Shownotes
Very smart option that Kathy points out. You can test your products in the UK, Europe, Asia, etc.. by selling your Amazon items on eBay and offering Global shipping. If you see demand in Germany for example it can tell you where to put in the time setting up a new Amazon marketplace. Great advice, breadth of experience and a very helpful interview.
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Transcript:
Kathy: [00:00:00] yUBC is extraordinary because I’ve always thought about this for online selling, you’re selling something that people cannot touch, so you’re selling something. You have to completely demonstrate it and explain it visually.
Cool voice guy: [00:00:17] Welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of eCommerce selling. Today. Here’s your host Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [00:00:31] Hey, I’m jumping in. I’m not hitting you with any commercials or whatever. I do have a whole bunch of sponsors out on my website. If you go to your commerce momentum.com, this episode, just the newest episode, you’ll see a bunch of sponsors, um, from the seller tribe to do away, um, from, Oh man, there’s just so many of them, uh, tactical arbitrage, um, from a whole bunch of them. And you can actually get some free trials and stuff like that. But that’s not what the pitch is about. Pitches about changes I’m making in the podcast for the new year. I’m really excited. Uh, I think you’ve heard me mention a couple episodes ago about my son coming into business full time. And another, a friend of his who is a writer college graduate writer and they have a million ideas. They’re YouTube guys. So we’re adding YouTube in and just some other things.
Stephen: [00:01:14] I’m building a new studio in our studio. We’re updating it. If you see Andy Slamon’s of amazing freedom, go check out their podcast. Amazing his studio. Um, him and I were going to redo the one in the warehouse too, so we can use it for different things. So a whole bunch of cool things. I just hope you, uh, um, stay with this and um, hopefully do some more questions. Uh, some travel stuff that we’re doing. Um, we’re going to add more. I’m not going to take away, but we’re going to add more and I’ve got some amazing sellers lined up. So, uh, just want to say a, as we close out this year, get excited for next year. I am, I am so optimistic about your future along with mine and I know, um, the sellers are just going to help you advance as much as they’ve helped me.
Stephen: [00:01:56] Um, so look forward to it. Just wanna say thank you. Um, love and, uh, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. In my case for our, our, our family from my wife and I and my son Nicholas to my wife Donna and I take care. Welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast. This is episode 419. Kathy Terrell. Um, Kathy is, you know, most people would think of her as an eBay only speaker, but she’s not, she’s omnichannel, multichannel, um, brand, uh, developer, kind of a person now really saying, you know, add eBay, uh, because you’re missing, um, sales. She lays out a great case. Um, some very good examples of why eBay right now is so important for, uh, private label sellers on Amazon. So important. Um, some of the things I’ve never ever thought about, but when she says it, it’s just like the light bulb went on and it’s just some really great stuff.
Stephen: [00:02:51] Um, a lot of experience. Uh, she’s in New York city, so we of course the, uh, contractors and, uh, you know, all the, all those people pulled up in front of her house as soon as we started to hammer away. So you’ll hear a little hammering. We did not hear any sirens. Almost every time I talked to in New York person, you hear sirens. There were not any incidents during this other than those trades, uh, people, uh, fixing something or doing whatever. Um, but a lot of great information, a lot of great stuff and she’s a podcaster and her podcast is, I love to be selling. Um, Kathy Tarell, I love to be selling. Um, uh, you can, you can check that out on her website. I love to be selling.com forward slash podcast and you’ll have to find it there. But look, this information is valuable and she’s available.
Stephen: [00:03:31] You can reach out to her. She is, uh, approachable. Um, and is that a lot of conferences, speaking of very approachable and just ask for help and she’s the type of person to help you. Great stuff. Let’s get into the podcast and we’ll come back to the e-commerce [inaudible] podcast. This is take two on an interview that I’m trying to do with somebody who we’ve been talking for years about getting together and neither one of our schedules allow it until now. And we’re forcing it to happen because I think, you know, it’s funny, I get to think about the first time I’ve talked with her that nobody else heard. And it builds. This is a life that is built upon the previous period and I think there’s so many examples in your, whoever’s listening’s personal life. I think Kathy Tarell is going to help you figure out how you could use this to help in this e-commerce space. Not only eBay. She is not. While she does ambassador eBay, she’s any commerce ambassador. Welcome Cathy.
Kathy: [00:04:25] Hi. How are you Steven? Good to be here. I will.
Stephen: [00:04:28] And you know, I don’t know if you thought about our conversation at all, uh, um, last week, but I thought about it and I thought about, you know, and we’re going to go through how you got to where you are, but you, you are really somebody who has embraced, uh, and, and, and just really taken advantage of the things that you’ve learned. I mean, is that, is that fair? I mean, I know it’s a weird place to start, but it’s, do you, do you realize that, I mean, do you notice that?
Kathy: [00:04:54] Yeah, I have noticed that Steven and I think a lot of sellers may be doing it or entrepreneurs that are listening, but they may not be aware they’re doing it. Um, because we’re just so busy moving forward, which is how many skills that we use as sellers, um, that we’ve developed from previous jobs, previous experiences, and now we’re bringing it into the online world.
Stephen: [00:05:20] You know, um, who is, uh, just ups is here yesterday, my sales rep and he was giving me all the excuses why they can’t get here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Their business is booming. Um, because of e-commerce. Now I think I’m accurate in my statement. You are not just an eBay. I mean, that’s what you’re known for is, uh, talking about eBay and, and, and speaking at eBay events and representing eBay from time to time. But you’re an eCommerce seller, correct?
Kathy: [00:05:45] I am Steven by specialty though, and this is what I’m finding has really changed now that we’re in two 19. I’m highly suspicious of people when they say they’re an expert on, I’m just going to start to pick sites not to, you know, pick one above another, but Oh yes, I’m an eBay expert and an Amazon expert and a Walmart expert and a Shopify apps. Like if you are a very large corporation or a very large group and you have the teams so that within your team you have specialties. Then I understand it, but I find for consultants, and that’s what I am besides being micellar is you’re far better to go with somebody who’s really strongly niched. Now, my niche is eBay, but I work with Amazon sellers. I work with Walmart sellers. I work with Shopify sellers and Etsy and Poshmark that are coming onto eBay and because of that, Steven, which I’m sure you know, I mean you’re a multichannel seller, is I’m familiar with what goes on on Amazon, on Walmart, art on Poshmark because it helps me to be able to speak to my clients and help them as they’re coming on to eBay.
Stephen: [00:06:54] I think it’s just so smart being well versed. You don’t have to be an expert, but well-versed to know what’s going on in those other marketplaces. It does give you the ability because I, and that gives them confidence that they’ve got the right person. So I agree with that. All right, well let’s go back. Let’s go back and Tom, I’m going to take you back a time. Kathy, let’s go back. You know, Tina, you were three weeks old. What happened now? So take us back. I mean, what, what was, what, what were you going to do with your life? I mean, did you ever, did you ever think about what you were going to do with your life as a kid? And then
Kathy: [00:07:23] absolutely. I mean, I went through a couple of different things. Um, when I was a kid of things that I really love to do and what I landed in was theater because I just loved it. Um, junior high and high school, I was in Princeton, New Jersey and McCarter theater was there and McCarter at the time was regional, I mean, was repertory. So it means like every month there was a different play. And I actually got to work at the theater, being front of house, um, which means I was taking tickets and things like that. But because of that, I got to watch rehearsals and we had wonderful actors. John Lithgow was actually an actor at McCarter when I was there, so I got to watch the likes of him. And rehearsal caught the theater bug, ended up going to Northwestern university, was a theater major there. And then when I graduated for theater majors and I was very much for theater rather than TV or film, it was pretty much, it was Chicago, which at the time had very strong theater with second city and things like that.
Kathy: [00:08:25] The Goodman or New York. And my family was in the New York area. So I chose New York. I figured it would just be an easier transition to make. And did, came to New York and did off-Broadway, theater. I did regional theater, which means you’re going to various States, you know, outside of New York to do theater. I did that for years. Um, I did do soap operas. I was on, um, all my children, I was on another world. I was on guiding light cause there used to be a lot of soap operas out in New York. Um, I did TV, I was on long order special victims. I was unregular law and order, cause people may not realize it, but a lot of the law and orders at that time were shot in New York. Um, so that was great. And then from that I ended up landing on QVC. Um, really because I was doing a day job theater is great and TV and film, but it’s very sporadic work.
Kathy: [00:09:17] So you’re paid very well, but you may only work a week out of the month and it’s not enough to pay the bills. It would be like only getting one sale a week. It’s like you can’t pay your belts on that bright. Right. And um, so I had always had side jobs and one of them was doing merchandising and detailing in large department stores. So I always had retail experience, but I never thought of it as retail experience because my focus was on my theater. My focus was not on Macy’s or bed bath or JC penny or um, gosh, where else was I working? It’s like you forget because there’s so many stores you’re going in and out of all crate and barrel. So from doing the display work, I actually had a company approached me because they knew I had theater background and say, would you like to go on QVC for our product?
Kathy: [00:10:10] I was like, sure, go on live TV. Sure. Um, and there’s a whole procedure you go through. So if somebody wants to put you on QVC, it’s great, but QVC has to approve you. So there’s a whole protocol you go through, there’s a training that you go through. Um, that’s quite extensive and I got approved to go on and I was on QVC for different products for over six years, which was great fun. A ton of work. And Steven, I got to tell you want to talk about learning retail from the bottom up. QBC is extraordinary because I’ve always thought about this for online selling, you’re selling something that people cannot touch. So you’re selling something. You have to completely demonstrate it. And explain it visually no matter what the product is. And it could be food. Um, I remember watching Tova Borgnine Ernest Borgnine, his wife sell perfume.
Kathy: [00:11:08] So you’re selling a scent on TV and she would sell tons. I watched Joan Rivers sell who was brilliant. Um, she actually had a nickname of the million dollar baby because she could sell $1 million an hour. And she was fun to watch. I mean, she just, all that stuff that looks like it’s just off the cuff is well thought through well-rehearsed. Um, she’s a very savvy business lady and super nice. Steven, I got to tell you, just really, really nice stuff. I’m surrounded by these wonderful sellers, these wonderful entrepreneurs. And when you present on QBC, you have to be there hours before you go on. So if you’re going on a, you gotta be there like at 12, cause you have to meet with the host, you have to prep your product. They also want to make sure that you’re there so that when they go live that they’re not looking around for you.
Kathy: