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Host (Intro/Outro)
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.
Nick Loper
I've seen whatnot climb to the top
Host (Intro/Outro)
of the app store. I've seen the seller earnings everything from
Nick Loper
small part time projects to multi million dollar businesses.
Host (Intro/Outro)
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
Nick Loper
this part time Pastor sold $2 million on whatnot last year. So live selling, as you may or may not have heard, is having a moment right now. And in this episode we're exploring how to get your piece of the pie, even if you're not an influencer, even if you don't have a ton of ecom experience coming in. Today's guest joined Whatnot about a year and a half ago and focusing on golf products and sold over $2 million worth of stuff so far from Golf HQ. GHQ crew.com Clinton Benninghoff, welcome to the side Hustle show.
Clinton Benninghoff
Thanks, Nick. I'm happy to be here, man. I'm excited.
Nick Loper
Me as well. Stick around. This is all new to me. You're gonna have to explain it like I'm five, but we're gonna get schooled on how live selling works, the best practices on the whatnot platform, getting people to tune in, getting people to buy, and different ways to score inventory for your own whatnot show. But my understanding, Clinton, is you were the first in the golf category to hit $100,000 in sales from one live stream, one live show. Is that right?
Clinton Benninghoff
That is correct. Yeah. So that was pretty early in our journey, we're about four months in, roughly. And we put on a Super bowl show where we gave away some cool, like, signed jerseys and helmets and stuff. But we did a hundred thousand dollars GMB in a single show. We were live for six hours.
Nick Loper
Okay.
Clinton Benninghoff
But yeah, the first ones to do that in the golf category and. Which is kind of crazy, you go into it not knowing what to expect, and six hours later you're just standing there kind of in awe. It was a fun night.
Nick Loper
Yeah, no kidding. I'm thinking of the hourly rate on that. 100,000 divided by six. Okay. Yeah, there's some cost of goods in there, but imagine a pretty good return there.
Clinton Benninghoff
It was a great night for sure. And it just kind of more so on our side. Showed us what we're capable of in this realm.
Nick Loper
Yeah. So that's 4ish months into your journey, which would be incredible for a lot of people. But let's peel it back to those early moments and figure out, well, how am I going to get anybody to tune in here? How do I even start this thing?
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah. So we started October of 24, and honestly, we didn't start this as some big strategic move. In my office, I have just golf bags full of golf clubs that I've collected over the years. And I had seen the app, didn't know what it was about. So one day I just. I downloaded it and I went live from my office, and I think I had like 65 people in that first show. And the people in the show were telling me how to run items because I didn't know what I was doing. They were like, well, you do this. You. Here's how you had the item, here's how you sell it. And started at 10 seconds with a timer reset. I'm like, I have no idea what any of that means. And so it was no big setup, no plan. I just kind of hit go live. And I think the first show I sold a putter, which I want to tell you about that it kind of a full circle moment. But I went live the next day, and then I went live the next day, and it just kind of started this snowball effect of like, this could be really good for our shop. And the rest is kind of history.
Nick Loper
Yeah. So I think that's important to take note of is you do have this brick and mortar location with a bunch of golf products. So people aren't starting with that. Maybe you're starting from your garage or you're starting from offloading stuff that your neighbors are trying to get rid of. Like there's different ways to go about it, but I like this. I'm just going to hit the button. I'm not going to overthink it. I'm going to go live. The audience is going to tell me, oh, here's how you do it, dummy. That's really kind of, really kind of funny. But, but 65 people showing up and 00 followers. Like there's no built in audience, but people somehow found it.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah, I think that's the beautiful thing that whatnot brings to the table is they have this community that has knows what the app's about, they're on there looking to buy. So even in my very first show, zero followers just hitting live. 65 people showed up to see what I was offering and I'm sure some of those left and were like, gosh, this guy has no idea what he's doing. Sure, I don't ever want to buy from, but it was just cool to see like on my phone I'm like, there's 65 people in here watching me not know what I'm doing and they're interested in golf. This is so cool. This is awesome. Just from 0 to 65 in a matter of literal seconds, just hitting go live.
Nick Loper
So in the onboarding as a buyer on the platform, it kind of asks what product categories you're interested in. Oh, I'm interested in sports equipment, I'm interested in collectibles or trading cards. And it kind of will show you stuff that's related to those categories.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah. So like when you come in as a buyer, whatever you click during that initial onboarding process, that's the shows that are going to pop up and generate for you via the algorithm. And that's what's so beautiful, is you're not going to get hit with a bunch of things that you're not interested in. It's going to show you what you actually want to buy.
Nick Loper
Okay. So similar to other social platforms at this stage, where it's less about the followers is more about the algorithm and if you can be engaging and entertaining on camera, it's going to feed it to more people.
Clinton Benninghoff
Sure, absolutely.
Nick Loper
Okay, so you sell this putter and how much, how much do you sell it for your first sale?
Clinton Benninghoff
So I think the very first sale, this putter went for like 300 bucks. So at this point I'm dang, I'm like, holy smokes, this is, this is awesome. What can I grab next? Like these people are, they're spending money and the full circle moment is a Few months ago, the guy who bought that putter actually sent it back to me and was like, hey, this was the first item you ever sold. I want to give it back to you just as a memorial for you so that you never lose that. That item, the very first item you sold, and it's sitting over in the corner in a bag.
Nick Loper
Yeah. Wow. I picture like, you know, how restaurants would frame their first dollar kind of thing. Sure.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah. So it was just a really cool. And that's the beauty of this community, man. There's so many good people on the app.
Nick Loper
You know what I've heard is it is more kind of liquidation or low price kind of auction intent, where we're going to start at a low price. We're going to drive some excitement, which could be nerve wracking if nobody is tuning in. Relatively few people are tuning in and you're like, I just sold this $300 putter for 10 bucks and I don't feel so great about that.
Clinton Benninghoff
So there are definitely win and lose moments. Obviously, the beauty of whatnot is you can start items as an auction, but you can also start items at whatever price you want to start them at. So if you know that you need to get a number, let's just say it is a $300 putter and I need $300 out of it. I can start that item at $300. I don't have to start it down at a dollar. Now. The. The joy and the. The drama it brings when you do start an item like that at a dollar is very entertaining to watch, especially my face as I'm watching it tick up. Because a lot of our auctions are 5 to 10 seconds long with no time or reset. So you can imagine me, the stress that I feel inside watching this $300 item, hoping that it gets up to that number within those 10 seconds.
Nick Loper
In 10 seconds.
Clinton Benninghoff
These are very quick turnaround items, very quick turnaround auctions. But Whatnot offers us a platform that we can list items in a buy it now section where somebody can go in and look at our buy it now and buy something at a set price. And we can set all of our auctions at a set price too. So where we guarantee ourselves certain margins that we want to hit.
Nick Loper
What have you found works better?
Clinton Benninghoff
Definitely the auction, they call them sudden death auctions. Five to ten seconds. And I will say this, those short auctions create a buzz in the community and it actually draws more viewers in that want to swipe, because that's the whole thing is you just Swipe across the screen to create your bid. And so people really enjoy that. And I think it's kind of the fear of missing out. They don't want to miss out on swiping and winning an item. So we found that those auction styles that start at a dollar and go up rapidly really quick in 5 to 10 seconds work best for us in our community.
Nick Loper
Okay, yeah, impulse buy. Oh, it's only 10 seconds. I better do it now.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah, for sure.
Nick Loper
Okay, so you start going live consistently. Like, okay, I had this early win, sold this $300 putter on my very first stream. Hey, I could do this every day, you know, how much time are you dedicating to it in these early, you know, days and weeks?
Clinton Benninghoff
It wasn't about stepping into, like the unknown. Once I did it one time, I was like, you know what? I'm kind of built for this. Like, I grew up in public speaking and learning to engage crowds and not just talk at them, but connect with them. That's kind of my. My heart. People are my heart. You know, I'm. I pastor part time, so I enjoyed doing this. So when I went live for the first time that second day, I was like, oh, this is going to be awesome. I get to talk to people through a camera and 65 people showed up. I wonder how many is going to show up tomorrow. Okay. And this, this isn't just E commerce. I'm actually hosting a community of people and I get to show them like, what all this, what this is about. So those early days that I went live, I was live for maybe 30 to 45 minutes. But as it started going on, I was going live a couple hours on a Tuesday and a couple hours on a Thursday. And so it started building up from just maybe an hour a week to two hours a week to four hours a week till now. This is a full time gig.
Nick Loper
Yeah. And it sounds like you got other people on the streams now. Like, there's a whole staff and people start to know the different personalities behind it.
Clinton Benninghoff
Correct? Yes, sir.
Nick Loper
Talk to me about the inventory side. If I don't have a brick and mortar store, like, if I want to tap into this, is it important to have a niche like, oh, we're going to be the go to people for great deals on golf gear. Or could it be a little bit more broad if I'm sourcing from. We did an episode on B stock sourcing where it's like these customer return liquidation auctions from Costco and government surplus auctions and stuff. Like, do you need to niche down.
Clinton Benninghoff
Well, certainly niching down helps. Right? Because you can build a community around that certain niche. It's not necessary because the beauty of whatnot is whatever you're selling, you're going to find viewers that are looking to buy that item. While we're specific in the golf category, we sell a lot of hats that aren't really golf specific. And so we found a crowd that's coming in to find these certain hats. It's called Waggle, it's a certain brand, but they're not golf specific hats. They have all kinds of crazy designs on them. So we're getting people that are kind of outside the golf category coming in to buy these hats because they know we're going to sell them on our shows.
Nick Loper
Okay.
Clinton Benninghoff
And whatever you're selling, you're going to get people in there to buy those products.
Nick Loper
Got it. What advice would you have for people trying to source some profitable inventory for this?
Clinton Benninghoff
Sure. So if I didn't have the brick and mortar, what would I do? How would I get product in the golf category specific? I would go to local pro shops and look at what stuff that's been sitting there, build a relationship with the pro or the manager, find stuff that's been sitting there and maybe last year's product and say, hey, I'm willing to take this off your hands. Also searching online, there's tons of websites that are in the golf category that sell used equipment. Facebook and Instagram posting on your story and saying, hey, you guys have golf clubs laying in your garage? I'm more than willing to buy those off you. If they've been sitting for a while, hitting up local garage sales and estate sales, you can find all kinds of stuff just in your local community, not even searching abroad. You can find it in your local town by just doing a little bit of research. And social media is a huge one.
Nick Loper
Okay. We had a listener of the show who was in the Amazon Influencer program and he built it up to the point where he was getting free product from brands to do these video reviews, sometimes even getting paid to do the video reviews, which is cool.
Clinton Benninghoff
Oh, wow.
Nick Loper
So he would earn the review fee, the free product, the commissions on anything that actually sold, and then what he would do when he would a stockroom got full of stuff or the garage filled up with stuff, he would start to do the whatnot. Live selling, hey, let's go through the inventory. It was like triple, quadruple dip on this one. It was like, that's a pretty interesting way to do it too.
Clinton Benninghoff
For sure. Yeah. That is an interesting thing. And I wonder what's the fine print behind that?
Nick Loper
Yeah.
Clinton Benninghoff
If you will.
Nick Loper
There was an example of not niching down. It was like whatever products you could get.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah, for sure.
Nick Loper
But it's an interesting strategy to go partner with other retailers. Hey, we'll take your clearance inventory off your hand and basically trying to buy low, sell high, but with a new twist or a new marketing channel for it.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah. And to speak to that like, you know, being on the brick and mortar side as well, man, at the end of a season, our shop was always full of stuff that man just sat and you know, we put it on sale and try to move it, but you know, we're always left with a bag full of clubs and a box full of hats and a rack full of shirts. And so knowing that somebody could have came in and been like, hey, I'm willing to buy all of this. How much do you want if I take it all?
Nick Loper
Yeah.
Clinton Benninghoff
That would have been a huge for us years ago. Before whatnot.
Nick Loper
Okay. And now you have your own, your own channel to get rid of some of this unsold stuff.
Clinton Benninghoff
Correct. Yeah.
Nick Loper
As a pie chart is the online sales. How does that compare to the brick and mortar foot traffic?
Clinton Benninghoff
Now, when we got into whatnot back in October, this was before we knew what was going to happen to golf economy here in West Texas. So we went live and it started booming and building into 2020. Well, in 2025 we lost three local golf courses here.
Nick Loper
Wow.
Clinton Benninghoff
Which we have a total of six golf courses in West Texas. So three of those right off the top disappeared overnight. And so our, the golf economy started doing this in Midland. It started going down. Well, this E commerce and whatnot started picking up right at the right time. So it was kind of a godsend. Last year we did just over $2 million on the app in the store. We did a little over 3 million. And so the brick and mortar is still going to do more. But whatnot has been a very healthy backdoor for us as far as the golf economy goes here.
Nick Loper
Right. Because all of a sudden instead of serving the immediate 20 mile radius, you can now serve people all around the world. I assume if it's international shipping too.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yes, sir, that's exactly right.
Host (Intro/Outro)
More with Clinton in just a moment. Including the shipping and logistics side of the business. As in what happens when you need
Nick Loper
to ship out 100,000 dol worth of merchandise in two days?
Host (Intro/Outro)
Plus his tactics for turning one time viewers into loyal members of the golf HQ community. All that and more coming up right after this. When you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break Hoping the right people see your job. Posting really isn't the best growth strategy. When the pressure's on and you need the right hire. This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs Indeed Sponsored Jobs get you the quality candidates when you need them most. Like yesterday. How it works is Sponsored Jobs boosts your job post in the search results
Nick Loper
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Nick Loper
about the shipping and logistics side of this thing. Obviously, golf clubs come in their own challenge to ship something of that size, but hats may be a little bit easier. So when somebody wins the auction or they buy this thing, what, you know, what happens on the back end to fulfill that product? Talk about that process.
Clinton Benninghoff
Oh boy. So I'm going to go back to our super bowl show where we did $100,000. We sold 600 golf clubs in that six hour span. And so we're still pretty new to this process of shipping. And I want to plug Whatnot here because they make the, the actual, the printing labels for it super, super streamlined. They provide the label, the buyer pays the shipping. At the end of a show, we reconcile everything and then it gives us a printout of all the labels. So if you have a label printer, you just click a button, it prints out all the labels for you. And so we have the packing slip and label provided by whatnot. So what comes Next is packing 600 golf clubs. And so we kind of was like on cloud nine the night we finished the show, but then we get here the next morning and we're like, oh crap, we have 600 golf clubs that we have to ship out.
Nick Loper
Yeah. Remember which one was going to which person? Yeah, it's a whole thing.
Clinton Benninghoff
Correct. So we, we were looking at golf clubs because we labeled them like with a number and so we were finding the numbers that matched up with the packing slip. So as we learned, we actually hired a full time staff that ships for us after shows. And we use a software called Hot Label during our shows that actually prints off a label with the buyer's name, the item they bought, what time they bought it and how much they bought it for. And then each item gets tagged with that tag so we can match it up with the packing slip. So our shipping process has become a lot more streamlined. But those early days were a steep learning curve of we gotta get these golf clubs out in a very timely manner. Whatnot gives us 48 hours to ship, not including Saturdays and Sundays. So you have 48 hours to get it to the USPS or UPS hub. And that way it can be on its way in a timely manner.
Nick Loper
Yeah, pretty tight turnaround. And maybe because of, you know, we're all spoiled by prime shipping. And just the excitement of buying something live is like, well, I want it now. Or it's this immediate gratification, Correct?
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah.
Nick Loper
Do you end up charging the customer for shipping? Is it flat rate? I mean, it's bigger, sometimes bigger. Items. How does that work?
Clinton Benninghoff
So it's based on pre built forms that we put into our shows. Based on. So we have a SKU for clubs, we have a SKU for bags, we have a SKU for lighter items that go usps. So every auction that we put in will be pre tagged with a shipping sku. And so it's all based off of weight and size. And so the buyer will pay whatever the shipping is for that item based on where they are in the United States. So all of our clubs and bags ship via ups and all of our lighter items, apparel, hats, accessories, will ship usps. And so when the buyer pays for that shipping, again, whatnot provides us a label. It's super streamlined, super easy process. The only thing we have to do is provide the box packing material and ship it out.
Nick Loper
Got it. So buyer is paying shipping and so they win the item for $100 and then attacks on the $15 shipping or whatever.
Clinton Benninghoff
Okay, correct. And then also we bundle ship so they may buy one item and then the next four items is free shipping because we can pack it all in one box.
Nick Loper
Oh, okay, got it, got it. So increase the average order size, encourage people to buy more, which is something that you've done a really good job. I mean, you've got your crew hat on right now. It's the GHQ crew. And it's like starting to build this sense of community. And I imagine you see some familiar screen names or usernames showing up day after day.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah, man, it is so incredible. That's the beauty of this is we've actually built a community. And I always say the golf community on Whatnot is the best community because all the sellers go into each other's shows. We give away stuff in other people's shows, they give away stuff in our shows. And we recognize most of the people that are coming into our our lives. And we answer comments live, we engage constantly because that's the big thing. People want to feel seen, they want to feel heard. They want to know that they're not just a number that purchased an item from us. They want to feel like they belong. We wanted it to be relational and not transactional. And so we turned viewers into regulars and those regulars into this big community that shows up every show. And I think this is the biggest thing I want people to know is people aren't going to stay because you offer the best price. They're going to stay because they feel like they belong to a community every time they show up.
Nick Loper
So are you shouting out names like, hey, I see you in the crowd. Or like, how. How are you fostering some of that?
Clinton Benninghoff
Absolutely. So when you show up into our show, it actually will say so and so is here. And so we're calling out people as they show up into the show. And then as they comment, hey, Clinton, hope you're having a good day. I'm responding to comments live. I'm making sure I'm acknowledging everybody that's kind of engaging in the chat as much as I can. Right. Because at one point we had 1600 people in our show. And so you can imagine the comments are just going crazy.
Nick Loper
Yeah. That would kind of break my brain a little bit of trying to do it all at once.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah. And so obviously you. You get better with it the more you do it. But I try to respond to comments as they're coming through. Sometimes we miss some. We're not. We're not the best at it, but we're always engaging with the people because again, we want them to feel like they're a part of the crew. And that's kind of how we build. We branded that as you are a part of the crew, you are a part of this community.
Nick Loper
Yeah. You mentioned going on other people's lives in the category, which is a great way to kind of cross promote, cross pollinate anything else that you found to kind of lift up or get more reach for the show.
Clinton Benninghoff
Social media is a huge one. We have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have a YouTube channel. We've obviously cross pollinated across our Facebook and Instagrams and our YouTube. We promote our shows on there as well.
Nick Loper
Do you do it like kind of a simulcast? Like, we're also going live on YouTube on Instagram at the same time.
Clinton Benninghoff
So Whatnot offers that you can simulcast straight over to YouTube at the click of a button from when you start your show. And the beauty of that, when somebody watches live in YouTube, they can actually come on over to Whatnot via a link. Obviously, they can't bid live on YouTube, but they can click the link and come over to the Whatnot show. And we found that that's brought some traffic over as well. The biggest thing I've found that helps is actually going into other shows and supporting other sellers. Not even just in the golf category. We go across the app into other shows. And it's not that we're going to promote, we're going to support other sellers so they know that they're not alone in this. Even new sellers, like, if you're just getting started, we love to show up in your show and give away items, buy items, and say, give it to the chat. Because that's a big part of saying, hey, we support other people on this app and we want you here. You belong here.
Nick Loper
Yeah, it's similar. I mean, in the world of podcasting and guesting on other shows, similar in the world of YouTube doing collabs, the old playbook still works there. Being supportive and helping each other out.
Clinton Benninghoff
It does work, for sure.
Nick Loper
Okay, so doing the YouTube thing, trying to promote on social media, going on other creator shows. So this is just as simple as outreach message, like, hey, next time you go, because you got to align schedules and timing to make it happen, Correct?
Clinton Benninghoff
Yes, sir. Yeah. And then we also. We actually built this studio out in our shop. We have this. This giant glass window that looks out onto the floor, and there's a QR code on the window so people can come watch our lives live in the store, and they can. They can scan the QR code on the window and actually get into the auction while watching from the sales floor. So that's another fun aspect. As I'm live, I can look out and there's people, like, dancing to the music on the floor, and they're waving at me and they're buying live from the sales floor. So it's really cool.
Nick Loper
How funny. This is just a wild phenomenon. I'm the shopper who wants to just click buy now. I want to find the thing I'm looking for, buy it. It shows up in two days. The idea of spending an hour infotainment or entertainment shopping, very qvc, very like, oh, maybe this is the thing. Maybe the next thing that he presents is going to be the thing. But some of the usage data is crazy here, where people are spending more time here than in a ton of other apps. Like an hour a day in some cases, or, you know, that adds up over the course of the week. So it's really an engaged audience at this point.
Clinton Benninghoff
And I think that speaks to the engagement of all the sellers. It's not just selling an item. We're actually building this community and we're getting to know the people that come into our shows. We actually hosted a golf tournament last May for whatnot. And we brought all the whatnot golf sellers to the tournament and got to know the people who are in the category and played golf with them for a day. We had a meetup the night before, and so we just wanted them to know, hey, you're not just a face on a screen. We want to get to know you in person. And we want to know who we're working with in this category. So, like, it's so much more than just coming onto an app and buying an item. It's actually meeting the people that are on the other side of a phone and buying those things from you.
Nick Loper
Yeah, there was this old book. It was possibly called Made to Stick, but it's like by Chip and Dan Heath. It talks about this small town newspaper. And the editor of the newspaper had one mantra. It was names, names, names. People see their name in print, they're going to keep subscribing to this newspaper. And so publishing the scores and the highlights of the little league games, talking about the town hall council meetings, all of this stuff, any excuse to print somebody's names, build that community. And it was in the context of driving newspaper sales. But I imagine it works the same way here, or probably the same in the world of podcasting, where smaller audiences have an advantage early on because you can know these people. Like, if you can get any sort of commenting or engagement back and forth, like, hey, what are you struggling with? What do you want to hear next? I think that probably works in this space as well.
Clinton Benninghoff
It does, man. It works very well in this space. Just getting to know people to this point.
Nick Loper
The whatnot channel is over 50,000 followers. To the extent that followers matter, I guess they probably get notifications the next time you go live and all this stuff. But what else have you found to kind of drive momentum and excitement and growth without doing the same shtick week after week?
Clinton Benninghoff
Sure. So, like, consistency, being the same person every. Every time you go live, obviously that's. I think that speaks to being a human. Right. Is you're the same person on screen that you are off screen. But being consistent, big events like. So this week's Masters week, I would say it's the super bowl of golf. It's the greatest week in golf. And so we're doing a big master show where we're giving away a. A. It's signed by Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Ola Zabel and Fred Couples. A Masters flag. We're giving that away in our show. It's worth a lot of money and I don't want to give it away, but somebody's going to be super happy to get that. We're selling a ton of Masters themed gear and limited edition bags and so doing big event style shows. There's four majors a year in golf, so we do a big show for every major. The Super Bowl. We actually did a big super bowl show. It was our biggest show, which is awesome. The content Flywheel, which is every social media influencer's dream, is this YouTube and social media and in store customers all pointing back to what we do on a weekly basis here on the app. And so staying consistent with those things is very, very important.
Nick Loper
Is that the cadence, like kind of a every weekend we're going to have this 2, 3, 4 hour marathon type of show, or is it like a little bit every day? A steady, a steady drip.
Clinton Benninghoff
Early on it was like we had a giant show every week. And as we've kind of evolved and we're learning too. I mean, we're only a year and a half into this and live shopping is so new that we're still learning kind of the ins and outs. We're kind of evolving into maybe three to four times a week where we're live two to three hours on those days and then one big show every few weeks to kind of keep that consistency but also keep the interest in those bigger shows with big giveaways and things like that.
Nick Loper
This is retail, like it's the President's Day sale.
Clinton Benninghoff
Sure.
Nick Loper
Any excuse to kind of hype it up for sure. So you mentioned the label printer or that kind of stuff. Any other thing on the tools or technology side that makes life easier either for syndication or for filming or for anything related to this.
Clinton Benninghoff
The beautiful thing is all you need is a phone to go live. But on the back end there are definitely some things that I recommend. Label printer and then a actual small tag label printer and use a software like Hot Label that will auto print after every cell a tag that you can put on that item instead of putting a sticker and having to write down a number. This makes it so much more streamlined and it saves you a ton of time where if you can just peel off a sticker, put it on that item and set it aside and then get you a deal with a box manufacturer or a shipping supplier. Because you're going to be ordering a lot of boxes and a lot of packages. Cool thing is, if you are starting small, USPS offers free boxes and free shipping supplies. But as you scale it and you get bigger, you're going to be ordering boxes and polymellers by the pallets. And so get you a deal with a shipping supplier real quick.
Nick Loper
We'll start you out for free. We'll give you a. We'll give you a taste. But then once you get to a certain point, you're gonna have to pay now. Yeah, yeah, we go through a lot of Cardboard here.
Clinton Benninghoff
You're maxing this out for sure.
Nick Loper
Now it seems like other platforms are trying to get in on this trend. TikTok, even YouTube to a certain extent. Wouldn't be surprised if I see Amazon in this space in the next year or two. Is there an opportunity to either syndicate the same content or try and reach a broader audience on a TikTok shop or something like that?
Clinton Benninghoff
You know, the. The beautiful thing here is whatnot was one of the first ones into this space and they have put so much, not just monetary resources but people behind every area of this app. Their support is unmatched. So it's literally as easy as making a phone call or a text. If I, if I run to an issue or I see something that could improve you, you have direct access to people that can make those changes on the app. So while this community does evolve, what I see happening is whatnot is evolving as well. And they're so far ahead of the live game that I don't know that anybody will ever reach them. I really don't. They, they offer the best platform, the most intuitive platform that you'll ever find in live.
Host (Intro/Outro)
Selling more with Clinton in just a moment, including his advice for new live sellers who are trying to build up an audience but not get burned giving
Nick Loper
stuff away in the process.
Host (Intro/Outro)
And the target profit margins he shoots for in his lives, coming up right after this. In sports, there's this saying that speed is a weapon. And the same is true in business. If you're missing calls or being slow to follow up with customers, you're leaving money on the table, sometimes without even realizing it because your potential customer, they've already moved on. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q U O. This is the business communications system built so you never miss a call.
Nick Loper
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Nick Loper
What advice would you have for the seller who's like, I want to drive some hype but also I don't want to give away a signed master's flag if three people are showing up and like almost this kind of nervousness where I got to bring the energy, I got to bring the goods to, to attract an audience but like if nobody's there, it's like a weird, a weird place to be. Be kind of in that taking your lumps early on maybe.
Clinton Benninghoff
I get that feeling. What I would say to them is start before you feel ready. Like you're never gonna get have everything in order. You're never gonna have all of your your T's crossed and your eyes dotted. Just start. Start messy. Lord. Our first. I didn't even know what giveaways were and I didn't know that you could give away stuff in, in your very first. Like I had no idea. I didn't even know how to list an item. I was literally taking pictures with my phone while I was live of the item so that I could add it into the inventory because I had no idea. So if you're afraid, like what if Nobody shows up. Well, you don't know until you try. And I guarantee you somebody's going to show up for your show. So start before you feel ready. Start messy, start small. But you got to start. You. You have to try it. And. And when something starts working and when you see what's working, go all in on it. Just dive in and go.
Nick Loper
Any mistakes or expensive lumps aside from giveaways where you're like, well, that didn't sell for. Wanted to or took a little bit of a bath on that one?
Clinton Benninghoff
Absolutely. There were a lot of baths to be had. That. Obviously, when you start an item at a dollar and you give them five seconds to buy, just here's a real world example. A few weeks ago, a Scotty Cameron putter is the most expensive putter you can buy in all of golf. They retail around $500. It was about 10 years old. It was in perfect condition. It's worth every bit of what it sold for new 10 years ago.
Nick Loper
Yeah.
Clinton Benninghoff
And I was just running item after item, 5 second sudden death and just going and going. And I grabbed the Scotty Cameron and I didn't talk about it. I just hit start. Well, it went for $9.
Nick Loper
Somebody got a screaming deal.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yes, somebody got a screaming deal. And I'm standing on the other side of this. Like, man, I should have took my time on that one and explain. Explained what was going live. Yeah, because you can get in a groove and you can just be clicking next item. Next item, next item, Run next item. And you're grabbing and you forget like, okay, let's take time on some of these more expensive items and really present it and show them what they're getting. Because, like, on that item, it was worth every bit of 500. It went for $9. And so there's a lot of those along the way that you're going to learn. But I think the biggest mistake would be not going all in on this sooner because, dude, it's been an awesome journey. It really has.
Nick Loper
When somebody's bidding in five seconds, do they even have time to, like, bid each other up or, like, how do they even determine the winner?
Clinton Benninghoff
So there's two options, right? You can swipe to bid and you can wait till the very last second and hope you win it for whatever the price is. Or in those five seconds, you have time to hit the custom bid option and say, let's just say I'm running that Scotty Cameron again. They know what it is. Somebody could go in and type in $550 on the custom bid. And every time somebody swipes, it'll keep bidding up to that number. And so whatever it gets bid up to in those five seconds, as long as it's under $550, that person would win that item. So most people just like to swipe and hope they get it at the last second.
Nick Loper
Yeah, depending on the speed of your data connection. And you know, we're talking milliseconds here. This is crazy, but the idea of scoring a $500 putter for $9, like, imagine that's part of the appeal for this entertainment aspects like slot machine of like, oh, maybe I'm going to score something really cool.
Clinton Benninghoff
I guarantee you I'm on an Instagram story with that item. Whoever got it, like that was an Instagram post for sure.
Nick Loper
One person's loss is another person's win, I guess in that case. But, you know, it helps you get the story out of it, you build the community and it makes sense that way. What other surprises have you got? What's been the most surprising thing here,
Clinton Benninghoff
man, the most surprising thing is how quickly it's grown. Because live selling is still really new. I mean, it's, it's still a relatively new market, especially in the United States. But how quickly you can scale this is unbelievable. The beautiful thing that makes whatnot different is we're not putting an item up for sale and then waiting a week, two weeks, three weeks, maybe a month, a 30 day listing for it to sell, and you're just sitting there kind of twiddling your thumbs like, is this ever going to sell? No. These items, whatever you put in your store and you run, it's going to sell right then and right there. So we're not sitting on inventory for months. We're literally getting inventory in one day, selling it the very next day. So it's been kind of surprising to us because coming from the brick and mortar, we may order 15 drivers and it takes us 30 to 45 days to move through those 15 drivers. Whereas if I was to order 15 drivers for what not to sell, it would take me about 30 minutes to move through those drivers.
Nick Loper
Okay, so you're turning over capital significantly
Clinton Benninghoff
faster, very, very quickly. So the biggest surprise to us was like, oh my gosh, like, we're not sitting on inventory for months. We're sitting on inventory for a day, maybe three days at the most.
Nick Loper
Do you have a sense of how the margins compare?
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah. So definitely you have to be very, very cognizant of your margin in the retail store at the end of the Year, we're running somewhere around 38% before expenses come in on whatnot, it's closer to 20 to 25%. But you also learn you want to bring in some higher margin items to mix in with hard goods because, because hard goods as a whole are pretty razor thin margins anyway. So bringing in accessories and golf balls and gloves and towels and building high margin items into your shows can help buffer the back end on those hard goods style items.
Nick Loper
Got it, got it. That's helpful. So it's lower margin generally speaking, but so much quicker turn. And we've heard from other Amazon sellers where it's like, like, yeah, if I can sell 100 of these in a month, that's so much better than selling 100 of them over the course of the year, even if the margin is hard. Because if I do that every month, then I'm going to recycle and multiply my money a little bit faster.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah, overhead is a lot cheaper too. For the shop you have say eight to 10 employees. For the whatnot, the back end stuff, there's three of us. And so overhead is so much cheaper and as much volume as you're turning. I mean, it's unmatched really.
Nick Loper
Do you see it overtaking the retail shop? Do you see like you almost. It gives you some credibility of having the golf shop as the backdrop and like being able to source all this stuff. But I don't know, is there a world where it's like just you and a green screen and a pile of golf clubs and we don't, we don't need the storefront anymore?
Clinton Benninghoff
No, I don't, I really don't think so. Because the storefront brings a, an aspect of community that you can't get from with live selling. And that's the in person relationships that we've built over the last 25 years. We know 90% of the people that walk through our door by name. And so I don't think you can ever replace that. Now you, you can build a sense of that community on whatnot by knowing the people that are coming into your shows. But the face to face connection is just kind of unmatched. So I don't know that it'll ever replace the brick and mortar, but it definitely is an added benefit to the brick and mortar. I think them two paired together is an unstoppable force.
Nick Loper
Yeah, I could see anybody obviously with a store for sure, but anybody doing commerce business or an ebay business or a consignment type of business where this is just a Natural kind of bolt on to what you're already doing and try and move some inventory in a unique and creative way because the audience is clearly there, there's an appetite for this stuff and it's working really well for sellers like you.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yes, sir, for sure.
Nick Loper
Well, what's next? Where do you want to take this thing?
Clinton Benninghoff
This year we're scaling our whatnot to about 3 million plus. That's our goal. Now with that comes huge logistics because we obviously are bringing in pallets of stuff at a time now instead of just boxes of stuff. And so we're. The warehousing has become a headache trying to figure that out. So we're trying to scale this to 3 million and beyond. And then a big thing is bringing new brands onto the whatnot platform that has.
Nick Loper
Have.
Clinton Benninghoff
Have nothing. They don't know anything about it. One of the big things that we set out to do early on was transparency because major manufacturers have MAP pricing or NSP pricing, where you have to. You have to abide by their pricing policy.
Nick Loper
Sure. Oh, like if it's a brand new Scotty Cameron Putter, you can't advertise it less than whatever at retail.
Clinton Benninghoff
Correct. So we, we actually invited all the major manufacturers onto the app to watch our shows so that they know it's a safe space for their new product. Yeah, we Invited titlist on TaylorMade, Callaway P, all those companies to come watch and see that we're abiding by MAP policy on new product and we want them to see that it is a safe space for them to sell their product on. Because there is a lot of conversation around that is, are you guys going to abide by MAP policy? Are you going to protect our brand, protect our value? And that's something we aim to do, is we protect value and we want these companies to know that this is a safe space for their product.
Nick Loper
So in those cases, you can't do the $1.10 second auction. You got to say this is the sticker price on here.
Clinton Benninghoff
Correct. You started at a price or you put it in the buy it now at a price as well.
Nick Loper
Okay. Yeah. But for the used clubs or anything else you could source. Game on here. We'll have some fun with those.
Clinton Benninghoff
Yeah, absolutely.
Nick Loper
All right, well, I have to check it out. The GHQ crew, you can check out their whatnot store over there. Ghqcrew.com I'm in the market for a three wood that hopefully I can hit a little more consistently. So I'll have to check it out.
Clinton Benninghoff
I Got you, Clinton.
Nick Loper
This has been awesome. Let's wrap this up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.
Clinton Benninghoff
Whatever idea you have in your mind, whatever entrepreneurial thing, I call it pioneering. I love the word entrepreneurial, but I call it pioneering because entrepreneurs are pioneers at heart. Whatever you have in your heart and is in your mind to do, just start now. Don't wait. Don't wait till you have everything figured out, because you're going to get into that moment and you're going to be like, man, this wasn't on my list of things that I figured out. So just start, start, don't wait. Start right now. Whatever that looks like. Take the step and do it.
Nick Loper
I think that's probably the line that stood out to me the most, is like, you know, the moment from discovering that this is a thing to going live. It sounded like it was 30 seconds, like, oh, let's hit the button, see what happens. Oh, shoot, I'm on. Oh, there's people watching. Oh, here, you want to buy? How do I buy this thing? Don't let yourself overthink it. And I think there's a level of forgiveness when something is live. It doesn't have to be super polished, doesn't have to be the level of production that you might expect from live, longer form content or Hollywood movies. It's just, you know, people talking to people, and the audience is there looking for whatever it is you can source. I think that's really, really interesting. What a time to be alive again. GHQ Crew, you can check Clinton out over there. Before you go, make sure to grab your free listener bonus for this week. That is my AI assisted business idea brainstorming worksheet. How it works is you answer a few short questions and it spits out this prompt that you can paste into the AI of your choice because you're going to get much more personalized, actionable ideas than just asking for generic side hustle ideas. So tell it a little bit about you, your interests, your goals, your skills, and you get much better results there. So just hit the show notes for that. We've also got a $15 coupon for the GHQ Crew Store that will link up there as well. So make sure to hit that up. I'll be trying to use it myself for that three wood, but in any case, hit the show notes for both that and that free list listener bonus. The AI Assisted Brainstorming Worksheet. Big thanks to Clinton for sharing his insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone you can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share with a friend. Fire off that text message, let them know they need to check it out 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 the.
Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Clinton Benninghoff, Golf HQ / GHQCrew.com
Release Date: May 21, 2026
This episode taps into the surging trend of live selling, focusing on the Whatnot platform. Nick Loper interviews Clinton Benninghoff—a part-time pastor and owner of Golf HQ, who achieved over $2 million in sales on Whatnot in a year, specializing in golf products. The discussion details Clinton’s journey from his first spontaneous live show to building a loyal community, sharing actionable insights for anyone interested in live e-commerce, regardless of their experience or initial inventory.
Clinton’s Origin Story:
Platform Community & Discovery:
First Big Win:
Consistency:
Community Building:
Auction Type Matters:
Sourcing Inventory:
Rapid Fulfillment Demands:
Shipping Structure:
Cross-Promotion:
In-Store Engagement:
Start Messy, Start Now:
Fast Inventory Turnover:
Margins & Profitability:
Complementary Channels:
Industry Relationships:
On Spontaneous Action:
On Community:
On Learning by Doing:
On the downsides of rapid auctions:
On Live Selling Turnover:
On Growth & Evolving the Business:
Clinton's #1 Tip for Side Hustlers:
Tools:
Operations:
Clinton’s journey underscores the accessibility, community, and velocity of live commerce for both experienced merchants and everyday individuals. He advocates for diving in regardless of experience—with the Whatnot platform serving as both a marketplace and support system for sellers trying something new. The episode is a hands-on masterclass in how to get started, avoid costly mistakes, and create a scalable operation founded on relationships, speed, and consistency.
Explore more and use your coupon:
“Start before you’re ready. Start messy. But you gotta start.” – Clinton Benninghoff (35:16)