Open for Business: The New Window Display Feature & More News - Episode 70

https://linktr.ee/KarriKennedy

I’m breaking down the biggest updates Whatnot just dropped. The new Window Display Feature is already live for buyers scrolling the feed right now — and your listings are showing up whether you’re ready or not. Plus the pre-bids update, two shipping changes, new subcategories, and their very first Seller Summit. 

#WhyNotWhatnot #KarriKennedy #WhatnotSeller #WhatnotUpdate #WhatnotNews #LiveSelling #WhatnotCommunity #SellerTips #ResellLife #SmallBusinessOwner​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there guys. I hope everybody is doing really, really well. I'm going to get this episode actually out pretty fast because I'm watching a new series on Amazon Prime and it's called Steel S T E A L. Anyways, I'm sucked in and just letting you know if you guys want to go check that out. But I started working on this episode actually when I was at the doctor's office today. I just hopped on whatnot for a bit and I was like, oh my gosh, what happened? So I guess I'm gonna title this something about window displays because that's what it looks like to me. So um this is what's going on. This actually happened today, and that's why I'm doing an episode on it. So I know my brain works weird, and some of you are like, Where is she going with this? But there is a point. Okay, so just stick with me. I went and did a little bit of research, all because of a kid's book that we have. We have this kid's book, and it's all about the Macy's Day parade. It's like a kid's um picture book. Anyways, here's the facts in 1984, 150 years ago, this guy, Macy, um, he put on the very, very first holiday window display uh in his store on four, it's 14th Street, I think it was, in New York City. Okay. And today, this, like if you were to go to New York today, 10,000 people in New York. This is why I have no interest in going to New York. Sorry, New York. Um, 10,000 people per hour. Get this, guys. 10,000 people per hour walk past the Macy window on 34th Street. Um, it was on 14th Street, it moved over to 34th. There we go. Okay, so they don't go into the store, but they're literally just passing by so that they can look at the window display. And the whole book, I wish I could find out the name, but guys, we have like thousands of books in there. Anyways, the book is all about the Macy's Day Parade. It's this really cute book. Uh, you could Google and look it up. I don't know what the name is. Anyways, Macy spends a full year building out six different windows that they have on 34th Street, 200 people, um, artists, animators, carpenters, electricians, you name it, specialist in whatever area, and they have done this for 150 years. And you're like, what the hell is she talking about? Stick with me, stick with me. The thing is that when I saw what I saw today, it reminded me of this kid's book, and it reminded me of Macy's window displays. So this is literally, I mean, I know we are for 150 years into this, and now we are doing shopping on whatnot, right? But it's the same idea, it's the same concept. I mean, no, nobody starts new. There's a there's a saying in the Bible, nothing new under the sun, right? This is the exact same thing that we're having happen today, okay? They figured out that what happens is people look at the window and they determine by looking at it whether they want to go in or not. Think of it as like dating, right? Do you want to go out with that guy? They have like these dating things where you go like really fast. I don't know how fast it is, what like five minutes, and you get to decide what whether you want to stick with that guy or move to the next seat or whatever. That's because we as human beings, we make decisions very quickly. Do you want to go down that dark alley or hey, do you want to go get a corn dog at that, you know, display counter over there? You know, you get your choices and whatnot just handed you guys your own very own shop window displays. And so I don't know what they're calling them. I I don't know. I didn't look that up and find it. I didn't see it anywhere that there was news about this, but that's what I'm gonna call them. I'm gonna call them window displays because um I think, and and you know, it's always I have this like little part in the back of my mind that's wondering what the executives at whatnot are actually doing over there because I'm like, you're doing this, but you're not giving us the day of the week. I mean, how hard would it just be for you to put Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? I mean, come on, we're all asking for that. It's not hard, but then they gave us this. So who knows what they're thinking? Things that make you go, hmm, like Arsenio Hall used to say. Anyways, they realize I think this is what