hooked on buying and selling and built a multiple 6-figure business while keeping literally tons of good stuff out of landfills. Jess applies her MBA training and business consulting know-how to keep growing the business and now she's ready to pass on her expert knowledge to help you grow yours! Interesting Notes Jess and her hubby had separate jobs before. They were both doing eBay as a side hustle. They find it fun to rescue and learn all things and pass them on. It kept growing. In the end, her husband quit his job and Jess closed down her consulting company. They liked the show Storage Wars since 2012. When they learned that there was a local one, they went to its auction. They got the last locker of the day. They were clueless as they pulled things out of the big crates. They spread things all over the floor and found some cool things to sell. The highlight of their first auction is the set of Royal Albert Old Country Rose China. It is a big set of a collectible pattern. They sold it and made about five times the money from that first auction. Since then, they kept buying more storage units which filled their garage with stuff. When they ran out of space, they found another one until they ventured into a warehouse. They realized that there is an actual business in buying storage units. So in 2016, they formalized their business. No one knows what is inside the storage unit. The auctioneer will open the unit and people try to peek and see using a flashlight. Then the bidding starts. If you win, you have a couple of days to empty everything out. Sometimes, they bought lockers that looked incredible but when opened, it was boxes of clothes, foods, and Christmas stuff. At other times, the other lockers that don't look so good surprised them. A few years back, they saw a unit with a big pile of pennies at the front. They bid on it. A guy started making fun of them saying, "Oh, there's $5 in pennies at the front of that unit. You can start getting your money back!". They paid $300 for it. It turned out the pennies are only at the top layer. Underneath it was all quarters and Canada's Loonies and Toonies - $1 and $2 coins amounted to $300 bucks. They got their money back. Jess and her hubby keep on learning about new product categories. As they learn more about what sells well for them, they become more selective about what they buy. They now have a better sense of what they can flip for the most money. They moved away from buying storage auctions to more consignments and estate sale picking. Doing so becomes more lucrative for them. There was a time someone dropped them 5,000 Beatles record. All of a sudden they researched about it. Recently, they got 100,000 Hot Wheels Diecast Cars consignment. They didn't know anything about it and so they did the research. One of Jess favorite categories to sell is Ephemera Paper. She loves rescuing old paper. She always gets this weird stuff because people don't think it's worth anything so they gave it away. But there are some people who collect it. They were able to sell a political brochure from the birth of a political party in Canada. The party started in the 1950s and is now defunct. The brochure is from 1953 and is rare online. It was sold in less than 24 hours for $30. The couple was able to double their revenue every year for the first five years they were operating. But last year, they reached the point where they could not get beyond where they are with just the two of them. In fact, last year was the first year that they did not double their revenue. So last year, they started hiring people. They hired remote workers as product listers who gives them consistent, new listings. They also hired a local worker who does their product price research. And now, they are already seeing the benefits of having staff around. Their January revenue was up to 90% over January of 2018. The couple has a 2,000 square foot warehouse. Though it is a bit small for their needs, they make it work. Everything they have has an SKU. Everything that gets posted has its box with its proper location. Whoever is in the warehouse can find things easily. Now and then, they made some tweaks on their processes to make it more efficient. As they grow and scale their business up, they became more obsessed and passionate about it. They welcome lots of cool ideas to continue to grow their business. In the process, Jess has become involved with various Facebook forums. She chatted with other sellers for a long time now. She heard a lot of complaints like there are too many sellers on eBay now. There is too much competition that is why nothing sells. She realized that there is a huge gap in entrepreneurship skills and business skills. Sellers need to be able to fill this gap to be able to scale up and find profitability. She thought that if a seller finds that nothing is selling, the seller needs to learn a skill set. Or there is an attitude that a seller needs to change. It could be a change of mindset at how to look at the eBay business and treat it more of a business. So Jess started to asked seller what they need. They would talk about things like "I don't understand sourcing. I don't understand marketing. I don't understand cash flow." With her MBA and her experience teaching business at a University, she could help sellers. Thus the birth of Hobby Sellers Bootcamp - a pilot course that teaches entrepreneurship and business skills and mindset. It has four modules: The First Module talks about mindset shift. She calls it "You're not a doctor. You're a business owner!" The Second Module talks about how to add $300 a month within a few weeks. This is the simple things that you can do for easy wins. Doing so will give you simple success and immediately start adding $300 or $400 a month to your top line revenue. The Third Module talks about the business skills that you need to sort of scale up and make it a full-time income. A lot of people say, "I'm afraid to quit my job. I'm afraid to take the leap." This module will prepare you so that when you do finally drop your full-time job, eBay will be able to replace what you are earning. The Fourth Module talks about scalability and tracking your progress. This is understanding what you actually need to measure to know how well you are doing. In four weeks, sellers will have the opportunity to ask Jess question in her four live group coaching call. The course is not limited to what Jess has designed. She will adapt to what the sellers need based on their questions and concerns. Through this course, sellers will be able to set up a system that supports through the slower times. Doing so, sellers can amp up when things are getting fast like around November and December. The course is priced at $247. By the time you complete the course, you are already adding $300 a month to your top line revenue. So the course is paid for itself and then you start to scale your business. It will be open for a few more days. Check it out before the cart closes - hobbysellersbootcamp.com Jess finds it great and cool to teach other people to get to the point where they get what they have dreamed of. Advice, Tips, and Tricks You can filter the boxes inside the storage unit by looking at how things are packed and at the type of boxes used. Are they using banana boxes from the grocery store? Are they using nice boxes from the storage facility? If the boxes look really old, that's a good sign. If you see something that looks like Campbell's Soup box from the 1970s, there's likely to be something good inside. Bringing people on as staff is a very scary thing to do. It can be quite intimidating at first. You are forced to put amazing processes and systems in place. Doing so will empower your staff to do their best work. You will see the benefits quickly, plus it is fun! They have a simple setup for their photography. They use a white table with the sheets and a couple of big desk lamps that come down on either side. They try to make the background clean and eliminate shadows as best as they can. You need to be an honest seller. You need to describe things well. You need to be conscientious. If you are selling an item that you don't know of, you can try an auction. You don't always have to be concerned about maxing out and getting your top dollar for everything. Look at your margins. If you are spending an hour searching upon a unique and difficult item, you have already wasted too much time. Just put a price on it and wait. As a business owner, there are things that can frustrate you. You didn't sell something for enough. You messed up with the packaging that causes an issue and your buyers got upset about it. These things are going to happen in business. You have to pull your emotions out of it. Try to walk away for five minutes and reframe your mind. Then come back and send the buyer a nice note with an apology. Quotes "There is a trill of the hunt every single time." "You don't have to be a professional photographer to make your eBay business work." "Don't get obsessed with every little thing that gets at you. Deal with it and move on!" "One of the key things to have to get used to is the volatility." Contact Information Website: Hobby Seller's Bootcamp Facebook: Storage Warrior email: hello@storagewarrior.ca eBay Store: The Storage Warriors Sponsors Norila Digital Marketing

Jason is America's #1 thrifter and spends his time touring the country teaching others how to thrift and flip online. Jason was the star of Spike TV's Thrift Hunters and now hosts 2 Youtube shows Thrifty Business & Selling Past Your Expiration Date, Being Thrifty Over 50. Interesting Notes A few years ago, Jason taught his retired parents how to sell on eBay. They are 76 years old and flip a lot of water skis and TV-VCR combo. They are making $2,000 a month selling part-time on eBay. Jason and his mom started the YouTube show called Selling Past Your Expiration Date Being Thrifty Over 50. It is a once a week, late at night talk show about thrifting for senior thrifters and sellers. Her mom loves doing the show and enjoys it. It made her a celebrity on YouTube. She would go to flea markets, and people would recognize her. And Jason, being a Mama's boy, enjoys it. He finds it fun to watch the older generation hosting YouTube shows. Jason loves to go to thrift stores. Someone tried to call him a picker, but he likes to call himself a thrifter. Pickers love to dig in attics, basements, and old barns. But Jason with a 6'5 feet height is not into getting on his knees and crawling around. He prefers going to thrift stores with air conditioning and bathrooms which is more comfortable. His wife has a corporate career. She stands five feet and three quarters. When they go thrifting, his wife searches from the middle shelf down while he searches from the middle shelf up. Jason is a big music nerd. He has over 4,000 CDs, alphabetized on shelves in his little library in their house. When he goes thrifting, he would conquer first the Media Section because that is what he knows well. His first stop is the Music Section. He would crash the CDs Section and pull out all the gems. Then, he would go to the Cassettes Section and check for eight tracks. He would also look through the record section to find video and computer games. After conquering the section he knows best, he would work on the rest of the store. He would hit over to the Men's Clothing because he is a man and he wears clothes. He is well versed in Men's T-shirts, button-down shirts, and jackets. He also knows what jeans are good to flip and so he would conquer that section too. Early on, he had also flipped bras because there's good money in used bras. But he made a one-time mistake of grabbing the same bra at the same time a lady had grabbed it on. So he made a note to himself to always shop on the right side of the bra rack. When he had his TV show Thrift Hunters, there is a group of guys who kept on poking him online. These guys only sold fine men's wear - high-end button-down shirts, suit coats, blazers, and the like. He does not use those stuff because he lives in Vegas and rarely wears sleeves on his shirts. But he took on the challenge. One day, he went thrifting a whole store. He went into its Sport's Coat Section. With his iPad, he looked up every single brand on eBay sold listings. Doing it, he saw what was hot and was not. On that day, he bought a sports coat for $5. He ended up selling it for $300. Since he learned the Sport's Coat Section, he went into one the other day. He was in Boston for a trip and he snagged out two sports coat. One was an Italian that cost $100 and the other cost $50. He estimated that the price to sell on eBay would be $599 or $699. He also flipped neckties. They are super duper easy to ship and has no weight. The novelty neckties were great 10 years ago. It vanished so he stopped looking for it. Then on his Boston trip, he found some cool and unique neckties. Jason's house is 4,000 sq. ft. big full of his Tiki Mugs collection. 50% of which comes from thrifting. He has a bamboo bar, the size of one room, full of his collection. He got rid of it because he bought a new bar that matched their furniture. So their house is a mess of the mugs he bought in the last six months. He filled their new bar with the duplicates that need to be sold or traded. And he got 200 extra ceramic vessels, most of which are in the boxes. That is a lot of space, a lot of money that has already been paid, and a lot of profit just waiting. But his Tiki Mug collection is full so if something new comes in that he likes better, he lets go of something old. And he keeps that flow. If and when he wants to sell his stuff, it is worth way more than he paid for it. A Tiki Mug is a collectible mug where cocktails are served. It is made of a ceramics. You can take it home for a price. It is found in Tiki Bars. Tiki Bars started in the 30s. Thrift stores think they are a vase so they are in the vase section. Every Tiki Mug has a name. The modern Tiki Mugs have a manufacturer at the bottom of the mugs. Oftentimes, they have a year and the designer. If you don't know what it is, you can message Jason on Facebook and he will tell you. If he needs it, he will buy it from you before you even get out of the thrift store. He has a class in Portland. A new girl in the class ran to the Vase Section and found a very rare Tiki Bowl. The Tiki Bowl is for a group drink. The girl bought it for $6 and sold it for $60. With that one item, she paid for half of her class. The other day, someone sent him a picture of two Tiki Mugs. If Tiki Mugs are legit, they are good ones. He told the sender not to buy them because those are knockoffs. Jason used to work as an Operations Manager for his buddy who had a tub store in Vegas. He would deliver and fix tubs. He starts to work at 6 AM while his buddy works at 11 AM. Along the way, things did not go well with them. One day, he got an infection while working in some nasty hot tub. He almost died of it. He had two emergency surgeries to save his arm and his life. He was hospitalized for five days but his buddy never visited him. His view from his hospital room is the Strip, the last thing he wanted while in a hospital bed. A strip is a place where people are having the funniest time of their life. When one stays in Vegas, the one thing one wants is a view of the strip. Those five days, with all the machines, he realized his work life is miserable. It is making the rest of his life miserable and he needed to fix it. When he got out of the hospital, he quit from his work. He spent the next month doing eBay while rehabbing his screwed up arm. But he made as much money with one bad arm, sitting in his office than he did at a backbreaking outside job. Doing so made him realized that he is his own boss making the same money. And so he worked it up to make a lot more money, setting his own hours. He works longer and harder than he ever had but he enjoyed it. Jason and his wife get up at 6:30 AM. He would ride a stationary bike in the gym in their house. Then he would catch up on his Facebook Groups real quick. His assistant comes to work at 8:30 AM and then they would do the shipping first. His assistant would then take pictures and on the next day, they would list it. On the other days, he would get materials together for whatever he will be teaching next. At night, he would go downstairs to watch TV with his wife and doggy. On weekends, together with his wife, he goes on thrifting. They would hit garage sales in the morning and antique stores after lunch. His grand plan is to make money with no boss so that he can control the hours of his life and be happy. But as he continues to make his own living, he acquired more knowledge. As he acquires more knowledge, he shares it to a few people until it leads him to teach, run Facebook groups, and host YouTube and TV shows. Last year, he started teaching two-day classes in major cities. He teaches where there are cool Tiki bars. He sees himself doing it more because he loves to travel the country. Besides, it is pretty awesome to travel the country and make money at the same time. He loves shopping too! To him, thrifting is like a treasure hunt. So he wants to thrift more around the country and around the world. He wants to see the world through thrifting and teaching. He will continue to do so until he can do it no more. He also has a TV show. He is the new character on the Pawn Stars. He has already shot two episodes. He finds it cool to show up, do his role, get paid and then leave the shoot. And he intends to do it more. Jason is now living his dream with his life partner. Even if his wife has a different job, they do well together. He loves seeing his successes. But more so, he loves seeing everyone who follows him succeed. That is what fuels his heart and brain. Advice, Tips, and Tricks When flipping bras, always shop at the right side of the bra rack. When you are in a thrift store and you don't know what section to go to, get your phone or your iPad. Sit in a section the whole day and learn it. Look up every brand you can find in the section on the eBay Sold listings. Then figure out what are the hot items. There is so much money in every single section of a thrift store. Conquer what you know. Then start to teach yourself or learn from a Seller's Summit like the So You Wanna Sell Summit. Or you can learn by listening to a podcast like So You Wanna Sell On eBay. If you have a mannequin, tie the necktie around the mannequin's neck. That way your potential customer can see how it looks. Pay attention when you bring stuff in. If you get attached to it and you want to keep it, that is fine. But if something new comes in, learn to let go of something old. You have to keep that flow. If you get into Tiki Mugs, 100% of the time, you can find it in the vase section. Every thrift store in the world thinks that Tiki Mug is a vase. So they put it in the vase section. If you are a beginner on thrifting, start buying clothes of your size. Find some things that you think are cool, unique, or jeans if you like wearing one. Vintage Levi's do quite well. Buying clothing of your size and does not sell means that you've got an extra pair of jeans or an extra T-shirt in your closet. So there is no harm. If you

