Long Time Listener From Florida

[Rick]

Hey everyone, long time listener from Florida. I’ve listened to every episode since #1 for a few years now & was listening to a recent episode from a couple of weeks ago where you asked what people do with their eBay profits. I’ve used my eBay profits into other businesses/investments while continuing to build my eBay business. It’s been a perfect balance for me. I’m a few episodes behind so please forgive the late reply.

33 years old from Florida.

Last year 2016, I did $360,000 in sales on eBay & $280,000 on Amazon exclusively sourcing from thrift stores, garage sales & flea markets. I don’t do any liquidation or private label. eBay is 95% used clothing sourced from thrifts & Amazon is just me sending in sealed items that I found when I’m out and about. I don’t sell anything used on Amazon. I treat Amazon like a big box store & eBay like a flea market.

I’ve been selling on eBay full time since 2008. I subscribe to your approach of list it & forget it, with a goal of $1,000 in sales per day. My average sale hovers around $30 per sale. I have 4,500 items in my eBay store at any given time & list 35 items per day, every day.

The abridged version of how I found eBay is that I got laid off in 2008 from Circuit City shortly after I got out of school. I worked in their “Fire Dog” section, which is their version of Geek Squad. When the company was closing I gave my business card to all the customers who came to pick up their computers & still needed computer repair. Back in 2008 while doing in home computer repairs for customers, they would ask if I knew how to fix iPods, iPhones, cell phones with broken screens, etc so I learned how to do so & if the phone/device was too far gone I’d offer to buy it from them & I would in turn sell it on eBay. I would offer to buy any old laptop, camera, iPod, phone & they would generally sell it for very cheap since they’ve upgraded. It seems so long ago, but in the 8 years since it’s gotten a lot easier to sell your own device on eBay. I made pretty good side money doing that & started to seek the same broken or used items on Craigslist & do a Craigslist to eBay flip. It didn’t take long before I was making just as much selling stuff on eBay as I was fixing computers doing a fraction of the work & taking a fraction of the time to do so.

I ended up hiring a friend of mine to do the service calls for the computer business & I spent more time sourcing for inventory for eBay. I now have 3 employees who do the service calls for the computer business & our focus has shifted to corporate & commercial accounts as when the economy really took a tank the in-home repairs slowed down dramatically and with technology decreasing in price consumer electronics are just about the same price new that it costs to repair them so that market is drying up quickly.

I started going to thrift stores in 2009 & have been hooked ever since. Like you guys say, the overabundance in America is mind blowing. The margins are pretty mind blowing as well.

With the eBay profits I’ve started a landscaping company which offers tree services & stump grinding. Fully licensed & insured. Currently have 200 houses with monthly service & have a dedicated crew for tree trimming/removal & also stump removal. It’s taken a few years, but now I have two lawn trucks on the road, a stump grinder & just purchased a used bucket truck a couple of weeks ago. None of this would be possible without eBay money & a lot of hard work in the beginning to get things off the ground. In the beginning I was working 12+ hours a day & coming home in the evening & still doing eBay & Amazon full time. Things run pretty smoothly now so I don’t have to be hands on every single day, but it still requires a lot of attention.

Also with eBay money I have purchased 11 properties that I owner finance out to tenants. I buy small homes a couple hours away from the city where the prices are more affordable. I used to rent them out a few years ago, but for me owner financing has been the better bet. I owner finance them at a set interest rate & hold the note until the home is paid off. I act as the bank & can foreclose if the tenant doesn’t pay. With the tenant being the owner they are responsible for repairs, property taxes, etc. They also tend to take better care of the place because it is officially theirs & not just renting it. Haven’t had any issues thus far.

I’ve started a little restaurant with my Mom who lives a few hours away from me. Mostly to give her something of her own to do now that she’s getting up there in age. She’s always worked very hard for my brother & I so it’s a good feeling knowing she has something of her own now. It’s just a little breakfast & lunch spot, nothing too crazy, but without eBay that probably wouldn’t have happened.

I have a few other little things in the mix, but eBay definitely was the launching pad for everything I’ve been able to do so far. eBay is a daily grind, but the rewards can be amazing. I enjoy the grind of eBay, the grind of my other businesses & just live for the grind itself. I work a lot, keep my living costs to a minimum & just reinvest a lot of the profits into other things.

