Seller HUB & More Part 2 Episode 104

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Okay, hey there guys. We're back with part two of the seller's hub and more. I realized I needed to do more because we're talking about shipping and upcoming policy changes and all of that. So I'm just gonna hit it quick and try to get through this. Okay, so when you are at your seller tools, okay, that's when you're in the hub, seller's hub, there's a little hamburger menu with an icon with three lines stacked up in the top right. Okay. When you tap on that, it's gonna bring up all these sections. And I'm going through all these sections, okay, one at a time. So the first one, uh, well, there's five sections: there's manage, sales, promotions, performance, and settings. Okay. So the first one we're gonna do is manage, and that's managing your inventory, right? That's where your whole catalog lives. That's where everything you've ever listed is in this area. Because even last night I had a consult and somebody was like, I don't get the difference between the buy it now and what's in your store and what's active. This is where you're going to find all that, okay? Here's my thought on this: it should either be an active or inactive. You shouldn't have drafts. I mean, just get it done, guys. Don't have anything ever live in drafts. That's like you starting it and not finishing. No need for it to be there. It should either be an active or inactive. Now, here's the thing: if you run something during a show, if it went through that show and you didn't have that same item in an upcoming show, like listed in an upcoming show, it's automatically gonna go into inactive because you ran it, nobody bought it, it's an inactive. It has to be tied to a show so that people can see it. Okay. So if you don't have any upcoming shows and you don't have it in that shop, in that sale that's coming up, then people can't see it. Okay, unless you have it in your buy it now. But either way, this is where everything that you own, have, whether it's active, inactive, or draft is there. Okay. So active, obviously, that's what's listed, and it's sellable. Draft is anything you started but didn't finish. I told you you shouldn't have that. Inactive is everything that's sitting on the shelf currently up for sale. And it can be in buy it now or auction. Each item is gonna have a photo, a title, and the condition. You know, and if you're for me, one of the things that I've gotten used to doing is if it has a call out, I put in the the the actual description, the title, I put as is. And that lets my people know if they want don't want anything with chips, they're not getting it. I'm always shocked at how people do want things with chips or stains or holes. Lots of people buy things. I don't know what they're doing with it, but they're fine buying things as is. But I put that in my title and the description. This is how it is, and I always point it out. I definitely think you need to be doing that. Um, there's a search bar to dig through all the products, there's a filter icon to narrow things down, and there's a yellow plus button over there if you want to add new inventory whenever you're ready. Okay, so there's multiple ways you can add your inventory. I'm going off my notes here. You can put it in the show. That's typically how I do it, and I just move it from show to show kind of deal and move it as a bulk listing, which I've talked about before. I either move it or if you're doing like a raid train with a specific thing, you pull them out and put them in there. But I move it per show, is how I typically do it. So for example, the other day I was doing the cat show. I pulled up my cat show and I went to the you know button upload, you know, right hand add new item, and I put it in there and I'm numbering all those cats with the same number. I talk about organization throughout all these episodes. But for me, if I'm gonna have books, maybe they're in the 400s. If I'm gonna have cats, then think they're in the 1500s. If I'm gonna have brass, it might be the 800s. You get the idea because I'm selling lots of different things and lots of different types of things. And it's just easier for me to organize it, find it, grab it, keep up with it if I have it listed like that. So I definitely think that's a good thing to do. Um, but you can add your inventory either by going to the seller's hub and then clicking, you know, add inventory, and it'll still, or you can do it in the show. You've got two different ways to do that, okay? Um, and the inactive tab is beyond your stuff. It's between your shows for a stretch, and that's like where you're prepping, right? You got to decide is it gonna go into this show? Is it gonna go into that show? Dependent on what your shows are. There's two different thoughts here, especially when you're selling multiple items, like I am. Uh, let's just say you're a candy guy, okay? Um, and you're selling tons of different kinds of candy, but you're gonna have a specific fudge show coming up, right? If you're gonna have a specific fudge show, then all your fudge, your numbers, let's if you've got it organized well, your numbers 200 to 265. Let's just say you have 65 different kinds of fudge. That would be amazing, but let's just pretend. Uh, you would have all of that and you would bring it into your fudge show. Now there's two thoughts here. Number one, just show your fudge because that's all you've got in your inventory. That's all you want to send out, that's all you want to be able to keep in track of. And you just sell the fudge. There's a benefit to that, and the benefit is you're not having to keep up with all of your inventory during that show. It's a specialty show, it's a theme show. People love that. And the thing about this is it's not as much work on you. Because let's say you are this candy guy and you have, I don't know, 2,000 different items. Well, listing 2,000 different items is a lot, but finding it during the show, showing it, describing it, you know, getting it out, it's a lot. I guess you could even put 2,000, you know, if it's candy, you could take a picture of that, put it all in your buy it now, and just let it run all day, every day. But you're still gonna want to have an auction. And the thing is, if they can't see it, they can't buy it. So these are the two different options. Option one, you only stick with a little bit because keeping up with all that inventory is too much. Option two is show everything and be completely transparent because you know, and I've talked about this, I always use the same example. It's like going to a store and them having part of it, you know, quadrant off for like a murder scene, and you only get to shop in part of the store. You wouldn't like that if your expectation was to see everything. Personally, these people might be shopping for more things than just the one thing, right? So let's hypothetically say you're a purse seller, right? Uh, you're selling purses, but you also ended up with a bunch of hats and cute little purse charms and maybe some fancy bookmarks, right? The person who comes in might have been looking for a purse, but you know, cousin Gertrude's birthday is coming up and she's about to be 75 and you've got this really cute bookmark. I think I'm gonna add that on too. So the benefit of that and showing everything is that you have more opportunity to sell more. So, you know, dependent on your life and what's going on, you might choose to just sell, you know, the 65 types of fudge and not 2000. Or you might choose to show everything because you have help, your husband's helping you, your wife's helping you, you've got your kids helping, you know where everything is, you can pull quickly, it's not a big deal. Either way is good, and I think both of them depend on your lifestyle and what's going on. Um, but whatever you're pulling into your show, just know that you should be able to find it, show it, describe it, pack it, and get it out. So you have to not just think about your show, you have to think about the time after your show, too. Okay. So also um, you should be checking your shop regularly to update pricing. Maybe you need to fix your descriptions, you might need to make sure everything is staged in your room. So the time between shows, you should actually be working to make sure that you're preparing for your upcoming shows. Okay. Next up on this, uh, we're on you guys know where we're at. We're on uh we did just did managing your inventory under Sellar's Tools under the hamburger. Now we are at um shows, okay? So under that same management tab, there's two tabs here that say upcoming and past. Um, this is your show calendar. It's separate from your inventory. It's just your shows, okay? I always suggest that you have at least six to eight coming shows. Currently, I'm not doing it because I'm not getting back on until August 18th. I'm just not gonna fight with the algorithm. I only have one upcoming show and that's it. Eventually I'll get to it. But I'm on vacation mode and that's where I'm at. But you should always have six to eight shows. The reason you should is number one, the algorithm's gonna see it and know that you're planning on coming back regularly, consistently, and staying on for a certain amount of time. Number two is your people, your groupies, the people like you, your clients, the new people, whoever they're coming to your shows and they like you and they want to see you. So you can also have those shows so that they can bookmark it and get noticed. You can also do a generic one that says click here, like ring my bell to be notified, and you run that with like a picture of you or your shop or what you're selling or whatever, so that all those people who have clicked on it, they'll get a notification. Because whenever they click on the um, oh, what's the word? I'm thinking, oh gosh, senior moment, guys. Oh, what is it called? The bell, the notification bell. Whenever they click on that and something's run, you see it. The other day I I saw it too late because my notification, it it shows up on my phone if I'm holding my phone, but it doesn't let off some kind of like uh noise, a bell or anything. And I missed it. Something I wanted ran in an auction and I missed it. And I was like, dang it. But um, that is what you can do. Two different things. You can do the generic thing that you run when you start your show, that's all the people who want to come to your shows, and it you can um have them bookmark your shows. So when you start that show, they're coming. If they really like you, they're getting notifications for both of them, and hopefully they're coming in. Um, and so that's also showing your sellers that you're coming. In fact, I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell you who this is because I don't want you to compete against me, but I was in a jewelry show the other day, and my stupid bank had the fraud alert thing on again, and I could not get it taken care of in time, and I was dealing with other things, and I really wanted this necklace. Oh my gosh, it was so gorgeous, you guys. And I really wanted it, and I had to deal with the stupid bank, and I have a really small time bank, and it's called Prosperity Bank in Katie, Texas, and I could not get a hold of anybody, it was just a nightmare, so I lost out on that. Well, obviously, I wanted to go to the person's next show because I missed out on all the good jewelry in that show. So I went to their site and they had no shows upcoming. I messaged them and I was like, hey, I'm the one that my card failed, and I really want to come to an upcoming show, but you don't have any listed. So she listed one. That really should be six to eight, guys, because sometimes somebody can't make it to that Wednesday show, but they can make it to the Saturday show and they'll bookmark it. So put different dates, show the algorithm, show your customers, and show yourself consistency. So that's where I am on that. Um, okay. Anyways, um, last one in that top section is your offers. I really have not had a lot of offers ever on this app. I don't know if other people are. It doesn't seem like something that's been a big deal to me. I think I've I could probably go back. It's probably been five offers in two and a half years. I don't think most people do that. I think most people buy their things off auction. Not buy it now, not the offer section through auction. Um, so it'll be basically an uh an offer. Well, and I've had it happen during shows. Literally, I've had that happen during shows, but not so much off shows. I should clarify that. Um, but basically it's a negotiation uh option, right? Like maybe you have something listed at 140 bucks, they're gonna offer you 120. You get to accept, counter, or decline. It's just a little back and forth. Um, typically, most people don't even message through this. I have this gorgeous hummel and it's worth like 450. I have it listed in there for like 150, I think, right now, which is $300 off. And somebody offered to, I know, maybe it's $125. I don't know. It's ridiculous price, like hundreds of dollars off. It's this huge oversized hummel of four sisters or girls, so you're whatever. And um, the guy offered me $115, and I realized if I took $115, I would literally be losing money. And I was like, I could honestly sell it to you via, you know, Venmo, PayPal, and pirate ship off this thing so that I'm not losing my money, but I'm not I'm literally losing money if I go down to that price. So I told him I was willing to negotiate, but then once I realized the fees that come out from Netflix, Netflix, the fees that come out from whatnot, I wasn't gonna make any money. So I told him, sorry, I can't do it. So, but that's usually through messages, okay? So you can, if you guys are buyers and you want something for a better price, all they can do is say no. I would definitely message them. There was a guy last birthday. I wanted to buy this cat so bad. It was like a handmade cat with a light in it. I loved it, loved it, loved it. I I really wanted it for my birthday. And I kept messaging the guy and he just didn't respond. He didn't get a hold of me, and I was so disappointed. So sometimes that's gonna happen, and you're gonna remember, I mean, that was almost a year ago, and I'm still sad that I didn't get to get the cat. But um, you know, I think all they can do is say no. Um, and it might be painful if they say no and you can't afford it, you can't get it, but hey, it is what it is. My life will still go on. Okay, we're gonna go to the next one. That's sales, right? And the first thing there is gonna be your payouts. And um, I'm just gonna be really honest with you guys. This is what happened to me. I know I was scared when I very first started on here with the whole money thing and my bank, and I've had fraud multiple times, and I just didn't know. So I set it up through PayPal where all my money had to go through PayPal, and then to take it out of PayPal, if I wanted it fast, I had to pay a higher amount. Um you don't have to do that. So if you tap on the payouts box and you're gonna land on a screen that's called finances, and then at the top of there, there's gonna be tabs. On those tabs, it's gonna say, oh gosh, it's gonna say it's gonna say pay uh payouts, transactions, and tax documents. Okay, this is at the top of that. So you're in sales, you're in the payout box, you're at finances, you're at payouts, transactions, and tax documents. Right there, you're gonna see your account bailable available and what you can cash out and what's still processing. Okay. If you scroll to the bottom there, there's a yellow button, and that's where you're gonna click on. It says edit payment settings. You're gonna choose how you're getting your money. And for a long time, I had mine set up through PayPal, and I didn't think twice about it. I just thought that's the way you should do it, it's safer, whatever. But I was paying too much money, and yes, I I'm stupid, I'm human, I've made mistakes. I'm here to call it out because I I don't care what you guys think. I I know it might have been stupid, but hey, my stupidity might save you money. So here's the realization though. Um, if you transfer, it's 1.75 of the payout, whatever it is, when you do it with PayPal. Okay. And I had mine set on instant, like I would click it and get the money so it would be over and I didn't have to wait the days. So I think it's a little bit more if you do that. So whatnot has what's called stripe, and I always knew about this, guys. It's not like I didn't know, I just didn't go through the time and take care to change it. Okay. Um, but basically, what you do is you put your bank account information into this instead of PayPal, and so you skip that whole PayPal process. I was just nervous and scared in the beginning, and I just never changed it. I was a creature of habit and just did it. I did it for years, and so I'm thinking, how much money did PayPal get from me over the last few years? I don't even know. I don't even want to think about it, but I highly suggest you go in there to your edit pay payout settings, switch it over to the standard Stripe, and you wait the one to two business days. Because if you do that, you're gonna have no fees, okay? If you do want a fee with Stripe, it's only 1% instead of 1.5. So, guys, that adds up. I mean, I I don't, it might only be 0.75%, but over time, over years, that's going to add up. So I definitely think you should go in and change it over to Stripe and pay them instead of going through PayPal. Okay, next thing up in sales is uh something called fulfillment. Okay, this is the screen where your your shipping to-do list, right? It's gonna filter all your tabs, it's gonna say your needs label, what you need to ship, all of that is there, right? It's all of your shipments. It's gonna tell you exactly how many shipments you have to sell. I mean, not sell, you've already sold them, how many shipments you've got to get out, and it's going to um have the buyer's name, their photo, their status, and then whether it's ready to ship or shipping, the date, how many items. There's a really cool little um, oh gosh, I'm not looking at it, guys. So I'm going off memory. Uh, it's a pull-down arrow, and you can check things and organize them. And so look for that up in that shipping list, the little filter tabs. So you can go in and and choose how you want to do it. Okay. Um, the the thing at the bottom, the big yellow button at the bottom that says scan to confirm drop-off when you're on your phone. Remember that in scale scan app, you know, we've talked about the on-time scan, that's what that is, right? And you need to be scanning your actual packages. I'm gonna tell you what happened. I this happened. Um, I didn't scan one of my packages. I had like 36 packages that had to go out, and I failed to scan it. It was by the door, I was having help with kids, somebody put it in the car. I didn't scan it. So I went to my computer to scan it just so that it could say it went through. But guys, that is not how you should do it. Okay. You should always like have an area for the items where you're packing them. If you guys have ever had a tour of my house when I've done these shows and I do shipping shows or, you know, ask carrier question shows, whatever. I have a whole three tables lined up. One is the tissue table, one is the paper table. Then I have the put the candy in and the stickers on table. Then from there, it goes to an area where we scan them and we put them by the door or in the car. I have had to get this like procedure of where things are so that it makes sense to do that. You guys really need to make sure that you're scanning that with your phone. And you're when you scan it, you scan it on the computer and then get it to the post office there. And the thing is, this is proof that you have scanned it. And so you should actually not just scan the label on the table or scan the computer like I did that one time. Always scan the actual box, okay? If you ever ship something without using the scanner like I did, don't panic, right? The shipment status is going to get updated once the mail carrier gets it and whatever. I will say I had three packages the other day and I dropped them off without scanning them. I just totally just I was in a rush and I I had to get my dog to get him to the vet to get his neuterine. Just totally forgot about him. There's a fear factor inside of me when I do that because stuff does get lost at the post office. Little bags get thrown behind or found later or whatever. Stuff happens. And so try to scan those every time. Okay. Next thing is sales, sales under sales is orders. Okay. Um, there's a search bar at the top, then filter tabs. There's all unread, created and processing, and more off to the Side okay, so you're in the sales section, okay. Um, each order card is gonna show the product, the photo, the label created, and the green earnings badge that you once it clears, once you've gone through, okay. It's gonna say the product name, what's sold, the date, the buyer's name, um, and you can click on the buyer's name too to message them if there's any issues, just so you know that the secret tip. And um, it's also gonna give you your actual earnings and your fees, okay? So everything there. This is a close-up look of every single transaction, all the details, more so than your analytics, okay? And this isn't even your official record, right? But whatnot is very good at the seller statements, your ledger, your 1099, the true source of your taxes, your reporting are not your orders and not your analytics. It's it's in those tabs, okay, guys. Um, so your orders is really where it is. The last one under sales is tips. And this is giving you a list of all the people who have tipped you, guys. And if you are not familiar with this, you need to definitely go in and check what I'm where where we're at and what we're talking about, okay? So you are in the um gosh, guys, I'm doing the these senior moments because I'm doing two back-to-back episodes. So we're under your seller tools, okay? We're in your seller's tools and we're under the tips section. And it's going to give you a list of every single person, what show it was, how much it was, whatever. There is a little message icon next to each one of them. So you can quickly click on that and reply and say thank you to them. So when you guys get done with a show, I literally just called the girl I had a uh a consult with a little bit ago, and I told her, when you're done with your show, make sure you're following your people and make sure you thank them for tips. So I have had shows, ridiculous, amazing shows, and I I know some of you have had it even better than me, but where I get off and I've got $100 worth of tips. And I'm like, oh my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I want to respond to those people and tell them thank you. And sometimes I'll respond right there and then I'll click on their name and I'll go into message and I'll say, thank you, you didn't need to do that. I really appreciate it. I really, you know, you're lovely, blah, blah, blah. And also, if you really want to go above and beyond, put those people's names on a, I always say legal pads. And next time they buy with you, once again, thank them for that tip. You know, guys, they're literally giving you free money. When you get a tip, whatnot doesn't take any of the money out of that. That's like you're getting the actual cash. So tips are your friends. If you ever want to support somebody, tips are the way to do it, you know? Um, or buying if they're trying to get to their 1,000. I definitely think that's better because you want them to get to that 1,000 mark. Okay. Um, all right. So where am I? Um I did the tippers, golden rule. Okay, um, okay, now we're under promotions. Okay. Under promotions, you're gonna refer um buyers and gain followers. You can invite a seller and you can earn $100. This is where we're at, the under promotions part. Um, and it's all on the same screen. It's stacked up one on top of each other. Under the tab called referrals, there's a challenge tab next to it that's I think still in the beta stage, and there's the points tab too. So they're they're beta testing certain things. Some people are gonna see certain things on your computer that other people aren't. And that's a that the way that's figured out is analytics, sometimes which category, and also are you grandfathered in or are you a newbie? So they have their, I don't know how they do it. It's the behind the wizard screen, if you will. They're not giving us that information. But some people see different things on their screen than others, and that's you gotta remember that. But at the top of the screen is the buyer's referral. You're all gonna have that. Um, you share your personal invite link with any new buyer that signs up, you get $25 credit to your shop, your shows. Okay, they're getting $25 and you get $5 for each one. So they sign up, they're getting $25 worth of credit in your show, and you get $5. So it's a win-win-win, right? They're winning, whatnot's winning, and you're winning. It's great. Um, and they also auto-follow you so you get the next show bookmarked automatically. Once they join, they're gonna he see yours in their feed, right? Now they don't have to necessarily buy from you or come to you, right? But that's how they do it so that you can get the benefits of sharing. Um, okay, right below that is the seller referral, and that one's worth $100. So if you share this link, this means you're getting potential sellers, not potential buyers. And you earn $100 once that seller gets $100, which is great because you know if they got a hundred dollars, you're getting a hundred dollars. What's better than that? Okay. Um, and they have to sell to five different buyers, not just one big sale, right? So that that hundred has to be proving that it's they've sold to five different people. Otherwise, people could come in and scam the system. Does that make sense? Like somebody could have Aunt Gertrude join, somebody buys a $100 purse from her, and then they refund the $100 purse or she gives it to her next Thursday. There's there's scammers out there, guys. And this is the way to prevent that. That you're actually going on, you're having your show, you're selling at least five to five different sellers, and you're making at least 100 bucks. Then boom, you get your money back. And that's just to prevent fraud, right? Um, and then that's to make sure that they're real customers and not, you know, Aunt, I don't know why I keep saying Aunt Gertrude, but hey guys, I make this up on the fly. Um, or you know, Uncle Fred, whoever, you're just making sure it's real. Um, and then um the seller you refer gets up to $150 in matching earnings if they get $150 in their first week. Um, so it's it's just promotions, promotions, promotions to get more people on here. And definitely whatnot's gonna make their money back. They know that. That's why they're willing to do it. But here's my tip on both of these. If you hand like I thought about this way back in the day, I didn't do it. I'm just telling you, it came through my mind. The thought was I could make up a bunch of cards and go to the mall. I live right by Katie Mills Mall. I was like, I could just make up a bunch of cards with Carrie Figline, you know, okay. Well, my maiden name is Carrie Kennedy. I'm going back to it. But um, with my, you know, shop name is Kerry Kennedy, K-A-R-R-I, Kennedy, K-E-N-N-E-D-Y. If you've gotten this far in the podcast and you didn't know I'm a seller under that name on the app, um, the thing is, I thought I could have both of these links if they want to be a buyer, if they want to be a seller, and I could go and I could pass them all out and I could do some like $100 free money promotion for whatever. I could do something and really advertise myself. I thought I could put it on all my neighbors' doors and I could, you know, go to church and I was just gonna advertise the hell out of it to get more people in there. And I I still could do that in the future. I just don't know if I'm even, I don't know if I'm getting a real job. I don't know, guys. I'm trying to figure out my life. But my thing is, if you give it to a total stranger, yes, there's a chance that they might do it, but there's also a chance that they're gonna throw that in the trash and get on whatnot, anyways, and just whatever. You know, they owe you nothing. And so, unless you sweeten a pot with some giveaway or some kind of fancy show, why would they do it? You know what I'm saying? So I think if you're going to spend the time and energy, and I told this to my my um consultation lady yesterday, she's a nurse, and I told her, I said, You should go to your hospital, you should go to your church, you should go to your families, you should go to everybody after your fifth or sixth show, have a big show where you try to get uh, you know, up to your you know, thousand sales, up to a thousand followers, like you just really push it, push it, push it. Honestly, there's still a ton of my friends and family that do not know that I do this, they have no idea that I'm on whatnot. They have no idea that I have a podcast. I have kept this on the down low, and it's not because I'm embarrassed, it's just because it's just a side hustle. I mean, to me, it's not my life, you know. But if you're really hardcore and you really want to go and do this, then I think you should do that. But on these, trying to get the referrals, know the difference. You know, if you're gonna make up a card through Canva and print it up VistaPrint or whatever, I would put, hey, if you're thinking about being a buyer, here's the code. If you're thinking about being a seller, here's the code. Either way, a buyer can always turn into a seller, you're not gonna get anything back from it, but they could try it out. But it's letting people know about the app and it's maybe you can get. I think I've gotten one since I've been on because I told one person who became a buyer, and I think I got you know 25 bucks or 50 bucks or whatever it is. Um, and that's it. So, but my thing is send it out to people who you know who will actually use the link or give them a reason to use the link. Okay, next thing up is promotions, um, and that's promotions, tools, or whatever. Um, you can see whether you're paying to boost a show, or you know, you can boost part of the show, the full show, whatever. Um, there's two shows, one, I mean, two tabs. Sorry, two tabs. One is the overview and one is promoted shows. Now, the overview is gonna show you um like a filtered summary of today, yesterday, or the last seven days, or the last 15 days, and beyond. You get to choose what you want. Two key numbers are gonna sit there at the top of that. First, you're gonna have your promotions, well, your sales from your promotions, right? That's your actual money that you're getting back in, um, and a percentage of the revenue generated divided by what you spent to promote. Okay. And I'm just gonna be honest, guys. The math, the math spells it out for you. I'm gonna tell you what happened to me. I think the percentage alone is misleading. So last time I ran one of these shows, it showed that I made 117% return on the spend. And at first glance, you're like, oh, I made 117. That's not how it actually works, right? Because you strip out that 100% that I covered the cost on my own, and I only netted 17% on top of that. So time, energy, effort, the show, was it worth it for me? No, that wasn't. I've promoted shows and sometimes it's worked, sometimes it hasn't. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you guys what to do. But personally, for me, I would rather do giveaways and have sales and do that kind of thing than giving whatnot any more money. That's that's just where I'm landing. I I have not seen the benefits. In fact, there's been times I've helped, you know, promote other people's shows and boosted other people's shows, and nothing really happened. And I've been more disappointed than excited and happy. I know there's sellers on this app that will have, you know, oh, well, you should do a promotion, you should do it all. I I've heard it all. I I don't know what the reason for saying that is. I personally have not seen the benefits. I know people do it all the time, and maybe it works for you. Maybe, you know, that's how it works. Maybe you got to try it. Maybe it depends on the category, maybe it depends on how long you're in, maybe it depends on what you're selling. I don't know, guys. But for me, promoted shows is not worth it for me. Okay. And I think you really need to look at how much money you're giving per hour, how much money you made back per hour. Is that percentage really worth it? And the only way to know anything is to try it, right? Uh, if you're a mountain climber, you want to know what it's like at the top of so-and-so mountain, you gotta, you gotta go for it. You can't just, you know, take an aerial view and call it done. If you guys want to know, you have to put yourself out there and do it. I've done it, I've tried it. You can either take my opinion or try it yourself. I can't guarantee anything. And especially with as many people are coming onto the app right now. I just I don't know. I don't know how the algorithm works with that, guys. I don't know. Um, I think running giveaways, maybe doing private shows for your regulars, doing the advertising type things like I was talking about, you know, putting your shows out there so people can bookmark it, being consistent, all the things I've said are things that you should do. And I also think sometime during your show, let me throw that out, at least every 20 or 30 minutes, you should say, Hey guys, if you're new here, my name is so-and-so, please bookmark this upcoming show. Hey, did you know I've got a big sale coming up so-and-so? You need to be doing that, okay? And I already told you about my trick of you know, clicking on the oh gosh, what is it called? The notification, ring my bell notification. When you do that, price it at 999999, so high that nobody will actually their credit card won't allow them to make it. Okay. So I've had like five of these. Don't do what I did. Start that generic thumbnail for people to notify you at nine nine nine nine nine. That way, if they go to buy it, they won't purchase it, and then you're gonna have to run another one and then bring it back for me. All of it. It's a nightmare. So just don't do that. Start off with a high number, it doesn't matter. Um, the whole point is that anybody who wants to follow your pop-ups or your shows, every time you click on that, they're gonna get notified. And you can do that without spending money for promotion tools. That's all I'm saying. Um, okay. Um, you have to feed the algorithm by keeping your shows consistent. Same days, same times, same length, same type of stuff. Stay in your lane, ship your packages quickly, make sure you're taking care of people if anything goes wrong. Pay attention during your chat. I love this one girl. I was in her show the other day, and I'm like messaging her, and she's completely oblivious to it. She's not looking at her phone, she's not looking at her messages, she's just chitty chatty, talk, talk, talk, talk, not paying attention to the chat. Guys, you need to pay attention to your chat. Talk to the people, get to know them. Um, and that's really what's going to turn these one-time buyers into repeat buyers. And no promotion tool out there can fix that. You want the groupies, you want the return buyers, you want to have these connections and these relations. And I personally think doing those things I just mentioned is better than any promotion tool. I I you be you, you do your best, you show up, you do all the things, and you don't have to do that. Okay. The last one under promotions is the rewards club. This is the loyalty program. I got a whole episode, I think, on it. I don't know how what episode number it is, guys. You're just gonna have to go back and look a little bit. But I have done this and I have not done this. I definitely think everybody should participate in the rewards club. I think it is the loyalty program. I don't like the points in the gyms. I've already talked about how stupid I think that is, but I am very happy with the rewards club. And this is how mine is built. And so I'm gonna just go through mine and tell you you can do it however you want. There's some really cute, creative ways to do it. And I would definitely look at other people's get ideas and think about this. I would not just do it like I did, maybe, um, which was really quick. Okay, I did mine really quick. Um, but yeah, if you have like a theme type show or a certain kind, I definitely think you should make it with whatever your stuff is, right? Like, I mean, like, okay, I helped this one guy who was a fisherman, he was one of my consults. For example, for him, you could say, you know, different size fish that you got, you know, like you got a guppy, you're a little guppy, or you got the biggest catch, or whatever. You you got a giant rainbow trout, whatever. You can make these titles of whatever go with what you're selling. Does that make sense? So if you're doing jewelry, you could have one diamonds and you know, like they already originally have, but you can change it to whatever it is. If you're selling Pokemon, maybe go with the cheapest Pokemon level and to the highest, whatever you get the idea. Okay, so you get to choose the titles, you get to choose the dollar amounts, you get to choose your percentage off and what the buyer has to do to unlock each level. So here's my five, and I feel like I'm extra generous. Maybe you don't need to go to this level of generosity, okay? So tier one is a newbie. I put 10% off their next purchase, up to $20. So that means they get to get up to $20 off. So I mean, you get, I mean, that's pretty good. 10% first thing. I mean, it's nothing. They even buy a couple things. Tier two is called not newbie. I so my my names are newbie smitten. I'll call I'll go through it. Okay, so smitten is tier two, and that's 15% up to $25. Tier three is VIP, that means you're a very important person. You're working your way up, you get 20% off up to $30. And then tier four is super fan, that means you're a super fan. You've bought a lot of different things from me, you've worked up to whatever, you're gonna get 20% off and up to $40 off. And tier five is obsessed, that's my top tier. They're gonna get 20% off any purchase of $20 or more up to $1,000 off. I just put $1,000. I don't even have anything $1,000 off, but they're also gonna get an extra 25%. I mean $25 off the top of that. So if you make it to my Obsessed and you've bought a bunch of stuff, you're getting $20 plus $5. You're getting $45 if you you know up to $45, which is pretty good. So each tier also unlocks its own little badge. I don't think anybody really gives a darn about this, but I could be wrong. Maybe you care. Um, but it's different colors, really, I think is the way, or badges, you know, and people can look at them, you know. So you spend a certain dollar amount, you purchase a certain amount of products, or you watch for a certain amount of time, whatever. You get past those thresholds and you get to see those. Okay. So right now we're going into my uh, well, I guess it's everybody's season eight, right? And that's gonna be June 1st through September 1st. Seasons reset every single three months, every quarter, right? So there's four times that we have three months, 12 months in a year, guys. Um, and you can rebuild your whole reward structure each and every time. So let's say you go, oh shit, I lost a lot of money, or oh, I didn't give enough, or whatever. You can evaluate that at the end of the season. I would suggest you start doing it two or three weeks beforehand so you can really kind of think what do you want to do in your upcoming season? Be creative, give rewards. People like working up the status. And I also think you need to make it where it's after a certain amount of purchases. I wouldn't start your tier one after 10 purchases or something. I think it needs to be like maybe two or three so they can start seeing that and go, ooh, because people love that. Who doesn't love a little discount or a little extra money or percentage off or whatever? Everybody likes that. There's nobody in the world who goes, Oh, you just got a free ice cream with your meal, you know, whatever. Everybody loves it. Okay. Um, next thing under this is your performance. This is your premiere shop. I don't care about being a premiere shop person right now. My life is nuts. I'm dealing with trying to get my husband to file the divorce, which she's supposed to be doing, and deciding to sell my house and being on vacation. And my life is a mess right now. So I'm not even anywhere remotely around caring about a premiere shop, but some of you want that. This is your full time job. You want premiere shop. So let's talk about what this is. Uh, it's basically top recognition, right? You're the king of the hill, one of the many kings of the hill, right? Because there's a lot of them. There's a lot of premiere shops. Um, so whatnot show. Your progress as a checklist, and you're gonna get like a little green check mark on everything that you've hit. Okay, so you're gonna get to see it. Um, so if you want to become one of these sellers, you have to maintain an active seller account for at least 90 days. You have to have a history of following the community guidelines, okay. Community guidelines, you have to sell at least 250 orders, including your giveaways, those count on this. You have to host 10 live shows, and then here's the kicker: you have to generate $50,000 in sales. Now, the $50,000 in sales and those 250 orders and the 10 shows and all that, that's not one time that you have to do that. That's literally every three months. So the way you look at this, guys, is everybody who is making not making, who has these premiere wings, that means they're making $200,000 a year or more because there's four quarters in a year that are having to get fifty thousand dollars in sales per quarter. So if they are at the the yellow wings, they're selling two hundred thousand dollars plus, but they've got to keep up with this. They've got if they if they sell forty-nine thousand dollars, they lose their wings. And I know I've I've seen this happen so many times, I can't even tell you at least 20 times, where I have seen people who had their wings and they've lost their wings because of something very small like that, and they get on there and they complain because it's totally screwed them over. So I feel bad for them. Like I said, it's difficult, uh, but uh you know, the way I look at it is this is a good thing, guys. It's like an HOA. Um, when I was in Austin recently, um, I did I went up to a retreat, I was there for like 17 days. At one point, I took this guy to look for an apartment, a house, a rental house, and it had no hoa, and it was so crazy insane. There was like nobody had to manicure their lawns there was literally five trucks in the front lawn of one of the houses, and I was like, what in the world? It was like the ghetto because they don't have an hoa. Um, uh for you guys who are younger, hoa stands for homeowners association. Um, I live in an hoa, I've always lived in an hoa. Yes, there's been times where they didn't want me to have a swing out front, and I thought it was really petty and stupid, fine, but overall, I like the hoa. You know, they don't want me to paint my house a certain color. I hate that. I'd rather have farmland, but I would much rather live in an hoa where there's standards and quality and integrity and limits of what you know somebody can get away with rather than living in the hood, the ghetto with five trucks in my front yard. Um, so that's the way I'm looking at these premiere clubs. They should have to work hard to get to that, to keep that, you know, and the benefits if you qualify that are they get reduced commission, right? Um 10% relative, so whatnot standard commission is eight percent, it drops to 7.2. Okay, so they get a um reduced commission of 10%. Wait, I'm saying this wrong. Not 10%. It goes from 8% commission to 7.2. That's what it is. So if you get it, it's not a huge amount, but it adds up, obviously. And you're selling a lot, so that's more money in your pocket. Plus, you're getting more thumbnails, more people are gonna click on you, you're gonna get increased, you know, notifications. I mean, visibility. You're gonna get better visibility, right? And that is what you want. That's why I'm not going back on until August 18th, because I am tired of fighting the whatnot algorithm and having to spend all kinds of money, all kinds of extra work to get people in because I'm in the good setting instead of excellent right now. It's the first time it's ever happened to me. I promise it's gonna be the last time it ever happens to me. It sucks. It's horrible, it's awful. So I definitely think that you guys um need to um consider that, okay? Um, and try to keep that rating up. Okay, uh, where am I? Uh-da-da-da-da-da. So if you're chasing the whatnot premiere shop status, um, it's definitely gonna move the needle and you're definitely gonna do good, but you're gonna have to constantly be working to get that five 50,000 sales, and you're gonna have to do that every 90 days. If you have another job, if this is a part-time thing, it's really, really hard to get. Um, so I definitely do give high thumbs up and you know, high fives to everybody who's working hard and kicking ass and doing that. So good for you. Okay. Um, whatnot, once you do that, is now also with this new SPS, the seller-provided support, that's what they're calling it. Um, they're going to make sure that if you're in the premiere now, you're gonna have to have accurate fulfillment, getting your things out, and timing shipping um timing is going to have to be done. And if you go below that metric, and we talked about this up there earlier, either in this show or the last one, um, you have to be in great or excellent. Your ratings and answerings have to be 95% or more. Um, you know, like if somebody requests something. And so you've got to be on your up on your game besides everything else that you're doing. So you got to think about that, guys. Okay. So if your overall tab by default, along shows, promotion tools, and your trust and seller tabs, right to there to the right of that, you're gonna see the seller analytics summary. Now, when you're in your overall tab, right, your say seller analytics summary, that's gonna have your date range, your edit, plus explaining what all your metrics mean. Below that, it's gonna say your estimated sales, it's got a dollar figure, a graph broken down by the day and the color. Um, it's color-coded by show uh versus market sales, blah, blah, blah. Um, and that's data that's gonna update every one to two days. Okay. If you scroll on down a little bit more, you're gonna say who's watching my shows with a top buyer by sales list, ranked names, dollar amount side by side. And I think this is really important, guys. This is this is a really great way to up your game because once you get to this part and you're on um, you know, you're you've gone to shows, promote, we've done tools, you're in trust and safety, right there to the right, you're in seller analytics. Okay, this is where you're at. Seller analytics in the hub. When you're in this place, you're going to see, you know, Susie Q and how much money she spends in your last show. These are the people who are consistently coming, who are consistently spending, who consistently like you, and you should write that down on the legal pad. You can get 10 legal pads from Amazon in a bundle, guys. When I say use these legal pads, use them. Write it down. You can put it in your notes, but I think it's better just to have memory muscle by writing it down. Um, but the thing is, I've done this before. If you're gonna ever have a private show, if you're gonna have a special show, if you want your top buyers to know, write them on a legal pad, and and you're recognizing these people and their names and how much money they spend, and you're going to remember them. This is your VIP list. These are people who trust you, depend on you, they're giving you ratings. These are your best buyers. You want to remember them, right? And you want them to come. So think about that. Invite them to your big things. Okay, the last one under all this is performance and account health. This is the same page we already covered that says your scan rate, your defect rate, and your policy standing. Um, it's over here too. So you've got two ways to get here the seller hubs screen or through the that menu, right? So now we're gonna go to your settings for your shipping. Under settings is shipping, and this is where you're going to find your all of your shed that all of your settings that determine all what all your labels mean. Okay. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna tap on, I wish they made this bigger. It's so tiny and skinny in there, but um it says domestic shipments, and you're gonna see it broken down to two tiers. First, you're gonna have your eligible shipments under three ounces, and then you're what I think you guys, everybody should just do it is toggle over to first class mail letter. And that's if you ever do a giveaway, you could put it under stickers and do that for one uh zero to one or one to three ounces, okay? Um, that's trading cards, sports stickers, whatever. So if you're gonna do a giveaway of eye patches or a bookmark or whatever, you go to the category that they added, I guess last year or something that says stickers, guys, and that's how you're gonna do your giveaways, okay? So you might as well just toggle it over. It's not gonna affect you if you don't. So toggle that over. The next one down under domestic shipments, it says one to five pounds. This is where you're gonna see priority mail, and that's gonna get there in one to three days. For me, this is what I have it on. I'm going to continue to have it on. I'm talking about today and after September 1st when they get rid of the flat rates. I'm gonna put it on priority mail, that part right there, priority mail. I'm doing this for multiple reasons, but I'm gonna just give you my thoughts on it. I'm already at 54 minutes and I'm trying to get so much in here. Number one, you when you do these priority mail, you're not having to pay for the box. Cha-ching, that's money in my pocket, not somebody else's. I have gotten to the point where I've spent $850 to $1,000 on shipping and boxes and bubble wrap and paper and tape and letters. It's a lot of money. So now that I can have a box that the Postal Service gives me, yes, yes, please, I'll take that. Um, and you can put more than if you do like, I'm not gonna get into it, but it doesn't have to just be five pounds. You can put your weights at, you know, seven ounces or one to three ounces, and it can actually be more than that and put it in priority because a priority box will go up to 70 pounds. You're not gonna get busted if it's 14 pounds in there and it said whatnot automatically changes it over at five. You can't put more weight in there than they say you can put in there. I've never got busted for that. You could do that. Um, but you're gonna have to change your settings when you click on it. I hope that makes sense to you guys. If you have any questions, you can always message me. My name on the app is K-A-R-R-I, Carrie and Kennedy, K-E-N-N-E-D-Y. My phone number is in there, and I'll give it to you at the end, but you could just message me if something doesn't make sense. I'll I'll help you real quick. Um, but this is also good because you're getting a free box. It's also getting there faster. I think the postal people look at it different and they care about it, and so it's not getting thrown around as much. And so I think that this is a really good thing. It's a fix, you know, the flat rate ones were great because they were flex rate, but I'm not even gonna talk about them anymore because they're getting rid of them. Okay. So I would put it on priority mail. And if you still have those flat rate boxes, you can put a priority mail sticker on those, okay? Um, and that the changing of all this is August 1st, okay? Um, at the very top of the whole page, whatnot spells it out plainly. It says any order that falls outside of whatever you've selected here is automatically going to go to USPS Ground Advantage. So if you don't set your preferences deliberately, it's automatically gonna go to ground advantage. And this is all gonna be changed up a little bit. We don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, but come August 1st and August, I mean September 1st, these things are gonna be changing. So by November, we're all gonna be used to it. Okay. There's also a checkbox at the bottom. Um, and it also applies to scheduled shows. So you can push these settings forward to shows that you've already got on the calendar and future ones. I personally think before you ever, ever, ever go on, you should always check your settings to make sure you've got it on what you want. My first one's priority, my second one's ground. I for the majority, I would say, I don't even know how many, uh, how many shows I've had, but I would say 85% of all of my shows have gone that way. Maybe 15 have gone via like envelopes or letters, if I did stamps or something, or um, you know, flat rate, but the majority have gone priority or ground. Um, okay, the last section is shipping profiles. This is where you get to put custom presets. Personally, I when I had my console last night, I told the girl, I said, from now on, I am just keeping it within a 12 by 12 by 12 because for two and a half years I have been buying specialty boxes and doing all kinds of things. Right now you can see that I have holiday wreaths in there and it's four pounds, and the box dimensions were 27 by 24 by 12. That is huge. I made all these Christmas wreaths and sold them. It was ridiculous. I had to, the boxes, it was just too much work. I'm just not doing it anymore. Another thing was this giant on-the-wall wooden uh spool rack that was seven and a half pounds, and that was 22 by 4 by 30 inches. Right now I have these Filipino baskets that are like very um, very nice, and they're two and a half pounds, but they have to go in a certain box, and so it locks the weight and the box size ahead of time. And the great thing is you're not gonna be hit with upcoming cost. If you, you know, so if you have something weird or odd shaped or over, you know, 14, 16, 18 ounces, whatever, definitely go in and do the custom shipping profiles. Like I said, for me, I'm gonna stick with the standard 12 by 12 by 12 box because I don't want to keep doing these. If you have to scramble at the last minute, it's the extra box size, the time, the extra shipping cost, it's a lot. It's just not worth it for me. I'm sure that there's a lot of people who are gonna disagree with me. Like that lady who had the printer chaise, she sold it for 110 bucks. That's great. For me personally, I think anything that's that big that I've got to sell when I'm it looks like I'm moving out of my house and getting a divorce. I think I'm going to sell that via estate sale or Facebook Marketplace or something where somebody can pick it up. I just don't want to be shipping it anymore. That's just me. Okay, under that settings, um, you've got your seller status, and that's the one that we've talked about, right? It's split up into we well, we didn't talk about this. We touched on it, but it's gonna give you your permissions and your gated categories. So I'm not pulling it up right now, guys, but it has a bunch of approvals, and permissions shows three different things, right? Like if you're approved to sell items outside of live shows, um, whether you're approved to host shows at all, and also like if you're a teen seller or something, um, and anybody who's a teen is 13 to 17, just FYI, they can sell on there, but they're supposed to be with the parent. I have seen shows with like a kid who looked like he was like nine or 11 years old in the middle of the night while his parents were sleeping on there, and I was just like, oh my gosh. And everybody was trying to buy from him. It was it was crazy. He was selling coins of his parents and they weren't even on there. So if you're a parent and you're gonna let your kid do that, I would definitely make sure they're not on the computer or or you know, phone in the middle of the night. Anyways, um, the gated categories are the bigger things that we need to focus on. And those are the products that you have to have extra permission and approval to get your seller status. I actually have mine in all of them. I don't know why I did it. I mean, I've got card breaks, I've got luxury bags and accessories, I've got surprise sets, sneakers, street wear. I'm I'm I'm capable of selling anything and everything. Um, I can sell supplements, I can sell fresh and specialty food, uh, you know, whatever. I actually haven't signed up for fresh and specialty food, but I'm I've been, you can apply for all of them and you can get approved for all of them. And if you're gonna do that, I highly suggest, guys. I keep going off track. There's so much to say. Um, and I'm talking fast today. There's two different um things I think that you should think of. If you're going to get a lane and you want to sell in two different categories, you should set up a different account. Like if you're gonna sell salmon and you're gonna sell jewelry, do not try to sell them in the same category. Make two different shows. They don't even come close. Now, if you're gonna sell women's jewelry and every once in a while you're gonna bring in clothes, that's close enough that you can do it. But if it's something far off, you need two totally different uh shops set up for that. And um, anyways, you have to get approval if you're selling certain things because they make sure that you know all the things that you have to do. Okay. Last thing in all these settings that we've gone through is rehearsal mode. And this is one that you guys, I never did this, I've never rehearsed. Um, but I've been in public, I've been a teacher, I've been a principal, I didn't really care. And people mess up. You hear me messing up as I'm talking to you. So to me, I was just willing to balls to the walls. Let's go, let's do it. But if you are a shy person, if you're nervous, if you're scared, if you're worried, if you don't know how you're gonna go through, okay, when a when you show an item, where's it going? Who's it going to? How are you placing it? Whatever, you can go into rehearsal mode and practice all of that. So um there's a check box, and you can kind of go through the different buttons to make sure once you go in, um, you're gonna see your show notes. Everybody should put your show notes in there. You're gonna see your menu, you're gonna see promote and clips and shares and camera and shop. You're gonna see all this stuff. I'm not gonna talk about all that right now, but that's how you go through to get comfortable um being in front of the camera and doing it. Okay, and the very last one, and I'm talking as fast as I can, is settings in vacation mode. You're gonna toggle on that if you ever need to not be available. And I say it's not just for vacation. If your mom or your cousin is in the hospital and you're at the hospital, quickly put that on, especially because you don't want people buying stuff and placing orders out of your buy it now and you can't get it out because then that's gonna affect your ratings. So if you're between shows and you know you can't get things out, put it on vacation mode. Right now, I'm in vacation mode. Nobody can buy anything from me. I I don't feel the stress of it, and I definitely think you should do that. Okay, um, so that is the seller hub from the top to the bottom, the parts that matter. We went through it really quick. Um, go check today your account health. Look at what those circles are. What is your percentage? Are you in good standing or excellent standing? You need to know these numbers um and also try to work on getting these up if they're down, because pretty soon people are gonna get to see those. Okay, so if I've helped you with any of these, or even if you knew some of this stuff and you didn't know some of it, if you learned anything at all, guys, please give me a five-star rating and a good review. It helps other sellers get this. If you like the podcast, eat the good, the bad, the over-talking, the over-explaining, whatever it is, and you think somebody else can benefit from it, please share it out. Okay. And the other thing is, guys, um, this episode, if you didn't like this, there's a ton. I this is the 104th episode. There are episodes on shipping, there are episodes on customer support, there are uh episodes on organizing your stuff. There is a lot here, and there will always be a lot here and other places. Um, Blazian Bunny is my friend. She has a YouTube channel, guys. If you do not know something, you do not have to pay somebody a bunch of money to figure out this information. Go to seller support shows, go to YouTube, go to this podcast, look, listen. And if you need help and you want to save some money and time, I am very cheap. Honestly, it's $40 per hour or $20 per half an hour to sit with me to have me evaluate your shop, evaluate your shows, evaluate your, you know, pictures and how you're doing things and give you suggestions that are personal to you. Um, and I wish I had like, you know, a website that talked about all my people who have saved money and learned from me and how they benefited. And I had a review section. I don't, but I've given at least a hundred consultations right now, and I'm good at what I do and I'm fast. And my clients do good. Uh, my customers appreciate that. So, um, anyways, if you want to get a hold of me, my phone number is 832-607-1526. Literally, that's my phone number. I'll pick it up a lot of the time. If not, you can message me or leave me a message um and I'll try to get a hold of you. Yesterday's consultation, literally, the girl messaged me the day before, and I was like, I can do it tomorrow. Doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes it's going to be two weeks out. Um, the worst I've had it is three weeks out, but I'm pretty good about getting back to you guys. So if you need anything, you know, message me. If it's just a simple question and not you don't even want to pay for it, but you're just stuck somewhere. I'm happy to help you guys because I do believe in the law of respitity, meaning that if I give, I'm gonna get back. I just I believe that you know, um, you treat others as you want to be treated and you do your best and it'll come back to you. So, that being said, I hope the best for all of you. I hope this helped you a little bit, maybe cleared up some things. I hope you were on your phone going through it while we were talking. If not, I hope you were taking notes. And yeah, that's about it. I gotta go deal with my puppy who had surgery. I have to take him out like every half an hour or an hour now because, you know. Anyways, all right, guys. We'll see you later. Take care. Bye bye.