This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Today we're gonna hear from a caller who sells furniture and collectibles locally on Facebook Marketplace. They have pickup only written in their description, but they're getting lots of inquiries from people who are like, "Hey, I don't live in this area, "but I found a listing. "Maybe it's somebody interested in this specific collectible. "Can you ship it to me?" And so they're like, "Is this worth the effort?" And if you open your door to shipping as a reseller, that can really triple, you know, or even more, like further increase your buyer pool, especially for something like collectibles, but it also creates some headaches. You know, you potentially have scams you wanna look out for.
Hopefully you don't fall for them, but they can be tricky these days. You definitely have to think about shipping and what if something is damaged? What about insurance tracking, follow-up, all that kind of stuff. There could be some other complexities. So basically when you're making this decision, how do you make it?
A local only seller is debating shipping. Let's talk about whether it's worth it. What are some things you can do to make it simple and easy so that you can increase your income, reach additional buyers, but without getting too complicated because this is something they're doing for fun and to make extra money. They're not trying to create a huge business and they want to keep their time limited, which I think is important because you're busy. That's today's question.
Should I add shipping to my marketplace listings? We're gonna hear from our caller and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hey all, I list furniture and collectibles locally on Facebook marketplace with pickup only in the description. Lately, buyers keep asking me to ship, sometimes offering to prepay through sketchy methods. I know shipping could expand my pool of customers, but I'm worried about scams, returns and damage.
Is it worth adding shipping as a growth lever? And if so, what safeguards, payments, platforms, packaging techniques, help a small seller avoid getting burned? - Well, there's only one way to find out. And I also think it's okay just to say upfront, if you don't want to mess with shipping, then you don't need to. Like this is a very small business.
It's okay to keep it very small. If it's stressing you out or if you think it's difficult, totally fine to not do that. Maybe your other side hustle, your next one is a little bit bigger and you kind of add those complexities. But if you do want to try, 'cause again, only one way to find out, I would say start with a pilot, like start with a two week pilot instead of flipping your whole shop. Like don't change every single listing on your shop to say ships anywhere.
Just pick a few items, let's say five to 10 that are small, sturdy and under five pounds. Books, decor, those small collectibles. I would not worry too much about the bulky furniture. That's gonna be much more difficult and expensive to ship of course. And in terms of protections, make sure you get paid before you ship anything.
Like do not ship something without being paid. Definitely, absolutely. Use protected checkouts only. Obviously on Facebook, they have marketplace checkout. Comes with a prepaid label and tracking.
So you can't beat that. I would say if you've got buyers who are asking to go outside that system, you should be very wary. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying this is the system we're gonna use, right? So when you have somebody who wants to make a purchase, send them an invoice, don't send them a direct message. Again, Facebook Marketplace lets you do this or like makes it very easy.
And then in terms of shipping and packaging, well, longtime listeners know I'm a big fan of ShipStation. They've been our partner for many years and they are great for things like this. They get better with volume, like the more you ship than the more you're going to save with ShipStation. But even when you're starting out, there's a free 60 day trial and they're not paying for this particular shout out just to be clear. I just know that they're a great service.
So check them out. But whether you're using them or just doing it yourself, taking it to the post office, bubble wrap the item, add some extra inches of padding, use double boxing for anything that's fragile, corner protectors help for framed items. You really wanna make sure things are packed pretty nice and tight and safely. And now USPS as well as UPS, you can just go directly to the website. If you're not using a third party service, they can print out a label right there.
It can have tracking and insurance with it. If it ends up taking off and it's not too difficult for you, you might wanna consider moving shippable inventory to something like eBay, just 'cause they have a more national audience, stronger dispute tools and so on. And a lot of sellers run a hybrid. They use Facebook marketplace for local, they use eBay for shipped. There might be a little bit of overlap, but either way it's all managed with one label tool.
This is a lot easier than when I was doing it 25 years ago. I had all these different systems and everything was very manual. Now almost everything can be automated. So I wouldn't say be afraid of it because it can be quite easy. Just as I said at the start, you also don't have to do it if you don't want to, right?
You should do what you want. It's your business, it's your hustle. Listeners, let me know what you think. If you have a question and comment, sidehustleschool.com. Notes, pages for every episode.
Lots of other resources there. Everything is free and new episodes come out every day. My name's Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
