Interview w/ Top Toy Seller Eduardo

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: to ask him so that would be great um let's see you want me to let you guys do it no you can do it it's fine okay let me see get this set up all right let's do this so i'm gonna post this on youtube because i want to blow up the toy group no pressure let's do it all right guys no pressure eduardo okay ready what's up guys welcome to daily refinement today i want to serve the unserved community of toy sellers on my channel it's so sad there's so many toy sellers out there i never really make any content for you guys so what i really want to do is provide a great place for toy sellers to come together and talk about stuff and today i have two of my members genie and eduardo who are going to chat about toys and i want to be here for you guys so i'll let genie take over but i'm excited because i get toy questions all the time and i'm not a toy expert and i never really have any resources for toy sellers so i'm excited to learn about eduardo's operation and listen to [00:01:13] Speaker 2: the genie's questions cool thanks chris hey wardo it's good to see you been like two weeks how have you guys been good how about you i've been doing well i'm kind of excited about this so i know more about your history than a lot of people but because of that i'm gonna have to act like i don't so okay you can you can ask any questions you're gonna get some some basic questions first so first hope i can hope i can answer well for you guys okay so how long have you been reselling [00:01:52] Speaker 3: okay so reselling like seriously i would say for the past two years okay and just playing the game probably about five like just no no knowing nothing about it starting following chris kind of like okay this guy seems to kind of know what he's talking about you know and then you know i kind of started following him and then listening to his advice and then finally also met tech and then got really like serious with it and and kind of like stuck to all of the recommendations and stuff and and i think for the past two years i would say i've been doing it seriously [00:02:34] Speaker 2: so you messaged me a couple of days ago and you'd hit 10 000 items in your store um so can you kind of give us a rundown of what your like basic setup or what your business premises are like what are you what are you trying to accomplish what are your goals like how does your [00:02:51] Speaker 3: business work like what are your operations um okay um so like you want to know how large my place is or [00:03:02] Speaker 2: you're talking about how do i operate yes actually i'm kind of i kind of threw three in at one time but [00:03:08] Speaker 3: can you kind of give us a rundown of your business first right so okay so let's let's start let's start at the very beginning so basically we we we have acquired a lot of uh a lot of items and we have parts for figures parts for vehicles accessories basically and then we also have sealed toys from like current years i would say for the past 10 years give or so um on top of that then i have my original gi joe collection which kind of started all of this like you know when the pandemic hit i was like okay so i i had i have several businesses and most of them were kind of i don't say shut down but like nobody was hiring us to do anything because nobody was accepting people at home and we had installs and did like cabling and stuff like that it kind of stuff so long story short i said i'm going to start selling my gi joe toys i'll have fun through the process and i'll kind of figure it out and i'll see what happens so it all started there um basically what we do is we id a lot or a ton of parts we sort them by genre or by toy line and then we kind of see what's like a higher value kind of a part and then like a lower value kind of part and then we kind of like separate them then we take pictures of the higher end parts we get those listed and then when we have quite a few going on and we've done quite a few like high amount items that are high dollar items once we have that done then i'll spend probably a week or a week and a half listing 199 or 299 items which are like very lower end um but since i already got like a bunch of good stuff up then we do like the lower end stuff and we kind of because yes to us it's a business and yes we kind of want to make as much money as we can but also i have like that compromise to my fellow collectors and to that community to put it in a way where i really want to try and have as many accessories and parts up for them and then that ends up half what ends up happening is that we get combined orders where then one guy would come in and buy a whole bunch of 499s 309s 209s and end up spending you know between the lower end kind of like 50 to 70 dollars so then maybe 100 150 200 in one purchase which is great and then he's getting or they're getting like very cheap items but that's basically how it works um we take individual pictures for every single accessory and what i like to do is for me i kind of see every single listing as a real estate unit in my brain it's like because people ask me like oh my god but are you gonna invest time to list let's say in in your terms or what you do a 399 brush for a barbie doll i'm like yeah why not and the reason is because we get so much every single week and we get a lot of stuff coming in i know that brush is going to come in again next week or the following week so what i do is i have that listing there and it's already selling it has three maybe two sold maybe one sold maybe ten sold depending on how popular it is maybe it's out of stock and as soon as i get more i just restock it and i don't have to think about the listing i don't have to and i'm not talking about set and forget but i'm talking about not having to build a brand new listing right again because it's already been done then i run a separate platform which is ink frog and i know chris knows about it i don't use ink frog anymore for listing boy that was holding me back and i don't just be bad about any company or anything it's ink frog is a good platform but it's just i just use it to keep a backup of everything so we and we use the out of stock option so basically when something goes to zero and it's been in zero for cert for certain time ebay will end it and then the backup is ending frog so when we look for it it's like okay we got it in oh it's not on ebay anymore we'll go to a frog we'll just add one launch it and then do everything else from ebay that's a very basic rundown of how things work or what we do maybe we can get into specifics if you want or how do we sort or how do we will we we can do all that um but maybe you want to guide that kind of questions or i do but you brought up [00:07:49] Speaker 2: something that's really important i think we've talked about at least the last couple of weeks we've talked to it's come up a couple times but i know you have discussed this personally not within the group but about collectors and how i kind of feel the same way as you like i feel kind of an obligation to make sure that the things that they need for their collection are available and yeah i know that's near the same way sometimes there are items that are only you know a dollar ninety nine or three nine those are yeah yeah those are low value items but it seems to me at least in my experience that the more of those items i have the more likely as you said too i'm going to get someone who's going to do a combined order and buy a bunch of those things at one time and then those people seem to come back um so is that kind of what you're seeing also like are you having people who buy stuff like that from [00:08:34] Speaker 3: you do they come back on a regular basis yeah we definitely do um it's kind of weird because i kind of keep track of that and i've been seeing that my return customers is only i think around 18 to 20 so it's not that large of my of my customer base mostly people are new to my to my store but as they come they kind of stay and they do pre-purchase and repurchase and i i use another uh i use another platform called 3d sellers which is awesome and i use that just for customer service and i love it because it keeps track of your what your customers are doing and all that and i can actually see how many orders they've done when they message me um lets me set up a whole bunch of automations for messages and stuff like that so i am like i am very um very um i don't know what the word is but i'm i'm looking for uh very incisive or incisive or i don't know what the right word is but i'm like i'm really into trying to get my customers to come back trying to get my customers to follow me trying to get my customers to work with me constantly um and i i i i have enough conversations going on all day with my customers that i kind of feel that i most of my buyers are repeat customers when it's not really true it's actually just 20 but but i i'm busy all day talking to them and whatever right so it is so i do feel like we have you know a pretty decent return business uh return customer business so yeah [00:10:08] Speaker 2: i don't really have an like i don't have any data on this but it seems to me that probably a 20 retention rate of your customers is probably pretty good i mean chris might have more background more information on that than i do but i think that 20 of your customers coming back most people most stores would be happy with that i think so i'd say that's a pretty good thing even though you think it's a small part of your business i mean if you take it and think about a different way that's one fifth of [00:10:32] Speaker 3: your business right right i just feel like if i don't look at it if i don't look at numbers i kind of feel that if you would ask me that without me looking at numbers i would say yeah we get most repeat customers and then the least customers are the right but but it's not like that it's really actually 80 new customers and then i feel that's not feel i've seen it on ebay like it's basically 18 between 18 and 20 percent the return and customers are really happy and i'm excited for that because it is really hard to run this operation from panama and and and and when i say really hard and i don't want to like throw flowers at myself or anything like that but it's like there's so many challenges to doing this from here and i think in the end we've kind of managed all of them but there's there's one that i can't control which is a perception of somebody new coming into my store and and learning that to get that part they're gonna have to wait two to three weeks i don't i don't have control over that so i can't i can't do anything about it right but i but i guess we kind of balance it out by giving a great service by by by um doing awesome pictures by having good stock not just anything just like really good stuff and that i think helps out in in a way that our customers say you know what it's two weeks damn the damn toy's been there for 30 or 40 years it doesn't really matter if it takes two weeks to get here it's not like you're buying essentials or you're not buying you know groceries or anything like that so it's okay if it takes two weeks um on average it takes two weeks sometimes it could take up to three when everything's running smoothly not always it not always it is not right now um and that has been a challenge because like even though i love this and i enjoy doing this and my business is also something i really like to a term with just like it was born from my hobby so i really enjoy doing it um i really want to take this into the like like a larger scale and i really want to take this to the next level um like i do have a dream of making a couple of million with this somehow i just don't not yet there um you know but i think we've started in a good like we're in a good path and we are we are making we're making very important steps to kind of like get there eventually right like if you ask me tomorrow like and you're gonna make a million next year no um but it's not even there not even half a million but it's like i kind of see the path and i think that we can get there eventually um so i am [00:13:12] Speaker 2: working towards that that's good um so i was gonna say or i was gonna ask like do you feel like you're kind of a a niche within a niche seller but then i started to think you're more of an everything seller within the toy category because you sell everything you sell action figures you sell dolls you sell flush you sell um vehicles um so you sell everything within the toy category and do you think that that is more do you think that's more difficult because you know i'm more niched in to the category i'm in but do you think it's a little more difficult for you to be in everything [00:13:49] Speaker 3: toy seller it is hard it is not easy especially when you don't know about something because because doing toys even though we're niched down like you said like you know you take a new toy line and you're like okay i'm gonna list this what is this is it was a cartoon was it a board game where what did this where did it came from like just to select the category like is it is a tv series a video game like what it where is this coming from so there's stuff you don't even know um because we buy in lots so so you know we might get this i don't know this little accessory here and we're like what is this like we don't know so once we figure out like oh that is gi joe sigma six and we're like okay sigma six what is that i don't even know what that is so it takes time to kind of learn it and everything so what we do is when we don't know it it's kind of like in another section so that in the same sense that i said earlier like when we have a little bit more time then we do like the lower end stuff like 199 29 on that same time one day or one week i'll choose to let's say you know i'll i'll focus this week in smurfs i have no like i have no knowledge about them other than the cartoon but let me just work in smurfs learn them figure it out see what's good what's bad and then that's what we do and we've been doing that for five years so in doing so we've learned a whole deal of toys and toy lines and it's been a whole process um but it is i want to say it's kind of like selling men's clothing or women's clothing so okay men's clothing but you have pants you have shorts you have uh jackets you have swimwear you have like men's clothing is also kind of like and then you have many brands so it's kind of like the same thing it's just in toys i would say maybe it's a little bit bigger and the other i don't want to say bad thing but the other the other complication to it is not knowing what you're getting like when you buy a lot and there's 3 000 parts in it you don't know what's in there there's no skews there's no nothing that you can scan with a gun and know oh this is yeah this is the box that has the 1500 t-shirts for the michael jordan whatever so it's like so we've developed a process for that as well um and again it's just a learning curve it is a little bit hard we do enjoy it and there's one thing that we've discussed in some of the toy calls in the past that i think it's important to this and i don't know if you kind of like feel the same way but i think this business has the eight to five time where you're working on your business and then there's that off time where i dedicate a lot of time to learning investigating i have a group where we talk about all these toys and figure out what they are and stuff like that and then there's a lot of ton of there's thousands of experts in different toy lines and they give their perspective and i'm like involved in all of this but that for me is my hobby so when a regular business person ends at five or ends at three or ends at noon like chris says like okay i want to do my business i want to be done by noon okay so when he's done what is he going to do now he's going to go play with the kids or he's going to go do some sports or he's going to do whatever he likes on his time for me my hobby my free time is okay let's just sit down with these toys and figure what they are and whatever so you know in that dead time we're doing a lot of research and stuff that if we had to do that in our eight through five it probably wouldn't be feasible or it wouldn't be something achievable and then we would have to kind of say you know what let me just do gi joe's or let me just do transformers so let me just niche [00:17:40] Speaker 2: down further down and that's it but i kind of enjoy it no i mean i agree with you i think that that is research obviously is going to be the more time consuming i think or more mentally time consuming part of reselling and generally especially with with toys and i agree i'm kind of the same where i do spend a lot of my off time when i'm not doing this part or my other job researching stuff um in toys that i'm going to sell you know or that i'm looking or i'm interested in or something i see in a lot somewhere and i try to figure out why is that lot you know like because i've sourced online like you do um you know why is that lot going for that price you know like why what what are they seeing that i'm not seeing and i want to know that because it helps me right it helps me learn like oh well that's because this one thing right here is 300 and that that lot's going for 150 but i'm looking at it and just going well i don't know what that is so i have to i have to do that one i want to you know i want to know that and that does it is it does get time consuming and i do really appreciate you with i do really appreciate your um action figure identification group i've linked that um facebook group in the chat and we've mentioned it many many many times in many different toy calls but so just so everyone knows if you are if you have an active figure that you're trying to figure out what it is there there are several groups um at mario's group that he is the administrator of is the action figure identification and iso group so iso is in search of if you don't know that but that is what that is um that's what iso means so you can go on facebook and find them you can search for it and find that group and i just was looking at i'm looking at right now you have 13 000 members um every time i've searched for something or asked for help identifying something in that group i've had an answer probably within an hour um and it was it was a correct answer you know it wasn't someone just going i don't know what that is it was a correct answer give me as much information as possible it's always within an hour so you know when you have 13 000 people who are checking that group regularly you're going to get an answer and that's a really good resource and i really appreciate you setting that up for the rest of us um then so let's talk about sourcing really quick i know that you you're in panama so you're obviously not in the us right and um and i know that you do both lots and you do source [00:20:03] Speaker 3: pretty much online right yes 100 online unless i'm visiting the us which i go frequently maybe once or twice a year and when i do i kind of like i enjoy going to the flea market even though i really don't need anything at this point and people like chris or tag would just hit me with a hammer in the head say stop buying crap you don't need anything right you really have more than you can lose for the rest of your life but it's kind of like part of the fun and i like the hunt so like i would go out and chris cannot will not let me lie like last time i was in san francisco i went i went there and i like went to the flea market and i i just bought a huge thing like a bunch of bins and and put them all in a big box and say hey chris ship this for me because i am with my family but if i tell my wife that i have to sit down and kind of get this ready to shipping whatever he's like don't worry i'll take care of it and um and i okay thank you so i did buy a bunch of stuff which is probably half gone already um some it's not even listed because it's not it's it's things that i have and i'm going to list but are just like not we're not yet there yet so we just um but i really enjoy it i really have fun sourcing and and when i can i go to those flea markets and stuff in the us which are great um but for the most part 99 of my sourcing is done online are you because i know you've sourced on ebay [00:21:28] Speaker 2: um do you source through like auction sites like do you like do estate sale auctions um or other types of you know like thrift store auction places i'm not i'm trying not to give away your [00:21:42] Speaker 3: sources um that i know over is that kind of the direction you go i actually don't um i like i have bought in several auction houses and i but i did that mostly when i was building my gi joe collection um so i have experience from that from that era i don't collect actively anymore so i'm not looking for anything so i'm not actually going to any of those things anymore um i source 100 online and because i have enough to list probably for the rest of my life i basically i'm trying and it's kind of like a therapy to try not to buy anything but like it's an enjoyment for me and and the more i learn the more i want to look for stuff like when i find a part a single one little gun or accessory that's 150 200 i'm like i want to get more of those right and then i end up looking online i start finding them it's like i don't know if it happened has happened to anybody but once you learn a new word all of a sudden you start listening to that where we're hearing that we're all around it's like you know it's the same thing with these parts once we learn them then i start seeing them but people don't see them because they don't know them so then i'm like hell i'll just buy the lot because it has and then the fun part is that because people don't know about these parts the lot will go for 35 and it's it has 400 500 a thousand parts so my real in the end of the day and it the cost is going to be a couple of cents and yes before chris again hammers me in the head with the hammer um i know that the cost is the whole thing divided by the real actual parts of cell not the number the total number of parts however the reality is as we have them listed parts do sell and i i i yeah i know some are like way slower than others some parts could take maybe a year to sell or over a year to sell so they are like very slow um but for the most part they run pretty smooth and now that we're pricing them correctly before and even part of my store that has like older listings those listings are like super high price they never move the minute with the right price they start moving right away so i kind of like believe that all parts sell really mostly because people have these collections people have these toys they even if it's an obscured toy line like dungeons and dragons or or uh whatever dragon writers of the sticks which are like like really obscure toy lines there are collectors and they need the little accessory they need the little sword or whatever so they are always looking for these things and i really believe that anything you put up sells as long as it's priced correctly in terms of accessories and action figures for the most part [00:24:33] Speaker 2: yeah i agree with that i've um i i know it's been said in several podcasts not recently but you know you have to wait for the right buyer for certain things you know you're not a lot of the specialty parts that you're talking about i know that you're talking in you know less than one percent of collectors probably are looking for that and so you're really you have to be that part has to be listed so that the right person when they're coming around can find it because there have been plenty of times i've looked at something i'm like one of two people who have listed something in six months you know on ebay because you can see that on terapique you know that um so yeah some of it is flow but that's just that's just the name of the game i think with toys or with any type of other type of [00:25:15] Speaker 3: collectible um i do have a question like okay and i know you could add before you go to the question the only thing i wanted to add to that is that as long as you have a good balance in your store between fast selling parts rights right price parts good parts i don't know how you want to say it but like stuff that really moves where you can make an actual income it doesn't matter if you have a few that doesn't so i mean for me and again i i say this because like the other day i when i was visiting san francisco and i did go visit chris and we had lunch and all that and i was talking to chris and chris like man i'll get rid of all those parts you know the ones that are like slow moving the ones that are 399 like he doesn't want to have them in the store he and i i understand that because it's i don't know i i think i don't i'm stubborn i don't know what i don't know how to call it but the reality is that i want to have them there um because i also have another side of my store that is moving really well and i'm making a lot of sales so because that is working i want to have those there for when the right person comes in they kind of like and i have been getting those emails where they're like man the story is amazing you know i was able to find that thing i haven't found anywhere else it's like so i kind of like that too and it i you started be like you started building your own cultures or whatever i don't know but it's just i i like it so to me it's kind of like a two thing where i'm not blind about the business side which i understand chris and tech perfectly well but on the other side there's the other part which is like okay i want to keep this also open for those that might not move too much or that might not be the best but i want to have them there somehow so i'll just do them whenever i have time i'll do them whenever i have the the energy or whatever to do it but i kind of want to have both [00:27:04] Speaker 2: yeah so i that kind of brings so that brings me to this topic is i'm gonna completely just miss this question for right now but i in my brain or in my mind i have like this this idea of how i want my customers to perceive me or perceive the store at least the part of the store that i deal with and that i want them to think of it as a destination where it's like oh they have all you know like oh you're looking for that well they have that like you need to go to this store like in my brain i want people to say that on social media like in the various different groups in the various platforms i want them to think oh you should go to this seller because they have all of this or they have lots of this you know that's what i what i want and i think that for you at least from what i can tell i think that you probably are a much more of a destination type store than like me or like people who sell other niches you know because there aren't as many collect people i i don't like to say it like this because there there are people who collect clothes and shoes but if you're selling just your bread and butter stuff like that you know how many people are going to go well you need to go to this store because they have this nike shirt you know i mean like i'm not trying to downplay that because that's important and that's a good market but but that doesn't play with my what i kind of want for my store um but do you feel like that's too do you feel like that or at least do you want that i do i do i really [00:28:26] Speaker 3: do and and one of the things i kind of like do every day is and if you think about it it may not be too beneficial but i kind of like to do it that way to kind of impress a little bit and it's like or show off a little bit where we have so many parts that i want to like for example now we're in a process i i have a person working half time just to add all of our overflow stock to our store so you would go to a part and you would see that i have 68 and not one or two and i and i i like people to see that and they're like oh my god they have a lot and and and people start buying and then you start and i like the fact that you can see 22 sold 68 left and it's like i and and the more people see and then some friends of mine are like oh don't be don't be stupid don't do that because then people will kind of like oh there's a lot so we'll just wait we'll buy it later on yeah it kind of is i wish ebay had that out like that stocking feature feature which it doesn't have right now where you could say okay ebay i have 150 of this particular part please um as they sell put them put 10 more and 10 more as you as you and then just show that i have eight left or something because there are some parts that are grails and because we have these enormous amounts of stuff it's crazy sometimes that we have seven or eight of the of that grail piece that people are like i've been looking for this for 10 years and i can't find it how come you have 10 is it a replica is it real are you or are we talking about the right part is this a and i'm like yeah it is whatever so those i kind of i do kind of try and have like one or two so they can see like oh my god he has two but like i really like that because that way people know that we have stock and that we have inventory and they can come in and but it is i have to say it is a big challenge to do it and it is a big challenge to have stock up everything up and it's like it has been even overwhelming at times because like when you're investing all your time into transformers getting all those things up and whatever and then you're like oh my god i didn't even think about gi joe and all that stuff already sold and then we have to go back and then add more to if we have and if not hunt for more and then be out on the hunt for gi joe transformer star wars everything at the same time to have stock for everything is kind of crazy but you know it it helps us get our living you know i can save money i can invest a little bit and i can i can do what i love so i'm i'm kind of like i'm i'm trying to push that machine forward and i'm kind of like eventually the only way for me to be able to get this business to the next level where i really start making larger numbers is to start doing business with larger companies and then do something like talk to haspro or has labs and say okay when you bring that that new toy out i want 100 or 150 pieces and then sell those because new and hot sells so um even though it's not vintage the community likes it and that's why there's there's that's why they're revamping all these toy lines now and they're and you see that at walmart and target and all those stores um all these ninja turtles and gi joe's and star wars and all those are like they're revamping the old stuff even dungeons and dragons i was like wow they're redoing all these figures again and they're releasing them in target and whatever it's because people really love them and they like the articulation and they like the possibility possibility possible of the figures and all that that the vintage didn't have so i really believe that to be able to get to that level i really need to go there eventually and i kind of did my little like jump start trying like playing a little bit with stores uh locally and i i have agreements with them where they call me first and then we i just buy the whole thing and then i just buy all their toys that they have not been able to sell well here which is fun and interesting because it's a very small market you know kind of picture we're only 4.5 millions including indians and everything like the whole thing where there's not even electricity like the rural areas everything the whole thing is 4.5 million people so the market is not really big i don't sell anything in panama i don't sell at all in panama so these stores when they have they have to they have contracts with have bros mattel all of them when they bring in big containers with stuff um they have to buy the container the container has a little bit of everything of what they're selling right now so by the end of the quarter or by the end of the certain amount of time that they deem uh uh necessary to sell that container they end up having a bunch of stuff that never moved or that didn't sell and that's when i'll go and i'll buy everything and then i'll i'll test my waters and figure out what but it i've also found found out that in our community or in the toy industry toys for the most part i don't want to say all of them but for the most part all of them or most of them let's use the right words most of them get valued in time rather than depreciate it um so even if i buy something today for five dollars and it's sitting there and it's unlisted and i know tech or chris again will kill me for saying this but like having it sit there for three years and not listing it in three years is going to be worth way more so in my brain then like i have a huge problem because i have a ton of stuff to list then i got this opportunity where i said okay that dinosaur that sells for 150 dollars today i'm getting it for five bucks okay so i'm not gonna leave that at the table i bring it in i have storage room i have space so i put it there i leave it there i don't touch it because i don't have time to list it right now i'm listing other things but then in five more years that toy is worth way more than now so it adds to the value of the store so now i have a dinosaur selling for 150 or 200 where i'm also selling a little little gun or a little sword that's 3 or 99 or something like that and kind of that balances out and that helps me be able to do the business even though i'm doing both at the same time and it's kind of like i don't know that's that's how it's how it's what we do it's what we're doing [00:34:58] Speaker 2: yeah no i get you i think a lot of you know this is a thing it's just how it is with toys you know you it really is like you have the thing the thing that's like 150 dollars that strangely enough somehow we are able to get multiples of those you know for less than five dollars but then you have the little gun or for me it's shoes or a belt or a pair of earrings or whatever that's two or three dollars but for some reason that is keeping those little things are keeping my business going because yeah i can find a hundred dollar 150 item regularly but i'm not finding that every day because i'm like you i source online so the fact that the little bitty items or the lower value items is probably a better term are kind of are really like the mainstay of my business you know and i know some people like chris doesn't call it advanced ebay he calls it like beginner ebay or something because it's less than ten dollars but that beginner ebay man it's keeping me good i'm doing great with it and i've said this i said this last week and i'll say it again like if i could sell something for five dollars every single day it's the same thing i'm just taking pictures of a new one every day i'll do that i don't care that's easy for me it's like the same thing with you when you're listing stuff over and over over again and you're just changing the pictures that's how i feel about it but it's better still [00:36:17] Speaker 3: if you don't have to take the pictures like yeah that's why that's how i feel for again like like this little axe which is a motu classics axe it is the same axe for every single figure there's no unless there's a chew mark or unless there's like paint on it then we'll put it to the side and that's another one but if it's untouched there's no defect i'll add 35 to that listing and if they sell for six or seven dollars a piece it's okay we'll sell one every week it's okay it's you know and then multiple that will sell and then those multiples will bring in the money right so okay so that brings [00:36:54] Speaker 2: me to my question then um which is what are the reasons or what what would be like one or two of your number you know one or two number two number one or number two reason that you would pick something up like what what would those reasons be like it's easy to find yeah why would you pick it up i would [00:37:13] Speaker 3: pick it up because it sells for good money okay and then for the most part or or because it has demand and i'm i'm low on that um for example i've had cases like recently where we have sold most of our uh transformers cybertron keys which are like every transformer came with a little key um we've just we had none of those so even though there were not like super duper expensive items or anything i went out and bought a bunch of those to be able to restock the store and have them in house so that people would be able to find them so i do that so when i don't have enough of something or when i know something sells for really good money that's where i kind of want to grab it um and i'm always when i go to flea markets or when i'm hunting online i'm like i'm always looking for that like grail or good stuff because the regular stuff and the cheap stuff i have so much of that i just i really just like it's there so i i'm trying to find those rare ones or when i learn something new and i'm like okay so this is cool okay let me try and find it and then i i go out and i try and try and we actually even have an internal hunt because we have a whole section of our warehouse where it's all parts and accessories that's all uncategorized unsorted not we don't know what it is and we have a system for that as well it's something completely separate but it's part of the business and basically when we find out like oh my god this street shark sells for i don't know 150 and it comes with five accessories and it has a brown axe it's like okay let's go to our axis and see if we have that brown axe and then we'll go there oh hey we have one or we have two it's always fun to kind of go to our little like place there and find stuff that has been sitting there for five years and we didn't even know what it was but it's worth a ton of money and we're like the score so it's like i don't know it's [00:39:10] Speaker 2: just yeah it's like fighting free stuff you know it's like that's true i bought it years ago [00:39:17] Speaker 3: because for the most part all of that has already been paid for because that's something that i also know and and chris is very right for saying that you know the cost of your item is not let's say 50 divided by 300 parts it's 50 divided by eight parts that you actually sold and that's your cost goods so what i try to do is when i buy that lot i want to make sure that the five six or ten parts that i know will sell will cover the price of the of the lot so that everything else beyond that point is going to be pretty much free after i know that then i'm like okay i'm good and i can store it there and it's fun to also build a system to do that because that has been also another challenge to be able to build a system out of it because you can have stuff everywhere but to be able to find the right sort or when you discover that you know that doll uses the red shoes are you able to get those shoes from whatever you have or you're like oh no that's in the basement behind under 300 boxes that i can't even get to so i'm just i can't get to that yeah like we can get to our stuff and we can just say okay go to the parts area go to the shoes area go to the red drawer pull it out if it's there it's there if it's not there then we don't have it and if it's not there then we have we have like the third section which is crazy but because of the amount of stuff we have that third section where really everything's unsorted and not even categorized and that we do it by color so then we have like okay if it's not in the drawers and let's say it is 150 part and you want to get it okay you can go that to that third area and we have two or three bins full of red parts so we can dump that pain in a tape on a table and we can just splatter it all around and kind of like really quickly pick it up and then when we do that which is not every day when we do that we take that moment and we're like okay shoes binoculars swords blah blah blah we kind of do it that way and then we just grab all the swords and throw them in the in the red swords area and we kind of like we did that work just to find one part but in the process as we were just moving stuff we're kind of like also sorting right away that unsorted kind of material that came in one day it was just been sitting there we don't know so we try to have everything as organized as possible so that in our huge mess we kind of know what we have and well it's i don't know it's just that's the way we do it that's okay that's i [00:41:46] Speaker 2: think i i have i don't have a color system so my stuff's not sorted by color mine's usually sorted by like doll line or doll type um because like there are some things i get in lots that i don't like you know like i don't like to sell certain things and so i just kind of i have a bend for them it's just like i don't want to sell these right now when i have enough of them i'm just gonna lot them up do you do i don't i haven't looked at your store recently um do you do a lot of lots as well [00:42:17] Speaker 3: no we don't um we should um we can okay okay so this is like a multi-level question like yeah okay we normally don't sell lots just because that's our mantra our mantra is to sell parts and accessories so i and it's funny how i'm just gonna give one example the other day i got a um a gi joe rhino which is a rice of cobra 2009 vehicle it's modern considered a modern not vintage vehicle and it sells for around 200 sealed in the box and people call me crazy for this but what i did was i opened the box and i pulled the rhino out because that rhino vehicle has one two three four five six it has six doors if my my mind doesn't fail me it has six doors or canopies it has three six it has like i don't know probably about 10 missiles that only came with that set so they're super hard so what i did is i parted it all out and now i get around 500 plus dollars for that same vehicle it sells a little bit slower but still sells fast because it's it's hard to find if you need it you have to buy it sealed and you don't want to spend 300 if you're only missing two missiles so funny thing because my one of my guys here was like boss are you crazy are you gonna open that and put i'm like yeah let's do it and then it was it had not been it had not been the end of the week and we had already sold like eight parts and he was like oh my god this really works and i'm like yeah and i already got another one so i went online and i searched for another one and i still have one in my mine in my collection which is sealed as well but i'm like i don't care it's sealed i'll open it because sealed it'll only sell for 200 maybe 250 if i get lucky but if i break it down it'll it'll sell for 500 or whatever and i have all these listings done already that i don't have to think about and they're all they're all set up and they all have like three sold five so i'm like yeah we'll do more so i kind of enjoy that and that and um you know it's i don't know i don't know i don't even know why i got kind of lost why did i even mention that example you were going somewhere you asked me something and i i mentioned that um but um but did you ask what was the last thing you asked me i don't know i just like what you're saying i [00:44:44] Speaker 2: completely forgot but i i know i know you're right like i've done that too i think the probably most toy sellers have done that if they haven't done it's just because they don't know but you know sometimes it is it is more valuable or more time efficient i guess to buy something in a new condition and then separate it you know take all the parts off and sell it it's just it's it is and you're right people [00:45:11] Speaker 3: don't want to spend 200 percent of people don't do that as a matter of fact 90 of people will hunt the part that they're missing now to complete the vehicle to sell it completely yeah that's that's what regularly happens um and that's where i think i honestly believe that we have a business it's like there are people looking for these things either because they're collecting them and they need that for their collection or because they're resellers and they need to resell it as a matter of fact we have strong bonds with about seven or eight stores that are toy stores in the united states and we get their lists and and we basically they send us their lists and we process those lists here and we ship them all the parts they need to complete their vehicles to be able to sell vehicles and figures complete in their stores and then um we give them like a whatever special deal whatever we work with them and we are doing this all the time so i know there's a market for that and i don't honestly need like a hundred stores buying from me because it's just too much i can't probably deal with all of them but um but there is a market for that i mean people need complete toys and they're looking for those so [00:46:26] Speaker 2: parts is always great yep yep you can't you can't part out a shirt you know like you can't you can't you can't turn on a nike shirt if you can't take the buttons and whatever yeah you can't do it no nobody was it i think it was maybe carl was saying something like if you could figure out buttons like if you could identify buttons or knew what buttons were you'd be a millionaire just because of all the different types of buttons so yeah but you can't um what so you did ask actually answer one of my questions which was what is your favorite thing to list and you kind of did so well yeah maybe [00:47:06] Speaker 3: that was it um i i actually i i don't think i have like a favorite thing to list um we list what what is selling now and what makes us money and um uh i would say pretty much every day we're listing transformers or we're listing gi joe's which is what we know the best and we have the most of online ninja turtles stuff like that even though ninja turtles is kind of like i don't want to say lame but it's like it has really like really low sell through for some of the parts that are like three dollars and five dollars and most of them are that price but then i love ninja turtles because ninja turtles have that other side where it's the only toy line that i've been able to find where it has a ton of accessories that sell for hundreds of dollars so it but i can't say that of gi joe i mean i do have gi joe's that sell for hundreds of dollars because they're in my collection and i know what they are and whatever they're special and they're prototypes or whatever stuff like that but other than that like to find a toy line that you can let's say optimus prime the transformers that you can take his rifle and sell it for 174 dollars that doesn't happen it just you don't find those toys so ninja turtles is that little kind of like salty flavor where we can find 30 40 50 maybe even 100 accessories that are worth over a hundred dollars so it's always fun and we're always learning them they have all these sub sub lines in the ninja turtle line world that we really enjoy looking for it's like i don't know we're always the ones the people that work here we're always looking for stuff and they're always like we need to find another ninja turtle part that's 100 and so we're always looking for those things but um i think ninja turtle transformers gi joe's are basically the what we list the most and what we enjoy listing and to be very honest the things that are the most valuable like i have gi joe figures that are five thousand dollars even though they're expensive and i know i could sell them i don't enjoy selling them not because i like them and i want to keep them in my collection it's more than because it's a pain it's like okay so this is the first figure that's sold in japan when hasbro gave them the authorization to resell gi joe's so how am i going to list this like okay so what keywords am i going to use it's such a pain because it's not easy to to show or or or showcase that piece that it's not fun to list really i rather i leave them last like i don't so i i try not to touch that and i go with what what really is fun for us which is the parts um and we enjoy doing that more than the actual higher and more expensive action figures if that makes sense i don't know no it does make sense [00:50:03] Speaker 2: because you're right like how are you going to put you know this is the first figure that they feel like you're saying how are you going to put first day you're sold in japan after hasbro you know sold [00:50:11] Speaker 3: the licensing or whatever um how do you know where how to price it how do you know if it's five thousand six thousand or ten like like do you just give a shot at the air and say okay ten thousand dollars if it doesn't sell then i'll bring it out and buy like i don't even know then i have to write to people that are like further experts and me in the toy line and say like hey what do you think and then some of them crazy enough some of them are not sellers they're just collectors or their mind is in like i want to get this for the least the least price and the and the whatever so they're gonna give you a price that's whatever they think is right but the reality is that if i put that on ebay it's three times that or it's two times that but they're not so it's kind of like i i asked them for the information but not necessarily for the price because they really don't know um but i don't know it's just i it is hard to sell those higher end items so i it's they're not fun even though i love to have them and i understand them and i they're part of my collection that's my hobby but it's just i i don't [00:51:12] Speaker 2: like listing those items so how have you cultivated that relate those relationships with those collectors or maybe higher end resellers like you were talking about to kind of help you with that identification like how have you cultivated that like did you know them before you started reselling them did you know them through the collecting community um have they reached out to you since you've been recently like how did you establish those relationships how did you cultivate them [00:51:38] Speaker 3: right well it's i again a multiple kind of answer thing where okay most of them were people i knew through collecting so these were all people that i uh i don't say grew up with but like i i i i spent years talking about gi joe's and then when i started selling i actually until five years ago i didn't know anything about anything else other than gi joe like that was my line i didn't know anything about transformers i didn't know who chewbacca was or bubba fed but i really didn't know like i didn't even know really what versions there were or that episode one episode two i didn't know any of that so i like to me all this was new information um so i had a bunch of gi joe of friends and then i started doing toys in general i started to to learn that many of my friends were also knowledgeable in other toy lines and they knew about transformers and they also collected because in the end we all love toys and then i kind of started you know uh talking about two different people so i've in these in these many years i kind of like okay so this guy when i when i have transformer questions like the guy who actually wrote several books about transformers is my friend the guy who wrote the book for masters of the universe is my buddy the guy who like i know all these people and when i have questions that i can't answer i'm like hey do you know this or do you have and then it like i have this wealth of information at my disposal because they're my friends and we you know in the end these people that wrote these books are they have to be collectors like nobody else can write the book so so being able to talk to them and and have a good friendship with them or or trading with them or doing whatever with them throughout time is kind of like giving me that opportunity then when we created the group um i started to meet different people and as as i would post stuff i would notice like for example i would say oh okay this girl genie she's always iding all the barbie stuff so i would reach out to you say hey genie so you always you always show or tell us what the barbie stuff is like do you know about barbie so you collect them do you sell them and then you're like yeah i'm a seller and i'm a collector and okay thank you hey we talk and then i you know i kind of established that bridge and then right i know that anytime i have a question about barbies and you won't let me lie i'll go to genie because i know genie knows about that i have no clue about it so and then in terms i know like oh genie also knows about brads oh genie also knows about other toll dolls and and and whatever so i'm like i know people that know all these things and then they help us out and it's a good beautiful community because there's no there's no price there's no cost on the group so people actually share it for free you share the information and you know what i feel also kind of like obligated when people post stuff to try and do my best and help them because they help me so much as a matter of fact i would not be able to do my business without it because it's so specialized that if i don't have that brain power that's divided amongst 13 000 people it's really i don't say impossible but it's really hard to do the business if you don't know what this little round black thing is and when you post it in the group they'll tell you oh that's buck rogers from 1970 whatever you're like oh my god who is bach rogers and it's like yeah oh this was this even a thing and then you learn and then you like okay bach rogers what is that and then you start researching and you're like okay another bolo and stuff like that it's just like you it it's a process for sure it is a process but that's how we have established the bridges with people and and kind of like the relationships with everybody um and then i i started doing that in my group and my group i started um like doing uh like putting the little thing that's like group expert to the to the different people when i know like okay this person is like really good at star wars this is really good at informers and so all of them have been tagged and they basically are group experts so when they reply people know that they know what they're saying it's not and like you said when people id stuff in the group it's like pretty much a good answer it's not going to be something like oh i think maybe it's like they tell you what it is yeah and it's so amazing because people can't think of something i don't know so weird or rare or something that you've never seen or touch or whatever and it's like you put it up and people are like this is the whatever that goes inside the engine that goes inside this little truck that came out in 1982 called whatever and you're like oh my god how do you even know this i think oh i had this a kid or i still have it they'll show you a picture i still have it here on my shelf and you're like oh my god thank you very much and then you learn you know it's like it's that's how we do it yeah i would say [00:56:32] Speaker 2: that that's probably one of the best things about it's one of the most difficult things to deal with right it's one of the most problematic things with selling toys or collectibles is identifying stuff right that's probably the most difficult part in in my opinion is identifying it because once you know what it is if you know how to list something that's that's easy but it's also like one of the best parts because once you find somebody or find a group that can help you identify stuff it's like so amazing like you said it's amazing to hear with someone say yeah this this part's from this this and this blah blah blah from 1982. you're like man all these people have this like it's a big mine it's like a big hive mind you know and that's kind of like the best part about selling or collecting toys i think is just the community most of the time communities aren't and not in all instances but most of the time the communities are pretty open or pretty easy to communicate with and they're most people are more than willing to help right so that's like one of the best parts about selling toys they are it's the hard part but it's a lot of the best parts too right um 100 do you have because we still have a little bit of time um i i i allotted all the time [00:57:44] Speaker 3: that you need for the rest of the afternoon so we can talk okay do you have any tips for [00:57:51] Speaker 2: new sellers of toys because we have people who are coming into the group or people who have you know they find a box or something in a garage sale full of toys they don't know what it is but they start taking them out and then they get hooked on toys so do you have any tips for those people like to make it a little bit easier for them [00:58:12] Speaker 3: uh this is crazy this is crazy don't do it um i honestly don't have like um i don't know i don't know like i don't know if there's like one tip or two tips that i think i mean okay so the first and most important thing is like we've all discussed in these groups do your research do not start selling toys just because they're hot or because you love them or you like them because you can you can fail to spend a thousand dollars something you love as a kid and it brings your memories and all of this and you buy all these things and when you're going to sell it it's all trash or it doesn't sell and you're only starting so like the fact that i was able to do this i had other businesses going i had other things going on that had money coming in and i it allowed me the time to be able to build the knowledge and build the business and build everything to be able to do it um um sorry for that um so um lost my train of chat uh train of thought um so just make sure that what you're gonna sell or resell actually sells for good money or or has good comps because again you can make the mistake or don't make the mistake that's a good tip don't make the mistake of just going out there and because people tell you it's vintage you're gonna buy it because it could be vintage it could be really cool but it has a very small market and then you end up buying something that might sell for a hundred dollars when next year so and people can't afford this because you so i would just i would just stick to bolos i would just stick to stuff that is selling now stuff that is good stuff that you know with confidence that you can sell and there are things that you can sell that are like that um that are in demand and and that you can sell without an issue and then learn as you go and pick what you like and then niche down on whatever you i i definitely think that doing what i do is not the answer i i think that you do have to niche down and i um there's a friend of ours um in the group and he niched down into minifigures lego minifigures and he's doing a ton of money selling just minifigures without accessories right his life is simple it's just doing minifigures no nothing else matters to him so he's not looking at toy lots he's not looking at any of that he's only looking at lego minifigures and that's it so if you you manage to do that and you are able to learn that it's it's very good if you can do that so just don't go out and do whatever or grab a toy because it's vintage or because you're in the flea market and they sold it to you for three bucks because you could spend those three bucks and something else that will make you more money so i just think just be just be wise with what you do and just don't act out of impulse and and and don't make the other mistake that i did which was overbuying don't do that it's just crazy um really and and and um i wish i had not over even though i kind of like it but i i kind of wish i didn't actually because um i do have a bunch of stuff that doesn't move that's slow or whatever that's there that's like i don't know so anyway but um yeah that's what i could tell people i mean it's not it's there's not there's not an easy answer to say okay go do this and you'll be you'll be profitable in toys because it's like okay what do you want to sell okay so i want to sell barbies okay let's talk to genie let's talk to her what what brands what kind of like the newer ones the older ones like what are bad like the ones that are rooted the ones that are not on route like i don't even like there's so much and then you kind of like okay you take that niche and you kind of learn it and then you you do it and as you do it you learn it and that's how you okay i'm gonna become i'm gonna niche down in this or i'll niche down and do gi joe transformers and ninja turtles that's it but don't try to do the whole thing because it's just crazy and it's it really takes a lot of time to learn to to get the knowledge and connect with people that will help you for all these toy lines um so just that would be my advice okay i think that's some pretty you know those are pretty good [01:02:32] Speaker 2: tips you brought up stuff that i think is a common issue for all categories um for all resellers the overbuying um the thinking you have a grail you know don't just it don't don't believe everything someone tells you i guess is kind of what you're hitting at when someone says even though this is vintage it may be trash which is right you know you and i both know marisa can back us up on this someone will tell you that's vintage okay well vintage doesn't mean valuable you know and and that's true for all categories that's true for any kind of item just because it's vintage doesn't mean it's going to be a valuable item or fast selling or fast selling and i think that that that's a very good tip for new um sellers new resellers of toys because like you said it could be [01:03:17] Speaker 3: valuable again that five thousand dollar gi joe figure but i put it up on ebay and it takes three years for it to sell because only half percent of half percent of half percent of everybody that collects gi joe will actually want the first release of the figure that was releasing japan it's just they're not and not only they want to have to want them but also have to be able to afford it so i like to get that one it's one person or two or maybe ten in the world it's not so as you get something super valuable it could be super valuable but you know who's going to buy it when so even if it is valuable i have valuable stuff that i know they will it will never move or it will move very slowly so i'll put it up now and i'll probably sell it in four years or three years or two [01:04:04] Speaker 2: years i don't know right and i think at least what i've seen in the collective communities that i'm involved in it seems you're right there are the the the percentage or the amount of people who can afford the five thousand dollar plus figure toy doll whatever is is so small you know it's one or two people in each group right but there is a a large percentage of people who could who could splurge and spend a couple hundred you know so i think that you're right like you guys have to people have to be aware of that just know that you yeah sure you could pull out you could go to a garage sale and find that five thousand dollar figure but like you're right how are you going to describe it how are you going to sell it and how long are you willing to wait um so yeah definitely don't don't listen to someone say oh it's it's rare it's it's vintage because it could be it could be rare it could be [01:04:57] Speaker 3: expensive but like did you know that only was available at the convention of 2007 like if you don't put convention 2007 it won't sell because the keywords for that item to move it's actually convention 2007 but do you have the knowledge to know that how else are you going to know because that's just cobra commander how do you know it's a 2007 convention well so that's that's part of the kind of the thing that that you the knowledge of the of whatever you're saying even if it's valuable um it's just the right keyboards the right and that takes time so yeah it's a beautiful business you can build a beautiful business out of toys and you can you can have fun and enjoy it if you really like it um but just do it slowly learn it and and maybe expand your roller decks as you learn different toy lines and maybe start with okay so ask somebody that sells toys a lot what do you sell the most or what okay or look at their stores and see what they sell more of and then kind of like start there if you don't if you have no idea where to start so do transformers for me transformers is amazing i discovered this line that i really knew existed but i really didn't know anything about and when i discovered that transformers to me it's amazing how literally anything you put up sells um even screws it's crazy how like i would take a transformer apart and again people don't do this because they're not thinking about it but i'm like i would take a whole beast wars transformer and i would pull out the the legs put out the head put up and sell all these parts because these are these beast wars transformers they were like kind of lego-ish where you would like like pop them out and whatever the lens pop out so everybody has them and they're all missing little parts and pieces and the tail and so being able to sell that for 4.99 and then having a ton of them all up and they're all selling it's beautiful it's like and people will buy them it doesn't matter if it's one little piece of the foot or if it's the whole leg or the head like or the whole transformer it'll also sell so just four business is a great line to start and it's a huge huge toy line as well like many many years and many many variants and it's a you have to learn it too but it is a line that sells so pretty much whatever you put up sells but you have to you have to start building the knowledge it's just that's what i would say don't don't do it if you don't know what you're doing [01:07:27] Speaker 2: just don't don't do that something you said and i think this is important and i've said it a couple of times um i know you and i've talked about it and i've talked about it to a couple other people in the group but definitely you were saying make sure it's something you enjoy right like make sure something you like and i think that's probably not the number one most important thing but it's got to be up there in the top three right because you're you're right you're going to invest a lot of time in research and trying to figure out what these things are if it's something you don't even have any interest in and you don't even like them you're going to stop you know because you're right like you're how are you going to find a little figure that's you know two inches tall right and it's like half inch wide you could spend hours trying to figure out what that is and if you don't even like it you know you're you're not going to want to invest that amount of time in something so i think that that's definitely one of the at least one of the top three is make sure it's something you're interested in or something that you like because you will be investing time a lot of time a hundred percent with that um i mean if you want to [01:08:34] Speaker 3: treat this as a straight business and not think like like tech did once and he said i'm doing clothing because i can get a lot of them they don't break you know they sell for the average price that i want that's cool and he can treat it as a business and he can do it as a business but toys i mean unless you're like okay so i'm not going to get into the parts i'm not going to get into any of that i'm not going to get into all the like variants and then i'm going to call haspro and i'm going to have them ship a container to me and i'm going to sell what's right now selling to everybody and i'll do that like a regular toy store then that would be like a business thing and you don't even have to like it you're just buying a container for twelve thousand dollars and you have so many products that you can sell and you're going to get thirty thousand dollars back so now you're at what you know it's just it's a straight business but if you enjoy it what you're going to find at garage sales at flea markets and all of these things are things that are not going to be that so you do have to like it and once you find that thing that touches your heart like in your case the barbies or in my case joe's or transformers or something that you really like stay there learn it connect with people and then do that um and and you can there is still space in the market to sell transformers to a point where you could niche down to beast wars and you could only sell these wars and you would be profitable but you have to know it you have to learn and you can become and this is what i got my my kind of dream was kind of like really challenging was like i want to have a store where people can come in and i i tell my buddy the other day i was like i want people to think of like the home people like you go to home people and you know you're going to get out from the store with the nail that you need for your project right how are you going to be home depot and people will come to you and they can't find the nail they need to well oh i only have this material i only have aluminium nails i don't have you know the other materials i'm like no you have to have what you have to have so it's challenging when you have that thing in your head that you want to build this which is crazy it's really crazy because there's so many toy lines and so many parts that to be able to have all those and have them available all the time and and have them not sell out it's just it's it's hard it's hard but if you pick something smaller like one toy line that you like and you say i want to become the biggest ebay seller for ninja turtles or whatever then you can do that it's doable and it's and it's profitable but you just have to choose learn and and and do that don't really and if you dabble around like all types of toys it's fine and you and you'll do some money and you can make some money but like to do it seriously and grow it as a business it's hard if you really like don't have the knowledge for all these incredible amount of toy lines there's thousands of them literally [01:11:30] Speaker 2: yeah because for every single line there's sub lines like you said you know so it's it's crazy [01:11:37] Speaker 3: so marisa looks like he's taking it by like like uh how do you call it um uh we do it by uh like seasons or something like okay transformers like i have never done like like like i don't know movie two i haven't done any of that i haven't touched that we have a ton of it i haven't touched it i don't even know anything about it eventually they'll learn it but we're doing g1 g2 cybertron whatever we're doing certain sub of lines of transformers but it's all a big thing that you have to learn when you like inside the ditch inside the niche it's just many levels it goes many levels deep yeah hey mauricio how are you good good how you doing edward what's up my friend how's everything good how's the california one question of the california weather go ahead go ahead shoot the [01:12:33] Speaker 4: question well it's great oh right now it's about 75 degrees yeah i was gonna say uh shoot no the question is say if you have like a ninja turtle uh pretty much almost complete not quite you may be one of the off weapons off do you sell it all together or do you sell it separately [01:13:00] Speaker 3: sold separately toys i sell it separately i sell it separately [01:13:09] Speaker 4: yeah would you recommend the same for myself [01:13:14] Speaker 3: no no sell what you have sell the sell the figure with the two guns it's gonna sell quicker for you and okay and you're not doing what i'm doing so if you're asking me what i would do i would sell about parts but if you're asking me for yourself i would say i would say grab whatever accessory you have and sell it now genie was asking about tips my tip to you would be unless you have hot shot or you have scratched the cat don't go and try and buy the part that you're missing to complete it to then sell it just sell the damn thing sell the figure for 8.99 and don't buy it anymore now you know it's a cheap figure that really sells for six dollars and each accessory is a dollar 99 so if you have them all and might sell for 16 dollars just don't buy it again and and just you know list list what you have now and list it like that and just sell it don't and again if you really love ninja turtles because this is something you had as a kid then learn it and then then go deep and start you know figuring out go see the soul go see what what sells more and then try to get those and then you know develop your business on ninja you know about ninja turtles that route but if you have one particular one right now and you only have one accessory don't try to complete it to then sell just sell what you have and move it and keep on going keep the thing going [01:14:42] Speaker 4: okay like because like there's a few ninja turtles i have a lot right now and and i have maybe like say uh you know i came with there were so many uh weapons and everything and then so i have them pretty much almost complete and on ebay but they're not going for much on ebay uh even though it's the 1988 ninja turtle blah blah blah i was thinking of selling because it made a million trillion now but you know [01:15:11] Speaker 3: interesting enough mauricio you could you could try doing a lot if you have if you have a lot of them do lots of lots like do do a lot of figures without any accessories and do like 20 figures or 30 and you will see ninja turtles is kind of crazy people will like ninja turtles gi joe's and transformer lots sell for a big amount of money and sometimes i'm looking at these lots and i'm like like genie said at the beginning like am i missing something like what's in there that made that lot worth you know 258 dollars it's like how did that happen like if if i'm if if i put this in my store where i know i have traction for parts and i put it's gonna take me a year to sell all these parts and they're all 3.99 so what just happened here it's like sometimes i'm amazed at how high these are so ninja turtles lots sell for good money so do a figure lot get it out of your life because those are the bigger things then do if you have a lot then do all yellow parts then do all red parts then do all blue parts or do all the swords all the guns all the harnesses like do it like that theme it up and do lots of different things and i think you could successfully make more money that way than trying to sell the gunatello from 1988 with three of out of four of the accessories or three out of six of the accessories and and hope to get what nine dollars maybe or it just now if you have a ton of toys and whatever and you want to get the most out of it and you really want to then yeah you could list it and leave it there and it's going to sell slower there's 300 of them online but if you do a lot people are going to go like oh my god i can buy you know in one shot i can get i know 30 turtles for i don't know they're it's starting at a dollar so people are going to go nuts over it and they're going to fight over it and in the end you only pay 30 because you pay a dollar a figure or less than a dollar a figure so um at the flea market so just start it at 99 cents and it will sell like i don't know i'm just giving you kind of crazy things to do but i'm just saying i i think ninja turtle stuff will sell if you [01:17:36] Speaker 2: put it um in lots yeah i agree i was actually going to tell you since you're here you know we talked a couple weeks ago about your monster high dolls that just weren't really selling and we talked about you lining them up did you actually love them did you spell them pretty well yeah all right you know [01:17:56] Speaker 4: what's kind of funny that since we talked i think i've sold about three uh individual yeah but i think with the rest i'm still gonna light them up uh i just came on a little it's a small lol lot uh and they're made by mga right and mg yeah yeah yeah mga uh and at where i sell at the flea market they don't let you sell mga they don't let you sell it they protect their their like they don't let you sell it there i can believe so so i uh i'm uh so um so i'm just gonna light it up it's just a bunch of little lols uh nothing nothing great so i'm just gonna light it up there's like 10 or 11 of them with the little cats and everything with the little baby bottles that just put it all together and sell it us a lot [01:18:59] Speaker 2: yeah i think that's probably another good tip for beginners if if you're seeing something you can you can find a whole bunch right but you really can't figure out what everything is it probably is better for beginners to just wad it up um that's what i think and i i actually it's kind of funny because i had a whole bunch of those like my little pony like gin like those uh equestria girl figures their action figures actually was just funny they're not dolls i had plenty of them listed and i had them down to like i had like two dollars like i had like two dollars each and they were listed for over a year and i said you know this is stupid like i i ended them all i lotted them up um and then i ended up selling for like 35 dollars which was more than i would have gotten if i'd sold them for two which you know when i sold when i had listen for two i had like 20 pictures of each one which is stupid you know i know that's not the best way to do it but and then when i loaded them up in a lot of 20 i had [01:20:00] Speaker 3: like 10 pictures it sold within three days and i was like what what you know it's funny now that you said that um now that you said that i was talking to a good friend of mine the other day and i said you know how i sell everything individually it's like yeah i know and i'm like well i have something called wheel warriors which are it's it's a toy line called wheel warriors and we sell all the parts all the time no problem but the figures it came with like generic they were like i think i think it's four or five different like it's red and the names are like red hair pilot uh yellow hair pilot that like they don't even have names um it's it's that generic and i can't sell one in two years like i put it up for 3.99 i can't sell the figure but the other night i did my first lot and i like because i sell everything my parts i never do lots i i'm like you know what i told my guy here like you know take a picture of these i think it was like i think it was seven of them i said they're not moving so just lot them up put them like really nicely in a like a beautiful position or something like really cool and take a picture of all of them and i'm gonna at least list them in a lot and i was amazed that it sold within 24 hours like i was like what is this new that i have to start doing now like i do have to pay attention to what people are saying i have to start lighting stuff up like i honestly normally don't do any lots like i don't even think about it to me it's so kind of inconvenient because we've been listing stuff and we have 10 000 stuff items up for me to make a lot of the let's say certain line that's not moving i have to go to 100 bins and pull three from here two from there it's like it's such a headache that i'm like you know just leave them there and let's you let's just do new things and i just leave those like there and eventually they'll sell or eventually i'll get bored and i'll probably pull them one day i don't know you're just not or the price may not be right i may have these were my initial listings that were all like i want all the money in the world and i don't carry their mind so i want to sell them the highest price possible and that was the wrong thinking and those listings are still like that so when i stumble upon them i fix them you know i bring them and they start selling but um i just i don't go back it's just harder for me to go back and pull all those to make a lot it's not like i have three three little bins where i can just open one and pull those things out and and redo them or end the listing so we just leave them there for now but um uh yeah when i started doing that i started playing with lots i'm like oh my god there's some money here to be made and and and from now on i will do some lots of certain things that i like dino riders is another thing like the little figures for dino riders they never sell i don't know for me at least so i'm going to start doing lots of that and and i have a lot of a lot of things so i'm just going to do lots of different things and like little niche down kind of like little groupings and then i'll try to do those and combine them with whatever we're doing now so [01:23:13] Speaker 2: yeah i think i'm actually and i know we don't have very much time left but i think one thing i'm probably going to do um because i'm off until the end of the year now like my vacation started today which is great because i hadn't really taken a whole lot of leave this year for my other job um uh i think i'm going to take like all the little random figures i have whether they're dolls or little people or whatever i think i'm going to take them and just make a big huge like bulk lot and just start at 99 cents right just like throw it in the live box take however many pictures i can and just say random lot of toys because i've seen those on ebay i'm just gonna start 99 cents and just see what happens right because i'm not i'll be honest with you like yeah i would if there might be something in there that's a hundred dollars but i'm not gonna i don't know like i don't have the time to try to figure that out right i'm i'm niched down like i know what i want to sell and i don't care if i sell it for a hundred dollars that's not that's not my part of the business right i just want to get the stuff out like my space isn't necessarily limited but i just don't like looking at it on a regular basis like why do i have this i keep moving this for one then to another like he i'm like you i keep organizing stuff more and more down more and more specific so then i end up with like random things that are not in any specific bin right they're not in any specific storage location so i think i'm going to do that i'll report back on them next week on that but um you know you might well you might want to consider that too and where are we like i have one of these like what am i going [01:24:46] Speaker 3: to do with like you know so yeah well michael michael has been doing that and it has proven successful for him he had a bunch of action figures of you know he used to go to the flea market and he would overbuy as well and then he ended up having you know a ton of everything like smurfs little people um magic clips whatever like and they're all three dollars two dollars five dollars so he now kind of like delisted a bunch of them and did like okay let me just do lots and he started to do like little people lot animal lots and and now he's doing he kind of he wants to he had like like an average um uh sales price that was really low and he wanted to push that up so now by doing the lots he has achieved that and it's been it's been beneficial for him and he's been doing really well with that now and now of course and you learn it's a process and now he's learning and now he's doing a ton of good stuff that he's buying now and he's just selling them at a higher price but it's it's a process so yeah lots work for sure yeah we could go forever because i was thinking [01:25:50] Speaker 2: chris was talking about andy the jeans guy the other day or maybe this was more yesterday morning i think he was talking about how andy has kind of changed his business how he's not doing any more selling he's like selling for people and it's amazing how your business can evolve and how quickly it can evolve right where you go at first you start you're like yeah i really love this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this and then you do something different and it's successful and so then you repeat it and you go that was cool but this is easier i'm making more money right so i think that that's it's the amazing thing when it comes to reselling right how how quickly your business can evolve because you realize what you'd rather do and what's more important to you right and you know [01:26:31] Speaker 3: something something i have i want to mention because this is something that i've recently discovered in my process and becoming better and learning is that as toy sellers if we're also collectors sometimes we hold stuff dear to our heart and because of that we kind of want to say like okay this is the vintage whatever that i got it was so hard to get and it took me time and whatever and then you you do that and then you price it to a place to to a point where it's i don't want to say so high but it's high and people won't buy it the other day i did a 50 off and i just covered my i actually actually had to kind of like tie myself down to a cherry set i'm just gonna press the button and do it because i was so afraid i had fear of letting stuff go that i knew was really hard to get for 50 off i was like but i've made the most money in my life and i'm like what when i started seeing that i kind of like the essence of like and then i was talking to michelle um and she's like you know that's one of the things that tech say is um how how do you say that um like the item is just a vehicle to getting that certain amount of cash yeah period you cannot see it as the vintage scratch the cat thousand dollar ninja turtle if you got him for a dollar and you know he's worth a thousand and you actually selling 500 and you do that multiple times you're gonna make more money than the guy that's waiting for the thousand dollars and it this took time to actually sunk in in me like it's it's been a couple of years since i started talking to chris and and and tech and to me it was hard to let go those those collector feelings or whatever that make me price my items really high or kind of want to say like it's mine and i have it and nobody else has it and because of that i'm gonna price it higher than you know and you kind of what most of the money all the time doesn't work like you you have to have you know you have to sell every day a lot to be able to make money really and the moment you realize that and you don't and you're not stocked to the item and you're not like like wanting to keep the item or whatever the moment you really realize that like if you ask me now yes i kind of like i was shocked because i was looking at stuff that i really didn't want to let go for that amount like i didn't want to let them go but the reality is that when i looked the bottom line number i was like oh my god i made so much more money than before and it's like i wish i could do this again so if you kind of do like trust the process thing when you kind of fold up your eyes and do 50 off your store i'm just don't do it don't do this at home i'm just saying like if you try it and you you're gonna notice the amount of money you're gonna the influx of money that's gonna come in it's like amazing and i kind of learned that and now it's so funny how when i'm pricing stuff i'm like i want to be the lowest one in the market like i want to try and sell for the lowest price and i know if you go to my store there's going to be there's going to be items that are way overpriced but i haven't touched them but the minute i look at them i will correct them and i will flip them at the lowest price possible because i really wanted to sell today and and once you it's like eureka like once you actually find that you know influx point it's like things change and you think and you see things differently now i'm like i wonder if i could get a hundred of these and sell them in a dollar 99 like you just said every day it doesn't matter because i i have them here i just need to get them up right so again just selling stuff for 50 off kind of like hurt me for a while because it hurt my feelings for a while but at the end of the of the day i was like oh my god i had never been here before what is this it's like really something i something that really shocked me because i knew i could make more money if i sell more and whatever but i actually didn't like you hear people making money right you hear you make yeah i don't know ten thousand dollars a or twenty thousand dollars a day you're like yeah that's them but it's not you so until or or people work at a bank you know and they they manage millions of dollars but they don't know what that is really until you go to your personal bank account and you see 3.8 million dollars and you're like okay this is my money i can do whatever i want with it once you realize that it's a powerful thing it's totally it's totally different than just knowing that the million dollar exists and that well yeah many people have it but i don't and you know i don't sell ten thousand dollars a month i don't sell like thousand dollars a month that's them doing it not me but once you actually do it you're like hey i can do this and then and then you you i kind of learned that i like money more than toys so i'm like okay even though i love the toys i can make a lot of money doing this so let's just do it and that's basically from there on it's like let's just let's just kill this [01:31:52] Speaker 2: you know i've said this to you before it's also person personally between us on the phone i said i can't really collect anymore because now i see stuff as money like i see stuff in my collection i'm like that's fifty dollars that's a hundred dollars that's twenty five dollars like i don't see it as the item anymore i just see it as the dollar bills but something i do like if i feel like i'm if i feel like putting something on sale is going to hurt me something i tell myself all the time is hey remember when you really collected this stuff and if you got something for like an awesome deal because the seller had it on sale that day like how happy you were so i'd like tell myself remember how happy you're just think about how happy you're gonna make that customer that day because they found the thing they've been looking for it's like way less right so that's one of the things i do to make myself feel better when i had to you know cut costs because i i'm with you now i'm just like please buy this i don't care just buy it i made a profit on it i'm good i paid 25 cents for it right i don't care i got it it's gone right i'm with you now like everything's dollars i see the money and that's it so but i think we're gonna have to end on that because chris is about to call started high back his uh high high level seller call but um i really want to say thank you very much for coming and talking to me and tell us about your business and what you've learned since you've really been reselling seriously i really appreciate it and i hope that everyone got something out of this because i really think that they're going to and as i told you yesterday even though you think i was crazy you really are an inspiring person to see kind of like how you started where it was kind of like oh i think i'm gonna do this and now where you are it's really inspiring for people especially people who are just starting and i i want people to know that and it's just think about how you were when you started within the the old group but two years ago and now where you are what you've learned um so thank you very much i appreciate it and i'll talk to you later again thank you for giving me [01:33:46] Speaker 3: the opportunity thank you chris for sharing this space with me too um thank you aguardo you're welcome marito um anytime anytime you guys want to talk about toys let me know i'll come in and we'll we'll talk about toys anytime all right we can do that thanks for the opportunity guys thanks eduardo [01:34:03] Speaker 1: i'll pin your link in the group for your group in the description so hopefully i can give you a plug that way and before we go if people want to find you how do they find you uh sold separately toy [01:34:14] Speaker 3: so okay so just go to www so separately dot toys and that'll take you straight to my store so separately dot toys i love it thanks everybody thank you