what's going on everybody this is scott
also known as cha-ching king and i
appreciate you tuning in today
i have a great video for you
i'm going to talk about the 10 things
that i wish i had known back when i
started selling online
my wife and i have been selling online
since 1999. we've been doing it full
time since 2018
we have passed up a third of a million
dollars in total sales we've learned a
lot along the way some of the things
we've learned i really wish we had known
back when we got started up until about
2018
we really sold just a little bit i mean
we probably didn't make 100 a month in
2018 we decided this was going to be our
full-time job and we started taking it
really really seriously i'm not going to
make you wait until number 10 for me to
tell you the most important thing we've
learned i'm going to start with number
one the most important thing that we've
learned is to not sell ourselves short
our original goal
which we thought was lofty was to cover
our 15 a month store fee and i still
remember the day melody and i were
driving and i told her
i think i think we could do a hundred
dollars
a day
and melody was just she broke out
laughing that seemed like such a lofty
number from where we were at at that
point it isn't that we didn't believe in
ourselves
we didn't realize the potential that
exists in selling online we just didn't
realize it and if i could back up and
tell myself that when we thought fifteen
dollars a month which is was our
original store fee we thought that that
was a stretch
and the hundred dollars a day we didn't
even believe
could possibly happen last year we
averaged right at ten thousand dollars a
month and i really want you to hear it
don't sell yourself short
when you're setting what you think is a
lofty goal it might not be hang on tight
let's get to the others one of the first
mistakes that we made
was with some little leather wrap
bracelets they weighed about two ounces
and so we listed those uh because i
bought a bunch of them and we paid 19
cents a piece and we listed them for
like 350 with free shipping because we
thought an envelope at the time was like
55 cents we can pop that thing in an
envelope and have it be on its way
what we didn't realize is that when you
walk into the post office with something
that isn't flat and try to ship it
it's gonna cost a fortune
and believe it or not we held off
probably two months
before we got on ebay and figured out
how to ship one of the biggest mistakes
we made was not taking advantage of the
agreements that ebay has made with
united states postal services for
discounts and so
lesson number two
is be aware of how to ship on ebay
if you're uncomfortable with that
i will be covering that very soon in an
upcoming video and i'm going to do it
like i've done my other beginning series
videos and i'm going to break it down to
the very very smallest components so
that you can ship at home without having
to carry it into the post office and pay
crazy prices the next one is
a warning
that we were so worried about stepping
into online sales and that is scammers
i'm here here on the other end of the
screen and i'm going to ask you how many
videos have you seen advertised on
youtube how many times have you seen it
mentioned on instagram about the
scammers out there they do exist
but they are not a big part of what we
do if i could back up in time and tell
my earlier self how it really works
you're not going to be dealing with
scammers all the time
when you first start selling on ebay
they're going to try and target you a
little bit and there are some very
simple things that you can do to protect
yourself let me tell you what those are
and then i really don't think scammers
are going to be a big part of your
online reselling life
one
don't talk to them outside
of the ebay platform if you ever get a
message and says hey call me here or let
me work
no
keep all your conversations
on the ebay platform don't do any
business outside of the ebay platform
you're going to get some people
that will say hey i need you to change
the address
don't do that
that's a way for them to bypass it and
they can say that they never got it
another really simple scam that they try
to pull on brand new people is they're
gonna try and overpay you for something
doesn't happen in real life you're not
going to get an offer that's more than
your asking price from anybody that
legitimately wants to do business with
you
but back to scammers
been on ebay for a long time we do two
to three thousand transactions a year
and it is less than
two percent
of my whole business that i get a return
on
and the vast majority of that two
percent well it's actually like one
point 1.7
the vast majority of those they're not
scammers they're just people that the
shirt didn't fit and they're looking to
get a return scammers aren't going to be
a big part of your life
and if you're new you need to hear that
because it won't be a thing the other
one that it kind of goes back to
shipping at home instead of the post
office you need to have
basic supplies at the house and by basic
supplies i mean you need a printer