The two biggest things I’ve found helpful in growing a successful eBay business is time management (you have to set aside a time in stone to list items, no excuses) & having systems in place (organization is key).

Sorry for the long post, I tried to condense it as much as possible. Anywho, I look forward to becoming active on the website. I love that you guys always think outside the box & have other things going on from your eBay profits. I look forward to hearing more Podcasts from you guys in the future. Definitely helps get through the listing!

PS – Also listen to the AirBNB podcast :o)

[ebaymom]

Hey Rick,
Wow, Your story is very inspiring!!! I am so glad you shared it with us. This really motivates me like crazy to set higher listing goals. It is all a numbers game…
Take care,
Sharon

[Terri]

So, should we just call you Slacker Rick? LOL.

WOW! You sound amazingly business-savvy, motivated and dedicated. Very impressive!

[Jay]

You’re basically my hero. I always look for more eBay sellers who use their profits to start other businesses.

In order to list and sell $360,000 in sales on eBay & $280,000 on Amazon, how many employees do you have to make this happen?
–do you have a warehouse?
–how much are you paying people?
–are you doing all the sourcing? Buying in bulk?

[Rick]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Jay as far as the eBay business goes.

I have 1 employee (my cousin who’s in college). He helps me pick & pack the items as well as take measurements. He comes in the morning at 7 am & we pick and pack the items, then while I print labels he measures my 35 items for the day that I will list in the night.

I pay him $10 an hour, he works about 12-15 hours a week. He just packs clothing so it’s very quick to pack. If it’s not clothing it goes in a USPS Flat Rate Box. Average about 30-40 sales a day so we can knock it out in 2-3 hours most days. Mondays are the worst because it stacks up from Friday, but we get through it.

I don’t have a warehouse per say, but I used to. I was paying $400 a month in rent for a storage unit once I outgrew my house. After about a year, I purchased a duplex that was in foreclosure for $167,000. I now use one side of the duplex strictly for storage/packing/printing/photos, essentially the entire eBay business. I rent out the other side for $1,250 a month. Both sides are 1,200 square feet so now, in my mind at least, I “get paid” to store my items. There’s no furniture in my side really. The bedrooms are full of clothing, closets, hallway closets, are all storage. I have some food in the kitchen, the living room is where I take photos & the dining room area is where I have desks set up for printing & packing. To get a 1,200 square foot storage unit would be thousands of dollars a month so I think I am ahead of the game right now.

I do all the sourcing myself. I buy everything from thrifts, flea markets & garage sales. I source seven days a week.
Monday – Thrifts
Tuesday – Thrifts
Wednesday – Thrifts
Thursday – Flea Market
Friday – Thrifts
Saturday & Sunday – Flea Markets, Garage Sales & some Thrifts.
I don’t buy in bulk too much, but I do sometimes. I’m always around at the flea markets, so you make connections with guys who buy storage units or guys who get a lot of stuff. So, there is at times when I do purchase in bulk, but the majority of the items are sourced from thrifts & one offs. I don’t really have any widgets that are replenish-able.

I have the same route every week for thrifts. I hit thrifts after I pack for a couple of hours & then use the second half of the day to check in on tree jobs or computer jobs. Come home at night, take photos & list.

I know it seems like a lot, but between picking/packing & listing items I probably spend 5 hours tops a day running that portion of the business. 2 hours or so sourcing & the rest I’m doing other things. eBay runs itself, offers come in on my phone & I’m on the road doing other things.

As far as Amazon goes, I just pack a shipment every Sunday night & don’t have to do too much else as FBA covers the rest.

Not sure if photos will show here…

Just to lend a little proof as it’s easy to just come in here & type things.

http://i.imgur.com/DImv6hg.jpg

Here’s the new toy for the trees

http://i.imgur.com/fKSzh4F.jpg

Here’s a link to the truck in action the other day
http://i.imgur.com/V2WngSc.jpg

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Rick.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

I am with Jay. Just a super story. Also, like Jay I am full of questions, but know time must be a premium for you but am interested in the “process” of how you or a helper-employee handles each new item you purchase.

You buy an item, walk into your facility and set it down. Now what happens to that items as it goes through your “system” each step of the way until it gets placed on it’s spot in your inventory.

