← The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
Old VCRs are VERY Profitable. ANYONE can do this! - Ep. #302
00:55:48
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- [00:00]
Chris
What does your business look like today with regards to, like, monthly revenue and profit?
- [00:04]
John
10, 20ish k, maybe actually cross, like, six figures, which was pretty cool.
- [00:08]
Chris
Okay, so then after 15 hours of combined work, you make 3,000 to 5,000 in net profit, which is like 400, 500 bucks an hour from your first deal.
- [00:18]
John
Yeah. So many opportunities like this.
- [00:20]
Chris
You didn't even take delivery of them.
- [00:21]
John
No, we. No, we literally did nothing.
- [00:23]
Chris
That's incredible. This is like, your big inflection point, Right? You're like, okay, now we're in the big leagues. Let's do more of that.
- [00:29]
John
Exactly. And after that, I was hooked. I mean, it's just crazy that, like, you go and buy an item and then the next day it's sold. I put up a listing on Marketplace. I get messages. Like, 20 messages a day, and you're
- [00:38]
Chris
in the middle of nowhere.
- [00:39]
John
Yeah.
- [00:39]
Chris
Make them come to you.
- [00:40]
John
Exactly.
- [00:41]
Chris
Anyone in the world could do that for profit and should.
- [00:43]
John
Yeah, right.
- [00:44]
Lucas
I started my reselling journey when I was 15 years old.
- [00:47]
John
I'm guaranteeing you, you have 500 to 5,000 worth of stuff just laying around your house.
- [00:52]
Chris
Are you selling VCRs?
- [00:53]
Lucas
Yes.
- [00:54]
Chris
A hundred dollars for a VCR, and you're paying two bucks for them?
- [00:57]
John
Yeah. Because people think they're worthless, just like you think so.
- [00:59]
Chris
It's like, oh, my gosh. I think I just read an article a year or two ago that, like, the last VCR manufacturer went out of business.
- [01:05]
John
Yeah. Nobody makes anymore, so there's so much demand.
- [01:07]
Chris
What is this world? It's supply and demand. There's no more supply, so the demand goes up.
- [01:12]
John
Exactly. Same with camcorders. Nobody makes them anymore. Same with digital cameras. I literally sold six of them today for $300. Another brand called Jabra. Those are really good. Dell docking stations. A lot of times, like, thrift stores, just think they're cords and I'll throw them in the cord bucket for a dollar. And they sell for, like, 60 bucks on eBay. So I've found so many of those also came, like, digital cameras, DSLRs, film cameras. A lot of people sell those at yard sales for, like, a dollar because they think they're worthless.
- [01:35]
Lucas
I think the biggest takeaway just on this, even outside of reselling, there's so much money in the world, no matter where you are, who you are, you don't have an excuse. If you want to get out there, you want to make money outside of a 9 to 5, outside of a boss, you just got to put in the work. And you can do it.
- [01:47]
Chris
I hopped in my truck and started door dashing. Dude, I was making 30 bucks an hour. 30 bucks an hour, and I was having a blast. Like, there are no excuses. There's just. There are none. I'm sorry.
- [01:56]
Lucas
The American dream is not dead yet.
- [01:58]
Chris
It is more alive than it's ever been. Ye the playbook. Someone watching this, whether they're 15 years old or 95 years old, how can they go from $0 to $5,000 a month? 10,000amonth?
- [02:10]
John
Yeah, I would say it's the easiest playbook ever.
- [02:16]
Chris
Okay, so by the end of this episode, what is one tactical thing that people can take away from you guys?
- [02:22]
John
Yeah, I would say one tactical thing is anybody, no matter what generation you are, what age, what situation of life you are in, you can resell. So whether that's like a big scale like us, or whether it's small scale, like going to yard sales, flea markets, thrift stores every weekend, and just being a weekend warrior, I think anyone can make an Extra thousand to $5,000 a month, no matter what stage of life you're in, and only putting in maybe two to five hours a week. So I would say the biggest tactical takeaway that you can take away from this podcast is that reselling is by far the easiest side hustle, to me at least. And also, it's, like, provides so much value compared to other side hustles, where it's just, like, so much hype around them, whereas reselling is like, you're, like, providing value to a customer, like, you're giving them pretty much a product 50% off. That works just as well as a new product off Amazon does. So I found a lot of fulfillment in that, and I think you will as well.
- [03:08]
Chris
Okay, perfect. Beautifully said. Tell me who you guys are and how you know each other.
- [03:12]
Lucas
All right. So my name is Lucas, and this is John. Obviously. We've been friends since probably middle school. We grew up kind of in the same community. My dad worked alongside his dad in a way, so that's how we got to know each other. And then I started my reselling journey when I was 15 years old. And then later in life, towards end of high school, I got him into it as well. And so that's kind of like what snowballed us down this.
- [03:36]
Chris
You guys grew up together in rural North Carolina, Virginia, or not?
- [03:39]
John
Yes, yes. So his. His dad works in North Carolina, so that's kind of how we. We knew each other growing up. So I would say probably about ninth grade year, Lucas was, like, trying to put me on reselling. And I was just like, nah, man. What? It's like, I just want to, like, keep doing my thing, working summer jobs and stuff. And then finally he, like, kept texting me about, like, how much money he was making. I was like, dang, this is, like, kind of cool. I, like, decided to try. And then we just been doing it ever since.
- [04:00]
Chris
Yeah. And, Lucas, what first got you onto this? What was the first thing you sold and why?
- [04:05]
Lucas
Okay, So I was 15, and I had a lot of Legos from my childhood, and they're just sitting collecting dust by that time. My mom was like, all right, so we got to do something with these Legos. They're in my way, and we need to figure out what we're going to do with them. So I was like, well, maybe we can sell them on Facebook, you know, because Facebook Marketplace is great. So she's like, okay, we'll go on ebay and try to figure up some prices and get me, like, a ballpark you want to ask for. So I go on ebay, and knowing nothing about ebay and pricing stuff, I'm just grabbing active listings that are new in box. Some aren't even in boxes. So it was really messed up. You. And I came up with a pretty big number, but my mom did list them. She posted them as a lot with a number. And of course, in rural Keeling or rural Virginia, nobody wanted to pay that. Obviously, they're not looking for collecting these things or anything. So I asked her, I was like, well, would you mind if I try to sell them on ebay myself? And so she said, sure, I'll let you do that. So she gave me access to her ebay account because I'm not 18. And I started listing Legos that summer. Ended up selling, I think, like 5 to 10k worth in Legos that summer after that, because I ran out of Legos, obviously, after that.
- [05:07]
Chris
Sorry, you just sold what was laying around your house? That's it.
- [05:10]
Lucas
I just sold my Legos. That was it. That was the only thing I sold. So after I ran out of Legos because it was not that big of a collection, I started selling my stuff outside of Legos and my family's stuff that they would give me. So then I was. Yeah, I started pedaling stuff. And so after that, I started going to thrift stores a little bit because I have a younger sister and she liked to go thrifting. And my dad loves antique shops and stuff like that. Anything classic. So I go thrifting a little bit. But I really wasn't making that much money because I didn't know what I was doing. And then fast forward a little bit to, I guess it would have been ninth grade year.
- [05:45]
John
I don't know.
- [05:45]
Lucas
When I got John into it, he kind of put me on to a new niche, and it was consumer electronics. And so that's when John started reselling. But that's also when he picked up my reselling game, and I started growing a lot more from that. So I don't know if you want to touch on that.
