Ep 214 || Brothers In Business: Jesse & Austin Smith of Yesterday’s Fits

[podcast_team]

Jesse & Austin Smith share how they started out in business when they were just young boys. Griff and Brian answer questions on the Best Offer feature and the new Messages format and what effect the moon, stars, and planets have on buyer dissatisfaction.

You got questions? Call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.
Join the conversation
Take our podcast listener survey

Episode Links:
Jesse & Austin Smith’s eBay Store
The eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Discussion Group

eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: This week running a business on eBay with a family member.

Griff: And do the stars and planets play a role in customer dissatisfaction?

Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff and this is the eBay for Business Podcast, your source for the information and inspiration to help you start, manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 214.

Brian: What's new in your eBay world this past week, Griff?

Griff: Well, without sounding cliche, Brian, I have to tell you, I've been busy downsizing at home, but I'm still sourcing for future inventory.

Brian: Sourcing in your garage?

Griff: No. Um, no, it's not going in the garage. Trust me, I'm trying to get stuff out of the garage, but you know, I haven't stopped buying because I'm switching my entire inventory over to just small things and fragrance. But this got me thinking about an issue cuz I've been getting all these packages, you know, sent to me. It's an issue I have as a buyer that I've brought up in the past. But I thought it might be worth talking about.

Brian: What's that issue?

Griff: I'm shocked at how poorly most sellers pack and they tend to be eBay sellers cuz I'm buying in different places. eBay sellers tend to be pretty good. But all sellers seem to share this belief that the more tape I use the safer the package is.

Brian: I used to be that seller. Yes.

Griff: So I came really close to stabbing myself in the arm, trying to open a package that was packed with so much packing tape. It was just a small bottle of cologne that didn't have a box. When I sell it, what I do is I have these little plastic zip bags and I use one wrap of big bubble wrap and then put a little piece of tape. Once it's in the box, it's not gonna unravel. There's not enough room, but people think, you know, I'm back in Egypt, ancient Egypt and I'm gonna mummify this item. And trying to cut it open is so frustrating. So I have three tips I just wanna mention before we get into the show.

Brian: I might have a fourth. We'll find out where your three tips are.

Griff: Use the right material for the right item and that means if it's fragile, use big bubble wrap. If it's just that the surface has to be protected, use small bubble wrap. The second tip is use a minimal amount of tape on the items packaging and on the box. I literally got a box yesterday that had so much tape. It seemed like he had an extra roll of eBay tape. So he used the whole roll and just kept wrapping the box. And I know what they're thinking. They're thinking, well if I wrap it this much, there's nothing that can go wrong. Me stabbing myself in the arm and possibly bleeding out on my kitchen floor is something that could go wrong. And then the third tip I have is if you're not sure that you've got the right buffering and packing material in there, pick up your box before you tape it, hold the top down, shake it. If you can hear any movement, you don't have enough packing material in there.

Brian: That reminds me of Joey Ruffo, who wrapped a coffee cup here in San Jose at a seller meeting. And took the coffee cup and threw it on the ground after he'd wrapped it with just three small sheets of bubble wrap. And then somebody else opened it up and it was in perfect condition because he had packed it right with the right box. He did not over tape.

Griff: It is a real bete noire for me that I have to cut through all this tape.

Brian: Well I was thinking of fourth option.

Griff: Wait before you get to your fourth option. I'm practical and realistic and I know that I have about as much chance of changing seller's minds about mummifying their packages and their items as I do to get people to stop using the word vintage. So, you know, I like to tilt at windmills, now I got two I could poke my Don Quixote spears at.

Brian: So every other month will go between packing tape and thermal printers.

Griff: But this one's even worse for me. And when you look at a package that you get from a retailer, somebody who's a big business, check out how they pack. At least when it comes to tape. There's no over taping. The box is not going to suddenly burst open on its own and your contents fly around anyway. Anyway, what's your fourth tip?

Brian: Well I was thinking if people definitely want to continue this practice of completely mummifying the box, maybe the last couple wraps, they could add a utility knife and then wrap the utility knife. And that will come off easy with only one cut through. And then you'll have a handy utility knife to be able to open your box.

Griff: Or stab myself in the arm with so I'm not so sure that's very good but nice try Brian.

Brian: Well. We'll see if next week you have another packaging story.

Griff: Or another gripe.

Brian: Yes. Well I assume we have some questions this week?

Griff: Brian. We do indeed in one of these questions. It's one of the most unusual questions I've ever heard or received from a seller in all my time at eBay.

Brian: Oh. And that's 20 some years. Yeah. That's gonna be interesting. I suspect this is about stars and planets and buyers. Do we have an answer to this unusual question?

Griff: We may.

Brian: What, are we gonna make it up on the fly?

Griff: Exactly! I'm still working on how to respond to this question. I thought we might just wing it. So that's coming up. Something to look forward to.

Brian: Okay. I can't wait to hear that one.

Griff: Me neither. We also have a question about coupons and one about the send offer feature that appears to have gone missing .

Brian: Intentionally or unintentionally?

Griff: It's a good question. I don't know. And I've asked David and he's put me in touch with somebody on the message team and I haven't heard back from him, but I'll read the email. Brian, before we get to our guests for this week, and I'm so excited about this. Is there any news?

Brian: I have one news item. The new eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast has officially launched with its first two episodes. Yay. Yay, yay, Yay. Definitely.

Griff: And so there's one with Chase Clifford and then one with Ken Gaitano two eBay sellers. And we decided that we would release two episodes at once and then go to our monthly cadence starting in the third Wednesday in November.

Brian: And our listeners can find that podcast in the same places they can find this podcast. But it's called...

Griff: The eBay Seller Spotlight. Brian: And Georgea Mpampanis on our team is the host of that one. So go listen, it's a different flavor of podcast. You can subscribe to the new podcast on whatever podcast app you use. And you can also subscribe on the podcast community pages at www.bay.com/podcast. You can find the new Seller Spotlight podcast in the dropdown menu under podcasts on the community page.

Griff: And added extra bonus feature. You can now comment on either episode, either the Seller spotlight or the eBay for Business recent episode right inside that thread. You know, we used to have a separate board you had to go to. You don't have to do that anymore. That's gone. You can now comment right inside the ask questions, post snarky comments. So anything you want to do right there.

Brian: So that means folks can go comment on this episode starting next Tuesday.

Griff: Right. And we'll keep the comments open for the week that the episode is around. And then when a new episode opens, we'll close the comments for the old thread. And now you can comment on the new episode.

Brian: And are the comments for our community members and listeners? Or will staff sometimes comment?

Griff: Oh, I'll answer questions if that's what you're trying to get to. Yes. That's the whole point. You can ask me, you can ask a guest a question and I'll go get the answer from the guest if I can't, you know.

Brian: And if someone tags me, I promise I'll go answer the question too.

Griff: Oh brother.

Brian: They can find me in the community.

Griff: Good for you. Hey, we met up with several sellers a few weeks ago while attending the Reseller Remix event in Las Vegas. And I think we mentioned this, we recorded eight or nine separate interviews and over the next few months, we'll uh, we'll feature the best of those. Today we're featuring one Rebecca and I sat down with these two sellers who run a successful on and offline business.

Griff: I'm Griff.

Rebecca: And I'm Rebecca.

Griff: And here we are at the Boss Seller remix in Las Vegas. And we're gonna introduce you to our next two guests, Jesse and Austin Smith. Welcome to the podcast . And we should mention your brothers.

Jesse: Correct.

Griff: It's very obvious if you're here in the room with us. . And what's your user id?

Austin: Yesterdays underscore fits, which is the same as our Instagram and our store name. We have a brick and mortar store, Yesterday's Fits. And we're about five minutes off the Las Vegas strip.

Griff: Really? Here in Las Vegas?

Austin: Correct.About 20 minutes away from where we're at right now.

Griff: And is the store open right now?

Jesse: Correct.

Griff: Well, who's manning it?

Austin: Our manager.

Griff: Ah, there you go.

Austin: The guy we pay the big bucks. Right? He's there right now.

Griff: And then that store on eBay you sell?

Austin: Mainly men's fashion streetwear, sneakers, vintage clothing.

Griff: Vintage, huh?

Austin: Correct. Yeah.

Rebecca: Oh no, you said the word .

Griff: And what does vintage mean to you my friend?

Austin: Well we go more based off of uh, you know, what the internet says and that says 20 years. So it is always revolving for us as you know, trends evolve in every aspect of life. But for us, like once an item is 20 years, we can consider it vintage.

Griff: Okay. So if we're talking 20 years then you're looking at clothing that's from the late nineties early bots and that's now collectable?

Jesse: Correct.

Griff: I feel very old.

Rebecca: Shut Up. .

Austin: We, we more so go in like to the, the late eighties, early nineties. So we're still looking closer to like the 30 year mark. Like when it comes to street wear, we kind of just try to mesh in whatever looks good with fashion in general. It's not so much just a specific, this has to be 20 years old. I mean, cuz even some of the street work stuff we do came out yesterday, you know what I'm saying?

Rebecca: And how long have you been selling? When did you start your business?

Jesse: Well the store opened up five years ago. We've been selling on eBay though for our account opened up in 2014. But we sold for our parents before that on their account, well ourselves, then my parents. Helping them list and that was probably 2009, 2010.

Austin: I think early, even earlier than that. Cause I started taking photos for my mom as like a like kind of like chores. Um, instead of helping clean the house and stuff like that, we would do that.

Jesse: And we still had to clean the house , but you know, but we didn't get chore money or anything like that. We got, we wanted money we would list on eBay for them so that they could get money out of it and we could

Rebecca: Oh profit sharing.

Austin: Exactly. But uh, I was like five when I was doing that excuse with the little point and shoot camera. Yeah. So when we moved out to Vegas and they would take the photos off the camera, put 'em on the computer and then upload 'em from there. Yeah.

Jesse: Yeah. When we moved out to Vegas, my dad was promised a job. We moved from Illinois. We'd kind of be bouncing between different places, but we get here and it got pushed back like six months and so we end up moving in with my cousins. But my mom grew up in this like little college town, was making a ton of money working at bars and she would go out and buy all these brand new clothes every single night when she would go to work. So when she moved out here, it''s 120 degrees out here. She doesn't need all these sweaters and jackets and everything. So we started selling everything on eBay. I was born in 96 and I think this was in 2002, 2001. So I was literally five or six years old helping my mom take photos. And then Austin was six or seven and he started taking photos and I was working on, you know, learning how to do titles and drafting all the rest of it up the way.

Rebecca: You've really kind of grown up with eBay in some ways.

Jesse: Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca: Wow, that's really interesting.

Griff: I would assume that these are the youngest people that ever started. I mean, not just helping out but seriously selling on eBay.

Brian: I've never heard a story like that before and I actually really love the origin story here of like helping your family like get by and I mean she essentially made it a hobby for you guys.

