Shownotes
When it comes to busy no one beats Reezy! He is everywhere at all times giving everything he has and leaves nothing on the table. I really enjoyed the discussion regarding changes necessary in the book business that can be blessings in disguise. He sees the opportunity where others see doom. Remember those are the guys that made it big in the stock market or real estate crashes in the past. They bought, they were optimistic. So curl up and do nothing or look the changes head on and adapt, pivot and come out even stronger.
Mentioned:
Reezy’s Phone # (209) 83Reezy
Sponsors
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Stephen: [00:00:00] Wanted to take a second and recognize my sponsors this week, you know, [inaudible] million dollar arbitrage as edge and list group. That’s a mouthful. It is. But guess what? It’s a great opportunity. You can build a big Amazon business. You don’t need a lot of capital when you start. I mean we all started, you know, um, most of it started selling books and then you move into retail arbitrage that is the place that you can turn your money the fastest and online arbitrage. And so by having that skill set, by learning those skill sets, you can get the best bang for your buck. And so gaze group will help you learn online arbitrage. It’s, it’s more than just a list service. They’re going to give you a whole bunch of actionable inventory every single day. Write Monday through Friday. However, there’s also a mentorship that goes on and that mentorship is so important because sometimes it’s great to know what to buy, but it’s more important to understand why to buy it.
Stephen: [00:01:02] But yeah, that’s that. You know, learning the fish are just getting fit. You really want to learn because ultimately you want to strike it on your own and this is a great way to do it. So how about seven days free trial. About a free trial, right? Very, very cool. So it’s amazing. Freedom Dot com. Forward slash is the mouthful. The word momentum. You’ve got to use a hyphen and you put in the word arbitrage. So it’s amazing. Freedom Dot [inaudible], forward slash momentum dash arbitrage, and you’re going to get a free trial in gaze group. You got to tell her I sent you, right? I also have the link in the episode, but it’s such a great opportunity. So she has amazing, amazing. I’m in that group so you’ll see me there and amazing, amazing person who’s there to answer your questions, who’s there to help lead you and help guide you.
Stephen: [00:01:50] And that’s what gay does. She does it every single day. The testimonials are real. Go take a look. You will be blown away and again, it’s a free trial. I have the link on this episode to reach in your seller labs, Jeff Cohen and the team. They have blown me away with this scope project. We use this all the time for our business. We do a lot of private label. We also do a lot of wholesale and wholesale bundles or multi-packs, that kind of thing, which a lot of people do, but we use a scope to help us figure out what are the key words and so it’s really simple. You basically figure out where you’re going to sell, what you’re going to sell, what category, find that lake product, find the top couple sellers and find their keywords. Boom magic. There you go. You copy the best because it’s working.
Stephen: [00:02:39] And guess what? That’s a proof of concept and scope allows you to do that. So it’s seller labs.com, forward slash scope, seller labs.com, forward slash scope. Use the code word momentum and you’re going to get a couple of days free trial and you’re going to save a little bit of money and you’re going to get some free keywords. It’s worth every penny. I’m in that group. Come and check me out. So our labs.com, forward slash scope. Again, use the word momentum solutions for e-commerce. Karen Lunker, great, great, great group. I’ve been using them for a long time and I guess it’s over two years and I’m in there and I pay just like everybody else. Yeah, she’s a sponsor my show, but she makes me pay and I got the same $50 discount that you can get. Oh, by the way, you’re going to get that through my link and my link only.
Stephen: [00:03:25] Oh, and you’re also going to get the free inventory health analysis. Great Way to start 2018, get your inventory in line and Karen will help you do that. We use them for everything basically, uh, you know, long-term storage fees coming up. Guess what, show evaluate. She’ll make some recommendations and I’ll say, yeah, check, check, check, check these out, this return, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And magically it’s done. I love it, love it, love it. I love the fact that they take and get rid of stranded inventory for me. I see it in there. And then next time I go in and it’s gone. Love it. Love it, love it. Got An ip infringement, she’s going to help you work your way through that. This is the kind of service that you get from Karen Locker, that’s solutions for the number for e-commerce solutions for e-commerce dot com forward slash momentum, right? So you’ve got a forward slash momentum and you’re going to save $50 a month, 600 bucks a year by just clicking that link. She pays me. I don’t want to hide that. I never do. I’m always upfront about that, but it doesn’t cost you anything additional and you’re going to get that inventory health report. The only way you get that is through mind link the solutions, the number for e-commerce dot com, forward slash momentum.
