#Special Episode:
Product Opportunities For Amazon FBA In 2021

Norm Farrar  0:01  

Hey everyone is Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with norm the rise of the micro brands. mantra.

Norm Farrar  0:20  

Oh, right. Like we mentioned yesterday, we are having a special lunch with norm on Tuesday. So hopefully everybody got the invitation and you’re going to tune in. I’ve got my buddy returning guest Carlos Alvarez going to be talking and we’re going to be talking about a bunch of things, alternative platforms, just things that are happening on Amazon right now. Anyways, it’s just a great let’s talk shop, you know about Amazon or whatever comes up. So hopefully, there’s tons of questions. If you do have questions, throw them over to the right hand side, and we’ll get to them if not, during the podcast, we’ll throw them into our event, our event, our group, our Facebook group, but before we do anything, where is Kelsey? Yeah, hello. Hello. Kells, how are you? I’m doing fantastic. How are you doing? Okay, so I took you by surprise. Tuesday. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:18  

You know what? It’s okay. I like to switch it up a little bit. And yes, DK cam. Happy Tuesday, guys. Yes. Welcome to the show. Before we get started, just want to say you can smash those like buttons happy May the fourth to everyone all the Star Wars nerds. with us. We’ve got some great pictures going on. If you guys have any Star Wars memes, feel free to just load up the Facebook group and the beer nation. That’d be great. Our Facebook group is lunch with norm Amazon FBA and e commerce collective. And yeah, we’ll get started. If you’re missing on an episode, if you don’t know where to catch it, just head over to our YouTube channel. Norman Farrar and we do have a great price today too. So it’s it’s really awesome. recommend you guys stick around for it. But yeah, let

Unknown Speaker  2:06  

us know where you’re coming from to because I just I know Daniels from Brazil, Brazil, I just saw Sao Paulo, Brazil as well. So I’m not sure who that one is. But always interested to hear and see where people are from. Okay. Go ahead, guy I’m using you interrupted me. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker  2:25  

And I’m just gonna say for anyone, just if you have any questions at all, feel free to put them in the comment sections. We’re going to be talking about like product opportunities, too. So if you have any questions about that, just put an in the comment section and we’ll get right to them.

Unknown Speaker  2:39  

Alright. Okay. So like I said before, any questions, just put them over in comments, and we’ll get to them just like Kelsey just said. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this Tuesday podcast. Hey, what’s up, Carlos? How’s it going on? Good. You know what? I’m feeling good. Hell, boy.

Unknown Speaker  3:06  

I just got my second Pfizer vaccine yesterday, so I feel like I got run over and backed over. But definitely don’t want to miss this show. I think it’s my second or third time on here too. Yeah, yeah. It’s it’s people are gonna think you like me? I do. I just can’t wait till you’re very short line of people.

Unknown Speaker  3:29  

You know what? That’s funny because I was just saying about the cruise. You. You have a very unique marketing cruise. It’s the Amazon cruise that happens it we all missed it last year. But is that happening this year?

Unknown Speaker  3:43  

Yes. Well, the event online seller Cruise is February 5. So technically, this is this year is the build up to the cruise. We were supposed to go January something of this year that got cancelled. So it’s every every January or very early February. So that’s happening. As a matter of fact, I’d love to add a if it’s if it’s cool with you guys. In addition to what we spoke about, I’d like to add a free event pass to online seller cruise comm if anyone wants to do it. It’s up to you guys. Are you serious? Yeah, for sure. As long as you can’t participate though, because I want to, I want to charge you. I really hope you can go.

Unknown Speaker  4:22  

I do too, depending on this government. But anyways, yeah, I’m missing out. Actually, I’m going to be talking with Danny tomorrow on cellar sessions. Another great podcast. If you haven’t heard of cellar sessions. It’s had 11 o’clock just before our podcast, but we’re going to be talking about live events and how that’s affecting everybody and what we think is going to happen. What are we going to be doing? Like how important is these next few live events like prospers coming up and a few others. But anyway, let’s talk about what’s going on Amazon wise. Absolutely. You know, I was talking to Tim Jordan, just before I came on here has already heard that. Yeah, I’m just playing. Yeah, me. Me too. But we were talking about this new product as new service from Amazon called Explorer. Have you heard of it? No, I’ve not heard of the Explorer, Oh, my God. This is probably one of Amazon’s newest. I mean, it’s, it’s incredible. You can check it out, go to amazon.com slash explore. And what this allows any shopkeeper to do is have a one to one communication with their clients with their customers. so customers can call up, you know, Bob’s shoe shop and say, Hey, I’d like to buy a pair of shoes. Every one of the shoes or every one of the products would be added to the Amazon listing person would go over there would be a video going it’s a one way video. So you don’t have to be worried about like, if you have a face for radio, or if you’re just afraid of being on video, you don’t have to show yourself right. But you can show the shelves and everything else, the other person doesn’t, you don’t see the other person at all. And it’ll show it’ll calculate all the tax, it’ll bring it to the to the checkout point. And it’s just not for Amazon products. You can put courses on there. You could put sightseeing tours on there. You can do anything you want. And it’s another way of showing revenue. Now. If you are an influencer, think just go to amazon.com slash explore and figure out how you can use it because I think that this is a possible new goldmine possible, I possibly I don’t know. But the possibilities are endless on it.