happened. The people over at Whatnot sat around a big table and they were like, How do people come into stores? And then somebody said, Oh, I know they look at the window displays, duh. And so then they were like, Well, let's come up with like a little sneak peek into the people's show. So, what's happening now? If you're listening to this without going on to whatnot, just stop listening to this for a second, go over to whatnot, watch your feed, go through it. Because when you're scrolling through your feed, um now you get like this little thing on the bottom, like a little rectangular box, right? Before you didn't know what was in the show until you clicked on it and you went in. And then that's bad because then your algorithm, if you only stay for a couple seconds, doesn't give you good more people in, right? Because your whole goal is to make that algorithm happy, right? And get people to not only just come into your room and scroll in and out, but to stay, and you want them to be there. So if you fix your window display, like Macy's fixed their window display, then I think things will be better, okay? I think whatnot, and I don't know, guys. This is just me guessing. I think that's why they did it, right? So when you're scrolling and um you see the feed is live, you can see now exactly like this little bit down at the bottom, and it's showing what's selling right now. It's telling you the item, the price, and even the countdown, and if it just sold, actually, too, if something just sold. Um, I should do it while I'm on the phone with you, but I'm gonna keep reading this and then maybe we'll do that at the end. Um, so it's like a little rectangle and it's on the bottom of it. And I think we're gonna call that the window display. Um, so, anyways, think about this. You're scrolling through the feed and you see a 1940s hand embroidered linen starting at a dollar, or you see, you know, a Japanese planter um for five bucks or whatever, and you see the clock ticking eight seconds, whatever. Well, if it takes you to something and your eye is drawn to whatever said item is, right? Say you're looking for certain kind of jeans and that brand popped up, right? Or that price, you're like, what the hell? They're selling that for that price. You know, you're kind of like, oh, oh my gosh. I actually today pulled over because there were these guys, their tire blew out right before me. And so I pulled over to the side of the road to see if they needed help or whatever. Um, but the point is it was something that caught my eye. I mean, I saw this huge chunk of tire in the road, and I was like, okay, if I keep going up here a little bit, somebody's gonna be on the side of the road. It's kind of just like the little dangling the carrot guys that we talked about in the past, right? You're letting people see what you got. Well, I did a consult the other day, and I'm not telling you who it is, but she had like nothing listed, hardly anything listed. She just had numbers and then the item. If you're listening to this, I love you. Yeah, sorry. Um, but she just had the number and then one picture, not even hardly any pictures. And I told her she she needs to put an actual description there. Well, this was literally last night and now today, or it was yesterday afternoon, last night, and literally today this happened. And I was like, ding ding ding. Obviously, you guys need to up your game because now this is your window dressing, they're gonna see it, they're gonna see if you have advertised it right. You can't just put a 21 and not have a picture, not have a description or whatever, because now people are seeing what you have. It's basically whatnot forcing you guys to do your job, basically. So, anyways, I went and looked this up back on March 3rd. Whatnot also updated the pre-bid feature, and so pre-bids are when buyers go in and they can click on it and bid on an item before you go live, right? And and I love pre-bids. Who doesn't love pre-bids? Um, as a buyer, you feel like you're in the game, and as the seller, you feel like, hey, somebody cares and and they want to buy it, so it's it's a win-win for everybody. Um, but here's the thing buyers can now track all of their pre-bids in one place under the activity tab. So you can look and see if you're winning, you're outbid, or you're expired, which is kind of like going to the horse races, right? You get to kind of just watch how things are going. And that means now that we get to see that, we're more likely. Well, as a I'm a buyer too, guys. Um, as a buyer, you're more likely to go in if somebody outbids you, and you kind of got to see, okay, wait, it's only $2 they bid me out. Um, I'm willing to go up to X price, you know, and you can think about it more. So that is a new thing as well as what they did. Um, I just threw these notes up together really quick, guys. Um, and so as a seller, you can filter your live shop by your pre-bids. So you can choose, you know, which items are lined up before you even run them. You can go, oh, okay, look, you know. So instead of guessing what to sell next, you get to kind of determine who's most excited. I mean, what items have the most excitement. Okay. So, like, I just did a raid train with Malia. If you guys don't know Malia, just type it in, she'll pop up. Um, with Malia. And the raid train was that we had to run a banger for a dollar at the end. Well, I think it was in the end, maybe it was anywhere, but you had to run it for a dollar. Well, there was a bunch of people who pre-bid on stuff, and it this is in like the vintage category, guys. So some of you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but there's hens on nest and fairy lamps and stuff like that. And some of them, the bidding just was insane. Some things went for like over 250 bucks. I mean, and for that item, that's a pretty good deal. And the bids just kept going up. Well, now, as a seller, you get to see that. So you can go, oh my gosh, you know, there's seven bids on this. I'm running this sucker, you know, or you can see the highest dollar amount and go, oh my gosh, this is $400 now. I guess what I'm running first, you know, and then as if you run those big ones, this is my guess. I think if you run those big ones and the algorithm sees that you're selling the high dollar items, it's obviously going to want to send more people in your room so that what you can sell more items so that the whatnot monster can get more of your money. You know how this works. Listen to some other episodes if you're if if you're clueless about what I'm saying. Um, so, anyways, it's a win-win. I really am pre impressed with that. Once again, whatnot. Why the hell can you not just put what day of the week it is? I'm gonna hammer this because I really feel like this is just it helps, it would help us all as sellers and buyers to keep up. I mean, today I was like, okay, wait, my shows are coming. Somebody said a date, and I'm like, I don't know. And so I had to go look at my whatnot list of all my upcoming shows. And then it was like, can I can I make another second doctor's appointment on so-and-so day on the 25th or whatever day it was? Let me go look if I have a show that day. What day is that? And I'm having to go back and forth, anyways. I regress. Um, anyways, uh, whatnot data says that if people pre-bid on things, they're seven more likely, seven times more likely uh to get the total sales. So if you're not preloading your inventory, right? Because a lot of people are like, eh, I don't want to preload my inventory. Well, this is trying to get you guys to do that. And I know there's some heavy hitters out there in the world, and they're like, it takes too much time. We don't want to do it. Okay, fine, feel that way. Maybe you have your golden wings, you be you. I just think, and I've said this so many times, but like it's like going into the TJ Maxx store and only seeing the baby bib section. I mean, who the hell would do that? Nobody would do that. All human beings want to see more. Nobody goes, don't show me what that guy looks like, just show me his right elbow. I'll marry him based on that. I mean, come on, guys. I think preloading is a really, really good thing. I will say that I have had as many as 545 preloads before, and I was very proud of myself. But when you have big shows and you sell lots of stuff, it is hard. It takes time, it takes energy, whatever. But what we're learning from all of the stats and all of the reviews is if you have it loaded, if people pre-bid on it, then you have a really good chance of selling it. And not only that, seven times more in total sales than you would have had you not done that. That's a pretty good number, guys. That's what not data. Seven times more likely to sell your X item if it's listed and people pre-bid on it than if you don't show them anything. I actually went into a show the other day and it just drove me nuts. The person was going slow, talking slow, showing slow. And nobody has time for that, guys. I'm just saying, you gotta go faster, you gotta show the item. And if you take a bunch of pictures, people get to see it in advance. I regress again. Okay, so there's that. Um, so two shipping things you need to know about. The shipment scanner has been around for a while. You know how you guys got it. I don't even know how many months. I'm gonna guess six months or something. I didn't look this up, but it's like where you take your phone and you scan it, maybe four months, maybe four to seven months, seven months, somewhere in there. Anyways, um, when you confirm you're scanning it, I do it here in the house as we're doing a package. So let's say we're doing Kimberly's package, we get all the items together, we wrap it up, we do it all, and then before that item goes to the front door, I scan it. That's just how we do it. We scan it at before it goes to the door. And then that way we know when it goes from the door to the car, all those items over there have been scanned. My uh assistant Sarah, my kid, we all know that it doesn't go to the door unless it's been scanned. Um, but, anyways, um, so when you confirm your drop off using the scanner, um, that helps you guys keep up and keep track of everything, right? So there was a ton of support tickets before this happened, and people were saying that they were, I think there's just a lot of riff-raff and dishonest people and human beings, which makes me really sad, but it's true. Anyways, what they were doing is saying that they were dropping off the item, but they weren't really dropping off the item. Jerks, anyways, so now that they've fixed this, um, it's it's dropped by 60%, according to whatnot. And that includes a 71% reduction in those little um quote, my order hasn't shipped claims because people kept saying, I'm looking at tracking and it hasn't come, it hasn't come. Where is it? So that has helped people a ton. Um, and there's no reason that you guys shouldn't be doing it. Everybody should be scanning it with your phone. And honestly, as a seller, it helps you out be able to keep up with what you've got packed and what you still need to do, you know, like your orders that are still sitting on the computer and what's at the door and ready to go, especially if you're sending out a lot like I do sometimes. It gets crazy to try to keep up with all the boxes and the packages and the envelopes and the giveaway. It's a lot. So that will help you if you have a system like that. You don't scan it till it goes to this area of your apartment or whatever, and you're you're keeping up with it. Um, the second new thing that you guys are so I'm just bringing this up because this was new things and things you should be thinking about that I haven't actually talked about before. So if you're shipping anything over $500, whatnot has a new thing and it is um an automatic signature thing at the delivery. Like your post guy will be there and they're gonna say you have to sign this. And the reason they're doing that is because buyers are saying XYZ, whatever, didn't get delivered to them. So I think that whatnot's being pretty smart with this to protect us. Now, if whatnot could just talk to the post office and let me know why the hen on the nest that I sent to one of my customers that I spent forever wrapping, I'm telling you guys, I use plastic, I use paper, I use bubble wrap, I use peanuts. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how if I could put eight fragile stickers on this thing and pack the hell out of it, that it still got broken. My mind is blown. The last month that I have been on this app, more stuff has been broken than ever before and that I've ever sent. And yes, I'm sending more stuff than I have, but I I pack the hell out of it. In fact, I had a how to pack a box show just the other day, guys. I'm a packing ninja. I I I mean, I'm serious. My mind is blown on, and she even said she said it was packed so good, I can't figure out how it got broken. And I'm like, what the hell is UPS doing with my package? I almost want to like put some like little camera in there to see and and test it, you know. Let's call Mark Rober or whatever that guy is that used to work for NASA that does all those YouTube whatever shows. And let's ask him, let's say, is UPS throwing my box around? I mean, United States, not UPS, USPS, because I'm baffled about this, guys. I truly, she just sent me this like I don't know, an hour ago, and I was like baffled beyond belief. Anyways, okay, so basically what's happening is whatnot is stepping up to make sure that things are done. They're looking at the window treatment thing, they're doing this scanning thing. Now they're making this automatic signature if your item is over 500 bucks, which totally makes sense because they were covering those fees, right? Um, so you don't have to do anything, but you're going to get a $4.15 fee that's going to be added to that. That's it. It's just extra protection. It's for you, it's for the buyer, it's just the way it is. Buyer, seller, everybody should be happy about this because it's more checks and balances. I say high five, whatnot on this. Um, buyers can opt out of it, I guess, at some point. Um, but if they do, they're giving up their right for the refund. So if it doesn't get to them, which would be stupid as hell if anybody did that, um, they would not get their refund. So don't anybody do that. That's just dumb. I mean, side note here, my mom was supposed to go on this nine-day cruise, nine or 10-day cruise. Her and her friends, they're all together, they're getting ready to leave from Florida. It was a big deal. Her friend falls. She falls down these stairs, she breaks like her knee or something. She gets a bloody nose, her face is messed up, she's all bruised. She's in her 70s or 80s. Anyways, long story short, she ended up having to have a surgery and physical therapy, and they never got any of their money back because they didn't get insurance. Guys, this is insurance. Don't be stupid. My friend, who's 68, ate lunch with me the other day, and she was like, Well, that was dumb. Of course, when you're this old, you should always have insurance. And so I think it's really good that that this $4.15, if you made over $500, I think it makes sense, guys. Um, so I'm sure they sat down and talked to USPS about it. Now let's just talk about all how all of our stuff is getting broken, anyways. Okay, whatnot is also adding new subcategories. I'm giving you all the new stuff. This is all happened in one week, so this is kind of Exciting. I keep saying, do we have a skateboard section? And how many episodes have I said this? Eventually we will. We will have a skateboard section. Anyways, the more specific your category, the more likely you're going to be with the right people at the right time. So, like there's an artist one, go to the artist section. If you're activeware, go to the activewear, whatever. So, what they've done is they've made new categories because there's so much activity on here. They they needed to. So here's a few of here's the list of what I got. And it's kind of crazy. Number one, men's activewear, which honestly, I swear, never seen men's active wear. That's good. Women's swimwear. I've seen lots of women's swimwear shows. Now they've got their whole category. You can tell your people next time you're at the bar what do you do for a living? Oh, I sell women's, you know, swimwear. Whatever. You get the idea. Loungefly. Well, loungefly is humongous. Humongous, humongous. And um actually, I just saw gossip. I'll I'll do a gossip episode. That there was this girl on here, I cannot remember her name. She drove me nuts. I didn't like the way she spoke, but she got kicked off of whatnot, I found out. Um, but she used to sell lounge fly. Um, anyways, Western and Southwestern jewelry, which, hello, if they're gonna do that, are they gonna make a mid-century modern jewelry? Because I am all about that. I don't know, but they're basically taking categories and they're dividing it up. Okay, here's a new one: slime and squishy toys. Wow. Okay, this one is huge. I have mentioned this before. I went to my H E B, I went to my Ace Hardware, my KidWorks, and there's signs on our doors here in KD, Texas that literally say we are sold out of these needo toys. It's N-E-E-D-O-H, and they're just like squishy toys. Well, guess what happened here on Whatnot? It grew a hundred and ninety times in total sales on the platform. So everybody and their dogs wants these. And according to the manager at HEB, it's all because of TikTok. TikTok has some kind of, you know, whatever, and people just go crazy for whatever these items are. In fact, the girl at Sephora told me the same thing happens with makeup at Sephora. If something like goes viral on TikTok, they sell out of it and they can't keep it anymore. So interesting. Okay, next thing, I want to go watch my show. Okay, one more thing. This is it. You guys have probably already heard about it, but I actually haven't mentioned it here. So for the first time ever, Whatnot is having what they're calling, quote, a summit, no, seller's summit. And it's the first one, it's been around for seven years, Whatnot has. Um, and so they haven't done this before, which honestly, I quite honestly think they should have done that, right? Um, but it is April 25th, it's in Austin, Texas. It's um, you know, they're gonna have sessions. I'm guessing it's like a hotel. There's gonna be products, marketing team, resellers sharing what they like, what they don't like. It's, I mean, you know, I it's not anything I want to go to, guys. I'm in Texas. Austin's weird, it's beautiful. I used to live there. I used to work at the Oasis as a waitress. We used to hang out on Lake Travis. It's beautiful, right? I used to be a nanny back in the day there. Um, yes, I met Willie Nelson. Whole stories. Anyways, um, his daughter was at the same school that the kids I girls I nanny for were at. Crazy. Here I go again. Okay, but, anyways, I don't know what it's gonna be like. I'm not going. I know there was some kind of wait list, and everybody's like, Do you got tickets? Do you got tickets? I'm gonna let them all just play it out, have fun, see how it goes. I'm sure there will be a lot of social media, I'm sure there will be people taking pictures and videos. Whatnot will probably talk about it, blah, blah, blah. But that is something that's kind of cool that's happening that I haven't mentioned. Um, anyways, so whatnot is working. I think that they are growing. And I have said this in previous episodes. You guys can quote me. I even said how many million billion dollars they're gonna be getting, you know. Like I've I've made predictions, but it's happening. You know, if if you build it, they will come like Field of Dreams movie. And guys, if you're a youngster and you've never seen the movie, go rent the movie, Field of Dreams. If you're an older person, fist bump on that one, anyways. So whatnot's building tools, they're helping buyers, they're helping sellers, they're trying to get past things. They want you guys to do your listings right and keep up with your inventory. They want you to load it, they want it to look pretty, they want you to take your pictures, they want you to be in the right category, which I call your lane. They always want you in your own lane so that the right people will find you. I know that I've been in like 15 different lanes and I, you know, kicking myself for that, but hey, it is what it is. I've learned what I don't want and what I do want. It's been beneficial. I can help you guys understand things differently than I would have been able to if I had only come on here and sold one thing the whole time. So, but find your window, find your you know, information, load up your stuff, try to get buyers in there, um, and all of that. Okay, so there you go. Um, I made an episode under 30 minutes. Hi five carry. Whoop whoop. All right, anyways, if this helps you, go give me a five-star rating and give me a review on Apple Podcast. I I know other people listen in other places. Thousands of people, thousands and thousands of you are listening to me. I cannot tell you how grateful and thankful I am to you guys. And I love the fan mail, I love the messages, I'm doing way more consultations than I used to, and I love it. I love you guys. I mean, really fist bumps, high fives, all around. Anyways, um, also you can call me. My number is 832-607-1526. You can text me and we can figure out a time to book a consult. This week is really crazy personally for me. Um, I just did a consult yesterday, and I told her I can't get you on the schedule till Saturday. Um, but one of the main reasons, guys, and before I leave, I'm gonna say this too the 18th is zero commission day, where you're still gonna have to pay the other fees, but you get 8% off, okay? And I have a show. It is free shipping, $1 starts, and I mean 100% free shipping, $1 starts, and I'm gonna do some giveaways. Still trying to figure it all out. Got tons of inventory, it's all over that regular room, it's in my hallway, it's in my kitchen. It's a hot mess. I gotta get it together. But thank God my assistant Sarah is coming over on Wednesday and we will work on it. I'm actually even considering canceling my Thursday show because I was like, why would I sell this stuff to you guys when I could give you free shipping on it? You know, I like to help you guys out, you know, maybe I don't know. So I'm gonna think about that. Um, anyways, guys, go take care of that stuff. Also, if you wanted a consult before I forget, it's only $20 for 30 minutes. That is a steal of a deal. I wish I could interview all the 50 plus people that I have done consults with and they could tell you how they have benefited and how it's helped them. But take my word on it, I'm not gonna do that. But maybe I will have some people in the future in interviews to do that. Anyways, that being said, I'm gonna go watch my series now. I hope that helped you out and I hope you guys are excited about all this stuff. I am very excited about it. I every time whatnot does it, it's kind of like a new ice cream shop opening up around the corner from me. I live in Katy, Texas. It's growing huge, and we constantly are like, oh, they're building just today. I was like, they're building another Target, and ooh, there's a new ice cream shop. And I feel like that's what's happening on Whatnot. So, you guys, if you're new, get excited. There's good things coming. It is growing, it's building, it's fun, there's lots of opportunities. I think it's good. And maybe 150 years from now, if Jesus doesn't come back, we'll all be talking about this. I won't, we'll all be dead. But I'm just saying this is gonna be part of history, just like Macy back in, you know, uh seven, no, 1874, when he made these windows and realized that people spend, you know, they see the windows and they want to come in and they're excited. And that's the same thing here. So I think it's all all this is very, very good, and um, I think you should all be excited. That being said, hope you guys are having a great day, and we will talk to you later. Have fun buying and selling on whatnot.