Cool voice guy: [00:04:39] Welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of e-commerce selling. Today. Here’s your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [00:04:53] Welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast. This is episode 200 and eighty five percent is reezy resells man. Oh man, I am pumped. I just. The more I talked to this guy, I mean I’ve gotten to meet him in person a couple times, but he just. There’s something, his vibe, he’s just, he just emits such a positive can do attitude. There’s nothing stopping them. There’s no excuses. I’m gonna adapt. I’m going to overcome. I’m going to succeed at all costs and man, Oh man, what a great. A great story. Great Guy, and I am just so pumped and we really address these big changes in Amazon book specifically to books because he’s a big book seller to and really I think he does a great job explaining it in his analysis and others that he’s talked to and brings it all together and I think we end up at a really cool place and the world is not ending. There are other options. Let’s get into the podcast. All right. Welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast. Very, very excited about today’s guest because we have a celebrity amongst us, truly somebody who has embraced who he is, is never going to apologize for who he is. I don’t know if that defines him. It clearly has sculpted him. I think that’s the right word. Microsoft does. Reezy resells. Welcome Michael.
Reezy: [00:06:19] Hey, what’s up steven? I’m not. I’m not a celebrity. You have definitely created a following, you know, let’s, let’s speak, let’s call it what it is. I know you’re embarrassed by this, but people connect to your story. They do because you know, I mean, life’s hard. I just did a talk in Canada about personal branding and the whole talk was about about your story, not your product, right? Because people connect with stories, so I understand that, but I like to tell people I’m just the guy who spends way too much time on the Internet.
Stephen: [00:06:52] You do, so this is the second time you’ve been on your episode number 16. I had to go back and look number 69. A little over two years ago.
Reezy: [00:07:01] Crazy. Just makes me feel old or feeling will appreciate this. I’ve got socks older than you. There’s a funny story. Kelly sends me a note and he’s like, Steve, did you like the socks? I’m like, what are you talking about? He goes,
Stephen: [00:07:18] you had mentioned on one or 10 or 15 of your podcast. I have socks older than somebody that’s a silly reference I use. He mailed me socks. I’m like, dude, I get so many packages. I never noticed this terrible. I feel terrible. So I do have socks older than you. I could use more socks. Somebody wants to sell me stuff, send me more socks even though I sell. So I should be careful with that. Um, so, so back then were, I mean you were, you were selling multiple things, but you were a bookseller. I mean you had scaled a successful book business unit partner. Ah, you had multiple locations. You were really, really, you know, building a groups of books together, bundling your own bundles and really having success with it. And that was a couple of years ago and you were selling sneakers and stuff like that too.
Stephen: [00:08:06] But right now I think your business has evolved a little bit, but I had to have you back on because of the big changes that are going on in Amazon. So why don’t we do this? Let’s catch up to where we are in where you were selling up until a couple of weeks ago, what’s going on in your life. And then I specifically want to talk to you related to books and then other merchandise because I know you sold that to related to these material changes because these are big changes, right? These are, these are, I call it a pivot point. This is a pivot point in your business in most people’s business.
Reezy: [00:08:40] So a lot of stuff is exactly the same. I was just getting into shoes on episode 69 two years later. Now I sell much more shoes. Um, I buy, I’d probably buy like about a hundred pairs of shoes week minimum as, as much as 200 pairs. And I still do books, but not as much as I did before we lost one of our book locations. We just lost supply. Um, it just, we just can’t get it anymore
Stephen: [00:09:11] to demand change
Reezy: [00:09:14] I think. I think demand is really similar. I just think that there’s, there’s more competition and what will go into more about the, um, it’s more, uh, the, the booksellers are cannibalizing each other due to the pricing, right? So, and that’s because of what we’re going to talk about in a minute with Amazon’s fees. And stuff. So I’m still selling books, still operating in three locations, selling much more shoes and now I do a lot of online arbitrage using tactical arbitrage and more retail arbitrage. And then I did at that time. Um, but pretty much it’s the same. I’m admittedly heavily distracted from my business because of what we’ve talked about before the call just being. So I’m having Shiny Object Syndrome wanting to do, do I start wholesale? Do I start private label will let me do this and this. And I do a lot of merchant by Amazon. So I’m, I’m in tier 1000 on Merch by Amazon, have 800 shirts listed. I probably sell between like five and 10 a day. Right now I’m my best day. I sold over 30 shirts in one day. So I’m still learning that process. Um, fortunately I have a designer for that and I have recently hired an uploader. So that is, you know, that was taking me one to two hours a day every single day. And so that getting off my plate is like a huge, a relief.
Stephen: [00:10:40] And now I can go past that because that’s a good point. I haven’t had anybody talk about that. So you had a point in your business, something that you kind of enjoyed and you got into it and it was going well and clearly you’ve done well with it. But now it’s gotten to the point. It’s pretty large. Pretty significant. So you outsource the design. I don’t know if he ever. Did the design yourself or did you. Did you always outsourced
Reezy: [00:11:04] period of time? I did simple like text-based designs myself, but I’m not skilled so I wouldn’t have to look every, every time I want him to do anything I would have to look up on Google how to do this in photoshop
Stephen: [00:11:15] and that’s just time suck. And if that’s not your thing. And there’s some people that just comes natural and they love that. That’s their lane. And so you outsource that. Very smart. The uploader. I’ve had an uploader for a long time. So tell me what was the pivot point for you to do that? What does it roughly costs, if you don’t mind, and then what time you saved? Again, just so we can qualify and quantify.
Reezy: [00:11:37] So, um, another thing that I neglected to mention is between episode 69 and now my wife started going back to school full time and um, and, and we don’t vaccinate our children and California passed the and the no vaccination public school rule, so we were forced into, which actually we like a lot now homeschooling my, my now six year old daughter, so my wife goes to school five days a week and I’m home with my six year old and we do homeschooling five days a week. So my time is, is super at a premium, right. I only have like one day a week where I can go out of town to source stuff and that’s, you know, that’s at the cost of, of uh, not hanging out with my wife while she’s home for the weekend.
Reezy: [00:12:24] Right, exactly. I would have to take one of them and go out of town and my daughter also has, you know, thankful to somewhat of the success I’ve had. My daughter is able to. Do, you know, what kinds of activities, gymnastics, art class. I’m just tons of different skills, like an activity every single day, ballet, tap and jazz, all kinds of stuff. Right. And so my schedule was kind of based around that and um, the merchant by Amazon was becoming, you know, now I can do 50 uploads a day. I’m soon to be put into the tier 2000, which is 100 uploads a day in 50 uploads a day, was taking me one to two hours a day to upload depending on, you know, did I have 50 really similar shirts in the same niche or did I have, you know, 10 of these, 10 of those, you know, that takes longer if they’re different.
Reezy: [00:13:11] Right. And so I just found myself many nights I would be tired and I wouldn’t be at the computer racing the clock, you know, from [11:00] PM after everyone went to bed to midnight trying to get, you know, trying to get my uploads in before the clock turned over because Amazon runs on California time. And um, it just became too stressful. Um, and I think I’m finally at that point in my life where I realized that I’m like, look, I want to grow, I don’t want to work for my business, I want it to work for me. I don’t want to service my business, I want it to service me. And so one to two hours, I don’t have too many hours. I might have only, you know, for two to eight hours a day that I can actually be productive. And that’s way too much of it for me to be using, you know, 12 to 25 percent of it to, to get one certain tasks done.
Reezy: [00:14:02] So good way to look at what I’m paying right now for my uploader. I pay, um, I have a Venezuelan va that I got um, as a, from a referral from my graphic designer who’s also Venezuelan. It’s her friend and I’m paying her $52 and fifty cents American and the hour to upload shirts. And she’s only on day like this is the first week that I hired are Steven and um, she’s only on day four or five and it’s taking her. It took her four hours the first day to upload [inaudible] designs, which is not that, that’s still only [inaudible] sense of design and the next two days after that, it only took her two hours to upload design. So two hours is only ten cents a design, which I’m pretty ecstatic about. If she gets even faster, it’ll be less than that. But
Stephen: [00:14:54] for, since the way you’re describing it, so you broke it down into a true variable cost, right? I mean, in theory, right? I mean, it’s a real variable cost. When you scale to the next level, you can have a plan. I mean, to me it’s a genius move. I mean, it’s exactly the right way to do it and you’ve got to a point where it was painful, so it kind of forced you to do it. You had to make a decision.
Reezy: [00:15:15] That’s honestly, that’s how I work because I am, I’m the world’s worst planner. I’m the world’s worst scheduler. I’m always like five minutes late for anything and I just, I don’t know if that’s because how I grew up coastal California or whatever, but um, I never, I’m, I’m just a creature. I’m like,...