David went from being bankrupt to selling over 2 million dollars in phones and electronics on eBay over the last 6 years. He has helped hundreds of people grow their eBay business through buying and selling phones off classified sites and reselling them on eBay. Interesting Notes Broken cell phones sell fast on eBay!! Dave knows it because when he list it on eBay, it sells within a day or two. Before he did this interview, he listed $7,000 phones. He sold $200 within five minutes. And he expects to sell $3,000 overnight. This thing happens every single week. He believes that eBay has so much built-in traffic. With eBay, he gets to sell his products fast. Unlike a physical store where he has to talk to customers, people are already searching for stuff on eBay. When he hears the "cha-ching" on his phone, he would print the label on eBay, wrap the item in a bubble mailer, and it is done. Dave loves eBay because he could move so much inventory so fast. It also takes a whole selling part of the business away from him. It also enables him to focus on what he is good at, that is, acquiring inventory at a price where he can make a healthy profit. He gets his inventory by placing ads on classified sites - places like Facebook Groups and Craigslist. He would say, "We pay cash for phones". Then people would call and sell him their broken phones. He would offer them a price where he could make a 40% to 60% profit. Ten years ago, Dave and his wife had lost their house and car. He was dead broke and lived in his mom's basement. He worked from their home as a carpet cleaner and made $300 a week. He wanted to have a business that he could do part-time. The eBay business intrigued him because he likes the work at home idea. He enjoys working from their house. And to sell online looks exciting to him. So he started selling stuff on eBay. He started finding stuff from yard sales. The first item he sold is an old antique flag that had 48 stars instead of 50. He bought it for $20 but sold it for $.99 with free shipping. He spent three months finding junks at yard sales that did not pay off. On their wedding anniversary, he found a lady selling a designer purse - a Coach. At that time, Coach was a big thing. The lady sells the purse at $30. He bought it for his wife as a present on their wedding anniversary. He thought of selling purses on eBay but was afraid because of his previous experience. He looked at what is selling on eBay and found out that purses sell for $230. He realized that he needs to go for high-dollar value items. The next week, he found four Coach purses at the yard sale. He bought the purses for $15 per piece and made $200 over the weekend. That was a huge, life-changing moment for him. The next weekend he went out again. With a little more practice, he was able to make $400. Selling designer purses turned into a little eBay business for four months. Dave wanted to expand his little eBay business and have something consistent to sell. So he started posting ads on Craigslist saying, "I will buy your used cell phones and electronics, cash!". He wanted to try and see if he can get anything from it as the purses do. He made $10,000 in his first month on electronics. With that, he switched from purses to electronics. His business blew up from there. In his first eight months on eBay, he made a quarter of a million in sales. He does not advertise for cracked or broken phones. He advertised for phones in general. Though people sell him phones in good condition, there are others who sell him cracked ones. He accepted those because he learned from American Pickers that anything with a low emotional attachment usually is most profitable. It made him think, "who has an emotional attachment to cracked cell phones?" Then he realized that one can let it go so much cheaper, as cheap as $30. And it can be sold to eBay for $150, a massive profit margin! Dave's philosophy is sharing information. He believes in the Abundance Mentality, that is, there is enough to go around for everybody. He never gives second thoughts on the competition. He worries about doing better for himself. Now, he trained people on how to flip phones on eBay. And by him training people, they share ideas with him too. When he helped people do better, they also share the good things with him. So, from $20,000 a month on eBay two years ago, now he is averaging $30,000 a month. He has trained over 70 people who have hit over $10,000 in a month flipping phones on eBay. He put them on his YouTube channel to be recognized and become a superstar. He also flips laptops, tablets, Mac books, and iPad. He does not flip old and vintage items because it distracts him from his main business. He focuses on what he knows, that is, electronics genre, and do lots of it. He thinks that he would hurt his sales if he would try to diversify too much because he would not be so focused. To Dave, electronics is cool because it is all the same. An iPhone is still an iPhone. Unlike with purses, you have to make it look pretty first and take at least 10 pictures. When he lists an iPhone, everybody knows what it is. So he would take the phone out of the case, slap it on the table, and take a picture of the front and back, and it is done. Unless there is severe damage, he takes a picture of that. In shipping his items, he would wrap it in one or two layers of bubble wraps. Then he would stick it on a bubble mailer. For his flipping business, Dave uses only eBay tool to value an item. He tries to keep his business simple. He finds that complicated things make business worst. He goes to eBay search and do appraisals. He looked into the sold listings and find out what something is worth. eBay makes sure that sellers think about their buyers. Dave too believes in customer service. He always gives great customer service in every business that he has. If there is an item that has an issue, he will be happy to take it back as a return. He gives back the money to the customers. Then he will resell the returned item to whoever wants it to get his money back. Dave runs his business with this business philosophy: WORK LESS, MAKE MORE! He has built systems and structures. He hired people to work for him. Now, he runs four businesses completely automated. The hardest part of a beginner entrepreneur is the Discipline in Structure. As an entrepreneur, you have to train yourself to think like you work for your bills. Think like your mortgage or your credit card payment is your boss. All those are telling you that you need to go to work today. Dave has been selling on eBay for seven years. He has made over two million dollars. And he would still continue to sell on eBay. Flipping phones on eBay is a business that he has done a lot and mastered. He has been training people for three years now on how to do it. He has thousands of students on his paid course. He has 20,000 people on his Facebook Group. He wants to help more entrepreneurs grow, and expand from there. He might get into bigger things in the future. His life now is helping as many new entrepreneurs get into a business, make some money, and find a profit. People who are making $10 an hour in their jobs and who tried several ways to make money and failed, take his course. Two months later, these people are making $10,000 a month. Last year, a kid with a $50 in his pocket, enrolled in his course. Now, one year later, the kid has a $100 grand in his bank account. Dave feels good to be able to take someone from a struggling position. And he wants to do it for more people. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Focus on what you know and do lots of it. If you are selling $5,000 or $10,000 on vintage coins or something, you don't have to switch on flipping phones. You have to learn how to sell $20,000 or $30,000 on that something you sell. Figure out how to do it. Then stick to what you know. Make sure you have the right keywords for whatever you are trying to sell. It has to be what the buyer would search for on eBay. Make sure you have the right keywords so that you would attract the buyers you are looking for. Make sure you don't oversell in your listing so you would not get a bunch of returns. Even if the phone is in good condition, Dave's listing would say, "has slight scratches on it". This way nobody can get the phone and say "hey, there is a tiny scratch" and send it back to him. He undersells his listings rather than oversell. It is wrong to think that the more you hide something in the listing, the better it sells. Make sure your listing comes professionally. If you are over-promising, people can see it. People trust you more when you put something negative in your listing. He would say, "has some light scratches but works well". Winning people's trust makes them more willing to buy from you. Make a structure for your own business even if you are the only person working. For example, posting ads to get the inventory. Your structure is to make sure to post 15 ads each day. So you post 15 ads every single day first thing in the morning. Make sure to take in calls to buy the items and make so many offers. Have a structure to remind you that you are going to hit a certain amount each day. Doing so creates consistency in your sales and in your business. For whatever item you are looking to flip, find three same items using the Sold Listings on eBay search. Then find what people are paying for and take the average of those three. That would give you the accurate picture of what the market is going to pay. If you want to be a flipper on eBay, you have to be very good at doing appraisals. You have to be very good at finding out what an item is going to be worth. The better you find out, the more accurate you are in finding out what something is worth. The better off you can make and be more confident to flip an item means more profit in your pocket. Quotes "eBay has so much traffic built in!" "Iron sharpens iron!" "eBay is all about buying. You made money w

Mark Le Vine is co-owner, with his wife Robin, of Bubblefast, a shipping supply eCommerce business that began by selling a single roll of bubble cushioning on eBay in 1999. As pioneers, Bubblefast has enjoyed it's involvement in the eCommerce community ever since. Interesting Notes Bubblefast will be celebrating their 20th anniversary on May 2019. Having been a while, they have seen a few things. Back in the old days, there were no many rules. The competition was not much and shipping was less complicated. Back then, it was not easy to take good pictures so pictures were not as important as it is today. PayPal was not a thing either. There was a lot of communication, back and forth, between the buyer and the seller. Once a seller sold the product, you had to sit on it and wait for the check to come in the mail before you even ship it. With the advanced technology, eBay has come a long, long way. Now, it has its own catalogs where you can use stock photos. It has a Feedback System where a Buyer can give a review. As a seller, you can manage payment under PayPal, so you can get paid electronically. eBay is doing all the things that help the sellers make selling easier and to be better in eCommerce. Today, eBay also has better customer service. They are more dedicated to helping you answer questions and even dig into some of the details. Listing is a lot easier and much more user-friendly now than it used to be. eBay is not a cut-throat environment. Everybody sells different, unique items and are not competing for the same market share. It is so diversified that although you may sell in the same category, you are not selling the exact same products. So, sellers can still help each other, feel good about it, and still make some money. eBay keeps in mind the buyer and the seller for every decision that they have to make. It looks at the big picture and makes the decision for the vast majority. Sometimes, looking at the big picture does not sit well with the individual seller. Sometimes, the decision may not go well with the individual seller. But, eBay thinks for the best overall for the marketplace. The more people tell eBay how they feel about the items, the more changes eBay can make to try to make it as best as possible for as many buyers and sellers. But if the buyers don't come to the platform, it does not matter what you sell or for how little you sell it. Nobody is there to buy the items. So eBay has to keep in mind and make sure that there is a lot of competition in the marketplace, not just within eBay. So eBay has to do its job to make sure that buyers come to eBay as oppose to other places. The online business or eCommerce operates 24/7. It is the only business where you can go to bed at night, then wake up in the morning and find out how much money you make. Mark went to a game several years ago. He got a gold Bobblehead as a free give away from the game. He put the Bobblehead down the seat and took a picture of it on the phone. He listed it during the game and within an hour it was sold. When you are running an eBay business, you are on your own. It is stressful to some degree. You spend a lot more time on it. But all those things are yours! It is the best feeling about owning your own eCommerce business. You are not working your ass so that somebody else can make money off your sweat. Mark's business has different processes than most of the eBay sellers. It is because they sell on different marketplaces. They have one database that somebody has customized an app for them. It downloads all the orders from different marketplaces into one central database. From there they work on each order - size and weight. Then they decide what service is to use for shipping each individual products to optimize their cost and shipping speed. They don't have a pick list because the items for shipping are printed right on the label. They grab the label, then they pick and pack it up. They have different couriers - FedEx and Speedy Delivery. The post office man picks up the rest of the items not meant for the couriers. Their processes did not come and developed overnight. They made a lot of adjustments as their services change. There are challenges all the time. Mark and Robin continue to grow and try to be on top of the things as best as they can. There are new products out there - even new shipping products. So they are re-evaluating what their prices are to maintain competitive edges. They continue to learn their customers' needs so that they can customize their products. Many times, they have customized products that people eventually caught up in. And they want to keep it going and work out on the next one. If the rule changes, Mark and Robin would like to the first one to be on top of the rule. They want to supply products that fit the rule and make everybody happy. They believe that they cannot do it without keeping in touch with the eCommerce community. Advice, Tips, and Tricks eCommerce is getting a bigger and bigger piece of the market share of the retail business every year. Now is just as good as a time to get in. If you are a new seller on eBay, it is not difficult to list an item and sell. But there are a lot of rules that you have to be aware of. The rules have to do with shipping, packaging, how much to sell your item for, etc. Mark recommendations for starters are: 1. Don't quit your job. Instead, start selling as a hobby and play with it. 2. Sell things that are inexpensive. 3. Follow the rules and you will succeed. 4. Start small and learn. Stick to one item a week or one item a month. 5. Be prepared to make mistakes and lose money. Learn from those mistakes and grow slowly. 