From driving full-time to launching a successful online reselling business which gives him the ability to work on his missions, Jon takes us through his challenges with re-selling and how he’s looking to scale the business in the coming years. He shares with us how his journey on growing the business as well as top tips to start your very own online re-sale business!
From Selling Rare Collectables to Books
Jon saw the opportunity to sell on e-Bay when he got a box of martial arts DVDs at a yard sale. For only 5 bucks, he got 100 DVDs and flipped them on e-Bay for 40 bucks each! This was when Jon saw the potential to quit his 6-day a week job driving to become an online entrepreneur.
He owes his success to his influencers, whose sessions he listened to while driving. It motivated him to look out for opportunities and make the most of each sale. Jon sells a variety of things on e-Bay, from video games to books to toys, and he’s now shaping his online store to sell rare collectibles, such as the 1986 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle collectibles and accessories.
Jon enjoys sourcing and believes that there is value in items even when others don’t see them. His passion for researching has allowed him to understand more about each product he comes across when intending to flip it, and he is able to highlight the positives of it to promote its sale.
As part of his daily routine, Jon reads 1 chapter of a book a day. This would include entrepreneurial and motivational books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, and reading these have helped with his re-selling business.
Scaling Sustainably and Understanding Pricing
Jon had wanted to be a re-seller long before he got into it. His advice to new sellers looking to get into selling on e-Bay or Amazon is just do it, take the leap, and don’t worry about making it a full-time job, it’s one step at a time and things will work out. That’s how he got started and slowly started scaling the business from his first flip with the martial arts DVDs.
Jon shares with us that his greatest challenge to date has been scaling the business, and the way to manage this is through finding the right balance between the following: setting some funds aside for scaling inventory, finding the right inventory, listing the items on e-Bay and Amazon, and receiving the items to re-sell, which in the case of scaling, would likely be wholesale from manufacturers.
“Just take the leap and get started”
He also shares with us the importance of learning the tools used in the business well, such as AccerlerList and ensure that every function or listing is double-checked before publishing it live to prevent a loss or any risks to the business.
He believes that the best way to have a successful business on e-Bay or Amazon is to put in the hours for research, be thorough and trust the sales ranks of items on the website.
“You got to put the research in. So just make sure you’re researching or items thoroughly…I would buy stuff because I thought they were awesome. I thought they were cool, but they would never sell. So just trusting the sold listings, if there’s no sold listings on that item, no matter how neat, it is. Just pass. So just researching your items, and then learning that and if you’re on Amazon trust the sales rank. None of that stuff ever lies. If there’s no solids, it’s never on sale. If the sales rank super high, it’s never gonna sell. So you just need to research your items. I would say that’s the biggest thing is just making sure that you’re buying quality items and not just random stuff,” he adds.
Making the most of re-selling online
Jon intends to scale the business so it can support him and his family while they travel to different destinations in the future.
“Long-term is to pretty much have it self-sustained to the point to where that you know could, if I’m, I’ve, my company name is driven missions and we’ve named it that because we’re really heavy into missions and community work and different things like that. And I would love to be able to just say, you know, I’m gonna take a team on a three-month mission’s trip to wherever and just go, and then my employees be able to sustain the business while I’m gone.”
Having a goal can help to motivate you on your seller journey and to stay track on scaling the business!
“Trust the sales rank. None of that stuff ever lies. If there’s no solids, it’s never on sale.”
He shares this and many other gems on The Sellers Corner. Listen to his podcast interview below to get the whole story and more helpful tips on scaling your e-Bay or Amazon store!