Unknown Speaker  7:00  

I just, I just jumped over. And I wasn’t cool. But like in the middle of you talking, I just jumped over to another tab and looked at it. It looks very cool. It sort of looks like you remember Amazon doing this, uh, they were like making a run at Groupon or something a long time ago. And there was like local services that you could buy, and then they killed it. But this is really great, because I feel like especially for me if I’m understanding it, right, because I I don’t know anybody else doing this. But I specifically go into opening brick and mortar local locations, and leverage the traffic in those for Amazon private label launches and products. So this looks like a way to also sell directly from the store and expand beyond the three mile radius. Usually people are open to one isn’t that

Unknown Speaker  7:51  

I just I looked like that. And they haven’t really promoted it. So I just happened to look at some it wasn’t even from Amazon. But I got an email and I just took a look at it. It was from Amazon. They sent me a video. And it was What is this? And nobody like I’ve talked to a bunch of people. nobody’s heard of it. You know, since last week when I first heard the other thing. Have you utilized the managed product documents? tab? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  8:27  

Yeah, absolutely. In that great. It’s absolutely amazing. So why don’t we get into that? That that’s that’s something that used to exist on the vendor central side before and then it sort of like went away. But now it looks like it’s available. You’re talking about where you can upload like your warranty information and different things on how to use your product.

Unknown Speaker  8:47  

You anything you can upload yet. Yeah, I what I love about it, first of all, is that I don’t know about you, but I was always worried about what I could send out with my emails. What I couldn’t send out with my emails like you couldn’t we used to send out PDFs, well, all of a sudden, you know, you got a slap on the wrist for that. Other things that you can link to Could you put a link to YouTube on for instructions. You know, I never, I didn’t want to cross TLS and so I stopped I would just write somebody an email, just you know, I hope your package arrived. Okay, bla bla bla bla bla the same old, same old. But with this. This is a pre purchase. And it’s a game changer.

Unknown Speaker  9:34  

Because I think we’re talking about the same thing then can you can you share more what you’re talking about? Yeah, so what I’m talking about is for warranties and how to use this.

Unknown Speaker  9:42  

Alright, so your managed product documents. First of all, for those on Seller Central, you can get to it by just going into Seller Central hitting inventory, it should be the very bottom tab on your drop down. And what this allows the Amazon seller to do now pretty Purchase is to put up user manuals, frequently asked questions, any almost any type of document that you think of product, research certification, anything. And this will allow the person to go through flip through the instructions or flip through whatever it is that could hook the person into buying your product. I went one step further with one of our clients recently, I uploaded a recipe book. Sure, so person can see how to use the product with or the it’s a food product that I had, but with these recipes, so it’s really cool. There’s about 25 different things that you have the ability to upload now. And it shows up on your listing. You mentioned YouTube, though, like they’re letting you put a YouTube video onto your channel. No, they’re not letting you do that. That Was this an example? Like when I was sending out emails before? Jump off this call right now? Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, it still can’t do that. But I am not sure. And I, this might be okay. I actually, I’m gonna get Vandana to check on this right after this call. Can you within your PDF? Or in your instruction manual? Have that YouTube link? I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, I’m not saying everybody go out and do that and put it in. But it’s something I’m going to get. I’m going to explore and get back to our group on. All right, so we got lots of people. Now, before we get really into the call, you’ve got two really incredible giveaways. I do a we weren’t we actually I wasn’t expecting that mean, it’s absolutely incredible. So first of all, let’s talk about them.

Unknown Speaker  11:57  

One of them is AI for anyone that doesn’t know I I founded and organize, very actively organize the largest amazon seller Meetup group in the world are 16 events per month, or in Spanish and 12 in English. During COVID, we really expand that our community online on zoom, and the preview prior to that we were just in person. So when, at least in Miami when everyone kept ignoring COVID and we were just going about our daily lives and could have in person events, we began transitioning back to in person events, but we didn’t want to neglect you know, our new friends we met online. So what we did was even we decided to record all events. So all of our meetup events are recorded. I think there’s about half in person now and half on zoom. But those recordings of these events very topic specific to very like no fluff. We put them in a paid, you can call it like paid gateway or like paid like it’s it’s gated by a paywall. And it costs currently $30 a month we call it the video vault. So I would like to gift a year free to the video vault. So that’s it’s probably upwards of 200 new videos that you’re going to get access to live, as well as a library of over 1000, of which there’s two or three instances where they will see your beard in those videos. So you get to see norm in there too. I pride myself on the the people that I get to speak at the events and hence the recordings. We’re not getting, you know the same thing you’ve heard on six webinars. So really make sure that who gets in there, this is something very unique. And the question and answer format really. Usually your all the questions you have are going to be asked by people at that event. So I’d like to give a year of that away. And the other thing that we touched on is I have an event an annual event called online seller cruise. And the next event you can find it online seller cruise comm so you can get the specifics of where we’re going and what you need to know. But I’m going to give away an event fee to that which currently is somewhere in the three to $500 range still means you need to get a cabin and all of that stuff but the actual event 20 something events. Currently there’s at least 20 something events happening on that Caribbean cruise during our days at sea. So you’re going to be able to take advantage of excursions. Let the cruise do all the happy party times decompress after q4. And then when we are sorry, when we’re doing the excursions we don’t have the events and then when we’re at sea we actually have the workshops and we do it early in the morning so you could still take advantage of everything else on the cruise. It’s a really amazing event. I’m super biased but it’s it’s pretty wild. Just imagine a bunch of sellers just crushed it in q4. You know when norm gets up there to speak or I saw Sharon pop up I wish we can get Sharon ago but you know when you see one of these like really high caliber speakers on the cruise or at one of these events, you want to hang out with them and ask questions afterwards. But they’re usually you know, on to the next picks that big thing the after event, the VIP thing. On the cruise, though, you can pretty much just stalk them for eight days. Like they literally cannot get away from you. Like you just and you can be generous with free drinks, right? Because you have a drink pass and you can just keep being super generous. So I think it’s a great way to forge relationships to know Carlos Are you still gonna wear the thong from LA? I am. Well, it’s gonna say wizards Avi comm w n n e on each cheek?

Unknown Speaker  15:37  

Yeah, very good. All right. And you know, this is a very well known cruise. And like Carlos said, it got a ton of really great speakers. But also, there’s a ton of people that come that they want to learn about eecom, Amazon, and you can learn so much from the people that are going to be there. So it’s not just the speakers that will be there. It’ll be the whole group of people that you’re learning from. So I’d highly recommend and what an offer. So thank you for that. I didn’t know that you were going to do that prior to the call. So thank you. All right. Let’s talk we had a guy on yesterday. Incredible. So tell her

Unknown Speaker  16:16  

Yeah, stop. Just because the there are some differences like with the cruise, some people won’t be able to. If the people try and enter for the Carlos fault, they might get the cruise and they won’t be able to do that. So I just want to make to contest our hashtags. So if you’re interested in the year supply of the Carlos bolt, that’s hashtag we’ll have Kelsey. And then if you’re interested in entering for the cruise, oysters and wizards. What’s your cell phone? Alright, so you can put hashtag cruise or hashtag where’s where’s the thongs and you’ll be entered.

Unknown Speaker  16:59  

So there’s the two. And also, if you do take two people, you’ll be entered twice. So all right. Let’s talk about alternative platforms. I saw you were talking about wayfarer. I saw a post that you had the other day an email that you sent out, I thought, Oh, you opened it? Of course, anything that you send a do. So I thought this would be a really great topic. What alternative platforms econ platforms? Are people listening to? or trying to get on? How easy is it to get onto these platforms? So why don’t we start with wayfair?

Unknown Speaker  17:37  

Yeah, wayfair is going to be limited on the products you sell. But it’s an amazing platform. So anything in the furniture space, which should be pretty obvious when you see it. It doesn’t have to be things as bulky as furniture just can be things like in the kitchen and dining Home and Garden ish categories. But if you’re in those categories, it’s extraordinarily easy. In my opinion, to get started, I would say lately, it’s easier than what Amazon is now. I mean, now we’re getting the postcards and everything to open an account. So very easy to get on. And if you sell in either one of those categories, what happens is you wayfarer is going to negotiate a price with you, and that they’re willing to pay for your product. And then they sell it, and they probably will sell it not not probably they’re most definitely going to sell it at a higher price than what they’re going to pay you. But and they promote it, they do all of that. And you’re able to always get paid what you want for that product every time they ship it. They also take care of sending you the shipping labels and everything you need to send it to their facility, and then they send it out or you can have it warehoused in one of their facilities for them to send it out. Really, really straightforward, easy platform. Now, are there any tricks to getting onto the platform? I don’t have a business have a plan, you know, don’t don’t apply for the account and get a call with one of their reps and not have any products or any idea. I know some people that have you know, open an account on wayfarer and then they just they’re asking, Well, what sells really good. And I’ll go source that. It’s it’s not it’s not like that. I think where fairs wayfarer is going in the direction of efficiently handling the bulky stuff that Amazon is just not so good at and really does not want to store in their fulfillment center and it seems like they’re expanding in that bulky or oversized product area, but very straightforward to get on. Your Business identification, your personal identification, bank account, charge method, all the things you would need for Amazon. Okay, next platform. What’s overstock, which one, overstock overstock.com I love it. I think it’s like a sounds wrong, but it’s like several steps above eBay as far as like whatever you’re accustomed to normally receiving on eBay for sales. If you’re treating eBay, like a business, like I know a lot of people say eBay sucks. And it’s because they just listed something and they don’t do anything about it. Yeah, Amazon would suck for you, too, if you did that. So if you’re treating eBay, like a business, whatever sales you’re getting there for that product, I find overstock to be about 3x, to two to 3x, which you’re doing on eBay a little challenging to get in on that one I’ve had the most success, what you need to do is you need to get a category manager, I have a few that I’ve worked with over the years that I’d be happy if you know, someone reaches out to me or something, I don’t know ID or post in your group or anything like that, I’d be happy to, you know, connect you with somebody. But the real secret sauce there on how I got those contacts was just, you know, pounding the ground on LinkedIn, and just searching for overstock, and buyers on overstock overstock.com, and then pitching my product. So what’s gonna happen there is you’re going to go through like a, like an eight hour onboarding process, they’re going to connect you with their Oasis platform, which is their version of Seller Central. And to two ways that the transactions are going to happen with you on Overstock. One, and this is the more common is that they’re similar to wayfarer, they’re going to negotiate with you on how to how much they’ll pay for your product. And it’ll begin with them giving you an Excel spreadsheet. And you filling in all of your products and filling in the other details that they are requesting for each of those products. So it’s really fill in the blank easy about your product, you submit it and then they submit they send it back to you with you know, I agree with this pricing, or will pay this, I find that what they say they will pay is very non negotiable. Okay, I’ve not I’ve maybe one or two times have I succeeded in negotiating the price. In more favorable terms, for me, over over 1000 products. So very, very, very difficult. Or, or maybe my negotiation skills need work. But the what’s going to happen is you’re going to get emails from in your Oasis dashboard. And it’s going to say, you know, this item has shipped, it’s going to give you a list every single in real time, like here are the orders that need to go out. And the price that

Unknown Speaker  22:37  

that overstock I was gonna say wayfarer, that overstock gives you for your product, that includes shipping, so they’re going to pay for the shipping, they’re going to give you the shipping label. So keep that in mind when you’re agreeing on the price that they are willing to pay. Give you a shipping label and already has the carrier and everything, you just need to put it you know, put the bot put your product in a box that’s, you know, ecommerce friendly and slap a label on it and send it out. They pay every week. So quicker, quicker payment terms, I find I find almost all of the categories to be good on Amazon. But again, Home and Garden kitchen and dining does seem to shine a lot better on overstock.com. Now, have you ever heard of a boxed boss or like Bo x BOX ed? I don’t know why that sounds familiar. But no, there must not be actively selling.

Unknown Speaker  23:35  

It’s a it’s another wholesale platform.

Unknown Speaker  23:38  

So Oh, it’s just one that connects you with like, mom and pops and stuff like that. And they can buy wholesale from you. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  23:46  

yeah. So check. I mean, check it out. It’s it’s a great little site. Yeah. Somebody I forget who told me about it. But I know some similar ones. I don’t remember the names. Yeah, yeah, there. There’s a bunch out there. But you know what you touched on eBay. And I gotta tell you that eBay is not the site that sucked. You know, eight years ago, or 10 years I used to sell on eBay. And it was okay. Then it sucked. We went back. I think this was an empowering what was an empowering summit. We went to the head office, and they told us what they were doing. And, man, they’ve got some really cool, they’re actually going out of their way to get brands to come back and be brands, not to be this discount platform. And just to give you an example, I had this client who was suspended five times for hazmat issues. Each one had nothing to do with their product, but each time they did it, it killed their sales. So we took it over to eBay and eBay along with that product and three of his other products. We ended up selling 150 grand a month. on eBay. Not a bad No, not too shabby.

Unknown Speaker  25:06  

So no eBay. eBay is great. It’s just what I guess what frustrates me most about about eBay when it comes to like people in my group and I’ll tell you what, I love eBay more than I love Amazon i think is it’s night and day. As far as which one brings me more money. Yeah, it has more traffic. But Amazon does not care about me at all. There is at least a small piece of eBay that still does. Yeah. You could tell that in customer service and how they deal with you and you have an issue on your account. I wish eBay I wish it was reversed. eBay is amazing. Love. what frustrates me though, is so many people saying that that e Bay sucks and that you can’t do anything on eBay. But all they did was listed. Like if one image junky title. You know, if they did those same things on any platform, they’d get those results. It’s not eBay. It’s you.

Unknown Speaker  26:01  

Right. Yeah. And that, like you said, any platform. Alright. So any other platforms that you throw? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  26:09  

I’d say my number one alternative platform after Amazon is rocketing, especially rackets in Japan. rackets in just Rakuten rackets in is what I call it. I don’t know. But racket 10 is just absolutely amazing. But rest booton. Yeah, racket 10 is just absolutely amazing. learning curve. Absolutely. Do you want to hire someone on your team to deal with it? Absolutely. The people at racket 10 though will connect you with everyone you need. You can just ask them and they will help you with every step along the way. rackets in the US is nothing to write home about right rackets in in Japan is absolutely amazing. Because of if I count sales from racket in with my Amazon Japan sales like if I was to include them, then Japan is my best country have sales outside of the US. Instead it’s third. If because I don’t in Amazon. I don’t we don’t we don’t include other stuff. But with rackets in it’s my next best country. So racket is amazing.

Unknown Speaker  27:20  

Where you said Japan but racket is all over? Sure. Do they have a a unification network that ties in Korea ties in Japan? Or do you have to go to country to country kind of like what you’re doing right now? Not? now. You don’t have to they have unification in North America over in Europe. But do you have to go country and cut to country with racket and

Unknown Speaker  27:46  

i i don’t know 100% I’m pretty sure it is country to country but don’t quote me on that at least that’s how we’ve approached it. And we sort of approach that with Amazon too in the sense of Yes, there is some unification I guess you mean unification in the dashboard where you can do a drop down and toggle between Yeah, but we treat each country as it’s a separate business like we’ll open up a business there like for for Amazon and I guess we approach rackets in the same way like we have rackets in account to sell in the US. Again, nothing to write home about but with Japan. Like it’s a separate business. It’s a It’s amazing. I was I was geeking out about it with what’s his name? It’s guys like Amazon all Amazon Japan, Nick cats, I think. Okay, no, I don’t Oh, you got to get him on the show. Well send me his info. I will Yeah, no, he’s he’s just everything you want to know about successfully selling on Japan like real stuff. So Nick cats. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  28:48  

very good. And I just noticed that one put recommend us is great three PL and cashback app. Absolutely. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  28:59  