6. Find an eBay Sellers' Facebook Group. You don't even have to ask any questions. Nobody has to know that you are there. Pay attention to the questions other people are asking and read the answers. By doing, you will find new sources for questions, goods, suggestions. You'll be surprised how quickly your business can grow just by joining networks online. 7. Find yourself a local Meetup group at Meetup.com This is a face to face networking. 8. Don't be bashful about asking questions. Eventually, you'll become an expert in your niche. A time will come when people will ask you questions and you can pay forward by helping them out. 9. If you have the UPC Code on your item, make sure that you put that UPC code in your listing. Having the UPC Code in your listing gives your listing much better chances of showing up in the buyers' search than if you did not use the UPC code at all. In regards to Shipping, Mark recommendations are: 10. Do a little research. The heavier and bigger the product, and the farther away you ship it is going to cost you more to ship. You also need to pick a different service. 11. Something lightweight and small is for a Priority Mail. Something heavy or large, you may want to go with the couriers like UPS. You have to learn the differences there. 12. Know how you are going to pack your products before you ship it. Once you can figure out how much it is going to weigh and what the dimensions are, then list it. Use the eBay shipping calculator to give you options on the least expensive and fastest way to ship your products. That way, your buyers can pick out whatever options they want to pay for and get the products faster. In regards to Processes, Mark recommendations are: 13. As your business grows, learn how to be efficient. There are too many options and services. You will go blind trying to look for all. So in your networking, ask people what they use. 14. Be prepared to use the processes in your business. But things change and so does the offers. Some get better. Some don't handle what you can do anymore. Keep on tight on knowing what your own business is and you can make the changes quickly. 15. Listening to what your customers are asking for, or what kind of USPS rules is changing. Doing so will give you an idea when and how to modify your own products. 16. When you create jobs, create jobs for the position and not for the people. So that if people changes, the job description and the position do not. That makes the transition much easier. 17. If you have staff, don't ask people to do something that they are not capable of doing. Try to put them on the best spot. Try to cross-train your staff so that when somebody is not there, someone else can take over. 18. Better to train somebody else to do your job so that you can move up into a higher job and bigger responsibility. Quotes "Everybody wants to help each other on eBay." "eCommerce model it to be the tortoise and not the hare." "Start small and learn. Where you want to be, starting small and learning, is the best way to get there." "You cannot move up in the ranks unless somebody else can move in your spot." "Staying in touch is the biggest asset you can have in keeping and growing your business." "Every eBay sellers has been helped by somebody else." - Ron LaBeau “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.” - Richard Branson Contact Information eBay Store: Bubblefast Facebook Page: Bubblefast email: mark@bubblefast.com Sponsors Norila Digital Marketing

Stephanie Inge began selling on eBay in 1999, founded the original eBay sellers group, The Dallas eBaybes & eMales in 2002 and became first EVER college-level eBay instructor. She published Meetup Organizer Step-by-Step Success Guide in 2013 and is the organizer of the annual Sea Commerce Cruise, an at-sea eCommerce conference. Interesting Notes Stephanie is very passionate about teaching others. She loves the fulfillment she gets from doing it. Her greatest contribution to the eBay Community is organizing local events like Meetup Groups. And she does it for free! She said that organizing a Meetup Group does not take a lot of money. Neither does it take a ton of work. All it takes is dedication. Stephanie never misses a meeting! This year, her Meetup Group, The Dallas eBaybes & eMales, is celebrating its 15th anniversary. She is proud of what she has accomplished. The Dallas eBaybes & eMales meet in a restaurant every month. They have veteran eBay sellers as well as new eBay sellers in the group. From 6 PM to 7 PM, everybody would eat dinner and network. Then from 7 PM to 8:30 PM, a guest speaker or someone from their group who is an expert would give a talk on a certain eBay topic like packing or shipping, or customer service, or photography. They would either have a speaker or a class. Sometimes they would have a virtual speaker at their meetings. In fact, this January, their speaker Atty. Cliff Ennico will present via remote live broadcast. He will talk about the Legal and Tax Updates. Being a member of a Meetup Group gives you a network of 450 people whom you can reach out anytime and ask your questions. Most of the meetup conversation is on a private Facebook group. It is free to become a member of a Meetup Group. Just go to meetup.com and find a Meetup Group near you. On the eBay website, there is also a page where you can find Meetup Groups. In a conference, you learned the most by meeting people from other places. You trade stories, tips and tricks, and other stuff over a meal. With a Meetup, you get to meet local people who do the very same thing you do. But you don't have to pay for the travel expense. You also get to do it every month. Meetup Group covers every topic that would benefit an eBay seller. Today, there are 143 eBay Meetups in the US. And eBay is working closely with all the Meetup organizers. Stephanie continues to sell on eBay. Her niche is shoes for men and women. She started it a year ago, fired up by Tino who is a total Rockstar when it comes to shoes. She also sells handbags. One time, she took a picture of a purse from her death-pile galore. She did a research and asked a member of her Meetup Group to authenticate the purse. The member uses expensive software for authentication. He gave Stephanie a rough estimate of $150 as a price of the purse. Stephanie listed the purse on eBay and cross-posted it on Poshmark for $1200. She ended up selling it to a high powered attorney in downtown New York, City for $650. Stephanie also sells T-Shirts and Merch. She uses Print On Demand website for those items. She has also published her book to CreateSpace She is also learning how to create all kinds of journals and planners using CreateSpace. She will sell these through Amazon. She has other websites that sell too. So when she creates a design, she does not upload it only to Merch. She also uses it on several Print On Demand websites, and one of which is CafePress. CafePress has thousands of products which she can put the same designs on. Stephanie's legacy to the eBay community is that she gave an order to the Meetups. She came up with the step-by-step on how to set up and organize an eBay Meetup group. In the eBay Open on July 2018, eBay gave her the greatest honor as one of the speakers for three different events. eBay has introduced her as The First Lady of the Meetup. Stephanie has been teaching at the local colleges. She has also been teaching eBay in Amazon classes and social media classes for eBay. This 2019, she will expand her classes to include Poshmark. She has been using Poshmark for six months now and she loved it. She also plans to incorporate into her classes the Vision Board classes. Vision Board is about the power of positive thinking. It is picturing oneself doing something and it will happen. She will add it to her repertoire. To top it all, she plans to create an online class. She will have her classes recorded so that she can use it over and over again, making it an evergreen content. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Create one design and use it on tons of different Print On Demand websites and on thousands of different products. Just make sure that you have to be on point and always ahead of the trends. Aside from listening to this Podcast, Stephanie suggests for those who are new or struggling on eBay: 1. Join various Facebook Groups. There are specific groups to join to like Thrifting Board. If you are selling antiques and collectibles, Thrifting Board group can help you identify various products. There are also generic groups for those who are selling in general. 2. Take a class from a professional eBay seller or instructor so that you can eliminate a lot of the common pitfalls. 3. Follow up or stay in touch with people via Facebook Groups, Meetup Groups, Podcast, and YouTube. 4. Be very careful of people who want to teach and sell you a course. Ask someone you know and trust if he/she would spend that kind of money. There are so much FREE information and digital resources available. Be sure to check all your resources before you spend a ton of money with someone that is selling a course. Quotes "If you want to do it, you can do it!" "It's the thrill of the hunt!" "When you shake a person's hand, you change the dimension of the relationship." - Ron "There is never a dull moment on eBay. There is always exciting happening." - Ali   Contact Information Facebook Group: The Dallas eBaybes & eMales Meetup Group: The Dallas eBaybes & eMales email: stephintexas@gmail.com Sponsors Norila Digital Marketing

Ari is an entrepreneur, selling on eBay since 2003. What started as a hobby in college, has become a full-time business selling vintage electronics and other discount items. He is a new father and enjoys the flexibility that e-commerce provides. Interesting Notes Ari started to work in their family's brick and mortar store when he was six years old. He grew up in the age of laserdisc, beta, turntables and all that. Now, he sells vintage items that date back to the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Among those items are turntables, turntable needles, cartridges, VHS, Atari games. He started selling on eBay when he was still in college. He would buy and sell sneakers and it grew up. With his college students' discount, he would also buy computer software and sell it on eBay. But Microsoft frowned upon it which ended that kind of niche. He realized when he moved back home from college that eBay is a viable business. Today, he has taken over the management of their brick and mortar store. It is in the part of a town that is pretty dead. He noticed that retail in the brick and mortar store as well as in the shopping malls are hurting over the years. And eBay is another avenue to sell. So, all the items in the store that are not selling, he sells it on eBay. He also has store employees who do not have much work so he formed a team of six people to run his eBay. He delegates eBay tasks to his team. Each has his own accountable tasks. Someone is in-charge for the shipping and another for the listing. He is in-charged for the hunting of new items to list. He hunts items from warehouses in Laredo. Laredo is the border town where the largest inland port in the US is. It is home to a lot of warehouses and distribution facilities. Owners need their warehouses empty so you can find deals in Laredo. He and his team run his eBay store for two years now. Ari handles more the issues with unhappy customers and returns. He also deals with the PayPal chargeback. All his eBay items have a 30-Day Hassle Free Return policy. If it is something that he cannot repair, he just takes the return and refunds the money. To Ari, Return and Refund is the easiest way to end the issue. You will have upset customers the longer you make it to not to give what they want. He does Free Shipping. He thinks that seeing an extra cost for shipping discourages people. eBay also wants everything fast and free. So, he integrates shipping into the price. The majority of his staff ships out under three tiers - First Class Mail, FedEx, and Priority Mail. Depending on the size of the item, he could give or take the shipping. Something small goes with the First Class Mail which has $2 to $4 on shipping added. Big items go with the Priority Mail which is anywhere from $10 to $20 and $40 to $50 for FedEx. Ari came across a rare red laser disc. He has 200 of those discs. He did not list them all at one time. He would test the market and the price first. Then, he would navigate for some years. He works Monday to Saturday. He offers one day or next day shipping. He gets stuff sorted out every Saturday so that everything is ready by Monday. The weirdest thing he ever sold on eBay is a trailer of blow up dogs. He did not think that it was something that he could list. He listed it on eBay and a guy from Africa bought them all. Right now, Ari is working on a book - Pre NAFTA Laredo. It is a study of the before and after of Laredo in relation to the NAFTA. Other than eBay, he is also into Real Estate and is busy with his travel trips. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Give the customers what they want. The longer you make it to not to give what they want, you will have upset customers. He uses variations of listings apps. One is CrazyLister. He also uses some tracking booster. The most important thing is the pictures so take good pictures. Show the condition that the items are in. Be true to what it is - No surprises! Don't give reasons for the buyers to be upset. Add items specifics in the listing details. That is how people search for your items. It is most important that you love what you sell. You have to have a passion for selling. Before he started delegating the tasks, he was doing it all by himself. Breaking yourself on eBay is a tough thing to do. Just be patient. There are scammers, but not everybody is out to scam you. Give out your best and the results will show. Delegate the tasks. Make sure that people are doing their job. Check on them, that is the way to do it! Quotes "eBay is a lot harder than the brick and mortar store." "You have to delegate to have a great success in your eBay business." "If you can buy it for a dollar and sold it for two, there's a profit right there!" "If you list it, it would sell!" "Starting off brand new is the hardest thing when you are on eBay. It is a tough start off." Contact Information eBay Store: wolfsbigbadgarage Facebook: wolfsbigbadgarage Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce Norila Digital Marketing

Dominic Carone began selling on eBay in 2000 to make some extra money in graduate school. He currently runs the Prime Time Treasure eBay Store, which specializes in the sale of comic books, toys, books, pop culture items, clothes, and all things vintage and collectible. Interesting Notes Dominic is not a Thrifter. In Central New York, where he lives, thrift stores have higher prices compared to the garage, rummage, and estate sales. So, he stays away from thrift stores. He explained it further on his YouTube video entitled, "Why I Hate Going To Thrift Store". He goes to garage sales, but he gets most of his eBay items from estate sales. Dominic used to go to a Swap Shop in Florida. It is a huge outdoor flea market. Every weekend, he and his wife would go down the aisle. Back then there was no eBay app. So, one has to develop an eye for things. Sometimes they made mistakes. Sometimes they made big scores. That is how he started his reselling business and did it for a few years. Then, he focused on his career outside of reselling. A few years ago, he got back again with reselling comic books. He watched a lot of other YouTubers and started to diversify his content. Now, his eBay store sells pretty much anything that is vintage and collectible. He hits all the categories. Dominic runs his reselling business alone. His wife helps him, now and then, in some aspects to get more sales as he continues to grow and develop. He has two kids who once in a while come with him to the sales. His daughter who is fourteen has developed an eye for things. When she finds something, she will go to another room and bring things back to him. One time, she found a Kitchen Witch with the original tag on it. They got it for 50 cents and sold it within two days for $70. He taught his kids how to negotiate with people and how to negotiate money. One time, his son who is thirteen, go up to someone independently and try to negotiate on some action figures. Most people, especially in the Amazon Prime area expect free shipping. So, Dominic does free shipping on everything. This way, he maximizes the number of potential buyers who are going to see his items. People who search for items to buy would filter out based on whether there is free shipping. Meanwhile, he keeps the Best Offer as an option. He is less flexible with the price in the beginning. But, as time goes on and the items are not sold, he becomes more flexible. Dominic almost has two full-time jobs. He works full-time as a Board Certified Neuro Psychologist in a hospital. That is his regular full-time job. Around that, he tries to work on his reselling business. He is busy every day trying to fit in his regular work, reselling, family time and some other stuff. Now, he is more focus on Q4. He wants to have a lot of items up and listed for the people. One of the unique things that he found and sold on eBay is an old wrestling show poster from 1989. It is an advertisement for the championship match of Ric Flair. He did his research and saw that it was selling for $400 in the auction. After putting it on the auction, he received offers of $100 and $250. He took it as a red flag that it would sell higher and it did. Dominic also loves to do Metal Detecting. It is like to reselling because he gets to go out and hunt for something. He also uses strategies to detect where something valuable might be. Sometimes he scores big and sometimes he does not. He found something out of metal detecting. It was a fixture in a ceiling of an old ballroom that fits a glass lamp. It was from early 1900. He found the piece buried in the park's ground. He had it appraised to be worth $135. He could sell it on eBay if he wants to. At the beginning of 2017, his goal is to develop the Facebook Group and a YouTube channel. He succeeded in doing it. He now runs the Facebook Group called Reselling Resource Center. He created the group ten months ago and now has 3,000 members. It aims to help other resellers succeed by passing on tips and tricks. He allows people to post links to videos that they feel can be helpful. He also has posts of the "Beyond the Look Out Item of the Day" (BOLO). He provides a lot of detailed price information about the BOLOs. This way, people could learn about the items that are available and good to sell. His YouTube channel is Prime Time Treasure with 1100 subscribers. It has 225 videos dedicated to helping people grow in their reselling business. Right now, his focus is on developing a more efficient system for storage at his house where he runs his business. He does not plan to take a warehouse because he has a regular full-time job which he cannot give up. So, he is finding ways on how to work efficiently at his house. And if things would go further, his wife will take a more active role in his reselling business. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Get to know the people and cities in your area. Certain cities are much more expensive than others. Certain estate sales dealers are much pricey than others. But there are some that are reasonable. Figure it out real fast and stick with the ones who give you good deals. Subscribe to the email list of the estate sales dealers you are loyal to. This way you can get updates on the schedule of the next estate sales. Dealers would send pictures so you can preview on it and make a decision if that is something you want to go to. He does research on the "completed sold" and see what things did sell in the last 60 days. He would also see what the current competition is if there is competition for. Then, he will price his items accordingly. He does not price his items lower than somebody who had the item in bad condition. Nor does he price it lower than another seller who has a bad reputation. He has 100% positive feedback. So if someone else has a 95% feedback, he will not price his item lower than that person because that will scare a lot of potential buyers away. He would price his item relative to that taking into consideration what it is previously sold for in the last 60 days. He works the shipping fee into the price. He makes sure that he has the time to source his items low enough. This way, he could sell far high enough no matter what the price will come up with shipping. For items that he feels he is going to lose money, he takes it off and bundles it with another item. Quotes "You have to go to the right places." "If you want to be successful, you have to find a way to put the time in." "You have to make a sacrifice, something somewhere, if you have a full-time job and you want to make eBay work." "eBay is more lucrative for me than metal detecting." Contact Information eBay Store: Prime Time Treasure Facebook: Reselling Resource Center YouTube: Prime Time Treasure Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce Norila Digital Marketing

Troy and Veronica are a couple that has decided to chuck the normal lifestyle and own their time rather than chase fancy things. Gone is the rat race, the frustrating commute, the office politics, and the boss overlords. They work when they want, how they want, and where they want. Veronica is the frugal mom with loads of style, and Troy is the stubborn number cruncher. They have two wonderful boys in college, a beautiful house in suburban Denver, and a basement full of inventory. Interesting Notes Fifteen years ago, Veronica was a stay at home mom with four-year-old and six-year-old sons. She and her best friend used to go to garage sales on Fridays to look for kids toys and clothes. One day, she ran across an ad for a class on how to sell on eBay. She enrolled and after four weeks of classes, she started selling on eBay part-time. Aside from eBay, she also worked a bunch of part-time jobs throughout the years. In 2012, she responded to an ad in Craigslist for a photographer-lister on eBay. She learned that the owner is running eBay as a full-time business. She learned from the owner the different things to sell on eBay and on how to run an eBay business as a whole. Troy, on the other hand, worked as a controller in an oil and gas company. He was earning a six-figure income, but he had to drive one hour one-way to work. He did not like it much and was not enjoying his life. With his financial background, he started running the numbers of Veronica's own eBay. He figured out what will it takes to run a full-time eBay business such as: 1. how many items do they need to list each week; 2. how many items do they need to sell each week; 3. how much will it cost them in inventory to make eBay a full-time job. As a result, he came up with a conclusion that eBay can be a viable full-time job. They may have less money, but they can have enough to be able to live and enjoy their lives at the same time. It is like a pre-retirement. And so in 2015, they both quit their jobs and do eBay full-time together. Veronica grew up seeing her father going to garage sales and antique stores. She imbibed in her spirit the love of going and finding deals. She never thought that one day she will walk away from her job and go full-time on eBay. Troy never thought that he would leave his corporate job too. He recalls the first suit that he bought to get a full-time corporate accounting job. He bought it at Goodwill for $6 and now 20 years later, he is selling that suit. One of the best things that Troy and Veronica did on their eBay business is hiring a photographer. The photographer takes the photos for their clothing and shoes at his own studio at home. They would drop stuff off to the photographer and pay him per item. For their hard goods, Veronica takes the photos. They ship every day and they do it together. Monday to Thursday is their listing days. Every Friday morning, they hit the garage sales. Their Saturdays are their thrift stores and estate sales route day. Sunday is their day off. On their day off, Veronica gets to cook and get their meals ready for the week. Troy would catch up with the accounting. They also spend time with friends and with their son who lives with them. They adopted a chunking program in running their eBay business. These four chunks are photography, listing, sourcing, and shipping. They group their task per chunk and do it per schedule. Their so-called chunking program keeps them focused on a task at hand. It keeps them on the same mood and mindset all throughout. This way, they get more things done every week and of better quality. For their inventory management, they use a third party listing software called SixBit. They also use the SKU system. They would list all their items with SKU numbers. Another best thing they did this year is getting a warehouse space. Their warehouse has a shelf location with SKU numbers as well. All the hard items that are listed are pre-packaged and are taken over to the warehouse. Veronica puts the weights and the dimensions into the SixBit and eBay listing. So when an item sells, they would print the label in their house, go to their warehouse, slap the label on it, and drop the items in the post office on their way home. They store their clothing and shoe items in their house basement. The shoes are in numbered-shoe racks. The shirts and pants are in legal size file drawers. So, they have a basement full of legal size file drawers. Each drawer has its own numbers. So when an item gets listed on eBay, it has its own unique SKU and drawer number. When something sells, within 60 seconds, they can go down to the basement, pick the items, pack it up and ship it out. It took Troy and Veronica for a while to get where they are at now in their eBay business. They encountered annoyances before, but they were able to fix it and became efficient. One of their goals is for Troy to hire himself out of the listing chunk. He plans to take four to five weeks out next summer to hike the Colorado Trail. So to avoid backlogs in listings, they plan to hire someone who will do it for them. They want that the majority of their jobs is to source items that they can make money at. They intend to keep the two other people employed to take pictures, list, and ship the items. This could help them get a cash engine generated. This way, they could free up more time and then start to venture into other businesses. Advice, Tips, and Tricks To go full-time on eBay, you must first know the capital requirement. How much it is going to cost? What are you going to have to invest in inventory? What are you going to have to invest in the time to get stuff listed? Answering those questions will give you the confidence to do it. Set aside money for the following: 1. Build Up Money - the amount of money that you need to keep buying the inventory you need. If you need to buy 150 items a week and it cost $5 per item, you've got to have that money every week to be able to keep going and listing the items. 2. Nest Egg Money - the amount of money you need to pay for all your personal expenses, allowing you to live while you are making the business up and going. Start with what you can do today. When you run into something that is an annoyance, fix it. Fix it before it becomes a huge problem. We live in an entrepreneurial internet age and if you want to make money, it is out there to make. You don't have to have everything perfect. Start today. Start making that money. You will love the sound of the cha-ching. It tells you that you are at home and you are getting paid for it. Start with that and all the other stuff will come later. Quotes "Being in business for yourself is a little bit of a roller coaster. You will never know what the days can bring." "Even if you are buying and listing, things don't sell in two days. Sometimes, it may take two years for an item to sell." "eBay is a viable, full-time business." "Once you find an annoyance, fix it, and it will be fixed forever." "If you fix a small problem today, it saves you hundreds of hours in the future because you will never have that problem again." Contact Information eBay Store: Vero's Vault Facebook: Vero's Vault Instagram: Vero's Vault email: tsatterf@yahoo.com Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce Norila Digital Marketing

Brianna is a former teacher & a competitive figure skater, with over 20 years experience in Ecom. She is an online business developer, serial entrepreneur, marketer, influencer and consultant who has successfully built multiple income streams that have afforded her and her family the freedom of time to travel, explore and live life full throttle on their own terms. Interesting Notes Bri stands 5'9, a tall one for a figure skater. She joined skating competitions from age four to sixteen. In 1996, at the age of fifteen, she started selling. She never had fun as kids often do. Instead, she would go door to door hustling and selling stuff. She did not have enough money to buy stuff to sell. So when she heard about eBay, she liquidated her bedroom. That started her endless journey of having side hustles that sometimes become big. She got a Master’s Degree in Biology and started teaching when she was 21 years old. She was living way beyond her means. Her eBay business started to take off in tandem with her teaching career. The more she was into teaching, the more she continued to grow eBay on the side. In 2010, she got her second Master’s Degree. eBay had been amazing to her too. She made more money from it working as a part-time. She felt burned out teaching and took a calculated risk. She left a stable, tenured career to follow her passion for entrepreneurship. eBay is a big part of Bri's life. When she was starting out, it taught her to be scrappy and resourceful. It made her realize that she can sell anything. It pointed her to the best place to find stuff at rock bottom price, that is, the rummage sale. She once went to a rummage sale where there were luxury men's clothes. She looked around and calculated the stuff to be thousands of dollars. And she got it all for $200 only. She had also gone to Junk Auctions. The Junk Auction is a regular auction that is clearing out its stuff. She and her mom would go and buy the leftover tables for a dollar to learn about products. It does not matter what was in there because she will figure out a way to sell it. She learned a lot that way. eBay also taught Bri the ins and outs of learning how to run a business. One can go quickly from a hobbyist to a business owner. Her average day starts early, around four in the morning. She would go through all her social media accounts, emails, and personal messages. Then, she would work for a couple of hours with her company Design4Dollars. She does her eBay listings every day and places her Amazon orders too. Then, she would attend her meetings with business partners or client calls or consulting sessions. Bri loves what she does because every day is different. She keeps a list of things to do every day as well as a list of floating things. She can cancel or reschedule her meetings to spend time with her daughter. She has the flexibility to make changes anytime she desires or needs to. She sees so many people whose passion lie in different areas. But they can spend more time on their passion when they use something like eBay to monetize it in some way. She knows of a musician that sells things on eBay related to being a musician. It funds what he enjoys and that is being a musician. Bri had taken her eCommerce experiences to multiple levels and multiple businesses. She has a team of amazing people. She believes that all the other things would not have taken place if she did not start with eBay. She also believes that getting into Facebook Groups and connecting with people is an important part of her journey. Without that piece, she would not have known how to make the jump into other platforms and help people. As a way to pay forward, Bri makes herself accessible to everyone. You can come up to her and ask her anything you want. She is also one of the speakers in the eCom Chicago Conference this October 18-20. Her utmost goal is to live comfortably. That is to live with the freedom to do whatever she wants and whenever she wants. She also wants to travel and take her five-year-old daughter. She wants her daughter to be able to see and experience things that others cannot do. Advice, Tips, and Tricks She goes to rummage sales and take advantage of the free stuff. She would go on the last day of the sale, take a garbage bag, and fill it with stuff. eBay is the perfect platform for starting. With it, you will learn all the different aspects. Make sure that you get into the Facebook Groups about eBay and learn all the information as well as connect with people. Be concise in making an item description. Give the important information, nothing more, nothing less. 65% of people are shopping on their mobile phones. Make your post above the fold. The fold is the very first thing that a buyer could see without having to continue to click through. She found success in charging people with the shipping fees. This way, people know what they are paying for, and it works on her eBay store. Quotes "It does not matter if you are tenured or not. If you've got to go, you've got to go." "You don't know what your fate is! I look at it that way - I'm not in control." "The journey thus far has made complete in other sense as to why I am where I am. And that I had to take the route that I did." "I love what I do. I'm passionate about it. I want to help people and I won't shut up about it." "There is a lot of cool stuff that you can do!" "Successful does not mean selfish!" - Ron Contact Information eBay Store: House of Greene WNY Facebook: Brianna Moller Greene Website: Design4Dollars Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

