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Worst Times to Visit Thrift Stores I've been asked before what are the worst times to go to a thrift store, the times when you are less likely to make money and just won't do very well. It's Not an Exact Science, But… In general, I'm going to give you an answer that you may or may not like. There really is no worst time to go. Now, there are some times that aren't optimal, but really there's no worst times. You really don't know when there is going to be a deal inside the thrift store. You don't know when a new clothing rack's going to come out. You don't know when the new bins are going to come out. You don't know when a random item was in the back and an employee decides to throw it on the shelf. Maybe a customer just returned something for some reason. There really is no worst time to go. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... There Are Some Patterns With that being said, I prefer the weekdays over the weekends. I never really do well during the weekends. I find generally they are not putting out as much new inventory then. There seems to be a lot more competition because a lot of resellers work full-time jobs and have time to source only on weekends. Also the general public is smashing the thrift stores during the weekend. So the best times for me are during weekdays, typically mornings and early afternoons. I find that for me, profitability declines later in the afternoons. But you've got to take that with a grain of salt. There have been times when I hit the jackpot of all jackpot right before the thrift store closed. Take Note One thing that I recommend doing if you're brand new to thrifting is get yourself a little notebook. Every time you go to the thrift store, write down what time you went and how well you did. You'll start to see a pattern over time of what thrift stores do better at certain times and days of the week. But really, at the end of the day, the more you go, the better chance you're going to have of making money. You really can't make a hard-and-fast rule and refuse to go at a certain time or on a certain day. Talk to the Manager Feel free to communicate with the managers. Build a rapport; build a friendship. Then you can ask the manager, “Hey, are there certain days that you don't put out inventory?” I've done that before, and the manager let me know that they have a sort of schedule for putting out new inventory. I avoid the days they don't plan to put new stuff on the shelves. You also want to figure out what the times during the day that new inventory is typically coming out. At my local Goodwill, they're always bringing new stuff out in the morning. And then on certain days during the week, they're putting out new inventory about an hour before they close. Build relationships with the employees. Talk with them. Communicate with them so you can find all this out. The No-Brainer Stuff Of course, you will want to hit the thrift stores when they have their sales on certain items or on the days where, say, everything is half off. All you have to do is ask an employee, and they will let you know. Maybe they have signs up or some kind of newsletter that explains their sales. And it also follows that if you have gone to a certain store several times and have never found a thing there, then the worst time to go is any time! But the trick is knowing when the competition will be a bit less and when they put that new inventory out. And that may take some investigation on your part. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

What's going on everybody? I'm YouTube Steve here, Raiken Profit, raikenprofit.com, coming back to you with another video. Man, I've got a lot of LEGOs back there, I'm not sure if you can see them, but I've got a deal that I'm about to me meeting up with a woman, going to be selling a whole bunch of LEGOs for $125. And I popped on the whole thing of LEGOs, plus a whole bunch of video games, Mario games, systems, for 70 bucks, so I'm making a killing on this deal. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... But anyway, in today's video I want to talk about the worst times to go to thrift stores. What are the worst times that thrift stores, they're not going to do well, you're not going to make money? I haven't done very well in these times going to thrift stores, so I want to talk about that. So, in general, I'm going to give you an answer that you may or may not like, but there really is no worst time to go. I'm going to talk about some times that aren't optimal, but really there's no worst times. Like I gave [inaudible] Latina Hustler when they are closed, exactly, because you really don't know where there is going to be a deal there. You don't know when a new clothing rack's going to come out, you don't know when the bins are going to come out. You don't know when maybe just a random item was in the back and they threw it on the shelf, or there was a return or an issue. There really is no worst time to go. I could tell you in general, I prefer the weekdays over the weekends. I never really do well during the weekends, generally because I find they're not putting out as much inventory. I find that there's a lot more competition, because typically a lot of resellers work full time jobs. So in the weekends they're going out. Also the general public is smashing the thrifts stores during the weekend. So, I generally find that the best times for me during weekdays, typically mornings and early afternoons. I find that typically later afternoons, it slowly starts to decline in terms of profitability, here in Connecticut for me personally. But you've got to take that with a grain of salt, because there have been times where I have hit the jackpot of all mother jackpots, whatever you want to call it, mother loads, right before the thrift store closed. So, really, you know, one thing that I recommend doing if you're brand new to thrifting, and I had my mother do this for a long time and it helped her out a lot, is get yourself a little notebook, something like this, get yourself a little notebook. And every time you go to the thrift store, write down what time you went, and write down how well you did. And you'll start to see a pattern over time of what thrift stores do better at certain times, days of the week, so on and so forth. So it's definitely a great tip right there, but in general, I like thrifting during the weekdays, I like thrifting earlier on. Early afternoons tend to be better for me. But really, at the end of the day, the more you go, the better chance you're going to have of making money, because you really can't generalize and say I'm not going to go at this time, or I'm not going to go on this day. You'll start to recognize patterns, but yeah, like Gabriela said, the worst time to go to the thrift store is when they're closed, because you're not going to get in, for sure. So, feel free to communicate with the managers, that's a great tip right there. Build a rapport, build a friendship with the workers, the managers, and say, "Hey, are there certain days that you don't put out inventory?" Because I'm not going to tell you exactly which store it is, because I don't want to give away this super awesome secret in my general area, but there's a store, and they told me that on certain days they don't put out new inventory. So that was like [inaudible]. I avoid those days. Hey, thanks Michael, I appreciate that. I didn't see what your question was,

What's happening everybody? Steve here, Raiken Profit, over at RaikenProfit.com, coming back to you with another video. And I know this topic probably sounds like a broken record on my channel. I always talk about the importance of building a listing routine, and building the habit of listing on a daily basis. Because really, if you wanna grow your Amazon business, or eBay business, or Poshmark business, or Etsy business. It doesn't matter what reselling platform you're using, you've gotta list your items up. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... And one of the reoccurring themes that I hear about, and I see, and I've fallen victim to it as well, is this enormous debt pile that us as resellers continue to build, and build, and build. And we're so addicted, and we're obsessed with thrifting, and sourcing, and hitting garage sales, but really the lifeblood of our business is listing our items and getting them for sale for potential customers to buy. So really the purpose of this video is to let you know, listen it's a lot of fun to go out thrifting, it's so much fun to freaking go to garage sales and thrift stores, and source using eFLIP, and buying books on Amazon to flip back on FBA, it's so much fun. But we've gotta take the time on a regular basis to either, A, list the items ourselves, or B, put a system in place, aka hire somebody to do the listing for you. You've gotta get your listings up. You've gotta get your items for sale. And at first, when you first get started selling at eBay or Amazon, and you're listing your items on eBay, you're shipping out FBA packages to Amazon, it's tough, it's difficult. You're literally like, "Ugh, I hate this, this isn't fun." But you know like it's gonna make you money. But over time, the more you list, the more you get involved with your photography, and the more you go through the process, and you build it into a habit, it becomes easier and easier and easier, and that momentum drives you forward, because you start seeing the results, you start making sales on a regular basis. You stop having as many slow days, and slow weeks, and slow months. And before you know it, you're making more money than you actually need to pay your bills, and you start growing your income. Your bank account starts growing. Maybe it was at 1,000 bucks last month, now it's at 1,300, then a couple months later, it's at 2,200, and you're like, "Wow, this actually works, like I'm doing this." And maybe you even get to the point where you have so much money saved, 10,000, 15, 20,000, enough for you to be able to chill out for three to six months. You say to yourself, "I've got enough cushion to quit my job. I'm putting in my 30-day notice or my two-week notice. And I'm doing this, and I'm gonna talk to my husband or my wife, and we're gonna put a plan together, and we're gonna make this happen, this is actually something that works. I've seen other people on YouTube doing it, and now I'm doing it." So that's what it's all about, it's getting into that listing routine, that's the first step. It's easy to source, right? It's easy to stay motivated when things are going well, but you've gotta keep that listing routine going, because when things are slow, a lot of times, it's because your listings and your shipments to Amazon, or whatever platform you're on, you just haven't been doing all that you needed to be doing. So really, I just wanted to chat with you a couple minutes about this, hopefully you guys are having a fantastic day so far and business is going well. Don't stop listing, don't stop sourcing, kill that debt pile, make it happen, right? And I think you're gonna be really happy with the results you get. So I just wanna say hello, appreciate you guys watching, like, comment, and subscribe if you enjoyed this video, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates...

What's going on, everybody on YouTube? Steve, here, Raiken Profit, over at raikenprofit.com, coming back to you with another educational video, and I have been getting some fabulous questions from you guys on Facebook, over at Raiken Profit, Instagram, over at Raiken Profit, and also, my new little questionnaire at raikenprofit.com/question. So if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on either one of those platforms. But I got a question that came in from a girl who said that she was going through some of her old clothing bins. She's got a bunch of clothing, but all of these clothing bins were stored in a room that I believe her parents are smoking cigarettes in, and all the stuff is smelling like cigarettes, right. So that's kind of what propelled me to create this video, but I also wanted to take it to another level, and I want to answer the question of, what do you if you come across an item that's a jackpot item at a thrift store, or at a garage sale? Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... I'm talking about a jackpot item. Maybe it's a Kiton ... look that brand up if you don't know it ... dress shirt, and it's $1, but it reeks of cigarettes. Or maybe you're at a pick or something off of a local deal on Facebook or Craigslist, and you're in some guy's attic, but everything stinks of cigarettes, but there's all these amazing, profitable items, what do you do? How do you get the cigarette smell out? How do you deal with all of that, and ... I'm just seeing what's going on here. I've got some freaking car going crazy in front of me. That was really, really weird. This guy right here literally just shot out like a racehorse. Not sure what was going on there. But what do you do if you're in the presence of cigarette smoke, so on and so forth, can you sell ... This guy is acting bizarre. He's literally driving in circles. But anyways, what do you do in that situation? Got to watch your back, you don't know, there's some crazy people out there. So first and foremost, if you come across a jackpot item but it reeks of cigarettes, don't just say no to it instantly. You've got to weigh out your options, right. Really, it comes down to numbers. If I come across an item that reeks of cigarettes and it's only selling for $20 or $30, I'm probably going to pass on it, just because the cigarette smell will infect all of your inventory. I've made that mistake before, where I hang it up next to other clothes and then everything else stinks of it. I've also washed it at my own house and it just makes my entire laundry just stink of cigarettes. No offense if you smoke cigarettes. I used to smoke cigarettes, two packs a day. I quit in 2011. But cigarette smell will wreak havoc on your inventory, so you've got to definitely be careful about it. But if come across an item, run the numbers. If I find an item that's maybe selling for 50 or 60 or 70 bucks, and it stinks like cigarettes, then I'm going to follow the steps that I'm going to outline for you, coming up. First thing you want to do is, if you come across an item that reeks of cigarettes, is the best thing that you can do, well, one of the first things you can do is you can let it air out, outside, for a little bit. This isn't going to take the smell out completely, but by just leaving it outside for a day or so ... not too long, make sure it doesn't get rained on ... it'll kind of air it out a little bit, so that's step number one. Step number two is obviously washing your clothing with some strong detergent. Again, be careful not to wash it with other clothing that you have because it's going to ... the smell's going to just ... it's going to go all over everything. So I would do it by itself and just know it might even mess up your ... might make your laundry kind of stink a little bit for a couple of days, like, the actual unit inside. But that's step number one,

Hey, what's going on everybody? Steve here, Raiken Profit. Coming back to you with another video and I wanted to make this video to be able to add value to your life because, you wanna know what, when it comes to building a business or if you're on a health journey like myself, I've lost 25, 30 pounds over the last couple of years, put on a good amount of muscle, when you're building businesses, when you're trying to get healthy, when you're going after your goals, it's not gonna be just straight up towards success and achievement. You're gonna have ups and downs and sometimes life's gonna just smack you in the face and something's gonna happen but at the end of the day, it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's not how many times you get stuck in place, it's a matter of are you getting back up and do you keep fighting and pushing forward? Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... And I'm not making this video to be all rah-rah, Tony Robbins, Gary Vee, get you all pumped up and motivated because a lot of people think that I'm making these videos to motivate you. At the end of the day, I'll be honest with you, I'm making these for myself. I really am trying to cope with my own emotions and deal with what I'm going on. Obviously, I have the goal of I wanna share it because I wanna help you guys out as well but I make a lot of videos as like therapy for myself and I wanna make this video kind of as an accountability post for myself and for anyone who can relate. And what I wanna talk about was my health and dealing with emotions and stuff. Lately, over the last month and a half, I've been dealing with some issues, some relationship issues. I messed up my back really, really bad a month and a half ago and I've been struggling and I kind of lost touch with my goals and my purpose a little bit and sometimes you just get overwhelmed and stressed out and a month goes by, two months goes by and then negative things start to happen. Like over the last month and a half, I've gained a good six pounds or so, maybe a little bit more. Now, that might be all fat. It could water weight and what not but the reason I gained weight was because I was using food to deal with my emotions and when it comes to accomplishing your goals, whether that's financial, business, Ebay, maybe you wanna get a certain amount of inventory because you know that your inventory number correlates with how much sales you make where you have a goal of how many times you want to go to the gym, weight loss, whatever it is. Your ability to deal with your emotions is going to be strongly correlated to you accomplishing your goal and when you lose focus of what you want and you lose control of your mind, your body goes and then the next thing you know, your actions go, your thoughts go and you're five, 10, 15 steps behind where you wanted to be. So, I wanna make this video to kind of give you a tip in terms of what I've been doing to regain control of my mind and to get back on track again. One of the best things that you can do is starting your day off on the right foot by going through a morning ritual. How you start the day is typically how you end the day and if you start your day and you're just pissed off and angry and negative and when you're kind of in a slump. I'll be honest, I've been waking up every morning just kind of being a little depressed and not feeling well, not super motivated. It's tough to get through the day so by starting the day off by doing certain things, which I'm gonna talk about, and I've shared this in previous videos, it really helps out a lot. So, one of the things that I like to do in the morning lately and that's been drinking a ton of water. I'm not talking about just drinking one glass of water but if you drink like five or six or seven glasses of water first thing in the morning, now talk your time. Don't just all chug it super quick, take your time.

What's going on everybody? I'm YouTube Steve here, Raiken Profit. Early morning Connecticut. Car's all frosted up right now. But I wanna make a quick video for the new reseller who might be addicted to watch an YouTube videos of other resellers, Instragrammers, you know, others out there who've been doing this for five, six, seven, eight years who are getting a lot of results because sometimes it can be discouraging starting an eBay business. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... You're beginning to go to thrift stores and garage sales and maybe you've only made a couple of sales. And here's the thing. When you see people on Instagram, on YouTube who are having success, like I said before, they've been doing it for five, six, seven, eight years. In order to start having success, it's gonna take time. It's gonna take experience. A lot of times, I hate to say it but on social media, we all portray things to be perfect and no, we never make mistakes, we never have setbacks and that's not the case. And that's why I really try to share my ups and downs on this channel to be realistic. So, if you're getting started in eBay and Amazon and just entrepreneurship in general, just know, it takes time. All the people that you're watching who are having success and getting results, it takes time. They've made a lot of mistakes. They've failed multiple times and it's gonna be the same with you as well. You could shorten your learning curve by watching these videos but you've gotta take action. You've gotta go out there and get that experience. So, don't get discouraged if you're seeing people putting up numbers of five, 10,000 a month and 50,000 a month with Amazon and private label and selling clothing, making a couple a grand a month. Whatever it is, right, don't get discouraged. Don't try to compete with them. Compete with yourself. And don't try to compete with their results. Compete with your processes. Compete with who you were, the day before. If you listed five items the day before, let's list six today. Let's list seven. If you only went sourcing twice last week and you got 40 items, let's go sourcing three times this week and get 50 items. If you only studied the sold listings twice last week for an hour and a half, let's study three times for two hours. Let's start slowly improving and getting better and let's not compare ourselves to the people on YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat, right? Because at the end of the day, they've been in the game for a while. Very seldomly do you see, and it's very rare that you see somebody who just comes on the scene and starts getting amazing results in like a month or two. It just takes time. So, wanna just make this video and just be real and share what's on my mind. There's a lot of money to be made in this business of reselling and there's so many opportunities out there with the internet and it's crazy with online selling in general. Let's start naming things. eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Craigslist, I mean the list goes on and on. We could talk about Etsy. We could talk about Poshmark, right? It's crazy. But you gotta pick something and start taking action and start getting experience. So, with that being said, keep up and keep making that money. I'm freezing my butt off out here so I'm gonna go back in the car. But have a great week and I'll see you in the next video. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

What's going on everybody? YouTube Steve here, Raiken Profit over at raikenandprofit.com, coming back to you with another video, live in the parking lot of Savers, waiting for my mom, AKA momma profit to arrive and we're going to go in and do a little book sourcing, probably look for some video games, board games, DVD's, go through some clothes, see what they have over here. But I want to make a video talking about is Ebay really a business? Because my friend, he works a full time and he's pretty miserable, he doesn't make a lot of money at this job and he told one of his managers that he needs to cut his hours back because he needs to focus on his Ebay business and guess what this person said? Well first of all, they laughed at him and said, "Ebay's not a business, Ebay's a hobby." What do you do in that situation if maybe a coworker or a friend, or a family member or your manager, or your boss says, "Ebay's not a business," what do you do? What do you say? Is it true? Is Ebay a business? Here's the thing, I'm going to tell you. The average person who doesn't sell on Ebay, or Amazon, or Resell, they think and even the people at the thrift stores, I swear I've talked to a lot of them, they think that what we do as resellers is a hobby, they don't think we're making money. They think that we're working for pennies, right? Great comment from Rhea saying, "We pay taxes right?" The general public does not think that Ebay sellers and Amazon sellers for the most part, they don't think we're making money. They actually think we're the bottom feeders, the scavengers, going to these thrift stores, going to garage sales. The average person doesn't realize how much money you could make selling on Ebay, selling on Amazon, flipping stuff on Craigslist. So, I'll tell you right now, if a manager or a boss, or a friend, or a family member says that, you want to know what? Don't listen to them. Don't listen to people who have no experience. So many people want to give you their two cents and their feedback on what you should do and what you shouldn't do but they've never even sold on Ebay. They've never even a run business before. The average person never even starts a business because they listen to what other people say about business being too risky and most businesses fail, and you want to know what? That's true. The reason why most businesses fail is because people, they don't think and they treat it like a hobby and they're not constantly improving and they're not constantly growing and they don't take it serious. Ebay is most certainly a business. Now, I guess you're going to have to define what a business is but for me, a business would be something that I create to add value that makes me money, right? I own it to an extent, with Ebay you're getting $10.99'd but still at the end of the day, you're sourcing products, you're storing products, inventory management, you're shipping, you're dealing with customer service. I mean, Ebay's pretty much the same thing as every other business, the only thing that we're not really focusing on as Ebay sellers is driving traffic, Ebay they have their platform and there's millions of users on it. So, one of the hardest parts of running a business is acquiring customers and for the most part, we don't have to worry about that when we sell on Ebay because we're relying on Ebay's traffic and Ebay's brand. But I tell you, if someone tells you Ebay is not a business, Amazon's not a business, reselling it's a hobby, you're wasting your time. I could promise you they've never resold before, so just ignore them, don't worry about them. If you're trying to quit your job and you got people doubting you or you're trying to grow your business and people are telling you, "You can't do it, it's just a hobby. You can't make money." You want to know what? Listen to people who are currently running part-time to full-time businesses who have been in it for three, four, or five years. I've been selling on Ebay,

What's going on everybody. Steve here, Raiken Profit, RaikenProfit.com, coming back to you with another video. I want to share with you some information and some content about something that I'm going through personally right now that could help you out if you're looking to start a business, or you're looking to begin a journey. Whether that's a fitness journey or some type of journey in your finances, or an Ebay business, or an Amazon business. I'm not sure exactly what it is you're going through, but personally, for me, I'm relating this to my real estate journey that I'm getting ready to embark on. If you have seen some of my previous videos, I made a video talking about my goal of buying my first real estate property by March 1, 2019. I'm looking to buy ... I've kind of defined it to a three to a four unit duplex, and I want to live there for at least a year, maybe more, owner occupied. I want to learn the real estate business, the landlording business, so on and so forth. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... I share that with you because, a lot of times we have a goal, maybe we want to buy a piece of real estate, or we want to start an Ebay business, or we want to quit our job. But in order to actually accomplish that goal, it might take 50, 60, 70 steps to get there. A lot of times a worthy goal is going to take a lot of hard work. The problem that I was starting to fall into and the mistake that I was beginning to make, and you could probably connect this as well to what you're going after is, I started to research things that were irrelevant. For example, right now, where I am, I did months of research, I had a good foundation built. For me, it was time to start taking action. What I really needed to focus on was, one, getting connected with a real estate agent, a buyer's agent, so I can get access to the MLS and I can start getting leads fed to me. I can start analyzing properties, going to properties, looking at them, because you're going to need a real estate agent to go see these properties. So on and so forth. And number two, I needed to get pre-approved. The problem that I was ... The big mistake that I was making is, I wasn't getting started because I thought that I had to know everything. I was researching how to sign up tenants, when I get a tenant into the property, how do I create the documents? How do I manage tenants? How do I deal with legality issues and bookkeeping? I'm researching things that are step 35, 38, 56, step 59, step 80. And the biggest problem is, when you're hot, when you're motivated, when you're excited about something, that motivation is very short lived unless you begin to take action. If you're motivated, start taking action on step one. Take care of step one and then take care of step two and take care of step three. In the past, what I've done is, I would be super excited about something, I would research things like crazy, I would get burnt out and then I wouldn't take action, and then a month or two would go by and I made no progress towards the goal. The big commitment that I've made to myself and the big realization that I've come to is, listen, it's great to get a solid foundational education in order to get started. Research for a week, two weeks, three weeks. Network with people, watch videos, listen to podcasts, read books, and I've been doing all of that. But it comes to a point where you've got to draw the line in the sand and say to yourself, "Okay, it's time to get started. I don't need to understand step 97. I see the vision, I understand the direction I have to go to, or the destination where I'm headed, and it's time to get started. Let's write down five things that I could do to start making progress towards my goal." You might be in a situation where you want to start an Ebay business but you're trying to figure out the inventory system. You're trying to figure out,

What's going on everybody? Steve here. Raiken Profit. Raikenprofit.com. And I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine who wants to get started selling on eBay but they have zero experience. So I wanted to share some of the tips that I had shared with them in hopes to be able to help you out if you're looking to get started selling on eBay or just reselling in general. You can apply this to eBay, Poshmark, Etsy, Amazon, so on and so forth. But there's a lot of people out there who want to start building an extra income stream, selling on eBay, making money on eBay. There's a lot of people out there doing it. And there's so many cool products you can sell. There's so many thrift stores, garage sales, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... And a lot of people in general just have a lot of items sitting at home, thousands of dollars worth of products that they can sell to make money. So I want to share with you five tips to getting started selling on eBay. Five things that I would do if I was brand new that could help you start moving in the right direction and help you again to build out that income stream. Which could be a hundred bucks a month, or two hundred a month, or even up to a couple thousand dollars a month plus selling on eBay. So without further ado, let's dive right into this video. So tip number one, if you want to start selling on eBay and you have very little experience, what you're going to want to focus on at first is building your educational foundation. You want to start learning as much as possible. And one of the best ways that you can do this, especially if you have a full time job and you're a busy person ... Maybe you have a family or maybe you're a college student ... Is to turn your car into a university on wheels. And what I mean by that is when you're driving or maybe when you're walking or when you're just doing certain things, have your headphones on or have something playing in the background while you're driving, instead of listening to music. So a couple things you can do is you can have YouTube on in the background, listening to resellers talking about what they're buying and selling on eBay. There's great YouTube channels out there, like the Bonafide Hustler, Rally Roots, Rock Star Flipper. And these are awesome YouTube channels that talk about making money on eBay and different platforms. So turn your car into a university on wheels. The average person's driving for usually at least an hour per day. Some people are commuting even longer, two, three, four hours. So by listening to something educational, YouTube, podcasts, different things of that nature, you're learning and you're bringing in all this education that can help you to start selling on eBay. So when you start sourcing or when you're shipping or taking pictures of your items, you have that knowledge. It's huge. So turn your car into a university on wheels. Tip number two, and this is going to stem from the foundation of education as well, is you want to make sure you're studying the sold listings. One of the biggest problems that new eBay sellers make is they buy items that aren't profitable. They buy items that don't have a market. They buy items that, when they list it, it sits, sits and sits and it never sells, and their money's locked up and then they have cash flow issues and then they quit. You want to make sure you're buying items that not only have a market and a demand, but also items that are selling for a price high enough to give you that profit that you're looking for, right? Because you're not selling on eBay just for fun; you're trying to make money. So by studying the sold listings ... And if you're not sure what the sold listings are, it's essentially eBay's sold items. What items have sold for? So maybe you want to get into selling clothing on eBay. You can go into the men's clothing section,

So I don't know about you but I love planning. I love strategizing, I love thinking about the future and writing down goals and positive affirmations. I'm a huge fanboy of Tony Robbins but at the end of the day, you've got to start taking action. Really that's it. For you to get where you wanna go, you've got to take action, you've got to have faith. And in order to have faith, you've got to just be willing to take the first step without seeing the whole entire staircase. I know Martin Luther King had a quote that I just paraphrased. But that's it, I mean at the end of the day positive thinking, hanging around with people who are making a lot of money, who are successful, like that's great. Listening to Tony Robbins, going through a morning routine, that's great. But you've got to take action, you've got to understand okay this is where I am right now. Maybe I'm making $1,000 a month. I want to get to $3,000 a month, this is the plan, here's the blueprint, what's the first thing that I can do? Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... You don't have to know how to do step two, three, four, five and six. You don't have to know the best way to store your items if you're trying to build an eBay business. The best way to scale, the best way to do your bookkeeping and what are you gonna do when taxes come along? You've just got to worry about the first step and then you've got to take that action. That's it, because you want to know what? When you take action, on whatever it is that you're going towards. When you take that first step, once you get past that, another door is gonna open. And your main objective is to get past that second door. Once you get past that second door, the third door. It's kind of like when you're driving your car at nighttime. You have to have faith because your headlights can only see, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 feet in front of you. But you have faith knowing that as you keep driving and progressing, the road's gonna keep progressing and you're gonna keep moving forward. You have faith in it right, you have trust in the process and that's the way it is when you're building a business and going after your goals. Don't get stuck worrying and planning and trying to figure out step two through 26 because you wanna know what? Step two through 26 isn't gonna be what you think it's gonna be. You can do all the research you want, you can watch all the videos, you can plan, plan, plan. But nothing beats experience and nothing beats taking action. You can apply this to any area of your life. So whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish right now in your business, I know we've got less than three months left in the year. Finish it off strong, take action, I've been saying this to myself lately about my real estate goal because I have a goal of buying my first real estate investment property by March 1st 2019. And I've read like five or six books, and I'm learning and I'm listening to audiobooks but I keep saying to myself, you gotta take action. So my next step is getting a real estate agent and then getting pre-approved and starting to get deals fed to me and start analyzing them. I can read all the books in the world, but if I don't start looking at properties and analyzing them, nothing's gonna happen. If you don't start going to the thrift store and buying stuff, if you don't start listing stuff on eBay, if you don't send in your first FBA shipment, if you don't just buy eFLIP and source your first book and learn to process, nothing's gonna happen. It's the way it is. So just wanted to give you guys this positive message, go out there, take action, crush it, make it happen and I'll see you in the next one. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube

Hey, what's going on everybody, Steve here. Raiken Profit, raikenprofit.com coming back to you with another video and this is a video that was inspired by my good friend Greg at the Valet Picker YouTube channel. Definitely check him out. He came to the Connecticut Thrifting meet-up about a week ago, well less than a week ago, and he found a vintage Nike tee shirt that he put up for sale. I think he said he already got an offer for $90 or $100 on it. I think he's shooting for $200 on it, but it was crazy. We were so blown away when he found this item at a Savers Thrift Store and I think he paid $4. If you're watching Greg, let people know in the comments, but it was a single threaded tee shirt, so if you actually flip the tee shirt inside out, it's a single thread, I think, instead of a double stitch. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Be on the lookout for the single threaded Nike tee shirts. That's an indicator that it's vintage. From my knowledge, that's what he was saying, but it motivated me to make this video because I want to share with you about six or seven vintage Nike tee shirts that sold for just incredible profit. If you're a thrifter, if you're buying and selling on eBay, selling clothing, you definitely want to be on the lookout for these types of items. What I'm going to do is I'm actually going to share my screen with you and I want to showcase a couple items that actually sold on eBay for some ridiculous profits. When you're flipping through the clothing racks or you're at a garage sale, be on the lookout for these items. Now, you may never find one in your lifetime, but if you're like Greg and you're flipping through and you know what to look for, you can make some big, big profit. I'm actually going to see if I can get confirmation from Greg on Facebook and ask him if I could use a picture of his shirt for the thumbnail. If you see a picture of a shirt on the thumbnail of this video on YouTube, then you know that's the shirt that he found. So, I'm going to see if I can do that. If not, I totally understand if he doesn't want to share that. Anyway, first up is a really cool vintage, what appears to be an 80's Hollywood swoosh Nike item. Look at the ... Just look at the design of that. The background of Hollywood, really, really cool. This is from the 80's apparently, so there's the tag right there. I know Greg's tag, as well, said, I think it was 44-46, so you might get tricked thinking that it's a youth size, which a youth size would probably be 16-18 or 18-20. You might get tricked, but that's actually what I think the old tags have on them. We'll take a look at some more tags, but yeah check that out, $399. You might be thinking, Steve you're out of your frickin' mind. No, I'm telling you, these old vintage Nike items, they sell ridiculously well. They actually said we're not experts on any of these items we sell, however we do try to do a reasonable amount of research and describe the item as accurately as possible. Nothing really interesting there, but very, very cool item right there. Next up, now this thing definitely looks vintage. The other item, I was like, oh that might be hard to tell out in the field except for looking at the tag, but check this out, it says Hike Nike. This definitely looks old. I bet you this is a single stitch right there. Tag says Nike XL, size extra large sportswear. $200 and look, 18 bids on this item. Guys, this is crazy, look at that. This old vintage Nike stuff sells for a lot of money. So, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'm a very knowledgeable person when it comes to determining if it's vintage and what's real and authentic, so I'm not going to sit here and give you advice about things I don't know, but I know if something looks interesting, if the colors are vibrant, if it's got a cool design, the shirt looks older, if the tag looks a little unique,

What's going on everybody? Steve here, Raiken Profit, RaikenProfit.com coming back to you with another video from my car, and I'm kind of a mess right now. I just got done with a softball game. I still got my little, a thingamajiggys on right now. We ended up winning, super pumped up about it, but I want to make a video talking about, is it possible to find super-duper rare items at thrift stores and garage sales to sell on Ebay. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... The reason why I'm bringing this subject matter op is because I made a video the other day a sharing a bunch of rare Nike items that sold on Ebay, educating you guys about some of the items that are out there. And there were a couple of comments that have come in behind the scenes and in the comments saying, "Steve, it's not possible to find any of these items. You make videos sharing and showcasing items that it's just impossible to find." I wanted to cover this topic because it's a legitimate question. Is it possible to find some of these rare items that sold on Ebay at thrift stores, garage sales, Facebook marketplace, flea markets? So here's the thing, the more you go out thrifting, the more you go to garage sales, the more you put yourself in a position to get lucky, the luckier you are going to get. The more you put yourself out there, the better chance you have of finding these items. Big shout out to Barbara. What's up? Smart God, good to see you. This is the thing. There's so many different types of items, like in terms of just the clothing category, there's hundreds of brands, and within each brand there's maybe one or two super rare things that you could find and sell for $300, $500, $700 or more collectibles. There's hundreds of thousands of rare items. Electronics, computer pieces, shoes. There's so many different categories. So one of the keys that I found as a reseller is to start learning as much as you possibly can. Now I recommend starting with a niche. I wanted to say niche, but I decided to go with the niche. Niche or niche? Help me. I started off with clothing and I mastered clothing. I found out and learned about tons of different brands and items that are super rare. Over time I got lucky and I would find really, really rare items like the brand Willison Geiger, leather jackets. Those are so rare. But if you educate yourself and you put yourself out there and you thrift and you flip through those clothing racks and you go to a thrift store after thrift store, you're going to find those rare items. In one of the previous videos that I posted about Nike, my good friend Greg, who, um, is The Valet Picker on YouTube, he found a rare, I believe it was 1980s, vintage Nike tee shirt that he paid a $1.99 for and sold for $216, which is insane. Now, the only reason he found this is because he went to the thrift store. So keep in mind a lot of these rare items that people share, and sometimes I'll even share, the point of it isn't to tell you to go out there and find it today or find it tomorrow. The purpose is for you to be educated and have that in the back of your mind. And if you ever see it, you recognize it, you're aware of it and you pick it up. Now, if you educate yourself with 1,000 rare items over a five year period, you might only find 12, or 15, or 20, or maybe 80 or maybe six of them. But at the end of the day, you found one of those rare items because you were educated. And that's the goal of sharing these items on my YouTube channel, when I go through the sold listings, when I talk about various brands when I show you items that sold for $400 isn't to get your hopes up, isn't to get too overly excited. I know what it's like to be new and to maybe be a little green thinking that you're going to go out and find it like that. I apologize for anyone who gets their hopes up, but realistically you can find these items. Not everyone's going to find them,

Hey, what's happening everybody on YouTube? Steve here with Raiken Profit coming back to you with another video from live in my kitchen. And I'm actually getting ready to make some potatoes. I'm pretty excited about that. But in any event, in today's video I want to answer a question that I got in one of my latest videos. As you can see, here's a video of myself talking about some beginner tips on buying and selling books on Amazon. And I got a question, saying ... It's actually from [Tanya Gonzalez] asking, "Where do you get all these books? I know thrift stores. I went to three different Goodwills, and didn't find anything that was worth reselling on a bookshelf. Should I just go more often? Any tips on finding books? Thank you." So, Tanya Gonzalez, want to thank you for this question. Appreciate you checking out my channel and everything. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... So let me get right into this question. So, let's talk about, where do I get my books. I live in Connecticut, first of all, to give you some context to this conversation. But primarily I go sourcing for books at my local thrift stores. So I'm lucky enough, in Connecticut, to have a bunch of Savers thrift stores in the area. And if you don't know what Savers is, it's kind of like a Value Village on steroids. What's the other one called? I forget what it's called, but there's another one that's somewhat like Value Village as well. But Savers is big. It's a huge thrift store, and they got tons of items. Electronics, toys, clothing. But their book section is massive over there, and the thing I like about Savers, at least in the Savers in my area, I've seen different ones, but the Savers in Connecticut, they usually price their books at $1.99 or $2.99, even for the big textbooks. Now, granted, there are some Savers where they'll put, like, $10, $12, $15 prices on their textbooks. But the ones around here at Savers, I could get a textbook for three bucks. Two to three bucks. I do really good at Savers. There's a tons of books, a lot of them fall through the cracks. Nonfiction, fiction. My mother, Momma Profits, if you've seen her on some of my videos, she actually does a lot of kids' books, and children's books as well. So, I get a lot of my books from Savers, I get a lot of my books from Goodwills. Salvation Army, I used to do really well with books over there. But they've been kind of going, like, down the drain. They changed up their pricing structure. Before, you used to be able to get like three books for a dollar. But now they're doing this new thing that, the price of the book will be 90 percent off the MSRP. So if the book's coming in at 30 bucks, then it'll be $3. Which isn't bad, but a lot of the textbooks might have prices on at like 70, 80, 90, hundred bucks. And they are ... it just gets crazy. Still, don't discriminate against Salvation Army. It's really different based on the location and whatnot. So, yeah, thrift stories is primarily where I get my books. Now, you did ask a question, Tanya, asking, "Should I just go more often?" And to answer that, I'd say yes. You definitely have to go more often if you want to find more books, obviously. But even more importantly, you gotta find the best days and the best times. For me, I've always found that I do best in the morning to afternoon time. Typically like Monday through Wednesday. It seems like when Thursday hits, Friday, Saturday, like, people are getting out of work early. There's more competition over there. And I just don't find as much. But again, that's just me, my location and how I've been doing. But you're going to have to figure out, Tanya, when's the best time for you to go. Right? When do the Goodwills or the Savers, when do they bring out the new inventory. When is the competition most likely not going to be there. And one thing I want to say is, there is a lot of competition now with booksellers and book scanne...

Hey, what's going on everybody? I'm YouTube, Steve with Raiken Profit coming to you guys with another video and I'm actually at my little work station area right now in my garage. So if you're hearing a little bit of an echo, I apologize. I'm going to do the best I can in this video. In this video, I want to talk a little bit about books and give you guys some tips for selling books. So as you guys can see, I'm in my little work station area right here. I've got my laptop with Inventory Lab up and running, I've got my Scotty Peelers, I just purchased a new batch and these help with getting the stickers off, so if you ever go sourcing books or whatnot at Goodwill's, thrift stores, flea markets, wherever you go, one quick tip I have for you is to pick up some Scotty Peelers, they're on Amazon for like eight or nine dollars. And it's really easy, you just put the book down, you use it and hopefully it works pretty good, but for me it does the job and you peel it right up and boom you've got the sticker off, if that will focus in or not. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... So that's one tip right there, and it's when you're prepping your books and you're getting them all prepared for your shipment, instead of using your fingernails, just use a Scotty Peelers, save your nails and it's a little bit quicker as well. Another thing is be very, very careful when you are prepping your books that you don't miss a sticker. I mean this book looks good to go, right? It looks like it's ready to roll, but if you take a closer look, they hid a sticker right on the binding of that book and I'll tell you right now, the worst thing you can do it ship in any item, especially a book though with the sticker on because these are usually cheap, you know fifty cents or a dollar. The worst thing you can do is ship in a book that is selling for maybe forty or fifty bucks and it's got a dollar sticker on the side. So be very, very careful that you take all the stickers off. Another tip I have for you guys is during the inspection phase, before you actually pay for the book. So let's just say you're at a thrift store, because that's probably going to be the most common place you buy a book to resell on Amazon or whatever platform you use. Say you're at a bookstore and you take out your phone, trying to see where my phone is, you take out your phone, you pull up your Amazon seller app, I've got my app up right now and let's say you get the app up and you scan it, let's get this things scanned in. All right, so you've scanned the book and as it loads you see a 487,000 rank, and you're like that's not a bad rank, it's got five reviews. Used is coming in at $24.95. You're like you know what, this is only a dollar or two bucks, I'm going to buy it. Right? That's what you're thinking. Wait, before you buy it, make sure to flip through the book a little bit. Comb through it, make sure all the pages are there. Make sure there's not like a ton of writing or ripped out pages, or tons of highlighting. And again, you can still sell a book that has writing in it or even a rip in the page, or highlighting or a name written in it. But just inspect it first because it just might not be worth it. If you know, you're picking up a book for two bucks and it's only selling for $12, you know you could make three or four dollars on it, but is it really worth it if it's all destroyed and you're going to have to sell it in acceptable condition. So be sure to inspect it. Also, one more thing, look at the back of the book. Some textbooks and various types of books will actually have a CD that comes with it and that could make or break the deal. I will not sell a book that's supposed to come with a CD and it doesn't have. I won't put it up there as acceptable and say it's missing the CD, because I just feel like you're playing with fire when you're doing that. This book actually did have a CD,

What's happening everybody on YouTube? Steve here with Raiken Profit, raikenprofit.com. Coming back to you guys with another video. I just left the Goodwill, which is right over here, and I popped out a couple items. I just want to share with you my little thrift haul and share with you what I found, how much I hope to sell it for, what I paid for it, in hopes to help you out. So if you're ready to rock and roll, let's dive into this video. This is actually an item that I found right before Goodwill at the Salvation Army. I want to share this with you. This is a Disney Pixar Wall-E toy. Pretty cool. You can see the original price tag from ToysRUs that was $16.99. I ended up getting this for $5.99. I forgot what it's going for. I think it's going for 20 or 30 bucks. I've got to double scan it but I know it was going for some pretty decent cash. Some of these older toys that are outdated and they don't sell anymore, they go for really good cash. So that was really cool. Always scan, scan the barcodes and see what it's selling for. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... The next item that I picked up was this board game, Great States Junior for ages two to four, no two to four players, ages four to seven. There's a price tag on the back, an original price tag of $24.99. I ended up paying six bucks for this item right here. I forgot what it's selling for. I always forget what it's going for, I think it was going for 20 bucks or something like that. I've got to double check this one. But I love board games. Just scan them, scan them all day long. Let me know what this is going for in the comments section because I know you guys love to look up what I buy. I'll pick up board games and make three or four bucks. I'll make a 30, 40, 50 percent ROI on these items because they sell quickly. Now again, I forget what the rank was on this and I forget what it's selling for, but I can only imagine that if I bought it, it's probably worth some decent cash. All right, next item up is this Puzz 3D puzzle. This is brand new in the stretch wrap. Check out the price guys, three bucks on this. Pretty confident I'm going to put this on ebay versus Amazon because it's got a little, it's really hard to show you this because there's not a lot of room in this car, but it's kind of got a little indentation right here. It's been kind of pressed in a little bit so selling stuff like this on Amazon worries me if it's not in brand new gift ready condition. What I mean is it's in perfect condition like it's coming right off the store shelf. I think this was going for like 30 or 40 bucks new, something around there. So for three bucks, definitely an awesome item. Yeah, cool. Check out Puzz 3D. Some of the Puzz 3D items can go for really, really big money. That one wasn't super popular. Here's another board game, got this from Salvation Army $2.99. These things always do well. This is from 1990, the game is Othello for two players, ages eight to adult. Brand new from 1990. There's going to be someone out there who played this game when they were a kid, when they were younger, and they're going to want it new. Because the thing about new is, they know all the pieces are going to be in there. It might not be in perfect shape, there's some shelf wear and what not, but so many times people buy used board games and the pieces are missing. So if you can find it new, find that people want to buy it more often and for a better value. Let's get a thumbnail real quick, hold on one second. Some more stuff that I popped on. Let me pull out the receipt. For this stuff right here because I got a few of those other Goodwill items a couple days before, this is everything that I just popped on from this Goodwill right here, got the receipt and I spent, what did I spend, I spent $25.25 total. Right there, you probably can't see it. Ended up getting one, two, three, four, five, six items.

What's happening everybody? On YouTube, Steve here with Raiken Profit, coming to you guys with another video from a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It's about 12:06 right now, and I woke up pretty late today because I've been feeling a little under the weather and wanted to sleep in to get some rest and recover, and I really just want to get a good rest. I didn't want to wake up at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning and hit the garage sales, but nevertheless ended up waking up, like I said, a little later, and went out for a coffee and it was about eleven o'clock and decided to hit a couple of garage sales. I hit garage sales for about 15, 20 minutes. I hit one or two? No I hit two. Two sales and there was a third, but I didn't walk up to it; there was nothing there. I hit two sales, spent about 20 minutes, and I want to show you some of the items that I picked up, just to show you that you can make a couple of bucks just screwing around, grabbing a coffee and just running up to a few sales. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Even if you don't plan out a route and prepare, and wake up early and prep your car and get gas and get ready to go crazy for the day. Nevertheless, you can still go out for 20 minutes, 30 minutes and make a few extra bucks to be able to pay for your week's gas or whatnot. Which is pretty much what I did. So I'm gonna share with you some of the items that I found to sell on eBay and Amazon. So yeah, with that being said, let's dive right into it. Found two of these puppies over at the first garage sale that I went to. And this was a dollar for both of them. So 50 cents each I ended up getting these for, and these are Topsy Tarvy? I don't even know what these are. Upside down tomato planters. Brand new in the box. Opened up the box just to make sure it was brand new, and it is. And it is, never been used, and I got to do some more research on these, but I think these are going for about 15 or 20 bucks each right here. And again, 50 cents each, so if I can make ten bucks profit on each one of those, that would be definitely pretty cool, right there. So I mean, yeah. Walked up at what? 11.15 and found those sitting there, so that was pretty cool. This next pair of ... Well this next item is a tweeter, I'm not sure what is it, by Jensen. I don't even know what this is I'm looking at. It's says features, "Mounting flexibility, smoother response, built-in crossover", I don't know what it is. A dome tweeter. 100 watts, I don't know if it's a speaker or what it is. I need to do some more research on this. But got this thrown into the deal. As you can see, the plastic's a little ripped off at the edge, and it's got some cracking in the plastic. So I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with this, I see a Walmart sticker on it right there. So I'm probably gonna throw this as like, like new on eBay just to see what it fetches. I need to do some more research but if I could even get ten or 15 bucks, I mean, why not? But that's kind of an experiment right there. Here's an item that I picked up. It's a bottoms up 15 ounce some type of glass. Some type of glass, but I thought it was really interesting because if you look a little closer, it's got a really cool little design on it. And I scanned it really quick on FBA. I believe it was going for 15 or 20. I need to do some more research. I'm actually having some issues right now with my Note 4 phone, and I'm like, I'm fed up. I'm  really, I'm fed up with Android and the Note 4 and the apps are always crashing, it doesn't scan anymore. Sometimes you scan it and it just stops working. So I'm actually going to be getting rid of the Note 4. Peace out Note 4 and hello, iPhone 6. So I'm gonna be making that exchange. But I'm having a little bit of trouble researching items right now on Amazon. But I think this should be, do well. I paid two bucks for it. They wanted five, so I actually walked away from the deal.

What's happening, everybody on YouTube? Steve here, Raiken profit, coming to you guys with another video. I'm actually right behind Savers. Saver's is right over here. We got Walmart back here. I actually do quite a bit of sourcing in this area, but in any event, I wanted to make this video, because I want to share with you some cool items that I just recently found, and to the untrained eye, to the average person, I honestly believe that most people will just pass this opportunity up. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... So I wanted to share with you what I found. It's in the book category, but it's a little different. It's a little unique. It's a little outdated, and I was actually quite surprised that these items that I found and scanned were actually selling for some pretty decent money. Let me share with you what I came across here. I ended up picking up four of these old, outdated roadmaps. Right? These little atlases, and they're pretty old. I mean, they've got to be 10 to 20 years old, and I saw them sitting on the shelf over at Saver's, and I ended up getting these for $1.79 each. And I said, you know what. These things have got to be rare. They got to be hard to come across. Let's just scan them. I scanned a couple of them. One was going for $70. I think this one was with a 1.1 million rank which isn't horrible. This one right here wasn't the best but I don't think there were any FBA offers so I'm probably going to shoot for like $25. It does have a 2.8 million rank so that was quite a bit high. But there was another one in here. I don't know if it was the Cape Cod or Metro Boston Atlas but one of them had a 300,000 rank. It was going for like $60. So one was going for $70, another was $60, another was $25, another one was right around that same ballpark area and I was just quite surprised that people were still buying these. Now that I think about it I know that there are some folks that, maybe they're in their 70s or 80s and they're accustomed to that. They're not used applications and Google maps and GPSs and they grew up with good old maps. Believe it or not there was a day and time when we didn't have GPSs. So that was a cool little find that I came across at Savers, $1.79 each. Should make some decent profit but I just want to make this video and share this little bolo item with you because I almost passed it up. But I thought to myself, this is different. This is unique. Let's just give it a quick scan. I used the Amazon seller app and lo and behold there's some good profit to be made in these items. In terms of the actual brand names on these items, this one's American Map right here. The one that was selling for the most, this Western Connecticut one, I believe the name was Hagstrom right here. You can even see these were only selling for $24.95 back in the day. I'm going to see if there's a date in here. I don't see a date but it's got to be the '90s I'm assuming, but yeah, pretty cool find right there. So if you've ever found one of these old-school roadmaps, these ancient pieces of history let me know. If you ever see them, scan them. I'm not an expert when it comes to those but there were literally four of them sitting on the rack, on the book rack and I scanned them all and they were all selling for decent money. Now the ranks weren't spectacular but you want to know what? If I can get something for $1.79 and wait four or five months to flip it for 25 or 30 bucks, I'll do that all day long especially if there's not many FBA sellers. So yeah. Hopefully you guys are all doing well. Sorry for not making so many videos. I've been super busy, focused on my health. Been doing a great job with the working out and been busy with the different businesses that I've been running but I do want to consistently and continue to make more videos. I've got a lot of cool things planned that I've been working on behind the scenes that I mentioned in ...

I cannot say this enough, if you want to be successful you've gotta stop worrying what other people think about you. It doesn't matter if you're poor and you're not making any money and you're broke and you're suffering and you're in poverty, or if you've made it, you're making millions, or you're making thousands, or you have your own business, people are going to have their opinions, people are going to judge. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Your friends are going to talk about you, your family members are going to talk about you, people on social media are going to talk about you whether you're poor or you're successful, whether you're thin or you're fat, you know? Whatever. So stop worrying about what other people think. If you want something, if you're hungry for something, if you've got this thought in your mind every single day, I wanna start my own business, I wanna get thin, I wanna get fit, I wanna inspire people, I wanna start a youtube channel, stop worrying if everybody else is going to approve, if they're gonna give you permission. Do what you love, it's 2017, we're getting ready to go into 2018 shortly. With technology and the internet, it's easier than ever to connect with millions of people, it's easier than ever to connect with like minded people. And I'll tell you right now, if you're interested in something, if you're excited about something, I guarantee you, someone else out there is as well. If you want something, go for it, stop worrying, you can do it. But I'll tell you, you've gotta learn, and this is something that I've been dealing with, we've gotta learn to get out of our own way. If you wanna build a business, if you wanna lose weight, if you wanna change your life, there's certain things that you're gonna need to do. You can't just look at your vision board and say positive affirmations and read books and watch youtube videos and expect to be successful, it doesn't work that way. Yes, all of those are stepping stones, and it's part of the equation, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to go out there and take action and do something. You're gonna have to do something. So, get out of your own way, stop worrying about what people think. I tell you if I worried ab out what everybody had to think about me and my personality and my content, I would never make another youtube video again. Because the more visibility that you start to grasp, the more you start to put yourself out there, you start going to the gym, you start losing weight, you start making youtube videos, right? You start listing on Ebay, you start having success. People are gonna start talking, and they're gonna start judging and they're gonna tell you, "You should do it this way," or, "You shouldn't do it that way," or, "You're on the wrong path," or, "You can't do that, that's not conventional, get a typical normal job. You're not going to be able to withstand that, you're not going to be able to reach your goals. Screw all that, if you want something, go out there, take it and make it happen. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

Why You Will FAIL Selling on Amazon in 30 Days or Less I want to talk about three reasons why tons of sellers fail when they try to get into the book selling business on Amazon. I've been selling books on Amazon for a couple of years. I actually taught my mother, who recently retired, how to sell books. She's been selling books for a couple of years as well. Now she's doing it full time and getting great results. If I can do it, if I can teach my mother do it, you can definitely do it as well. But there are three things in particular that stand out about why people fail when it comes to selling books on Amazon. There are some big hurdles that you're going to have to face, and there are some challenges that are a little bit outside the box that you might not expect. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: You Lack Patience The number one reason people fail selling books on Amazon—even after seeing hundreds and thousands of people succeed—is that they lack patience. When selling books, you really need to be patient. I had someone message me the other day, saying, “Steve, I went into a thrift store, and I scanned like 30 books. There were no good books. I left. This doesn't work.” But the truth is that you have got to scan more than 30 books. I can tell you, there have been 50 times I've scanned hundreds of books and didn't find anything. Now, I'm not a full-time bookseller. I don't know it all. But I can tell you right now, sometimes you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose. But the cool thing about books—especially if you live in the right area—is that I can tell you there have been hundreds of times that I found books that sell for $70, $80, $100, or $150. There have been tons of times I found books for $7, $8, or $9 at the thrift store and made $400, $500, or $600. With selling books, you've got to find the right books, especially with the fees—long-term storage fees, selling fees, etc. The fees are not minuscule anymore. They're growing rapidly. You've got to be patient to find the right book. You will go through upwards of 150 books. That's why if you're using the Amazon seller app—which is a great way to get started—you may want to invest in a Bluetooth scanner. It's one of those scanners you hold in your hand. It's just a lot quicker because you're using a laser versus using a camera. It's a numbers game. The more books you scan, the more money you're typically going to make. You've got to be patient. If you're going to go into a thrift store and just spend 10 minutes picking and choosing as a beginner and think you're going to make it work, it's just not going to happen. #2: You're Using a Sourcing Strategy That Doesn't Work for Your Area You keep saying there are no profitable books. Here's the thing. There might not be any profitable books in thrift stores in your area. Why? In certain areas, the thrift stores are actually sending the books off to Amazon or merchant fulfilling them themselves. That may or may not be a good opportunity for you. Maybe you don't live around a college, near schools, or in a highly literate area. You might not have a lot of profitable books in your area, but that doesn't mean you cannot succeed as a bookseller on Amazon. That just means that specific business model of going to thrift stores won't necessarily work. You might have to get into online arbitrage. There are software packages out there that allow you to scan various listings and set up various criteria. You can actually buy books off of Amazon or other websites and flip them on Amazon. Now, there are certain rules you're going to have to obey. Plenty of people are out there crushing it with online arbitrage of books. Thrift stores might not be best for you. It might be library sales, church sales, garage sales, flea markets, craigslist, or Facebook Marketplace. Don't say you can't make money with books or that it doesn't work for you.

Why You Will FAIL Selling on Amazon in 30 Days or Less I want to talk about three reasons why tons of sellers fail when they try to get into the book selling business on Amazon. I've been selling books on Amazon for a couple of years. I actually taught my mother, who recently retired, how to sell books. She's been selling books for a couple of years as well. Now she's doing it full time and getting great results. If I can do it, if I can teach my mother do it, you can definitely do it as well. But there are three things in particular that stand out about why people fail when it comes to selling books on Amazon. There are some big hurdles that you're going to have to face, and there are some challenges that are a little bit outside the box that you might not expect. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: You Lack Patience The number one reason people fail selling books on Amazon—even after seeing hundreds and thousands of people succeed—is that they lack patience. When selling books, you really need to be patient. I had someone message me the other day, saying, “Steve, I went into a thrift store, and I scanned like 30 books. There were no good books. I left. This doesn't work.” But the truth is that you have got to scan more than 30 books. I can tell you, there have been 50 times I've scanned hundreds of books and didn't find anything. Now, I'm not a full-time bookseller. I don't know it all. But I can tell you right now, sometimes you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose. But the cool thing about books—especially if you live in the right area—is that I can tell you there have been hundreds of times that I found books that sell for $70, $80, $100, or $150. There have been tons of times I found books for $7, $8, or $9 at the thrift store and made $400, $500, or $600. With selling books, you've got to find the right books, especially with the fees—long-term storage fees, selling fees, etc. The fees are not minuscule anymore. They're growing rapidly. You've got to be patient to find the right book. You will go through upwards of 150 books. That's why if you're using the Amazon seller app—which is a great way to get started—you may want to invest in a Bluetooth scanner. It's one of those scanners you hold in your hand. It's just a lot quicker because you're using a laser versus using a camera. It's a numbers game. The more books you scan, the more money you're typically going to make. You've got to be patient. If you're going to go into a thrift store and just spend 10 minutes picking and choosing as a beginner and think you're going to make it work, it's just not going to happen. #2: You're Using a Sourcing Strategy That Doesn't Work for Your Area You keep saying there are no profitable books. Here's the thing. There might not be any profitable books in thrift stores in your area. Why? In certain areas, the thrift stores are actually sending the books off to Amazon or merchant fulfilling them themselves. That may or may not be a good opportunity for you. Maybe you don't live around a college, near schools, or in a highly literate area. You might not have a lot of profitable books in your area, but that doesn't mean you cannot succeed as a bookseller on Amazon. That just means that specific business model of going to thrift stores won't necessarily work. You might have to get into online arbitrage. There are software packages out there that allow you to scan various listings and set up various criteria. You can actually buy books off of Amazon or other websites and flip them on Amazon. Now, there are certain rules you're going to have to obey. Plenty of people are out there crushing it with online arbitrage of books. Thrift stores might not be best for you. It might be library sales, church sales, garage sales, flea markets, craigslist, or Facebook Marketplace. Don't say you can't make money with books or that it doesn't work for you.

First 30 Days Reselling: Avoid This Mistake; You're Wasting Money! There is one mistake that I would recommend new sellers avoid if you're just getting started with Amazon or eBay. Many new sellers haven't sold anything. They haven't made any money yet. Maybe they've just watched some videos. But they jump into it and start spending all this money on software, supplies, and equipment. They upgrade their phone. They get these recurring subscriptions for scanning apps, and they haven't even gotten started yet. I think that's a big, big mistake, and let me tell you why. If you're new, the first thing that you need to prove to yourself is that this actually works. There's a big difference between watching me do it and you doing it yourself. There's a big difference between seeing it and actually doing it and having that confidence. So many people go out and spend all this money, and then they give up and quit. They waste their time, they waste their money, or maybe they go into debt. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Begin on a Budget I'd highly recommend getting started on a budget. So, for example, I've known several new resellers who have gone out and bought these recurring-subscription scanning apps. It's not that some of these apps aren't great, but when you're new and getting started, just start with the Amazon Seller app. You don't need a sophisticated app if you're just getting started. You need to learn how to scan, how to analyze, and how to ship your first box into Amazon. You don't need to go out and buy poly bags and poly mailers and an industrial clothing rack because you're going to scale to a thousand clothing pieces before you even buy and list and sell your first item. Make Sure This Whole Business Is For You Be humble at first. Prove to yourself that this actually works. The truth is that this may or may not be the business for you. Many people are so accustomed to following directions, clocking in and clocking out, and being told what to do. They're not used to being their own boss and being disciplined to do things without somebody coming down and threatening to fire them. I'm telling you, being a complete and total self-starter is harder than you think. When you're first getting started, don't go out and spend all this money on phones and software and subscriptions. First, go out there and use the tools that you have. You don't have to have all the fanciest tools and stuff to make it work. I remember when I first got started reselling, I didn't even have a Smartphone, to be honest. I was so broke. I was out there just going based on memory. The first six months I didn't have a phone. It was crazy, but it taught me a lot. When you're first getting started, don't go out and spend all this money. Just get started, go to some meet-ups, watch some videos, study the sold listings, use the Amazon Seller app, and go from there. Trust me. There's plenty of time for you to go and buy all the cool equipment and all the gadgets and the scan fobs and the Bluetooth wireless—whatever the next thing to come out that will help you scale your business. But you don't have to worry about scaling and optimizing when you're first getting started. Just don't worry about all that stuff. Start with an Education Just get started, learn, and go out there and start visiting the thrift stores. Start visiting the garage sales. Start taking action. Start buying some stuff. Start listing some stuff. Learn the process. Check out YouTube videos on how to ship your first Amazon FBA shipment. Amazon actually has so much documentation, like videos and all different types of tutorials, teaching you how to do it step-by-step. List that first item on eBay. Learn how to ship an item on eBay. Learn how to process your first return. Just go through the process. Don't worry about spending a bunch of money at first. It's not going to help you.

This Simple 30-Minute Personal Finance Exercise Saved Me $342 This Month For many of us, our main goal in business is to make more money, and we're always focusing on what the next item is to buy. What's the next business to start? How can I amplify what I'm already doing? How can I make more money in my business? But don't forget that there are two sides of the coin when it comes to growing your overall net worth and making more money. One side is making more money, but also another side is minimizing expenses, minimizing bills, and saving money where you can. One of the things that I did recently—and this is something you should do periodically, maybe once a month or at least once a quarter—is go through all of my statements. This is just basic personal finance, but I feel it's overlooked because a lot of people are just focused on making more money and never really take a look at reoccurring bills and if they have increased. For example, my bookkeeping service just increased in price, and I may or may not want to keep it. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Pay Attention to Bills Do we have subscriptions to stupid things that we don't even use anymore? Maybe it has to do with your business; maybe it's something in your personal life. For example, maybe your phone bill went up or your cable bill went up, and you could renegotiate that. Maybe something got tacked onto one of your bills and you didn't realize it. You got charged something on your credit card and didn't realize it. Once a month, once a quarter, or once a week—whatever that is for you—go through all of your bills. Now, one of the things I've emphasized in the past is making sure that your business and personal finances are separated. So any time you buy something for your business, incur an expense, or gain something in income, it should be separated. Your expenses should be on its own business credit card or at least a credit card that's only for your business. Your income should be coming through only on your business account. Go Through Everything You should be going through every now and then and checking, minimizing, getting rid of, or eliminating bills that are affecting you every single month. If you're getting hit by a bill or getting charged an increased amount, that's taking away from your bottom line. So just make sure to go through every now and then and check all your credit cards, business and personal. Check your bank accounts. Make sure you're not getting charged something you didn't know about. Check your PayPal. Make sure you're not getting something additional or something that you completely forgot about. You've got to make sure to go into your PayPal settings to take a look at your reoccurring subscription fees because these things add up. My Experience I just practiced this exercise the other day, and one thing that I actually did was take a look at the bill for my email provider, ConvertKit. I realized that my bill had gone up substantially, which is because my email subscriber base had grown so much recently. It went up from $230 a month to $350. And then what I did was go in, found all my cold subscribers (people who weren't opening my emails), and sent them a campaign and deleted them. It took my bill from $350 down to $200, so I saved $150 off the bat. Then I eliminated a bunch of apps that I wasn't using on my iPhone Store. I minimized probably a good $400 a month because I decided to stop being lazy and actually go through and look and update things. I also negotiated a couple of things with my cable company and Internet. One More Tip Just make sure to go through and check this out from time to time. We're always so focused on making more money, but we can hold on to more money and grow our net worth if we take care of both sides of the equation, not only focusing on making more money but reducing bills, minimizing bills, eliminating bills,

Take a Step Back In all the hustle and bustle of life, sometimes we forget that it is okay every now and then to step back from business, hobbies, or whatever to gain clarity. A lot of people in life are a little disappointed or feel as though they've been short- changed in a sense in terms of health, or fitness, or business, or money. Often that's because we get stuck in the rat race. We get stuck in the grind. We get stuck doing what we're normally doing on a regular basis because human beings are creatures of habit. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... The Value in Reevaluating The results that we have in life, the outcomes, are mainly due to the things that we're doing on a regular basis. These things then turn into habits, and in order to change, we really need to take a second to reevaluate what we're doing, our values, and why we're doing these things. We need to take a step back to reflect. I've done that myself over the course of a week or a week and a half, not only in terms of my YouTube channel and the overall vision of it, but my business and relationships and different things like that as well. If you ever find yourself feeling like you're on a hamster wheel and just running in place—working hard but not getting the results you want, watching the months fly by on your calendar but only getting the same results without changing the way you wanted to—then try to take a step back. Are You Stuck in the Wrong Habits? At times we're not getting what we want because we're stuck in the wrong habits. We're stuck doing what we're comfortable doing. What we do on a regular basis is what we expect to become acquainted with. We get comfortable, we get used to it, and we get put in this box. To get out of that box and change, you've got to reevaluate. Take some time for yourself. Meditate. Walk. Eat healthy. Brainstorm. Get out a pen and pad and start writing down the things you want to do and why you want to do them. Then start talking to friends and colleagues and associates. Just don't be scared to take that step back. Many people say consistency is key—and I'm the first to say that—and that the people who succeed do so because they stick with it and don't give up. But every now and then, you do need to take a step back, whether it's for a day or two, or for a week, or two weeks, or a month, and reevaluate. Ask yourself, “Am I climbing up the right ladder?” If you're trying to get to a certain destination and have your ladder leaned up against the wrong house, it doesn't matter what you do or how hard you climb that ladder. If your ladder is leaning against the wrong house, you're just not going to get to where you want to go. Take a Moment Right Now Take a second right now to think about your life and where you are. Ask yourself, “Do I need to reevaluate? Do I need to take a step back?” And if you feel that you need to, then do it. Take a step back. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

Why You Are LOSING MONEY Selling on eBay and How to Fix it FAST! I hear a lot of beginner eBay sellers complaining that they're losing money when they first start their eBay business, and I want to talk about the number one reason people get started selling on eBay and end up losing money. It's really simple. The thing that they're not doing is spending the time to research the item appropriately before they buy it. They see an item—it might be some toy or game that to them is very special because they've enjoyed it. They've liked it. They think, “Wow! This is amazing!” And they just buy it. Click Here To Watch The VIdeo On YouTube... What They Don't Do They don't research the price it's selling for. They don't research the market of how often it's selling. They don't research the competition. They just buy the item without doing research. And that's it. Before you buy an item to sell on eBay, especially when you're new, you've got to make sure you're researching the item. You've got to take into consideration the risk versus the reward. You've got to take into consideration how much profit you could potentially make if you sold it. Now, are you calculating that profit based on the top end of the market? The low end? The middle range? Are you researching how many have sold over the last 30 to 90 days? Are you researching the seasonality? Are you looking to sell a summer item in the middle of winter, potentially tying up your money in the item until it is more in demand? What You Should Do Do your research before you buy an item, especially when you're new or on a budget. A lot of people start an eBay business and only have $100 in their bank account. Maybe they only have a couple hundred dollars. Maybe they're working a full-time job, so they don't have a ton of time to put into it. When you're first getting started, it's better to actually move slowly. You want to research almost too much. You want to take your time. You really want to make sure that what you buy is going to be a winner. When you are first getting started, I would rather see you buy things that flip quicker for a smaller profit instead of going toward something that's more complicated that might be a bigger profit but is a higher risk. You want to start the process of completing the flip. You want to get accustomed to the eBay platform. You want to learn about the various processes from listing to photography to shipping. You want to build that strong foundation. People are losing money when they first get started selling on eBay because they're not researching enough. They're getting into items that they don't really know that well. They might buy an electronic item, and even though the sold listings might be looking good and there might be a high profit, they don't even bother to test the item. They might not even know how to test the item. They don't understand the market. Take It Slow to Avoid Some Common Mistakes Take things slowly when you're starting your eBay business. Get in the habit of making sure that when you buy something, it's a good risk versus reward. Make sure there's enough profit margin in case things go wrong. What happens if you do your calculations and you think you can make $20, but when you go to ship the item, you've miscalculated and it ends up costing an extra $15? I've made that mistake. You've pretty much eliminated most of your profit, so you really want to do your research. Big tip: download the eBay app onto your phone, and research the item before you buy it. Make sure that the item has sold multiple times. Make sure that the item you're looking to invest in is actually pretty close to or the exact item that is selling. Is it the same color? The same size? The same condition? Study the sold listings and see what the competition is doing in terms of their descriptions and their listings. People lose money because they're trying to rush the process too much a...

Selling Clothing on eBay: Big Money Flipping This PROFITABLE Clothing Tag! There's a specific tag that I love to pick up when it comes to Ralph Lauren Polo. Ralph Lauren Polo has a lot of various tags. There's Ralph Lauren Polo, the blue ones, the purple ones, green, black, Vintage Polo Sport—there are a lot of various types of Ralph Lauren Polo out there. But I want to share with you a specific one that I found that probably has an estimated resale of $30 to $60 depending on how long I want to wait to get the right buyer for my item. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Look for the Purple Label If you're in the clothing game, you have got to be on the lookout for this. It's the Ralph Lauren purple label. You'll see “Ralph Lauren” on the tag written in cursive. The label is purple. I picked up one not too long ago. It was a button-front shirt, 100 percent two-ply cotton  in a size 17. On the purple Ralph Lauren label, it said, “Made in Italy.” It was tagged as $9.99 but was half off in the store that week. Truth be told, I would have paid $10 for this shirt. I don't know why this was sitting in the store for three weeks. I was a little skeptical seeing a purple label there half off because I thought about how many resellers passed it up. I thought maybe there was damage and that I really needed to inspect it. It was flawless—great condition. So be on the lookout for the Ralph Lauren purple label. If you find one, it will definitely be a clothing item that is higher end. And it could be one of several types of clothing: button-front shirts, polo shirts, T-shirts, etc. If you can find a Ralph Lauren suit that has the purple label, you're in it for big bucks. Just be on the lookout for anything purple label. Another Quick Tip Ralph Lauren is awesome. It's definitely one of my favorite brands. I'll give you another tip when it comes to Ralph Lauren. Anything that's weird or unique or has an interesting patch or has a bear or is made from an interesting material—the rare stuff—can go extremely, extremely high in terms of resale value. So keep your eyes peeled for Ralph Lauren and that purple label! Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

Selling on eBay for Beginners 2018: Do This ONE THNG Every Day! Maybe you are the person who is just getting started with eBay, and you're trying to figure out how to learn about what to buy and sell. If this is you, I want to give you one piece of advice: Study the sold listings. That's it. Study the sold listings. If you go over to eBay, you can search through various categories. So, for example, if you wanted to learn about clothing, you could go into the clothing category and then filter out exactly what you want to study in the sold listings. The sold listings button is essentially just a button that you click, and it shares with you everything that has sold on eBay. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... How to Build a Foundation of Knowledge What I recommend you do is study the sold listings every single day for 90 days for 30 minutes per day. Doing this exercise is going to help you to build an amazing foundation. So if you want to learn about clothing, the first thing I would do is narrow it down a little bit more. Do you want to sell kids' clothing? Do you want to sell men's clothing? Women's clothing? High-end clothing? What type of clothing do you want to sell? When I was getting started, I wanted to sell mid- to higher-end men's clothing. What I would do is go over to eBay into the men's clothing section. I would filter out what I was looking for. I was mostly looking to buy from thrift stores and garage sales, so I would filter out used items because most of the items I were finding were used. I would filter out Buy It Now because that was how I was mostly going to be selling my items. I filtered out US only because I am in the United States. And then I would filter out price ranges of $20 and more. Essentially what that was doing was setting myself up with a particular type of item that I wanted to learn about and to be prepared for when I found it in a thrift store. I was trying to find items that had a good market, that were selling on a regular basis in the United States, and that customers were purchasing via Buy It Now. And I would just go through and study for 30 minutes every single day. Some days I would actually narrow down a little deeper into the men's clothing and study dress shirts. Another day I would study shorts. Another day I would study pants. Another day I would study T-shirts. And over a 90-day period or so, I built a really strong foundation. If you're trying to figure out what to buy and sell on eBay that has a market and will make you a profit, you need to study the sold listings. It Works for Any Type of Item You can do this for anything—clothing, toys, ballpoint pens, wallets, ties, computer items, collectibles, vintage items. The list goes on and on. This is the best advice that I ever received when I was first getting started, and I want to pass this along to you. The people who succeed in this business are consistently learning. They're growing. They're going out and experimenting with new items. They're putting themselves in a position to get lucky. Go out there, study the sold listings, and build yourself a strong foundation so you can make money reselling for years. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

Starting an Amazon Book Business (Step 1): Free Account vs. Paid Subscription So you're wanting to get into selling books on Amazon FBA, but you're not sure whether you should sign up for the free Amazon account or if you should pay the monthly fee to upgrade to the professional account (check Amazon's site for the latest pricing; at the time of writing it was $40 a month). As you can probably guess, there are pros, benefits, cons, and downsides to either having the free versus the upgraded professional account. Let's dive right into the info. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... The Big Deal about the Buy Box If you take a look at an Amazon listing—for example, if you're looking to purchase trash bags—most of the time you are just going click Buy It Now. When you hit Buy It Now, essentially what's happening is you're purchasing from the person who has the Buy Box. The Buy Box is the person who is going to get this sale. If you don't have the Buy Box, your customer will have to go in and look through all the listings and choose you, which is possible, but a lot of sales come through the Buy Box. By having the monthly plan for the pro account, you are actually eligible to receive the Buy Box, which is something that will increase your sales. Now, if you have the free account, you can't get the Buy Box. I don't know if that's just with books or other products, but with books you can't get the Buy Box. So that will definitely hurt your sales right there. The Buy Box is one of the biggest reasons why— especially if you want to be selling books on a higher-volume status—you will want to get that monthly plan. It will definitely pay off. Space Another reason, if you really want to take this book-selling business seriously, to upgrade to the monthly plan is because when you have the free account, you're limited to a specific space. Amazon essentially says, “Hey, you only have a free account. We're only going to allow you to send in ‘this many' books that takes up ‘this certain' square footage.” At the time of writing, it's a space that would fit anywhere between two to 500 books. For most people, that might not be that big of a deal. Maybe you're just getting started. You're not worried about having thousands of books. To be honest, I don't even have that many books in my inventory. That probably isn't the biggest deal for you. The Buy Box is a big one though. The limited space may or may not affect you. Additional Fees May Add Up The third thing you need to consider is that when you have the free account, you actually get hit with an additional $0.99 fee. For example, say you were to sell 40 books during the month. You're actually going to pay around $40 additional in fees compared with the person who has the pro account. So once you start to go over 40 sales, you're definitely going to want to go to the upgraded account because it will make sense financially. So if you were wondering which account to go with, I hope this information makes the decision a little easier for you. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

Selling Books on Amazon FBA: What Ranks to Buy and What Ranks to PASS! I want to talk about selling books on Amazon FBA. Now, I do want to say the advice I'm going to give you will be concerning FBA sellers, so if you're selling as a merchant, I would probably skip this information. But in any event, I want to talk about the ranks you should stick with when selling books on Amazon FBA. What's a Good Rank? People are always talking about rank. They're saying, “This was an 80,000 rank…a 2 million rank…a 5 million rank. Is this a good rank in the book category?” Rank is going to differ per category. For example, a 10,000 rank in books is amazing, whereas a 10,000 rank in video games isn't that great. For books on Amazon FBA, anything that's under 100,000 is, to me, a really, really fast moving product. The book category is huge. There are a ton of books, so you could get into some pretty high ranks, and these books will still sell pretty well. For me, anything under 100,000 rank is a score. I'm like, “Boom! Yeah, I'm going to make some money.” Once you start getting up to, say, 300,000, 400,000, 500,000, 600,000, or 700,000 rank, the book is kind of okay in terms of rank. It doesn't mean it's going to not sell. It could sell in a day—rank is funny like that. But to me, when I start getting into that range, it starts to become just average and okay. It's not bad, but it's just average. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... What about Ranks in the Millions? Now, when you start getting up to, say, 900,000, 1 million, 1.5 million, 2 million—that's when it starts to become long tail to me. What do I mean by long tail? I mean that you might be sitting on the book for a while. It could be a month, it could be three months, or it could be six months. It's one of those things where I'm not going to invest a ton of money in it because it's not a guaranteed sale—though nothing really is a guaranteed sale. It's all about the risk and reward. For example, let's say I found a book that was selling for $20 and was ranked 10,000. To me, that's a fast-turning book. That thing's going to sell. It's an automatic sale. That thing is popular. It's selling a ton of books per day. So if that book was selling for $20, I might be willing to invest, say, $5, $6, or $7. And if another book was selling for $20 but had a 2 million rank, I probably wouldn't want to spend more than $1 or $2—maybe $3. I'm not willing to invest as much because it's a slower seller, it's not a guaranteed sale, and it is long tail. Overall, I'll invest in any book that's up to maybe 5 million or 6 million rank. I've even gone up to 8 million rank. But you better believe that I'm going to be spending very, very little on that book and there has got to be a huge reward. Let's say I come across a book—maybe it's a textbook that's a little outdated—and it's selling for $60. Maybe there are 10 or 11 merchants, but there are no FBA sellers. Let's say it's a 7 million rank. I'll pay $1 for that—maybe even $2—all day long because I like the risk and reward on that one. If that textbook sells, I'm going to make up to 100 times my money. That's the way I like to think about the risk and reward when it comes to selling books on Amazon FBA. My Experience If you're wondering what rank is good and what rank is bad, I can only give my own experience. I'll stick with below 100,000—that's amazing to me. If you get under 50,000 or under 20,000, bada-bing bada-boom, the profits are coming soon. That's a really, really fast sale right there. Anything under 50,000 to 100,000 is really, really good as well. If you start getting over 300,000 and upwards of, say, 700,000 or 800,000, it's decent. But again, don't discriminate. Just because the rank is saying it's 800,000, it doesn't mean it's not going to sell. I've had 2 million rank books sell within a day. There is no exact science to this.

5 Tips to Save Money at Thrift Stores Of course you want to get stuff cheaper. When you get your inventory for less money, that means making more money in your business and more money in your pocket. So let's dive in with these 5 tips to save money at thrift stores. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: Go on Half-Off Days and Sales Days Wherever you live, I'm going to venture to guess that at least a couple of the thrift stores have regularly planned sales. There are a couple types you should be looking for. Sometimes a thrift store will have big half-off sales every month or two where all their inventory is 50 percent off. Sometimes it's seasonal, and the thrift store will, for example, have a sale at the end of winter where all winter items are maybe 75 percent off. There are also the thrift stores that utilize a system where items that come in are tagged by color. So all the items that come in during a particular week are tagged with a particular color. And maybe once a week, all tags of a certain color are marked down to a low price or a percentage off. It's a way that the thrift stores make sure inventory keeps moving out the  door so they have room for the new stuff coming in. #2: Make a Donation Another way to save money is by donating. Many of these thrift stores have a deal where when you donate a bag of items, they will give you a coupon for some percentage off. Much of the time you cannot also combine the coupon with other sales, but sometimes you can. Just make sure to read the fine print. Donating is also a great way to get rid of your “death pile.” A death pile is stuff you have been trying to sell for a while but that just isn't moving. We all have them. There's no shame in donating items that you cannot sell. Think of it as making room in your inventory for more profitable items. #3: Participate in Loyalty Programs Like any business, a thrift store loves repeat business. The more you come in, the more they sell, right? Some thrift stores like to reward loyal customers. They might have a program where you get a stamp on a card for every, say, $5 you spend. Then when you fill up the card, you get a coupon for some percentage off. Again, like the coupon you could get while donating, you often cannot combine this coupon with other sales. Just make sure to check the terms of the coupon. And do make sure to ask if they have a loyalty program; sometimes employees might forget to bring it to your attention. #4: Use Your Status This is an underutilized tip for sure. Some thrift stores will give you a discount simply because of who you are. For example, maybe the thrift store down the road has a deal where students (college or otherwise) get a certain percentage off. Maybe another thrift store gives a discount to active military or veterans. A third thrift store might have a senior's day each week where those of a certain higher age might get an additional discount. Again, just make sure to ask the store if they have any programs like that for you to take advantage of. #5: Build Relationships Relationships are huge. It's not only about going to the right line because you know that worker will always give you the lowest price possible. It's key that the store employees get to know you and what you are looking for. You never know when a good relationship will land you an even better deal. A friend of mine was in a thrift store the other day. He said he saw a new printer—a really nice one—and that it was going for $150 on Amazon. They had it priced for $75, but my friend balked at the price. He just didn't want to risk it at that profit margin. So what did he do? He simply asked the manager if he could get a deal on the printer. The manager must have wanted that printer out of the store (it was kind of big and bulky and taking up a lot of shelf room), because he told my buddy that for $30 cash, it could be his. There Are Ways to Save

BUSTED! CAUGHT STEALING AT GOODWILL Here's a crazy story that happened that could have cost me $50 profit. I was at Goodwill. I was waiting to get into a dressing room because I wanted to try on a few pieces of clothing for myself. The door was locked, so I went and asked one of the workers, “Can you open up the door?” She said, “It's going to be a couple of minutes. We're busy.” I left my cart in front of the dressing room door, and I walked about 20 steps away to the video game section. When I was looking through the video games, all of a sudden, I felt as though I had to go check my cart. I don't know if it was intuition or I saw it out of the corner of the eye. I left that feeling alone for one minute, but then I said to myself, “I've got to go check my cart.” Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... A Short Culprit Well, when I looked over there, there was this little girl—probably about seven years old—flying through my cart going crazy. She picked out an advanced caller ID call waiting box. Why would a little girl want that? But she took it. I saw it happen. She took it, sprinted across the store, and ran up to her mom and dad. I realized what was going on. I ran after her. The dad was all bugged out. He looked all sketched out. I said, “What is going on here?” The mom tried to play it off casually and said to the little girl, “Oh, looks like you got caught taking something. Give it back.” So she gave it back to me, and I walked away. I was left thinking to myself, “What just happened there? Did the father or the mother set the little kid on a mission to go steal my item out of my cart or something? Was it a reseller? Am I going crazy?” What was a little girl doing going through my cart and running back and giving it to her parents? I wasn't sure what happened. I didn't know if I was losing my mind or had too much Starbucks and my anxiety was going nuts. I didn't know if it was a setup or what was going on. Keep Your Eyes on Your Prizes The lesson is, regardless, don't leave your cart alone for too long. You never know when a young girl is going to run up, steal your caller ID, run across the store, and give it to her dad or mom. If it's the Salvation Army or the Goodwill or the Savers putting out new stuff, some people assume that any cart is up for grabs. So a lot of times, if you leave your cart alone too long, people will start diving into it. They'll take your stuff. If you're not careful, you can lose money. If I hadn't had that feeling to go check on my cart, my item would have been gone. There were too many people in this store. I never would have been able to hunt this thing down. Be Aware Out There Keep your eye out. I've heard stories of people kind of stealing from other people's carts and trying to sabotage others. And sometimes people just don't know; they think it's the store putting stuff out. Your best bet is to keep your eye on your cart. It can be a little crazy at the thrift store, especially if you go around 4:00 in the afternoon when everyone's getting out of work. It's a zoo. It's a jungle in these thrift stores sometimes. You can't walk away from your cart for too long because someone might snag your stuff, and then it's adios to your profits. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

8 Years Later…And SHE STILL Hasn't Changed! (Story Time) The other day I was getting some groceries, and I ran into this really negative woman I used to work with. I was 29 when I was working at a grocery store called Stop and Shop. I worked in the seafood department, and across from the seafood department was the meat deli. There was this one woman there who was complaining. She was actually a manager of the  deli department, and she was constantly complaining. She'd whine. She would yell at everybody. She was so unhappy and had a little sourpuss face on her all the time. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Finding Something to Get Upset About One time when I was working in the seafood department, it was super slow. I did all my side work; I did everything—and there was nothing really for me to be doing. So I pulled out a book; it was a Tony Robbins book. I was sitting in the corner reading. She came over to me and said, “What are you doing?” She was screaming at me, and she wasn't even my manager! But she did go over to my manager, told on me, and got me in trouble. That's just one example of my interactions with this woman. She was always just so unhappy. She was always whining and complaining. After Eight Long Years, It's Still the Same So today I went over to Stop and Shop to pick up some groceries. And guess what? I went to check out, and she was working at the register. And guess what was happening? She was whining and complaining. She was going on this long-winded rant to the girl who was bagging. She was going on about how she should be able to drink soda or have a drink when she's on the cash register. It was something like that. To be honest, I don't even know. But she had that same face again. My blood was starting to boil. I really wanted to say something. Back when I used to work with her, I never stood up for myself. I was dead broke; I needed the money. But guess what? Eight years later she was still whining. So I said, “Excuse me. Do you remember me?” She said, “No, who are you?” “I used to work in the seafood department. It looks like things haven't changed. Eight years later, and you're still whining. You're still complaining. Why do you work here if you're so unhappy?” You should have seen her face. Her face literally dropped. She had nothing to say. I said, “Why do you still work here if you still complain?” Make a Change Anyway, to make a long story short, this woman—and she may very well be a nice woman deep down—has been working at the same job complaining and whining and fighting and arguing for eight years. And she's doing the same thing over and over again. You know what? If you're unhappy, if you're not happy with how things are—whether it's your manager, your coworkers, the job environment—do something different. Change. Change your work. Create a skill. Learn something new. Move on. Don't be like this woman, who is doing the same thing over and over again. I honestly didn't want to hurt this woman's feelings. But I just had to say it and get it off of my chest. Who knows? Maybe it will start her thinking about how she is living her life. Don't be that person who stays the same place for eight years straight if you're unhappy. Don't be satisfied with being chronically unhappy. It's your life, and you have the right to change it. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

If You're a RESELLER…You Could Be Losing THOUSANDS of Dollars The other morning, I went to the gym early. I did my leg workout. When I left the gym, it was about 8:55. I passed by a Goodwill that opens at 9:00. That was when I began a conversation with myself. First, I said to myself, “I don't really feel like going to Goodwill. I want to go home, get a meal, and get my day started.” But then I replied to myself, “Who knows what I'll be missing out on if I don't go in there right now?” Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... What if…? The truth is that you never know until you go in and show up and see what's there. I literally said to myself, “What if I miss out on a $1,000 deal?” It's possible. There have been times that I've gone into a Goodwill or a Savers or a garage sale or a retail store and made $1,000 just because I had bothered to go inside. It certainly doesn't happen every single time, but the point I'm trying to make is this: What does that opportunity cost? I mean, by passing by a thrift store or a garage saleand talking yourself into not going, what's that costing you? You Can't Make Money if You Don't Show Up You just don't know. You don't know unless you go. If you're a reseller—hitting garage sales, buying from thrift stores, going to flea markets—you make money by showing up. If you don't show up, you are not giving yourself a chance to succeed. You don't know how much money you could be missing out on. Now, I didn't kill it at this particular Goodwill on that specific morning. It wasn't like Jackpot City all day long, but I made a couple hundred bucks by just showing up and giving myself a chance to succeed. I spent about a half hour in there and found some pretty good inventory. Think about the Opportunity Costs If you're ever in a position where you don't feel like going to a thrift store or a garage sale—maybe it's your day off, and you're doing other things—what might it cost you? What might it cost your business by just not giving yourself a chance to succeed and going in for 30 minutes? It could be hundreds of dollars; it could be thousands. So go out there. Make it happen. If you're passing by a garage sale, just go up to it quickly. Give yourself a chance. If you're passing by a Goodwill on your way home, just walk inside. You do not know what you're missing out on if you don't go. It's amazing. The opportunities are out there. You Are in Charge of Your Business You are the one who has got to go out there and make it happen. That's the number one thing. If you don't show up to the game, you're never going to get a base hit. If you don't get out on the ice, you ain't never going to score a goal. If you don't get on the field, you have no chance of scoring a touchdown. Now, that's maybe one too many sports analogies, but the point is that you should go out and make it happen. Keep on picking and making that money. The profits will follow. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

Don't Be Afraid to Negotiate with Your Local Thrift Stores (Huge Tie Haul) One time when I went thrifting at Salvation Army, I purchased a huge haul of new-with- tags ties. I ended up picking up 91 JoS. A. Bank ties, and then I picked up 115 Allan ties. The Allan ties all had really, really cool designs. I ended up picking up 205 ties in total. On average, I was in each tie for about $1.20 each. They were all brand new with tags. Here's the only reason I got this deal. I actually saw a bunch of these sitting out for over a month. Finally I asked, “Hey, is there any way you would do a bulk deal for all the ties?” So the deal was I got them for 50 percent off. Were these ties the best sellers? Not really, but I would be able to get $12 for each, and I was in them for a bit over a dollar. And they had really unique designs, so that would be a selling point right there. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Options and Pros and Cons If you ever find yourself making a similar deal for bulk items, just know that you have some options. The first option is to sell everything individually. You would probably get the most money that way; however, you have to take into consideration that it will be more work and will take longer to sell everything. The cashflow will take a while to get to you. The second option is you could wholesale them. Maybe you know someone else in the reselling community would who want to take on selling these individually. You could check with people in reselling Facebook groups or other message boards. In that case, you would make less money overall, but you would get your money faster and it would be a lot less work. You wouldn't be the one taking the pictures and writing up the listings. You just need to decide what makes the most sense for your business. Do you want to invest your labor into making more money even though it will take longer? Do you want to accept less money and move onto the next deal? The answer will depend on who you are and where you are with your business. Step Up and Make the Deal The lesson to be learned here is that if you're ever at a thrift store and see a bunch of the same item, ask them, “Hey, would you be willing to do a deal? Could we work something out?” You never know—sometimes you can grab a deal. The funny thing in this case was that the Allan ties were the only ones on the floor. When I asked for the deal, the manager went back and found the JoS. A. Bank ties. They never even hit the floor. I got the deal because I asked, but also because I had built up a rapport with the manager previously. Never underestimate the importance of that. That's the moral of the story. Network. Don't be scared to ask. Don't be scared to ask for a bulk deal. Negotiate. Remember that they want to move their inventory as much as you want to buy it. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

How to Keep Track of Your eBay Inventory Using the SKU Label In one of my videos, I mentioned that I had created a new system. Essentially what I did for all my small items that I'm selling on eBay was I labeled each bin with “Bin” and then a number. So the first was Bin 1, and then there was Bin 2, Bin 3, Bin 4, and so on. I would take whatever bin that I put my product in that I was selling on eBay, and I would put it in the SKU label section within my eBay listing. A couple people said to me later, “Steve, why don't you just put your inventory number in the title versus putting it in the SKU label section when you go to edit your listing?” Here's my take on that thought. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Use Your Title Wisely I think that the title portion of your listing is valuable real estate. The title portion is going to achieve a lot of different things for you. Number one, using good keywords is going to help you rank really well in the search. Say, for example, you're selling a Ralph Lauren big bear sweater. If you use the right keywords, you could essentially outrank other sellers, get your item listed more up toward the top, and sell it quicker. Also, your title is used as a description, which means if somebody is looking through all the listings, and they see a picture they like, they will likely glance at the title. They'll think to themselves, “Oh, it's a large. It's striped. It's silk.” So in that way you can use the title as a selling point as well. You don't want to waste your title with words like “nice,” inventory numbers, or anything that's really irrelevant to the customer and the sale. That's why I'm using the SKU label section. When you go to make your listing and create it, there's a little section for you to put your inventory number. Do I Really Need an Inventory System? Right now you may be thinking, “Steve, what are you talking about?” Well, once you get to, say, 300 items listed on eBay, you're going to have a hard time finding your items. Trust me. I have done this before. I have searched for items I couldn't find and had to cancel the order. That's no good for you. As I built my eBay store, I got to that point where I needed to make sure that I had a system in place for my small items. I assigned a letter or a number—it depended on item type and size—for each product. I put it in my listing so when it sold, I could easily find it. I wasn't spending hours hunting down items—because you're not making money when you're shipping items out. You want to ship a sold item as quickly and efficiently as possible. You don't want to be wasting time searching for an item, canceling orders, and this and that. Making Your Business Run More Efficiently I honestly think that you shouldn't put the inventory number in the title. If you do, it's probably not going to be the end of the world. But do focus on things that are going to move the needle forward in your business. Focus on things that are going to make a difference, that are going to make money, and that are going to add value in your business. You know, there are lots of little questions that come up in this business. Should I do an auction or Buy It Now? Should I put my inventory tag in the title or the SKU label? Do I need to make nine pictures or eight pictures? While things do make a difference, at the end of the day, they're not going to make that big of a difference—maybe a couple percentage points. Focus on the things that are important—listing more, studying, going out sourcing, and putting systems and processes in place that will make your life more efficient, which is going to allow you to grow and scale your business. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest...

Advice Every New Reseller Needs to Follow A new seller—his name was Billy—came to me recently. I don't think he sold anything before, but he wanted to know if he should purchase everything he needed to run his business—mannequins, lighting, poly bags, etc.—before he sourced his inventory or if he should get his inventory first. It was a good question, one that many new sellers might have too. You Don't Need It All Right Away I don't think having a mannequin is necessary. Having lighting isn't necessary. Having an iPhone 6S Plus or an iPhone 7 isn't necessary when you're first getting started. The reason I say this is because so many people who start a business—whether it's eBay, Amazon, real estate, or trading stocks—quit. I hate to say it, and I'm not saying Billy will quit. But most people end up giving up. Over the years, I've tried to help so many people. Tons of people have taken my advice or the advice of another and made it happen. But most people, it's sad to say, quit. Most people just don't have what it takes to run their own business because when running your own business, you have nobody telling you what to do. You have nobody saying, “Hey, you have to list today.” “Hey, Billy, you got to go out and source today; inventory is low.” “Hey, Billy, you've got to deal with this nasty customer in a nice way.” There are a million different things that could happen. And when these things happen, most people quit. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Go Bare Bones at First So in light of that, I honestly think the best thing that you should do is just get started with whatever you have. If it's a crummy little camera that takes okay photos, use that. If you've got some windows in your house, take pictures away from the window, obviously against the light because you're going to get the best pictures that way. Use what you have, keep the cost as low as possible, and then go out and just buy clothing or electronics—whatever it is that you want to invest in—and buy those items dirt cheap. I want you to get started at as low a cost as possible because I want you to be able to turn a profit as quickly as possible. Once you start spending—$180 on a dress form mannequin, $400 on an iPhone, $100 here, $100 there—next thing you know, you're in debt. And you've got all this inventory. When to Step It Up I want you to get momentum. I want you to turn a profit quickly. Once you turn that profit, you see it's possible, and you've got some cashflow coming in, you're going to get really, really excited. You're going to get hooked. But if you're in debt, and your back is against the wall, I see a lot of people quit. Then they're stuck with all this stuff that they don't need. They've got a mannequin in their bedroom, a professional backdrop, a lighting setup, and now it's all just wasted money. I honestly think the best thing to do is go out there and learn first. Learn as much as you can. Watch all the videos. Listen to podcasts. Educate yourself. But then go out there and source as cheaply as possible. Get clothing on half-off days, get some books, and get some items that are cheap and don't have a ton of risk. Then just start listing them. Start selling them, and start turning a profit. And then, and only then, once you've made a couple of hundred bucks, you've got a firm grip on this business, you've built up the confidence, and you've got that momentum, step up your game and get a lighting kit. You can start off with a basic one. And then maybe start with an inexpensive hanging mannequin. Use that for a couple of months, and then build up to a dress form mannequin. Slowly But Surely Slowly but surely improve the equipment and the tools, and then maybe invest in software. But I'd say keep your costs down as low as possible at first. Turn a profit, build that momentum, get a grip on the business, and really start to believe and have faith that you can do this.

The 4 Deadly Mistakes to Avoid Selling on eBay We all make mistakes when we are learning something for the first time. That's natural. But I don't want to see you sabotaging your business by falling into some common traps. To help you out, I'm going to go over four of the biggest mistakes I've noticed beginning resellers making. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: Too Much Sourcing, Not Listing Enough When people start on this reselling adventure, they often find that sourcing can be a lot of fun. You go to thrift stores and garage sales and find some awesome items. But then you get home and look at this pile of stuff you should be listing. Overall, new sellers tend to source way too much without listing an equal amount. You might go out and source 50 clothing items or 50 books. It's like a treasure hunt. You're like a lion going after a gazelle. You're hunting down those profits. It's an adrenaline rush. But then you get home, and you have to list them—and that's not so much fun. Many times we fall into the trap of just sourcing, sourcing, sourcing. We're on that high, chasing that adrenaline rush, and we're not listing enough items. We're not sending in enough items to Amazon FBA. We're not putting enough items on Facebook Marketplace or craigslist or wherever we're listing those items. You've got to make sure not to fall into that trap. You're going to make your profit when you list and sell your items. If they're sitting in your car, your bedroom, or your warehouse, they're not available for sale. You're not going to make any money. #2: Not Tracking Profit Many new sellers are happy because their overall sales are growing. Maybe they went from $500 the first month to $1500 the second and to $3000 the third. They see the sales going up and tell themselves that they are doing well. The sales are improving. They post on social media that they sold $50,000 this month, and everyone goes crazy for them. But they're not taking into consideration the cost of goods, paying employees, payingtaxes, buying supplies, or any overhead. There are so many different aspects of your business you have to remember to figure out your actual net profit. Gross revenue may be a nice number to show off on social media, but what is your actual profit? One of the best software packages that I would recommend is called GoDaddy Bookkeeping. That's a really good beginner software. Now, I have an accountant and use QuickBooks, but this GoDaddy Bookkeeping is a great thing that you can use to track everything in your business. You can link it up to your credit cards and your bank accounts. You can link it up even further to automatically put things in the office-supply category or cost-of-goods-sold category or all the different categories that you have in your business. Make sure you're tracking your profit. Don't fall in love with your gross revenue; that's really just a number that doesn't even matter. #3: No System for Inventory Management If you're selling on eBay, you need to be able to manage your inventory. You need to know where it is and how to find it quickly and easily because you're going to be getting questions coming in left and right. As you scale your business, more and more items are going to sell. I can still remember when I was living at home with my parents—my mom makes jokes about it now. My room was a huge mess. She said it was so bad, she wouldn't even let the cat go into it. I had a million pieces of clothes in my room. I had no inventory system. It was a mess. Items would sell, and I couldn't find them. I would have to cancel orders, and I got to the point where I knew I needed to figure out a system. I created this masking tape system where I would put a piece of masking tape on each hanger and would associate a letter and a number to it. That would allow me to easily find my items when they sold or if there were questions. A bin system works too.

I'm Tired of Being a Loser The other day I got a message from someone who follows me on Instagram. It was a sad message that said, “I'm sick and tired of being a loser. My whole life I've had these big goals and dreams. I've had these aspirations to start my own business, have a lot of money, have the nicer things in life, and take care of my parents. I've always wanted to get fit and healthy.” This man went on to explain how he had been watching my videos and had seen me transform my business, my life, my fitness, and my relationships. He was essentially telling me that he was sick and tired of being a loser. He wanted tips and advice. I Was a Loser Too I want to tell you right now that I remember when I was a loser. I was losing in every area of my life. I was losing in my health. I was 240 pounds. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. My average night at McDonald's would consist of a double cheeseburger, two McChickens, and a large fry with all the dipping sauces. I had some relationships, but they were horrible; we were fighting all the time. I was unhappy. I was living at home with my parents. I had all these big goals and dreams, but I just kept losing. I wasn't going for what I really wanted. I want to give you a couple words of wisdom based on my experience of how I've been able to transform my life. Of course, I still have a long way to go—in a way, I'll always  have the mindset of having a long way to go. But I'm proud of where I am now. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... You've Got to Get Going This may sound obvious, but the biggest mistake people make is they never get started. They want to lose weight, they want to start a business, and they want to get into a relationship. But they never get started. They let their minds get to them. They analyze all the millions of things they would have to do in order to, for example, start a business. They start thinking, “How am I going get the money? How am I going to source products? What about the competition? What if I get kicked off of eBay? What if I source a product from China, go to private label it, and then get a trademark violation?” They worry about a million and one different things. This is how I used to be, and I would never get started. I'd ask myself, “What if I get injured in the gym? What if I can't eat the foods that my personal trainer wants me to eat and then I end up having a pizza? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if?” Who Are the People Who Succeed? The people who are successful aren't necessarily the smartest. I have so many friends who are millionaires, and a lot of them are 22, 23, 24 years old. They're not any smarter than I am or you are. I have friends who are so freaking fit, they are ripped. They are shredded. They don't do anything special—they really don't. They're just very consistent, and they do the things that are necessary. Winners do what is necessary to win, and losers make up excuses—bottom line. Not too long ago, I ended up having some drinks. I ate pizza and did a bunch of stupid things. When I woke up the next morning, I said to myself, “I don't feel like going to the gym. I don't feel like working out.” Then I asked myself two questions. “What would a winner do? What would a loser do?” And I knew a winner would say, “Know what? Screw all the excuses. Screw feeling bloated. Screw having a hangover. Screw feeling tired. Get in the gym and make it happen. Who cares how you feel?” Who Are the Losers? Winners do what is necessary to win, and losers make up excuses. Losers justify. Losers hang out with other losers and then convince themselves that what they are doing is okay. It's all right because other people are losing, other people are eating poorly, and other people are lazy instead of working on their business. That's why it's so important to surround yourself with the people you want to become. Like Jim Rohn said,

Top 10 Tips to Grow Your eBay Business to $100,000 a Year If you're a beginner, an intermediate, or even an advanced reseller, you will be able to find some value in these 10 tips to grow your eBay business. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: Source Items That Have a Strong Market This is very important. Even the CEO of eBay has said that the most important thing is the product. If you find the right product at the right price, then you have a winner. You see these items on eBay. The pictures are not good. The description is lacking. But the item still sells because it's something that is trending and it is being sold at the right price. When you find an item, look at the sold listings on eBay to determine whether or not you even want to investigate it. Check to see if there's any interest in the item. Don't just buy things because they're cheap. Do your research. #2: List Consistently I can't say it enough. You've got to list your items. You can buy all you want. You can go to all the thrift stores and garage sales or do wholesale. But if you don't list your items, you won't make money. I can look at your listing habit and guess how much money you make. That's how important the consistency is. When you get into that habit, it becomes part of you. Your income's going to grow and grow and grow. Self-awareness is so important when you develop a habit. Creating a habit is not a part-time thing. If you feel overwhelmed with all this, then start with a couple a day and just do that Monday through Friday. And then you can build slowly beyond that. #3: Educate Yourself I'm not afraid to pay for information. I'm not afraid to share my journey and say, “This is what I'm working on.” I value education. Somebody has already done anything that you want to do, so don't limit yourself by not learning from the experience of others. Ask around for what courses or resources others have used. You will usually find that people in this business are honest and straightforward with what has worked for them and what hasn't been worth the time and effort. #4: Build a Support Team Always surround yourself with positive energy. And you will find that energy by hanging out with people who are out there doing it and crushing it. A great support group can keep each other accountable. Here's the way I look at my network: the tougher and more challenging the question is that we are asking each other, the deeper and closer our relationship is. You can have fair-weather friends all day, but if someone can call you and say, “Hey, I'm looking at your store. It doesn't look like you're doing things the right way,” you're going to be really, really close with that person. Those are the friends I want. I don't need any sugar coating. As the saying goes, your network is your net worth. #5: Use the Right Tools For example, if you're selling clothing and don't have a mannequin, you can still get away with it, but you will do a lot better if you utilize the tools of the trade. Have dedicated areas for each aspect of your business. For example, you could have three stations for your clothing—one for flat laid, one for mannequin, and one for hanging. Then don't use those areas for anything else. Keep them free from clutter. Once you have that consistent process, you look like a store. People can tell right way if you're professional versus every single photo being in a different part of your house. That doesn't look professional. Make sure you have an efficient storage system. Whether it's bins or shelves or drawers, make sure everything is labeled properly. That allows you to streamline your shipping process. #6: Don't Forget Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Make sure you are using the right keywords in your titles and descriptions. Keywords are how people find your items. If you have the wrong word in the title or you misspell the title, people will not find your item.

This Weird Loophole Is Screwing Over eBay Sellers So here is the issue. Let's say, for example, a customer buys a large Ralph Lauren shirt. They pay for it, maybe $10 plus $5 shipping. They get the item. And they've inadvertently ordered the wrong size. There is something that eBay buyers are doing that is kind of screwing over the sellers. First of all, let's say I was the person who sold that particular shirt. The buyer gets the shirt and realizes he made a legit mistake. Now, I accept 30-day returns, no questions asked. The correct procedure for that buyer would be to click on “wrong size, doesn't fit.” Then he would print a label through eBay at his expense because he made the mistake. He would just ship it back to me. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... But There Is a Loophole The problem is one of the choices in the return field is “not as described.” Now anytime—and I mean anytime—a person clicks the “not as described” button, you are going to be paying for the return shipping even if you did nothing wrong and it's a clear case of buyer remorse. This happened to a buddy of mine recently. He sold hubcaps to somebody. The buyer got them. He loved the item, but he said to my friend, “I ordered the wrong size. Will you take them back?” My friend said yes. And what did this buyer do? He clicked “not as described.” My buddy suspected that he did it to avoid paying the return shipping. So he called eBay concierge and explained everything to them. They looked in his eBay messages and saw he was telling the truth. Here's Where It Gets Crazy You would think they would say, “We'll close the case, rule in favor of the seller, and make the buyer ship the hubcaps back.” But if they do that, the seller automatically gets a defect, even though he did nothing wrong. So they said to my friend, “Go ahead and accept the return and send the buyer a label at your expense. Once you get the item back, call us up and we'll reimburse you for the cost of the shipping.” What's the Takeaway Here? So what's the lesson learned? What can eBay sellers do to protect themselves? Is there anything they can do? I don't think we as sellers have the power to do anything in this case. We as sellers need to talk to the higher-ups at eBay and let them know that this is a serious issue and sellers need better protection. Now, luckily most of my customers are honest. But occasionally even I will get a conniver, someone who doesn't want to pay for his mistakes. And if you are selling  clothing, the shipping won't cost much. But if you are selling hubcaps as my friend was,  then you're talking $40 to $45 for shipping. No one needs to be losing that. What You Can Do So what's my advice to a seller who has a buyer who wants to return a heavy item when it is obviously their fault in ordering the wrong item? Do you say, “Hey, listen. Can you send me some money because I think you clicked the wrong button”? No, I would never ask them that question. It's a bad idea. I would just say to the buyer, “Hi, I'm sorry that you can't use the items that you bought from me. Did you make a mistake and buy the wrong size? Do you maybe have 15-inch wheels instead of 14?” Once they admit it, it's right there in eBay messages. You will be protected. Your communication with the buyer is huge. Then you call concierge. It's all there in black and white. First, you have to agree to accept the return and pay the shipping, even if it's $45 or $50. Once you get the item back, you inspect it to make sure everything's OK. Then you call concierge again. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of time wasted. Things Should Change To help the sellers, eBay needs to change that loophole. They know it's there. But at the end of the day, selling on eBay is still very lucrative. Everybody buys and sells on eBay. But this loophole has got to go. ...

Selling Books on eBay for HUGE PROFITS When I mention selling books on eBay, a lot of people say, “Wait a second. What do you mean? Selling books on eBay? You can only sell books on Amazon.” Well, let me give you a couple reasons for why you might want to sell books on eBay in addition to Amazon. This information could help you make some more money. There are books that people pass up on Amazon that they could put on eBay. But Why Books on eBay? With eBay, you can take photos. On Amazon, it's one single listing that's used. You have to piggyback on that one listing. So a buyer is not able to see the actual condition of that book. They may want a specific condition, and sometimes those conditions on Amazon are not matched with the real condition, which I'm sure some buyers have experienced. It might be that the buyer is a collector who is interested in a particular condition. That buyer might not be comfortable getting books from Amazon because they can't see the exact pictures. Condition is really important. And with eBay, you can take up to 12 pictures of the books. It's very simple to take photos of books. They are very simple to list as well because you've got the barcode already. So you take a photo of the top of the book, flip it over, and take a photo of the back of the book. Then you do side, corner, side, corner, side, corner, side, corner—so there's eight. Someone will be able to see the wear on every corner of that book. Now if it's a textbook, then you are also going to take a photo of the highlighting if there is any. You will also want to put it in the description that there's highlighting. If you take all these photos and have a detailed description of any highlighting, then there is very little chance of a return on that book. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Shipping Might Be an Issue for Amazon Another reason to use eBay rather than Amazon is if you are in a different country. You might be from, say, Australia, and your shipping costs are going to be completely different from sellers in the United States. Because of the shipping costs for Amazon FBA, there are books that you could only break even on Amazon but make a profit when selling on eBay. It might cost $5 to $10 just to send one book, even more if it is a large textbook. So in that case eBay would probably make more sense. When eBay Is Better Than Amazon When people think eBay, they often think auctions, but remember that you always have the option to list a book as Buy It Now. You can accept Best Offers too, but you really don't need to do that. And with eBay, you can offer free shipping and express mail, so that way you get the top-rated seller badge and differentiate your listing from all the others that potential buyers might see. A lot of people think that the profit margins are too low selling books on eBay. But even if the profit margin on one book is too low for your business model, you can always try bundling books. For example, you could collect a few Rich Dad books and put them in a bundle in a listing. Then when you sell, you are shipping all those books just one time, so that saves on your shipping costs. If you had sold each book individually while offering free shipping, then you would have had to pay to ship each and every book. That's not the case with a bundle. And the buyer is getting an excellent deal because they're getting a lot of books. It's a win-win situation. Another reason to sell on eBay is when you run across a first edition. For example, you might see a very popular book and pass on it because it looks run of the mill. However, when you take a closer look, you see that it is a first edition. Then the book may be worth hundreds of dollars. You will get the value of your book if you sell it on eBay. Another reason to sell on eBay if you are a book seller is because there are some restrictions on Amazon on quite a few textbooks,

6 Powerful Lessons I've Learned from Full-Time Resellers I went out hustling with 18 resellers. We went to Goodwill and Savers, and I learned so much during this experience. Now I'm going to share my learning experiences with you to help you in your business. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: Riches Are in the Niches What does that mean? The more you know, the more you can grow. The more knowledgeable you are with various categories—whether it's shoes, men's clothing, women's clothing, electronics, cameras, books—the more you can grow. And there are plenty of opportunities out there to gain more knowledge. I saw individuals go after things I would never even imagine going after. One thing, for example, is women's clothing. I just don't mess with women's clothing. But one of the thrifters had found some True Religion jeans and a pair of Dansko women's shoes. I mean, she was just killing it. There are also people out there popping on blenders, electronic items, and items I typically don't mess with on a regular basis. So don't be complaining and beating yourself up: “Oh, the prices are too high. There's too much competition.” It's all in your head. We went out with 18 people, and everybody found profitable items. And it wasn't just like one item here, one item there. Most people made enough to say to themselves, “Wow, I went out and made a day's pay.” So stop complaining. Yes, I get it; prices are going higher. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. But talk is cheap, and talking ain't making you money; talking is actually just wasting your time. The money's out there. Stop complaining, learn about all the various categories, and you'll find plenty of opportunities. #2: The Money Is in the Fresh Inventory At Goodwill, when those blue bins come out, you'd better rush the mountaintop. You'd better get over there because the money is in those bins. I have shared before about a mistake I had been making was when the bins come out. Don't just dive into a single bin; give all the bins a quick look-over. If three bins come out at the same time, scan one, two, and three, and then decide which one you are going to dig into first. Don't let the low-hanging fruit just sit there because you'll have someone like my boy who came up and popped on a hundred-dollar Monopoly game when I was making my mistake focusing on one. The money is in fresh inventory. It's all about the race to the bins. When those bins come out, you stop what you're doing and get over there because fresh inventory equals money. #3: A Positive Mindset Will Help You Find the Deals If you're complaining about prices being so high, if you are angry at YouTubers and Facebook groups for spreading knowledge, just stop your complaining. The people who are succeeding in this game right now are drying off their eyes, they're pushing aside their little box of tissues, and they're going out there and working hard. They're using the tools that are available and are doing the best they can. They're learning. They'e preparing. They're studying the sold listings. They're experimenting. They're growing. And they're finding items. I noticed this just from the thrifting outing with the 18 resellers. I'd say probably 90 percent of them did much better than the other 10 percent. That 90 percent were really happy and grateful and had an awesome mindset. The positive mindset is so key. I can't say it enough; you've got to be expecting success. Even though the thrift store might be a mess, and the prices might be high, and you might see some competitors there, expect yourself to be successful; expect yourself to find a deal. That little shift is going to help you to find items. If you're all pouty and so angry with the market and how things are going, you're not going to, for example, look at all the books because you've been telling yourself that there's not enough. Whereas someone who believes in abundance is going to...

Is Reselling from Thrift Stores Dead? Are thrift stores dead? Can you even make money from thrift stores anymore? The prices are rising like crazy. It seems as though all the employees are researching the items. Is it even worth it to go to thrift stores anymore? I hear this type of talk all the time. Thrift stores are changing, and a lot of people are complaining about thrift stores. Many people are questioning if they should continue to go to thrift stores to try to find undervalued items to flip for a profit on eBay or Amazon. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Yes, Prices Have Gone Up Since I started several years ago, I've seen a lot. I've gone to places like Salvation Army, Savers, and Goodwill. I've also done quite a few mom-and-pop stores. I can tell you right now with 100 percent certainty that thrift store prices have gone up like crazy. It was a slow process. It's not as if it happened overnight. I remember the toys started to go up a little bit, then the suits started to go up a little bit, then the dress shirts would go up a little bit, and then the boutique area would go up a little bit. They had been raising the prices slowly but surely over the last five or six years. So I want to say right now that it is harder to make money from thrift stores than it was in the past. Prices are going up, and it's becoming more challenging. More people have smartphones, and more people are able to research things. There are TV shows coming out. YouTube channels are getting a lot bigger. Facebook groups are getting a lot bigger. I think it's more known to the general public that you can get good money for used items. These thrift stores are catching on, and they're pricing things higher. You Can Still Make Money But the point I want to make is that even though prices are going much higher, there's more competition, and it's just not as easy anymore, there's still tons of profit to be made. For the most part, when I walk into a thrift store, I typically always walk out with something. Now, I'm not a full-time reseller anymore, so I'm a little pickier. But if you're a full-time reseller and selling all different types of items—from toys to books to collectibles to clothing—it's pretty much nearly impossible not to walk out and have something profitable in your cart. There's definitely money to be made out there. Do I think thrift store prices are going to go up even more? I think they are. I think they're going to go up until they can't go up any more. I think the thrift stores are still getting plenty of donations and selling a lot of their items on the half-off days. So until they run out of store space, I think it's in their best interest to keep jacking up the prices. I also believe that the general public is starting to shop a lot more at thrift stores, so it's all about supply and demand. When more people shop at thrift stores, they bid the prices up. The thrift stores notice when every time they put a certain item out, it sells, so they're going to keep jacking the prices up. Prices are probably going to go up for a couple more years until they hit the ceiling and start to get close to the prices of Marshalls or TJ Maxx. So if you're new to thrifting and selling on eBay and Amazon, and you're wondering if you can do this full-time—you can. You can definitely do it full-time. It's just not as easy as it used to be five or six years ago. You've got to do your research, study the sold listings, watch the YouTube videos, and educate yourself. You've got to get really good at taking amazing photographs. You've got to be really good at your systems and processes. You've got to know your numbers. Look for Opportunities It's not as easy as it used to be, but I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that there is money to be made at the thrift stores. Some people out there are always crying and complaining, “Oh, the prices are going up. It's not fair.

I'm Only Selling 5 Items Per Month on eBay! What's Wrong? I had someone say to me recently, “Steve, I've been selling on eBay for a couple of months now. I'm stuck at five items per month. I can only sell five items per month. I just don't get it. I can't get past it. What is wrong?” Now, I don't know where you personally might be stuck. But I've been there. I've been stuck. I have a few thoughts about what could be going wrong for you. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... You Are Not Listing Enough Items This is number one, I guarantee you. You're simply not listing enough items. Now, when you first get started, it's true that you will be hit with various eBay listing limitations. It will take you a month or two to get those limits raised. Just be persistent, list as many items as you can, and then continue to call eBay to request a higher selling limit. As long as you're providing good service for the few transactions that you complete on eBay, you will be able to get your limitations raised in about 30 to 60 days. Let's just say you've gone over that hurdle and have gotten your listing limits raise. Well the next step is to set daily goals. Set listing goals every single day. That's the key. Set a monthly goal. Set a weekly goal. Set a daily goal. When I was full-time on eBay, I was listing between 10 and 20 items per day—that seemed to be the sweet spot for me—and I was doing between $5,000 and $8,000 a month. A good rule of thumb for you is if you want to double your sales, then double your listings. That's one of the biggest keys right there. I can promise you if you take a look at your sales and how many items you're listing, you are probably going to see a strong correlation. You Stopped Listing When Sales Were Going Well One of the problems that a lot of people have is when they start to make sales, they stop listing. They think, “Oh, things are going well. I don't have to list anymore.” That's the incorrect way to look at your business. When things are going well, you want to list even more. When things are going poorly, you want to double down and list even harder. When you list items, you don't see the return on investment instantly. Most of the time, you will see it a week down the road, maybe two weeks. Think about a time when sales were slow and you just decided that you were going to kick it into overdrive and list, list, list. I'll bet that about two weeks later you had to best sales week ever. That's just how it works. When things are going well, keep listing. When things are going bad, double up on the listing. Now, you might want to know if you should schedule out your listings or physically do it every day. For the most part what I do and what the people that I associate with do is list every single day. I have experimented with scheduling out my listings if I were going on vacation or if I knew I would be extremely busy for a few days. So you can schedule out the listings if you really need to. Let me put it this way: I would rather list 10 items a day, seven days a week, versus listing 70 items in two days. I just find that the algorithm seems to favor consistent, gradual listing. You Are Not Listing Good-Quality Items That Have a Market If you're listing low-quality items that don't have a market, then really what are you doing? You're like a hamster running on a wheel. You need to make sure that you're getting into quality items that have a market. How do you know if an item has a market? Do your research before you buy the item. How many times is it selling? How much is it selling for? How many sellers are there? Do you feel that you can come into the market and make that sale? Is there a high enough sales velocity? Some of you will be wondering if seasonality matters when determining if something has a market. It does, but only to a certain extent. Many people won't pick up summer items if it's winter. I still will.

MOTIVATION…Read This if You Feel Like Giving Up in Your Business Do you need some motivation? I want to talk about the difference between the people who succeed on eBay, Amazon, craigslist, Etsy, and the reselling business versus the people who don't. There is one distinct characteristic that the successful people have over the people who just don't make it. This is something that we're all going to have to deal with, and this key distinction is huge. What exactly am I trying to describe right here? The people who succeed, who make it, who thrive in business, who are in business 30 years down the road, who continue to grow, all have something in common. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Facing Adversity The one thing that they have over the people who quit, who give up, who aren't in business anymore, is when they get knocked down—when they get a return, or they get a negative claim against them, or a package gets lost or damaged, or they source an item and when they bring it home it's broken—they get back up again. That's the key. They never quit. One thing I realized is that the winners actually do get knocked down a lot. But a lot of the people who want to be successful aren't willing to take a punch to the face. They are not willing to put themselves on the line to get hit with that return or make a mistake or make an error. They're trying to be perfect. And the key distinction is really that the successful people are willing to go for it and make it happen and take a punch and get knocked down, and they never give up. You Don't Need Perfection, Just Persistence You don't have to be the quickest, the fastest, and the most talented. You don't have to be the smartest guy. You don't have to know everything. But if you're willing to work hard on a daily basis, put in work, grind, educate yourself, and, when something goes wrong, don't beat yourself up, then you will get back up again and learn from your mistakes. The winners get knocked down all the time, but they're getting back up again. Maybe you're dealing with a situation right now in your business—whether you're dealing with something that has to do with taxes, and you're just super overwhelmed, and you begin to think you can't take this, you want to give up, and it was so much easier just collecting a check. Or maybe you're selling on Amazon and dealing with a suspension right now. Maybe you got an inauthentic claim against you or maybe you didn't realize that canceling all those orders was going to result in a suspension. Maybe you're dealing with something on eBay right now. The truth is that everyone is dealing with something. Keep Moving Forward If you're dealing with something that's bringing you down, just know you have got to keep moving forward. Keep growing; keep pushing forward. Anyone who has ever been successful and amassed a large amount of wealth or accomplished something difficult in their lives—they kept pushing. So keep moving forward. I need to remind myself this all the time too. I deal with issues as well, and I keep telling myself just keep moving forward, keep pushing, keep grinding, I'm going to get to the end of the tunnel. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Don't Quit Right Before You Make It So many people give up right before they make it. They don't even realize it. It's like they've been digging and digging and digging for gold hundreds of feet, thousands of feet, and the gold is a foot away, and they give up. And that hurts me the most—it really does. I talk to a lot of people, even friends of mine who gave up, and I think to myself, “You were there. You were there. You were so close if you would have just kept going.” If you're on the brink of quitting or feel as though you're failing, just keep going. Because you want to know what? Success may be just a foot away or right around the corner. ...

3 Tips to Wake Up Early in the Morning Every Day So many people have been asking about my morning routine and waking up early. I've heard people say to me, “I've been trying it and have been really enjoying it.” Somebody messaged me the other day saying, “I've been waking up early because of you and going to the gym, and I'm feeling great.” So I want to give you a couple tips to wake up early and some ways to assure that you actually get up. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: Get Enough Sleep You need to realize that not everybody is a Gary Vaynerchuk. If you don't know who that person is, look him up. He runs a bunch of businesses. He's operating 18 hours a day on three or four hours of sleep. Most people can't do that. You need to get enough sleep. If you want to wake up at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning—which I highly recommend for the many benefits—the number one thing you need to make sure you do is get enough rest. So if you want to wake up at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, you want to get to bed by 9:00 or 10.00—11:00 at the latest. I know some people can get away with four or five hours of sleep, but for me personally, after about week or two, I'm going to burn out. So make sure you get to bed early. There's been so many studies that have been proven that people who get to bed earlier are more productive, they feel better, and they get a better rest. You can look into that for yourself, but get to bed early so you get plenty of sleep. #2: Put the Alarm Clock Out of Reach So you are going to want to set an alarm clock, but don't put the alarm clock next to your bed. Put it so you have to actually get up. You don't want it next to you on the dresser. You don't want to be able to smash it and go back to sleep. Put it across the room on a table so you have to get up. If you wake up, stand up, and walk, there's a much better chance you are going to stay up. So put your alarm clock on the other side of the room. #3: Drink Water Immediately When You Get Up Drink water immediately because that's going to wake you up. Throw some water on your face, drink some water, brush your teeth, and get into your actual morning routine. For me, once I drink some water and brush my teeth, I start immediately reading my goals and going through my affirmations and my declarations. That's really big right there. Start moving and getting your mind working, and that's going to help you a ton right there to wake up early. Bonus Tip: Just Give the Routine a Decent Chance You've got to give it a chance. You can't just try it for a week or two. You're going to feel terrible the first week or two, especially if you're only getting four or five hours of sleep. But the more you do it, the more you build it into your lifestyle and you turn it into a habit and a routine. It becomes a ritual for you. It becomes easier and easier. I never would have thought in a million years I'd be getting up at 5:30 in the morning to work out and make YouTube videos. I was the type of guy who would roll out of bed at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning. Trust me, you're at a big disadvantage when you start your day at 10:00. I credit a lot of my success in terms of my health and my business to waking up early and getting a lot done and being at a psychological advantage over the competitors. So get up and get out of your bedroom if you can because when you're in your bedroom, you're just putting yourself at risk of wanting to lay back down in that bed. Don't; don't lay back in that bed because I tell you, after about 15 minutes of being up and awake, you're going to feel a lot better. If you want to give it a shot, do it; make it happen. You can do it. And at the end of the day, you're going to feel like you got so much more accomplished. A lot of people say, “There's no difference to waking up early. I wake up at noon and go to bed at 2:00 in the morning.” I don't know about that.

5 Beginner Tips for Selling on eBay Here are five tips that I wish somebody would have told me when I first got started selling on eBay. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... #1: Listing Is King This one is short and sweet and vitally important. If you want to make more money on eBay, you're going to have to list more. Bottom line—the more you list, the more money you're going to make. #2: The Sell Similar Button Is Your Friend Instead of creating a brand-new listing, find the item that you want to sell, a comparable item, and hit Sell Similar. It's going to fill out all the blank spots, a lot of the item specifics, and the title. It's going to generate a lot of information based on the previous listing. All you're going to have to do is take pictures, make your description, and then switch up a few of the item specifics if it's something different than your item. That's going to save you a lot of time. #3: What's Your Time Worth? Figure out what your time is worth. It's so important. I see people who are listing a bunch of items. It takes them seven or eight minutes to list each item, and then obviously they have to pick it, pack it, ship it, and perform customer service, and they only make a dollar or two. If you do that long enough, you're going to give up because you're going to think that there's no money to be made. Make sure when you buy an item that there's enough money in it to make it worth your time based on what your time is worth. #4: Get Around Like-Minded People Get around like-minded people. Create master minds. I'm telling you right now when you're new, you're going to get knocked down. You're going to get a return. You're going to have an issue. You're going to have something that you buy and lose money on. You will need to have people in your corner—whether it's a community on YouTube or a Facebook group like the Green Room. Maybe it's someone locally or a friend or a family member you start your eBay business with. You've got to have people who are in the corner with you who could support you when things go wrong because just like anything in life, it's not always going to be a smooth ride. Are you going make mistakes? Yes. Are you going to lose money here and there? Yes. Is it going to be easy starting an eBay business? No. Is it going to take time to figure things out? Yes. I'm being 100 percent honest with you. You've got to have people there when things go wrong. Get a community by your side, or just have somebody who you can mastermind with from time to time, who understands where you are and what you're dealing with. #5: Use eBay to Print Out Labels I see people making this mistake all the time. Time is valuable. It's the most precious asset that you have as an entrepreneur. You want to use your time wisely. So you need to make sure that you're printing out your labels through the eBay system. Why? Because you're going to get a discount by shipping through eBay. Also, you're going to save time being able to pay for postage online, print your label, and slap it on your package right then and there versus having to wait in line at the post office. Take Action If you are new on eBay, take massive action, but let these five tips help you get started. It's not going to be a smooth ride. There are going to be bumps. There are going to be issues that come up. But these tips will help you get over your obstacles when you face them. Now go make it happen. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review,

Don't Make These Simple Yet Common Thrift Store Mistakes as a Reseller There is something that could save you money, save you stress, and help you to grow your business. Now, this is very simple, but this is something that I've dropped the ball on before in the past, and it's just something you don't want to do. This is a simple thing you can do. It takes one minute, and it'll save a lot of stress and put more money in your pocket. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... A Simple Step What is this that I am talking about? Double-check when you're checking out of a thrift store that everything is in your bag. Double-check—it's that simple. I know you're thinking to yourself, “Steve, really? How could doing that be such a big deal?” Oh, it is. The first reason is you want to make sure everything is getting charged correctly. You want to see that all your half-off items are actually coming up as half off. The second reason is that you need to make sure that everything's actually in your bag. It has happened to me several times when I've been out thrifting and just flying around like a crazy person. I haven't double-checked my bag or receipt. I get home excited to list a particular item I found that day, and…it's not in my bag. I'm thinking to myself, “All right, I paid for that DVD. It's not in my bag. What happened to it?” It drives me nuts. And it has happened because I get ahead of myself thinking about the next thrift store or pawn shop or retail store and I am not focusing on what's going on right now in the moment. When you're checking out, double-check everything. A Cautionary Tale I was at a Goodwill once, and the lady at the register looked down and said, “Oh crap.” She was looking down on the floor because there was a bag there that she forgot to give to a customer. It was a bag full of clothes; it must've been seven items. How did this customer not realize they didn't have their clothes? I don't know, but I've done it before, and I'm sure you've done it as well. Take a Moment to Make Sure When you go to check out of a store, make sure you're getting charged appropriately. If things are half off, sometimes the register doesn't take that half off. Or they charge you double for some reason—it's happened to me. Make sure the prices are set accordingly, and also double-check that everything they charge you for you have in your bag. Make sure it's in your bag, and make sure it gets into your car. Double-check your cart when you're putting everything into your car. These are simple things that every now and then I've dropped the ball on. Just take a minute to make sure everything's charged right, that you're not getting overcharged, that everything's in your cart, and everything's going to be in your possession. Take a minute now to save 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, or 30 minutes of stress and aggravation. Please subscribe below to get automatic updates of my latest video blogs: Raiken Profit on Facebook Raiken Profit on Instagram Raiken Profit on YouTube Raiken Profit on iTunes Thank you so much for your support, and if you have yet to leave a rating or review, please leave me an honest one on iTunes, YouTube or below on the blog. I appreciate it!

How to Make MORE Money on eBay Running Sales in Your eBay Store Recently, I was asked about running sales on eBay. The reseller wanted to know if I used eBay's markdown manager, what types of sales I ran, and when I ran those sales (weekdays vs. weekends). When it comes to running sales on eBay, I absolutely do run sales. I love it! A lot of people say that they don't run sales, but for me, I love to run sales. Take a look at any big box store. Look at Target and Walmart. They've always got everything on sale. Prices are discounted or slashed in half. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... People Love a Good Sale It's something about human psychology. When someone sees that something is on sale, it creates urgency. I'll tell you right now, if you try to sell something without creating urgency, you're going up a hill. But if you create urgency, even if it isn't necessarily true—such as a “discounted” price—you have that much better of a chance of selling the item. People buy when they are forced into doing so—when there's urgency. By creating that urgency—the sale that is going to end in 48 hours—it prompts someone to act. Now, if you do want to run a sale on eBay, I believe you need to have a store. I've heard rumors that you could run sales without a store, but I've never figured out how to do it. It's one reason to upgrade to the basic store if you can. There are a lot of benefits to having a store. By having a store, you're going to have the ability to access the markdown manager, which in turn allows you to run sales. Also, I have a feeling—and this is kind of like bro science—that the eBay algorithm helps to rank sellers better that are running a sale. Why? I think eBay realizes that when a sale is being run, it creates that urgency and there's a better chance of that item being sold. So, of course, eBay's in the business of selling items because that creates more repeat customers if it's a good experience. But also they get a cut on the fees and make a percentage and all that good stuff. How Long Should a Sale Run? The duration of a sale is really up to you. For me, I typically like to do it like a week at a time, maybe even 10 days. Typically, I like to do 10 or 15 percent off. But if I ever feel like I need cash or want to get things moving, sometimes I'll move it up to 20 to 25 percent discount. That's really big right there, and that's going to help your listing stand out. Granted, I do mostly Buy It Now with a Best Offer, so I don't necessarily have to cut it 30 or 40 percent if it's a really stale item. Typically with the Best Offer you're going to get people low balling you or offering what they feel is a fair price. I love to have sales running pretty much at all times. There are times where I drop the ball and for one reason or another forget to run a sale. But ideally I would like to have a sale running at all times. I like to create urgency, and I do believe it helps me in the search engine. Should You Run a Sale on a Weekend or Weekday? For me, it really doesn't matter. Again, I like to run my sales for at least a week. I'd say ideally, Monday through Friday would probably be good. The weekends people are probably out and about or hanging out with their family. I'm just guessing they're probably not going to be spending as much money. I'd say they'd probably be spending more money at retail stores. So if you want to run five-day sales, maybe try Monday through Friday, although I've heard that people do really well on Sundays. But again, if you ask 10 sellers, you get 10 different responses. The key is just to run the sale. Be sure to upgrade to the basic store. You're going to get a lot more benefits as well, including discounts on fees, the ability to create a nice- looking store, use of the markdown manager, and a whole host of things. Don't Be Afraid to Experiment with Sales Just run your sale. Experiment.

The Truth Behind Rapidly Rising Prices at Corporate Thrift Stores across America A lot of people think that the main goal of thrift stores is to give their customers the cheapest possible products. I'm telling you guys right now, that's not the case at all. For the majority of thrift stores I go to—at least the corporate ones—their number one goal is to get as much money as possible for their items to donate to their charities, to raise money, to raise funds, and to generate income for the charities of their choice. If you're only source of getting inventory for your business is thrift stores, you've got to realize prices are going to continue to go up. It's just the way it is. They're going to push it as much as they possibly can. They're going to continue to raise the prices and charge more until their inventory stops moving out the store. It's the bottom line. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... The Future of Thrifting Many people don't realize it, but Goodwill is like a real estate empire. They have so much real estate all over the country in prime locations. I really believe that they're going to go more toward the retail business model, bringing in many more private label items and wholesale items. You're already noticing it with Savers. For all the different holidays—Halloween, Christmas—they're bringing in all this private label and wholesale inventory from China. But even the thrift stores that are expensive are much cheaper than even Marshalls or other discounted retail stores. A lot of times they are only a little cheaper than eBay. But people are willing to pay these prices. I think most people are just trying to save some money. Even if they're saving 15 or 20 percent, they're happy. Are Thrift Stores Still Worth It? Now let's take a step back. Can you still find items at thrift stores to make money? Yes. Do I find items pretty much every day when I go thrifting? Yes. Is there still a ton of money? Can you make a full-time income buying items from thrift stores? Yes. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and he was ranting, “How dare thrift stores charge $20 for this? How dare thrift stores sell untested items at eBay prices?” I said, “Listen, they're not in business to give you items as cheaply as possible. Goodwill, Savers, Salvation Army—they don't care about me or you. It doesn't matter if Reseller Johnny walks into the store and wants to buy a shirt for two dollars. They don't care about Johnny. All they want to do is raise as much money as possible for their foundations, bottom line.” Now, depending on where you live, if you live in a lower-income area, the prices are going to stay lower because it's really supply and demand. They could raise the prices from five bucks an item to $20, but it's going to sit. These thrift stores have so much stuff coming in. America is just an abundance of stuff that people don't care about. They're donating a lot of stuff. So the thrift stores do want to keep items moving and will price accordingly. The Goals of the Thrift Store I hear people all the time complaining about prices. “Why are the thrift store prices going up? Why are they not testing their items?” These thrift stores aren't out there for your best interest. Their goal, of course, is to raise as much money as possible for their foundations. And a lot of this revenue is going to really good foundations. Goodwill, in my area, helps people find jobs. There are a lot of good programs out there. Diversify The takeaway here is that if the only way you're getting inventory is from thrift stores, diversify. Go to garage sales on the weekends. Go to estate sales. There's craigslist. There's OfferUp. There's private label. There's wholesale. There's creating your own products. There are so many different ways to source products. There's liquidation. There's buyouts and clearance and retail arbitrage. The list goes on and on.

Is It Worth Paying All the FEES on eBay and Amazon? Is it worth selling on eBay and Amazon with all the fees? I get this question all the time. So eBay's got about 12 or 13 percent in fees. That includes insertion fees, final value fees, and PayPal fees. And don't forget to figure shipping in there too. Then with Amazon, if you're selling via FBA, you're going to be looking somewhere between 30 and 40 percent in fees depending on what you are selling. But is it worth it selling on these platforms with all these fees? Let me put it this way: Where else are you going to sell these items? You could sell your items locally. Etsy's got some traffic, but it's mostly vintage items. There are other websites out there, but where are you really going to sell these items? Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... What You Get for Your Fees The number one reason why we pay the fees to sell on eBay and Amazon is traffic. It's a lot harder than people realize to get eyes on your offerings, to be able to have access to millions and millions of potential buyers on eBay and Amazon. That's the main reason we're willing to pay these fees—to get eyeballs on our listings. Without the traffic, without the customer base, you are not going to sell your items. With Amazon FBA—where the fees are definitely higher—you're typically going to get more money versus eBay, so it kind of makes up a difference right there. But in this case, you are also leveraging the Amazon FBA warehouses by being able to ship directly to the warehouses. Then their employees at Amazon fulfill your items, deal with customer service, and ship your items for you, and you pretty much just receive a check. Fees Are Just Part of the Game If you want to be an eCommerce seller, you're either going to use other people's platforms to get their traffic, or you create your own website. In that case, then you drive traffic to your offerings by either using Facebook ads, social media, or content marketing. Getting into the game of trying to get customers to find your listing and utilize traffic is a whole completely different endeavor right there. Is it worth selling on these platforms because of the fees? Yes, it is. You're getting access to millions and millions of customers. You're getting access to all their traffic. And also, for places like Amazon FBA, you're able to utilize and leverage their employees to fulfill your orders and ship your items. Without these websites, we'd have to rely on driving our own traffic, customizing our own websites, building our own websites, and dealing with so many issues. There are so many things that we just take for granted. Just in terms of how a website works, there are a lot of resources that Amazon has to put up to be able to get customers to your listings. I'm talking about marketing fees. I'm talking about website fees, hosting fees, and having all these people working on the website customizing the code. I am sure I don't even know the half of it. But at the end of the day guys, fees are part of business. Think About Fees, But Don't Let Them Stop You You do want to take it into account. When you're analyzing deals to sell on eBay or Amazon, you need to think about your cost of goods. What will it cost you to acquire this item? You always need to consider the fees for eBay or Amazon. And don't forget taxes. Yes, you're going to have to pay taxes. You need to keep in mind how long it will take you to sell this item. There are a lot of different factors, but fees…well, you can't get around them. It's just part of the game, and you're going to have to deal with it. Otherwise, you will have to drive traffic to your own websites, build your own websites, and manage your own websites. I've got a little bit of experience in that, and it's a lot harder than it looks. ...

How Much Money Can You Really Make on eBay? The other day, I had someone ask me, “How much money can I make on eBay? Can I make $10,000 a month?” I get this question so often. And my answer is always that when it comes to selling on eBay, you get what you put in. The more items that you pick up, the better you are going to do. It could be from thrift stores, garage sales, retail store, or wholesale websites online. The more you list high- quality products—products that are in demand, that have a market—the more you're going to sell. So the more effort you put in by listing items and putting items out there for the market to buy, the more items you can sell. Click To Watch This Video On YouTube... Possible But Not Easy Now there are a lot of factors. Maybe you already have a full-time job. Maybe you've got a family. Maybe you want to make $10,000 a month on eBay. Is it possible? Yes. Is it easy? No. Are there are a lot of people making $10,000 a month on eBay? I have a good friend who has been doing well over $10,000 a month on eBay for quite a long time—but it wasn't easy. He built his way up to it. Three years ago, he was doing $1,000 a month. And then he slowly built it up to where he is today. That took time. It was a huge learning curve figuring out what to buy, what to sell, and how to create efficiencies in his business. Gross Vs. Profit It's so easy for people to say that they made $5,000 or $10,000 or even $15,000 on eBay. What they don't say is that this was not all profit. It was gross sales. There is the cost of goods. There are listing fees, selling fees, and PayPal fees. There are fees for supplies. There are cash flow issues. What do I mean by that? Well, when you invest in an item, your money is pretty much sitting there until it sells. So you've got to continually sell items to bring money in to continue buying. It takes time. How much money can you make on eBay? That's up to you. There was this one woman who was a lawyer for many years. She ended up going into eBay full time doing consigning. People would send in an item. She would sell it for them and give them a cut. She got to where she was grossing more than one to two million dollars a year. The Possibilities Are Endless It's up to you. How creative are you? How many items can you get? What's your demographic? Say you want to focus on clothing. What are the opportunities for you at clothing stores? Here in Connecticut, I'm blessed. There's a ton of thrift stores. Clothing is abundant, and I can get it cheap. But where you live, that might not be the opportunity for you. Maybe your area is good for electronics. Maybe you live in an area that you don't have any thrift stores. You don't have any garage sales. Maybe you're in Antarctica; it's freezing all the time, and you can't get a hold of inventory sourcing locally. Maybe you have to look to white label or private label or wholesaling or drop shipping. There are so many opportunities. Think Outside the Box How much money can you make on eBay? It's up to the individual. It's up to the creativity. It's up to the hard work. How much you put in is how much you get out. People think that eBay is easy. People think that you can just make $10,000 a month with no effort. The opportunities and the possibilities are endless on eBay. But it's not easy; it's hard work. You get what you put in. But it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity for someone out there who doesn't want to work a nine to five, who wants to create freedom, who wants to be their own boss. If someone has that mindset and those characteristics of an entrepreneur, they can make it happen. You can make $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month, $20,000 a month. I'm not saying it's all profit. It's going to depend on your business model. But it's possible. ...