This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Thank you for tuning in today. We have an amazing community of people out there all doing really fun stuff, experimenting, trying to find ways to not just survive, but thrive in the new economy. Today, you're gonna hear from a listener and her teenager, or at least you'll hear from the listener.
She and her teenager have been selling on Facebook Marketplace and getting off to a good start. So, well done, first of all. But now they have the chance to sell for others. And so they're wondering about some best practices. In these situations, do you charge a percentage?
Do you charge a fixed fee, some combination? And what else might be good to know? If you're gonna go from just buying and reselling things, you know, for yourself to potentially doing it on consignment for someone else. How do you set yourself up for the best possible success? That's what we're gonna look at in this quick action-packed episode, the detailed question and my detailed answer coming up in just 30 seconds.
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Hi, Chris, this is Bettina Snoser from the Gettysburg area of Pennsylvania. My teenage son and I already have a side hustle and free sellers on Facebook Marketplace. It's actually going pretty well. He sells shoes and I mostly sell books and clothing. It's also a bonus to get to spend time together.
I really enjoy that. Interestingly, when people hear that I resell things online, I sometimes get asked about selling things for other people. That sounds intriguing to me. I actually did sell a large lot of longer burger baskets as a favor for an elderly couple who was downsizing. But while I was glad to do it, I felt a lot more pressure when I was selling for someone else and it was a lot less fun.
However, I haven't ruled the idea out. So my question is, if I were to sell on consignment, what percentage should I charge? Or should I set a flat selling fee? Thanks for your inspiration. I've been encouraged by your stories of reselling in your early days.
I can't wait to hear your answer. [Music]
Hey, Bettina, thank you for calling in. Congratulations to you and your teenage son. Very cool, yes indeed. I did get my start reselling.
It's such a fun process. We have lots of listeners who are doing it in various ways. So let's look at this question. What percentage should you charge if you are reselling for others? It's a little bit of a different business than just reselling for yourself.
As Bettina mentioned, she felt some pressure in wanting to do a good job for the other party. So you should definitely charge a percentage. That's the standard in this world and for a good reason. A percentage is much better than a flat fee. It gives you an incentive and it's fair to the owner as well, the person whose items are being sold.
And if that person doesn't like the deal or feels like it's too much, they could always do it themselves. That's what they're paying for. They're paying for you, the expert, or at least the person who's got some experience now to just kind of take care of the hassle for them. Now, as for the percentage, 20% is usually good, 20, 25%. I don't think it should be much less than that.
And even though it's percentage-based, you could also have a minimum, like a minimum commission, because you're not gonna profit very much by just selling a few items. It really depends on what the items are. If you sell some of those baskets for $100, the 20% commission, 20 bucks, might not be worth the effort involved for everything that's required. But if you're selling $1,000 or more of items, that 20% could very much be worth it, especially as you systemize the process and become more efficient. So 20 to 25%, perhaps with some minimum, I think is the right way to go.
Now, my other note is that if selling items for other people feels more pressuring, setting some gentle expectations with those people might be helpful. For example, if you think the baskets are gonna sell somewhere in the range of $80 to $120, give them the low end of the estimate. You know, then if they actually end up selling for more, it's good news for everyone. You exceed their expectations and you also make a few dollars more. So setting expectations is often helpful in these situations.
All right, that's it for today. I am excited for you, Bertina, and your teenage son, anybody else out there who is reselling, doing other stuff, let me know what you're working on, what your questions are. Come to sidehustleschool.com/questions or just come back every day, because every day there is a different case study, action point, tip, question and answer, or something else that would be helpful and useful to you. That's my goal anyway. I make this program for you every single day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