DeAnn began selling on eBay at the advice of friends. She had adopted a child that has medical issues and that made it hard to hold down a full-time job. She always has enjoyed thrifting and this was a natural fit for her. Interesting Notes With the prompting of her friends, DeAnn went to the Goodwill Outlet - otherwise known as “The Bins”. She put on a pair of gloves and jump in with the regulars. She filled her cart with stuff that only cost her $12. She sold the stuff on eBay for over $30. That got her hooked. "The Bins" are things that did not sell at the other Goodwill stores. “The Bins” in their area is set up with a big donation drive-thru that weighs 5 pounds. She also gets estate sales items from "the bins". You can put a lot of "the bins" stuff in your cart and it goes by weights. The more you purchase, the more price of your cart goes down. She is now a regular at "the bins" and everyone knows her by name. She made friends with the other regulars too. She would sometimes pack a lunch for them. The regular at "the bins" want the newer things because a lot of them are set up at the flea markets. But DeAnn wants the older things that would sell in other places. For example, the mid-century modern nightgowns. The regulars would pass those by but she would grab those gowns. So when at "the bins", she would look for whatever she thinks would sell. But she is more inclined to look for the Vanity Fair items, those that are made in the USA, or those that have the Union tags. She also learned that Christmas items sell all-year round. So she also looks for them first. Tuesday is her "The Bins" day. She goes first thing in the morning. People would start to peak at around 10 in the morning. She would hear people screaming that a new roll would come out. But she would walk away if "The Bins" are not worth seeing. She thrifts her boxes. The Tuesday Morning stores give her their boxes and bubble wraps. 70% of her eBay items come from "The Bins". The rest is from estate sales. Her items are either priced with specified shipping cost or Best Offer. DeAnn priced her items based on her research. Between the time of "the bins" coming out, she would pick up something and does her research. She would also watch videos while taking pictures. At night, she would look at the Pinterest to see what other people are pinning or what is popular. She was able to sell greeting cards for $30 and that surprised her. It will never cease to amaze her that someone is willing to pay such amount for a greeting card. The weirdest thing she ever bought from "the bins" are Vintage Panties. It almost did not cost her anything to buy those panties. She put it for bidding and sold it for $63. DeAnn does everything by herself. She makes sure that anything that is sold overnight is packed and ready to go. She would drop her stuff at the post office and then hit "The Bins". Her husband sometimes does the shipping for her. Shipping is her biggest failure. She made mistakes before by not throwing the box on the scale with the item on the moment that she hit list or was taking the picture. Today, she does international shipping. When she first started selling on eBay, she took advantage of the 50 free listing for two months. Then she went to the first level store. Then she took eBay's offer of a 50% price discount to go up another store level for four months. Today, she can afford to pay her subscription. Doing eBay on her own is working for DeAnn. She does not ever feel overwhelmed. So for as long as she can manage to do eBay on her own, she will do it. Advice, Tips, and Tricks You have to keep a schedule; know it and stick to it. She dedicates two days to take pictures. She sets these days in her schedule. Whatever is going on, she makes sure that she lists one or two items a day. She takes pictures using her phone. She would edit pictures while watching TV at night. You have to know what works. You should not be afraid to change if something happens. To know the right price for shipping, she uses eBay autofill. She would put in the dimensions of the box and the weight of the item then eBay calculates the shipping. In preparation for the Q4, she makes sure that holiday items are listed. She has scheduled to pick up more Halloween items and work on its listings. It is possible for anyone to do eBay. You have to be motivated and keep yourself centered. Know what you can do and do it.   Quotes "You just jump in and do it!" "Know what you can do and do it." "Get the shipping right. Shipping can make or break you." "The minute you walk in and turn on the lights, it costs you $500 to open your business every day." Contact Information eBay Store: Faithfully Upcycled Facebook: Faithfully Upcycled Twitter: Faithfully Upcycled Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Kathleen is an entrepreneurial spirit, selling on eBay since 2003. What started as a hobby to supplement her husband Gary's income, has become a full-time business selling vintage jewelry. She is a new empty-nester and hopes to take advantage of her extra time by taking her business higher. Interesting Notes Kathleen used to work in the Investment Department of one of the big banks in London. After the 9/11 attack, her job dried up and they moved back to St. Louis, USA. She tried looking for a new job but could not find a job in her field. One time, she went to a garage sale with her sister. Her sister told her that she can make money from the things in the sale. She did not know then what eBay was. Her sister pointed to a couple of Disney collectible plates, 3 pieces for $10. She bought the plates and learned fast how to sell on eBay. She sold the plates for $50 per piece. That is the start of her addiction with eBay. She did eBay part-time then while working in a hospital. She hated being away from home and her kids all the time. When she was able to recreate the income that she is making at the hospital, she quits her job and does eBay full-time. Most of her inventory comes from the estate sales and antique malls around St. Louis. At times when she travels to Denver to visit her daughter, she would shop along the way. She has established a good relationship with estate dealers. If they've got quality items, they know that Kathleen is going to spend money on it. Her store carries 99% of jewelry. Once in a while, she finds something of quality. If she knows what it is, she would reconsider because she thinks that it is silly to leave money on the table. Kathleen focuses on five niche markets in the Jewelry industry. She became familiar with the Native American jewelry. She knows what the buyers are looking for. It usually has to do with the color of the stone and the type of setting. She has good friends in the Jewelry business who taught her how to measure a diamond and convert it to a Karat. She does not claim to know all the four Cs of diamond grading. Her item description does not say anything about the cut or the clarity unless it is an antique. Instead, it is based on what she knows her buyers want and how her items look. There is counterfeit jewelry, especially in the high-end pieces. She had counterfeit Tiffany pieces before. So she studied how to detect counterfeits. Now, she knows what the hallmarks are. She specialized in Victorian Jewelry and a lot of it is not gold hallmarked. She knows what gold looks like underneath 10 times magnification. She could get a good idea if an item is solid gold or gold-filled. If she has doubts about an item and it is inexpensive, she would buy, bring it home, and test it. She has two ways of testing gold jewelry. She gets an 80% success rate as far as looking at items in her hand. But the most accurate test it is to scratch a little bit off on a touchstone and place a small drop of an acid. She can also sell costume jewelry if she knows what they are and their value. She has sold some Miriam Haskall and Weiss Rhinestone pieces. Her eBay business is a one-woman show. She takes pictures of her items. She gets up five in the morning. The first thing she does is check out her eBay page. She cannot wait to see what happened overnight. Saturday is her big day. Throughout the week, she would plan on what estate sales would she visit over the weekend. She would wake up four every Saturday morning so that she could be the first person in line to get the number one. If she gets the number one, she has the first opportunity to get to the jewelry table before anybody else. Most estate sales open at 5:30 AM. Whenever she goes to an estate sale, she tries to avoid hustling and elbowing. She always reminds herself of her motto which is, "There is enough here for everybody. I am not going to fight anybody for anything." The ugliest thing she ever bought and sold on eBay is a hunk of a Sterling Silver Turquoise Coral Ring. She paid a dollar for it and somebody bought it for $50. Kathleen loves eBay though it has changed so much. People have been complaining about the changes, but if eBay had not changed at all, it would have been a Dinosaur. So Kathleen tries to keep up with the changes on eBay. Right now, she finds that the Buy It Now (BIN) items are not selling as fast as her auctioned items. So she makes sure to auction at least 10 items every week to keep her BINs in front of the people. She considers vacation and holidays as working days. It means that she does not have to do the housework. Instead, she gets to do the fun stuff on her eBay job. Now that both of her children are married and out of their house, she is considering to go to eBay conferences. She went to one of eBay fly-ins in Washington, DC and she finds it phenomenal. Kathleen and her husband Gary plan to travel around the country. They want to see and get all the available inventory from all over. Advice, Tips, and Tricks When you are working at home, it is so easy to get distracted with something else when you are mid-listing. It is a matter of - "I've got to be disciplined. I've got to put the items away." She uses plastic Tupperware containers where she keeps all her items. They are all in one spot, by item category - all the rings, all the bracelets, etc... As soon as she lists something, it goes into its proper container. She always assesses her business by asking these questions: 1. Am I paying my bills? 2. Am I making enough profit? She may not be able to identify where her sales come from - from BINs or auction. But she makes sure that she is bringing enough sales on a weekly and monthly basis to reinvest and pay her bills. Q and A Question: How do you work on shipping your items? Do you ship using UPS or normal post? Do you add shipping costs to your price? Answer: Unless somebody asked, Kathleen ships her items First Class or Economy shipping. She gives free shipping, so there is no reason to charge herself more to send it Priority. But with something valuable, she has to make sure that there is a signature confirmation. This is to protect herself in case the items get lost. Kathleen said that items almost never get lost but it is the risk that she does not want to take. Quotes "This (eBay) is going to be my life!" "Knowledge is power in jewelry." "If I kept these things for myself, it would never end. I find beautiful things and I get really excited about selling it." "It is everybody's interest to just be kind to each other and be fair." "The key to success is passion. If you love what you are doing, it is not a hustle. It is not a burden to do the work." "I want eBay to be a safe place for my buyer. And I want it to be a safe place for me to buy myself. All of us are contributing to the honesty of the site, overall." "There is enough here (estate sales) for everybody. I am not going to fight anybody for anything." "This job is so compact I can do it from the road." "You know enough what you know about so why get into something you are not sure about." - Ron Contact Information

Robert started his resale journey at the age of 8 years old that moved quickly into sports cards which gave him the knowledge to get to where he is at now. Today, he is a jack of all trades and expert in making money out of nothing. Interesting Notes Rob's reselling journey started when he was in grade school. He saw a bunch of kids who were members of a certain school club selling Blow Pops. He told himself that he wanted to do the same even if he is not a club member. With his mom, who had a membership at the Smart & Final Supermarket, he bought three boxes of Blow Pops. He was able to pay his mom and had some money left to buy another box. He kept on turning his profit so he could use the money to play the Star Wars games. Then came along the Garbage Pail Kids, a series of sticker trading cards. He wanted to have it too, but he did not know how to get them. That was when he started doing the hustling. One day when he exchanged a dollar for a quarter, he saw the cards and bought his first pack. He started trading with the other kids. Little by little, it grew up and pushed him into sports cards. The first big collection he got was from his brother in law. It was a big photo album full of cards from 1968 to 1973 of all sports. When he was growing up, Ken Griffey, Jr. and Bo Jackson, are the hottest players. He would trade their cards price for price or player for player. He would trade the 1973 cards for a $5 Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie cards. He attended card shows, started to buy sports promo cards, and became smarter. He would buy the promo cards for 50 cents or $1 each and sell it for $10 or $20 each. The kids in their neighborhood thought that his promo cards are all unique. So, they traded their good cards with his promo cards. Some traded their bike, shoes, and other things. Rob started selling the things traded with him. He would put the bikes and other stuff in his parents' yard sales. Little by little he evolved and moved on to test everything that would sell. He started selling on eBay in 2000. After two years, he closed it down because of a feedback fight. He had more negative feedback than he wished to have because of the fighting. When he closed, he started to get more responsible. He had a full-time job then. He did the same hustles on a part-time basis. He made mistakes along the way. But his knowledge grew. Rob considers himself a master of making money out of nothing. There are so many things that people disregard or throw away. But with Rob, he thinks and sees the worth of money of a thing and resell it. He does not have a particular day dedicated to sourcing out. He can buy one product and gets 20 products out of that one. When online auctions pop up, he will hit those up as long as it is in within his local area. The weirdest thing he ever bought and sold on eBay is false teeth. It was part of the $150 worth of truckload from an estate sale. He put the false teeth on eBay and it flies as high as $80. Another pair is sold for $100. He follows a good workflow. He has a designated place where he takes pictures of his items. Behind it is a spot where he measures, scales and weighs the items. Next to it is a spot where he has his computer and does the listing. Everything is listed in one sitting. At nighttime, he would check YouTube videos. He wants to see what everyone is doing and see if he can help anybody who is struggling on eBay. He sees a lot of people struggling with learning eBay. eBay is not that hard or difficult. People are often confused on how to do it and over think. This is because they listen to a lot of people who teach how to sell on eBay. There are issues and negative things on eBay. But these are a small price to pay for what eBay allows a seller. Rob thinks that eBay is the only platform where a seller can virtually sell almost anything as long as it is not going to be a hazard to the customer. Rob has two stores; both subscribed to a Premium Store. One of his stores has got more feedback than the other. His goal is to grow his small store and dedicate a theme to it. He will convert his 19th Vintage Store into a High-Quality/Auction Store. He knows so much stuff that it is hard to pass it off when he knows it's going to make money. With the items that may not be of high quality, he will put it on auction and see what it do. If the items do not sell, then he will put it on the yard sale pile and do a yard sale. He also wants to have a third store that would sell high-end stuff like furniture, arts, and other high-end stuff. Rob thinks that eBay is moving in the right direction as far as growth. He thinks that most people over analyze the whole eBay algorithm. So, Rob and his wife work on a Reselling Facebook Page for people who will come and get help. They are strong believers in trying to help people for free. Advice, Tips, and Tricks The two biggest sellers on eBay are Items of Nostalgia and Items of Necessity. Items of Necessity are king over everything. Everybody needs clothes. But nobody needs a branded one. You can go to Walmart and get a shirt. To some, a car is an item of necessity. But if there is a bus line where you live, it is not really a necessity. Diesel parts are more of a need than a want as opposed to car parts. Rob does not single out any particular place. He learned that there is money everywhere. If you just go to thrift stores, you just find thrift store stuff. If you just go to auctions, you will just find auction stuff. Do not be afraid to try anything. It is part of learning. With the cell phone, you can look things up, wherever you are. The best way to grow a store is to put anything and everything into it. You will attract a lot more eyes instead of those who are only looking for clothing or looking for parts. So if you have cards, clothes, hats, comics, parts, etc...all sorts of people will come in and check out your store. These people are all potential buyers. Then grow your feedback and credibility. The advantages of having an eBay store: 1. You get better results as far as the views. 