You must have a streamlined process to handle over 200 items per week [800 ++] a month.

We set an item in our office, open a spread sheet and enter on a numbered line, the date bought, where bought, what paid, short description and then hang a tag on it that has the same number that is on the numbered line we just used to enter it. Now we can track that item throughout our process. It is then placed on the need to photograph table, then photographed as we get to it. When we are ready to do a photography day we take each item, inspect it, clean it as needed, the place on table and photo. On the item tag we attached when we first brought the item into the office, we write the date photographed and then the item is moved down our line and placed on the waiting to list table. At the end of the photography day we take the San Disk card and move all those photos over to a folder we create in our master pictures folder. That folder is titled just photos 17-02-22 and all moved there.

Next as we decide that a day is going to be a listing day and as we get to it, we grab the tagged item of our choice and open a listing form and start the listing process. We create the title, then copy the photos from that photo folder into the listing form then weigh, measure the item and fill in the item specifics areas and do some price research on the items we don’t know prices on. Now we finish the listing form and hit submit to Ebay.

Next that item is placed in a plastic bin in our office to be later transferred to the storage area. When a bin or two get full we then carry those bins down to our storage shelves area. I place the bins on a rolling cart. Then I roll / walk up and down our isles of bins and pop a top on any bin that I think will hold an item. I call that bin number and item number out to my wife and she edits the spread sheet and adds the bin number into the cell for that item. Now we move on item by item. Once done, we can now just forget it. When it sells our sku number shows both in our Ebay listing and on our spread sheet [ a dbl back up] where that item is, we go pull it and ship it.

We have run a stop watch on each of these processes. Since we create tags and SS entries all at one time, then we will photograph for a whole day, and then list on another day we have total times for a “pile” of items. So if we photograph 30 items [360 photos] in a day [that includes, inspection, cleaning placing on photo table, shooting 12 photos, writing date on the tag and moving to the need to list table, then transferring the photos to desktop into that days folder, it totals out to about 6 hrs for 30 items which is about 12 minutes on average per item.

Now we have done these time studies on each aspect of the process we use and have found that we avg. these numbers: [all approx.] 5 minutes to log in, 12 minutes for clean-photo-pix organize, 10 minutes open listing form, entry about 15 various lines of item specifics-descriptions-condition-category selection. 5 minutes to weigh & measure each item and place into the appropriate item specific area along with the colors, if price research is needed add another 5-7 minutes but for this exercise let’s skip this, 5 minutes to carry the items to storage, find and place item into an appropriate bin, call out that bin and have entered into the spreadsheet. Then go back upstairs. This all totals out when aggregated into a total number then averaged out comes to approx. 37 minutes per item. For ease of comparison here if we were to do 30 items per day that would equal 900 minutes per day or approx. 15 hours a day. So you must have one heck of a system and I am so curious as to exactly what it is so we can modify and / or edit our system, streamline our process and become capable of listing more than we can at the present time.

So, if you would please, provide an outline of your process that you utilize from the point of acquisition through to the point you let go of the item and walk away. An explanation of your system would be of great help to us and also many of the members here on SL. Even if you have others doing / working the process for you, you had to be the one that worked out the work flow for the process and those steps are the key. We can run our own time studies on that process if we choose to adapt it and compare those numbers to our process and see if it is quicker.

Anxiously await a reply if you can find the time or are inclined to do so..

Respectfully submitted and requested..
Kindest Regards,

mike at MDC Concepts, Inc., MDC Galleries, SmartParts and Spray Foam and More divs. all in Atlanta

[Jay]

Hey Rick. If you want to record a conversation with us, I have lots of questions. Sounds like others do too. Just email me at TheScavengerLife @gmail.com.

[Rick]

Hey Jay, if we can schedule something that would be fun to do.

[Jay]

Cool. Just email me and we can figure out a convenient time.

[Linda Shields]

I’m in awe. Feeling like maybe I should up my game and stop making Ebay my hobby. But then…maybe not! ?

[Rick]

MDC Galleries, I’ll try to explain my process as best as possible.

You have a very thorough process. Me not so much.

I source items daily, I bring everything back & stack it on a table. At any given time I have 5-7 days worth of inventory in the queue. Mostly for if it rains on the weekends I still have 35 items to list on a rainy day or if I get nothing at the flea market or come up empty.

I pull 35 items, have them measured. I photograph 35 items on my camera. They are all stacked in correspondence with the measurements on the paper & are in order. I take 4-7 pictures or so of each item. Pictures probably take around 20 minutes total for 35 items.

I bring the items next to the computer & sit them next to me in the same pile with the paper with measurements right next to me.

Mostly everything I source is something similar to something I’ve already listed or have sold in the past. So for instance if it’s a Miami Dolphins jacket, I search football jacket in my eBay store & click Sell Similar. My template will transfer over & I just change the team name from the previous listing, change some measurements & item specifics & that listing is complete in 2 minutes after the photos upload. I can list an item in 2 minutes, so listing takes me about an hour roughly to list 35 items. 1 hour – 1 hour & 15 minutes or so.

After I list all the items, I separate them to go in totes.

For example:

Concert shirts I have broken down in alphabetical order. I have 4 or 5 totes. A-D, E-J, K-S or whatever is may be. The artist goes in that bin.

I have bins for:
Basketball Jerseys
Football Jerseys
Baseball Jerseys
Button Ups
Polos
Ralph Lauren Polos
Mens Shirts
Long Sleeve
Etc
Etc

I have a few bins that are brand specific for certain brands that I buy a lot of. I don’t have a special numbering system & what not. I rarely misplace items & have a pretty good memory of where the items end up.

Jackets & coats go in a separate area & are hung up by brand and/or style.
I have a section for items brand new or at least still in the box, I have a section for items that are loose. I have small bins for smaller items (iPods, little gadgets, etc).

If an item gets stored away in the same place every time things shouldn’t get lost.

So as far as my system goes, it takes about 20 minutes for photos & about 1 hour – 1 hour & 15 minutes to list 35 item every night.

In the morning, I take a picture of the screen of my computer of each item I sold the previous day/night & scroll through the pictures & pick the items. I make sure to capture the date the item was listed in the photo so I know if it was recently listed it should be near the top of the bin, if it was listed months ago it will be closer to the middle or the bottom. It’s a good head start on sorting through the bins.

Ralph Lauren shirt, football jersey, Kids basketball jersey, Taylor Swift shirt, Long Sleeve button up, Sports shirt, etc. All of those items have their own bin.

I buy clear plastic bins so you can look through the side for colors which makes it a lot easier. It takes about 1 minute to pick each item start to finish, if there are 40 items in the morning it takes less than an hour to gather everything up, takes about 20 minutes to pack & print and the items are out the door & stacked up nicely behind the Post Office for the bulk drop off.

If you have some further questions feel free to ask.

[Rick]

@ MDC Galleries – managed to list 37 items tonight from 11:10 – 12:13
I think a lot of your processes can be streamlined & made a lot quicker & in turn very beneficial to your business.

http://i.imgur.com/pmG4xXQ.jpg

[Amatino]

Wow, Rick, you really are something incredible!

While I’m all agog for your eBay business system information, and hope to emulate your listing speed some day, I’d actually like to ask you about your property sales. How do you vet your buyers? If you are financing, the banks aren’t going to be running credit checks etc., so how do you ensure you are getting a “good” buyer? Do you ask for a deposit, and if so, a percentage of the purchase amount or a fixed sum?

I have rental properties and have been looking into expansion. I was considering flipping, but this option of yours sounds much better!

[Shortcut]

Well, I was going to write up an introduction of myself until I finished reading this hero post lol. I am beside myself with awe and speechless. This is where I want to be as well. You sir, are AAaaaaaamazing. Wow … Thank-you so much for posting this and all the best.

Eric

[Rick]

Shortcut, you can do it!

[Rick]

Amatino – I sent a reply the other day, it doesn’t look like it went through.

As far as the buyers go, all of my properties are about 5 hours north of where I live. They are away from the cities & in the country by where my Mom lives. It’s way more affordable than where I’m at. My Mom & I have a little restaurant up in her area so she knows a lot of people in the town. She vets everybody for the homes & so far I haven’t had any issues at all. It’s mostly blue collar single men or single mothers with kids & they are super thankful for the opportunity to have something of their own to call home.

[Author]

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