Regina has always loved thrifting. When she discovered that she could turn her passion into an eBay side-business, she didn’t stop there. She started a YouTube channel to help sellers like her get started and keep growing.
Shop Regina’s remarkable finds at her eBay store, Michelle Fashion & Finds.
7 Questions with Regina Michelle of Michelle's Fashion & Finds
- What does a typical day look like for you?
I'm very intentional about my time. I get up very early, 4:30 in the morning.
I may take pictures of items. I may list some items. I may even organize my area I'm working in. I try to work in my store 30 minutes to an hour a day. I'm always trying to do some type of activity in my business to keep it successful.
After 6:00am, I'm getting my daughter to school. I'm getting her ready, making sure she has her clothing and making sure she's dressed. I get her to the bus stop. Once she's off, I'm going to work, and my commute is an hour—which is a long drive. Then I'm at work from 8:30 to 5.
And I maximize my time with eBay while I'm at work too. The post office is 3 minutesfrom my job. I’ll take items to the post office during lunch or break and sometimes even before I get to work. And during breaks, I can take my phone out and get items listed on eBay or even just save items as a draft.
When I get home, usually I try not to do a whole lot of eBay activity because I have to do homework and make sure that my family is fed. But on Wednesdays now, we have a YouTube Live with resellers. It's all Wednesday. It's called Hump Day Hangout. So I'm doing that every Wednesday, and that's been going on for a year. We just have a connection with resellers where we talk. We talk about how to manage time when you're a reseller and things to help us be successful.
- What’s your top productivity hack?
My productivity hack is making sure to have consistent goals and stick with them.
You have to be goal oriented if you want success. What I do is I have a goal of listing one item a day. Now, of course, I may list more than one item a day, but if I have that goal to list just one thing a day, that gives a signal to my mind that I need to be doing something to keep me a little more productive.
- What does community mean to you and your business?
Community is very important because you want to be connected with like-minded people. People that think like you. People who can sharpen your skills, if it's an area you don't know. The reseller community—they’ll help you get there. It’s very important. It also motivates you.
I wanted to start my own YouTube channel because I felt like maybe the resellers I was watching on YouTube would feel more comfortable with me if they saw who I am and what I was doing.
And I wanted to document my journey as a part-time reseller because I thought it would be helpful to other part-time resellers to show them how I do things and know they can just start where they are.
- What’s one thing you would tell yourself when you first started your business?
I did not expect my business to grow this fast, but I would tell myself when starting this business to be prepared, stay consistent, stay learning, and make sure that you stay organized with your items because when your items sell and you're not organized, and you have to look all over the house or look all over your inventory room and find the item— that creates stress!
So I would tell myself all of those things about organization and just being prepared for success, because the success is going to happen when you're prepared.
- What’s your favorite quote— motivational or otherwise? Why?
My favorite quote to keep me going is “Keep it moving.
Keep it moving, no matter what comes your way. If you have setbacks, just figure out how to fix it and keep it moving.
I don't dwell on things that set me back. I have to keep it moving.
- What’s your secret selling power?
My selling super power is knowing what people want to buy on eBay. I’m always looking at the comps (Editor’s note: comparable items) and getting the brands that buyers want. You can go on eBay and search an item and see how much it sold for and when it sold, and how many people have sold that item within the last few days. That’s searching for comps. I want to make sure every item I sell is something that's been selling on a regular basis.
You can list items and think that it's gonna sell high, but the eBay market determines the sale. So you want to get items that people are actually looking for, because if you're just listing items and people don't want it, then you're not going to get the sale.
- Where do you see your business in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?
A year from now, I would love to see myself have more inventory and move into a larger store.
In the next five years, I just want to continue success, learning new things and having more of a niche because I'm all over the place and which, which is not bad because I’m learning about a lot of things. But I would like to just have a solid niche in something
Of course in the next 10 years, I would love to be, full-time reseller. That's definitely my goal.
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This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.
