Showing others the way
Mission accomplished!
At the end of 2021, I made a goal to create more Instagram guides and teach people how to do what I do. I'm proud to say I traded sales this month to make four weekly guides:
It wasn't easy. I'm not a designer. While the Internet does make it easier, each guide took about 1-2 hours to research and craft. But the feedback was positive! I had a few other resellers go out of their way to comment and thank me for spotlighting certain toys. Plus, my Instagram follower count grew from 400 to 420. Not bad!
I think the beginning of the new year is always a bit slow for the reselling community. Plus, I had my brother's bachelor party weekend, skiing up in Lake Placid. I fully expected some lower numbers, but I'm just glad as always to turn some profit.
By the numbers
Spend: $149.32
Net profit: $422.41 (vs. $862.15 last month)
Listed on eBay: 31 (vs. 27 last month)
eBay rating: 99.6%
What Sold
Highlights
Generous horror
It might be odd to some but some of my local reselling competition are also my reselling friends. I talked quite a bit with Leslie this past month. We usually run into each other at Unique Thrift Store in Watchung. She's a middle-aged mom that's obsessed with cycling. She told me she bikes for three hour stretches. She also picks through the thrifted toy aisle. One week this month she found a giant stack of someone's donated horror DVDs before I got there. She ended up offering me two that I turned around and sold in two weeks! Thanks, Leslie!
Dust-collecting DVDs
My buddy at the local coffee shop was nice enough to give me some sealed DVD sets he had lying around - 2 copies of Younger, Season One, and Netflix's Emily in Paris. Each took less than 48 hours to sell! Not a bad batch of flips for more than $50.
Fails
Surprise death pile
It finally happened - I forgot about stuff I bought. I was cleaning my apartment in preparation for the bachelor party weekend. (There is nothing better than coming home to a clean place.) And I stumbled on a box I stashed away months ago. It had a DVD set, some plush, random MOTU figures, and more. It was an attempt at one time to get everything organized and off the floor, but instead it left me surprised.
Not so active
Even though I let sales take a back seat to my IG guides, I could have done better. I learned a few months back that regular (sometimes daily) relisting can lead to sales. Even though I didn't have the time to clean, photograph, research, and list new items, I could have made some sales by relisting and editing the old stuff.
Going Forward
What to do now?
Creating guides was satisfying in a new way and it did provide some benefit by gaining more Instagram followers, but is this something to continue?
I've been more conscious of my own time since reading Oliver Burkeman's latest book 4,000 Weeks. Essentially, the concept is that there will never be enough time to do all the things you want in life. There is no such thing as time management as we attempt it. And that's excellent news, when you accept it. Life forces you to make hard choices for the things you truly want.
And so I'm left wondering what do I want to do with this adventure? I'd still very much like to turn this into a business but I'm still unsure how to go about it.
It might be worthwhile to keep this guide-crafting experiment going. As long as people appreciate the information, I'm providing a service. Maybe one day someone will pay for it. I think what might be the logical next step is asking people to sign up for an email. Once I can offer guides on a more personal basis, I am building an audience.
Let's see how that goes.