Yeah, one look at one well Robbie mentioned something and I’m totally like wrong for not mentioning this but offer up and Facebook marketplace. Facebook marketplace has been growing for us at about 350% year over a year since it came out. So it’s, I’m also hearing in my group, this is gonna blow you away. It’s a little side but you know, you’re always listening for like the next Amazon or something like that to get to early adopt. I’m having these people come up to me usually 19 years old, something like that. And they’re showing me how they’re doing 1000s of dollars in profits on Facebook marketplace. And I’m, that gets my attention. Like I remember that that’s a mortgage payment Plus, you know, and I’m looking at what they’re doing. I guess if you have a VA, hopefully they have VA is doing this, but they’re they’re just grabbing every bestseller on Amazon and other stuff. And they’re just listing it on Facebook marketplace, and they’re marking it up now. why somebody would go shop on Facebook marketplace and see a pristine white background image and not say, why don’t I just shop on Amazon? I don’t know. But it’s happening. And it’s happening in mass to the tune of many people making 1000s of dollars a month, I’m like, let me see this, like, there’s something missing here. And I’ve looked at their stuff, it’s legit. So they take an Amazon image, or they take, they buy the product, or they know they list it, they listed in 1000s. And then when it gets a sale, they drop ship it from Amazon, they buy it with their prime account and have it delivered to this other address. And they’re doing it all around the world. Where everywhere that Facebook has a marketplace and tapping into the different Amazon’s and they’re marking it up Say, say 20% you’re not dealing with Amazon seller fees or anything like that you’re buying now,

Unknown Speaker  30:47  

is that I guess that’s no different than people doing the exact same thing on eBay.

Unknown Speaker  30:54  

I yeah, I guess I’m not a fan of drop shipping, but I am a fan of just creativity and making it work. And when I see that, I immediately recognize like, you know, Facebook could make a real change. And this could disappear overnight. And this is this is also something that you know, and I don’t feel like Amazon’s a fan of drop shipping you know you can’t you lose a lot of control of your inventory and stuff like that. So but it’s it’s it’s happening there’s there’s clubhouse rooms happening about it by so that that’s official now.

Unknown Speaker  31:28  

Oh, well then of course it’s official. It’s That’s it? If there’s a clubhouse room, then it’s, then it’s legit.

Unknown Speaker  31:35  

We’ll have another one to add. Unless you want to like unpack that one a little bit. This is one that I learned in you and eyes laughs face to face encounter. And I have been applying it ever since so much so that I had him come present you i think you know who I’m gonna say. But I had him come present this in my Meetup group. And that is rich Goldstein presented on expired patents is a little off subject but expired patents. I used to like source products for private label stuff a little aside, I got I got excited. But that’s that’s a really good one to look for products.

Unknown Speaker  32:11  

That’s a really great idea. It’s amazing. So let’s expand on that. So what is he What does he do? What’s his method for this

Unknown Speaker  32:23  

is for sort of for sourcing products a little different than a third party platform but I felt like if we’re just getting into creative things that you can do that this is one that I learned last time we were doing what was it a seller growth summit San Francisco a lot San Francisco down as we were doing our event like that’s how I said so you’re just going through the USPTO and searching for expired patents. He has a free course I don’t know his website I don’t know anything like that. I guess you could be easy to find he has a free course on how to do it. But you’re literally just going to the USPTO and searching for expired patents. The one he the one he showed in the cellar growth summit was like an asparagus peeler remember I don’t know if you remember like an asparagus peeler and it’s like super weird but you look at it and then you jump back to Amazon and see what’s going on in that category and you look at some keywords and you’re like oh like wait a minute like this is I can’t get a patent on it. But you’re also not selling a me too product because like no one’s doing it there is a chance of the reason no one’s doing it and the reason the patents expired is because it’s a product sucked yeah but if you apply some just like Amazon and business know how and look at the data I think it’s a great place to find some some pretty amazing products

Unknown Speaker  33:39  

now Robbie talked about offer up I don’t know anything about offer up That’s the first time I’ve heard of it super sweet what is it’s a

Unknown Speaker  33:50  

it’s like a marriage of like Craigslist and Facebook marketplace but really great UI um I believe they’re letting you ship stuff now i’m not i’m not for certain when I upgraded to this mic that I’m using now which I think is the same I think we have the same mic sure SM seven or yeah so when I upgraded to this mic kind of like my agreement with wifey and I got the road caster pro and all this stuff here like it was sell your other stuff like just don’t have all these mics and stuff laying around so I sold them on offer up they sold I listed them I listed them obviously starting at a very aggressive price cost me nothing to list them. I sold everything in under 12 hours. Wow. pictures with my phone to like nothing.

Unknown Speaker  34:35  

Nothing pro photo. That’s great. I haven’t gonna have to check that out as a first time I heard it. So thank you, Mr. Stanley.

Unknown Speaker  34:43  

I think it would be a fantastic spot to put all of your used like returns and stuff like that as long as it wasn’t completely shattered offer up would be fantastic.

Unknown Speaker  34:51  

We have a something like that in Canada called KGB. I don’t know if you have kajabi I don’t know if you have it. A Kijiji that’s what it is. GG, not good job. Okay. So it’s, it’s similar. But you know, one of the things I did last week I did last month as well, I went out and I bought Amazon returns, they’re sealed, you don’t know what they are, this is just a fun note. And for $10, I was able to get, well I bought, the first one was five, then I got 10 packs is the maximum you can buy. I got um, it just waxed up one envelope that I ended up getting had for lifetime Rosetta stones in it, they were worth 1300 bucks in the one package. So for 10 bucks, I don’t know what I’m getting, you know, Kelsey was down the one time we got them. And it was like a lifetime supply of mince Mentos. But you know, it’s just kind of fun. And I, it has nothing to do with alternative platforms. But it’s just kind of a fun way to play with Amazon is, you know, get their returns,

Unknown Speaker  36:05  

staying with like fun places to get stuff and alternative platforms. I know. I definitely no have to. And I think I know of a third, I mean, I’m just going to believe that that’s what’s happening, that their entire business is out of their garage. And they buy pallets or container loads of liquidation or used goods from like Amazon and stuff like that. And not all Amazon though, like some of them. Some of these liquidation companies, you know, they give you a sheet of more or less like what’s on this pallet. And he really doesn’t pay a lot for these things at all. He gets them he sits in his lawn chair, he processes them in and he lists them on offer up in Facebook marketplace and the guy does, I’d say 10 $12,000 in profit per month. I’m not a bad life, if that’s how you want to live it you know, you know Tom lively? I do know that name. You know, I’ve been reaching out to some people to try to get an introduction. So you can you make an introduction?

Unknown Speaker  37:09  

Absolutely. He’s a great guy. And Todd Todd’s been on the podcast he he’s heavy into where our wholesaling, heavy and his wholesaling

Unknown Speaker  37:19  

does. He’s got an amazing video, his landing page of his video, I’ve seen it like I’ve reached I’ve been trying to get in contact with a guy. Oh, sorry, you had to go on mute for a sec. But anyways, that’s how he got started. And he bought, he just bought Amazon returns resold them. And I mean, the guy. I wish I made what he made. But he’s like you, I mean, you know, is untouchable. But no, Todd, Todd, still in the wholesale game, he’s got a course a really, really good course on this. And he’s got a bunch of software apps to help you pinpoint outside of Amazon now. But who are some distributors that you can go to and get a deal to sell on Amazon. And it is definitely a viable way of making money outside of arbitrage and outside of private label. So anyways, I can definitely make the intro and anybody who’s listening if they want to hear about what Todd’s doing and the whole wholesale model. Just check it out. Kelsey, hopefully we can post it up during this call. And you know, the other we talked about this before the other platform, but this is more on an influencer level, but can make a big difference and will make a big difference. Well, I was gonna say shop loop. Shop loop. I’m not familiar with shop loop. Yeah, we talked about it’s Google’s influencer network plan. Ah,

Unknown Speaker  38:53  

yeah. You know, I think I made like a note on my Trello card and it like fell to the bottom on our call on that one because I haven’t I don’t I’m not getting a visual of it. Normally I would.

Unknown Speaker  39:03  

Yeah. It’s It’s incredible. Like if you take a look, it’s a kind of like your own platform to promote any of your products. I just noticed that mark put down Etsy to I don’t know how we missed that one. Yeah. etsy is booming.

Unknown Speaker  39:21  

You know, my experience with Etsy is limited to print on demand. And it’s not even really firsthand. It’s just hiring somebody. I don’t think I could help someone with step one on Etsy, but I’ve really been thinking now we have the Wizards of econ location like creating some of these inspired I guess why like these project axes and these like case studies the Maldives or like stuff I wanted to do, like, in my group, Ah, look, I’ll put in three to $5,000 we’ll work this business together. You know, starting with One of those machines that like make God we’ll get back to it but like, but we’ll start with you know, liquidation stuff and the only platform we’re going to use is like offer up and marketplace. And we’re going to reinvest 100% of the profits and see where we’re at at the end of the year. If you do it and you stick with it, you get to keep the business a glowforge that’s the other one like let’s go on Etsy and then we’re gonna, we’re gonna just for like the fun here we’re going to get a glowforge which is pretty, I mean, it’s expensive, but it’s very affordable for what it does and what it can do in a business. And let’s get a glowforge we’ll put it here we’re gonna get we’re gonna sell nothing but products that we can make with this glowforge and do the same thing at the end you keep the glowforge and you keep the business um let’s see, I’d love to play with that. See that way also Alina, you know, Alina from AZ rank, like she does. She does like an Etsy ranking service to or something like that on Etsy. So it looks like he’s got a lot going on. Yeah, it definitely has changed. What was the other one it was just came to mind. There was an article, I just put an email out there. So you might have seen it from marketing brew. Or if you get that email newsletter. Amazing. It’s like the number one thing I read in the morning but marketing brew email newsletter just put out an article today on Etsy and like, what’s driving them and things that are coming down the road? It’s super awesome.

Unknown Speaker  41:20  

Okay, so Kelsey, make sure you make a note of that. I’m gonna have to check that one out marketing brew.

Unknown Speaker  41:25  

Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. I think it’s morning brew, and then they have marketing brew within morning brew, but you want to go to like morning brew,

Unknown Speaker  41:33  

as perfect with lunch with norm, you perfect coffee, of course. Alright, today, we’ve got to actually cut this a little bit short, because I’ve got a podcast to do in 15 minutes. But what other types of press anything any tips, tricks, new things to either avoid or to embrace. I’m nothing against the, you know, throwing into a corner Carlos

Unknown Speaker  41:58  

not not to sound like a, like a broken record. Amazon live video just keeps getting better and better, especially via the Amazon influencer program, especially now that you’re seeing that posts are appearing on stores and how you can connect them into your Amazon live video feeds. The Follow button is popping up more and more, I can’t emphasize enough that Amazon live video is something that people should really be paying attention to. Also, I read something somewhere that I think people should embrace is and stop this whole email is dead thing. There’s a business model out there, that seems super sexy to me. And it’s sort of like a paid email newsletter or similar to like a morning brew, like we just did, which is free to join, but they monetize the other way. You don’t have to go to that extreme. But I would say Where did I hear this, but it said businesses should start treating themselves almost like a media company, in a way or the putting a heavy focus on creating content and building community. And if you’re not doing that, then you could be just being left behind. So pros, whether it’s press releases, I’ve I was just telling my group you came up yesterday evening at our event, I use a like some pitch publicity, I just have for years as PR thing, but I’m getting to the point where I’m probably just gonna, like bring everything over do prh, but definitely embrace that. And not just because it’s you. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s just super impactful in your business. So those would be some things I could go on and on. But those would be my top ones.

Unknown Speaker  43:31  

Okay. And, you know, you talked about Amazon live, you’ve been on one of the episodes in the past talking about it. But I would like you to come back, if you’re open to it to talk specifically about Amazon live, and maybe in the next month and a half or so two months, because it has changed and it has evolved. And you are seeing Amazon wanting you to build this community with these follow buttons. It’s no coincidence that it’s on live, it’s on post, it’s in your store now. They’re really trying to, you know, help you build. And what better way to reach for product announcements or sales. I mean, you get notifications, anybody who’s following gets a notification. So you’re the master at it. And I really would like you to come back and talk more about Amazon live if you if you got time. Sounds great in your busy life. We’ll make it happen. All right, good. Okay, so I think that’s it unless, Kelsey, are there any questions? We could take a few?

Unknown Speaker  44:35  

Yep. There are a couple of questions that came in from Yarrow in the USA, how much all other online platforms selling for you in percentage from Amazon sales. So what are the percentages for your online platform?

Unknown Speaker  44:50  

Not counting Amazon international? So we’re just saying Amazon us for me with how would that be? I can I can tell you this like I’m in every big box retailer. store that is relevant to my products. And I’d like to say I have competitive placement even in those stores. And it’s only about 8%. of, of my business. So I mean, Amazon’s a beast, I didn’t make the rules, the percentage, if I’m just counting us, of the other platforms, I say under 5%. I’ll keep in mind though I’m doing a really, really high volume and 5%, we’re not talking about 5% of 10,000. So five percents a huge number. But that’s what it is. Plus, when I say that I sell on rackets and overstock and all this other stuff, it doesn’t mean I’m like the guru of gurus on how to do it. I’m sure there’s a lot of room for optimization, to get better hire people to get better at it. But since Amazon’s my, my main focus, I’m just happy with what’s going on there, you could probably do a lot better than me.

Unknown Speaker  45:58  

And if you like social media, you don’t have to be on every platform. Right? You know, you can’t be an expert everywhere. Carlos has got like, tons of 15 years.

Unknown Speaker  46:10  

15 years of doing this. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  46:12  

So if you can find something, maybe Etsy is going to be your next Amazon or maybe eBay. Maybe some of the other ones that we talked about today. Main thing is that you go out and try and if it brings in, so Carlos says, you know, five, five ish percent. Again, I know Carlos is business a little bit. I don’t think that’s the norm. You know, if the average person goes out there, you’ll probably see a range of between 10 to 30%. can be off Amazon. If you’re if you’re working a couple of platforms. That’s roughly what I think.

Unknown Speaker  46:48  

But what do I know? Yeah, my mF and that 5% we’re talking about? Yeah, numbers somewhere in the tune of eight to 10 million. So like, that’s pretty significant.

Unknown Speaker  47:01  

Okay, from Michelle, Amazon Marketplace, does it offer returns for customers?

Unknown Speaker  47:07  

I’ve never dealt with a return for a customer like as far as like, pushed to me by Facebook. or Amazon Marketplace. I’m sorry. I thought you said Facebook marketplace. Yeah, I deal with a lot of returns, Amazon marketplaces that offer returns for customers. You know, yeah, they do. But for me, it’s I have one policy, you’re not happy with the product. I don’t care. You’re possibly a scammer. It doesn’t matter. Here. What is your address so I can send you a free replacement. I’m not going to inconvenience you. Oh, returning the product, Facebook, its Facebook market off. Okay, Facebook marketplace, I’ve never dealt with a return with Facebook stuff. But my policy on how I would approach that would be the same way if I if somebody messaged me on messenger was like, Hey, I don’t like this or I noticed you charge me more than Amazon full refund. My bandwidth, my cost of time in building an SLP to deal with that in the future or anything like that is not worth whatever that profit margin is. It’s not worth a negative review. It’s not worth being reported for something. Just you know, I want to turn them into a repeat customer. Right, you know, exactly. That’s it.

Unknown Speaker  48:10  

Okay, and this one it’s about the Amazon returns. So like the mystery boxes if you got I believe I always buy

Unknown Speaker  48:21  

boxes. They’re, they’re specific to my area where I live. So it’s not where like, you can go out anywhere. I don’t think he can just go out anywhere. But we have Yep, go ahead cuz

Unknown Speaker  48:36  

I’ve seen it on like Tick Tock. They got pretty popular, but they’d usually be at like, like dollar stores will do it might run like a campaign to do these mystery boxes. But yeah, I don’t think it’s like everywhere. You just may have to

Unknown Speaker  48:49  

go to a liquidator. The liquidator comes up and says that he’s got you know, a few 1000s of these you can only get 10 at a time. And we buy it that way. So it’s not something where you can go within Amazon. I should clarify that.

Unknown Speaker  49:01  

Yeah, it’s I mean, it sounds like you’re getting higher quality stuff there. But there is I think topper liquidation does it but like there’s a lot of liquidation companies that have something structured with Amazon when it comes to like that stuff that you can buy, buy the container load, I just personally would not get it to resell on Amazon. I would have bought off Amazon play. Yeah. To do that. You don’t know what you’re gonna get. But yeah.

Unknown Speaker  49:26  

Okay, and last question. Okay. Oh, from Robbie, is norm going on the cruise or Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  49:33  

Matching songs. You put it out there? We’re going start doing your burpees now. Speech ready, norm it’s happening.

Unknown Speaker  49:42  

All right. There we go. Okay, so is that it? I still can’t get that image out of my mind. And I’m talking about me, not you. All right. We’ll do like a dance on the Lido Deck or something. No buyer. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Everybody, so I think that’s it unless you can squeeze it in. If you’re looking at one of the two prizes today, please put in hashtag we’ll have Kelsey, we’ll wait 30 seconds or hashtag will love cruises.

Unknown Speaker  50:14  

No, no Wizards of thorns or hashtag cruise. All right. Okay, so we’ll wait a few minutes for that or a few. And again, just to clarify so like the the ticket for the cruise. It’s, it’s not for the cabin and the flights? Correct? Like, that’s all correct. Yes. For the event? Yeah. Yeah. So you’re only like,

Unknown Speaker  50:32  

yeah, it’s for the it’s for the Yeah, right now, it’s like three to $500. For the event fee, it goes up to a maximum of 500. But it’s three to $500. Right now, even if it goes up and you’re locked in like you’re good. You’ll also get the virtual pass. So you’ll get access to the recordings with it. Perfect. You need to get a cabin. You need to get all that and I’ll send you where to get all that once. Yeah, it’s not expensive. Now, it’s not meant to be like I’m a business person. I’d like to turn some coin on it. But it’s meant to have like an amazing networking and learning experience while having fun on a cruise. Like that’s what it is. Okay. All right. Is it that time? I think so. So we got two giveaways. And it’s time for the wheel of chaos. It’s everyone’s favorite time the wheel of Kelsey so this is for the just make sure I don’t miss anyone. Oh, is that me in there? No, no, no, it’s a different okay. Just wondering. Okay, so here we go to shuffle everyone’s name. Oh one go one. Is there to Michelle’s I think we will be to Michelle’s. Sorry. Okay, so shuffle everyone up. And here we go. 320 lifestyle. Just a second thing lifestyle. We got some late entries coming in. Which one is this work? This is for the cruise to the big ones. A three to one. Who is the winner? the lucky winner. Oh my god. I love it. big winner. All right. So yeah, hopefully we get to meet Brad on the cruise. That would be cool. Okay, all right. We have one more meal. This is for the volt. Okay, and just since read one last time, I’m going to pick him up because he gets the three to one. This is a cool prize. What do we got? Yeah. Who’s that? actor? Oh, okay. Very good. So it’s a new

Unknown Speaker  53:04  

year subscription to the video vault. That is awesome.

Unknown Speaker  53:09  

get access to all the previous events plus the next year.

Unknown Speaker  53:12  

Cool. Alright, so as mentioned, I got to take off because I’m on a podcast and four minutes live. I gotta turn this over. Anyways, Carlos, thank you for being on the podcast today. It was awesome. Anytime we can get you on here is cool. And I think that’s it. Kelsey.

Unknown Speaker  53:36  

I’m gonna see you later.

Unknown Speaker  53:38  

Yep. So everyone. Thank you for watching today. subscribe, hit the like button. And yeah, we really appreciate you coming on. We catch the episode on YouTube. Norman Farrar. And there we go.

Unknown Speaker  53:53  

Right. So thank you everybody joining us every usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This was a special episode at noon Eastern Standard Time. Thank you, everybody for watching. Enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for being part of our community. Alright, thanks, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai