Meet The College Student Making Money Reselling Jewelry! - Episode #51

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Jewelry Resellers Podcast, your go-to source for all things shiny, sparkly,

[00:00:06] and of course profitable.

[00:00:08] I'm your host Desiree, and I'll be your guide on this dazzling journey through the

[00:00:12] world of reselling jewelry.

[00:00:15] We'll be diving deep into the art and science of reselling, uncovering valuable tips,

[00:00:20] insider secrets, and sharing stories from successful jewelry resellers.

[00:00:26] We'll explore market trends, industry news, and even discuss how to find those hidden

[00:00:31] gems just waiting to be discovered in thrift stores, estate sales, and beyond.

[00:00:37] So if you're dreaming of turning your hobby into a hustle, or if you're a seasoned pro

[00:00:42] looking to stay at the top of your jewelry reselling game, join me each week for insights,

[00:00:48] stories, and more on the Jewelry Resellers Podcast.

[00:00:54] Hello Brandon.

[00:00:55] Hi.

[00:00:56] Hi.

[00:00:57] I am so excited to have this conversation with you today because you and I recently

[00:01:05] just met, we just connected on Instagram, and you told me that you sell jewelry.

[00:01:11] So I said, oh my gosh, that's all I need to know.

[00:01:15] So let's go ahead and start with you introducing yourself and letting us know

[00:01:20] who you are, what you do.

[00:01:22] Yeah.

[00:01:23] So hi, I'm Brandon.

[00:01:25] My business name is Heartland Picker.

[00:01:27] I've been selling, well reselling stuff in general since I was about age nine.

[00:01:33] I'm 21 right now.

[00:01:34] So I've been doing this for quite a few years.

[00:01:38] From age nine to about age 11, I started selling Lego.

[00:01:42] I was really heavily into Lego and you could see maybe some things behind me that

[00:01:47] are Lego related.

[00:01:49] And I still sell Lego a lot, but about in 2012-ish, 2013, Lego kind of had a

[00:01:55] stock market crash a little bit.

[00:01:58] And so I decided, well, I need to find another thing to sell because Lego

[00:02:02] wasn't selling at the time.

[00:02:03] So I decided to get into antiques and jewelry and just hit it off from there.

[00:02:09] So ever since about 2014, I've been selling antiques and jewelry and all

[00:02:14] sorts of good stuff.

[00:02:16] That is so amazing.

[00:02:17] I have to say you are the youngest jewelry reseller I have met so far.

[00:02:23] And I have met probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of jewelry resellers,

[00:02:29] but you're the youngest one.

[00:02:31] Oh yeah.

[00:02:31] No, I do a lot of selling on whatnot.

[00:02:35] So I think on the jewelry category, I'm probably the youngest to sell under

[00:02:39] the jewelry category.

[00:02:41] Ah, OK.

[00:02:42] OK, so I guess we'll start with the jewelry then because how did you even

[00:02:52] think to do jewelry?

[00:02:53] Because I have a son who's 16.

[00:02:56] And he used to sell Legos and he sells plushies and stuff like that on

[00:03:00] Makari, but he would never ever think to sell jewelry.

[00:03:04] So how did you even think, oh yeah, I think I'll sell jewelry?

[00:03:11] Well, yeah.

[00:03:13] The big part of it is probably my mom.

[00:03:15] She's been reselling ever since she was a little kid.

[00:03:17] And so her main thing is also jewelry.

[00:03:19] And so we've been selling jewelry.

[00:03:23] I've kind of made a bigger collection of jewelry than her as of right now.

[00:03:28] But no, it's been really fun and I like just finding all the unique pieces

[00:03:33] and getting to find them good homes.

[00:03:36] Yeah, so let's talk about then your knowledge and your education then

[00:03:41] about jewelry, because obviously being around your mom since you were young,

[00:03:45] you probably picked up some things like as it relates to recognizing maybe

[00:03:50] certain metals or certain designers or certain brands.

[00:03:54] So what was it like growing up being being, I guess, exposed to jewelry

[00:03:59] that when you were so young?

[00:04:01] Yeah, it was it was quite interesting.

[00:04:03] It was like a history lesson all over again.

[00:04:06] You got to learn, you know, I did a lot of self-teaching.

[00:04:09] I went on the Internet and looked at a bunch of different jewelry companies

[00:04:12] and started searching up, you know, just different brands like that.

[00:04:16] And actually in eighth grade, I want to say it was I actually did a presentation

[00:04:22] in my school on jewelry companies and I taught other students

[00:04:28] what these companies are and how they're important to the fashion industry.

[00:04:32] Oh, wow, that is so cool.

[00:04:35] So what like what were some of the companies that you that you talked about?

[00:04:40] If you can remember.

[00:04:41] Yeah, I talked about Eisenberg, Weiss, Corotro, Farre, Monet.

[00:04:46] I talked about.

[00:04:50] So a lot of the vintage brands, a lot of the vintage brands.

[00:04:53] Yeah, Scapparelli was one.

[00:04:55] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:04:56] I love all of those brands.

[00:04:58] That's fantastic.

[00:05:00] Yeah, I wish I would have learned about those brands when I was that age

[00:05:04] because I mean, there's just so much to learn.

[00:05:07] And I say this all the time that the more you learn,

[00:05:10] the more you realize how much you don't know. Right.

[00:05:13] Oh, yeah.

[00:05:15] I was it's overwhelming sometimes.

[00:05:18] Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:19] I was doing a what not show and I'm from the Midwest.

[00:05:23] I live in Iowa and we don't get high end jewelry here hardly ever.

[00:05:27] And so when I did have two Fendi pieces, I didn't know what Fendi was.

[00:05:33] And so I'm one of my what not shows.

[00:05:34] I might have sold a couple of Fendi pieces a little too cheap,

[00:05:37] but that's that's what you get for, you know, not doing your research on.

[00:05:42] Well, you know, we all have done that.

[00:05:44] We all have sold something cheaper than we should have,

[00:05:47] maybe even more than once.

[00:05:49] So I don't think you have anything to worry about

[00:05:51] because everybody I know has done it at least one time,

[00:05:55] maybe several times.

[00:05:57] And who knows?

[00:05:58] We might even continue to do that, because, you know,

[00:06:01] sometimes you get to a point where you find a piece

[00:06:05] and you think you already kind of know what it is or you kind of

[00:06:07] already have an idea.

[00:06:08] So you just go ahead and list it or you just go ahead and run it.

[00:06:11] And then you realize, darn,

[00:06:14] I think I should have taken my time with that one.

[00:06:20] All right.

[00:06:21] So then you talked about sourcing and that you don't really have a lot of,

[00:06:26] I guess, high end pieces or places to source where you live.

[00:06:30] So how do you find your jewelry inventory for reselling?

[00:06:35] Yeah, well, the Internet is my friend,

[00:06:37] especially being out kind of living in the middle of nowhere.

[00:06:40] It's it's one of those things that like the closest town

[00:06:44] to go to a thrift store from us is like 20 or 25 minutes.

[00:06:47] So it's a little bit of a drive, but I love online,

[00:06:52] even though I was not like really the best Internet here.

[00:06:55] I still can get, you know, stuff on Goodwill and various sites

[00:06:59] that I really like shopping from and find good stuff.

[00:07:04] Yeah, I because I do a lot of sourcing online as well,

[00:07:07] especially with online like a state, a state auctions or a state sales

[00:07:14] because here in Las Vegas, we have a lot of thrift stores,

[00:07:17] but they don't really sell a lot of jewelry.

[00:07:20] And then the jewelry they do have is way overpriced.

[00:07:23] If it's something that I would even buy,

[00:07:26] because sometimes the jewelry is not good quality stuff, you know.

[00:07:30] Yeah. So all right.

[00:07:34] So then you said you source a lot online.

[00:07:38] So how do you know?

[00:07:41] Like, because I try to figure this out, too, because I also do live shows.

[00:07:45] I do whatnot. I do Poshmark.

[00:07:47] And then I recently just started selling on district dot net.

[00:07:51] I don't know if you're familiar with it.

[00:07:53] But but like, do you only sell in live shows

[00:07:59] or do you do like some on eBay, maybe some on whatnot, whatever?

[00:08:04] Like how like what is your business kind of look like

[00:08:07] as it relates to the platforms that you use?

[00:08:10] Yeah. So the layout of my business, I mainly use what not for the most part.

[00:08:15] I also do live shows on YouTube.

[00:08:18] I, OK, I kind of share a store with my mom

[00:08:24] and we kind of share a business on eBay, Macari and Etsy.

[00:08:29] And then in person, I like to do a bunch of vintage shows

[00:08:33] all throughout the Midwest.

[00:08:35] And I like to just go out and meet a bunch of people and, you know,

[00:08:39] give them some good jewelry to buy.

[00:08:42] And then I also have a couple of booths

[00:08:44] in a couple of different antique shops in Iowa here. So.

[00:08:48] Oh, OK. Yeah.

[00:08:51] Yeah. So you're kind of all over the place, kind of like me.

[00:08:56] Because I do the same thing.

[00:08:57] I have some listings on eBay, although I don't actively list.

[00:09:01] And then I do live shows, like I said.

[00:09:05] And then I recently I was in an antique mall

[00:09:08] and I recently just moved out just because it's getting kind of slow

[00:09:12] and it was just one more thing I had to manage.

[00:09:14] And it was taking way more work than than I had anticipated.

[00:09:20] But you said you do like a lot of the shows, like in person shows,

[00:09:27] I guess, like are they like craft fairs or something like that or?

[00:09:31] I mainly do more antique shows and vintage clothing markets.

[00:09:34] I dabble in vintage clothing, but

[00:09:39] mainly I sell jewelry at those shows.

[00:09:41] And I like to pick the vintage clothing shows that like there's not a lot

[00:09:44] of jewelry so people can come to me to find an accessory

[00:09:47] for the piece they just bought.

[00:09:50] That's really smart, that's really smart.

[00:09:52] So what type of advice would you give someone

[00:09:55] who maybe is your age or younger who wants to sell

[00:09:59] jewelry or vintage items, whatever? Like.

[00:10:05] What would you tell them getting started?

[00:10:08] Like what would be your best advice?

[00:10:11] Oh, boy. I would say getting started

[00:10:15] would be just watching your expenses,

[00:10:19] because I know when I first started this, I thought, oh, this is a good deal.

[00:10:24] This is a good deal. This is a good deal.

[00:10:26] And then I realized after I purchased something that like,

[00:10:29] oh, well, that just went down in price.

[00:10:32] So maybe I shouldn't have bought that.

[00:10:33] You know, so I would say do do some research on some items

[00:10:37] before you would purchase them, make sure it's a good deal.

[00:10:41] And also, especially in the Midwest, I don't know, other places

[00:10:45] maybe have a different gender gap.

[00:10:48] But here, especially in Iowa, there's hardly any young resellers.

[00:10:52] I mean, I think the youngest person I met here that actually resells is like 29.

[00:10:58] So there's like a big age gap because most of my friends here

[00:11:02] and it's sad to say, but most of my friends here are between like 40 and 80.

[00:11:07] And I do all the reselling and I go to auctions with them and, you know, stuff like that.

[00:11:12] But it would it would be nice to like connect with more people

[00:11:16] that are around my age that have been doing this for a while

[00:11:19] and love reselling and collecting not only just jewelry, but antiques in particular.

[00:11:26] Yeah, you're right about that, because most of the resellers

[00:11:29] I know are around my age.

[00:11:31] I don't like I said, you're the youngest I've ever met.

[00:11:34] And that's what's so fascinating, because I think when people think of reselling,

[00:11:39] they think it's something people do when they're retired

[00:11:41] or as a side hustle or something, right?

[00:11:45] I'm actually kind of doing this as a full time right now while I'm in college,

[00:11:49] because ever since I've been doing this business from about nine years old,

[00:11:54] I've been saving up money and so far going to college debt free.

[00:11:57] So I'm super excited about that.

[00:12:00] Well, congratulations. That's amazing.

[00:12:04] Because when I went to school, it was not debt free.

[00:12:07] I'll tell you that much.

[00:12:09] You're really smart.

[00:12:13] So what are your plans then?

[00:12:15] Because I know you're going to school,

[00:12:17] but what are your plans as it relates to reselling?

[00:12:19] Do you see yourself doing this like forever?

[00:12:22] I mean, not right away,

[00:12:24] but I would love to see myself having my own little antique shop.

[00:12:29] We live or I live in a little small hometown

[00:12:32] that doesn't have any shopping venues.

[00:12:35] I mean, the only thing you can really shop at is like a gas station

[00:12:41] and a restaurant, and that's pretty much all we have for shopping.

[00:12:44] And so I kind of want to have a little store here because there's,

[00:12:48] I think, I want to say there's like 1400 or 1600 people in our town

[00:12:54] with no shopping places.

[00:12:55] I mean, that's, you know, a thousand, at least, people that I could

[00:13:00] persuade to come in and check out the store and maybe make some revenue,

[00:13:04] not only for me, but for also the city.

[00:13:07] Yeah, and you would be serving those people, too,

[00:13:10] because if there's not a lot of options, you'd be giving them some variety,

[00:13:15] maybe some access to things that they would not normally be able

[00:13:20] to find in your area, you know, that they'd have to go

[00:13:22] maybe to a big mall or something like that. So. Yeah.

[00:13:27] Oh, that's beautiful.

[00:13:28] That's a beautiful vision.

[00:13:29] That's a beautiful plan.

[00:13:30] You know, I think that's a very well thought out plan, too. Mm hmm.

[00:13:36] All right.

[00:13:36] So let's talk about what a day a day in the life of Brandon looks like,

[00:13:41] like when you wake up,

[00:13:45] what do you do as it relates to business work, reselling?

[00:13:50] Like take me take me through a typical day.

[00:13:53] Yeah. So I guess we'll talk about the college years.

[00:13:56] I'll usually, you know, wake up, I'll do my classwork and whatever.

[00:14:01] But on the weekends, I'll wake up and I'll either look at Facebook

[00:14:05] marketplace or Craigslist for garage sales, estate sales, whatever.

[00:14:09] If there's no good garage sales or estate sales to go to,

[00:14:12] I'll usually wind up going to some in-person auction down the road

[00:14:15] or whatever, because here in Iowa, it was actually

[00:14:19] during Covid kind of when everything shut down, a lot of

[00:14:24] auction companies here went online and started going on high bid and proxy bid.

[00:14:29] And which is OK, but I kind of missed, you know, the in-person

[00:14:34] kind of aspect of that because I want to agree if I want to bid on.

[00:14:38] But I don't want to pay the buyer's premium for this website.

[00:14:41] So a little bit after Covid,

[00:14:44] then the auction companies here started to go back to in-person.

[00:14:47] And it was just nice to

[00:14:50] it was just nice to go to an auction and see people that you haven't seen

[00:14:53] in many, many months because of Covid and you're stuck in the house.

[00:14:56] But but yeah, no going to day in the life.

[00:15:00] It's a lot of just sourcing and then listing and selling on whatnot

[00:15:05] and trying to find time to organize this room because it's a mess.

[00:15:10] Yeah, that's kind of that's kind of the day in the life.

[00:15:14] So how many listings do you do a day like do you have a set goal or

[00:15:20] a plan or?

[00:15:21] I don't know. It really depends on how you know what I feel like doing on that day,

[00:15:26] whether I feel like organizing or listing or doing a whatnot show,

[00:15:30] especially if I'll need money at some point, then I'll do a quick

[00:15:33] whatnot show because I praise whatnot for having that early buyout

[00:15:37] or the early payout access.

[00:15:39] It's so nice. So nice.

[00:15:42] Yes, I need to work up to that because I don't have my my one thousand sales yet.

[00:15:47] Yeah, I did my thousand sales within seven shows.

[00:15:52] But are you serious?

[00:15:53] Yeah, it took me seven shows to get to a thousand.

[00:15:56] However, I started everything at a dollar

[00:16:00] every time I did that.

[00:16:01] And although I made it to the thousand sales.

[00:16:04] Yeah, sure. I might have sold the Julianna Brode for like three dollars.

[00:16:07] Like there's some stuff that you kind of regret selling.

[00:16:11] But in the long run, it's worth it because now you can get your money

[00:16:14] right away rather than having to wait like three days

[00:16:17] after they've received the item to get the money.

[00:16:19] Right, right. And it's funny you say that because I have done

[00:16:25] like I've probably sold thousands of pieces of jewelry.

[00:16:29] But here's where I made a mistake because I would bundle the items.

[00:16:32] Right. So let's say I was I was running everything for a dollar

[00:16:37] and people would say, oh, yeah, put that in my pile, put that in my pile,

[00:16:41] next thing you know, they have 20, 30 pieces in their pile.

[00:16:44] But I only ran it for one item, so I would run it like those 30 pieces.

[00:16:50] I would start it at thirty dollars and then they would bid at thirty dollars.

[00:16:53] So basically, that's just one sale instead of 30 individual sales.

[00:16:58] Like I learned that

[00:17:01] like after the fact, I said, huh, I probably should have ran each one

[00:17:06] individually at a dollar instead of bundling them,

[00:17:09] because then I could have racked up way more sales.

[00:17:11] You know what I mean?

[00:17:12] Well, not only that, but bundling kind of and if there's any customers

[00:17:16] listening, the bundling kind of hurts you because it's actually cheaper

[00:17:20] shipping wise to do them individually, because if you have to bundle

[00:17:24] that raises the weight of the bundle,

[00:17:27] you know, weight, whatever the seller puts it at. Right.

[00:17:31] Like if you save a bunch of pieces for the very end

[00:17:35] and you want to bundle all of it.

[00:17:37] Well, instead of spending like that three dollars initially

[00:17:39] and then spending like 30 cents, 80 cents or, you know, a couple of them

[00:17:43] usually are free shipping.

[00:17:45] And so you're going to be actually spending like twenty dollars

[00:17:48] or something like that to like ship it at the very end if you have a big pile.

[00:17:53] Yeah. So basically, it's kind of a lose lose for the seller and the buyer.

[00:17:58] Basically. Yeah.

[00:18:01] So but I need to get back on the whatnot train.

[00:18:04] I know you you told me that you watched the interview I did with Jovi.

[00:18:09] I think it was like last week and and I learned a lot from her

[00:18:13] and she inspired me to get back into whatnot because I had left

[00:18:17] what not for a few months now because it just wasn't, you know,

[00:18:21] I was wasn't getting people in my show and then I didn't like

[00:18:25] feeling like I was wasting time sitting there waiting for somebody.

[00:18:29] But talking to her and now talking to you,

[00:18:32] I'm totally motivated to get back on the whatnot train.

[00:18:37] I was going to say the the algorithm that I kind of went off of

[00:18:41] for getting a lot of followers and getting a lot of people to watch my shows.

[00:18:45] Two things came to mind.

[00:18:47] Number one was buying from other people's shows.

[00:18:50] I have spent countless, countless amount of dollars on what not

[00:18:54] just going into people's shows in buying because then people,

[00:18:58] as soon as they know you're a buyer, they're like, oh, well,

[00:19:00] let's check out his page and see what he sells.

[00:19:03] You know, and that's how I got a lot of followers.

[00:19:05] But also my other little top secret.

[00:19:08] I also sell overnight.

[00:19:10] Overnight is perfect, at least for me.

[00:19:13] I might be not might not be for some other people,

[00:19:15] but I love selling in the overnight hours because not only because I'm a night owl,

[00:19:18] but because not that many jewelry sellers are on.

[00:19:22] And you know what?

[00:19:23] It says that there are 24 hour platform like you could sell any time of the day.

[00:19:28] Well, not many people take that overnight into consideration

[00:19:31] because there was one night this was I think three or four months ago.

[00:19:35] There was one night one person was on and they had like 80 people

[00:19:39] watching them in the jewelry category, like the whole entire jewelry category.

[00:19:42] One person was on only one person.

[00:19:45] So the mean person I am, I decided I'm going to go on

[00:19:50] and steal those viewers.

[00:19:53] And I wound up with like 50 people watching my show

[00:19:55] because I was the number two person on.

[00:19:58] So honestly, for me, overnight works like a charm

[00:20:01] because that's when a lot of my regulars know that I'm on

[00:20:05] and a lot of people can see that I'm on versus like,

[00:20:08] you know, 50 or 60 people down the list.

[00:20:12] Well, see now this is again where you being young, you have an advantage.

[00:20:17] Yeah, I'm old

[00:20:19] and I need to be in bed and sleep.

[00:20:21] You know, but but someone told me the same thing about the early morning hours.

[00:20:26] Like if you can get on it like four, five, six a.m.,

[00:20:31] yeah, someone told me the same thing about that time, too,

[00:20:33] that like if you can get on super early,

[00:20:37] that's a good time, too, because there's not a lot of sellers on.

[00:20:40] And when you're on super early, depending on where somebody's watching,

[00:20:46] it may not necessarily be morning yet for the audience.

[00:20:50] So that's something to think about, too.

[00:20:52] Maybe trying, like you said, the overnight hours or the early morning hours,

[00:20:59] because yeah, there's not going to be a lot of people on.

[00:21:02] Yeah. Well, and not only that, but I also use it as a shipping advantage

[00:21:06] because if you start your show at midnight, technically it's the night before.

[00:21:10] So you're not going to be on the show at midnight.

[00:21:13] You're going to be on the show at midnight.

[00:21:15] So you're going to be on the show at midnight.

[00:21:17] If you start your show at midnight, technically it's the next day.

[00:21:21] And, you know, what's got that two day shipping policy?

[00:21:23] So you could do your show from midnight to four a.m.,

[00:21:26] take a quick little nap from like four to ten or whatever, wake up around 11

[00:21:31] and get your packages packed and shipped out that afternoon.

[00:21:36] So it's just that's that's what we do.

[00:21:39] And well, at least we try to do it most times.

[00:21:41] Sometimes I fall asleep. But, you know, it happens.

[00:21:45] But that's one of the reasons why I do the overnight is because the shipping

[00:21:50] advantage, you know. Yeah, because that's like shipping same day, right?

[00:21:53] Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:56] Now. OK, OK, because seeing that's the other thing you said,

[00:22:01] do like a four hour show, because Jovi told me she stays on sometimes

[00:22:06] six, seven, eight, nine, ten hours.

[00:22:10] I've done a 12 hour show once. That was fun.

[00:22:12] Oh, my gosh.

[00:22:14] That was that was insane.

[00:22:16] I started it.

[00:22:18] I started at noon and ended at midnight or something like that.

[00:22:21] And it was wow.

[00:22:23] It was it was a long show, but I had a good steady amount of people

[00:22:26] throughout the whole 12 hours.

[00:22:27] I mean, not I only think maybe three people stayed with me

[00:22:31] the whole 12 hours.

[00:22:33] But, you know, people would just come and go.

[00:22:36] Yeah. Did you see that girl?

[00:22:38] She set the record.

[00:22:40] She was she had done a whatnot.

[00:22:43] I think she was raising money for charity or something.

[00:22:45] I can't remember her name, but she stayed on whatnot for 24 hours straight.

[00:22:50] And she was selling the whole time.

[00:22:51] I mean, obviously, she probably took breaks and went to the bathroom,

[00:22:54] whatever, but she stayed on whatnot for a whole 24 hours.

[00:22:59] And she she set a record for longest stream or something.

[00:23:03] She might have even gone longer than 24 hours.

[00:23:06] But I was just so impressed because I think, you know, me staying on

[00:23:10] for an hour, I think I'm doing good.

[00:23:12] But all of you guys are telling me

[00:23:15] that I'm not even close to doing good if I'm only on for an hour.

[00:23:19] Also, most of my shows are between like three and eight hours.

[00:23:23] So it just depends how long and how many viewers I can keep a hold.

[00:23:29] So what do you do then?

[00:23:30] Well, you probably don't have any dead time now, but like,

[00:23:33] because sometimes I'll just sit sit in there and there's nobody in my show

[00:23:37] for maybe 20 minutes, a half hour.

[00:23:40] And I just kind of sit and I sort jewelry, you know, because nobody's in there.

[00:23:44] So what do you do when it's kind of like dead,

[00:23:47] you know, or if you don't have anybody in your show?

[00:23:50] Um, well, that used to be a problem.

[00:23:54] Yeah, I know you don't have it now.

[00:23:56] The very first couple shows

[00:23:59] when I first started, yeah, it was pretty dead.

[00:24:02] And what I why what I would do is I would just talk to myself,

[00:24:06] you know, like I was I do that.

[00:24:08] I was just starting.

[00:24:09] So I was like, OK, let's get the hang of this.

[00:24:11] Let's just start talking.

[00:24:13] And if someone happens to come in, they're going to be like,

[00:24:15] what the heck is this guy doing?

[00:24:17] Oh, he's just talking to himself.

[00:24:19] There's nobody in his chat.

[00:24:21] Um, no, I mean, basically it was just staying on there until people came.

[00:24:26] That's all I did.

[00:24:28] OK, all right.

[00:24:30] So now I've got to rethink my whole strategy.

[00:24:33] See, because that is that's why I went to Poshmark, right?

[00:24:37] Because Poshmark, I didn't have to worry about

[00:24:41] waiting for someone to come in my show.

[00:24:43] Now, when I do a Poshmark live,

[00:24:46] almost every time there's people waiting before I even turn the camera on,

[00:24:50] you know, because you can see how many people are on.

[00:24:52] So when I do Poshmark,

[00:24:54] I don't have to wait for somebody to come into my show.

[00:24:57] There's people either already waiting before I start or

[00:25:02] they like as soon as I start and then people start trickling in.

[00:25:06] And next thing you know, you've got a bunch of people there.

[00:25:08] So but that's one of the reasons why I kind of left

[00:25:12] what not because I wasn't getting anybody in my shows.

[00:25:15] Yeah, well, I mean,

[00:25:17] I have some controversial viewpoints about what not, but that's

[00:25:23] well, share whatever you feel comfortable with, because I'm probably

[00:25:27] I might I might have the same opinions.

[00:25:30] I the only thing that I'll say this,

[00:25:34] the only thing I really dislike about what not, if I had to dislike

[00:25:38] something is they have way too many sellers.

[00:25:41] I think they've they've accepted more than they can hold

[00:25:44] and they need to get more buyers because I feel like most of the time

[00:25:47] it's just us sellers buying from each other.

[00:25:50] You know, whether it's for our collection or whether it's to resell

[00:25:52] off of each other majority, it's just I see people

[00:25:56] that are buying to just resell.

[00:25:58] And what I mean, which, you know, other customers out there

[00:26:02] could do that, come into the app and use it as their sourcing platform.

[00:26:05] But I just want more customers that will want the items to wear, you know.

[00:26:10] And that's kind of the main because I would

[00:26:15] I would like a business model where there would be only a select

[00:26:19] amount of sellers that can apply for what not and get into what not.

[00:26:23] And then each seller has a time slot, kind of like a raid train,

[00:26:26] you know, like where people will, you know, get this hour to this hour

[00:26:30] and this hour to this hour.

[00:26:32] If it would be that as a whole jewelry community,

[00:26:36] that is what I think would make the jewelry

[00:26:40] category much more successful as if each seller had their own little hour.

[00:26:45] Now, I know for bigger, you know, for bigger what not sellers,

[00:26:50] it would probably hurt their business because I know there are sellers on

[00:26:54] that are literally on every day for like three hours a day, every day.

[00:26:58] They won't miss a day.

[00:26:59] They'll go on for three hours a day and that's their full time income.

[00:27:03] Well, you know, small businesses like me, you know, I I don't mind

[00:27:07] if I would just have an hour time slot a day.

[00:27:10] That'd be fine with me.

[00:27:12] Yeah, because then your buyers would know where,

[00:27:15] you know, when and where to find you. Right.

[00:27:17] Like they would say, OK, Brandon's on it too or whatever.

[00:27:19] That's when I'm going to go on because I know I like his stuff.

[00:27:23] I know I like what he sells, whatever.

[00:27:25] Yeah. So it would help with with buyer loyalty as well.

[00:27:29] Yeah. And I'll admit, I kind of like having multiple shows on at once

[00:27:33] because your competitors are at this show and you're at this show

[00:27:36] because you have, you know, you see stuff at this show that you want,

[00:27:39] but your competitors are over here.

[00:27:41] I have a whole kind of system.

[00:27:43] It's upstairs, but I kind of have like a whole computer, iPad, phone,

[00:27:48] and I kind of just go multiple shows.

[00:27:50] And I keep track of like this shows over here, this shows over here.

[00:27:54] And I just watch multiple shows because there's multiple things

[00:27:57] I want in people's shows.

[00:27:58] But I don't have you can't watch multiple shows with one device.

[00:28:01] You got to you got to have multiple. Mm hmm.

[00:28:04] Mm hmm. Yeah.

[00:28:05] So, you know, you you say the same thing that I hear a lot,

[00:28:08] especially in the Facebook groups.

[00:28:10] I don't know if you're in any of the the whatnot seller Facebook groups,

[00:28:14] but they all say the same thing that there's just way too many sellers

[00:28:17] and there's not enough buyers and a lot of people

[00:28:21] because even when I talk to people in just my regular everyday life,

[00:28:24] none of them have heard of whatnot.

[00:28:27] Like they've heard of eBay and Poshmark,

[00:28:30] but there's still a lot of people that don't know that whatnot even exists.

[00:28:35] Yeah. And I don't mean to be a whatnot hater

[00:28:39] because I love what not what not one of my favorite platforms.

[00:28:42] But I just think what nots kind of like a fad.

[00:28:47] You know, it's it's here and then it might stay for a couple more years

[00:28:50] and then something's going to happen and poof is gone.

[00:28:54] You know? Yeah.

[00:28:56] I take I take every whatnot show to my best advantage

[00:29:00] because you never know when the platform could go in bankrupt or whatever

[00:29:05] and they're forced to shut down or something like that.

[00:29:08] Like if you know, because they it's it's pretty easy to get refunds on stuff,

[00:29:12] especially when you have descriptive pictures.

[00:29:15] But if someone abuses that to their power, that could lose what not a lot of money.

[00:29:21] Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[00:29:23] And then the other thing you said, too, which I thought was interesting was.

[00:29:30] What not seems to be just resellers buying and selling, right?

[00:29:35] Because they're either buying for their inventory to resell

[00:29:39] or they're selling because they want to make the money.

[00:29:43] And that was another reason why I liked district.

[00:29:49] Well, it's district net, but then there's different communities within there.

[00:29:53] And so one of the reasons I like selling on district

[00:29:56] is because there's not a lot of resellers buying.

[00:29:58] These are actually people who want to buy the jewelry

[00:30:03] because they like it and they want to wear it or their collectors.

[00:30:08] You know, it's not like they're looking to to resell, you know?

[00:30:11] So that's really nice, because then they don't, you know,

[00:30:15] they don't haggle as much and they're not.

[00:30:19] You know, it's not they're not trying to,

[00:30:21] you know, get the lowest absolute price possible.

[00:30:24] Yeah. So so, yeah, I agree with you.

[00:30:27] I think what not is pretty much just a reseller.

[00:30:31] Community on there.

[00:30:34] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[00:30:37] But now I do buy and sell on what not right,

[00:30:40] because I've bought inventory on there.

[00:30:43] Same here. And then I've resold that same inventory.

[00:30:49] That's the thing I don't do, though.

[00:30:51] I don't buy on what not.

[00:30:53] I sell it either in my antique booths or on a different site

[00:30:57] because I want the people who I bought it from to know how much

[00:31:01] I'm going to sell it for.

[00:31:03] They're going to start charging their prices and I don't want.

[00:31:06] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:08] Well, you're probably smarter than me because I've done it.

[00:31:10] I didn't have any problems. Nobody said anything.

[00:31:12] I don't think I don't think the seller like came in my show

[00:31:16] and saw me selling it.

[00:31:18] At least if they did, they didn't say anything.

[00:31:20] Yeah. But but I've done that.

[00:31:23] The people I buy from, I'm good friends with them.

[00:31:25] So they'll come into my show.

[00:31:26] So I got to be careful. Yeah.

[00:31:30] Yeah, I've done the same thing on eBay, too.

[00:31:32] I bought inventory on eBay and then I turn right around and I sell it.

[00:31:35] I sell jewelry inventory on eBay, the same.

[00:31:39] You know, I'm using my same username and everything.

[00:31:42] And nobody has said anything to me, you know, thus far.

[00:31:48] So OK, so let's talk about then.

[00:31:54] Do you plan on like.

[00:31:57] Expanding.

[00:31:59] To maybe do it because you were talking about doing live shows

[00:32:03] on like YouTube and stuff.

[00:32:04] Do you plan on expanding, maybe doing like your own

[00:32:09] like website or maybe your own thing where so you're not actually reliant

[00:32:14] on any of these external platforms?

[00:32:16] Yeah, so kind of.

[00:32:20] In Iowa here to run an online auction, you need an auction license.

[00:32:24] And luckily, yeah, community college here has an online auction

[00:32:28] course that you can take.

[00:32:30] And so I'll probably do that in a year or two, hopefully.

[00:32:34] And then I know the software company

[00:32:38] that Salvation Army uses for their online auctions.

[00:32:42] So I will probably purchase their software and then I can run my own auction site

[00:32:48] since I'll have the I'll have the certificate and everything for it.

[00:32:53] OK, that'll be exciting.

[00:32:55] Oh, yeah, because

[00:32:57] because I want to do like what you said earlier,

[00:32:59] you said you do live shows on YouTube, right?

[00:33:03] Yep. So tell me like how that works for you and tell me

[00:33:07] like how you set it up and how you do it.

[00:33:10] Yeah. So I'll basically just go live.

[00:33:12] I used to use Dreamyard and my computer for it.

[00:33:15] But now that YouTube is kind of updated,

[00:33:19] its terms on live shows, you can actually go live from your phone,

[00:33:22] which is nice. So I like to go live from my phone and I'll just be.

[00:33:27] Let's see if I can find something here.

[00:33:29] I'll say I'll just be showing a piece of jewelry, you know, on the phone

[00:33:34] and I'll hold it out in front of me and just show this and be like, OK,

[00:33:38] you know, this is a truffar.

[00:33:40] No, this is Napier. Napier necklace.

[00:33:42] And, you know, I'll say all the dimensions, whatever it is.

[00:33:45] And then I'll say the buy it now price is 10 bucks.

[00:33:49] So then people in the chat will just type in ten dollars

[00:33:52] or a keyword if I say a keyword.

[00:33:55] And then I will put that on their bill.

[00:33:57] And then when the show's over, I will send them all PayPal invoices.

[00:34:02] They purchase it and then I ship it out.

[00:34:05] And I the software I use is pirate ship for shipping.

[00:34:09] OK, now do you make them pre register

[00:34:11] before before they can bid or buy something in your show?

[00:34:16] Yeah. So what I do is for the pre registering,

[00:34:20] I'll have my email like down here

[00:34:22] or I'll just put it in the chat and I'll say email me here

[00:34:25] and with your, you know, where you want the package to go to

[00:34:29] and your PayPal email address so I can send you the invoice.

[00:34:34] OK, OK. And then they're free to bid.

[00:34:37] Yeah, because I've been nervous about that because I've had people ask me,

[00:34:41] they say, oh, why don't you do a live show on YouTube?

[00:34:45] And I've always been nervous about it just because I've never done it before.

[00:34:49] But I'm sure it's not any that much more difficult

[00:34:53] than doing a live show on whatnot or something.

[00:34:55] But I just always worry about people not paying.

[00:35:00] And I think that's what makes me nervous about it.

[00:35:02] Like, you know, what if someone says, yeah, I want that for ten dollars

[00:35:05] or I want that for fifteen or whatever.

[00:35:07] And you send them the invoice and then they don't pay.

[00:35:10] Yeah, I luckily I haven't had to worry about that

[00:35:13] because my buyers are always loyal and they'll pay within forty eight hours,

[00:35:17] which is really nice.

[00:35:19] I did I did have one.

[00:35:21] It is a sad story.

[00:35:22] I sent out this lady's invoice and they're like two and a half weeks went by

[00:35:28] and I wasn't getting a payment.

[00:35:30] And I was like, well, what's going on with her?

[00:35:32] Well, I get an email message from another one of my YouTube viewers

[00:35:36] saying that she passed away.

[00:35:38] And yeah, and I was like, oh, well, that's really sad.

[00:35:44] Yeah. And then I'm like, well, OK, what am I going to do with this jewelry?

[00:35:48] Also, so I'm so sorry she passed away.

[00:35:51] But like, you know, I've got this invoice sitting here.

[00:35:54] So then I just I I haven't even because she was one of my loyal customers

[00:35:58] and I haven't even touched the invoice.

[00:36:00] It's still down the hall.

[00:36:01] I haven't even touched it.

[00:36:03] You know, after something like that happens, it's it's hard to even

[00:36:07] take the items out of the box.

[00:36:09] But yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah.

[00:36:14] Oh, that's sad.

[00:36:17] I mean, you know, I mean, it's not funny, but, you know,

[00:36:20] that's just sad, you know, that's just really sad.

[00:36:23] Yeah, I've never had anything like that happen, at least

[00:36:27] not yet anyway, you know.

[00:36:29] Now. Oh, OK.

[00:36:32] OK. Now I was going to ask you something and I forgot

[00:36:39] because I'm thinking I'm thinking about I'm thinking about the lady.

[00:36:44] Yeah. But

[00:36:46] OK, let's talk about packing and shipping your jewelry out.

[00:36:52] Now, do you have any tips or tricks or techniques

[00:36:56] as it relates to how you do that?

[00:36:58] Because I try to keep it real simple, you know, with bubble wrap and

[00:37:02] bubble mailers.

[00:37:03] I only use boxes if I have to, like for higher end pieces

[00:37:06] or real delicate pieces.

[00:37:08] So what are some of your techniques as it relates to shipping

[00:37:12] and packing jewelry?

[00:37:14] Yeah. So usually what happens in packing, we will put the jewelry

[00:37:20] item in a bag, whether, you know, it's a little jewelry bag

[00:37:23] or a sandwich bag, whatever it may be.

[00:37:25] And then we'll wrap that bag up, tape it.

[00:37:29] We'll put that bag in a jewelry box, tape that box up,

[00:37:33] wrap it in bubble wrap, tape that up and then put it in a bubble mailer.

[00:37:38] So we pack our packages and I say we because Miss Ivy and I, we do it.

[00:37:43] Miss Ivy, who's my mom, should probably be listening to this podcast.

[00:37:48] Hi, mom.

[00:37:49] Hi, mom.

[00:37:51] But yeah, we pack our items really, really good

[00:37:54] and haven't had any problems with shipping hardly ever.

[00:37:57] So a lot of our customers like that.

[00:38:00] Do you get insurance and stuff on your I mean,

[00:38:04] if it doesn't automatically come with it, do you pay for the additional

[00:38:08] insurance? If it goes over a certain amount, like if

[00:38:12] someone paid like 300 or something for an item, then yeah, we would definitely

[00:38:16] definitely do insurance on it.

[00:38:18] OK, OK. All right.

[00:38:20] So let's talk about your I know you were telling me about your room

[00:38:24] and how you're working on constantly organizing it.

[00:38:26] But tell me, how do you store and organize your jewelry pieces?

[00:38:30] Like because I know for me at one point, I had like three

[00:38:33] thousand jewelry items listed in my store.

[00:38:37] But surprisingly, it wasn't difficult to organize it

[00:38:40] because I keep everything individually bagged and with the SKU number on it.

[00:38:45] So tell me about your storage and organization system

[00:38:48] as it relates to your jewelry inventory.

[00:38:50] Yeah, well, I'll take you on a little tour

[00:38:54] because this is this is where it gets interesting.

[00:38:57] So I I like to find the craziest pieces

[00:39:02] at estate sales and garage sales when it comes to

[00:39:06] when it comes to storage.

[00:39:09] So I recently went to a church sale and this is the light might be a little

[00:39:13] little bad, but I recently went to a church sale and picked up a donut case.

[00:39:19] Really? Like bakery, right?

[00:39:22] But it holds jewelry in these trays very, very well.

[00:39:27] OK, so for for those of you who are listening to the audio version of this,

[00:39:32] Brandon is showing me a donut case

[00:39:35] that he uses to store and organize his jewelry inventory.

[00:39:41] Yeah, right.

[00:39:42] Yes, I kind of like what you find at a bakery.

[00:39:46] And I also that's brilliant.

[00:39:50] On the back shelves here, these are actually DVD shelves,

[00:39:53] but I turned them into like jewelry, like a jewelry oasis kind of shelf

[00:39:58] of things.

[00:40:00] And I do have an amazing enamel flower brooch collection.

[00:40:05] Let me get to that. It's over here.

[00:40:07] Well, most of it's over here.

[00:40:09] Those are so fun.

[00:40:10] I sell those all that like whenever I get them, I can't keep them.

[00:40:14] They are so quickly.

[00:40:16] I have over 700 enamel flower broaches.

[00:40:21] And this is just like one.

[00:40:22] This is just one case.

[00:40:24] And actually, this case is a vintage

[00:40:26] boulevard watch case that I bought off of an online auction, a local auction.

[00:40:32] And it was in an antique shop.

[00:40:34] And I was like, that would be so perfect for broaches.

[00:40:37] And it's got one of those like movable spinning things

[00:40:39] so you can spin the rack around.

[00:40:41] Hold on. I'm going to put you on the solo layout just because.

[00:40:46] That's amazing.

[00:40:47] You can like spin it around

[00:40:50] and you can see all the different broaches on each side.

[00:40:52] Brandon, that is fantastic.

[00:40:56] And then pardon the mess over here.

[00:40:57] Oh, and it's got lights in it and everything too.

[00:41:00] It does have lights in it.

[00:41:01] It's awesome.

[00:41:02] So here's the other thing I do to sort now this granted.

[00:41:06] This is a mess. But anyway,

[00:41:08] I built this Lego storage system because, you know, I love Lego pieces.

[00:41:14] This thing, it goes from the end of the desk

[00:41:17] all the way to like the middle of the desk.

[00:41:20] This thing weighs about 280 something pounds.

[00:41:23] Wow. All Lego brick.

[00:41:26] But the cool thing about it is that it's these little drawers

[00:41:29] that I've made so you can put like little pieces of jewelry

[00:41:33] inside these drawers so I can sort earrings or whatever.

[00:41:38] And then they're just little drawers that just slide out and slide back in.

[00:41:42] Wow. Oh, my gosh, Brandon, that is incredible.

[00:41:46] Yeah, that's that's what I made.

[00:41:48] That took me, oh, boy, three or four days to do all that.

[00:41:55] Wow. I am so impressed.

[00:41:59] I am so impressed.

[00:42:01] And then on occasion, that's the wrong charger.

[00:42:04] On occasions, I will make little boxes for customers if they request them.

[00:42:08] So I'll have these little Lego boxes that have a two drawer system.

[00:42:13] And then these just slide in.

[00:42:15] And the good thing about these little Lego boxes, you can stack them.

[00:42:19] So if you wanted to store, you know, like earrings or bracelets

[00:42:24] or whatever you want to put in here, I know that some of my customers

[00:42:28] want these to put makeup in.

[00:42:31] You can put anything in these little box and these little sliding drawer things.

[00:42:36] So do you charge them extra for the Lego boxes?

[00:42:40] The Lego boxes, I'll sell them based on what colors they're asking for,

[00:42:45] because some colors I might not have.

[00:42:47] And the amount of time it takes me to make one of those.

[00:42:50] So so but there is an additional fee.

[00:42:53] You don't just throw that in for free.

[00:42:54] No, no, there's a little there's a little.

[00:42:57] OK, OK. Wow.

[00:43:00] I mean, I may have to try something like that,

[00:43:02] because my son has a huge Lego bin that he doesn't even use anymore.

[00:43:06] You know, that is so creative.

[00:43:10] I have never seen anything like that ever.

[00:43:13] And that is so different.

[00:43:15] That's definitely you using because I talk about this all the time

[00:43:19] where we always have to figure out what our unique advantages

[00:43:22] and what our secret sauce is.

[00:43:23] So we stand out from all the hundreds or thousands of other resellers.

[00:43:28] And you've definitely showcased that with what you've shown me.

[00:43:33] Yeah, that Lego idea.

[00:43:36] I was sitting on about 200 pounds of earrings

[00:43:39] and I had no way to store them.

[00:43:40] And so I was like, OK, let's make a drawer system

[00:43:43] because I had all these loose pieces of Lego sitting around.

[00:43:46] And I was like, let's create something with this.

[00:43:48] And I created those boxes.

[00:43:50] So now that is so amazing.

[00:43:53] And just think if you opened up your own store, right?

[00:43:55] Let's say you had jewelry on one side, Legos on the other side.

[00:44:00] Then all the moms could come in and shop

[00:44:02] and then the kids could be on the Lego side.

[00:44:05] And then the moms could be on the jewelry side.

[00:44:07] That's that's exactly how one of my antique boots right now,

[00:44:11] because I'm in a very big antique mall and for toys,

[00:44:17] it's all like 40s, 50s and 60s wooden and metal toys,

[00:44:21] you know, toys that like choking hazards and whatever kids can't really use today.

[00:44:26] Right. And so I had to think about, well, when kids

[00:44:30] when parents bring their kids into the antique shop

[00:44:32] and they want to get them something, what can they get them?

[00:44:35] You know, because like you can't buy these old toys and give them,

[00:44:38] you know, an old Tonka truck that's got rust and, you know,

[00:44:42] yeah, sharp edges and stuff.

[00:44:44] And so I decided, you know what?

[00:44:48] Beanies people don't like to buy beanies, you know, because they're

[00:44:53] at least all the garage sale people on Instagram reels

[00:44:57] when I'm scrolling through, don't buy beanies.

[00:45:00] That enough. They're not worth it.

[00:45:02] It's funny to me because on one side of my booth,

[00:45:05] I have a whole bunch of jewelry.

[00:45:07] And on the other side of the booth, it's all beanies.

[00:45:10] It's all stuffed animals.

[00:45:12] It's all beanies.

[00:45:13] And that gives the option for parents to come in and buy something for

[00:45:18] for their kids.

[00:45:20] But not only that, I had this was two years ago.

[00:45:23] I had a lady come into the booth and I got a phone call from the antique

[00:45:27] store saying, hey, you know, it's such and such from this antique store.

[00:45:31] And I was like, yeah. Yeah. What's up?

[00:45:33] And they're like, we have a lady here who wants to buy

[00:45:35] two hundred and thirty beanies from your booth.

[00:45:38] And I'm like, OK.

[00:45:40] She goes, would you do a discount?

[00:45:42] I'm like, heck yeah.

[00:45:43] I'll definitely do a discount.

[00:45:45] You're buying two hundred and thirty. Sure.

[00:45:47] And the turns out the lady came in to buy beanies

[00:45:51] for an after school program for one of the elementary schools

[00:45:55] that was nearby the nearby the antique shop. So.

[00:45:59] Oh, yeah.

[00:46:01] So when you put I know antique shops, you're supposed to have old stuff.

[00:46:06] But now all these parents are bringing in their kids.

[00:46:08] It's like, well, what are you going to get the kid?

[00:46:10] You know, like, you're going to leave us something for yourself

[00:46:13] and then your kids going to whine and want to leave something for them.

[00:46:16] So, oh, yeah.

[00:46:18] Yeah. Not only that, it keeps them busy.

[00:46:20] So you have time to kind of shop in peace, right?

[00:46:22] Oh, yeah.

[00:46:24] You know, so you don't have to worry about, you know,

[00:46:26] keeping track of the kid.

[00:46:27] Don't touch anything.

[00:46:28] Don't break anything and all that stuff.

[00:46:31] They can be occupied with the Beanie Babies or the Legos or whatever.

[00:46:35] And then mom can shop in peace and look at all the jewelry

[00:46:39] she wants, she wants to. Oh, yeah.

[00:46:42] So now back to those those flower brooches.

[00:46:45] Did you buy all of those online or did you get all of those

[00:46:51] at an estate sale?

[00:46:53] So my collection of over 700

[00:46:55] most of them came from online.

[00:46:59] However, I think I got

[00:47:03] probably about 300 of them came locally just from going to auctions

[00:47:07] and family and friends buying them and getting them for me

[00:47:11] and things like that.

[00:47:11] But most of them came from online and I didn't even show.

[00:47:16] I could probably show you this.

[00:47:19] This is all.

[00:47:21] This is all the flower broach sets I have.

[00:47:25] So these are all these are all brooches and earring pairs.

[00:47:30] That I have that is spectacular.

[00:47:33] I keep it in this little glass case, and this is actually the case

[00:47:36] I do my whatnot shows on top of.

[00:47:38] So I'll put like a little blanket or something over this

[00:47:41] and then I'll do my whatnot shows from it.

[00:47:43] Oh, wow.

[00:47:46] That is so cool, Brandon.

[00:47:48] I love that because see, I come across those those flower brooches,

[00:47:53] you know, not all the time, but, you know, here and there.

[00:47:57] And as soon as I show them, they get snatched up like like I

[00:48:03] and and I love them because they're so beautiful.

[00:48:06] But I also love them.

[00:48:08] You know, I don't hold on to them because I know they're going to

[00:48:11] their moneymakers.

[00:48:13] Oh, yeah. Well, I liked I like to sell them.

[00:48:16] Oh, yeah. On what not.

[00:48:17] There's a lot of competition for the enamel flowers.

[00:48:20] And a lot of people like to message me about, you know, enamel flowers

[00:48:25] that they have a question like, oh, I have this one.

[00:48:27] You know, what do you think it's worth or, you know, stuff like that?

[00:48:30] And a lot of people will tag me in shows that have enamel flower brooches

[00:48:33] in them. And I will, you know, most likely I go into the show.

[00:48:38] If it's somebody I know, then I'll say hi.

[00:48:41] And if I know they're too pricey, then I'll probably leave.

[00:48:43] But if it's a person I've never seen before and they have enamel flowers,

[00:48:47] I'll probably buy some.

[00:48:48] So I always try to look for ones that are not duplicates, though,

[00:48:51] because I have way too many to keep track of.

[00:48:55] And I don't want duplicates.

[00:48:56] However, if I do have duplicates, I will sell them.

[00:48:59] Now, do you have all of them like listed for sale or

[00:49:03] that's literally just your personal collection?

[00:49:05] That's personal collection.

[00:49:07] Wow. OK.

[00:49:09] I built that collection since I was about 11.

[00:49:14] Wow. We'll see now if I find some.

[00:49:18] I'll probably reach out to you.

[00:49:20] You know, I'll say, hey, Brandon, do you have these?

[00:49:23] Do you have these?

[00:49:25] I can't wait to have my own antique shop because I just want to do

[00:49:28] like a flower power room and just have one room.

[00:49:31] Yes. Flowers all over the wall.

[00:49:34] I think it's yes.

[00:49:35] Yes, because now looking at all of yours,

[00:49:38] I think about some of the ones I've sold over the years.

[00:49:40] And I had some gorgeous fun, like neon ones.

[00:49:44] But now I wish I would have kept because I haven't seen neon ones since then.

[00:49:49] Oh, yeah. And.

[00:49:52] Yeah, like now I think back, oh, wow, I wish I would have kept those.

[00:49:56] You know, but I sold them for a good price.

[00:49:58] I sold them for like 30 dollars each because the person who bought them,

[00:50:03] she said the same thing.

[00:50:04] She's like, I've never seen neon ones.

[00:50:07] I said, I know.

[00:50:08] And so I can show you one.

[00:50:11] Let me go grab it really quick from this case.

[00:50:13] OK. I've never seen this one.

[00:50:18] I got this at a antique show and I've never I've looked,

[00:50:23] tried to look this one online.

[00:50:25] Never seen it.

[00:50:28] I've never seen that either.

[00:50:31] Never, ever seen this one.

[00:50:32] And it's so big.

[00:50:34] It's it's about the size of my hand.

[00:50:37] It's it's like three and a half inches.

[00:50:39] It's huge.

[00:50:42] And it's neon pink. Yeah, that's me.

[00:50:45] Yeah.

[00:50:46] I highly suggest for the listeners to come on to the YouTube channel and see this.

[00:50:51] Yeah, you have to see the video of this episode because

[00:50:56] Brandon's collection is insane.

[00:51:00] I'm over here drooling with envy.

[00:51:05] There you go. Oh, man.

[00:51:07] Oh, man. That is fantastic.

[00:51:11] Yeah, I mean, I just I'm so in awe.

[00:51:13] You can have a whole museum with all the stuff.

[00:51:17] Oh, yeah, definitely.

[00:51:19] Wow. OK, so

[00:51:22] getting back, I guess, getting back on track as it relates to

[00:51:26] a reselling business.

[00:51:29] So what are your

[00:51:32] I guess because you've already talked about kind of advice

[00:51:35] and tips and tricks on getting started, but you've been doing this a while.

[00:51:40] And so you obviously have a passion for it.

[00:51:44] But what do you think it really takes to sustain

[00:51:47] a profitable jewelry reselling business from your own experience?

[00:51:54] Oh, consistency.

[00:51:56] I would say definitely you got to if you want to do this full time,

[00:52:01] you have to make it full time. Right.

[00:52:04] I would say, you know, because not only consistency,

[00:52:09] but also the connections you build up

[00:52:13] because I've I know now a bunch of people,

[00:52:16] I've met a bunch of people locally and even through apps,

[00:52:19] you know, like whatnot and whatever

[00:52:21] and different customers that I can go to and they can purchase my stuff.

[00:52:26] And, you know, I just like to call them my regulars.

[00:52:29] And once you have those regulars, then you know,

[00:52:33] you can hit the business and hit the ground running.

[00:52:35] So I would say the biggest thing, though,

[00:52:38] is the consistency and just getting the, you know, strength,

[00:52:43] encouraged to do this every day and wake up.

[00:52:45] And because I get to wake up and stare at those flowers every day.

[00:52:48] You know? Oh, yeah.

[00:52:51] That's not a bad gig at all. Exactly.

[00:52:56] So do you have a set budget then, like when you're outsourcing,

[00:53:00] like, do you have a set budget, like, OK,

[00:53:02] I'm only going to spend this amount to buy inventory this week.

[00:53:06] Or do you is it just like, hey, if I find it

[00:53:11] and it works for for my business or what I'm looking for,

[00:53:14] I'm going to buy it.

[00:53:15] And you don't really worry about budgeting or limits or anything.

[00:53:20] Yeah. So I do not have a credit card right now.

[00:53:25] And I think that's mainly the reason why I can go free willy nilly

[00:53:29] and not worry about a budget, because I know how much is in my account.

[00:53:33] And I do have a debit card and I know how much is in my account.

[00:53:36] And I know how much I'm willing to spend for some collections or pieces or whatever.

[00:53:42] But as soon as I buy something, I just got to know in the back of my head,

[00:53:45] like, OK, I need to get up, you know, in the next couple of days,

[00:53:48] I need to get on whatnot and I need to make this much

[00:53:51] to recoup what I just bought from this.

[00:53:53] So right.

[00:53:55] You know, I do like going freely about not having to worry

[00:54:00] about spending so much per item.

[00:54:02] But I also have an eBay in my head, you know, like certain pieces of jewelry.

[00:54:06] I exactly know how much they go for.

[00:54:08] And if I see the price, I'll either take it or I'll leave it

[00:54:11] or I'll counter someone for it.

[00:54:14] OK, all right.

[00:54:15] Well, and then see now, I don't know what your,

[00:54:19] you know, financial obligations are.

[00:54:22] You know, so if you don't have to worry about like a rent

[00:54:25] or car payment and all that stuff and all of your income

[00:54:29] could be used to build your business,

[00:54:31] that's fantastic.

[00:54:33] You know, that's what will really help you get that much further ahead,

[00:54:36] that much quicker to.

[00:54:38] Well, I mean, I always have to worry about insurance, car payments,

[00:54:41] you know, all that stuff.

[00:54:42] Yeah, and probably your phone and whatnot.

[00:54:45] And college payments, you know, but

[00:54:48] I just think that especially with credit cards, I kind of have a

[00:54:55] I kind of feel negative towards them because

[00:54:57] it you're basically given a card with imaginary money.

[00:55:01] But if you don't pay it back within a certain amount of days,

[00:55:03] then you rack up all the interest.

[00:55:04] And it's like, why are we giving people the opportunity

[00:55:08] to spend whatever they want and dig themselves a hole?

[00:55:11] You know, it's better to just I think people should just have debit cards

[00:55:15] because then you know how much you can spend.

[00:55:17] And if it runs out, you know, you're done.

[00:55:19] You can't until you can make more money.

[00:55:21] You can't spend that much. Right. Right.

[00:55:25] That's very smart. That's very, very smart.

[00:55:27] You know, because I think that's what happens to is a lot of people,

[00:55:31] they buy stuff on credit and they say, oh, you know, I'll I'll sell it

[00:55:34] and I'll make it all back.

[00:55:35] And maybe they don't sell it as quickly as they need to.

[00:55:40] So I think I think you're very smart and I think you're very strategic

[00:55:44] to have those parameters in place for yourself,

[00:55:46] because a lot of people don't.

[00:55:51] Now, do you do what not shows every single day, seven days a week?

[00:55:55] Oh, I wish.

[00:55:56] No, I do.

[00:55:59] I'd probably do like one or two a week just because of college classes.

[00:56:04] Oh, that's right. Because your first thing you worry about is college.

[00:56:07] Right. Right.

[00:56:08] But then this summer, I'll start doing at least three or four a week

[00:56:13] because I'll have the summer to start selling stuff.

[00:56:17] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:18] I was doing six shows a week at one point.

[00:56:21] I was doing three on Poshmark and then I was doing three on whatnot.

[00:56:25] And it's not it's not difficult.

[00:56:29] The the part for me that was difficult was being able to maintain

[00:56:33] the inventory levels I needed to do that many shows. Right.

[00:56:36] Because sometimes I would sell out and then I'm like, oh, no, I

[00:56:41] I don't have inventory for tomorrow's show or for the next show.

[00:56:45] So it's it's being really careful about having enough inventory

[00:56:50] to do as many shows or as long of a show as you want to do.

[00:56:54] And that's where I always struggle.

[00:56:56] Lucky for me, I don't have to worry about inventory.

[00:57:02] I buy a problem I want to have.

[00:57:06] Well, the problem I have right now is getting 17 boxes

[00:57:09] coming in that are like 30 pounds each.

[00:57:12] Wow. That's yeah, that's going to be in the next week.

[00:57:16] So that'll be fun to go through.

[00:57:18] But it's also going to be a pain because I'm like, where do I

[00:57:20] where am I going to put it? You know. Right. Right.

[00:57:23] See, that's so that's so crazy how we all have different challenges

[00:57:26] as it relates to our business.

[00:57:28] You you're you have so much inventory and me.

[00:57:32] My problem is I don't have enough because I sell through it so quickly,

[00:57:36] which which is not a bad problem to have.

[00:57:39] But it's challenging because sometimes I can't find

[00:57:43] the quality inventory I want as quickly as I can sell it.

[00:57:48] Yeah. Now, I mean, I yeah, that's kind of one of the things

[00:57:52] that I go around this room and I look for stuff and, you know,

[00:57:56] because on whatnot, some people will request things and they're like,

[00:58:00] oh, do you have any squirrel broaches?

[00:58:03] And I'm like, that's really specific.

[00:58:05] Let me look around the room, you know, like I don't think I do.

[00:58:10] Well, sometimes you have it.

[00:58:11] You just don't know where it is.

[00:58:13] Exactly. That happens to me a lot, too.

[00:58:15] People will ask me, oh, do you have a blue trefari necklace?

[00:58:20] I do. I actually have several.

[00:58:23] The problem is, is where are they?

[00:58:28] You know, so I totally get it.

[00:58:30] I totally get it.

[00:58:32] So all right, Brandon.

[00:58:33] Well, anything else that you want to share before I let you go back

[00:58:38] to your exciting, exciting life of sorting your jewelry?

[00:58:43] Well, I mean, I've got plenty of stories of

[00:58:47] going to estate sales and auctions and different scenarios that happened.

[00:58:53] I think the best thing,

[00:58:56] the best thing that I that I've ever going to go to an auction for,

[00:59:00] it was a massive Disney auction

[00:59:03] and there was Disney stuff everywhere in this auction,

[00:59:06] table after table after table.

[00:59:08] And I only wound up getting a flat of Disney pins.

[00:59:11] That's the only thing I purchased there because everything was so expensive.

[00:59:15] Hmm. But the auction, I later found out afterwards that the ladies estate,

[00:59:22] that lady was the assistant to the Walt Disney.

[00:59:27] Really? Yep.

[00:59:29] And there was tons of Disney stuff.

[00:59:31] There was a few signed Disney things.

[00:59:33] There's a lot of lithographs, a lot of toys, new in box.

[00:59:37] A lot. I mean, just everything.

[00:59:38] But there were so many Disney collectors there.

[00:59:41] I couldn't hardly touch any of the prices because everyone was.

[00:59:45] But and this was an in-person auction you went to in person auction,

[00:59:49] which also had phone bids.

[00:59:51] So a few of them won the bids over the phone.

[00:59:54] But this was an in-person one. Yeah.

[00:59:56] And it was there in Iowa.

[00:59:58] Yep. It was here in Iowa.

[01:00:00] Wow. You would think that would be somewhere like in Orlando or even

[01:00:04] all right. Yeah.

[01:00:05] California or something with Disneyland.

[01:00:07] But to have it in Iowa, that's that's crazy.

[01:00:10] It surprised me, too.

[01:00:11] I was like, wait, this lady really worked for Disney?

[01:00:14] Yeah. And I was like, oh, well, there you go.

[01:00:17] Well, maybe she was from Iowa.

[01:00:19] So maybe when she retired, she moved back home

[01:00:21] and took all the stuff with her or something.

[01:00:23] It's possible. Yeah.

[01:00:26] Wow. Crazy, crazy.

[01:00:28] All right. Well, here's what we're going to do, Brandon.

[01:00:32] I'll have to do a part two with you because you're just so you're

[01:00:35] just so fascinating.

[01:00:38] Well, I appreciate it. I got plenty of stories to tell.

[01:00:41] Yes, yes. Maybe, you know, in a few months or, you know,

[01:00:45] we'll check back in with you in the summer and then you can let me know

[01:00:48] how things are going for you.

[01:00:51] See, I only have one more week.

[01:00:53] This coming week is finals week.

[01:00:54] So I just got my finals and then summer break starts.

[01:00:59] Oh, yeah. See, so then you're going to have tons of time.

[01:01:01] You're going to be doing tons of shows.

[01:01:02] You're going to be dealing with tons of inventory.

[01:01:05] And I would love to check in, check in with you again in a little while.

[01:01:13] Awesome. Well, thank you so very much, Brandon.

[01:01:16] I'm just I mean, you just really surprised me.

[01:01:20] I was not expecting to learn as much as I did.

[01:01:24] And then to see your amazing setup and your storage

[01:01:27] and all of the other stuff we talked about.

[01:01:30] But I just want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us.

[01:01:35] I appreciate you having me on.

[01:01:37] Well, it won't be the last time.

[01:01:39] I'll tell you that.

[01:01:42] All right, Brandon. Well, thank you again.

[01:01:44] And if you guys are interested in following Brandon,

[01:01:47] I will have his Instagram linked in the description and in the show notes.

[01:01:51] And I will also link his whatnot information

[01:01:55] so you guys can check out one of his shows and anything else.

[01:01:59] Anything else Brandon wants me to share?

[01:02:01] I will have a link for it for all of you.

[01:02:04] There you go.

[01:02:06] All right, Brandon, thanks again. Appreciate it.