- [05:58]
John
Yeah, I guess I just kind of, like, heard he was reselling. I was like. Like, I'd always looked up ways online to make money. Did like those dumb, like, surveys and stuff where you make like 10 cents after, like 10 minutes of doing it. Just like other random side hustles, but they never, like, really panned out. And I was, I think I was like 16 at this point, so I could drive and stuff. And so another friend that reselled actually in my town just hit me up one day and was like, hey, do you want to go to the thrift store with me? I'll show you, like, how you can resell it. Showed me how to go on the ebay app, go to sold listings and all that. And I bought my first, like, five or six items, and I texted him. I was like, man, like, I got into this finally. And he's throw them up on ebay. And one sold the next day. And after that, I was hooked. I mean, it's just crazy that, like, you go and buy an item and then the next day it's sold. And so from then on out, I was hooked. Kept going to thrift stores, kept going to yard sales. And then eventually I was like, watching so much YouTube on. On reselling that I found out, like, electronics really, really sold good just because there's so much demand for them out in the market. And so then that was my focus. I'll go to thrift stores, find electronics, go yard sales, look for electronics. And then I realized at a point that I could only get so many at thrift stores, yard sales and stuff. Like, you only get one or two at a time, which in high school is still great. You're making good money, like more money than most high schoolers. But I was like, okay, what if I go online and see if I can get them in bigger quantities? And so, yeah, that's kind of how we stumbled upon it.
- [07:10]
Chris
Okay, so how old are you guys at this time? 16?
- [07:13]
John
Yeah, 16. He started a lot earlier than I did probably 14, 15, but I was like 16 when I started.
- [07:18]
Chris
Okay, now you say electronics. That's a huge category. What, at this stage, at least, what types of electronics were you buying and selling?
- [07:26]
John
Yeah, so various kinds. So a lot of like, little, like, office equipment, things like, I don't know if you've heard of like the OWL Conference, like, media, like it's like a big corporate.
- [07:35]
Chris
A lot of like a teleconference.
- [07:37]
John
Yeah, exactly. There's another brand called Jabra. Those are really good Dell docking stations. A lot of times, like thrift stores just think they're cords and I'll throw them in the cord bucket for a dollar and they sell for like 60 bucks on eBay. So I found so many of those. Also cameras, like digital cameras, DSLRs, film cameras. A lot of people sell those at yard sales for like a dollar because they think they're worthless. Pretty much like anything that you can, like, think that somebody would use on the daily basis. That's what we were selling. Every now and then I would go to like a thrift store and find like, some professional technology. Like one time I found this like, weird, like, stereo, stereo thing for like $50 and sold it for like 700. So we'd have some crazy flips in there like that. But mainly is like the consumer stuff. Like, if you can think of something that people use every day, like, it's going to sell good. Like this road mic here. It sells every day for 70 bucks on eBay.
- [08:20]
Chris
Now, my good friend Shannon is a lifelong reseller, and he says stay away from electronics. Too many variables, too many things to break, too many things to test. Return rate is high, defect rate is high. Obviously, like the, you know, the devil you know is. Is the best. Right? What would you say to that? Like, were there a lot of unnecessary headaches compared to other categories? Compared to Lucas, what you experienced in. In Lego, or is it not as bad as people think?
- [08:44]
Lucas
No, he's definitely right. When I was selling Legos, I had maybe like two returns out of 100 sales. Now that we're selling electronics, it's definitely a lot more finicky. You can test a device and ship it and it gets to the buyer and it's broken. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast. But with that being so, I find a lot of people like your friend, who steer completely clear electronics. So it opens us up a little bit more. One of the biggest categories for resellers is clothing and vintage clothing. We didn't sell clothing specifically. John sold some Clothing, obviously, as you find it. But we're not clothing resellers because the return rate's high in clothing as well. People buy something, they don't like it. People buy something that doesn't fit them. And you have to accept the return. Ebay is going to make you accept the return. So no matter what category selling on ebay, there's going to be a lot of returns. It's just part of the game. You have to factoring your margins for that. But yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not really that worried about electronic returns because we've learned so much as far as testing and YouTube is your friend when testing. So.
- [09:41]
John
Yeah, I would also say if you factor in though, like, you're gonna make. I feel like for at least for us, we factored in that we're gonna make so much more sales. If we niche into electronics and we found more of them, that was like, okay, if we have 5% more returns, like, yeah, that's gonna suck. Like, it's gonna be thousands of dollars of return every year. But at the same time, like, we're going to get sales that we would have never reached if we had never gone into that category. And so I don't know, I think it's like a blessing and a curse at the same time. But like, with how, how good that market is for us, like, we don't care about the one or two returns we get a day.
- [10:08]
Chris
Yeah. So what were you doing in like monthly revenue in these early days? And how did you go from that to like really starting to scale up, operationalize and start like sourcing stuff so you could sell more of it?
- [10:21]
John
Yeah. So I don't like with high school and stuff, I would say, I don't know, probably numbers a little different for both of us. Yeah. Revenue probably like 2 to 5,000amonth. They really just like when you're at this stage, like you're going to find some stuff one month that's like goes for 100 lumpy. Yeah, like, summertime is really good, especially for me because I was out of school, had a ton of time to devote to it during the school year. Not as much. It's not as much time to source. Also not as many yard sales in the summer. Are not in like other seasons. Lots of yard sales in the summer. And so I'd say around that. And then. Well, I guess I'll let you answer and then I'll go into the operation part.
- [10:54]
Lucas
Yeah. Starting out when I sell Legos, it was great. It was gravy Because Legos is just such a. People love Legos, I mean, especially on ebay. But after I got out of Legos and I was just selling some thrift store stuff and some personal stuff, it was probably about the same as John. Margins are pretty good, though.
- [11:09]
John
Yeah. When you're starting out the mart, your margins are a lot better than when you operationalize. Just because you are finding this, like, you're getting stuff for like $2 and you're selling it for a couple hundred
- [11:18]
Chris
versus, like, when you're buying and you're doing everything yourself.
- [11:20]
John
Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, like, once we started, like, I'd say like a year ago, pretty much, we started figuring out, like, electronics did good. And so in order to get from, like, weekend warriors, basically, to doing reselling stuff every day, we had this camera supplier, basically, electronics, basically, ebay supplier. So he gets recycling in and then he like, kind of sorts it, I guess, and then sells, like, he'll sell computers to this guy, AirPods of this guy, cameras of this guy. And so we knew about him already. Like, he posted on ebay a lot. He sold his cameras on ebay for super cheap. And so, like, they were getting sniped up immediately, but, like. And he was overseas too, so he's posting at 3 in the morning, and we're not getting them. We know this guy that. And he's. He's texting me and he's like, yeah, I'm staying up till 3am to buy these cameras and buy these, like, other consumer electronics. And I'm like, man, like, I wish I could do that. But I'm also don't want to sacrifice, like, sleep for that because then I'm not just gonna. I'm not gonna get any sleep throughout the day. Cut to the story. We messaged this guy. I messaged him. I'm like, hey, like, I would love to buy, like, your electronics in bulk. Can we just work out a deal off ebay? That way, like, you save money. And then we save money too, and we don't have to, like, stay up till 3am and like, buy them. And he's never responds to me, so I'm like, all right, whatever. I guess we're just not gonna make this money. And then he messaged them, and for some reason they respond to him. And so they message him back, and they're like, yeah, here's my number. Text me on here. So Lucas texted him, and we started, like, figuring out some deals. And then, yeah, from there it's like he just started sending us stuff we tested some stuff out. We're like, okay, cool, this guy's gonna be a good electronic supplier. And that's kind of, that's kind of how we scaled up. So it was definitely a lot slower than most people want. Most people want to start reselling and go from getting stuff at thrift stores to buying in bulk the next month. But it was like two years for us. So the stage that we explained to everybody, what you need to do is first sell stuff around your house. So Legos, whatever family has, then go to thrift stores, take that money, go to thrift stores and yard sales and flea markets and buy stuff with that and then take that money. And once you, like really know a category, which I would say you need to sell 100 plus items in a category to really know it, then you can start looking in bulk, like bulk quantities. Whether that's on ebay. Makari Poshmark. Like, all that stuff. It's kind of crazy that we would buy bulk lots off of ebay and then resell the stuff back on ebay. Like most people don't think you can do that because it's the same platform, but we would do that same with Marketplace. You buy and bulk off Marketplace. But you really need to know the category because a lot of people are going to sell you their crap. And so you really need to know, like, if this stuff's good or is this stuff, like, getting sorted out?
- [13:40]
Chris
I'm so glad you said that because I've told people so many times, like, you could literally buy on one platform and sell the same stuff on the same platform.
- [13:47]
Lucas
Yeah, a hundred percent.
- [13:49]
Chris
And people don't realize that, but there's so much asymmetric information out there that it's possible. So let me recap. You're 16, 17 years old, selling Legos, you're selling electronics. Sometimes two grand a month, sometimes five grand. It's kind of lumpy because you're still in high school, you're seeing some success. Start noticing on ebay that there are like wholesalers selling stuff on ebay to people that are kind of piecing it up and reselling on ebay. Is that right?
- [14:14]
John
Yep. So basically what they're called is like untested lots. So on ebay they'll post electronics untested. And so that's a big risk. It could be all broken or it could be all working.
- [14:22]
Chris
Yep. And if they're like a not trusted seller, if they're new, then they, they could be tested to be unworking. They could be selling a, a Crap bill of goods. But you're assuming since this guy, his stuff sells fast, he has good feedback, that it truly is untested and there's probably like a workable defect rate in there that you can still make money on, right?
- [14:39]
John
Yeah, exactly.
- [14:40]
Chris
Okay, so this guy comes on your radar and he's clearly selling at a good price because if anything moves that fast, it's probably priced too low. So he's on your radar for a good reason. You DM him, doesn't respond, he DM's him. He does. You work out a deal. So if you, if you go off of ebay, then you can save on ebay fees and you don't have to stay up all night. So how does your first order from him go? How much do you spend? What do you get?
- [15:04]
John
It's all in euros. I'm trying to like convert, but might have been like 5k ish.
- [15:08]
Lucas
It's probably around.
- [15:09]
John
Yeah. Which honestly, like that was like a lot to us. Like that was like, man, this is like nerve wracking. Like I don't know if we're going to get this money back. Looking back, it's like we should have done that 10 times over. But so yeah, we paid him that. We did it on. We like wire transferred. So first off, that's kind of sketchy because you've never worked with the guy, so you don't know. Like we, we saw as a big business so we figured he wasn't going to scam us. But like you never overseas. Oh yeah.
- [15:29]
Chris
It's like what country was he in?
- [15:30]
John
I'm trying to think.
- [15:31]
Lucas
There's some European countries.
- [15:32]
John
Yeah. Like Denmark.
- [15:33]
Chris
Okay.
- [15:33]
John
Maybe around there.
- [15:34]
Chris
Was he shipping from there or was he.
- [15:37]
John
Which is another thing. So it's even slower. So we paid him like 5k USD. He gets it probably wires took a while back then, so maybe like three or four days because we were getting all of our banks set up and then he ships them. So we probably get them like three weeks later, maybe a month later.
- [15:50]
Chris
That's a, that's a long time when you're, when you only have five grand.
- [15:54]
Lucas
Yeah.
- [15:54]
John
So yeah, we're waiting on that. Gets into Lucas and we look through them and they're like all of them are really good. Not all of them, but like 80 of them are really good. Probably 60 of them work. And what were they? Consumer electric, Mix of stuff. So like some cameras. Yeah, just. Yeah, cameras, office equipment, headphones, all that kind of stuff. All kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And so did you have a manifest no, we did not. We. We have never gotten a manifest from this guy.
- [16:20]
Lucas
We didn't picture. No, we didn't even have pictures.
- [16:23]
Chris
So what was the description? What did you think you were buying other than electronics, actually?
- [16:29]
Lucas
Did he.
- [16:29]
John
Yeah, he sent us, like, a very quick pictures, but you couldn't, like, zoom in and see model numbers. So, like, we were using, like, Google Lens a lot because you can, like, screenshot and Google Lens it. And so, like, we had a good idea.
- [16:39]
Chris
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- [17:45]
Lucas
Ooh, it must have been.
- [17:46]
John
So the first time. The first order we got from him was really low because he wanted to build this relationship with us. So he's like, all right, I'm gonna give you a good deal. I think it was like $8 or €8 each. Maybe like $10.
- [17:56]
Lucas
Also, we didn't have enough money to buy anymore, so it's kind of like,
- [17:59]
John
yeah, so, yeah, we. We negotiated it down. He was like, yeah, I'll pay for shipping. I'll get it down. That way we can keep doing more deals in the future. So we're like, cool. This is good. So I think it was like, around $10ish a piece. And, I mean, Stuff was selling 5, 500 units. Yes. That's all right.
- [18:14]
Chris
Okay.
- [18:14]
John
Stuff was selling for. Well, of course, the broken stuff sells probably less than we got it, so five to, five to $15 each. But again, there wasn't too much broken stuff. And then you have some working stuff. I'd say the range is probably like 50 each to maybe like 200ish each. And so the margin on that is crazy. But we had this one buyer, we had this one buyer in. Where was he from again?
- [18:36]
Lucas
New York.
- [18:37]
John
New York? Yes, New York City. And he, he bought all of our cameras. So he is like a flea market vendor. Actually, it was through my ebay store. He saw I had a bunch of cameras and he was like, hey, like, do you want to strike up a deal? I was like, sure. So then from then on out, we would just text him what we have and he would just. Or PayPal or Stripe US and we would just avoid all the ebay fees and just sell them in bulk.
- [18:56]
Lucas
It was interesting too because he's paying ebay prices in bulk. So it's kind of like you would, you'd normally take a little bit of hit on your price, like off ebay, but this guy's like, no, I'll pay ebay prices. Like John would name the price and instance, like, yeah, I'll take it. I was like, dang, bro, we gotta like, wow, keep moving this up a little bit. But yeah, it was crazy.
- [19:12]
Chris
What types of cameras were these? Like, give me an example of like, were they DSLRs?
- [19:16]
John
Yeah, it's kind of a mix. He would buy some DSLRs, he'd buy some of the point and shoots, he'd buy some films. God's like, I'm trying to think what he did. He did, I think like flea markets, like on the street type sales at New York, so they just pay a premium price for some reason. So he kind of bought a little bit of everything. Also like the little like tape camcorder, camcorders.
- [19:34]
Chris
Geez, what is this, 1998? The Heck Retro? Give, give me an example. So you're paying $10 per unit. And I know that's an average, right? You're getting some crappy stuff in there too. Let's say you've got a. Let's say you've got a point and shoot camera for. You're paying 10 bucks for it. What are you selling it to him for? And what do you think he's selling at the flea market for?
- [19:55]
John
I would say so it really depends on the model. So like sometimes there's like this brand called Kodak. Those will probably sell for 2530 even if they're working. Then there's this brand called Canon, which is like the cream of the crops is sometimes 100 to 200. So we're selling to him for those prices, pretty much stock price. And I would say he's probably upcharging 30% just to, like, be on the streets and have them, like, physically there. People just kind of go bananas for him. Like, when they actually get to hold him and, like, use them, versus online, where they don't kind of get to hold it, I guess. Also, we were selling them with a battery, without the charger, without SD cards, and I think he was putting all that stuff together, and he was, like, selling them like that kind of. So when you saw them in kids, they do move a little bit faster and they go for a little bit more money.
- [20:32]
Chris
So it's not uncommon for you to sell something for 100 that you're paying 10 bucks for, even.
- [20:36]
Lucas
Oh, no, that was. That's pretty common.
- [20:38]
John
Yeah. Yeah. I'd say in the reselling space, that's extremely common. Like, we know tons of people that do that every day of the week.
- [20:43]
Chris
Jesus. Okay, so. So you might not know this number, but any idea if you just took that box of 500 units that you paid $5,000 for, what did you make in profit from that?
- [20:54]
John
Yeah, yeah. I have to look back at our numbers, but I would say after, like, all expenses, there's a lot of shipping
- [20:59]
Chris
labels buying batteries, and you got to package it together with stuff.
- [21:03]
John
Yeah, the first lot was definitely smaller because you have a high upfront cost. Like, most of these cameras we didn't have batteries for, so that's like five bucks a pop. And then, of course, shipping, like, you're spending hundreds of dollars shipping, especially in the big boxes, bulk up to New York. But I would say anywhere from, like, we at least doubled our money. At least it was over, I think, 8 grand, maybe 8 to 10 grand, which is, like, insane for your first lot because that's like, what, triple your money almost or double your money easily. So. Yeah. And then, I mean, of course, it's split, like, half and half, but, like, still, that was, like, insane to us.
- [21:33]
Chris
How many hours of work do you think that that deal took?
- [21:36]
John
That first deal, that was. That's what was crazy about it. So since we did have that buyer in New York, I remember, like, we got him in, we did have to wait on some batteries. So if you account that time, maybe a week. But, like, actual work, I don't know, maybe 10 hours max.
- [21:49]
Lucas
But that's combined.
- [21:50]
John
Yeah.
- [21:50]
Lucas
Yeah. That's not like one person.
- [21:51]
John
Let's just say, 15 hours combined. Like, it was like, crazy, because we literally just sent him pictures of, like, just, like, a big old lot. And he was like, all right, cool. Just package it up. And I mean, it takes 30 minutes to package up a box like that.
- [22:01]
Chris
So how old were you guys at this point?
- [22:03]
John
This was, like, last summer, so 19.
- [22:06]
Lucas
Yeah.
- [22:07]
Chris
Okay, so you're 19, you're selling stuff. Onesie, twosie, garage sales, ebay, yada, yada. You're like, let's operationalize this. You find this guy, you buy $5,000 worth of electronics. $10 each, 500 units. And how many of them did you unload to this guy on ebay? Do you sell them all to him or most of them to him?
- [22:25]
Lucas
No, he wouldn't buy any broken or defect.
- [22:28]
Chris
Okay.
- [22:28]
Lucas
Something slightly wrong. It had to be pristine, almost.
- [22:31]
John
And that's just the camera. So there's other stuff, too, that we're getting in. So I would say probably 60% of the stuff was going to him. But even that, like, it doesn't take too long to list. You just open the ebay app on your phone, take pictures. Yeah, like, we had done it so much at this point. Like, we can get a listing up in a minute. It doesn't take too long.
- [22:45]
Chris
Okay, so then after 15 hours of combined work, you make, you know, roughly 3,000 to 5,000 in net profit, which is like 400, 500 bucks an hour in profit from your first profit, wouldn't it?
- [22:58]
John
No, it was probably 5,000, I think so, yeah.
- [23:00]
Chris
Okay. That's incredible. So then this is like, your big inflection point, right? You're like, okay, now we're in the big leagues. Let's do more of that. Is that what you were thinking? Or let's not do electronics.
- [23:10]
John
Exactly. I mean, yeah, that was definitely our thought. Like, we. We got to get more on this. And so I'd say probably, what, a week after we got those? And we're like, all right, when's our next one coming in? Yeah, I think you did more of the communication there. So do you want to explain, like, what happened from there?
- [23:22]
Lucas
Yeah. So after that? Well, I actually. Before that, to rewind a little bit. I remember meeting with John before we bought this lot. Like, we've been talking to the guy, figuring out numbers. We meet in Hardee's, and we're just talking about this, and he's like. He's telling us some ridiculous numbers. He's like, I can get you 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 units a month, and I'll just tack on like €3 for what you're paying right now.
- [23:43]
Chris
You met this European dude at a Hardee's?
- [23:46]
Lucas
No, no, no, no. We were just.
- [23:48]
Chris
How'd you get him over here? Yeah, no, you sit down at a Hardee's and then you call him, Is that what you're saying?
- [23:54]
John
We're just texting on WhatsApp.
- [23:55]
Chris
Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay. And he's like, I can get you 5,000, 15,000 pieces of this, this same quality stuff per month.
- [24:02]
Lucas
Yeah. And it was crazy because we're figuring out numbers. We're like, this is ridiculous money for what we're doing.
- [24:06]
Chris
Yeah, this is like, this could be six figures a month of profit.
- [24:09]
Lucas
Yeah, easy. We were thinking more than that. So we were getting really hyped. So then we do our first lot, we figure out our numbers and we're getting ready to make our next deal. And there's another buyer involved, so we're having to compete with another buyer. And so he's wanting us to start ordering larger quantities. He can do business with just us. He's like, I need you to order in large quantities so we can cut this other guy out. That's how we like to move our stuff. We don't like to move it low quality quantities, but we're like, well, we can't afford that. We can't pay. We can do another 500 lot, but we can't do more than that because we just don't have the cash flow. Everything's tight. And I guess he assumed he was working with a big business or something. He didn't. He had no hustling out of rooms out of our parents house. So. Yeah. So from that, that point on we started just turning around like 100, 500 camera lots. And shipping is still taking forever. We're talking about like a month time just to get the products.
- [25:00]
Chris
Sorry, what are you doing in the meantime? You're just waiting or what?
- [25:03]
Lucas
We're just reselling on our personal.
- [25:04]
John
Yeah, we still have like little personal stores. Like we still go to yard sale. Like we just kind of found that fun. Just the process. So we'd still like do that. I was also in college, so that was. Most of my week was taken up doing that. And then he, he was drop shipping during that time. Yeah. Which is faded out. But yeah, we found some time or found stuff to fill our time with.
- [25:20]
Chris
Okay. So it's taken forever. You're scaling up 100 units here, 500 units there, then what?
- [25:25]
John
Yes. So the buyers kept coming. You're getting, I think we got 500 boxes or not 500 boxes, units of 500. I think we got, like, three or four of those. And there was another buyer that came in the market from China. So we had China, Japan, and us. And for some reason, like, he liked us the best. I guess we just, like, communicated with them better. Like, he just, like, liked the way we did business. And so he was like, all right, I'm just gonna keep going with you guys. But the thing was, he had a business partner that they were 50, 50 on it. And for some reason, his business partner liked the Chinese people better, the Chinese guys better, just because they paid a little bit more than we did. And so he started selling to him. And so we kind of got a little bit bottleneck, and. And, like, his part business partner was super upset. He's like, this is not fair to y'.
- [26:05]
Lucas
All.
- [26:05]
John
Like, I don't like this at all. So he started his own business just for us almost. And the first lot he got us was, like, really, really good. Like, same quality. I think he just kind of stole them from his big business. And so we got those in. Great. We're like, okay, this is gonna be smooth sales. Let's just keep working with this guy on his personal business. And then he goes back to the big business for another month, and he's like, all right, I got a thousand here. This is while the 500 are coming in. So he's like, I got a thousand here. I can give them to you for, like, $15 a piece, which is still good. We would have bought that, but the thing was, we had those coming in, and so we didn't really have the cash for it. Looking back, we just put in personal money and bought it. But he ended up selling that to the Chinese company. And so that. That really stunk because it was like, a thousand pieces.
- [26:46]
Lucas
I think it's more than that. I think they ended up, like, 15, something crazy.
- [26:49]
John
And so that stunk for us because that company pretty much dried out all the stuff that we wanted. And now that company's underwater, which is crazy. They were like, they're 1.2 million monthly, and now they're not even a company. And so now, like, currently, we're still working with this guy, his, like, separate business. But since he, like, lost that connection to the big business, the quality of lots has gone down pretty drastically. We're thinking that in the next month, we're going to get back to what he had coming in, because he said he found the same supplier that he had from the big business. I Would say the probably around, like September, when he went off on his own, we just kind of trusted him. That was going to be the same quality. And that was when we got our first bad lot, which is kind of like the first, like, low of our business. Like, we bought like, what was it, 500 pieces. And they like, literally none of them worked. And so we lost like a good bit of money in that, but we've definitely learned some lessons.
- [27:34]
Chris
Okay, so eventually you buy a bad batch. Do you think that they intentionally put all the crap units in that batch?
- [27:41]
John
I don't go, yeah, you go ahead.
- [27:43]
Lucas
Our contact, the guy we're working with, did not. He just doesn't understand the electronics like we do. But the people upstream from him that he's buying from more than likely did that.
- [27:52]
Chris
They were probably because it's statistically speaking, it's impossible that you would, you know, let's say your average defect rate is 10%. Suddenly it's 90. Like, yeah, that's intentional from someone. If not him, then whoever's up the food chain.
- [28:03]
John
He basically like text us the other day and was like, I think what I've realized is that I've been buying from resellers versus E waste, which I'm like, I don't know why you didn't tell us that earlier. Like, we've kind of been picking up on that. And so, yeah, that's exactly what's happening.
- [28:14]
Lucas
Yeah.
- [28:15]
Chris
Well, why don't you differentiate the difference between a reseller and an E waste company?
- [28:19]
John
Waste, they're getting pure recycling. And so if you go to recycling center and throw stuff in, you might throw in a working computer, you might throw in a burger computer. The E waste companies are getting that raw. The raw donations. And essentially. And then they just, they. They have certificates where basically they kind of make it safe for resale, but they don't do anything. They don't test it. They just kind of strip out the hardware, all that stuff. And so then they just take it from there and sell it to resellers versus a reseller is literally taking it, separating the good stuff out, putting on their ebay and then selling you the junk. And they're saying that they're E waste supplier. That way you think it's wrong, but it's clearly not.
- [28:47]
Chris
Yeah, okay, so it's like, I mean, E waste is like, that is the source. That's the top of the food chain. A reseller is their middleman, which you're a middleman, I'm a middleman. Nothing wrong with being middleman Right. It's just different.
- [28:58]
John
Yeah. Yeah. You can't have two middlemen, though. You got to have a middleman to a consumer. You can't have.
- [29:02]
Chris
You can.
- [29:04]
John
Well, yeah, you can, but.
- [29:05]
Chris
Right. It's just not always the best. It's more surface area for error, for scams, for fraud, etc. Margins go down to surface area. Yeah.
- [29:13]
John
Which is. Yeah, that was crazy because, like, in the summer, we had our supplier selling to the guy that we were buying from, and we were buying from that guy. Then we were selling to another reseller. So essentially, there's like, what, four resellers in the middle there, and everybody's making profit on it. So it's like. It's insane how much, like, money's in electronics.
- [29:29]
Chris
Okay, so how long ago did you get that bad batch?
- [29:32]
Lucas
That would have been September or October when it landed. Obviously bought a little bit.
- [29:36]
Chris
And how much did you lose on that?
- [29:38]
John
Probably four or five.
- [29:40]
Chris
Yeah.
- [29:40]
John
Yeah, Good bit.
- [29:41]
Chris
Okay, so you did. You just kind of, like, lost everything you spent on that then?
- [29:46]
Lucas
Yeah, we lost everything, but we also lost a lot of time because you get it in and you still have to process. You have to test, take pictures. You have to listen. And by that point, we were listing everything on ebay for the most part. We had a few bulk buyers, but it wasn't that many units we were selling to them. So we're. We're. We're spending all this time trying to negate our losses, and we're losing money. Working is pretty discouraging.
- [30:06]
Chris
Where was your head at at this point? Like, what are we doing? Or just, like, on to the next one?
- [30:10]
Lucas
Yeah, onto the next one.
- [30:12]
John
Really? Well, yeah. And like I said to Lucas multiple times, I'm like, man, we should have just, like, stopped here and just. Yeah, but I mean, looking back, you can't ever say that, because then you don't learn any less lessons, I guess. And so, yeah, we just head down onto the next one. Like, you gotta. We gotta find different suppliers. Like, you can't just rely on one person, or else you don't really have a business. You just have, like, one stream, I
- [30:31]
Lucas
guess, which we knew that we knew, like, when we were in the peak of the summer, when we're making all this money. We're like, we have got to diversify. We can't just make all this money from one supplier. I mean, for one thing is overseas. So tariffs already can mess you up a lot or just, like, licenses and stuff. And Europe can be really strict, and so we're Talking about we need to change stuff, but we don't have any time because we're just testing stuff and listing it. And then come September, it bites us in the butt because we didn't, we didn't diversify enough. So we only have one supplier sending us.
- [30:58]
Chris
So what do you do after September until today? What do you change?
- [31:01]
John
Yeah, so from that, from that point on, we had never done a single cold call, which is kind of crazy. Like, we literally just had this guy. We just like got stuff in, made our five grand profit a month or so, maybe made a little bit more than that, and then just like kept going, I guess, great money as college students. Like, like, we were like happy with that. And so then from that point we're like, okay, this is not acceptable. Like, we're going to keep trying to work with this guy. We still are to this day. We haven't got quite to the quality that we were at. We're hoping this summer it's back to that, but we're still like have that connection because I guess that's probably one of the best connections anybody has in the world in the US community. And so we have that connection still going, but we just started picking up the phone, calling more domestic places because we were tired of paying tariffs every time we got stuff in with the new, like, Trump act, we're paying 10%, I believe, on the, on the number, on the value of the package that's coming in, which is kind of crazy. So we were tired of that, tired of speed. Because a domestic lot we get in three, three to four days overseas, it's a month. We started calling people around us junk removal places. That's honestly a sneaky one because they get a bunch of stuff in and they just scrap all the metal. They get started calling those people around us. Also I had some prior connections when I was doing my personal ebay store that I knew, like, sold pretty decent electronics that I would buy in lots off of ebay, like we were talking about earlier. And so I found like, I looked up their company because it was like the title on ebay. And I looked it up online and I found their number, found their emails, and I was just reaching out through that, calling them, and I was like, all right, can we like move some deals off ebay? We have like a liquidation company now. And so I would say we probably got, I don't know, four or five of those guys that were pretty decent. And so we just had people sending us definitely not as big a lot, but a lot more variety I would say, which kind of like, broadened our scope a little bit.
- [32:39]
Lucas
All still in electronics?
- [32:40]
John
Yeah, all electronics, Yeah. I would say, honestly, the US Stuff has an even higher working rate.
- [32:45]
Lucas
Oh, yeah.
- [32:45]
John
Just because it's not getting shipped as far. I just think that we found, like, pretty raw suppliers. And then we just like, like, we just found random people on ebay. Like, we found this one guy from Michigan that's probably shipped us 500 or so cameras, like, throughout this time that I just found that he had like 50 or so listed on his ebay, all individually untested. I was like, hey, do you have more of these? He's like, yeah, man. Actually, like, my buddy in the army just left to go overseas and gave me his whole ebay store. I was, all right, let's just buy them in bulk. And then literally every month, he's like, all right, this is all I got. And then I get a text later, it's like, hey, I found 200 more. I'll give them to you at five bucks a pop.
- [33:17]
Chris
So it's clear that your biggest bottleneck is on the sourcing side, not on the selling side, right?
- [33:22]
John
Yeah. All things sell instantly. Yeah.
- [33:24]
Chris
That's how in a perfect world, you've got, like, bulk buyers, like the guy in the. In the flea market. That doesn't always work. Worst case scenario, if it's working, you already know on ebay. Look at you, check completed, you check sold. All right, these sold for 30. We're going to give eBay 12%. Let's be conservative and say 18 minimum. We can sell these for. We paid five bucks each. We're golden, Right? That's like, quote unquote, Worst case scenario, if something's working, is to sell it piecemeal on ebay. Best case scenario is to sell it for close to ebay price in wholesale, right?
- [33:55]
John
Yep, exactly. And that, like, going back to the electronic category, like, it does have higher returns, but it is by far the best category on ebay, like sell through rate, which essentially means number of soldiers versus the number of listed. So I would say the average electronic has 100% sell through rate, which means for every 90 that have sold or every 90 that are listed, there's also 90 sold. So you're. You're guaranteed to sell item within a month or so.
- [34:16]
Lucas
So.
- [34:16]
John
Yeah.
- [34:16]
Chris
Yeah. Okay. Now when it comes to, like, you finding a hundred or 200, 300 cameras from someone, like, how. Where are they getting these old random camcorders from? Like, is this like a. Is this like a high school that does like an E waste drive. And, like, is that where all these start or where are these starting from? Like, where's the. The ground zero for these old things? Because over to my ground zero for iPhone 15s, sure they're three years old. Of course you can get thousands of those. But for old, old stuff, how are you getting so many that are so old?
- [34:46]
John
Yeah, E waste route. I don't know how they're getting those. I couldn't tell you. I would say for, like, especially a lot of the domestic guys that we buy from, they go into schools and they just, for some reason, schools bought a bunch of these things, like, back in the day, and they just had them sitting around. They used once. That's a us drive. Or if it's like, they actually use them. So I know a lot of. One of our guys, specifically, he just goes in schools and businesses, and then a lot of stuff is businesses that they just had stuff sitting around. So, like, businesses will hire out these E waste guys to come clean out stuff, which I kind of. I've thought about getting in that business because you get paid to get profitable inventory, which is kind of cool. And so, but I don't know. I think since we're in smaller cities, it's kind of harder for us to do it. So we'll just bottle for these guys.
- [35:23]
Chris
Yeah, yeah. Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast, so if you know of someone with a side hustle or a. That's unique and cool and super profitable. Email molly mo l y co founders.com that's one word. Co founders.com mollyco founders.com Tell her your story, and we'll give you a hundred bucks if we end up interviewing them. Okay, so you make your first cold calls. How many cold calls would you say you had to make? And then from those calls, how many new suppliers did you get?
- [35:50]
John
We talking about all time or, like,
- [35:51]
Chris
and just like, in that time period from, like, from, like, inflection point of September to. To today.
- [35:58]
John
Okay. I would say probably close to a thousand then. Honestly.
- [36:01]
Lucas
You think so?
- [36:01]
John
Yeah, I mean, I think the more cold calls you make, like, you have to factor in, like, okay, I might get half a percent to 1% of these just because it is so hard. All these people already have buyers, so you're trying to, like, wiggle your way in there almost. And a lot of them selling ebay, so you're like, you're already. You're kind of breaking in their systems. You're like, all right, I want to.
- [36:17]
Chris
These doesn't want you doing that.
- [36:19]
John
Yeah, exactly. So I don't know. I took. We probably made a thousand cold calls, and we've gotten five or six suppliers. Maybe it's not.
- [36:26]
Lucas
Not to mention we sent out, like, 12,000 emails. It was a lot of groundwork.
- [36:31]
John
We've gotten a few of those, which we use AI to get all the emails. So it wasn't like we were, like, clicking on every site.
- [36:35]
Chris
Well, let me be very clear. Like, not all cold calls are created equal. If I'm cold, calling up consumers to sell them diet pills, like, that's probably, like, one of the worst things you could do, right? But you're calling companies that already do something, and you're saying, I want to give you money. Right? That's how I look at it. I hate cold calls, too, but if that's my cold call, yeah, I'll make a thousand. Hey, can I give you money? You know, other people are giving you money. Can I give you some of that money? I'm oversimplifying. It doesn't mean it's a yes. They would much rather sell to reputable people or paying buyers, buyers that they've worked with in the past because they trust them more. Of course. You're 19, 20. You got to break through that. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's just. It's an easier ask of can I give you money? As opposed to can I sell you something? Right.
- [37:20]
John
The hard part now has been, like, a lot of these people are starting to figure out the vintage electronics so good on ebay. So, like, we literally have one supplier the other week. And I was, like, emailing him. I was like, hey, you got anything else for us? Like, we bought three or four off of him. And he's like, sorry, man. Like, we're starting to realize that, like, our ebay buyers are going to pay more than you. And I'm like, yeah. I mean, that's gonna happen.
- [37:36]
Chris
Yeah, it's gonna happen. Like, there's like, an. I've been selling on eBay for 20 years, and, like, there's always categories that come and go. And as long as you're tapped into the ebay culture, you'll be tapped into the hot category. And a year from now, you might be selling Converse shoes. You know, like, who knows? Okay, so you make all these cold calls. You go from one supplier, which is very dangerous, to, you know, five, six, seven. What? Then you're still buying the same type of stuff, mostly from the US from different suppliers. If your per unit cost was 10 bucks before. What does it look like today?
- [38:09]
John
I'd say it's definitely increased, which is just the nature of the beast. I mean, getting like. It's just that supplier was very rare. And like, in the US you are going to pay more of a premium just because it is the U.S. i mean, just like, everything's more expensive here. So I would say it really depends. Like, sometimes we're paying upwards of $30. So I will say it depends on if we're getting a manifest or like, pictures. Like, we will pay more if it's a scripted manifest. Like, a lot of these US guys, they're. They have tons of employees. They're going to get you a manifest, what it comes with. And so with those, we're paying anywhere from 20 to $40 each. And we'll just like, maybe like, barely double our money or go a little bit under double. Just because it's like, confirmed. It's going to like, work versus, like, unsorted stuff. I'd say we're probably in the 15 to 20 range, 15 to like 40 range now. So definitely not as, but it's still pretty good.
- [38:53]
Chris
And what are you selling units for on average nowadays?
- [38:56]
Lucas
I mean, it's really all over the place because it's so much broadly, slightly under what we were before. Maybe like 100 to 190 somewhere in there. 150.
- [39:04]
John
If it's working.
- [39:04]
Lucas
If it's work.
- [39:05]
John
Yeah.
- [39:05]
Lucas
Yes. Because there are still. Yeah, but like we said before, defect rate in the US Is so much better. Like, you don't have as many.
- [39:11]
Chris
Yeah.
- [39:11]
Lucas
Because also I think our quality of suppliers went up because we're calling these people. A lot of these guys are getting stuff out of working environments. That's the big thing. And they're pulling them out of working environments. The stuff works and they don't test it. They give it to us. But we, once we buy a lot from them, we're like, okay, these work. So we know we can sell them for a higher price.
- [39:26]
Chris
So that might be like an elementary school that has a bunch of iPads and they're just upgrading. They're not broken. There's nothing wrong. They're just getting new ones, right?
- [39:33]
Lucas
100. Yeah.
- [39:34]
John
Yeah. Upgrading is our favorite. Those are our favorite buyers.
- [39:37]
Chris
Yeah, I'm sure it feels like, because I've been in this space. Just note to the. To the listener. I. My first, like, big business was an iPhone repair business. And then I sold millions of iPhone, screens and cases. And like, I specifically have been in the. The electronics Resale space. Specifically smartphones and tablets. Right. To me that's like, like iPhones, tablets, laptops, MacBooks, whatever. That's like a whole other world in electronics, is it not?
- [40:03]
John
It is.
- [40:03]
Lucas
It's crazy because like when you get a manifested list, a lot of times they have all their consumer electronics just like Dell laptops or what have you. And then separately they put all their Apple products and they charge a premium on Apple. So it's like I would love Apple because Apple sell through rate is amazing. Of course they do have their own problems, but people just want so much just because it's Apple.
- [40:23]
Chris
Competition is.
- [40:24]
John
Yeah, I don't think we've ever got Apple in before.
- [40:27]
Lucas
No, I don't think we have either.
- [40:28]
John
Wow.
- [40:30]
Chris
Are you selling VCRs?
- [40:31]
John
Yes. Those are like, we can't get those in bulk because I mean they're gonna break instantly shipping in bulk. But every time I go to Yorktail, I'll probably find one. Two dollars go to 100 Thrift Store. Five dollars go to 100.
- [40:43]
Chris
So a hundred dollars for a VCR and you're paying two bucks for them? Who's buying vcrs? Is it millennials for their kids? Like people like me buying them?
- [40:50]
John
So they're like older people. Nobody makes them anymore. So yeah, they have to go to ebay for them.
- [40:54]
Chris
Literally not. I, I think I just read an article a year or two ago that like the last VCR manufacturer went out of business.
- [41:00]
John
Business, yeah, nobody makes anymore. So there's so much demand.
- [41:02]
Chris
VC 100x markup on vcrs. What is this world? Anything's gonna sell good, it doesn't even matter. Like, like you said, supply and demand. There's no more supply, so the demand goes up.
- [41:15]
John
Exactly. Same with camcorders. Nobody makes them anymore. Same with digital camera.
- [41:18]
Chris
We're talking like the, you flip out the thing like one.
- [41:21]
John
Yeah. I literally sold six of them today for 300 to a flea market guy.
- [41:26]
Chris
Let's do this. I wasn't planning.
- [41:28]
John
We'll give you a quote. You found it. Here we go.
- [41:32]
Lucas
Here's the reveal.
- [41:34]
Chris
You ever do like these thermal printers here?
- [41:36]
John
Oh yeah, that's probably.
- [41:38]
Chris
Shut up, dude. I have like 12 of these in my attic.
- [41:40]
John
The Dymo maybe not quite.
- [41:42]
Chris
I got zebras, I got dyes. Holy. I, I, I mean, I've had a bunch of shipping. I got so many of these and I've almost thrown.
- [41:49]
Lucas
Now we'll buy them.
- [41:50]
John
Yeah, this is the fun. Like this is what we do with people all the time. We'll go to the Yard sale. They won't have stuff out. We'll be like, hey, do you have anything in your junk drawer? Like any campers camera and stuff? And they'll go out and pull out like a Wii and be like a dollar for this.
- [41:59]
Chris
Got this. I got this like nest thermostat.
- [42:03]
John
The nest is up for 30 easy.
- [42:04]
Chris
No, this is like a mesh. A Google WI fi mesh router.
- [42:07]
John
Yeah, yeah, I get those all the time.
- [42:09]
Chris
Look, I got a freaking GoPro in here. I got another GoPro on my nightstand.
- [42:12]
John
I've never used a couple hundred probably.
- [42:15]
Chris
I got a DSLR lens right here. I wish I could find that camera. Whatever. Anyway, I'm floored. I'm floored that this stuff sells for.
- [42:23]
Lucas
For so much. Holy crap.
- [42:24]
Chris
I've been saying. So fun fact, I. I'm like a domain name junkie. And I, I buy way too many. And I had. Back when I was in college, I started this business called Door to More. And it was Door Door to door electronics selling or Door to door electronics buying. You just go through these wealthy suburbs and you're like, hey, I'm here to buy all your crap, right? And I'll be back tomorrow. I'll be back next week or something. Here's my card. I'll be back and I'll. I'll Venmo you on the spot. And it was called instead of Door to Doors, Door to More, which is kind of corny, but I ended up selling that domain to like some kids resale shop for 750 bucks anyway. But yeah, like, I think anyone in the world could go do that and should, like, go door to door, because it's not a hard pitch. It's not like, hey, do you want to buy pest control? It's like, hey, I want to give you money right now. You probably have four iPhones in a drawer. Let me pay you for them.
- [43:14]
John
You can honestly get it for free too. Like, I have a couple of buyers on the personal side for my business. Personal reselling. Like, literally have a guy that shipped me stuff yesterday, he's in California, he puts bins out in neighborhoods. He's like, hey, like, if you have all the electronics, just put them in here. And he'll send me pictures every month. Be like, hey, I got this right now.
- [43:28]
Chris
I did that shout out to Bob Jones high school, Madison, Alabama. I was a volunteer wrestling coach there back in 20 2012, and we had a fundraiser. They were selling cheesecakes door to door. And I'm like, we're not doing that, guys. I Brought in a big box. We sent an email to all the wrestling parents and it was just an email, an e waste drive. And I did this like pro bono to help the team and they basically just donated all these Nintendo switches and not switches, it was too old, but you know, old electronics and I'd sell them on ebay and I gave all the money to the wrestling team. But like anyone in the world could do that for profit and should. Yeah, right.
- [44:04]
John
That's fire. Yeah.
- [44:05]
Chris
Okay, so you have five or six suppliers, you're doing the same thing. What does your business look like today with regards to like monthly revenue and profit?
- [44:12]
John
With the suppliers that we have now, probably 10, 20 ish K maybe, maybe a little bit lower than that. But at the peaks, like we were doing pretty decent amount. And so like we actually crossed like six figures last year, which was pretty cool. Especially as like two college. Yeah. And so profits in the summertime like we were, I mean we were talking about it earlier, probably 50% profits no matter what. But it's definitely like, like, like we talked about you have to buy us suppliers so it's just going to cost more. And so just because of that, it's probably closer to 30, 30ish percent maybe. But I mean that's still pretty good for like running it. Pretty much like I'm still in college.
- [44:48]
Chris
You guys are still both part time on this?
- [44:50]
John
Pretty much, yeah. So we both run our personal stores. It's definitely like way lower than, than the big business. I mean still like good, like little gas money and stuff like that.
- [44:58]
Lucas
Yeah, it's a little bit, a little
- [44:59]
John
bit better and then. Yeah, I'm also a student and he, he's like full time entrepreneur, I guess.
- [45:04]
Chris
Yeah. Where do you want to take this? Do you want to keep scaling this and if so, what will that look like?
- [45:10]
Lucas
Yeah, so if this guy can lock in a little bit and he can deliver on the stuff he's been telling us for the past month or so, we would like to scale this full time. Like actually full time. Like we're putting 40 plus hours of work in a piece into it and collecting a good chunk of change. But we just like to keep growing and pull money out when we can.
- [45:29]
Chris
So what is the, what's the playbook? Someone watching this, whether they're 15 years old or 95 years old, how can they go from, you know, $0 to 5,000amonth, 10,000amonth?
- [45:41]
John
Yeah, I would say it's the easiest playbook ever. First off, like, I mean we've talked about the whole podcast. Go to your house, find some things that are like, I'm guaranteeing you, you have 500 to 5,000 worth of stuff just laying around your house.
- [45:53]
Lucas
Yeah.
- [45:53]
John
I mean, you did it literally on call. Yeah, yeah, you literally showed them on call. So I mean, go first in your junk drawers, go look around your house, find stuff to sell, take that money, go to a thrift store, go to yard sales. You probably won't even spend all that just because you're going to get stuff so cheap. Go get VCR players, go get, just watch YouTube. Honestly, you're gonna see stuff that sells. Watch our Instagram. You're gonna see stuff that sells every day. And then you're gonna just like keep growing it from there. Building connections. I think a lot of times in the reselling space, people don't think it's like a person, like a people to people business, but it actually is. Like if you buy something off somebody, be like, hey, here's my number. Like, I'll buy these every time you get them in. Same thing on ebay. If you buy something off, I'll be like, hey, every time you get these in, let me know. Like, we've both done that and now we have people messaging us probably close to every day being like, hey, I have this, Avis, I have this. And so then once you get there, like maybe you start to find some even bigger suppliers like we've finally found, and then you can scale it to full time. But I think like most people don't want to go full time. That's what I've seen. And they want to work 5, make like extra 5,000amonth to go to their mortgage and call it a day. So I think, I think you could easily do yard sales and thrift stores, go twice a week and make that 5,000amonth.
- [46:52]
Chris
Well, I would think that people in bigger markets, like you guys live in the middle of nowhere, People in bigger markets would have even more success simply buying on Facebook marketplace and selling on ebay. Because the percentage of people going to list stuff on Facebook marketplace that are actually cross checking prices on ebay, it's probably like 2%. No one's thinking to do that. Even if they're ebay users. They're just not thinking to cross to cross reference prices. So I think people could just like once they exhaust everything in their house, they could just start buying stuff on Facebook marketplace and selling on ebay. And you don't need to, you don't need to spend any money until you already know if there's demand.
- [47:28]
John
Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. So I go to school down in Raleigh. I go to NC State. Basically when I'm here, like home for the summer and stuff, I just do like thrift stores and your hotels and stuff. But when I'm down there, like it's a million plus people. And so that's been like the biggest game changer for my personal business this past six months is. I don't know why I didn't tap into it earlier, but just scrolling Facebook marketplace every day and finding people and then just buying off of that.
- [47:49]
Chris
So, yeah, so I live in Dallas, Fort Worth. There's 9 million people within an hour of me. I just typed in vcr. What do you see? Are you drooling right now?
- [47:56]
John
Yeah.
- [47:57]
Chris
One buck. 10. 20. 20, 20, 20, 10, 15, 20.
- [48:02]
Lucas
That's insane.
- [48:03]
Chris
Anything good here?
- [48:04]
John
Yes, this Magnavox right there, you just went over. Go up right.
- [48:08]
Chris
Right here.
- [48:09]
John
Nope. Go down right here. Yes, right there. That thing right there goes for 150 maybe.
- [48:14]
Chris
Oh, and it's 20 bucks. 20 minutes for me.
- [48:17]
John
All the exact model.
- [48:18]
Lucas
Now, you do have to test them, obviously.
- [48:20]
Chris
Sure. Also, I mean, look how many there are.
- [48:22]
Lucas
I know, it's insane.
- [48:23]
John
The big TVs with the VCRs on them, stuff like 300 CTVs or whatever, they.
- [48:27]
Chris
All right, so every time I scroll 7 times 4, there's 28 listings.
- [48:30]
Lucas
TRT. That's what it is.
- [48:32]
Chris
There we go. So we got 56. We got 112. I mean, look, we've got hundreds. I'm not even to the end. This is just within 40 miles of me. Hundreds of just VCRs.
- [48:45]
John
That's crazy.
- [48:46]
Lucas
Yeah.
- [48:46]
Chris
And then what else should I type in? Camcorder.
- [48:48]
John
Type in? Yeah, camcorder.
- [48:50]
Chris
How are these prices? Let's do 40 max price.
- [48:53]
John
I think this Sony is pretty good. The 41, you could probably talk them down to 22.
- [48:57]
Chris
You see more opportunity here?
- [48:59]
John
I see more in the vcr, but yeah, there's still opportunity right there. That digital camera of 15 and it's like a 150 digital camera.
- [49:06]
Lucas
There's a Canon.
- [49:08]
Chris
What else should I search for? What other categories Digital camera should. At what max price should I do?
- [49:14]
John
50 bucks? Yeah, right there, that 15 one. That's like 150 bucks for that thing. Yeah, it has a flip screen on it.
- [49:22]
Chris
Holy crap. Yeah, so yeah, someone could turn like if they lived in a bigger market, they could turn just buying on Facebook Marketplace and selling on ebay into a legitimate business.
- [49:32]
Lucas
Yeah.
- [49:33]
John
And here's another thing. I Do your audience like I put up a listing on Marketplace saying, I will buy your cameras, I will buy your old electronics. I get messages, like 20 messages a day. A lot of it is.
- [49:41]
Chris
And you're in the middle of nowhere.
- [49:42]
John
Yeah.
- [49:43]
Chris
So make them come to you.
- [49:45]
John
Exactly.
- [49:46]
Chris
Any other search terms I should like? Any hot categories?
- [49:49]
John
Yeah, I do AirPods some, but I think a lot of people know what they have with that.
- [49:52]
Chris
Yeah.
- [49:53]
John
Because what I do with the AirPods instead of selling is a set. I'll break them up individually because people lose like the left one or the right one and they'll pay a premium for that. This look up Texas Instrument Calculator. That'll. That'll be a good one.
- [50:02]
Chris
TI, or should I spell it out?
- [50:04]
John
Do TI84 calculator and see what comes up. That's like the best one.
- [50:07]
Chris
TI headquarters, 20 minutes from me. Fun fact.
- [50:09]
John
People might know what they have with this too. Sometimes I'll get like the top on there, they have for 50 for like 15 and sell it for like 70. But again, like you can lowball these people. Especially if they. Yeah, do 20.
- [50:18]
Chris
I'll do max price 20 here. Free.
- [50:21]
John
There you go. Oh, wow. Free. That thing sells for 75. So like there's so much opportunity out here. Yeah, those two. Oh, wow, that's a steal. Justin Black. There's a digital.
- [50:30]
Chris
Any other. Any other tips, tricks, categories that people should go after that could help them avoid a world of hurt?
- [50:37]
Lucas
You can dabble in close some if you take the time. It's just so much in clothes to figure out that's why we never did it.
- [50:42]
John
I will say medical devices, they sell really well. You have to be careful.
- [50:45]
Lucas
It's kind of a great.
- [50:46]
John
Be very careful. Like, like what you like, like what you can and can't sell. But they sell very fast. Supplements are really fast. That stuff. You just kind of have to be more careful.
- [50:53]
Lucas
Vintage toys. Lego's not even vintage. You can sell lego.
- [50:56]
John
I think the main takeaway from the day is anything vintage or not anything. Because a lot of vintage stuff is not as worthless. Honestly, anything from like the 2000 or 1990, like 2010 range sells really good Game Boys. Yeah, I've sold. I sold three of those last week. 100 bucks a piece.
- [51:09]
Chris
What about actual VHS movies or value there?
- [51:12]
Lucas
Not as much.
- [51:12]
John
It's boomer bust. You're either gonna sell one for 500 or a dollar.
- [51:15]
Lucas
Yeah. Like, do you remember the whole hype around Black diamond Disney stuff?
- [51:19]
Chris
Yes.
- [51:19]
Lucas
If you have a black diamond, it's going to Be worth all this money? It's like, most of them aren't worth that much. I'm sure there are some that are worth a lot, but, like, three bucks for Dumbo Black diamond ever. It's like, come on, dude.
- [51:28]
Chris
I'm. I'm over here thinking, like, how can I set up Claude, Cowork or open claw or some AI Agent to go have hundreds of conversations for me every day, Negotiate, Haggle. Can you deliver it to me? 10 bucks. Here's my Venmo. Like, you could have an AI agent run 90% of this business for you, and then you just pack up the orders and ship them. Like, it would be a lot of work to get to that point, but it would be worth it because.
- [51:50]
John
Yeah, hey, set one up and sell it to everybody.
- [51:53]
Chris
That's a good idea. What? Did I forget to ask you that? I should have asked you.
- [51:56]
John
You forgot about, like, unexpected stories. We kind of talked about this. Or, like, unexpected profit streams. One time. We. So one of our suppliers had, like, hundred. That's why I said, Texas Instruments calculator. He had, like, hundreds of Texas Instruments calculators. And essentially, we did no work in this. We hit buy on ebay. We made an offer. Hit buy. Or we did it separately, but we still have the same supplier. We hit buy.
- [52:15]
Chris
We.
- [52:15]
John
I found a guy in Tennessee that, like, supplies them to schools, and so he buys them in bulk. Like, we don't even have to test them. We literally sent them. We bought them, sent them untested to this guy, this guy test them for us. And he's like, all right, I'm gonna pay you $20 each for the working. Like, $10 for broken. We pay, like, $5 each. And so we literally did no work. We hit buy, and then we're sending Marzelle, and he sells us money. So it's like, there's so many opportunities like this out.
- [52:37]
Chris
You didn't even take delivery of them?
- [52:39]
John
No, we. No, we literally did nothing.
- [52:41]
Lucas
I think the biggest takeaway just on this, even outside of reselling, there's so much money in the world. No matter where you are, who you are, you don't have an excuse. If you want to get out there and you want to make money outside of the 9 to 5, outside of a boss, you just got to put in the work, and you can do it. I mean, it's a year ago, we were just reselling. Could have taken that full time, but we did. We took slightly different approach.
- [52:59]
Chris
I hopped in my truck and started doordashing for the. I. I Don't even order. I was making 30 bucks an hour. 30 bucks an hour. And I was having a blast. Like, there are no excuses. There's just there.
- [53:11]
Lucas
None.
- [53:11]
Chris
I'm sorry.
- [53:11]
Lucas
The American dream is not dead yet.
- [53:13]
Chris
It's alive and well. It's not even. It is more alive than it's ever been. Yeah, I'll say that. Guys, you are the best. Where can we find you if we want to learn?
- [53:21]
John
Yeah, so this past year we just started something called Reseller University. We just wanted to try a new thing about posting a reel every day and we've been doing it for six months. So we're just going to see how long we can do it for. But yeah, just every social media, just look up Reseller University. There's a bunch of them, but there's only one with like actual faces. So that's us.
- [53:37]
Chris
And we'll link to you and just know. That's not a course, that's not a school community. It is their Instagram handle. So don't go pay a school community. Go to their social pages, which we link to in the description.
- [53:49]
Lucas
Yeah, we will be coming out with a course at some point probably.
- [53:52]
Chris
But if they do, buy it from them.
- [53:54]
Lucas
Yes. Own our Instagram, don't buy from anywhere else.
- [53:57]
Chris
That's right. Amen. Lucas, John, you guys are the best. Thank you for coming on the Kerner.
- [54:02]
Lucas
Yeah, appreciate you having us.
- [54:02]
John
Let's stay in touch.
- [54:04]
Chris
Hey guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five star review on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcast. It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.