2. You can put a name to your business instead of being a person. A store conveys a message that you are serious and credible to deal with. 3. You can do sales promotion. The best thing to do before you get on eBay is to start looking for stuff around your house. Then try to sell the stuff locally first to get capital. You may not have stuff that is worth selling on eBay but would sell in a local market. When you have the capital, do your research and source stuff for eBay and list it. You need to get the feel for buying and reselling before you try to quit your job. You need to build your store and list your items. Make sure that you are on top of everything, doing it 100%. The goal is not to have all the stuff for people to get, but to get good stuff for people to buy. Quotes "I mastered making money out of nothing!" "The two biggest sellers on eBay are items of nostalgia and items of necessity." "There is money everywhere." "The best way to grow a store is to put anything and everything into it." "The goal is to get good stuff for them (customers) to buy." "Everything out there has a value. It depends on where you price it and where you sell it." "I know nothing about art but I know enough to buy art." Contact Information eBay Store: 19th Vintage YouTube: Reselling with Robs Instagram: @resellingwithrob Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Kenneth is a full-time eBay seller with 15 years experience. He is the owner/operator of Jakedgames. Interesting Notes Kenneth inherited his entrepreneurial spirit from his mother. His mother loves to sell crafts and he used to go with her. As a kid, he made bracelets and had a friend sell them. He is 15 years old when he started to sell stuff online. He has first sold on Yahoo Auctions. He sold some Pokemon games that he got for Christmas. Then he stopped for a while and became a collector. When he got married and was going to have his own kid, he started to sell on eBay. He sold his personal stuff and card games like Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Marvel Universe cards from the 90s. Today, he sells sports cards, video games, movies, toys, CDs, comics, cameras and all kinds of nerd collectible stuff. To source his eBay items, he checks on the various Facebook pages and Craigslist. He would look for people in their area who are selling their stuff. He would also visit Wallmart when it has a clearance sale. But, most of his items are from thrift stores and stuff he had acquired over the years. Magic the Gathering started 25 years ago. Kenneth has 70,000 magic cards in his storage unit that needs to be sorted. Those are collections from people he played magic with for 20 years. He knows most of the prices of the cards. He knows what is valuable. He knows if a card is worth more than a dollar. Kenneth does everything in his eBay business. His wife has a full-time job and helps him in sorting the cards. His two teenage kids also help in sorting. He has a temperature-conditioned storage unit where he stores his eBay items. He has a couple of bookshelves for some of his stuff. The great thing about cards is that it can fit in a couple of boxes in a closet. With the cards and comics, he uses a scanner to take pictures. For the bigger items, he uses a camera. The weirdest thing he sold on eBay is a pen from McDonald. He got the pen as a token of having worked at McDonald. Someone bought it from him for $10. When Kenneth had his full-time job, he only does eBay to get extra money. He would work five days and goes to thrift stores on a Saturday. He would list stuff at night or over the weekend. He never sees himself doing eBay full-time. Today, he has 5,000 items for sale in his store; 6,000 items that he needs to scan and list; and 70,000 items that need to be sorted. He subscribes to a Premium Store for his main eBay store. It costs him $59.95 per month with 1500 free listings a month. Once his kids go back to school, Kenneth will start to look for a part-time overnight job to have more income. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Kenneth has a designated eBay store where he sells things under $5. He takes full advantage of its free listings by doing auctions for his comic books. He sells anything that he can make money from. He has multiple eBay accounts. Each account has different products from each other. Doing so helps him save money from the listing fees. He uses Good "Til Cancelled thing. It allows him to list his items and forget them until they sell. The good thing about Good "Til Cancelled is that it keeps your items relisted. And for as long as you have the free listing, your items are stored and relisted until it sells. He uses Plain White Envelope (PWE) for shipping items bought from his main eBay store. With his other stores, he uses PayPal-eBay labels and wraps. He goes to the Post Office every day and drops his shipments. Q and A Question: For someone who is new to eBay, how many hours would one invest on eBay every day? How did you find your way to where you have streamlined everything. Answer: With the years of doing eBay, Kenneth is able to streamline his processes. He started by following a routine. He would go to the thrift stores in the morning. In the afternoon, he would pack and list stuff until his wife and kids get home. Today, doing eBay full-time gives him space and flexibility. He could either spend 8 hours a day working or not to work at all. Sometimes, it depends on his moods. Quotes "You have to keep up with your business." "Keep listing stuff!" "There is nothing wrong with more money." "Cha-ching is a great conversation starter." Contact Information eBay Store: Jaked Games eBay Store: Jaked Video Games eBay Store: Graded Cards Facebook: Jaked Games Website: Jaked Games Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

eBay has been Judy Harper's side hustle since December 2002. She started with selling used collectibles, books and clothing and has expanded into new handcrafted items. Interesting Notes Everything started when Judy was cleaning their house one time. At that time, it was not practical to have a garage sale, so she listed the items on eBay. When she ran out of things to sell she started grabbing things from her kids' rooms. To increase her inventory, she started going to the estate sales. Later on, she makes her own items to sell. She was a sewing teacher in a fabric store where she did all kinds of other things. She made little things and started selling it on eBay. She learned to sew as a child. She took professional sewing classes in college. When she worked in a fabric store, she took more instructional classes. Her sewing skills grew over the years. Judy has a full-time job now. eBay is only her second job - a side hustle. She is comfortable having a job and a side hustle. She does not have any help in running her eBay business. She puts 10 hours a week doing eBay and it brings her the extra money she needs. She contracts with somebody to do her accounting and to repair her sewing machine. She keeps eBay manageable. She sells every day during the week. She ships to make sure that everything goes out in time. Every Saturday she makes her crafts and can knock out 30 to 40 items. She would do first the special requests. After which, she would move on to making items that would run out of her inventory first. Most of her ideas for her crafts started off with somebody saying "this would be a good idea" and then she tries it. At other times, she gets inspiration from the people who made special requests from her. This week, someone requested her to make a special need handicapped bibs made of towels. One of the interesting requests she had was last week. She was making handicapped bibs for the handicapped people. The buyer requested if Judy can make some that are water-proof. Luckily, Judy found a material suited and sewed it into the front of each bib. If it works Judy might add it to her inventory too. She also makes sleep masks. It started when she met her husband 10 years ago. Her husband goes to sleep with sleep masks on. Upon the request of her husband, she made him a sleep mask made of something comfortable like a blanket. Since then she has made sleep masks and sells them on eBay. She also makes and sells towel beach wraps. She sells them in the Spring before everybody goes on a beach vacation. She also sells a bunch in the Fall before everybody moves into their college dorms. She doesn't sell them in the rest of the year. A few years ago, scarves were in. She had a whole section in her store with hundred of scarves in different fabrics and designs. It did well but went out of fashion. She stopped making them and closed the section down. She still buys clothes that looks good at the local Goodwill. She still buys books at the Estate Sales. Those are items in her store. But the majority of her items are the ones she made herself. Judy enjoys going to the estate sales. She hits one early on a Saturday morning. If she finds something funny, she will get it and put it up. Her husband is retired, disabled and loves sports cars. On a regular basis, they would go out for a ride. When they come home, something is sold while they're gone. That's the way they make money! With what she earns from eBay, she is able to pay some bills and stash some in her retirement account. Her retirement account is her security. Fifteen years from now, she does not want to be one of those poor widows trying to live by herself. At present, Judy helps a widow sell a Jazz CD collection. The collection belongs to the widow's husband who passed away last year. After expenses, Judy would divide the profit. When Judy collected $100 on the widow's money, Judy would take it to the widow's house and pick up another box of CDs. Judy can only do so much as long as she is still working full-time. At some point, she needs to put some more time on eBay to get more inventory. If she gets to the point when she needs to or wants to retire for some reason, eBay is a great option. Advice, Tips, and Tricks You can go to estate sales and buy a bunch of books. You can go to a Goodwill and pick up some used clothing. You can get all the stuff listed and start making your own stuff. But if it is your own stuff that is selling, that is where you put your energy. She uses a chart to keep track of her goals. Every week, she evaluates her business. She would look at her last 90 days sales and see at what rate is she selling each one of her categories. She would then check her inventory level and figure out how many days before she runs out of stuff. The items that she will run out first are the items that she will make first. She uses Best Offer. She believes that if someone is interested to buy her items, she needs to listen and consider the offer. When sourcing at the estate sales, she gives herself a specific budget. She will go through and view all the items. By looking at them, she knows what she is going to bid on. She would tell herself that she would not go over this amount for this. Buying something at a low price is where you can make money. If you buy at a high price you've lost your profit. Quotes "My own stuff that I am making is selling better than the used items I am picking up. So that's what I do more of!" "Oh, I love doing hand-made crafts. I did it as a hobby long before I made money out of it." "Learn from the experts!" "The solution to business is to find the need and fill it." "There is only so much I can do as long as I am still working full-time." "When you have more inventory, you sell more." "People do not plan to fail. They fail to plan." - Ron "You make money on the buy, not the sell." - Ron Contact Information eBay Store: Judy's Collectibles and Clothing Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Bill grew up racing Motocross in New York. In 2008, he suffered a spinal cord injury during a race. The accident marked a turning point in his life, catalyzing his eBay career selling Powersports Parts and eventually winning the Global Business Category at the 2018 eBay Shine Awards. Interesting Notes Bill grew up in a rural area and possessed a good business sense. His grandfather is a typical American Picker who loves to buy and sell stuff. As a little kid, he was always with his grandfather. Together, they buy and sell as a hobby. That is how Bill got his knowledge about ATVs and dirt bikes. His times with his grandfather formed his business acumen. In 2008, he suffered a severe spinal cord injury, which confined him to a wheelchair. The adversity leaves him with no option but to have a business. He did not suffer a brain injury. And with a sound functioning mind, he believed that he could work on a business. He saw eBay as one of the avenues where he could still be productive. Being a fan of a Motocross enthusiast, he got an obsession with it from the early 90s until now. He knows most of the machines that they have made. He can identify the parts. He knows what are the things to look for and sell. So, he decided to work in a field where he is comfortable and in control. He believes that it is to his advantage if knows the market. In 2010, Bill started selling on eBay. His eBay store is a modern version of the auto sell junkyard. He used his passion for Motocross to sell ATV parts, Dirt Bikes and more. One thing he learned from selling on eBay is that if you don't have a storage for your stuff, you have to be selling it. His ingrained mind thinks that everywhere he looks, he sees money sitting rather than junks. Bill stores his eBay stuff in a building which is once a barn. He has shelves inside the building. He has two full-time employees and one part-time. He involves his employees in every aspect of his eBay business. Everything that they sell is one of a kind item. So, they assign SKU numbers, tags and labels on the box and shelved the items that way. Some items have many small pieces within. They put the pieces in a bag and have everything in the box together. They use padded envelopes and flat boxes for their shipment. With some of the used items, the condition varies a lot. They can have two functioning parts but their cosmetics vary enough. So they create unique listings so that their customers know exactly what they are buying. Their customer based are more of Do It Yourself persons. They are the ones who would pay a lower price and do it themselves because they know the mechanical side. On a normal day, Bill would sit on his computer, goes to a lot of auctions online, and see what is coming up. Then he would make his purchases online. Then he and his team would pick the stuff up. If the stuff is dirty, they would wash it and bring it to the shop. Then they will begin to disassemble the parts. If the parts need further cleaning then they will do it. After which, they bring the parts to the department which takes charge of taking the photos. If there are blemishes, they will mark the blemish part. After taking the photos, they assign an SKU number and list the parts online. Bill believes that photos are a big selling point. So his team have a photo booth and use a white background and a lighting to make their photos look professional. They take a lot of pictures. A lot of the customers want to inspect the parts themselves before they buy. His niche - Motorparts - is a small industry where everybody knows each other and works together. With the different models and variations, he finds it tough to always have what a customer needs in stock. If a customer orders 300 units, only three of those might be the same. So he resorts to buying from other sellers who have the same thing. In his niche, sellers dropship some stuff from each other if they need to. Everything Bill sells sells. He has stuff from 2014 that still sells. There is some stuff that after a while he would pull it off from the shelf and separate the scrap metal out. He would take it to the scrap yard and gets the money back. One of the interesting things he sold is an old three-wheeler from the 80s. He wanted to dump it. He did a research and found out that the thing is rare. He listed and sold it for $1500 within an hour of listing it. Bill won the 2018 eBay Shine Award winner under the Global Business category. eBay flew him to Las Vegas to receive his award. He got the chance to have dinner with the other finalists. It was his grandfather's dream to see Bill's business grow. He wished his grandfather seen him get the Shine Award. His grandfather passed away last June. Where he is now in his eBay business, Bill is happy. There is some smaller stuff that he wants to get into and sell on eBay. But for the time being, he wants to continue what he is doing now for the next three years or so. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Most of the customers don't care what you are saying in the description. They want to check and inspect the parts of an item through the pictures. So, give your customers the best ability to do that by showing them a lot of pictures. eBay is doable. Use your knowledge base and get into it small. Then see its growth potential and build your business from there. Test your business acumen and your appetite for business. Be sensible in the decisions you make. Then let it grow from there. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing and on what technologies are available. Be in the right market and source your products cheap. Quotes "eBay is a marketplace where it connects anyone with whatever they want to buy." "Everybody has their own way." "We all work together. Nobody is taking any food out of other person's mouth." "The better you know your market, the better your chances to succeed." "Automation is key to any business. The more you can automate, the better off you are." "A one-person show could make a good living on eBay just on your free time." Contact Information eBay Store: Bikes, Trikes and Quads LLC Facebook Page: Bikes, Trikes and Quads LLC Instagram: Bikes, Trikes and Quads LLC Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

John has been selling postcards on eBay since early 1999. He's a part-time eBayer and a one-man operation. He has over 18,000 active postcard listings and grosses about $1,000 a week. He'll retire from his real job in about two years and will double his listings. He has a YouTube channel called Popeyes Postcards where he educates people about the profitability of selling postcards. Interesting Notes John got the nickname Popeye when he got out of the navy and went to college. He started collecting Popeye stuff. When eBay came along, he sold his Popeye stuff on eBay. Then he started going to live auctions to see what other things can he buy and sell. He bought box lots of junks and paper stuff. One of the boxes he got had a stack of postcards. Postcards opened a wide door to John. He realized that postcards take little space to store and are easy to list, pack and ship. He pays only in pennies but makes a thousand percentage increase on the return of investment. So he made it his niche. Now, he sells 6,000+ postcards a year with an average selling price of $10 per card. He operates in a 12 x 12 office with a quarter of a million cards surrounding him. His postcards date back to 1890s. Older cards are not always valuable. Sometimes, the cards from the 50s and 60s can make a hundred dollars. The back of the cards helps sell the front of the cards. There are postcards that have secret messages, codes, or stamps in the back that help it sell. Postcards are cheap to buy. When he buys postcards, he tries to stay under 25 cents per postcard. Sometimes he would pay up to a dollar. A month ago, he bought 10,000 postcards for $600 or 6 cents each. It was a collection of postcards in New Jersey. He sold one postcard lot for $125. John does a lot of sourcing from other eBay sellers who don't know that much about postcards. Two months ago, he saw a postcard lot from an eBay seller. He pulled up the listings. It showed real photo postcards of the Filipino native warriors from the 1930s. He looked it up while the auction is still going on. He found out that the postcards are sold for $30 to $40. He bought the lot, 150 postcards in all, for 23 cents per postcard. He sold 9 Filipino native warriors for $575. He also goes to antique malls and shows to source postcards. A couple of weeks ago, he went to a big antique show called the DC Big Flea. This week, he would go to a postcard show on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. He spends an entire day sourcing from older postcard sellers in the postcard shows. These sellers do not how to list on eBay. He would buy the postcards from them for $2 or $3 and list it on eBay for $20 or $30. One of the postcards he packed before this interview is going to an insurance company. The postcard is the old hotel where the insurance company is holding their office. The weirdest postcard he has sold is a real photo of an adult magazine from adult movies in 1920. Most valuable postcards are Hong Kong and other Asian countries. He ships postcards overseas. The postcards he packed before this interview are going to Canada, to the UK and one to Germany. He uses the same mailers, but a different combination of first-class stamps. He charges a couple of dollars for the overseas shipment. With 18,000 active listings and doing it all alone, John has set a system in place. He uses a combination of a Box Letter and a Tab Number for his labels. He also included the labels in his listings. For example, H09, which mean Box H, Tab 9. He keeps 50 postcards per tab. Postcards can be made of almost anything. There are leather postcards, metal postcards, and silk embroidery postcards. His best postcard costs him only 30 cents and sold for $545. But, it turned out to be his biggest failure. He failed to notice that the postcard had been trimmed on one side. He got it back and refunded the buyer's money. Eventually, he sold the postcard for $150 after he disclosed the trimmed side. John has a YouTube channel, the Popeye's Postcards. There he educates people that postcards are a great source of income. There are two main types of people who buy postcards: 1. People who like history. They are those who want to see what the main street of a town looked like a hundred years ago. They are those who are looking something old to see of their hometown. 2. True collectors who collect topic postcards like Halloween, Christmas, clown, acrobats, etc... To date, he has 7,000 postcards waiting to go on eBay. He needs to scan them with his scanner, upload and do the listings. So he is set for years and years of selling postcards. John plans to retire in 516 days. He loves selling postcards and he is excited to go from two hours a night to 12 hours a day work. He wants to expand, from 18,000 listings to 40,000 listings, doing it all by himself. He will also try to vend his postcards at the postcard shows and see how it will go. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Postcards are everywhere. There are billions of postcards produced and are still being produced. But the best ones are pre-1950 which can be found in grandma's house. So, start selling from your grandma's collection. Go to antique malls or source from other eBay sellers who do not know what they have. Check their listings. They might be selling matchbox cars but have a listing for postcards. He bought a postcard lot from an eBay seller - 450 postcards for one penny. The seller made a mistake of starting an auction at a penny. Go to postcards show. There are older postcard sellers who may not know what the cards are going to sell for on eBay. He had sourced a card from a postcard seller at a postcard show for a dollar and sold it on eBay for $125. Be careful of the postcards to sell. The number one to avoid is a Niagara Falls postcard. Also avoid postcards of bigger cities like Wall Street, New York, Washington DC Monument. He lowers the price to $.99 of the postcards that have been sitting in his list for long. With his present inventory of postcards, he tries to put new postcards in his listings. He uses up his 1,000 free auction listing every month from his Anchor Store subscription. Do a research on the postcards you are selling. Look them up on eBay sold items or WorthPoint, and see what those postcards are selling for. If you cannot find the postcards on eBay, do a Google search. Look for similar postcards and see what they are sold for. Then set a starting price of the postcards. He patronizes and enjoys the service of WorthPoint. It has helped him get the most value out of his postcards. Q and A Question: With a low price item that offers Free Shipping, how do you incorporate all the fees to make sure that you are making a profit? Answer: John's total cost per postcard is under a dollar. He builds it into the price of his postcards. He ships with a first class stamp. His shipping cost is 52 cents. He uses cardboard mailers that cost him 7 cents. He uses plastic strips for his postcards that cost him a penny. He buys his first-class forever stamps from other eBay sellers for 32 cents. He uses a tracking service called LetterTrack that costs him 11 cents. The tracker puts a bar code above the shipping address and it will track the first class letter. He pays $300 for his Anchor Store that gives him 10,000 free listings. For the extra 8,000 listings, he pays a nickel each. In summary, he spends $700 for listing fees that give him a cost of less than 4 cents per postcard per month to list. He builds it into the price of his postcards. If he sells a postcard for $5.99 and he only bought the card for only a quarter dollar or less, his return on investment is $4. Quotes "As a seller, the best and funniest part is going out and buying." "Just because they are old does not mean they are valuable." "People are like a little historian and want to see what the place look like a hundred years ago." "The postcards back in 1900 are the Twitter of the day." "You must have a love of history and love of learning to do postcards." Contact Information eBay Store: Popeye's Postcards YouTube: Popeye's Postcards Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Melody started selling part-time on eBay in 2013 while still employed as a receptionist. Although a bit sooner than planned, in 2016 she left her office job to sell full-time on eBay and Facebook. Melody’s passion and main selling focus is vintage costume jewelry. She has plans to begin offering local group and individual eBay Selling Classes later this year. Interesting Notes Melody's husband had sold on eBay before. Within a couple of months of their marriage in 2015, they decided to get started together on eBay, part-time. They started out selling books. They wanted to add more so they sell dollhouse miniatures and a lot of variety of things. Two years ago, they went on a vacation. They normally use their vacation as a time to reflect and plan for the future. On that vacation, they made plans that Melody will go full-time on eBay by the year 2017. Their plans were changed a bit. On the first day at the office after their vacation, Melody was called to her manager's office. The manager informed her that her position was eliminated. Melody always loved jewelry and made it her niche. She has two stores. The bigger one which she manages is called Melodys Uniquely You. Her husband manages the other one which is a bit hodgepodge. She transitions all the non-jewelry things to the other store. She loves to go to garage sales during summer. She gets a lot of jewelry at the garage sales. She also goes to auction and estate sales. She started buying estates. She put a word out there that she is looking for estate jewelry. People who are getting rid of their jewelry started to contact her. Her working hours depends on what she plans to do on the day. But most of her days, she starts on shipping. As much as she wants to go sourcing and shopping, she cannot because she has a lot of inventory. Her husband has a full-time job but he sometimes goes with Melody to source. He also helps Melody takes the packages to the post office. He also does listings now and then. She uses a digital camera and a lightbox in taking pictures. She takes several pictures at a time. If she goes garage selling, she tries to take all those pictures within a reasonable amount of time. Then she will sit down and list. Melody learned everything about costume jewelry by selling. She immersed herself in researching. She owned 50 books about vintage jewelry and use it all for her references. In costume jewelry, a lot of pieces has a signature on the back. She researched her pieces before she lists them. She knows a lot of signatures now. Still, she watches out for the fake pieces. As far as precious metals and precious stones, she does not have to watch because it is costume jewelry that she sells most. Melody thinks ahead of time what boxes she is going to need for her shipment and keeps stock of it. She also takes advantage of the free shipping supplies eBay gives to the sellers. Jewelry is so easy to pack and ship. It is one of the reasons why she chose jewelry as her niche. It takes her five minutes to package and ship a piece of jewelry. She would take a piece of jewelry and wrap it with a piece of tissue paper. If it is a more expensive piece, she would use a little box. Then she will put a bubble wrap, a shipping box and add some packaging paper and then ship it. Most pieces weigh four to six ounces and so it is not expensive to ship. She can use First Class shipping. Unless the value is over $20, then she ships it Priority. When Melody was selling part-time, she had problems with not being able to find pieces of jewelry sold. To solve it, she purchased wooden jewelry organizers. Every time she bought a new lot of jewelry, she would give the lot a name, put it in a bag and keep it inside the drawers of the organizer. Each piece is put in a small tote bag inside with a date on it. With her new system, she seldom has missing pieces. When she goes for a vacation, she puts a vacation note on her store telling what day she will be back. She also changes her shipping policies. Instead of one business day, she changes it to 10 business days. Then in the middle of her vacation, she changes it into five business days. In her product line, she has a lot of items that are one of a kind. Those are items that you cannot find easily on eBay or on other venues. She prices those as Buy It Now. She sometimes does auctions. But she is still scared to price her items at $9.99 to start when she knows those are worth $129. She has regular customers. She keeps a note of what her customers like. She tries to let them know when she lists a piece of what they want. It may either from the same designer or the same style as the piece they bought. The weirdest thing she had ever sold on eBay is a taxidermied toad. It was big, ugly and scary but she sold it. She did not know that she bought it. It came from a local auction box lot that she bought. Another interesting thing she found and sold is a ticket stub to an Elvis Presley Concert in 1953. It came from a jewelry lot she bought. She sold the ticket on Auction and got $300 from it. Melody has a video in her store - the very first she had ever done. She wants to do more videos. She also wants to start giving eBay classes locally. By October she will offer classes to those who want to start selling on eBay. It would be a 4-hour a day class for beginners and an alternate class for advanced or intermediate. She is also working on increasing the average price of the item she sells. A lot of items she sells now is around $10 range. She likes to increase it to $20 and up. Advice, Tips, and Tricks If you are thinking of starting an eBay business, start however you want. If you are struggling with your eBay business or you are still figuring out your niche, have confidence. Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Learn from others. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Plan big. Think ahead - what is it going to look like six months from now. If you have to look an hour for a $10 piece of jewelry, you are not using your time very efficiently. Make your systems smooth taking flow with your business. Melody tries to keep up with the latest changes on eBay. She goes with the flow and makes it work. If she wants to get people watching her items, she put her items on Auction. That way, when she switched over to Buy It Now with a different price, people still get to watch and the items may sell at Buy It Now. Melody does her research on eBay. If she cannot find a similar piece on eBay, she would check from other similar auctions. If she cannot find at all, she will put the piece where she wants to put it. If her item is not selling, she lowers the price until it sells. Quotes "When you plan on something it never quite works out." "Be careful of what you pray for." "Don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone." "What woman does not love jewelry!" "Go with the flow. Make it work!" "I love hearing the cha-ching!" "When you sell a product that you love, it is fun!" "The beautiful thing about eBay is you can do what is comfortable for you." - Ron Contact Information eBay Store: Melody's Uniquely You Facebook: Uniquely You Vintage to Modern Jewelry by RolMel Collectibles Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Liz has been selling on eBay since 2002. She sold part-time, on and off, until she retired from the Air Force at the end of 2016. She has been selling full-time and growing her eBay store ever since. Interesting Notes Liz calls herself a Jack of all Trades when she was working in the Air Force. She sold part-time on eBay, on and off. Two years before she retired, she ramped up her game and was selling well. She followed eBay very close even when she was a part-time seller. She treated eBay like it is a full-time job. She made a goal for herself that if she could hit her target in four months she will retire from her job. She would come home at night and do her eBay works. She would ship on her way in the morning. She would do her listings on the weekend. Her family supported her all throughout. When she retired, she looked for another job. She was confident that she qualifies for the job posts. But looking at the pay, she realized that she can make the salary working in their downstairs for eBay. With that, she decided to make eBay full-time. Liz lives in Colorado, thus her eBay store is Colorado ReWorn. She is doing a lot of upcycling with recycled clothing through the thrift stores. She is also into retail arbitrage. She sells all year round because she sells internationally. She is very fortunate to live in a place where she can do both thrifting and retail arbitrage. She enjoys both and does well in it. She sources depending on her inventory. If her inventory is running low on dresses, she will go straight to the dresses section of a thrift store. If she is getting ready for Spring and Summer, she will go straight to the skirt and sleeveless tops. There are certain things that she holds back when listing. She will not list new boots in May. Her experience taught her that those things do better