so that you can print your shipping
label
you need tape
so that you can tape your shipping label
down or close your packages you need
some poly mailers and a few boxes
depending upon how much you ship just a
very few
the most important tool i think you need
other than your smartphone
is you need a scale
and
the scale we use is is right at 25
and
if if you're worried about it i'll link
the very basic tools in my description
and it's the same ones that i use i
would never recommend anything that
have tape stuck to me
regular shipping joe i would never
recommend anything to you that i'm not
using myself or have used myself
eventually yes there's all kinds of
things that you can add you can add a
label printer and you can add
a shipping station there's all kinds of
things you can add
but you don't need it to get started in
the same vein with the shipping
you need to know the difference between
united states postal service priority
and united states postal service first
class
most everything you ship unless you're
doing big big items are going to go on
one of those two
priority
first class
if it is under a pound
that's first class if it's over a pound
use priority
and it's not more complicated than that
unless you make it more complicated than
that
if the packages are small
which is 12 by 12 by 12 if they get
bigger than that some other things kick
in but if you're selling used clothing
and small items
priority over pound first class under
pound which is why that scale is so
important one of the things that we
struggled with when we started
and we still struggle with to this day
because it it just happens to you time
management it is so easy to have this
illusion of tons of free time
but
if you build a schedule into your
business you're going to be far more
effective you'll get more
more listings done you'll get more
things photographed and you'll still
have more time
for other things it doesn't have to eat
up everything that you do
but be willing
if you're going to be your own boss to
build a schedule that works not only for
your business but for your life and that
was a huge deal for us we still have
times where we don't follow it like we
should
and i guess that's part of the joy of
being your own boss but a schedule makes
all the difference and make sure that
your business is efficient and runs well
there are a few no-no's that you need to
be aware of not tons this is not a
negative i wish i had known this before
everything in my life got canceled
there's just a few no-no's one of those
is there's a few brands that you don't
want to you don't want to sell their
stuff you don't want to use their name
it just makes your life easier and
if you look up the word vero which is
v-e-r-o verified rights owners basically
who owns that word so if you use the
word onesie that doesn't belong to you
and you're going to get tagged for it
eventually
don't use the word velcro don't use the
word xerox don't sell otterbox don't
sell beachbody there's a list of them
but just don't use them don't sell them
don't use them and you'll avoid a lot of
those people that are going to come
after you and say hey you're not allowed
to use our name you're not allowed to
use our image and on image is the second
no-no
and it's the easiest one for you to
avoid having a problem with
don't use stock photos
that don't
aren't specifically in ebay's catalog
for you to use
in other words you find this very nice
top they sell it at the mall and they've
got a beautiful picture of the model and
everybody else looks like they're using
it don't use that picture take your own
pictures there are a lot of companies
that will come after you because you
don't own that image
and it's such an easy thing to avoid
especially when you're getting started
just assume somebody else owns the
rights to that image and take your own
and you'll have a lot better time one of
the other mistakes that we made
was undervaluing our items
and
you need to learn
how to figure out what the comps are
you're going to hear that word a lot if
you if you dive into this you're going
to hear the word comps and all that
means is is if you're selling this shirt
and you look online you need to know
what it actually sells for melody 9 when
we first started a lot of times we would
price ours everything on the low end and
turns out a lot of the things that we
sold were legitimately worth more than
that would have sold for more than that
if we had simply asked for more than
that here's how you find comps
get on the ebay app either on your phone
or on the computer
and if you're going to look up a shirt
look up and see how many of them are
listed are there let's say there's a
hundred listed and then i look at how
many sold
and let's say that there's 200 sold
and only 100 listed
that's really really good sell through
rate and then i want to see how much are
they actually selling for i don't care
what people have listed them for if
everybody listed it for a million
dollars it doesn't make this shirt worth
a million dollars if all of them sold
sold for twenty dollars it's a twenty
dollar shirt
but if you know that it's a 20 shirt you
don't have to take 15.
