This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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A lot of people are getting into reselling. Now reselling, I often talk about it as the easiest side of the soul you can get started with right now. If you have no idea what to do, start selling something that you already own, then figure out how to sell something that you don't own. We've talked about different forms of reselling, we will continue to. But here's another way to think of it.
What can you sell to the resellers? Really good question. Thanks to Joe, our listener, for bringing this up. Reminding me of the California Gold Rush where some of the people who got rich were the ones who sold the shovels. Which makes a lot of sense because if you can serve this nonstop flood of arriving prospectors who have traveled west and they've sold everything they own to come and potentially get rich, but of course they're gonna need tools, they're gonna need maps, they're gonna need other stuff, supplies, et cetera.
Why not serve those people, which is kind of a guaranteed market at least for a while, instead of gambling on finding the right plot of land somewhere in the desert. Plus you get to live in San Francisco instead of inland and it's like much better saloons, baseball games, et cetera. But leaving that aside, how does this apply to the modern world of reselling? Is there some way you could serve a reseller? What can you sell to the reseller?
How can you get paid to help resellers? That is the question we'll dive into right after this message from our sponsor. [Music]
Hey, this is Joe from Atlanta and I've been listening to your show since episode one. Thanks to you and the side hustle school team for all the helpful content you all provide. My question is, how can I help resellers?
I've heard you talk more about reselling recently and I know a lot of people are experimenting with selling items on platforms like Nextdoor and OfferUp. What if I don't wanna resell my stuff? At least not right now, but find some way I can help resellers source products. I'm thinking I could scout for popular items and then offer them to the resellers. While taking a percentage for myself, am I crazy?
How would you suggest I do this? Looking forward to hearing from you. [Music]
Joe, what's up? Thank you so much for listening in Atlanta from episode one. That's incredible, I appreciate that.
And yeah, this is a really good question as I said. So are you crazy? I don't think so. I don't know enough about you to know for certain, but based on this question, I would not say you're crazy. However, let's just, let's break it down a bit.
So the Gold Rush analogy that I talked about in the introduction, that analogy isn't quite perfect because reselling isn't a huge risk. Like I still think it's actually a great way to experiment unlike selling everything you own, moving west, investing in a plot of land you've never seen in hopes of finding natural resources. And if it doesn't work, then you're basically bankrupt. Reselling has very low risk because most of the time in the worst case scenario, if you don't make a profit, then you can resell something for what you paid for it or maybe a slight loss. So very different situation.
I do think it's a good thing to experiment with. And I think Joe mentioned something about not wanting to sell his stuff. Well, that's just often a good experiment when you're getting started. If you don't want to sell your stuff, the whole point of reselling is to learn to buy something and then resell it for a profit. That's what that's about.
But this overall topic of how can I serve resellers, that is interesting to look at. And so to answer it, I think you should consider the question, what do resellers need? Like what is it that all these resellers need help with? Well, essentially they need sources of goods to sell. They need to be able to find items and then resell them.
They need markets or populations of potential customers. They need that next door app. They need eBay. They need wherever their market is. And they need tools to make that process easier.
So I think if you can provide one of those three things, then that is potentially a good side hustle idea. A source of goods to sell, a marketer population of potential customers, or some tool to make the process easier. And for Joe's specific question, I think he said something about scouting for items and then offering them to the reseller. So technically that falls under that first idea of sources of goods to sell. It might be possible, but just keep in mind that a reseller is a middleman.
That's the whole point of reselling. So if you are selling to the middleman, then you are essentially just adding another chain in that process. And in a matrix-like way, you are then a reseller yourself. If you are selling something to someone who's been going to resell it, you're just kind of adding yourself into that process. So it might work, but the more people that are handling things, the harder it is for each one of them to make a profit along the way.
So maybe this is like a long way of saying, I don't know, take another look at reselling. There are lots of different ways to do it. So if one part of it makes you uncomfortable, see if there's a way to just change that variable. Because there might be something that is similar yet different enough to be attractive to you. All right, Joe, thank you again.
And listeners, thank you. If you've got a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners as they launch their projects. I want to know what you're up to. I want to know that this is helping you.
I want to know what your goals are, what your challenges are, where you're getting stuck. We're going to keep building this program in real time in response to our amazing global community. All right, that's it for me today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