Jesse: Well and that's what it really, it did turn into that.

Austin: After school we'd go on thrift and yard sales every weekend and every moment we could we were trying to find our own pieces so we could list them and try to make a little extra money.

Griff: So when did that branching off start from when you were doing this for your mom and now you're doing it for yourself?

Jesse: We took a little bit of like a break. We went to a really, really hard high school out here and it was a magnet program that was super, super like pushing. So we took a like a break and that was focused on that a lot. And you know, we had big dreams of doing stuff in sports marketing and management and all this stuff. My junior year of high school I found this Pistol Pete jersey at the thrift store and I bought it for myself. It was $7.99. Just was curious cuz there was this bright green jersey. I was like, I'm really not gonna wear this to school. So I was like, let me see how much this sells for on eBay. Cuz I was still dabbling in eBay a little bit with like sports cards and stuff like that. Nothing serious but just to kind of clean out. And I threw it up on eBay for 60 bucks and it sold overnight. That was kind of like the spark in me again. I was either 16 or 17 and that's when it really like picked up like crazy for me. And I ended up going really, really heavy into it for three years. Like my junior senior and then my freshman year of college. And it was to the point where like all my friends thought I was selling drugs . And I was just like, no. Like I'm just making good money selling on eBay.

Rebecca: I mean you can't get addicted to selling on eBay.

Jesse: I was for sure. We still are.

Austin: I was a kid bringing two or three extra shirts in my backpack cause I knew kids would want 'em or extra pair of shoes or, It got to that point where kids at school wanted to sell some stuff and I was like, Oh I know I can get money for that. Oh I'll give you, I'll give you 20 bucks for your shoes if you don't want. Oops, my bad .

Jesse: Yeah, we were, we were selling at school, we were selling on eBay, we were doing all that. And then I think like the pivotal moment was I moved to Reno for a year to go to school up there and I got a job working at Savers so I could use my 50% off discount to buy things to sell on eBay. And then my other job, I was working part-time at a sports card shop and I said don't pay me in cash, pay me in store credit. And he ended up doubling what he was paying me and then I would just sell everything on eBay. And so I ended up making, you know, four to five times the amount that I normally would in a weekly basis just because I was selling it all on eBay instead.

Rebecca: Did I just hear someone make a sale for sale?

Jesse: That definitely was a sale.

Rebecca: Yeah. It sounded like a ka-ching. I dunno. No ka-chings in this room.

Jesse: I had a few this morning, but not while on the podcast .

Austin: but eight minutes ago.

Rebecca: Good for you. While we were talking. That's great.

Griff: So this is while you're in Reno? Correct. And then when you leave Reno, you come back to Las Vegas?

Jesse: I come back to Vegas and I'm here for maybe two months and this is Austin's senior year of high school. And I see that he's like really, really picked up on shoes.

Austin: Yeah. I started a a degenerate sneaker collection.

Griff: Degenerate sneaker. No, explain please.

Austin: It got to the point cuz I was, anytime I could get a cheap pair of shoes in my size, I'd grab them.

Jesse: Not even just his size. He's lying to you about that. It was every, everything possible.

Austin: I keep it for myself. I intended them for myself though.

Griff: You're gonna grow into those.

Jesse: Right. And he was the senior in high school, so not a ton of growing left going on, but..

Griff: Well I do hear that your feet continue to grow as you get older. I can testify that. Right.

Jesse: There you go. I'm the liar. .

Austin: I'm a size nine and a half 10 buying elevens and twelves.

Griff: You'll, there'll be a day. Right?

Austin: It got to the point where my collection started getting up way too much and that's why I say it's degenerate cuz it's, it got to it got, it was, it's became a problem. I.

Jesse: It was taking over my old room at the house.

Austin: Yeah. So I had my room. Yeah. And then started filling up his room and then he came back and we were just like, Okay, we gotta do something with this. I was still selling on eBay here and there throughout high school. we had some pretty good flips. I actually found a pair of shoes at a flea market for 40 bucks and sold them for 2,400 in less than a week on eBay.

Griff: Okay. That's it. I quit

Jesse: And it was funny cuz we're, we're sitting there at the flea market and I'm, I look at these shoes and I'm like, I don't know anything about shoes at this time. Right. And I'm like, Austin, aren't these like really cool shoes? No. And they were priced at 60 and he goes, Dude, those are crazy. Like we have to get those.

Austin: But it was one of those like, I don't know if they're real, I don't know if they're fake. I, because I don't know enough about 'em but I know what the shoe is.

Jesse: Yeah. So I looked at the guy, I said, Will we take 40 bucks for him? And he goes, Yeah sure. And I like paid him and handed 'em to him. I was like, Here you go. I dunno anything about these.

Griff: What were they?

Austin: Yeezy Platinum twos?

Griff: I know what Yeezys are.

Austin: But we had spent 40 bucks on 'em and I sold 'em for 2,400 on eBay within less than a week.

Rebecca: Do you still sell sneakers? Is that one of your, one of the categories you sell?

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca: You must use the authentication program.

Jesse: Yes.

Rebecca: How's that been for you? How's that experience been?

Jesse: Great. I think we had one kickback the whole time.

Rebecca: And why,? What was the kickback?

Jesse: The shoes were real. I listed, I listed them as brand new and they were brand new when we bought them. But because we have a brick and mortar store, I'm assuming someone tried them on in our store. And so when they got to eBay I didn't check it. They weren't new anymore. So they got kicked back. But I like that though. You know what I'm saying? Cause as a buyer if I got that shoe I probably would've been upset. It's been good though. It makes it a lot easier for us cuz we do buy on eBay also all the time.

