Seller HUB & More - Part 1 Episode 103

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hey there guys. I hope everybody is doing really well. I am actually coming to you with an episode that I think I probably should have done forever ago. But it's everything you need to know about the cellar hub. And the reason I am doing this is because I do consults all the time with people, but we run out of time after an hour, hour and a half. And I want them to still get information. Of course, the podcast is here for them. But uh going through the cellar hub and understanding all those parts is something that I think I'm just gonna give this episode to my clients. And guys, if you want to be one of my clients, I do a consultation service. I charge only $20 per 30 minutes because I feel like that's some way for me to give back. Yes, I know that there's people who charge tons of money for tons of services, but I want to treat others as I would want to be treated, and you're here to make money. And so I'm not going to charge outrageous prices like that. I never will. I think I will always stay with this price. Um, so $40 for an hour gets you, you know, a consultation with me, me looking at your shop, me telling you what I suggest, best practices, answering questions, shipping, uh, you know, to display to all of it. And um, I'll even come to your show and you know, uh help you out and you know, mod for you if you want, all kinds of things. So if you're interested in that, you guys can um message me at 832-607-1526. I usually do consultations when it's not summer, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Um, that's pretty much it. But because it's summer right now, I mean, I did a consult yesterday, so um, which was Monday. So I'm more flexible because it's summer. Okay, that being said, um, we're gonna talk about the seller hub. So what I want you to do is grab your phone and you know, just kind of track through it, or you can get a piece of paper and a pen and write this stuff down. But basically, I want you to open the app, look at the bar along the bottom, and what you're gonna see left to right are five different icons, right? Icons are pictures of what is there. Um, so the first thing is home, and then the next one over is categories. The one in the middle, which is the one we're talking about, is called the seller hub. The one next to that is activity, and the one to the far right is going to be your account. Okay. So what you're gonna do today, what we're talking about today, is the seller hub. And at the top of the screen, once you've clicked into the middle one right there, you'll see two buttons side by side. One's gonna say the first one's gonna say schedule show on the left, and the next one is create a product on the right. Okay. So those two buttons is where your, I guess, I think it's today's task sits. And right underneath that, um, this is what you I really want you to think about and know about it. And I mean, there's a lot here, but um, account health. That's the meat and potatoes here. Your account health is basically your report card. Okay. Plain and simple. That's what you're looking at, your report card. Um, you're also going to have um your today's tasks and your upcoming shows right on that same seller hub, um, but you don't have to tap anything, okay? So you're gonna see three things laid out left to right on when you're in that part that's talking about your account health. That's where we're at now. So you're gonna see your on-time scan rate, your defect free order rate, and your policy standing. Now, I've talked about all of these at other times. This is like, you know, 103 episode or something, I think. Um, but I'm gonna just really lightly touch on these. Um, you're gonna have two more boxes underneath that. One says payouts on the left and then orders on the right. Okay. But real quick, the ons uh I I'm gonna try to keep up with my notes here, but the on time scan rate, obviously, that's when you scan it and then take it to the post office. So don't scan your things on a Friday so that you can take them in on Monday, unless you just need that money from the scan. Because if you've got over a thousand sales, when you scan it, you'll get the money automatically. You can go through PayPal and pay it that way, or you can go through Stripe and send it to your bank that way. Either way, there's gonna be a tiny percentage or a delay, dependent on which one you choose. It could be instantaneously or it could take up to three days if you don't want to give them a percentage. So the the thing is when you scan it, you want to get it to the post office ASAP because that's gonna affect your on-scan rate. You want that to be as close to 100 as possible. 100, 100, excellent is what you're shooting for on these, right? Then you've got your defect free order rate. Now, this can be, you know, hard to do dependent on what category you're in, and really easy in other categories, right? Like if you're selling Pokemon cards, it's a breeze because you don't have to worry about anything getting broken, right? Um, and and most of the time, if you're selling clothes and you've, you know, pointed out any call-outs or whatever, or jewelry or whatever, a purse and you point it out and they are aware of a defect or a call out, when you send it, as long as nothing's getting broken, you don't have to worry about this as much, the the defect free order rate. But what's happened to me a lot lately, and it's it's just really frustrating, um, is I pack really, really, really well, guys. I take huge amounts of pride in my stuff. A lady the other day said it took her 30 minutes to get out all the stuff out. Just this morning, I got a text from a lady that a cat that I sent her was broken, which I'm heartbroken. First of all, I love these cats. They're part of my collection. I wrapped them up like five to seven times, but I didn't put it in another box. And so somehow they must have thrown this. I don't know if they're playing kickball with these boxes or what, but it was amazing because I put it in a nest of paper. I've I've wrapped it up seven times. It's got saran wrap, it's got bubble wrap, it's got paper, and multiple times. She said she couldn't believe that it was broken. Um, but it was a cat and it was hollow, and I couldn't stuff it to make it, you know, even stronger. So you gotta start doing boxes inside of boxes, guys, because these UPS people are, you know, cramming it. And you never want your box to shake. So if I should, what I should have done is take that cat, wrap the hell out of it, put it in a box, then put padding around that box inside of another box and then wrapped it up. But you guys really, really, really gotta work on packing these boxes because this is affecting your report card, your you know, account standing. So work on your defect free rate and your on-time scan rate so you get those as close to 100 as possible. And um, anyways, and then obviously your percentages that's going to affect that. What's really frustrating to me, and I wish it was there, is your five-point rating and all the reviews that you're getting. I could have five-point ratings and it'd be great. They don't take that into accountability if you forget to do a Gibby and your Gibby goblins report you or something like that. If you do something like I tried to give money away, none of that matters. And I really think it should because I think your ratings reflect who you are, your reviews, you know, review ratings, like you know, do you have a three and a point eight star, or do you have a 4.8, or do you have a 5.0? I've never gone below a 5.0 because I work my butt off to keep these customer relations and help people. Um, and I I try to do a really good job and I pride myself on that as well. So I wish that somehow that rating could come into your percentage and also show, but it doesn't. Okay, so now we're at payout shows. Uh, that that part it shows you what's available right now. It's gonna tell you, okay, you know, you have $264 or you have $1,800 or whatever. That's the amount of money that's processing, and that will change as you scan your orders. So you can do like half of your boxes, take them to the post office, and some of the money will still be in there, or you can do a manifest and print up all of them at the same time. I personally don't, I don't suggest for people to do that, and I don't do that. I know it's a pain in the butt, but unless you're selling something that's pretty much the same thing, like let's say I sold all paperback books, right? And I sold five paperback books to the average of all my people, and they were all going in flat rate boxes, and I I knew then sure, run all those, print them all out, and then do it. No big deal if it's all the same type of thing. You know, you have a t-shirt show or whatever, no problem. For me, I sell lots of different size items, lots of different weight items, everything from a pair of earrings to some giant vase or something. And because of that, I can't guarantee those, you know, that level. If you're in that category and you're selling belts or, you know, you're selling magazines or something that's the same size all the time and you know it's gonna fit in the box, then you can easily print them all up. I personally don't. I check each one and go through it. So sometimes I might print them all and take some of them to the post office and then come back, work on the rest of them, and do that. But the point of this is it is going to show how much money, and it'll either go to PayPal or Stripe when you set up your account. And the thing about that is I personally think that you should um try to make sure all of those boxes are out. And I know there's people who have bad practices and they're like, oh, I just need the cash before they actually send it out. I don't do that. I put it by my front door or in my car and it's headed to the post office like that. And that's gonna keep that rating and your on-time um scanning, your on-time scanning rate good. So I totally think that that's what you should do. If you're not one of those people and you're having to show like on a Thursday or Friday and you're not sending it out till Monday, obviously the weekend doesn't, I mean, Sunday doesn't count, Saturday does, but you know, it's gonna take your ratings down. So don't do that. Okay. Um, so the percentages only tell you part of a story, right? The circle gives you a number, but it's not gonna tell you what caused the number. And that's what we're working on right now. So here's what you got to do for that. Okay, so there's a little arrow to the right side of the words that say account health. It's on the far right hand side. Click on that arrow, and that's gonna take you to your full account health page, okay? You're gonna check directly on whichever one, your on-time scan rate or the defect order rate. They're both gonna open up to a full page with your three-month history chart. Okay. So either one you click on, it's basically the same page. You're gonna scroll or it'll automatically put you there, right? Um, pass the chart on the bottom. Um, and it there on the button, there's a button that says view orders. Okay. So you're gonna order, open up your orders with defects. You're gonna have to scroll through and look for them and see. So if somebody messages you and says, like this happened to me today, this cat, she says it got broken. I sent a picture into whatnot. She claimed it. Now, do I wish I could have dealt with this and paid her so that my rating wouldn't look good? Yes. But pretty soon, what is it? It's coming up where the policy is changing and we're all going to be taking care of our own stuff. Whatnot's not doing it anymore. So this is only for a short period of time. But um, I would have, I would have given her money back not to have my rating messed up, even though it wasn't my fault. It was USPS and I could deal with that. We'll keep going. Okay, so each entry that you see is gonna break down five different things. It's gonna have your order number. That's the specific transaction for each item, right? And then there's the uh sales channel tells you where it was sold, like what show you, you know, what where it was. And then your show, meaning did it happen during a live show? Was it a buy it now? It's just gonna tell you how it sold. Your flaw type is the actual reason that it counts up against you. Um, examples could be things like the order was not shipped, um, an item was missing um from my shipment, or the item is damaged in transit. Those are some of the ones that you can see. I don't know what all of them are. Then um the product name is gonna be there, which you labeled it in, and the show title, you know, if it was books, your book show or your pottery show, whatever it was. Okay. So you know exactly what item it was and where it was. I wish that there was a picture. It I feel like when you're selling tons and tons of stuff, it's hard to keep up. So if I have a cat show, like I sold this and it says a broken cat, I don't get to see the picture. So I would suggest whatnot goes a little further and puts the actual photo there. And then that way I could wrap my head around it a little bit better. But when I sell, you know, 78 cats and it's one, I have no idea what it is. You know, I'd have to go back. I guess the way to do that would be you go back onto your page of your sold items and you do the search engine or you find that person and then you view the receipt. You could go through all that, but I'm just saying, whatnot, it would be really nice if we could see the picture there. I don't want to spend all that time. Um, so it's not gonna give you the full story of even what the buyer said, which is also what I would like to see. I'd like to see a picture of it and what the buyer said. Oh, well, she didn't pack it well, or there were, you know, whatever. Because most of the time when these people message me, they're like, I can't believe it's broken. It was packed so well, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it. And I really think it's on these breakables, especially the ones that are hollow that you can't stuff because there is no place to stuff it. I think I'm oh, I'm just gonna have to make it a standing policy that I put a box inside of a box. It bites, it's more money, it's more time, it's more effort, but you know, that's just where it is. Um, okay. Um, it doesn't say what they bought, and it doesn't even say how much they got run refunded. And I would like to know all of that. I would like a picture, I would like to know what the buyer said, and I would like to know how much they're getting refunded. I just personally would like that to be very transparent. Do I think whatnot will ever do that? No, I don't. I yeah, I don't think they're ever gonna do that, but who knows? Okay, so Whatnot's page says um their explanation for this page says uh basically it's rare for any seller to be doing real volume to sit at 100% because they cover buyers automatically with their buyer protection policy whenever an issue qualifies. So that's what they've been doing, and they're losing money that way, obviously. They're covering it. So something gets broken like that cat, boom, they see a picture, boom, that lady's getting her money. As a buyer, that's been great because I've been able to get, you know, compensated for what I paid if something's broke. I think that's the way you should do it. But whatnot's been losing all that money, and whatnot only thinks about money, money, money and how they can get more money, money, money. And so that is where they're at that are going to now put that burden on you. So right now it's been pretty great for us whatnot sellers. For the last two and a half years, if something gets broken by USPS, somebody complains about it. Yeah, I might take a ding to my rating, but I'm not having to dish out cash often. Um, if somebody did respond to me first, I a lot of the time have paid money. Um, just recently, I mean, I guess it was a couple months ago, actually, I gave a girl $40 for a lamp that my kid packed, and he was like, it'll be okay, it'll be okay. I knew I shouldn't have trusted him. I I was we had tons of orders, and I should have done it myself, and I should have put a box inside of a box, but it got broken. I gave her her 40 bucks back, boom, and she's a good client, she'll come back. It is what it is, but we're going to you're going to have to be doing that. I think it's by it's either August or September. Sorry guys, I don't have that in front of me. It's in a really pretty previous episode. Anyways, okay, so these numbers can shift after the fact too. And let me point this out one of my um one of my clients, customers who's a regular, she's in the hospital for back surgery and she had complications and whatever. So her husband's been bringing her boxes from whatnot up there and she's unwrapping them or whatever, and um, they found a broken duck in it. Well, that show that I sold that duck to her or whatever, that was like a month, a month and a half ago. So while your rating's good and you think, oh, da-da-da-da, it it can come through later. I don't even know if they're, I should probably look this up. You guys could go look it up. I don't know if there's a deadline on when they can report it, but it was like a month and a half ago, and she's just now reporting the duck, I think. And so that rating can go up and down, and it could be days, it could be weeks, it could be, you know, whatever. Um, but they go back, they mark it as a defect on the day it was originally placed. Well, that thing doesn't change except like every three months, I think. You know what I mean? So the charts are gonna go up and down. I feel terrible if it goes below 99. It's happened a couple times, but it'll do point, like 99.2, 99.3, whatever. I freak out if it goes under 99. I take it very seriously. I don't like that. But that's me. I'm a type A. I know that there's people who have even lower than that. But obviously, the more volume you're doing, the more chance you have of something getting broken or some defect or missing something. You're human. So while I am telling you this so that you don't panic and freak out if you're not at 100 all the time because the chart moves and you know, those old mistakes are catching up or whatever. The fact is, this does matter. This, you know, report card, it does matter. So keep it in check. It's not the end of the world if you're at a 99.8, it's not the end of the world if you're an 80s, you know, 9.7 or something like that. But you can't go real low. I mean, and I think eventually they're gonna just anybody who goes super low and has a regular rating, they're just gonna end up. I don't know. I don't know. It's gonna be bad. Okay, so um, where am I? Okay, after you open that, we're on the um speech bubble. Okay, open your app to the top speech bubble icon next to the search bar. That's your inbox, okay. Um, inside there, you're gonna look up the customer support tab, and those are separate from your regular messages, and that's where all the buyers' actual requests sit, the details and all. Okay, so think about this before I put this in my notes. Before something happens, I have an insert that I put in all my packages. It says woo-hoo, happy mail or something, and it flips over and it has a picture of me. It has a picture of my logo, which is just Carrie Kennedy, so that they'll remember me and have that name recognition. I got it through VistaPrint by using Canva, uh, is how I did it. I used Canva to make it and VistaPrint to print it. I think I got like 500 of those cards, maybe a thousand, and I put them with candy in in most packages. If it's a book, I can't put because it's media mail doesn't allow candy. Um, but I put the candy in there and it says, hey, please be careful opening this. You know, uh, if it's really breakable, I'll say, you know, open it over a bed. And you're hoping that people have integrity and that they don't break it on their own and then blame you for it and make you pay for it. But life happens. Um, but I do um think you guys should always put some kind of insert there and also um, you know, tell them if there's ever a problem or a situation or issue to reach out to you directly first instead of whatnot. And then that's going to be preventative so that you don't have any of these issues coming up, you know? Um, okay, so here's the deal. Um, and I I wrote this as a as a note. Um, the math on it. So if there's a small thing that you sell for a dollar, three dollars, five dollars, ten dollars, whatever, sometimes it's smarter just to handle it yourself. And that's what I've been saying all along. Pretty soon you're gonna have to do it yourself. Like I think it's September 1st or something. But um, I send them a little something. Um, you know, next time they get their package, like an extra candy or an extra like sticker or giveaway or something. And I say, Thanks again so much for reaching out to me. I'm so sorry that happened. You know, I put a little note and I pay them either Venmo or pay. PayPal, or I do that. And dependent on the situation or what happened. Sometimes I'll even give them a credit to my show. Um, one lady didn't get a whole box. This is the first time it's ever happened in two and a half years of me being on here. She didn't get her box. And I was like, what the hell happened? All I keep thinking is yesterday I went to my post office. I was going, and some lady came up to me in her car and she's like, Here, this is yours. It came to my house. And I thought, hmm, maybe that's what happened to that lady's box. Maybe it got delivered to a neighbor and they just kept it. I have no idea where her box went, but I offered her $30 of credit for the fact that she didn't get it and whatnot refunded her all of it. So pretty soon, if she doesn't get a box, and that was a huge box of, I don't know, she had seven, eight things in there, whatever, I would be having to shell out 150 bucks because her box didn't get there. I have no way to prove that her neighbor had it, or you know, I have nothing to do except to pay for it. And so it's it's a little scary, honestly. I'm gonna tell you, it's it's a little scary when you're going to be footing the bill. But if it is something small right now and you're in that situation, I would definitely pay, you know, up to 10, 20. I paid 40 bucks so that my rating wouldn't go down and that my customer would be happy. Um, but you have to, you have to, you know, balance that for your own self, your own finances. If is it worth it for you? I personally think a lot of the time it is worth it. Now, if it was 150 bucks, would I have done it? Probably not. 40 is different than 150. So I don't know. And I know when it comes to things like coins and purses and stuff, they have to be insured. So I think that makes me feel a little bit better too, that they're insured before they go. Okay, um, the seller provided support. So I've talked about this before. I might have it in my notes here. Oh, it's September 1st. Okay, the SP SPS. They're calling it seller provided support. They spun it like, oh yay, you you get to deal with it. But right now, only some sellers have it. Mostly newer ones are already in it. If you're not, um, when a buyer has a problem, whatnot's own support team is the one who handles it, right? They're the ones making the call. But as of September 1st, every single US seller gets moved into that SPS. And whether you've dealt with it before or not, that's how it's gonna happen. Um, so okay, here's how it works. And here's exactly how to find it. So you open the whatnot app, you tap on that speech bubble icon next to the search bar. Okay, that's your inbox. Okay, the search bubble is your inbox. Inside there, you look for a tab. It's called customer support. So separate it's separated from your regular messages, and that's where a buyer request lands at a task. Wait, how do I phrase this? It lands as a task the moment they report a problem. So on top of that, you'll get an email and they'll say, Okay, you have this problem. So it would come to me and it would say, Um, this is starting September 1st. It'll say, You have a task, and you click on it and it'll say, This seller is wanting to refund for whatever. And um, it's gonna want you to refund, replace, or explain why it's not covered. Um, and if you miss that two-day window, guys, they're gonna go in and they're gonna refund it. They don't have time to go through each thing and to think about your feelings or what you stated or how they're just gonna give them the money. So this is going to be a big deal. And keeping up a premiere shop status means that you have to keep X uh at great or excellent report, and you're gonna have to keep up with 95% of request within that two-day window. Otherwise, you're losing your wings, which is your premier shop yellow wings on the side. Um, so there's also gonna be a support rating sitting right outside of your public profile. And I actually think this is a terrific, wonderful, amazing idea, not only as me as a buyer, but for sellers. Because if you are a hardworking seller like me, I want my ratings of how well I'm taking care of my clients and how fast I'm, you know, responding to them because I do try my best. And I think that's going to help people. Um, that you're going to see that now. It's going to be a support rating, is what they're going to call it. So that's actually a really good thing. Um, okay. So I've said this before, I don't even know how many times it drives me nuts. I always tell my clients do not put non-refundable and you know, whatever, because that goes against whatnot's policy. Nobody um is going to be able to slap its non-refundable or final sale, or you can't return it because whatnot's own policy requires that you, as the seller, are going to honor the buyer protection policy. No matter what you say, no matter how many times you write it, you've never been able to get away with this. I think it's really stupid and it makes you look stupid. I mean, sorry guys, it makes you look stupid and it makes you look incompetent when you're selling something and your person can't complain about it. I mean, if I went to the grocery store and I bought a gallon of milk and I got it home and the date was wrong somehow and it was bad milk, I guarantee you I take that milk back up to H E B or Randall's or Kroger or whatever, and they're gonna give me my money back. That's the way business should be. You can't keep saying, oh, you know, no final sales, you can't return it because that's impossible on the whatnot app. And I actually really appreciate and back this up because that's what integrity is about, that's what honesty is about. That's good. Now, can you guarantee that these people are gonna be honest on the other end? No, honestly, there's bad people in the world, there's bad people who try to take advantage of other people. Unfortunately, it's life. I don't know what to tell you about that. Say a prayer to God, justice will be served in the end. I don't know. But basically, the policy says the buyer policy says, no matter what you sell, if it's a missing item, a wrong item, a damaged item, none of that stuff is covered, whether you announce final sale or not. You are going to have to pay the money. Um, and that's just part of life, guys. Um, whether it's an honest uh, you know, situation or not, you know, you're you're you that you're gonna be stuck with it, or you're gonna have to not do business on whatnot, you know. Somebody messaged me the other day and they're like, Have you checked out vintage? Vented? And I was like, No. And I was like, is it live sales like whatnot? And they're like, No, you have to list it. And I'm like, why would I do that? She's like, We're selling so much stuff on vintage. And I'm like, Yeah, if I wanted to sit here and take pictures of every single thing and not have the customer in interaction and send out one item at a time, then great. But no, I love whatnot because I don't have to do that, you know? So, anyways, okay, so um, somebody who really just had a change of heart can dress up something and say it didn't look like that on the screen, and they can try their luck, okay, with whatnot right now. Um, and with this support protection thing, you know, that they're doing, you're going to be the one handling it. So you're gonna have to go back and review your footage or disagree with them directly. But if you do that, the push it back is if they don't like your answer, they can escalate it to whatnot, and then their whatnot's gonna refund them, and then that's gonna come out of your account because it's gonna affect your ratings, and then they can go on and give you a bad rating. So you really need to be careful, guys, and you really need to treat others as you want to be treated. And even if, and this is I'm not a karma person, you know, I don't buy into that, but I do believe the the word karma, but I do believe what you put into the world, what do you put into your shows, you'll get that back eventually, either with customers or money or ratings or whatever. So you just have to cross your fingers on this and hope for the best, guys. Um, okay, so where am I? Okay, so come September 1st, here's what it really comes down to. You're gonna be hoping and praying. You've got good, trustworthy buyers in your room, people who won't unwrap something themselves, break it and turn around or report it so that you get the money back, right? You got the two days to handle it. Somebody in your family gets sick or um you forget to put it on vacation mode, it's not gonna matter. The clock doesn't stop for your life and what's happening. So you guys are gonna have to be really, really careful about getting that two-day window and taking care of your customers. It's going to be more stressful for some people than others for sure, for sure, depending on what category you sell. But if you miss it and whatnot moves in fast and they refund your buyer, guess where that money's coming from? Not from whatnot anymore. They're gonna pull that money straight out of your account. So you guys really gotta be proactive on this. And I mean, I really think everybody needs to be going in every single day. Maybe you set a clock, a timer. You know, we talk about time management and time blocking. Maybe every morning at eight o'clock, you go on and you check to see if there's anybody filing anything so that you can quickly respond. You know, figure out a time in your life where you know you have to do that. So it's not about a refund anymore, guys. It's two whole days that are sitting there in that window, and you gotta take care of it. Okay, let's talk about shipping charges real quick, too. Um, in September, but this is one I've talked about, right? I've touched on this, but um wait, hold on. It's not in September, it's August 1st. Whatnot is getting rid of the flat rate August 1st. So there's two things coming this flat rate, August 1st, and then the change where you're gonna be customer service September 1st. So August and September are big months for all of us sellers and buyers on whatnot. It's going to be a big change, but they're pulling the flat rate. Um, and so if you've been using flat rate boxes, guys, you that's gonna be gone, right? You know this, I've talked about it in the past. So ground advantage is becoming the default shipping option for most orders because most orders are one to five pounds, right? And so they say that's gonna bring down the cost 20%, and they, you know, make it all shiny and new. Ooh, but you and I both know that that's not true because now you've got to pay for your box, you've got to go to the box store and buy it. And dependent on what you're selling, that's going to take that money right out of it, you know, dependent on what it is. So when they make it all sound nice and shiny, guys, you got to look behind the wizard's screen and find out what the real truth is. And I've talked about that in the past, right? So if you've got a stash of flat rate or priority boxes and you print a ground advantage label on one of them, don't ever do that. Remember, we've talked about this. You can go look at other shipping episodes, but USPS can charge up to $20 for that. And now that's going to come straight out of your whatnot balance. So they have paid for a lot of that in the past and they're not going to. So my suggestion is if you've been stockpiling all these different boxes from the post office, you need to run them through real quick before August 1st. I mean, today you've got like a couple weeks. So, um, anyways, um, and here's the thing a flat rate label has to go officially on a flat rate box. If it says flat rate label, it says right on it's on the right hand side. It'll be right above the weight and it'll it'll have to go flat rate, no exceptions. So USPS scans both the postage and the box. If they don't match, it gets flagged, and sometimes it gets held for postage due when the person goes to pick it up. They're like, nope, we're holding it because they shipped it the wrong way. That sucks. It's happened to me twice in two and a half years. So it's not a big thing. I think it has something to do with just the person who works at the post office having a bad day and just wanting to be a pain in the ass because, like I said, it's happened twice in two and a half years. Um, regular priority mail label works differently. That's your trump card. That's the you know, joker, if you will, because priority mail isn't tied to any specific box at all. So you actually can and absolutely can put a priority label on a flat rate box if you've got it sitting around. And I've had one time somebody, uh once again, it comes down to a regular postal worker because they're humans too. And if they're pissy, they can say, Oh, it's supposed to be a priority box on a prior. That's happened one time to me in two and a half years. But you should be able to do it. Um, you should be able to put a priority on a flat rate box or ground box, a priority box. That's kind of like the the one. Here's where it gets tricky come August 1st, okay? If you print a ground advantage label and you try to put that on a flat rate or a priority, it's going to cost you up to 20 bucks. I don't know what the dimensions are or the weight is or how they're figuring out this charge, but guys, do not, and I repeat, do not ever, ever, ever put a ground advantage label on a flat rate or a priority because it's going to cost you money. You're going to take the money out. So going forward, flat rate box needs flat rate level or a priority. Okay. Um, just don't ever let ground advantage go on any label go on any other box. Okay. Um, and what else is changing for September 1st? I have it somewhere in my notes. Hold on. Um, worth knowing okay, responsible for your own packaging period, whatnot's own policy kind of updated. And they said that you have to be responsible for your packaging. They're not, you know, dealing with USPS. Um, you if you have an issue with USPS, you're going to have to claim it with the you know transit carrier. You know, you're gonna have to do that. So there's automatic claims process, and it works the same as it did, you know, before September 1st. What changes now is that you're taking the responsibility. You have to take the responsibility. So let's say you packed the hell out of something and they ripped the box open or it got wet or it didn't get there or whatever. You this is how you're going to have to do it. So if you're writing notes, guys, this is what you gotta put it up. You're gonna have to open up that buyer's support request in your un inbox, right? And you're gonna have to go to your customer support, and inside there, you're gonna see options. And the options are things like respond, tap refund, choose the amount, full or partial, and confirm. And so it's all gonna be there on that same screen in your customer support, and you're going to tap on that screen, and there's also going to be an option. I don't know where it's gonna be because this doesn't happen until September 1st, that you're going to do an automated claim. Now, whatnot is saying that you should wait 14 days before submitting that, which is stupid to me. I don't even know why they're saying that. I honestly, here's my real take. I think that they want you to forget about it. It's kind of like when you sign up for, you know, a different cable channel or something, and it's like, oh, you've got a 30-day, you know, trial and and you forget about it, so you end up paying for it. I personally think that's whatnot's back. I know it sounds kind of nefarious, but I really think it is because why else would Whatnot recommend you waiting 14 days to submit something? They say, quote, it improves the odds of approval, but I'm like, why? If you have a problem and they're addressing the problem, does it matter if it's day one or day 14 or day 10? I don't buy it, guys. I just I don't buy everything Whatnot says. You know, I come in with a little bit more critical eye and play the devil's advocate a little bit more. I think that whatnot just wants you to wait so that they can keep UPS happy and avoid getting flack um from UPS over the whole claims process. They don't, I mean, you're not talking this isn't one problem here, guys. We're talking hundreds of thousands of packages from Whatnot since Whatnot's been around since 2020, and their volume has gone up. We're talking this is huge. There's probably not a USPS carrier that goes out on any day that they're not carrying at least one whatnot package. Whatnot has grown, it's huge. This is a big deal. They want to keep you know that them happy. Okay, so USPS, priority mail, and ground advantage have a hundred dollar coverage built in automatically. Okay, so if you have something worth more than that, you need to get extra coverage and do the insurance thing. I'm not gonna get all into that. You'll have to look into that. I've never had to do that, okay? Um, but you you would have to create a specific label for something. So if you have something really nice and fancy, I saw a girl sell um one of those printer, you know, old-time printer boxes, you know, that you put the cute little things in the other day. She sold it for $110. Printer tray. There it is. Um, for $110. And I thought, what a pain in the ass. She's got to get the right box and she's got to get that figured out. Well, it was $110. She could claim that extra $10 if she wanted, but let's just say it sold for $200. If it breaks along the way, the most you're gonna get back is $100, unless you put extra insurance on it. So y'all need to be thinking about that, you know. Um, I've had buyers spend tons of money, I mean tons of time, sorry, on packages that were showed up beautiful, wrapped impeccably, and they were broken. So that is not a package failure, you know. It wasn't on my end. That's UPS kickballing them, you know. So my advice is you box it inside a box, you plastic wrap it, tissue wrap it, bubble wrap it, box it inside, layer it, do not let it shake. Make sure this is going to be huge, guys, because the money, it's not just them taking money from you. This is gonna affect your ratings. This is gonna affect everything. Shipping is one of the biggest issues with your business, and you know it, right? You're packing these things up. Some people, like I said, you're selling things that are super easy, like football cards. That's not what we're talking about here, guys. We're talking about things that are breakable and difficult, okay? Um, and the thing is, you just always have to remember the golden rule. How would you want it packed? How would you want it shipped, right? Um, but okay, so where am I? Also, you need to be thinking about the rating good versus excellence. I and I do want to complain about this because it's not just me. Whatnot has a pattern of slapping a flat punishment on everybody, whether it's a first-time slip up, a repeat problem, whatever it is, they actually just go boom, you're getting three months and you're on bad behavior. It's it's kind of like timeout for adults, right? I've asked around multiple times. I still have yet to hear anybody say when they've reached out to whatnot to review this, have they ever, ever, ever gotten, oh, okay, we we agree with you. We're not gonna slap a three-month, you know, rating to go down to good from excellent. I've never heard that. And maybe if you guys, if anybody has ever happened, I've said this in multiple episodes, still I've never gotten a call. I've got hundreds of thousands of people listening to this. I mean, uh, tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands of people listen to this podcast, save the recordings, listen to them, download them, whatever. And out of all these people who are listening to this podcast, I still have yet to have anybody respond to me and say, Oh, actually, I had them look at when they changed my rating from excellent to good. Yeah, they did put it back up to excellent. I've never heard of it. They do this to everybody. It's across the board. I think it's wrong, I think it's ridiculous, and I think they should work on that. Um, for me, going from good instead of excellent, it was huge. I was going from typically up to 65 people, 35 at lowest to 65 people in my room at all times. And now I've had, you know, nine to 17 people. It's ridiculous. When I appealed it, they told me three months and I I'm still sitting here. They don't, they do not change this. And so you all need to really, really work with your standing because it's going to affect your room. And now they're gonna have the it where buyers can see this. So, why would I want to shop with somebody in a good rating when I could shop with somebody in an excellent rating? Although for me, I know how easy it was for them to slap this down. So, will I still shop with good people uh if they've screwed up and they're human and they this is how whatnot does it? Absolutely. Um, so it's not just about your your room count, guys. This is the strangers, anybody coming in, they're they're gonna see this. So you're going to want to get it excellent. I personally am not having a show until August 18th because I'm just I'm done fighting whatnot. They're gonna put me in whatnot timeout, then I'm I'm in whatnot time out. The reason I'm in it is because I tried to give money away in a in a deal and I meant to hit the giveaway later on, and I forgot. And the Gibby Goblin said she didn't run it and she was trying to give money away. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to give money away when Mr. Beast and other people give money away. Whatever, that's fine. I get that that was wrong. I just forgot to run the giveaway. And when I appealed it, they didn't do anything. So I think that's absurd, but whatever. Um, okay, now let's talk about seller tools. I realize how long this episode is getting. Okay, uh, seller tools. That's what you find behind what's called the hamburger menu. The hamburger menu is the little icon that looks like three little stacked lines. Just think of it as like a burger beef and then the the butt, you know, whatever. So when you tap on that section in the upper right-hand corner, right, it's gonna let you see manage, sales, promotions, performance, and settings. Okay. Um, I actually think, guys, because this episode is getting so long, I think I'm gonna stop it right now in my notes and come back and do seller tools in the second part because I've already done this one for 45 minutes and I've talked about shipping and all kinds of different things. So yeah, we'll talk, pick this up in the second part of this, and we'll go over all of those things behind the hamburger menu, and we'll talk about your seller tools, your inventory, your shows, your offers, all of that. And then I'll come back. All right, guys. I hope that this helps somebody and I hope you guys are having a good day. And uh yeah, I'll probably do this second part really quickly and drop both of them back to back here soon. All right. Have a great day. We'll talk to you later. Bye bye.