in October and November. The weirdest thing she ever bought is a kids onesie that had a marijuana leaf on it. She bought it to get it off the shelf. But she thinks that she won't be selling that kind of thing. Liz has over a thousand listings and over 400 items not yet listed. She does her eBay business on their basement. She uses a big bedroom for her office. It is also where she keeps her listed inventory. The guest bedroom is also full of listed inventory. She keeps her unlisted inventory in a storage room. She uses clear bins so she can see the items right through it. She sorts her items by season. Right now, she has two bins of snow boots and bins full of kids winter coats. With the other stuff, she will sort by Men Shirts, Women Shirts or Skirts. She takes pictures of all the same item at one time. Doing so saves her time. It is easy to picture and easy to list. Back when Liz is doing eBay part-time, she called herself a tote-tote seller. That is, she has one tote for unlisted and another one for listed. As she grows, she added her totes. Now, she has a stock room. She has a filing system. She has all her shirts hang by brand. All her shoes are in totes by style underneath the shirts. She knows where everything is. But she admits that as she grows, she needs a better inventory management system. Liz is the type of a seller who likes clean and simple listings. She researches everything she sells. Her listings would tell the buyers exactly what they are getting. If there are tags on, she would put Waterproof or Insulated in the description. She sees negative feedback as what it is. She just has to provide a great service. If a buyer would complain to her, she would answer, "Hey, I'm sorry. How can I take care of it for you? What can I do to make it right?". If the buyer would not respond, then she will take it as it is and moves on. Liz eBay business is growing. She has started in social media. She notices that she has more new customers. She has some repeat customers in some categories. She has a lady buyer who is remodeling her Airbnb. The lady asks Liz links to her new stuff so that she the lady can have the first look. A lot of her prices depend on the competition. Sometimes, she priced based on the norm for the particular item. If every single sold item had free shipping and her cost can absorb it, that is the norm for the item. For the most part, she charges shipping. She does a mix of direct shipping and international shipping. Sometimes, she would ship directly to safe countries like Canada, Australia, UK. She would also ship via eBay's Global Shipping Program (GSP). GSP is a great program that has expanded the shipping options for the sellers. Since she signed up to GSP, she had not encountered any problem with it. Her sales have even increased than when she uses direct shipping only. She is doing international sales between two and seven times in a week. Liz admits that none of her practices are original thoughts. She learned all things from other sellers. She also learns from brand new sellers. She is paying forward now. She is mentoring a new seller she met at her friend's house. This new seller sells cosmetics. She gave the seller her card. She checks in with her mentee every week. One time, her mentee asked her when to up the game because the mentee is selling so well. Liz advised her mentee to build up first. Liz is comfortable where she is now in her eBay business. She does not want to expand beyond her house. Though her husband, her biggest cheerleader, offered to get her a storage, she still wants to work at home. So, for the next two to three years, she will grow her store and refine it. After that, she might have an extra bedroom. One thing she likes about eBay, she does not have to go out where she is comfortable. Advice, Tips, and Tricks You've got to be all in or start looking for another job. If you are on the verge of leaving your corporate job and you say you are going to do it, get ready. She tries to limit selling flawed items. If it is a flawed item that can be repaired, she will state it in the title. She knows and follows the sale date of all the thrift stores and retails in their area. She gets text messages from those. She does her shopping trips around the schedule. Q and A Question: How do you manage your eBay income? Answer: Managing an eBay income would be different for a beginner-seller and a seasoned-seller. From Liz experience, three or four months after leaving her job, a lot of her eBay income went back right into it. Now, at the middle point, her eBay income has the capacity to pay herself every other Friday just like she had a job. Her husband gets paid every other Friday too. She saves the money left over from paying herself and her husband. She would use her savings to give herself an increase in six months time or a Christmas bonus. Quotes "Jobs will always be there!" "I love what I do!" "You take what you need from other sellers experience." "Take pictures like there is no listing and description. Then describe like there are no pictures." "Don't fear the flaw." "Just provide great customer service!" "The great thing about eBay is that it has so many different options for sellers." "Everybody has their own set of processes." - Ron Contact Information eBay Store: Colorado ReWorn Facebook Page: Colorado ReWorn Twitter: Colorado ReWorn Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Craig Cody is a Certified Tax Coach, Certified Public Accountant, Business Owner and former New York City Police Officer with 17 years experience on the Force. In addition to being a Certified Public Accountant for the past 15 years, he is also a Certified Tax Coach. As a Certified Tax Coach, Craig belongs to a select group of tax practitioners throughout the country who undergo extensive training and continued education on various tax planning techniques and strategies to become, as well as remain, certified. With this organization, Craig has co-authored an Amazon best-selling book, Secrets of a Tax-Free Life. Interesting Notes Craig is an Economics major. He stopped in his third year and worked as a cop for 17 years, following his dad who was a Police Officer. He went back to college, got his accounting degree, and worked for an international firm. He retired from the corporate and started his own firm - the Craig Cody and Company. Now, as a Certified Tax Coach, Craig helps business owners keep more of what they are making. He looks for ways where business owners could legally reduce their tax liability. His ultimate goal for the business owners is to create a saving of $15,000 to $20,000 a year. To achieve his ultimate goal, he takes time to communicate with the business owners and creates a Tax Plan. He makes sure that business owners have all the right documentation and know what to do. He can work with entry-level clients - those business owners that are making $200 to $500 a month. He sees that he can save them some serious money. He works with clients on a monthly basis. He conducts a regular meeting via Skype or Zoom or any online communication tool. He would go over the client's Profit and Loss statement. He makes sure that clients are doing the things that they talked about and planned. Craig works with clients throughout the United States. His farthest client is Oregon. He does not encounter issues in tax rules. Federal rules don't change. The State rules differ a little bit, but for the most part, it is not a big variation. Before working with Craig, you have to have a conversation with him for an initial assessment of your business. He would ask for your last year's Tax Return and your current year Profit and Loss Statement. He will review and do some analysis. Then, he will give you recommendations on what to do to save an extra dollar as a tax deduction. You only pay once you decide to do a Tax Plan. Craig will set up a Tax Plan so that the business owners could do what makes them money, which is to sell. His services are 100% refundable. In his seven years of experience, no one has ever asked for their money back. At the end of the year, he does a before and after with his clients. He shows them how much their tax liability would have been if they did not do what they did. He shows them their current tax liability because they do the things as planned. Craig finds his work exciting. He feels gratified when he could sit down and he saves somebody $20,000 a year. The number can even grow bigger. He has a client who saved $465,000 in one year. The most difficult part of his job is when he has to tell a client of a potential liability because of a wrong practice. The weirdest tax issue he ever had is an evening call from a lady asking his help in preparing her taxes. Craig's services focus on the U.S. income tax. He has been doing accounting works for 18 years. His own firm has been in service for 10 years. He has doubled their office space last June and bring in another three CPAs. To date, there are nine CPAs working in his firm, including him. They want to continue to grow. They love what they do. They have a great staff. They have great clients. They want to keep pushing along and do what they do best. Craig has co-authored a book entitled The Secrets of A Tax-Free Life. One of the secrets is to legally pay the least amount of money just like Warren Buffet and Donald Trump. And to do that you have to have somebody work it for you. His second book is The Ten Biggest Tax Mistakes That Costs Business Owners Thousands. He is giving a FREE paper copy for all So You Wanna Sell On eBay podcast listeners. Click here to claim it now! Advice, Tips, and Tricks 3 Things That Business Owners Can Do To Save Some Money Have a Qualified Business Income This is important for the tax planning. With it, business owners will get a 20% tax deduction over the net profit. But you will do certain things to make sure that you will get the benefits of it. Have a Medical Expense Reimbursement Plan Set Up a Home Office This allows you to deduct your transportation expenses from your house to your warehouse. This also allows you to deduct your home athletics facilities such as your backyard pool or your gym. Quotes "If you communicate, you can plan. If you plan, you can save money." "When we do a tax plan it actually has a tax code that says, 'You can do this!'" "If the billionaires can do it, why can't you?" "A little bit of communication can turn into a lot of money." "If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got!" -Ron Contact Information Phone Number: 516-869-4051 email: craig@ccodycpa.com Website: Craig Cody & Company Facebook Page: Craig Cody & Company Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

Jewel started back in 2003 selling commissioned motorcycle parts for a friend, then opened a store selling vintage items while working full time. Now living in the US, she sells full time & found a niche focusing on vintage toys. She considers it selling childhood memories and making new ones. Interesting Notes Jewel was a preschool teacher in Canada. When she moved to the US, she started selling any items that are vintage, from the 50s to the present. The toys that she sells now come from the 60s to 80s. At first, she did not want to get into eBay. She only did it as a favor to a friend and sold something that she had no knowledge of. As her children were growing, she started listing dollar signs on all their toys. Instead of throwing old toys out, she sold it on eBay and made some money. That is how she started her Plush Toys niche. Toys are where her heart is. She can tell what year the toys are made by what their eyes are made of, by the tags, and by the country where it is made. Marshall is more into old knives and old watches. Jewel and Marshall work together in their eBay store. They go shopping together but Jewel does most of the work because Marshall still has a day job. Today, most people are buying from their phones more than from their computer. Things change so fast that sellers need to simplify things for the buyers. Sellers need to make buyers' shopping an enjoyable thing. Jewel categorized her plush toys by what they are - group into the same movie or the same brand. Grouping is a great way to give someone a very good deal. Jewel and Marshall give deals to preschools and daycare, candy bar companies, and the like. Jewel sometimes finds eBay changes a little bit daunting because she has a huge inventory. But she understands that changes are part of running a business. One only has to be flexible. One has to go with the way the market is going. Jewel and Marshall go sourcing together. They go to second-hand stores, Goodwill, garage sales, flea markets, and estate sales. Marshall's forte is in price bargaining and in getting vendors to sell items in bulk. Marshall built a warehouse for Jewel's stuff. They have a thousand storage bins and tubs. Their bins are all-numbered. Jewel keeps a hard copy of her inventory list. The list includes what bin the items are and the location of the bins. They also have huge heavy duty bags full of stuff that is not yet processed. It took them three years to put systems in place. Jewel's secret to a 100% positive feedback on her eBay store is being completely honest to her buyers. A few years ago, someone in her family passed away. Though she got herself absorb in work, she was not storing her online items properly. There were sales and she could not find the items. One buyer became so upset. Jewel explained her situation and the buyer was so kind and understanding. One of their interesting sales is an old vintage nun doll with a cracked face and looked creepy. Kat Von D, a tattoo artist featured in HBO Show, bought the item. Another interesting sale is a vintage metal Folgers coffee can. The buyer sent them an email thanking them for selling the item. It was what the buyer needed for her father who passed away with a request to be buried in a Folgers coffee can. The ugliest but one-of-a-kind toy that they ever sold is a 6' Slender Man. Slender Man is an online urban legend who comes and steals children. They got it for $60 a year ago. The majority of their items are vintage. They get their hands on the vintage stuff because they believe that a day will come that it will be hard to find. But more than that, they are selling memories, and they want to make children happy. To them, an adult looking for his/her childhood toy is still a child. They have various stories of people making the best offer because the toy is very important. One is because of an autistic child that is so attached to the toy. Another is because the toy brings about the memory of a mother who gave the toy and was no longer with them. eBay gives Jewel the flexibility that it is almost impossible for her to keep track of her working hours. She can work 19 hours for three days straight, listing and all. Then she can spend the rest of the week shipping and be answering questions. October to December is their best time of the year. With the pre-Christmas and post-Christmas time, they could make half of their yearly income. Jewel and Marshall enjoy every aspect of their eBay business. They get the freedom and flexibility of working from home. It allows Jewel to go back to Canada and visit her family whenever she wants to. It allows Marshall to take over their business when Jewel is gone. They could not ask for a better job to have. They plan on doing eBay well into their retirement. And to do this they keep on accumulating a huge stockpile of inventory. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Be completely honest, keep your buyers happy and satisfied. There are times where buyers get disappointed and ask for a refund. In such case, Jewel and Marshall give a full refund plus anything in their store. They want to make their buyers happy by giving them twice the value of the item. If the buyer's complaint is questionable, it does not matter anymore. Jewel and Marshall will do everything to make the buyer walk away satisfied. Jewel does a lot of research on her items but there are items that just came up. If she can't find any data that gives her the answers, she would put the item on auction. If she feels that the item is a valuable one, she would start the auction at a high price. She would know if she is on the right track if people are people looking at the item. If people are ignoring it then it would tell her that the item is not as valuable than she thought it was. Online sales are booming everywhere. There are so many places to sell. There are so many things to buy and sell. And a seller should keep these reminders all the time: 1. Do your research and find a niche that you are happy with. 2. Be flexible enough to go with any changes that are coming your way. 3. Sell nothing fragile so that you will not spend a lot on packing materials. 4. Listen to the buyers out there. They will tell you what items have value. Quotes   "I get so much enjoyment selling toys!" "It is so much fun when you really love what you do. It is hard to complain." "You have to go with the way the market is going." "The customer is always right." "Yes, we want to make a profit. And we enjoy the business. But we really are selling the memory." "It's fun but it does not mean it is easy." "Let the customer win. The customer has to win." - Ron Contact Information eBay Store: JewelsThings Twitter: JewelsThings Facebook Page: JewelsThings Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing