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The Side Hustle Show
735: Meet the Master Reseller Who Gets Literally Tons of Inventory for Free
00:45:25
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A
If you're selling online or in person, you're familiar with this challenge. You need people to find your products, which usually means paying for ads or hoping they stop by. Whatnot flips that this is the live shopping platform that's exploding right now. On whatnot, you go live and sell directly to real people in real time.
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I've seen whatnot climb to the top
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A
of the app store.
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I've seen the seller earnings everything from small part time projects to multi million dollar businesses.
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A
Whatnot is the largest dedicated live shopping platform. They see what you've got, they can ask you questions, and then they buy. And what's fascinating is they keep coming back for more Whatnot. Buyers are spending more than an hour a day in the app. And all that is great news for sellers. In fact, sellers on whatnot sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces. That's because you're not just listing products. You're building real connections with buyers. From collectibles to cookies, from resale treasures to vintage fashion. People just like you are building real audiences and real businesses on whatnot. And for a limited time, whatnot will match your first $150 sold in the first month. Visit whatnot.com sell to start selling. That's w h a t n o t whatnot.com sell whatnot.com sell this eBay
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B
seller has sold almost 200,000 items and most of that stuff she got for free. My guest today runs one of the biggest and most successful ebay stores on the planet. She's breaking down how she gets all this inventory, how it moves through her systems and down to the bottom line,
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A
and how you might be able to
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start something similar in your own area. From Angie's Green Go surplus. Angie Nelson, welcome to the side hustle show.
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C
Oh, thank you for having me. I'm super excited.
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B
Me too. For this one. Now, my understanding is this story starts, this flipping, arbitrage, reselling story, starts almost by accident where you try to find furnishings for your apartment as newlyweds and you stumble upon this abandonment auction where you thought you were buying one thing. It was like you were actually buying four stories of some liquidation office building.
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C
That's exactly right. So I was a newlywed, I was just a nanny. We were broke looking for furniture for our apartment, brand new apartment. And so we went to this abandonment auction. It was a mortgage company. This is in the recession of 2008 when a lot of financial institutions were closing down as well. So we went to this place and we really didn't know what we were doing, we were just bidding on, you know, like a trash can, a monitor, a file cabinet.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And then everything was like, oh, this is a dollar. We're like, boom, dollar, you know, $40. That sounds cheap.
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B
Sure.
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C
So at the end of the day, we paid like 300 bucks or something. And then when they told us, well, you need to empty it out, this place, you know, before the end of the day, we're like, that's not a problem. Put on the pickup truck and go. What we didn't know is that we won all the monitors of the four floors. So whatever we made the bid on was for the four floors. Right. So we ended up with, like, 400 file cabinets and, like, about a thousand tr. Like, 80 monitors. All I just needed was one monitor, like one computer monitor for me. Not 80.
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B
Yeah. At a price you thought was a good deal for one monitor.
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C
Yeah. So we almost have a heart attack. You know, my husband had to call everybody that he knew, cousins and neighbors and so on and so forth, and just rent a truck. And then we had to figure out how we were going to do it. Right. So this accident, we were, you know, accidental entrepreneurs. We started as a not knowing what we're doing, and we came up with an idea. The storage warehouses where you can rent the first month for $1, and then the next one, they will charge you full price. We went for it. So it's like we pay $1, use it, fill it up with everything we could, and then we had to figure out how to get rid of everything in the next 29 days.
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B
Right, right. Yeah. Now all of a sudden, I need a place to store all this stuff.
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C
Yeah. That's how we started.
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B
So from this $300 investment, you remember what that ended up flipping into?
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C
It was a couple thousand dollars. Yeah, definitely. It was, you know, closer to tenfold investment, for sure. But we had all of these things, and we started doing the. The flea market. And there's just, you know, only so much you can. You can sell every Saturday or every weekend. And then somebody told us in the flea market, somebody told us, have you tried to just get rid of all of this for the price of just the metals? And we're like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, if you take it to this place, they will pay you per pound on metals and aluminum and copper. And we're like, wait, what? So we did. We load up all of this stuff and we went to this recycler city, you know, next door, and it opened our eyes seeing People, you know, opening computers, disassembling certain things. We're like, cha Ching, this is it. This is a great idea. Like, they're making money, so we can do it too.
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B
Okay. And it's gonna be like, anytime you're scrapping something, it's gonna be for materials. It's gonna be less than what you would have gotten as a resale. But it's kind of the easy button solution. Like, you can make a lot of stuff disappear and get paid for it right away.
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C
Absolutely. But, you know, at this time, we were talking. That was like 400 file cabinets.
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B
Right. What are you gonna do with all this stuff?
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C
So per metal, you know, we got some. A couple hundred dollars on. Per ton on. On metals. It was definitely eye opening and an amazing opportunity. And that's really how our company, E Waste Direct, an electronic recycling company here in the San Francisco Bay Area, started. Just by seeing somebody else.
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B
Yeah. And these auctions are still going on all the time, especially even online with liquidation returns and customer return pallets and stuff like that. In fact, we just did a full episode on that. So that may be one way to source inventory. But with E Waste to direct, it is even more creative than that because you're going out to Bay Area companies, I guess, and maybe starting with individuals and saying, we'll pick up your stuff for free. We're getting inventory for free that we can either turn around and resell or we could scrap. And we can make money from doing that. So talk about the origins of the E Waste Direct and kind of doing these pickups.
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C
Yeah. So it was fascinating because we started doing correctly at that time. There was no such a thing as Facebook. It's a while ago. So we started doing Craiglist and we say we pick up your Eway. So my husband will be driving to everybody's neighborhoods and picking up their broken DVD players and TVs and microwaves and you name it. And so we were getting some stuff that most of the stuff was not working because whatever comes from residential, you know, sometimes doesn't work. Or we had to put a lot of work in to try to fix it or clean it or whatever. So we did a. We were getting some stuff that had potential value. So we're like, you know what this. This definitely could be. We can sort of scale our approach to making money. So we turn onto ebay. We use that platform because of, you know, the opportunities. They're the pioneers for E commerce and everything that you can find that is so unique. And it's. It's Great for technology. And so when something sold, we're like, oh, my gosh, this is definitely a business idea. We can scale, you know, we can grow. And from there, we started reaching out to companies, businesses on Craig List. Like, you know, we pick up your e waste from businesses and some companies actually reach out to us. It's like, how much do you charge for removing these? We're like, nothing. We'll go and pick it up for free. They're like, for free? What's the catch? We're like, nothing. We're going to grab your stuff. We're going to go and, you know, sort it out and make money when we sell it, whether it's for recycle or for reusage value.
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B
You're such an entrepreneur. I'm surprised you didn't say, well, yeah, the pickup fee is $1,000. So we'll be there Tuesday morning.
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C
We were getting nervous, like, what if we do? Then we're like, oh, that's too much. Because we didn't know the market. We didn't know any. Right. So we're like, yeah, it's for free. Let's go for it. And so they trust us.
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B
Let's try it out.
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C
Yeah, we went and saw it. What they needed to be picked up. We picked it up. And then they love our service and how fast we did it and, you know, how professional. And they say, hey, will you go and pick it up in our office in San Francisco? We're like, absolutely. And then that person was so happy and they'd recommend us to somebody else. And it just spread the word and there you go.
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B
Okay. Yeah. One company knows another company. They have multiple locations. All of a sudden you become the go to people for this. When those companies are upgrading their equipment, what do we do with the old stuff? Well, we can call up Angie and they'll come pick it up.
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C
Yeah, One happy customer. That's all it takes for them to spread the word.
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B
Do you have an early win of picking up something for free and reselling it? Kind of like a. Oh, there might be something here.
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C
Absolutely. So one of our biggest sale, it was a $8,000 sale. It was an obsolete, I will call it Apple RAID server that had like, no market in the United States. When we did research on ebay, it was just like not, you know, not moving or very few people will have something like that. And when these items sold to Amsterdam to Holland, actually, ebay has a global shipping program. So you ship all the items to them and they forward it to the final destination internationally.
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B
Okay.
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C
Because we didn't know anything about exports or, you know, imports or exports or anything internationally. So ebay has the tools to make you succeed and, you know, have a global presence. And so when this item sold, which was a ton of money, it allowed us, in just one transaction, a big sum. We were able to buy our very first 14 foot truck and we were able to really be professional, look professional, you know, put some advertising on that truck and then just go around the city.
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A
Yeah.
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For $8,000, I'll figure out how to ship this server for sure. It's cool that they make it easy for you where it's like, you don't have to deal with the international element, just send it to our hub and we'll forward it on.
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C
Yeah. We don't have to understand how the international laws and customs and taxes or anything works. They do the work for you.
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B
Okay. Yeah. An $8,000 flip from something that you got for free just because of like, well, okay, it's obsolete here in the Bay Area, where it's like, you know, the tech hub.
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C
Yeah.
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B
But other places in the world, you know, maybe they. Maybe they still want this thing.
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C
Yeah, that's. That's what's the most surprising thing for us selling online is just the, the global demand for items that in the United States are obsolete or people call it vintage or, you know, whatever it is.
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B
Yeah. So on the ebay store, like I said, closing in on 200,000 items. Laptops, phones, servers. I mean, there's a little bit of everything on there, but you've got to get in some items that really. Sure, I would love to resell at $8,000, but not all of it. Some of it might legitimately be junk that nobody wants.
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A
Right.
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Is there a hierarchy of resale value here?
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C
Yeah. So there's definitely a lot of work involved. And no, I wish that we could get the $8,000 item every time. So. Yeah, so we get a lot of servers and a lot of computers and laptops able to sort of sell a lot of the times, like multi quantity. Right. So we've sold like certain Dell laptops for, you know, so many times that I have just an easy listing. And it's kind of like a released, you know, multi quantity on that.
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B
Okay.
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C
So by selling some of this stuff for so many years, it's just easy to relist when we get our items. We do a lot of research on the ebay product research, because this tool allows you to have. I think it's up to three years of research. So to See if items, you know, have sold and what price they sold and everything. But when it comes to technology, especially these days, I mean 20, 26 in the, in the time of AI and everything, we're looking at just what has really sold in a spike in price or complete drop in price in the last two or three months. That's where technology has sort of come these days.
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B
Okay, so you get stuff in you, you complete a pickup and what happens? So the research process, you get the stuff into the warehouse, you try and figure out what it is based on the markings on the bottom or the serial number or like sometimes I guess I can figure out the brand name because it says it's a Dell laptop or a Lenovo something. And then trying to figure out the sales history for completed listings on ebay in the last 90 days. Like, okay, what do we think this thing is worth? And then just testing it to make sure that it's is still functional, that the battery's not all like swollen and broken and stuff like that.
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C
Yeah. So first of all, we do about five to seven business pickups every day. So that's a lot of volume, a lot of galers and pallets of material to be separated.
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B
Yeah. How many items is that?
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C
Oh my gosh, I don't know about the items, but we pick up about £50,000 of E waste every month. That will give you an idea. £50,000. And you know, divide that by, you know, laptops, cell phones, servers, switches, computers. That's a lot.
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B
Yeah, we're talk in tonnage of products moved rather than individual items.
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C
Yes, yes. And so, you know, we absolutely love what we do. And so when we get the items, we have our team in our warehouse. And so when we bring all the stuff out of the truck, we wait it to make sure we can keep the wait for the companies so they can also get it certified. And you know, there's just many factors or benefits to it. And then from there we start triaging, separating, sorting what has value, you know, what definitely goes in the middle, you know, broken microwaves or whatever and the or file cabinets like we did. And so we go from there and then we do everything that is potential sale for non working parts. Meaning a laptop that is with a cracked screen might still have a working motherboard. Right. Or vice versa. The keyboard is broken or the trackpad is bad or whatever, but the screen is fully working.
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B
Okay.
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C
So then we have that separate into this pile. So we have the scrap recycle pile, everything that has potential for parcel repair pile and Everything else that will be sold for fully working, you know, we're going to work on it and we have it fully working or it's brand new and sealed.
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B
And it's probably important to note these are systems built up over the last almost 20 years because this is where the value add is. This is where the labor comes in in the product testing and seeing if it works. Okay, it is. Okay, I can resell this. Okay. Some of it might be working. Okay. I need to now disassemble this and list out all the individual parts and photograph that and create those listings. Or it's going to be a wash. It's going in the scrap pile here. But what's interesting is like, when I take stuff to the dump, they charge me to dump it. And it's like, no, no, no, you can still get paid for scrap here. So it's like, I mean, is there a cost to dispose of this stuff that's like. Especially if it's like hazardous. It's lithium batteries. It's other things that could be dangerous.
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C
Yes. So we do the pickups for free. So we're solving a problem for the companies. Right. And so they love it because we take it off their hands and that's a win win for everybody. Right. We move it out of their very expensive real estate space and then we take it. And we know a potential to make money. But at the same time, when it is just like you said, dangerous, you know, that requires a lot more handling properly, you know, more carefully. We do have a charge, like right now, for example, it's really hard to recycle toners, you know, comes from the copiers and the printers. So we do have a charge for that.
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B
Okay.
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C
When it comes to the batteries, absolutely. Especially we are like under the radar because there's been so many accidents and explosions because people is mishandling laptops, I'm sorry, batteries, like you said, just if they're swollen and, you know, about to explode and people just like to tinker with those things and they don't take it seriously. So, yeah, it's a very dangerous thing. And so, yes, we have to pay for those things. So it's an expense that we're incurring, but it's also we get to utilize the value of the rest of the items as well.
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B
Got it. Yeah. Kind of a cost of doing business and you don't really know what they're going to have when you show up to do the pickup. And so it's kind of a little bit of a roll of the dice to say, well, hopefully there's some valuable stuff mixed in with the stuff that's going to cost us.
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C
Yeah, we set it on our website and we tell them when we contact them that they have to be, you know, if anything has a battery or lithium batteries, they have to be in the side and be careful because we're going to transport it. So we don't want any accidents or the contacts. You know, just it could be very dangerous. So it's everybody's responsibilities.
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B
Got it. Okay, talk to me about the listing process. So we're going to go Tier one is something that we can resell as is. We're going to test it, we're going to prove that it's functional, like what happens next to create compelling listing for that. Angie's response plus minimizing customer returns, her ebay pricing and shipping strategy, and lots more coming up right after this.
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A
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C
yes. Say for example, a laptop. And I say laptop just because it's one of my most common. This is what I sell the most. But we have tons of items in our stor store about 1400 items on any given day. And the laptop has, you know, water damage or trackpad doesn't work or keyboard doesn't work or one of the ports doesn't work. So we still power it up and we test it. We make sure that it doesn't have a hard drive, doesn't have any information. We remove the hard drive or the SSD and we're able to test it as is. And so after that we move it into the research. Okay, what does this laptop sell for? A fully working screen or whatever situation. Each laptop has a different situation. And so from there we put the information in drafts on ebay and then we take the picture and so we describe it as much as we can. Because one of the things that we love as sellers is just like we sell, we sell, we sell. But we don't keep in mind that people is going to return, return, return. Right. And when it comes to technology, we're really underestimated returns. It's a big headache for a company because we already pay for shipping and people sometimes it's just a return it because it's not compatible or is a remorse buyer, you know, buyer's remorse. Or they just didn't like it or they can't make it to work. And so there is a lot of user error when it comes to technology but you still have to treat your customers nicely.
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B
So yeah, you're like, well we put it in the description, come on now you gotta cost us money to return. I didn't even think about the return, especially at the volume that you're doing. Yeah, There's a, it's gotta be a whole returns department.
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C
Oh yes, it's very painful. So we're improving our listings, you know, as we go. Even after 18 years you're still like super detailing it everywhere and put it because people is, it's today's world is like we look at the picture, we buy it, we don't read the little small print. Right. Even though it says in the title broken keyboard or you know, whatever. And it's like, hey, when they get it, hey, this keyboard doesn't work. I'm like, it's in the title right there. Yeah, we told you it happens all the time. And so that's a big one when it comes to the description. Right. And the pictures have, you have to put, even allows you to put like up to 24 pictures. We put about six to 10 pictures depending on the item. You have to really do your best to have the best light because if you do it too bright, it takes away the flaws. And when people get, it's like that's not how it was shown in the picture. And so you have to have good pictures with good descriptions. And for me, like when I'm selling screens like the monitors, you know, all of these things that are sort of reflective. I stated it has scratches or it has, you know, some sort of marks in there, but they're very hard to capture because it's a reflective thing. So you tried your best to describe and sometimes people is like, hey, this unit was a lot nicer than I thought. So thank you so much. So people end up being happy customers.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Trying to under promise and over deliver, like being very upfront. If there's any scratches or damage, you don't want that to be the potential cause of a return. And now you're dealing with this all over again.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Do you do the auction based system or is it just like, look, the laptop's worth 300 bucks. I want to price it at 295 and I'm going to sell it right away.
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C
I don't do auctions. To me it's a little bit more time consuming. Keeping an eye on what an item is selling every five to seven days. If it's sold for like really cheap or you know, the reserve price is too high, people don't get excited. You know, there's just so many things and for me it's just a lot better to say this is my price, make me an offer. Because I'm always willing to accept offers. Right. 100% of my items have offers. I Accept offers.
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B
Okay.
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C
And then I also, when they send me an offer, I. I will say, sorry, I can't do that low because of the shipping cost coast to coast. So what I try to bring up, and this is very important, United States is so wide, is so big. And for the people that live in the. In. In Calif. Shipping to New York or Florida or Delaware, it is so expensive. And so there is people that is closer to Florida asking you for a really big discount. And so I decline it. And I said, look, maybe somebody that is closer to your area will be able to afford that by my shipping will kill me.
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B
Got it, Got it.
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C
And so some people actually understand, like, oh, thanks, I didn't think of that. Or they will go and up the offer, keeping in mind that.
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B
Okay. And you have the ability to counter too. They offered you 200 and you can come back and say, well, how about 250?
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C
Yeah, absolutely. And that's probably my favorite part of selling is being able to sort of negotiate and embarrass with the person, with the buyers. I have a lot of repeat buyers, so I give them better discount because they keep coming all the time. They're, you know, repair companies or, you know, there's just so many different options. But yeah, I love this back and forth and communication and building those relationships with people.
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B
Is there a rule of thumb if you get the stuff for free? Like, the margin is infinite, but like the rule of what price you want to accept if somebody makes you an offer?
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C
Yeah. So, yes, I do get the items for free. However, I do have a very expensive overhead.
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B
Yeah. A warehouse, team members.
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C
Yeah, yeah. And we do have to pay a liability insurance every time we go into these businesses to pick up equipment. So it's a very upfront expense as well. And so the bigger the company, the higher the insurance coverage and everything. So it gets a little bit more complicated. But yeah, so let's just say I get the item for free, but. But I know what the item is going for based on the research from ebay, what has sold in the last so many months. So I wouldn't take any less than the average. That is what it's selling for on ebay at the moment.
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B
Okay. Because you don't need to turn it right away.
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C
No, I don't.
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B
Look, I'm willing to wait another month or something for the right buyer.
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C
Absolutely. And you know, there are some items that are so unique that it's not gonna sell in the next two or three months either, because you have to wait for the right Buyer.
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B
Okay, yeah, that's helpful. What do you use to manage all of the inventory? Got to imagine it's beyond spreadsheets at this point.
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C
Well, it's actually just through ebay, so it is sort of in a spreadsheet.
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A
Okay.
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C
But the amazing thing is on. On ebay, when you're doing the listing, the items still stay there for up to two years. So if something that you want to sell right now that. That I know for a fact I sold it a year ago or something, I can literally just reuse the same template, if you will, or the same listing and just come and I do the changes that I need to, or upload a different picture and obviously fix the price, but everything is there. So ebay has amazing tools for success as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, and that's all that I'm using right now. Just keep it simple. It has worked out really well for the last 18 years for us.
- [24:36]
B
What do you like for shipping? Is there negotiated rates with certain shippers or do you tack on shipping to the buyer? How does it work?
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C
Work? So I offer free shipping on all of my items. And. And there is a psychology to it. You know, it sounds a lot better when somebody says it's free shipping instead of me saying, well, this item is $10, but I'm going to charge you $20 for shipping. Right. People feel like what? Like it's a, you know, ripoff. So I include it. And then, like I said, I accept the offers from the buyers based on location because I know how much that item is going to cost me to ship, you know, so close, so far, or why not? But what I love is ebay has a very rob printing labels. And as a. As a corporation, as a company, they get a huge volume discount. So that when you're printing the labels, you're already getting like 40, 50% discount on a label. Like if you were gonna go to the, you know, physical location of the postal office or the ups.
- [25:33]
B
Yeah.
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C
And so that has been golden for us. And we just get to decide if we're gonna ship it, you know, ground OR Priority or FedEx Express based on how expensive the item is. If something is very expensive and it's small, I. I usually do like FedEx Express because in two days will be final destination and it's a less handling and it makes people feel a lot better when they're buying something so expensive and it's taking forever. You know, they get nervous what's taking so long, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, but communication is Key. Right. As soon as I print the label, the buyer gets the tracking information and then I. It's funny because today, within the world that we want everything yesterday. Sometimes people buy something and you know, like last night and then this morning at four in the morning, I already had emails. It's like, hey, when are you shipping the item? I'm like, you bought it around 12.
- [26:20]
B
Relax. It. Let me, let me at least get to work first.
- [26:23]
C
Let me sleep. I mean, we do sleep, you know, we're not robots. It's a human company. We're not Amazon or something like that.
- [26:29]
B
So yeah, Amazon's got everybody spoiled by the same day or next day shipping.
- [26:35]
C
Yes. But having the communication and making feel people good about, you know, the way you ship and how long it's going to take potentially and everything. So it makes them feel really good. And it's just that trust that you
- [26:44]
B
build with them when you're creating the listing. And it's a laptop and it's 5 pounds and it's 15 inch laptop. Does eBay give you an estimate of how much that shipping is going to cost? So you can kind of mentally bake it into your ultimate price if you're going to offer free shipping.
- [27:00]
C
So they have a calculated shipping. Yes, but because I have the free shipping, I just put the measurements and the weight and I sort of already know after 18 years of trial and error how much it's going to cost me.
- [27:12]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:12]
C
But I'll tell you one of our biggest mistakes, and we only discovered it like two or three years ago, it was that we were shipping their laptops in a box that was like 16 by 12 by 4. And we were able to get our hands into a smaller, a little smaller laptop box, which was like 14 by 12 by 3. And that extra 2 inches in the side was able to bring the shipping costs like three to five dollars per laptop.
- [27:40]
B
Okay.
- [27:41]
C
So we realized that for so many years we've lost thousands of dollars because we were shipping on a box that was two inches too big. You learn so much. It's an ongoing. You have to adapt. It's painful, but you go, it's our lives.
- [27:58]
B
Yeah. I mean, better to have learned it than never learned it for sure. Do you ever worry about the inventory sourcing, drying up with the companies saying, well, maybe we'll have our summer intern list this stuff themselves and they can sell it over the course of the summer. Or somebody else comes in and, and not only undercuts, they're like, well, we'll pay a little bit to let us take away this obsolete tech. I don't know. It's kind of reliant on the steady demand of buyers, which I don't see going away, but also the steady stream of supply coming in.
- [28:27]
C
Yes. So do you worry? Yes. But then you make the changes necessary and you build the relationships necessary to make sure that that sort of doesn't always happen. And by that, companies pay a lot of already expensive salaries and overhead for employees and trying to start a learning curve, you know, get into this big selling, online learning curve, just so they can make a little bit extra money. They have no interest for them. Just like you said, though, they say, hey, would you just pay me a little bit for this? Right. So they want to get more money out of that. And I'll tell you something, that it has been amazing for us in the last two years and that we've been able to scale our business big time selling on ebay has. After 18 years, we have a fleet of trucks. We have 13 employees. They're all full time. We have 10,000 square feet of warehouse. We've been able to collect like 10 million pounds of e waste in the last 18 years. And we sell about 1200 to 1500 items a month now. In the last two years, we were struggling because the economy has been so uncertain. And you know, 2024 was like an election year, so nobody knew what was happening. So even though the companies didn't want to recycle, they didn't know if they were shutting down, if they're just expanding. There was just so much. And so everybody was sort of froze. So we were able to apply for the seller capital program through the ebay platform. And it's a system they're providing to all of their sellers. And we were able to get all of this cash advance, all of this money in advance. And we're able to pay to have flexible payments, unlike traditional banking systems. Right. You have a monthly, monthly fee with them. With ebay, seller capital program, if you don't sell, you don't pay. And so we picked a percentage of what we felt comfortable. Right. You get to pick between 10% of my sales, go to the seller capital, or 10%, 15%, whatever it is that you feel comfortable paying back. Right. So we were able to hire two more people because we had a lot of like a bottleneck inventory, like backup inventory. We just needed extra hands and we're able to repair our trucks, which we were paying a lot of money daily leasing a truck because to repair our truck was very expensive. So we were able to put that money into it, get back to work. And now we're actually buying back really high end inventory from companies especially like high end servers and gaming laptops and gaming computers. So now we're able to be at the same level that bigger corporations could be making purchasing in big. Right. And now with the seller, capital has opened up all of this door for us. So since last year in 20, 24, 25, our sales has spiked, you know, 36%. And so we've been able to compete high. So I'm not really nervous about somebody else staking my thing. We're just coming up with different way ways of making money and approaching the companies, how we can serve them better.
- [31:25]
B
We got it. So some people are asking you now to pay them a little bit for this old inventory.
- [31:31]
C
Yeah, yeah. The companies are like, yeah, we just actually need money too. So.
- [31:35]
B
More with Angie in just a moment, including getting more eyeballs on your ebay listings, an expensive mistake to avoid. Plus some future initiatives for Angie's gringo surplus also coming up right after this.
- [31:48]
A
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- [32:09]
B
Quo is the number one rated business
- [32:11]
A
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- [34:04]
B
parts in this business where if I was to start this myself, I would try and do it like on a very small scale. Like if I knew a friend of mine or even my own company was, like, upgrading their equipment. Like, could I test the waters without a 10,000 square foot warehouse first or without this team of people? Like, could I get a handful of inventory in the door and see if I could resell that and then kind of level up and scale up from there? Curious if there's anything else on the tools or technology side that you're loving right now to help you manage everything.
- [34:33]
C
So because what we sell is a lot of computers and servers and all of that nature, when it comes to technology, we do use a software called Wipe os and it's a certified data destruction software. And so that corporations can trust us, that's how we're wiping their data from the hard drive so that we can resell them. Okay. And so that's a big one. That's our biggest software. And then we just use ebay with all of their tools and the marketing tools. And what we love about ebay is that it allows you to grow and scale as much as you want to. We utilizing a lot of the marketing and a lot of the advertising as well. So it makes us look like we're a big store. We get to create promotions, accept Offers, counter offers, send newsletters to the people, to the buyers, and that just keep us engaged with being proactive with the buyers. I mean, there's a lot of people that have their items in the cart because sometimes they're not sure about pricing or whatever it is. And then we get to see that in the back end through ebay. So we're able to send an extra, hey, here is an extra 5%, you know, or 10% and, and push for those sales. And that's just amazing.
- [35:40]
B
Okay, so they will do that on your behalf because they want to make the sale too, so they can get their cut. Oh, this person's had their item in their cart for 10 days. They might need a little nudge. Hey, did you forget about, about this? Okay, I, I like that. And then they have the kind of your buyer list and so they can say, you know, a monthly blast of like, new inventory from the store that you bought from in the past.
- [35:59]
C
Yeah, well, so I, I get to send a newsletter to all of the past buyers and say all of my laptops are on sale or new inventory coming or, you know, whatever it is. So yeah, it allows us to be so active.
- [36:11]
B
Got it. Okay, so you can do that. Anything else to promote the listings once they're live? Like, do they do featured list?
- [36:17]
A
I don't.
- [36:17]
B
Do you mess around with any of those, that stuff?
- [36:19]
C
Yeah, there is a lot of promoted listings. I also do, you know, a little bit of the social media and promote some of my items and stuff like that. But ebay alone brings billions of eyes to the store just to, to the platform just because they're like 190 million buyers around the world. So there's a lot of, of people and I, I, I think it's something like 2 billion listings. So somebody's coming to the platform to look for something and then they get attracted and that I ended up shopping for something else that it was not in the list. Yeah, but yeah, so ebay definitely does a lot of work to bring buyers to the platform. And I, I get to use their tools like promoter listing. So I get to pay like say an extra 2% or whatever. I feel comfortable, 3% for my items to start showing up in the search flow or I get to, to create literally the marketing like, hey, this item is 20% on sale. So they will be showing up in, in high real estate, you know, so people can see it. There is just so many tools that they provide and, and we've grown so much and we are who we are because we're truly just utilizing and they only win when we win. So they need to make sure that we have the right tools. Yeah, right. Well.
- [37:25]
B
And there's so much social proof too. When somebody lands on a listing from your store and they see the volume that you've done and the volume of positive feedback and it's like, okay, this gives me a little more confidence buying used electronics.
- [37:36]
C
Absolutely.
- [37:37]
B
Has there anybody on your team messed around with live selling at all? Like, this is the latest craze of like, oh, I'm going to go live.
- [37:44]
C
So. So we haven't done live selling on ebay yet or any other platform because. Because of. They're doing live selling in categories first. So they've done like life selling for purses or luxury bags, fashion, and then they've done it like in the comics, cars and collectibles. So they've sort of expanded. But as soon as they open it up to electronics and everything, you bet I'm going to be there. Yeah, for sure.
- [38:08]
B
Yeah. We've got another upcoming episode about that. And so curious about is that the future of another channel to flip some information inventory for?
- [38:15]
C
It's definitely going to be the future. It's even more trust. People are seeing you selling the stuff and it's like, oh, it's a real person doing it. And yeah, there is just so much noise, per se. Right. So we have to stand up somehow.
- [38:28]
B
Where is your time going today as the overseer CEO of this operation?
- [38:33]
C
We're doing a lot of AI classes and taking courses and everything. So we're learning how to utilize that for our company and the processes and how can we make sure that everything that is repetitive, it gets all automated. Right. And so that builds us some efficiency. We're actually also moving our warehouse as we speak. You know, it takes us a couple of weeks to. To transfer everything. And, and so we're doing it because we are going to be a lot more efficient. A lot of just one way in, one way out kind of flow. And we're looking at for thousands of dollars on. On savings just by doing that. And so we're finding, you know, we've always done this because we love it, we're passionate. So one of our, our, our coolest thing that we just started last, last year at the end of last year and I want to is we partnered up with One Tree Planted, which is a company that plants trees around the world. So for every pickup that we do in, every laptop that we sell, we donate to get trees planted. So one laptop, one tree planted, one Pickup one tree planted. You know, we have a big event, so then we just do a big batch of trees planted. And I love the fact that, you know, today's era is all about sustainability and people is more interested, eco friendly and conscious. And so they love what we're doing, they support it and they say, hey, I'm buying this because, you know, it makes me feel good that we're doing, you know, that you're planting trees and all that kind of stuff. So we're marketing some different programs. We're also partnering up with another group. Is a been to better is high schoolers that are just fully going for sustainability and so they're repairing items and they're learning all about technology and teaching the younger generation. We just had some events, so we did a couple of videos and we posted on our social media. But. But we're just stepping back a little bit from the everyday of the company and finding more purposes and more things of what we love to give back to the community. And yeah, so that's a little bit where we stand.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah, I think that's important to note too. We're always talking about, well, the business and the dollars and the sense and the supply and the demand, but it's like the core, it's like, well, we're keeping a ton of stuff out of landfills or at least postponing its journey to that landfill or to that scrap yard. And so there's that sustainability element to this business as well, which I think is really cool. Now if you could go back in time and give some advice to your younger self, like what mistakes might you avoid or what have, you know, anything you would do differently.
- [40:51]
C
How long do we have mistakes? There is a lot of mistakes. And I would separate the mistakes in two different like the product and entrepreneur. The entrepreneur itself. Right. As entrepreneur, I will say my mistakes were not delegating on time. My husband and I, you know, we sabotaged our own own growth for a long, long time. And, you know, now we learned that it's just better to get processes done with flaws than not at all. I mean, motion, we needed motion and we didn't do it because we were so caught up in him and I doing so many things the way we wanted it. Right. And so definitely I would say our biggest mistake was not starting hiring more people earlier, not delegating more tasks earlier, and not coming out with processes. What we found ourselves is that we were putting up with fires all the time. And that's just like the everyday burn, burn, burn, burn. Instead of like creating a process that, you know, it's easier for everybody to follow. So it makes it easy for you when you go on vacation, when you're sick, when you don't come to work. Right. So instead of us being the entrepreneurs, the visionaries, the. The owners, we became the operators for so many years. So I think that's. That's one of the biggest mistakes, I will say, from the entrepreneur side. And then in the resale part, before you get too excited with. With an item like, oh, my God, I can make money on this. It's like, okay, step back a little bit. Go do research on ebay. See how much they're selling for how many hundreds or thousands of millions people are listing the same item, see if it's worth it, see if the shipping. How much it's going to cost you. Because shipping can make you or break you. So that's a definitely, like, might be biggest mistakes were just like, no calculating shipping the right way, not getting things in, you know, the right package, or. Or just no packing properly. Oh, my God. So I think one of the most painful things I saw a Mac, it was like 1500 bucks an iMac. Super nice everything. We pack it and arrive cracked. So I was so sad because we didn't pack it enough. Right. It was like too soft for the packing. It wasn't like, sturdy. And. And yes, we learned, but that was a painful learning moment because we have to refund him the money. And then we also had already spent money on the shipping and, you know, and then there goes the 1500 plus that we lost. So, yes, there's a lot of mistakes that you. That you learn.
- [43:07]
B
Yeah. Do you do like, shipping insurance or product insurance on any of this stuff?
- [43:11]
C
Yes, we do. And guess what? The insurance only covers if you have so many inches, you know, like a wall, like how thick the wall is, is. And before it gets to the item. Right. I didn't. So the insurance will not cover. So, yes, you learn all of these things with time. So just make sure to pack it in the. With the right protection and padding and everything like that. So, yeah, because carriers, they just throw boxes in the warehouse and bigger things on top of the little ones. And so you have to make sure that the little ones are packed properly and, you know, just a mix of so many things.
- [43:41]
B
Okay. Yeah, they'll cover it, but you got to make sure you did your part too.
- [43:44]
C
Exactly.
- [43:45]
B
All right. Today we're implementing AI and some of the repetitive processes. We've got the partnership with one tree planted. We're moving warehouse. We're just continuing to work and grow and improve the business. What does the future hold for E Waste Direct and Greengo Surplus?
- [44:00]
C
We're going to grow bigger and smarter and E Waste is just the fastest growing waste now. We're all about higher consumption of electronics. It comes with a shorter product life cycle or lifespan and then is just becoming limited for repairs. Right. There is certain laptops that you cannot repair and you open it up and then, you know, you remove the guarantee and they're just things that you cannot fix yourself because companies are making it a lot harder for you to repair. They just want you to buy again and buy again.
- [44:31]
B
Yeah.
- [44:32]
C
But there is a huge growing demand for refurbished electronics and reuse clothing for anything and everything really. We're just embracing recommerce. We've been, we're just so fortunate that we've been able to, able to be selling for so long but now more than ever and with the economic situation and Gen Z and Gen Alpha are going to be the pioneers of E commerce and they're the ones normalizing used everything used clothing used toys used the gift things that are used. It's amazing. So we're just super excited for the future.
- [45:02]
B
Well, I'm excited to see where it goes as well. E wastedirect.com where you can find the pickup side of the business and of course will link up the ebay store for Angie's Gringo Surplus as well. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation. This does not have to be ebay or reselling related. This is whatever entrepreneurial wisdom you'd like to share.
- [45:23]
C
There is so many entrepreneurs, people like me, but they don't know how to start and they don't want to start until they get ready. And honestly, you're never going to be ready. You're not going to wake up tomorrow. It's just like I'm ready to go for it like today. Right? It's like just go for it. Start your idea. Dream big. The sky's the limit. This is the world of information. So anything that you want to accomplish, you can google the information is there, how to do it. I will help you, you know, whatever it is. And you do not have to be an expert. Most entrepreneur, most, most business people do not start a business because they're not experts. You do not have to be an expert. You can surround yourselves with experts, but you are the visionary. So you just need to get started.
- [46:05]
B
Yeah. And with something like this, you could start with your own phone next time you upgrade, your own laptop next time you upgrade. See what it's like to go through this reselling process and see if it's something that you like and can see yourself doing on a, on a broader scale.
- [46:18]
C
Yeah, a hundred percent. And if some people want to start with zero money, there is ways to do like you go to freecycle.org or you go to a Craig list in the free section. You go to a group that is called like buy nothing groups or something near you and there's people putting stuff for free. Just go get it for free, do some research, resell it, make some money and then you can kind of like start doing stuff that is investment. Like going to a garage sale that now requires money. So you can go and, you know, pay a little bit and buy stuff and then just scale it from there. But there is many ways of doing it.
- [46:48]
B
Yeah, I love the creativity behind it. I think it's really unique way to kind of insert yourself into some of this product flow that was probably going to happen anyway, but you can raise your hand and say, look, you know, we'll take it off your hands. Solving a problem for the companies and being a valuable service to the buyers on the other side. I like the call to kind of build especially, you know, as the business has grown, investing in repeatable systems and just making sure that everything kind of goes through the pipeline in a way that's going to make the most sense, going to be efficient and going to maximize profits there and then reinvesting into the business, into the warehouse space, into the trucks, into the team members to keep it all spinning. If you're wondering what to listen to next, We've got over 700 episodes. Episodes with killer entrepreneurs just like Angie in the archives. If you want to build yourself a personalized side Hustle show playlist, all you got to do is go to Hustle show, answer a few short multiple choice questions. You can do it right on your phone and it'll build you a custom curated playlist of 8 to 10 of our greatest hits episodes based on our answers. That's a great place to start to dive a little bit deeper into the side Hustle show and hopefully some more episodes that are relevant to you and what you're looking for to build. Big thanks to Angie for sharing her insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Side hustlenation.com deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. Fire off that text message. Let them know, hey, you gotta go check this out. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen, and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle show. Hustle on.