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Thrift shopping is going mainstream.
It used to be that shopping for secondhand goods meant sifting through piles of clothes and “Everything $1” bins at the local Goodwill or a neighbor’s garage sale. For many, it meant scrolling through postings on one of the first online marketplaces, eBay Inc.
Embedded in this article is a video (also on youtube via the WSJ with comments):
Ryan and Allison Roots are full-time resellers — they take new and used items, mark them up, and sell them online for a profit. Through reselling, mentoring aspiring resellers, and growing a YouTube following, the couple says they’re bringing in six figures.
I haven’t had a chance to watch the video yet, but I have read through some of the youtube comments featuring resellers falling all over themselves to say how much money they make, and others asking how they can obtain a resell license. Depending on how much traction this gets, thrift stores might get a little more crowded with people both looking for stock to resell and shopping for themselves.
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I feel the info is out there already on Youtube. I bet 99% of people who try selling online fail because its too complicated, boring, etc.
Even people who succeed at selling online often burn out or end up getting a full-time job because they cant handle the ups and downs. Plus, there is no shortage of waste and abundance.
I wonder if Ryan and Allison Roots gross or net six figures.
Is six figured $100k or 900k?-
The WSJ video said they’re making (gross? profit? idk) nearly $500k a year. The only motivation anyone would have to reveal numbers like that and create more competition for themselves would be because of the potential gains from increased youtube views/mentorships/sales direct to students. I get it. It’s their hustle. It’s a way of life for a lot of resellers; those who can’t, teach.
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These are serious business people, not scavengers. They live, eat, and breathe business. Can’t get enough of it. The mentorship program says it all – capitalize on every opportunity and run with it. They sell merch. They have ads. Etc etc.
Their videos are wholly uninteresting to anyone with even the slightest bit of reselling knowledge because their target audience are those clicking a thumbnail under YouTube’s related videos sidebar that says “We made $1,000+ shopping at GOODWILL!”. Bring the people in, allude to hidden knowledge, sell the mentorship program, cash out. Seems the smartest move in reselling is just teaching people how to resell.
I have nothing against them personally. Mentorship programs will always seem sketchy to me, but that’s because I know just about everything in the world can be self-taught or learned for free. More importantly, I know I have the drive to learn it myself – others need convincing that they’re capable.
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I paid for their mentor program. I was VERY disappointed. I felt that it was a huge money maker for them but not helpful at all to me. I was particularly interested in the wholesale side of things since I already know how to shop in thrift stores and yard sales. I was told that I would learn about wholesale.
It still bites when I think about the fact that I spent the money on it. They make it look so easy but it is REALLY REALLY hard and they don’t tell you how amazingly difficult it is to find the kind of wholesale they are promoting in their videos, nor how much more you need to know that is NOT in their mentoring.
There is no doubt that they are raking it in, they purchased property last year and they plan to build their warehouse and have rentals. They show their number for just ONE of their stores and it is making a lot of money. They have a couple of other Amazon/Ebay stores that they don’t promote for obvious reasons.
Good for them for making a killing. They sell their mentor program to about 75 people at a time at about 375.00/person and they do it 4 times a year. That alone is a great income not mentioning their stores and wholesale sales.
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Wow. Did you take their mentoring program before or after they started selling wholesale lots directly to their students? It looks like they’re generating a lot of money that way as well.
Was there at least a discussion board, or facebook group for people to go and run ideas off of each other?
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Yup! 110K a year. They send you a bunch of their videos and you are able to send emails with questions. The answers are not full and and not complete and I had to query the answers several times to make sure I had a complete understanding.
By definition, mentoring should include someone who is interested in your progress and success. That is my definition for it. I was never contacted as to how I was doing and what help I need. And when I did ask for help, it was very rushed and incomplete.
Maybe someone else has a different experience but that was mine.
They are good people, no doubt but not my type of mentoring.
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I watched the video clip from WSJ….it says Ralli Roots is a half million dollar a year business. Ryan said ebay and wholesaling used to be most of that, but now it’s wholesaling and their educational stuff that is the larger proportion….ebay is still important, but obviously they’ve shifted gears somewhat. And of course, a half million a year is presumably gross.