and remember you've already put the time
in and finding it
buying it photographing it listing it
make sure you get a fair price so don't
undervalue your items i can't tell you
how many times that we did that another
one that i want to talk to you about
is inventory management when you have
three things listed that's not a big
deal you know where those three things
are
but what happens is as you're listing
items it's gonna sneak up on you and
then one day
your cha-ching is going to go off you
sold something you're super excited and
then you can't find it
and so i'm telling you right now
get a tub
a certain shelf where you know things
are going to be
this is shelf a
and here's shelf one two three i've got
tub a
tub b tub c
and put that in the skew of the item
that you've listed so that when that
glorious sound goes off you can find the
item because if you can't find the item
and you gotta cancel a sale that's awful
it it's awful for you it's awful for the
customer it's awful for ebay
so inventory management may not seem
like a big deal when you're first
getting started but that's the time to
fix it
that's the time to start good habits of
as soon as it's listed you put it in the
sku where it is and you put it up and
you're going to have a lot better
business model and a lot smoother when
it comes time to ship one of the other
things that i would like to mention and
it's an easy button to turn on is to
turn on
global shipping
i wouldn't do that immediately i
wouldn't do that on my first 10 items or
so
but once you've got 10 or 15 feedback in
your account i would turn on global
shipping
i get almost i think i've had one return
in all of the years that they've been
doing global shipping one return
it's super easy to do because you're not
shipping it out of the country depending
upon where you live like i live in texas
we ship it to kentucky
they take care of ebay takes care of it
from uh shipping it from kentucky to
whatever country that it's going to turn
on global shipping uh for us it added i
would say that it added five percent to
our business that's just extra business
it's stuff that it wasn't selling here
or didn't sell here before it sold
overseas so global shipping is really
easy i held off for a long time because
i was afraid of it one of the easiest
things you can do to increase your
business once you get the ball rolling a
little bit and the last one that i want
to talk about is one that you may not
even realize is a thing i had no idea
that there was a community
of people
doing what melody and i were doing
we really thought we invented this that
hey we're selling some stuff on ebay why
don't we make sure we list a lot every
day
and i came home one day and melody had
discovered on youtube
other resellers
just like you're watching me
and on instagram and on youtube there's
this community of people doing what you
want to do doing what i do if you're a
part of this community
you don't have to make every mistake on
your own
you have other people that can help
guide you you've got people that you can
ask questions to and there's going to be
questions because it's a business being
a part of the community for me has been
absolutely enriching and i didn't even
get involved until i was i already had a
thriving business
and i still learn every day not just
from the people with a hundred thousand
subscribers on youtube or the people
with 10 000 subscribers on instagram
sometimes it's the guy you've never
heard of but they know how to ship
postcards or they have sold a ton of
jerseys there are people in the
community doing exactly what you want to
do
and if you immerse yourself in that
where they know you they're going to be
a ton of help to you and it won't be
long at all before you find out that
you're a ton of help to somebody else
these are some of the things that i wish
i had known when we were getting started
none of them are earth shattering and
you know sometimes i wonder if should i
make a video like this or is it too
simple but i'm building most of the
recommendations off the mistakes that i
made so i i think i hope
that if i've made this mistake
or i learned something and it took me a
while
that maybe if i share it
there's somebody else out there not even
realizing that they didn't know the
answer to that question just like me and
so my hope is
as part of this whole beginner series
that i've been doing on youtube is that
somebody out there finds this useful
that somebody out there is like oh
that's great information as always don't
hesitate to shoot me a question on
instagram i'll i'll do my very best to
answer
all of them that i see
comment down below i do a really good
job of answering all of those as well
and if not i've got a great community
around me and one of the people that
that shares this community with me might
be able to answer you but we're here to
help i really genuinely want to help if
you find what i'm doing
beneficial to you if you think that i
can be helpful do me a favor uh give me
that thumbs up
and subscribe to the channel if you hit
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what we're doing we've got other great
videos coming out i know i've got a
shipping video coming out i've got an
inventory management video coming out i
appreciate you tuning in
i love what we get to do i love this as
a job i hope that you will too and i
hope that you will
find it within yourself to come back for
another visit i appreciate you being
here and i will see you on the next one
bye