Ep 5 || From Therapist to eBay Entrepreneur: Anna Packer on Understanding Consumer Behavior

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Anna Packer of Annaesthetic Miscellany left her stable nine-to-five job to be an eBay entrepreneur using her knowledge of human behavior to understand consumer buying patterns.

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Georgea: Every seller has a story. I'm Georgea Mpampanis and welcome to the fifth installments of the eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast where each month we spotlight a seller with a story to share with us our guest. This episode is a seller who took a big leap from her stable nine to five career in order to take her selling full-time and built a successful business. Welcome Anna Packer.

Anna: Thank you so much, Georgia.

Georgea: First things first, Anna, how do you pronounce your store?

Anna: I always tell people I didn't anticipate having to say the name of my store out loud or spell it or anything when I named it, but the name is Anesthetic Miscellany or if you prefer Annaesthetic Miscellany because actually both pronunciations of Miscelllany correct. You can pick whichever one you like, but that is the name.

Georgea: Anesthetic Miscellany, right? That works.

Anna: Yes, that's how I say it. I prefer Miscellany.

Georgea: . Okay, perfect. All right, we'll get that nailed eventually. So tell us about your business. What do you sell?

Anna: Oh man. Well, as the name indicates, I sell very miscellaneous inventory. I have a pretty large inventory right now. I have around 12,500 active listings and that represents a little over 13,000 items because I have like a few listings that are multiple quantity and things like that. But really I'm across a whole bunch of different categories. Anything from vintage housewares to gently used clothing, shoes, media toys. I love selling stuffed animals. Those are definitely a personal favorite of mine as a child. So that's really fun, really just all kinds of things. I really love to sell things that I'm interested in and my interests are pretty miscellaneous and therefore my inventory reflects that.

Georgea: Okay, so you have thousands and thousands of items. So when did you start selling?

Anna: I actually started part-time in 2017. Yes, it was 2017 alongside of my career, which was also a business that I owned. I had a a private therapy practice and I really wanted to kind of mitigate some burnout I was having in that field and also I just have always loved vintage stuff and thrifting and things like that. So I thought, you know what? I'm going to build this little side hustle to kind of give me another income stream so I can take on fewer clients and kind of mitigate my burnout that way. And so I started it part-time just for that purpose and I actually went full-time with it in September of 2019.

Georgea: And going back to being a therapist, why did you choose that career path?

Anna: Great question! I actually did not set out to be a therapist, but I always loved psychology. I actually planned for many years to study music. I'm a musician also and I kind of chickened out of that. When I got to college, I was like too afraid that it was gonna be, you know, not a steady, stable career path. And you know, the music industry's really hard. I also married a professional musician, so I still got to experience a lot of how crazy the music industry be anyway, but, and I love music, I love being a musician, but I chose not to do that as my career. And so I found another love in psychology and pretty much when I was an undergrad I actually got a degree in psychology and a degree in criminal justice. I was really interested in criminology and forensic psychology and stuff like that. I wanted to do research and if you're in the field of psychology, you pretty much have to like keep going with your school and you have to get a Master's or a PhD or go, you know, go do research at a university to sort of get into that industry. And so I just sort of took the next natural step, went to get my Master's at a program that had a really heavy emphasis on research because that's what I wanted to do. And then it turns out that they also have like basically a dual emphasis on research and therapy. I was like, well that's cool, like I'll do these internships or whatever, like this will be interesting. I like people and I'm a people person and I'll probably still go on to do research, but I have to do all this therapy training because it's part of the program. And then I really fell in love with it and kind of was weighing like, do I want to now go on to my PhD and go to school for like six or seven more years or do I wanna stop going to school, start working with people and sort of get to enjoy this really amazing job that I never knew that I would like doing. And so I opted to go ahead and start working and stop going to school and stop at my Master's. That's what I did.

Georgea: Okay. So I mean you have the successful business. Why did you dabble at eBay, when you decided to quit?

Anna: It was a really hard decision because I really did love therapy. Obviously it's really rewarding to help people and to walk through the most difficult things in their life with them. It's like a really huge honor to work with people in that way. But it's really hard and even with really excellent training, I mean burnout comes and goes with anybody in the helping field. When I was kind of building my eBay store on the side, like I said earlier, like my purpose was to kind of alleviate some of my burnout and it was really effective for that. But I, I just kind of got this glimpse of a life where I could have even more freedom and flexibility because you know, running a private practice was awesome. I loved being my own boss. I still loved being my own boss. I consider myself unemployable at this point and I really wanted more time and emotional bandwidth and kind of mental capacity in my own life to do other stuff too besides only therapy. And then having like a little bit left over for like my friends and family. Like I said earlier too, I'm a musician, I'm a creative person and I really felt like I was lacking some bandwidth in my own life to kind of pursue those things. And eBay costs me almost nothing emotionally. It's mostly just fun. There's no emergencies. I'm not on the schedules of however many clients I have. It's a lot more flexible. Running a private practice had its own flexibilities built in, but eBay's even more flexible and it allows me to pursue some of those other things. And I really love living a creative kind of unorthodox lifestyle. It was just a perfect fit.

Georgea: I'm sure you still use those skills towards your eBay business. So I'm curious, how do you go about using your psychology skills?

Anna: I wouldn't say I use my therapy skills as much, but psychology in general totally do. The more that you learn about people and learning to observe people in a structured way, like when you're training to be a therapist for example, the more observant you become overall. And so I think that sort of curiosity and observant nature that I already have that was really like honed in those years of training kind of actually comes into play when I'm sourcing from imagining my ideal buyer of an item to kind of thinking creatively about the stuff that's in front of me that could be a good item for my inventory or whatever. Like those kind of observation skills and imagination skills I think are helpful. Like how can this item connect with a person? I think that's important. And then also kind of indirectly, I didn't even really mention this, but when I was in practice and I still have my license by the way, I'm just not practicing anymore. But when I was in practice, I also taught psychology classes at a university for several years and those skills have come in really handy. I mean full circle to creating and giving a presentation at eBay Open this year. I mean I had no public speaking skills other than my teaching experience where I would have to stand up and lecture for two or four hours at a time and put together course materials and write a syllabus and write lesson plans and stuff, I really was super grateful that I'd had that experience whenever I got the opportunity for eBay open because I thought, oh, I know how to do this. It's still scary, but at least I've kind of done it before. That was a really great application of a psych skill for sure.

Georgea: You said you like connecting items to buyers. I wanna hear about like one of your favorite experiences with connecting an item with a buyer.

Anna: Oh my gosh, there are a lot. I have a lot of those. I like to sort of collect those stories because they're like the extra cherry on top of how fun it is already to just run an eBay store. But one of my favorites, so I'm a huge fan of Hamilton, the musical of course, and I had like a, I think it was like it was an outdated wall calendar that was Hamilton the musical and one of the original cast member's family members bought it from me because she was trying to collect all of them cuz her family member was the person on one of the months. It was George Washington, it was his family member. But I was super thrilled because I love him and I was just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is actually going to end up with one of his family members who wants to like honor him and celebrate that he was an original cast member in that. That was super cool.

Georgea: That is cool. On top of reselling, you also recently wrote a book about all things selling on eBay and I read it, it was great, loved it. What inspired you to write this book?

Anna: It was a big daunting project also, but really I started thinking about it because I was having a conversation with actually my best friend from college and he was just asking me a bunch of questions about my store because I had recently gone full-time with it and he just thought it was fascinating. This happens a lot where people end up just kind of following their own curiosity and asking me a million questions about it and I end up talking about it at length and I'm always surprised like I can't believe people care about this. Like want to know how it works. I mean I think it's interesting but I'm always surprised how many other people also think it's interesting. So I was having one of those conversations with my friend Gil and he just kind of casually said, well you should write a book about it.

Georgea: And you took it literally.

Anna: Well I was actually mad at him because I was like, I don't have time to write a book and now you've cursed me with this project because I instantly had like the whole outline in my mind when he said it, it was like he unlocked it and suddenly the outline was like it was there and I was like, dang it, now I have to do it! . So I did, I wrote the whole book in about 40 hours. I sat down and just like cranked it out and then of course there's like editing and stuff after that, but I was just like, you know, this is compelling because like I, I used to always say like, well I wrote it so that when people ask me about it now I can just throw a book at them and walk away and I don't have to have that conversation for the hundredth time. But I really do love sharing it with people. But I do think it was a good way for me to kind of document my own process and tell the story from the middle of the story in a way where I was like in the thick of it. I had just gone full-time. I've had some years of experience building it and really the only reason that I even started my store was because someone else was very transparent about how they ran their store. And so I thought, I don't know of any other books that are out there. You know, there's blogs and there's YouTubers and podcasts and stuff, but I was like, maybe some people wanna read a book about it and no one's really done that yet. So let me put that out there so that you know, there's an example because that was the life or death difference to me was having a clear specific example.

Georgea: You touched on this one thing that you call the four ways of staying frugal and focused, which I absolutely love. So what is one of those experience that kind of, you know, resulted in the ideation of these?

Anna: Those rules were kind of lifelines for me as I was starting from nothing because like I said, I built this up on the side of already running a business and I didn't have a lot of money to invest in it. The little time and little money that I had to kind of get this going, I needed to make the most of both of those resources. Having those four rules, which I can say what they are, if that helps.

Georgea: For anyone who hasn't read it yet, they will eventually.

Anna: Oh yeah, these were like the rules that I gave myself to help me cut down on decision fatigue and kind of make the most of my time. Like I said while I was outsourcing, it could be really overwhelming, you know when you're first starting and you don't really know exactly what you're looking for, having these, these rules helped me to just like make decisions quickly and build my inventory. The rules are shoot for under $3 per item, only buy stuff that will sell for either at the time $20 or 10 times what I paid for it. Now I'm shooting for a higher average sale price than that. These are just really general rules, but that was my rule at the time. And then also the third one is to source what interests me. And the fourth one is that when times are lean to reinvest 10% of your profit into the inventory, sometimes I would've a hard time deciding as I was getting the business up and going. I had a hard time like how much money should I spend on inventory? I wanna pay myself as much as I can because it's supplementing my income at this point, but I also don't wanna like spend too much and I don't wanna slow down the growth of the business. So that 10% rule sort of helped me to go like, okay, if I've done $500 in sales this month, I have $50 to go make the most of this week or whatever. They helped me to stay on track, I think.

Georgea: Keeps you disciplined. Yeah, totally.

Anna: Yeah. Overspending and distraction are human tendencies that we all have to some extent. It's helpful to curb those when you're trying to run a business.

Georgea: Yeah. Guilty as charged over here, ,

Anna: Same.

Georgea: So as you mentioned you have over 12 K listings. Yes. And in your book you have noted all the places that you have sourced from, which for some starting off can be a little overwhelming. If you can suggest one place to start for any one beginning, where would it be?

Anna: Definitely your own stuff. Kind of in a figurative way and in a literal way. I like to say like start where you are and use what you have. I think some people feel like, well I need to do a lot of research first or I need to follow a bunch of other sellers and those are good things to do, but I promise, eBay is made for everyone and so you are already qualified enough to start. Start where you are and you know the use, what you have part really is literally like look around your house at things that you maybe don't actually necessarily need and think would I rather have this or would I rather have however much is worth $20 or whatever and just get started. Literally when I started my store the day I decided, okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna try and list 500 things as fast as I can. I had just taken a carload of stuff to Goodwill and I was so mad because I thought I should have saved some of that. I didn't even think about it. And then the next day I kind of made this big decision, but I tell you no lie, I found a hundred more items around my own possessions to start my store with, even though I thought I had just cleaned it out. And I'm not a hoarder, I'm just like a regular person with a regular amount of stuff. Just for the record.

Georgea: All right, so you hear that start from your home. Anna, where can listeners find you in your store online?

Anna: My eBay store name and my store's Instagram handle are the same thing, just the store name, Annaesthetic Miscellany and anesthetic is a word. The way I spell it is like my name Anna, a n n n a. So it's Annaesthetic but with two ends at the beginning. And on my Instagram I have a link tree in my bio that you can check out all the other stuff that I'm doing. It will link to my book on Amazon, although you can buy the book from me in my eBay store as well. And if you do that I'll sign it and write you a little note. If you want. You can also make an offer which you can't do on Amazon, so feel free to make an offer. I love writing people little notes and thanking them and encouraging them. If you're interested, I would recommend getting it from me on eBay just cuz that's more fun.

Georgea: That's right. You hear that everyone? eBay.

Anna: eBay for the win.

Georgea: Yeah. Alright, well thank you so much for joining us today, Anna. This is awesome.

Anna: Yes, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Georgea: Anna Packer sells on eBay under the store name Annaesthetic Miscellany. If you miss the name of her book on all things selling on eBay, it's called Miscellaneous, taking Back Your Time on eBay. Join us on our next episode where we'll shine the spotlight on another seller with an amazing story to share. I'm your host, Georgea Mpampanis. Jim Griffith is our editor-in-chief. The eBay Seller Spotlight podcast is produced by Libsyn and PodCast411.