Austin: So if you know your markets you can buy shoes on eBay pretty easily. Cause you know you're buying authentic shoes and if, you know, if you purchase it and they come out to be unauthentic, you get your money back.

Griff: Has that happened to you by the way?

Jesse: I mean we bought a few things that have, I've turned out to be unauthentic and then no issue. We get our money back and we go on to the next purchase.

Griff: What are some of the things that a buyer of sneakers needs to look out for that would indicate that the item that you are purchasing may not be?

Jesse: Well honestly like for us, we don't look at it as much anymore because of the authentication program/

Brian: Somebody else is looking for you.

Austin: Yeah. Because eBay has to authenticate it before you can even get the shoe.

Griff: Okay. So let's say you're out in the market in general. You're at a flea market. What are you looking out for?

Jesse: There's a lot. It comes down to like the, the material.

Austin: The shoe. The colors. The colors. Everything. Yeah. The stitching on the shoe. There's the copyright logos, there's the logo itself. Certain things have to touch on certain spots of the shoe. Just different little things. I mean a lot of the time you can glance at it quick and be able to tell. I mean if you stare at shoes all day, cause I mean I stare at shoes all day. ,

Griff: Wait, wait, wait. I'm gonna follow that up. So if you're like walking out on this strip or something, are eyes looking down?

Jesse: Yes, yes. Whatever you're gonna say. Yes. .

Rebecca: You'll stop people and talk about their shoes?

Austin: I notice people a lot of the time, like when it's standing up or walking, I look at shoes first.

Griff: Well you know what you are, you're an Italian . That's what Italians do. When you meet somebody in Italy, they size you up starting from the bottom. They look at your feet and if you don't pass, they're not even gonna look at the rest of your outfit. What they do is they go, Oh American.

Jesse: , they wanna see the, the Italian loafers,

Griff: Yeah. They're looking for the great leather shoes. I had that happen to me so many times in Italy. I just got used to it, they'd start to look at my shoes and I don't bother .

Griff: See I'd be out there wearing Keds just out of being country.

Jesse: Right there you go. Right.

Griff: Which, and it's too bad because you could easily pass for Italian.

Rebecca: It sounds like you have a lot going on. You've got your store on eBay, you've got your brick and mortar store and you have social media as well, correct?

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. Mainly Instagram. We have You Tube. We're not very active on it at this moment.

Austin: Working on it.

Jesse: Working on it. Yeah. But Instagram's our number one.

Rebecca: How do you balance, um, all of those priorities?

Austin: We started, uh, realizing that we can't do it all by ourselves. It's more based off a team. Mm-hmm. . So we had like, we hired a content creator for us and a videographer, which is actually the dude who's doing the videography for this event right now. But he comes in, he's now focusing on making sure our YouTubes get our videos, get posted, making sure we're posting our reels on Instagram, making sure the same reels get posted on TikTok and YouTube shorts and all the different options.

Rebecca: So that leaves you focusing on sourcing and business strategy?

Jesse: We kind of have it broken down between about five of us. We do have like our content guy is always working strictly content. Our manager pretty much handles the sales floor and working on answering messages on Instagram. Austin and I do a lot of the content production I like to say, where it's like, Hey, this is what needs to happen on our Instagram, this is what needs to happen on our YouTube or whatever. And I mainly do like a lot of the backend work with eBay, making sure the website is taken care of. Cause we have a website with over 2,500 items also.

Rebecca: What is that url?

Austin: Yesterdaysfits.com. Pretty easy to remember.

Jesse: You know, Austin does a great job at making sure that the shop is running and promoted very well because we do have a store where we do buy, sell, trade. People are bringing us stuff all day, every day. The sourcing aspect of it, which I would say 99% of the people behind us have an issue with when it comes to sourcing a lot of people you know, full-time resellers probably do. Luckily we don't have that issue.

Austin: We will never have a problem trying to find something to put on eBay.

Rebecca: Is it because it comes to you or is Vegas particularly good for it? Seems like there are a lot of vintage street wear sellers in Vegas. Are we in a good spot for it here?

Jesse: Mainly just because we're such a transient city. So much comes in, so much comes out that you're always able to find new things. But it is getting a lot more crammed here now. It is getting a little harder to find stuff, which is where our brick and mortar comes in handy. A lot of other resellers out here don't have a place to go sell their stuff. Right. So a lot of these people who are thrifting things now can bring it to us instead of having to try to go around and do their own thing. And it makes more sense for us instead of me driving around all day trying to find stuff at the thrift stores and paying, you know, two to $10 a piece for these items. I would rather us pay five to $20 an item and have it all brought to us.

Rebecca: Your inventory just walks in the door.

Jesse: Exactly. And then I do a lot of resourcing on eBay through whatnot and through just like, we go out to the Rose Bowl Flea Market at least every other month in Pasadena.

Griff: I love that place.

Jesse: I literally like imagine that's what heaven's like for me. You know what I'm saying? Like the smell of it and then you crave the feeling of being there.

Griff: Every flea market, something incredibly valuable sneaks out of there.

Jesse: Every single one of 'em, I don't care. Like when I lived in Reno, there was one tiny flea market that was at this drive-in movie theater every single sound day. Mind you, this was seven years ago, six years ago before everybody was a reseller at one point. But every time I went my car was full leaving. And it wasn't just fashion stuff, it wasn't just clothing. Like I remember this one time I walked out with these original Muhammad Ali fight posters, 1970s original fight posters. I paid 25 bucks a piece for and I ended up selling 'em for almost two grand each.