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I came to ebay in the very early days, and one thing I realized was that , despite what many old timers will tell you, the attraction for most people was not “it’s fun!” or “I love old stuff”…it was the perception that ebay was EASY MONEY. ebay is no longer the only game in town, but that’s still the attraction for a LOT of people who follow the YouTube gurus….whether it’s ebay, Poshmark, Amazon, whatever…..I tend to agree with Jay: a lot of people are attracted to this, but only a small percentage are really going to put the work into it.
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Last year when I did the program, I asked Ryan what they make, this is what he told me on his answer back:
“…$750k is gross, but that is from 1 ebay account and wholesale deals to other resellers. We are well over a million from all avenues and our net is about 55% across the board”
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I don’t doubt that someone extremely motivated could make that sort of money after reselling for only a few years. I do question people that make that sort of money with only 2 employees, a small warehouse, and time to create multiple youtube videos a week, plus the time to “mentor” people and buy and sell wholesale specifically for those people. There are only so many hours in a day. You can only do so much.
Like, I see the wholesale products on their ebay store, and you can extrapolate that with additional ebay & amazon stores they are doing really well, but still. Not THAT well.
I also realize it’s showmanship, so it is easy to be wowed by large numbers that can put you in the illusion that you too may rake in those numbers after taking their wholesale course. Obviously not the case.
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They never promise results from the mentoring (it is only implied by their massive youtube videos and they have one youtube video of Ryan with another fellow who says how amazing the mentoring was for him and how he now makes so much money thanks to the mentoring) so in fact they are not violating any laws or agreement if you cannot apply or don’t end up like them at the end of the mentoring.
But they don’t survey their “students” to find out if they are in fact getting any results.The only request I got at the end of their mentoring was for a success story. And I got a promo email about additional amazing info for an extra $200.00.
This reminds me of those expensive real estate courses people used to buy in the 80s on the cassette tapes where you learn how to flip real estate. If you are good at motivating people, you can definitely get them excited about your course or mentoring.
There is a book series by Richard Paul Evans called the The Broken Road about a guy that makes a lot of money selling a motivational program…it’s legal but…
Below is the description of the book for anyone that is interested:
“Chicago celebrity Charles James can’t shake the nightmare that wakes him each night….
“By day, he wonders why he’s so haunted and unhappy when he has all he ever wanted—fame, fans, and fortune and the lavish lifestyle it affords him. … His wealth has come legally, but questionably, from the power of his personality, seducing people out of their hard-earned money. When he learns that one of his customers has committed suicide because of financial ruin, Charles is shaken. The cracks in his façade start to break down, spurring him to question everything: his choices, his relationships, his future, and the type of man he’s become.”
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Yeah, I was wondering about the legalities of all of these mentorships/”sales accelerator” type courses all these resellers provided. They seem to tread the line of legality/illegality. They should add a disclaimer “for the purposes of entertainment only,” like fortune tellers.
Personally, I do not like these type of programs because I feel they take advantage of people that may be down on their luck. While the WSJ video states “this is meant for part-time people, those already employed,” it does sucker in a lot of people that are down on their luck and trying to get out of their minimum wage customer service jobs, or unemployment, or debt. They see videos promoting easy money made on weekends “I made $580 at garage sales this weekend!” sort of videos and it looks like a Shangri-La compared to their normal drudgery and low pay. Continue to watch the videos, hear about mentorship programs, and then it’s like, “Oh, I too can become like these happy, care-free people I see on the internet. I too can eventually buy a Tesla if I just pony out $375 for a mentorship course just this once.” It’s really slick advertising, and there are a lot of people doing this on youtube, not just these people of course.
Since the videos are condensed down to 10-20 minute snippets of just the procuring of items, not the actual process of listing/selling/maintaining processes on Ebay, it LOOKS really easy to an outsider down on their luck. The eventual reality of reselling online, well, we all know what that’s like. No one wants to pay up for the actual reality, just the dreams.
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Craigslist Hunter’s latest video (https://youtu.be/u-qclwNP-fU?t=856 – timestamped to roughly 14:00) touches on these same issues. People have been contacting Pete about closing down their eBay stores after spending a bunch of time building up inventory. Turns out it was tougher than expected, especially given how hard it is to go full-time on just thrifting, etc. I think slow summer sales choked them out.
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