Griff: Thank you Reno.

Jesse: Right, exactly.

Austin: But, then it's just like, how did that end up there?

Griff: Like that's, that's a good question.

Jesse: That is always the thing for me with these flea markets is you have all this abundance of stuff. It's like there has to be one thing that someone's gonna make a million on.

Austin: Once I went to Ohio and we were at a flea market and there's old WWE chairs. So if you sat within the first two to three rows of a WD performance and everything, you would be able to take your chair. It was a little disclosure on the tickets and to fine print on the back that nobody ever reads that you could take your chair. Like the foldable ones, the foldable chair they hit people with, but they always have like the full prints on the bottom and the top, and this is where I found this out, is this guy had probably 12 to 15 of 'em just sitting there.

Rebecca: And there is a market for that. Someone out there for wants those chairs.

Griff: Yeah. I mean if you need to hit someone over the head right, that chair is gonna come in handy.

Austin: But he was asking 50 a chair and I was like, okay. Like that's not bad. Like you have to find where the market for it. But I was like, if I take 'em all will you do 20 a piece and he goes meet at 25 and you can have 'em all. I mean we've had offers cause we use them as our store chairs now. Like that's what we work in use and stuff and we've had people come in and say, Hey, I'll give you 200 bucks for your chair. And we're like, What? Like we've sold a couple of 'em over the years.

Griff: I should hope so. Yeah. So

Austin: It made our money back and now we just have the chairs that are cool for us. But flea markets are the place to be. If you have an hour or two you can find something, something will pop out.

Rebecca: But it does sound like, I mean you have to be willing to take a risk. Not, not necessarily know exactly what you're buying or exactly what it's gonna sell for, but just to have that eye.

Griff: Yeah. I took Rob to a flea market and there was Mohamed Aly posters from the seventies. He'd say $25! , You should just throw them out.

Jesse: Right. That's the thing with like doing what we do, right. Because we are paying for everything to come through our door. Most of the time we're a little bit more used to paying a little bit more than what a normal thriftor is. You know what I'm saying? So even, you know, when Goodwill starts hiking up their prices where they're now charging five to $7 for a t-shirt, I'm like, okay cool, I'll go to Goodwill and pay five to $7 for a t-shirt because you guys don't wanna pay for it anymore. And that's what I think a lot of resellers get I I like to say like lost in it. You know what I'm saying? Because you know, there is still a lot of money to be made there. We have a $10 rack that we sell 20 to 40 items from a day and that pays all of our bills. And so it's like well go in and I'll go to a thrift store, you know, I don't thrift very much anymore, but once a week or whatever, if I got an extra hour, I'll go in, buy five to 10 shirts, a couple bucks a piece, throw 'em on our $10 rack the next day and they're gone. So, and there are a lot of opportunities for that outside of just having a store. You know what I'm saying?

Austin: You can justify spending 40 bucks and getting four things rather than spending 40 bucks and getting one thing. Our $10 rack kills it. If you stick to the same styles that everybody starts bringing you those same things that you know are gonna sell the same type of style.

Jesse: And I'll even, you know, I'll kind of attach that to eBay also is because I know there's a lot of people out there that only wanna do like high dollar stuff on eBay because of you know, fees or whatever. Everybody's gotta make their end of it.

Austin: A Patagonia will get guarantee you 30, 40 bucks. North Face, same thing.

Jesse: I'll list, you know, 10 to 15 items a day priced at 20 bucks or less that I'm spending a couple dollars on because it's like, hey cool, I made a hundred dollar sale today. I made a $200 sale today but I also made three or four sales that are at 10 to 15 bucks a piece. Those all add up! If anybody's listening to this, keep doing that. Do all of those don't just do the expensive stuff.

Griff: I like the way he prefaced that. You know, we always wonder the same thing.

Rebecca: Is there anybody out there?

Jesse: . I I didn't mean it like that Apologize.

Griff: No, no, no. I think it's, it's keeping it real.

Rebecca: I think Griff and I are here like okay we can start a store in Palo Alto.

Griff: We are on the same wave length.

Jesse: Do it.

Griff: The rent prices in Palo Alto. I think we gotta move in next to these guys on the strip.

Rebecca: Right? So we're gonna open a store in Vegas.

Griff: Things are becoming quote unquote vintage all the time.

Jesse: Every day.

Griff: What's currently facing that prospect right now?

Jesse: In our market specifically it's more so of who's wearing what versus when it becomes vintage. Athletes are huge in fashion right now cause before, right, like you'd look at movie stars, what they're wearing to a gala or on the red carpet or something like that. Which is still big for high fashion but when it comes to street wear athletes they wear something and it can change value if a entertainer like Travis Scott or Kanye...

Austin: Say like Kanye not too long ago was big with Harley Davidson shirts. We normally sell Harley Davidson shirts. 15, 20 bucks. Because you can find them everywhere. Anywhere It's Harley. When Kanye wore it, there was a time period for about a month where we were getting 50, 60 for Harley Davidson shirt.

Jesse: On any brand shirt on any platform too. Yeah. Like every Harley piece we have this on eBay sold.

Austin: And then it just goes down and then the next, like right now NASCAR is doing very well.

Rebecca: Do you use the trends that you see at for pricing on eBay to guide the pricing for your brick and mortar?

Jesse: We charge a little bit more in person because of the convenience.

Rebecca: I mean like the waves, like you see that something's going up on eBay and so you start pricing at higher in store?

Jesse: Yes and no. What I use more eBay for when it comes to trends is sourcing stuff immediately. Cause that's our job right? Is to watch these trends all day, every day to make sure like we're ahead of it. For example, when this Harley thing happened, this was, I don't know, maybe two years ago when it really, really hit, like they still sell really well, but I'm sitting there and it's 11:30 at night and I'm on eBay buying every vintage Harley shirt I can find. We were buying 20 piece lots, we were buying 15 piece lots. Anything. Yeah. Anything that I could find for less than, you know, seven to 10 bucks a piece. And then it's like what you're talking about where the trend on eBay people started listing them higher. Of course we can then use that to price our stuff a little bit higher too because it's like, okay, well go find this somewhere else cheaper or what I'll do is I'll match it or maybe price it a couple bucks less because it's like, hey...

Austin: Or do a bundle deal now you buy two of 'em. I'll match whatever eBay's at now since we're charging a little bit more and we still get the sale.

Rebecca: You don't have to give away state secrets. But for someone who is interested in getting into street wear what is a great place to follow to keep up on the trends? Is there like one subreddit or Instagram channel or is there a place that you think is like the absolute kind of holy grail of this is how you keep track of trends?

Austin: There's so many when it comes to street wear. Street wear, you're mainly focusing on like you said vintage, like who's wearing it? So you're looking at platforms that post the influencers that people are looking at like Hype Beasts. So Hype Beast is gonna post everything Travis Scott wears. So when it comes to sneakers, anything, all the sneakers that jump up in price cuz they posted the Travis Scott photo.

Jesse: It's like anything that's influencing the market.

Austin: Yeah. Anything that Nike's like, Hey we just signed this athlete, we're gonna put this athlete in everything Nike now it's okay. Now you can watch that trend go up a little bit. It's not really more of like a, like a Reddit for se. There are different like YouTube channels that just keep up with it. But it's more of just like who's posting these celebrities, these influencers in these pieces.

Griff: You gotta watch everything basically.

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. But I would say to kind of piggyback on when he said Hype Beast would probably be the best. He's the best. Okay. With fashion, right? It's a look, you know what I'm saying? It's not so much a piece per piece thing. You gotta fit the style. The style and, and that changes like per season, you know what I'm saying? Just like, just like every trend does. But I think if you're watching HypeBeast or High Snobriety, that's another one they will post and you'll kind of see like this trend of hey, everything that they're posting kind of looks the same. It's, it's a look. So if you can find items as a reseller that fit that look, even if it's not the exact piece, you have a market.

Griff: Good question. Thank you for asking it. Rebecca Well I want to thank both of you for stopping by Jesse and Austin Smith. They sell on eBay under the user id. Yesterdays_fits. If you're in the Las Vegas area, they're just off the strip. You can look them up. It's also called, is it Yesterday's Fits?

Austin: Yes.

Griff: It's good branding, It's across everything. It's been really fun talking to you and continued success and enjoying the event.

Jesse: Appreciate you guys.

Austin: Thank you for having us.

Rebecca: Thank You.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: We got answers. But before we get to the questions, Brian, I have a few seller submitted suggestions that came into podcast@ebay.com about swag ideas. Shall we read them?

Brian: Everyone always likes swag. Yes.

Griff: Okay. You read the first one.

Brian: Seller Christopher sent the following long list of suggestions. We won't be able to do all of these I don't think. As sellers, we spend a lot of time at our desks. So the following suggestions for eBay swag follow a theme that will remind us of the podcast as we work. I like his thinking. Mousepad.

Griff: Check.

Brian: Pen cup.

Griff: Okay.

Brian: Nice quality coaster.

Griff: Only the best.

Brian: Business card holder. That's old school.

Griff: Yeah.

Brian: Post-it note dispenser.

Griff: You got it. Tape measure for measuring packages.

Brian: I like that one.

Griff: I do too.

Brian: Weekly or monthly planner with key dates of relevance to eBay Sellers Weekly podcast reminder, Christmas shipping, deadline text day and quarterly filing deadlines, eBay seller update dates, eBay seller events, et cetera.

Griff: That last one would be a big, big ask.

Brian: That's for Melissa and Stephanie. Hope this helps. Christopher Barks, seller id, Empire Builder. Thank you for those.

Griff: Thank you for sending those in. The next one is from a podcast regular Kathy Terrill. Her suggestion though is short and sweet. HI podcast peeps, idea for swag is podcast branded pop sockets. What's a pop socket?

Brian: For these.

Griff: Oh, for your phone?

Brian: Yes.

Griff: Oh, I like those. Yeah, that's a great idea. Kathy, thank you for a minute. I was thinking pops socket, is that like when you dislocate your shoulder?

Brian: Just pop it back in?

Griff: Just pop it back in.

Brian: Pop back into the socket. That's a good one.

Griff: Yeah, that would actually be, I think that's something we can look for. Let's put that on

Brian: The list. And finally Steven sent his suggestion. Hey guys, hope your day is awesome. It is. I have an idea for potential swag giveaway for the podcast. I received a podcast mug quite a while ago and it is great to use while sitting at my computer typing up listings. But a thermal mug with a lid would be handy to carry while outsourcing new inventory. Steven Griffin, the Biscuit Farmer.

Griff: Yeah, Steven Thermal mug is a great idea.

Brian: It is, yeah. Keep those suggestions coming. Any and all reasonable suggestions will be considered.

Griff: Yeah, keep that in mind. Within reason. Please don't suggest like a car or some other luxury item.

Brian: I'm surprised no one's asked for like the Griff doll to sit on their desk with eBay for business podcast shirt on it.

Griff: That would be horrifying.

Brian: I don't know. You got a lot of fans out there.

Griff: I think fans that don't have to look at me, just listen. , I don't think that's a good idea at all.

Brian: I don't know. But sports fans can give away bobbleheads at the arena. I think there might be a, maybe we do a Bobblehead. Griff.

Griff: I have one that was made for my 10th anniversary here. Oh. And presented to me by Meg. It's still on a bookshelf.

Brian: I think you should take a picture of it and add it into the podcast transcript this week.

Griff: I think I won't. It reminds me it's not as as hideous, but it reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where, remember George and Susan? Where Susan had a doll collection. One of the dolls looked just like George's mother. Freaky. Anyway, our first question and it's from Scott and he sent his question to podcast@ebay.com and he says, Hi Griff. And then in parentheses and Brian, Brian, you've been reduced to parenthetics!

Brian: All I have to say is thank you Scott for remembering me.

Griff: Yeah, he doesn't ask for much Anyway, Scott says, My store is the Trading Depot and my question is with regards to the new messaging format, I don't see any option to send offers in the new format. This has caused me to switch back to classic edition so I can send an offer when a buyer messages me asking to make a deal. Am I missing something? Will this option not be enabled in the new messaging format or are the kinks still being worked out and it will eventually be available? You really got me. Love the show and find it very helpful with my eBay business. PS would love a mug/tumblr if you decide to use my question for the show and have any left. Thanks Scott from Chicago. Of course we have some left and I've got your address so it'll be on the next batch that goes out. Scott, I noticed this lack of as send and offer button too and I've asked the Messages Team what's going on and is this an oversight or if it's part of the design or if they plan on including it in the new format. I haven't heard back yet. When I do and there's something we can share, I'll definitely share it. But I was hoping we would hear something by the time we recorded this episode We have not because it doesn't make any sense to me, there may be something I'm missing here, but why would you take that away?

Brian: Yeah, it doesn't sound like a feature enhancement.

Griff: It sounds like a featured dis-enhancement.

Brian: Yes.

Griff: No offers for you

Brian: Or maybe they are AB testing.

Griff: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, sure. AB testing. So let's listen to this.

Guest Caller1: Hi, this is Lena Waserman. My store name is Chattering Parrot. My email is lena@chatteringchinz.com com. And my question is, I am trying to figure out a strategy with coupons to get customers that have purchased from me and I see that I can set up a buyer group. Is there a way to exclude past buyers who may have not been a happy buyer? You know, I don't wanna antagonize them or is this done automatically? I would love to get some insight on how to bring, you know, repeat customers back to purchase from us again. Look so forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

Griff: Well Lena, thank you very much for sending that in. That is a really interesting question. I've never heard anyone who wanted to exclude a coupon to a buyer.

Brian: A potential buyer.

Griff: A past buyer who she says had an a less than satisfactory experience. I would think you'd want to go after that buyer.

Brian : Yeah. If they weren't happy with that first purchase, a coupon might entice them to come back and you can wow 'em on the second purchase and they'll become a lifelong purchaser.

Griff: Yeah. So I mean I rethink this. If I were you, that would be my suggestion. I should say right off the top, there's no way to exclude an individual buyer. Right? But I would be more enthusiastic about including all buyers, including those that may not have had the best experience that you're not gonna insult or get somebody angry. Right. What they may do is think twice and come back and buy something from you.

Brian: Which is ultimately the goal. And what's the worst case scenario if they get it, they say, no, I was unhappy, I'm not gonna use that coupon ever. And they toss it, it's no harm.

Griff: So I would be looking at this as inclusion. All of your past customers, especially those who for whatever reason, even if it's no fault of your own, didn't have the best experience, this is a way for you to show that I am opening my arms to you and saying, please come back and try it again and hopefully this time it'll be better.

Brian: Makes perfect sense to me.

Griff: as opposed to exclusion.

Brian: Yep. I think that's some good advice Griff.

Griff: I think so too. I knew you'd agree and now it's time for the question that was driving me crazy when I heard it.

Guest Caller2: Hi guys. I had a question for you that might seem a little weird, but it's kinda about feedback but also about astrology. So I'm someone who like really takes a lot of pride in my positive feedback and making my customers happy. But then a couple of weeks ago out of the blue I got two negatives with several messages from several different buyers with kind of a weird tone to the emails. And I was really shocked because the negative feedbacks weren't really anything that was my fault. It was more like shipping issues and just overall dissatisfaction. And so I was mentioning it to my wife and she says, you know, Mercury is in retrograde right now. And I said, What does retrograde mean? And she said that apparently communications kind of all in shambles, people are just kind of tripping out a little bit. It has to do with like the alignment of the stars or the planets or something. And I asked her what was the most recent, like how often does it happen? When was the last retrograde? And sure enough, the last retrograde was the last time I got a negative feedback. So I was wondering if that's a phenomenon you guys can attribute to Mercury being in retrograde and also what do you suggest is the best way to have negative feedback removed if you feel that it isn't something that was your fault? All right, love the podcast. Thank you.

Griff: Oh boy. Brian . You can imagine what was going through my mind when I heard this one.

Brian: I can imagine.

Griff: What was his name again? All right, so he didn't leave a name. I'm just gonna call him the retrograde guy.

Brian: Or Retro.

Griff: Yeah, if you don't mind, I'm gonna refer to you as retro. So retro, yeah, there's no data that shows like we don't have a department at eBay that is like the astrology causation department.

Brian: That we know of.

Griff: I'm pretty sure we don't. I think our shareholders would revolt on mass if they thought we were making any decisions on business based on that. But yeah, there's no causation data to support.

Brian: That's the first I've heard. I've been in the company 23 years.

Griff: I know it's the first I've heard too. So yeah, it has nothing to do with it. Far be it from me to make snarky comments about people's belief systems. People who are really into astrology probably hear it all the time. So it's probably not news. But yeah, there's no correlation at all cuz Mercury's moving away from earth or moving towards something that suddenly everyone says, You know what? I have this unmistakable desire to leave a lot of negative feedback and have weird tones in my email.

Brian: I don't know. But if he strongly believed in it, maybe he could do the research and present it to us and maybe we'll in the future someday have a department of astrology.

Griff: You can head it up Brian.

Brian: No. Um, I would not be the one to head it up, that's for sure.

Griff: As to getting negative feedback removed. I don't know if you've heard my uh, my screeds on this topic in past episodes, but I always advise sellers to not waste your time. Everyone thinks, so I pride myself on my a hundred percent feedback. Okay. You know how easy it is to get positive feedback these days. Pretty easy. You should pride yourself on making customers who leave negative feedback happy or you get a negative comment and I've got a few over the last 10 years. It's an opportunity for you to respond because buyers aren't surprised by the occasional negative feedback that a seller might get. What they're looking for is how that seller, if they did it all, how they responded. Some sellers Ill advisedly will respond with kind of nasty retorts.

Brian: All caps.

Griff: Yeah, you're blocked. Nothing is gonna turn off a potential buyer more than watching a seller have a feedback comment, meltdown in their response because they got a negative. The best thing you can do, even if it's the last thing that you want to do, is to say, Oh, awful. Sorry about the shipping. Sorry that happened. Please come back and buy from us again. A buyer seeing that, a potential buyer says, Oh, that buyer, they were just impatient, but that seller, look at that. He's a good business person.

Brian: And that potential buyer who's looking at your feedback will say, Well, if there is ever any issue, this seems like a reasonable seller who I'm gonna be able to work with. Not if you go in there all caps, why couldn't you wait one more day before leaving this horrible negative. This is undeserved and I'm gonna sue you or whatever else you wanna say in it. Most buyers who look at that will say, Oh, if things go bad or poorly, that's the type of person I'm gonna work with. No, I'm gonna move on to someone else to buy from.

Griff: Exactly. So yeah, no one likes to get negative feedback. No one likes to get criticism. It's part of doing business. If you weren't selling on eBay but you were running a business somewhere else, you're gonna get Yelp reviews, you're gonna get one star reviews. It's just part of being a business person. You gotta suck it up.

Brian: Well, and the other thing I would say, you touched on it, which is it's an opportunity. So you can look at that feedback and say, Is there an opportunity for me to improve? And if you honestly can say, you know what, no, I did everything right. Then you can leave the professional comment like GR says, as a reply and move on and focus on your next customer. Focus on sourcing, focus on taking photos and listing because you will earn more money doing that than writing emails to customer support, begging for us to remove a feedback that most likely we won't remove. if the buyer left it within our policy guidelines. I would also say, and I, he didn't really allude to this, so I don't know if it's the case, but he said he got a couple and one was on shipping. I don't know if the second one was on shipping. He didn't say. But the only thing that I would say is if you get a couple in a row or a couple like that, if they're on the same topic, then I would say do a double check and say, did I do something different?

Griff: If it's shipping, maybe there was a snafu with the carrier, that happens.

Brian: Exactly. And in those cases, as long as it's tracked, we can see that it's tracked. Unless the buyer leaves you a negative, there's not gonna be an issue. So that's also one where you as a seller can check the tracking and if you see something's late, you can always pop off a note to the buyer saying, I shipped this out on time, I noticed it's late give it another day. I'm sure it'll arrive. Do you have a question about astrology?

Griff: Oh, please don't ask us.

Brian: Do you have a question about selling on eBay? Why not call us on (888) 723-4630 and share your question with your fellow sellers.

Griff: That's (888) 723-4630. Call that hotline anytime of day, any day of the week. You can leave a question or comment on the voice line. And if it's appropriate, we just might put it on the air.

Brian: And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ ebay.com.

Griff: It's time for your three point podcast checklist.

Brian: Check the announcement board at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate Seller news every day.

Griff: And not to harp on it, but over taping a box or over wrapping a boxed item does not make that item or that box safer in transit. Don't go nuts with the tape. This is not ancient Egypt.

Brian: Mummification packaging.You could do a course on it, . That might be a good title. Need to review anything in this episode. It's easy. Check the transcript for this in all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and define the links we reference during the episode.

Griff: And on our next episode, we'll feature another seller we spoke with. And by we, I mean Rebecca and I at the Las Vegas event. And for anyone who's wondering, where was Brian during that event, He was out talking to sellers. We couldn't get him into the studio room and we knew that was gonna happen. So Rebecca and I planned that she would be the co-host for that day.

Brian: And I got to do a couple at the end of the day, which was nice.

Griff: You did. That was perfect.

Brian: Yep. It was a good balance. We'd like to again, thank our guests this week, Jesse and Austin Smith.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.