NOTE: These transcripts are generated automatically, so there are plenty of mistakes.
Oliver: [00:00:00] Do you want to sell Pokemon cards online and make some money? Today, I’m joined by Joseph, otherwise known as Jempulls on YouTube. His channel is all about selling Pokemon cards online, and this conversation is full of valuable lessons. We talk beginner tips, The biggest hurdle for beginners, whether you should sell your cards on TCG player, eBay, or build your own site and just a whole bunch of other helpful stuff.
He’s amazing at what he does. And I really hope you enjoyed this conversation. So I want to start with your origin story. If you can introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are. And I want to know about how you started selling Pokemon cards online.
Joseph: Sure. So my origin story. So, as far as like my, my Pokemon journey in the last two years.
So, my origin story, basically, you know, I was a personal trainer. I’ll just keep it brief. So like, yeah, like I was a personal trainer, and I was a private personal trainer. I [00:01:00] had my own clients and stuff, and there was this one day where I lost clients. I lost like three clients in one day. And that didn’t sit too well with me.
I’m like, wow, okay, so I’m putting my own I’m putting my own, I guess, my own success in other people’s hands, and that just really didn’t sit, you know, sit well with me. So I started looking up side hustles, like, what should I, like, I want to look up a, I looked up a side hustle, and I found eBay. I didn’t know anything about eBay, you know, until, you know, three years ago.
And I found out about it, you know, two years ago. Like, oh, I always thought eBay was like a place where you just auction stuff, that’s it, right? And then I learned about eBay, about the reselling aspect of it, okay? So I didn’t start off with Pokemon right away. That was my, you know, my initial Thing that I started with was just anything I could sell at that point.
And so, you know, I understood what reselling was. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube, how to resell on eBay, particularly though, I think, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this channel daily refinements. [00:02:00] No. Yeah. He’s a very, very famous, you know, eBay reseller. And anyone that resells that’s watching this right now will know who that channel is, but I started watching his channel, learning how to resell the proper way and everything like that.
And, you know, I did everything that he said and everything and so like the first couple months of my eBay my feet I say like maybe like a few months my You know, I didn’t have a niche. I just sold anything I could sell. I could sell, you know, women, purses, clothes. I just pretty much sold anything that I had available to me at that point.
But I knew at some point I needed to find a niche, right? So I ended up going through my garage and I find some cards and. It was a whole different variety of cards. I had Dragon Ball Z cards, I had Yu Gi Oh cards, I had, you know, some old Pokemon cards as well. And, they weren’t good. They were not that good.
They were only like common cards and stuff like that. I went through them. And, I didn’t have any knowledge of like TCG. I didn’t even know if this stuff still exists. I didn’t know Pokemon still existed, I didn’t know if Yu Gi Oh still existed, right? So, I found this collection in my garage. And, [00:03:00] I look up, you know, these cards.
Most of these cards are just commons and stuff. I found one card that was like, worth like 50 bucks. I’m like, huh, okay, let me try to resell this card, or try to sell it, right? Ahem. And You know, take photos, post on eBay. Literally that same day, I got a 50 order. So I’m bought that card and I’m like 50 bucks for a card.
And I was just like, wow, that was pretty easy. You know, instead of like selling like purses and you know, like coffee mugs and stuff where you have to like, you know, wrap it and put it in a box. That’s so much like effort of doing that. I sold a card. It was really easy. You put it in a top loader, put it, you know, put some tape on it, protective sleeve, and that’s it.
You set it off in an envelope. And I was like, really hyped. I was like, really, I was like, cool. And, and then I just, after that, I just did a lot of research. I understood modern Pokemon. I didn’t know anything about modern Pokemon. And it took me some time to get back up to speed with it. And yeah, so that’s basically like how my origin story went, [00:04:00] man.
And now I’m at this point where, you know, I know pretty much I can look at a collection right now and tell you and give you an estimate on a price on that collection just by looking at it. So. Yeah. It’s be that, yeah, that’s basically how things started. The bare bone days, uh, my store started.
Oliver: That’s cool.
So you basically stumbled upon it
Joseph: on accident. Yes, it was on accident that I decided to do Pokemon just from that one little event stuff. So do
Oliver: you happen to remember what that card was?
Joseph: Yeah, I actually do. And it was not Pokemon. It was actually a, it was a Dragon Ball Z card, which it was that T that CCG is actually dead, like.
CC Dragon Ball Z was never really a successful CCG, it was a, it was a dead CCG for a very, very, very long time, and, yeah, and this card was like a, I forgot what it was, like a, like a Majin Vegeta card, it was like a holo, like a reverse holo or something like that, I don’t know anything about Dragon Ball Z, right.[00:05:00]
But I just did the research. I did, you know, my, my listing and I listed it and literally like within hours, someone bought it for 50 bucks. So it wasn’t a Pokemon card, but it was a Dragon Ball Z card, but it just kind of just, I saw that. I’m like, wow, that’s really cool. Like, wow, I made 50 bucks from a card.
So yeah, that’s how things kind of started for me.
Oliver: Cool. That it’s kind of funny. I also started out with a personal trading business and it was just, you know, Not really what I liked. And so I shifted into a Pokemon card business.
Joseph: Yeah, it was just a thing where I just, I didn’t want, I wanted to dictate my own success.
And the only way I’m going to do that is if I have hands on, on everything, because technically if you are relying on your clients, they have to pay you. That’s how you’re getting, you know, that’s how you’re able to function as a business or just whatever you want to do. And as soon as I lost those clients, I’m like, this is stupid, man.
Like, I can’t force them to pay me, you know? So I found out about eBay and [00:06:00] literally eBay, you control everything. The thing you don’t control is when you send off your, your, your order. After that, though, you control everything. So that’s what I like about eBay and reselling is everything is in your control.
So,
Oliver: yeah, I agree with that. For me, it was like, as a personal trainer, I wasn’t really into filming myself and going the social media, Instagram route. Which was just so, so competitive. Everyone was on Instagram and, and they all looked really good. And you know, I’m losing my hair.
Joseph: Hey man, I’ve already lost my hair, man.
I just, I shaved my head now at this point. So, you know, there’s no shame in it, man. There’s no shame in it. You know? So
Oliver: no shame, no shame. But you know, I, I look at my competition and, you know, there’s this like, this whole niche of really buff guys on Instagram with beautiful hair and big followings and now it’s, oh man, I don’t know if I want to chase after this
Joseph: Yeah, no, it’s, the thing is, [00:07:00] is just like, I think the fitness industry, there’s, I’ll, I’ll be honest with you, I just, I, it was a good thing for me to step away from it. ’cause I’m, you know, there was a lot of fraud in, in fitness. There’s a lot of phonies, and there’s a lot of, like, I don’t know if you know who Liver King is, I mean, that’s a perfect example of a humongous influencer, and turns out that he’s a fraud.
He was a fraud. And, you know, it’s not just him though, but like, I found out about that the hard way, I’m like, yeah, I just, I want to step away from this and find something different. And the community is just, like, weird. And the fitness community, and there’s a lot of good people, but there’s also a lot of bad apples.
And I just, I just, I didn’t want to associate with that any longer,
Oliver: you know? So, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. So I’ve been watching a lot of your videos past week. Last week I got this, this idea in my head and I just got hyper fixated on it that I was going to start a site and sell Pokemon cards. And I just got like extremely obsessed.
I spent a whole day. Building a [00:08:00] Shopify site and I made it look really pretty. I got a sweet domain name, set up a business email, and I thought finding a distributor was going to be easy. It was not. I searched in YouTube. What do I do if I can’t find a distributor? And that’s how I found your videos. What I, what I found is so fantastic about your channel is that it’s so raw.
Your videos are minimally edited and it’s just. It’s really kind of like a fly on the wall vlog style. You’re incredibly honest, very transparent, and as a, as a user, I’m watching a guy, you know, struggle and, Succeed through his online journey here. And it’s just, like I said, just so raw. And I think that’s where your channel provides so much value.
So I want to thank you for that, because when you search how to sell Pokemon cards [00:09:00] online on YouTube. You really have to scroll far to get past all that BS content. I want to appreciate that. Thank you. I want to know why you’ve taken this approach of just super honest, like minimal editing vlog style.
Joseph: Well, I’ll give you two reasons. Reason. Number one is. Okay, I’ll give you the two, obviously two reasons. So the reason number one, why am I making content to teach people how to make Pokemon, or how to start a Pokemon or a TCG business? Why, like why? What’s my approach? What’s my, you know, my intention? The reason why is because I’ve always been, like I said, I come from personal training.
I have a lot of personal training experience. And I just have this innate, I guess, I don’t know what you would want to call it, but I love seeing other people, Being successful from what I teach them. I got them in powerlif er, powerlifting and personal training, whatever the case may be. And there’s nothing more fulfilling than seeing [00:10:00] somebody, giving someone advice, and really training them and, and, and showing them the ropes of my, through my experiences and, and giving away that experience to them.
I love seeing that from people being successful from my own experience, right? And, and coaching them. And I’m not, I’m not a jealous person too. I’m not an envious person. When I see someone else that’s completely in their own lanes, that are not affiliated with me, I’m happy for them. Like, if they’re doing well, God, you know.
God bless them. They’re doing really well. And I’m not an envious person, right? I don’t, I don’t sit there and like, Oh, uh, you know, screw this person, blah, blah, blah. Like, no, like if you’re doing well, good for you. I’m, I’m, I’m happy, happy for you. So that’s reason number one. And number two, the content style.
So like I, like you said, raw, get straight to the point. You know what I’m saying? People just want to get straight to the point. Um, you know, I think documenting my journey and you know, showing the, showing people how. I have a little bit of a mixture of a vlog style, [00:11:00] uh, instructional style, where I give instruction.
There’s a lot of that in my, in my content. The main thing I want to put out there for people is I want people to see My example. Whether if I, I, I succeed or fail, I’m willing to take the bed that, you know, I’m gonna succeed. Succeed. But that’s not guaranteed. Right? But as long as I’m given that value and showing people that my little business, because I’m still considered as a little small business, right?
I’m, I’m not big on YouTube. I don’t have a big eBay store yet to give people inspiration to start this. Because if you go on YouTube, you’re really not gonna find that much business advice. The only people you’re gonna find are like, you know, Pokienny. I like Pokienny, actually. Pokienny is a really good, is a really good YouTube channel.
I like Pokienny a lot. And then that’s pretty much it. Alpha Investments is a completely different channel. I know, he’s humongous. But he has like a very different style. RNG Games, I don’t know if you know who that is. [00:12:00] I have a lot of respect for him. He has an LGS here in the U. S. That’s pretty much it, there’s really not that much business content about TCG stores.
I think I can relate to a lot of people, since I’m a smaller person. Smaller YouTube channel. And so that’s basically like my second reason is the reason why I’m just raw, transparent, and just very minimal editing is because that is what’s going to, I guess, for people to trust me, I have to be raw. I have to not do any gimmicks or nothing like that.
And you know, it’s right to the point. And that’s just kind of like my style, you know what I’m saying? So. That was like a long winded answer. I hope that makes sense, but yeah, that’s just, you know, reason number one I’m not an envious person. I want to see people to be successful. If I can give away that experience through my own trial and error I’ll be happy.
Like if someone, you know, comes to my channel and gains inspiration and they want to start their Pokemon store That to me is more important to me than my subscriber count. [00:13:00] I don’t care about my subscriber count You know what I’m saying? I don’t care. All I care about is if I’m able to help one person out there, that’s all I care about.
That’s all I care about. And I’m gonna just continue to, you know, document my own journey for however many years. I plan to do this for a very, very long time. So, you know, it’s gonna be really, really hard for me to fail. Cause I’m, it’s, I don’t accept defeat that easy. So yeah, that’s just kind of like my motivation.
Oliver: Great answer. I can relate to you on the, the natural wanting to teach and seeing others succeed. I like that too. That’s why I’m primarily an educational channel and your subscriber count is fantastic by the way.
Joseph: You’re
Oliver: doing really well. I was, I was surprised. I was like, damn, damn. That’s really good.
Joseph: It’s only been a year. Yeah. I don’t know how much I’m at right now. Like maybe like seven something. I forgot, but seven something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I started last year and yeah. You know, it’s funny. Like last year I didn’t take it serious. Cause I didn’t think of whatever, like I was, I was not [00:14:00] really organized last year, but right around the holidays I started, you know, getting really consistent with my uploads and just start uploading like twice a week and everything like that.
And. Yeah, it’s been paying off to, you know, put content out there and just, just, you know, help people as much as I can, you know.
Oliver: Do you feel like your YouTube videos are providing any additional traffic to your eBay store?
Joseph: That’s a good question. I like that question. So, I had this question from a subscriber in my comment section and I answered it this way.
I basically told them that I don’t So me putting my link of my eBay store into my YouTube and my YouTube page, I, the purpose of that is not to attract traffic because on eBay, eBay does that for you. That’s why we paid the fees. They are going to whatever listing you put on there, eBay is going to send it out to, you know, thousand impressions, 10, 000 impressions.
So yeah, that’s, [00:15:00] that’s not the strategy. The reason why I have my eBay link in my YouTube channel is to show proof of work. Show my proof that I’m not a gimmick. I’m not a guru. This is actually legit. I’m actually running a eBay store. And so, you know, it’s just a proof of work. You know, I have no intentions of people.
If people want to go on my link and they see something they want off my eBay store that they happen to want, you know, yeah, they can buy from me. That’s fine. But that’s not the main motivation I would say, because eBay is doing that for you or, you know, anyways, you don’t need the, I don’t need the extra traffic of people on YouTube to, uh, Come buy my stuff.
That’s not the point. You know,
Oliver: it’s a good answer. I did check out your store and I did see stuff. I like a huge collector by the way. And so that’s kind of, that’s my next question for you. You give this advice in your videos that you should sell your collection. And I don’t disagree with that, but I also don’t like hearing that advice because I am very attached to my [00:16:00] cards.
That being said. After watching your videos, I did start an eBay store on Sunday. I’ve made three sales, very happy with it. Thank you so much for your advice. I have sold some of my cards, but I’m kind of reflecting on which cards I am really willing to sell and there’s not a lot. So I guess my question for you is what’s your personal relationship with Pokemon cards?
Cause it sounds like you don’t have a personal collection.
Joseph: Like I said, my origin story. And when I, cause when I was a kid, I was like, when I was like, Eight, seven, you know, 7, 8, 9 years old. I was more into Yugi OI had a humongous Yugi O collection and you know, I didn’t, I think back then I gravitated way more on Yugi O than I did with Pokemon.
I was both, I was both a collector where I was like that young. Now when I, when I quit TCG, I like 10 years old ’cause I was just growing up and I was like, whatever, I don’t care about this anymore. I threw away all my cards. I remember that day I threw away all of my [00:17:00] first edition. You know, Legend of Blue Eyes.
Yeah, I threw it all away, man. And I look back now, I’m 29 now, so 19 years ago when I was 10 years old, I don’t know why I did that. But, no one knew that these cards were going to, all these collections were going to appreciate the way they’re appreciating all this vintage stuff. So, from 10 years old, let’s go ahead and fast forward all the way up until this point now.
So, like I said, I had a mini collection, a very small collection in my garage. It’s very, very minimal. And, like I said, I had no knowledge of modern Pokemon at all. Didn’t know anything about it, right? So, I had to, for me, right, I, when I did not, so the bare bones of like my eBay store, when I first start, when I first launched the eBay store and I decided to go all in a Pokemon, I had to gain knowledge.
So I decided to buy my own, buy my own collection. I think right, I think it was the beginning of 2023. I didn’t know anything of how to source for cards, source for collections, nothing like that. [00:18:00] Right? So I just built my own collection and I did it authentically and I bought so many cards. I spent like a grand.
Like right away, a grand, and I bought Silver Tempest, Lost Origin, Celebrations, and I bought a lot. And I was having fun with it too, it was really fun. So my personal collection at that point, I had about like 1500 of cards, right? The Scarlet and Violets, I bought all of it, right? And, I realized that in order to be successful at this, because I want this to be successful, I have to unattach myself from these cards.
That’s the only way I’m going to be able to be successful. So to answer your question, that’s kind of like, you know, I basically, I expedited, I expedited my current collection at that time. Very quickly amounted about 1500, 1, 500 of cards. And I just decided that, you know, I had to unattach myself from these cards.
And [00:19:00] that’s the thing that a lot of people struggle with, too. That’s why I think selling your collection You know, it’s a good step to get practice because you don’t have any skin in the game, right? You’re not putting your hard working cash on something You don’t you don’t have any idea of how to like find you know swords for collections get a supplier or nothing like that, right?
That’s why I always urge people to skip practice the best, you know, that’s the best way to not lose money technically You’re not really losing money And you’re just selling from your own collection. So yeah, that’s basically like, you know, when I was opening my packs, man, in the beginning of 2023, I was like, this is awesome.
I got like a lot of good cards, but there’s a difference. There’s a difference between being a collector and being a seller. You can’t, you can be both, but you have to understand that there has to be a, a, a divide. If you want to have a personal collection for your own, That’s entirely like up to you. Like you should have a collection, right?
If you [00:20:00] want, I do have, I have a few, I have a lot of sealed product that I still I’m carrying right now that I’m going to hold on to just because I enjoy looking at it. It’s fun. I love collecting PCs. UPCs are fun to collect. That’s like kind of like my thing and I just like to just have it, you know, if it appreciates over time, it does.
If it doesn’t, whatever, I don’t care. Right. But just to have it as just like cool to look at. But yeah, like I said, you have to separate yourself from being a collector. And a seller and you cannot intertwine the, both, you have to divide it. You know what I’m saying? So yeah, that’s kind of like my, I guess, explanation for myself as a collector and as a seller.
Oliver: Yeah. I I’ve made three sales since I started my eBay store. That’s awesome. This morning I sold a card that I was attached to. Which one
Joseph: was
Oliver: it? It was actually a Lorkana card.
Joseph: Oh, Lorkana. Okay. Lorkana. Okay.
Oliver: I only. I could only find two packs of Disney Lurkana, and I pulled a [00:21:00] valuable card out of it. The Brave Little Taylor Mickey Mouse foil.
And it’s like a hundred dollar card. And I thought, you know, this being the first Set of Lorcana this could really appreciate and over time and I ended up selling it because you know I was like, I’m a Pokemon collector. What am I? What am I doing? I’ve got Digimon, Lorcana, Universes, Yu Gi Oh, Magic and And here I am opening the eBay store, and I thought okay well, it’s gonna be a journey for me to to emotionally be okay to sell some of my Pokemon cards that I’m more attached to so I’m gonna start by With these other TCGs that I’m not as attached to, but I found that it was still difficult.
So, what do you see beginners struggle with the most?
Joseph: Hmm, that’s a good question. Unless that, that was it. That’s one of them. The second hardest I would say is the capital. People don’t have the money to start it, and I’ve had questions where [00:22:00] people ask me if they should, like, leverage their Pokemon businesses right away, and I’m like, no, do not ever, ever, ever, you’ll never hear me ever say take out a credit card and just go buy a bunch of Pokemon cards, or whatever.
I would never advise that, it’s very dangerous and it’s very irresponsible of me if I was doing, if I was saying stuff like that. That’s why I always suggest people to sell their collections because that’s capital right there. You, if you, when you decide, like, you know, you don’t have to do it that way.
I’m not suggesting doing it that way, right? If, if you have the capital to invest, like if you have a savings and you want to dip a little bit of your savings into, you know, sourcing for cards and everything like that, sourcing for collections, or getting the supplier to buy, you know, a sealed product, then that’s Do it for sure.
But the reason why I like selling the collection aspect first is because you get the practice in, you get the reps in, you know, and it’s, it’s just like, there’s really no risk to it. Right. And so I know that’s a hard pill to [00:23:00] swallow for a lot of collectors, but it’s a suggestion, right? Because a lot of people, a lot of people you’d be surprised telling me that they don’t have much money to start off with.
And I made a video like a while ago of how to source for inventory. I literally for like, it was like a 30 minute video where I’d show you exactly where to find collections. And it didn’t get as much views as I thought it would. And that’s where like, that’s the bread and butter. That’s the meat and potatoes of what everyone, like people always ask me, where do you find, you know, discounted collections and stuff like that.
And I show you exactly how to do it. And I realized in that video that I made, like, yeah, like, you know, buying a 300, 400 collection is a lot of money to a lot of people. And I understand that. So, you know, I try to figure out solutions. I’m a solution type person. I’m going to give you the solutions that have worked for me that I believe will work for most people.
And you know, I can only give you the solutions and it’s up to the person whether or [00:24:00] not they take the solutions or not, or if they figure out a different way, you know? So that’s just kind of like how I advise people, I would say, you know, to, uh, Sell their collections if they don’t have the capital. So that’s, that’s the second hardest thing, which is the money.
It’s expensive. It really is expensive. And I won’t lie to you and say it’s not, it’s very expensive, but like I said, you know, once you, you don’t have to, you don’t need a thousand dollars to start off with, you don’t, you can start off with 50 bucks. You can literally just start off with an ETB worth of cards.
That’s all you need. And if you get a few hits, and stuff like that, Okay, if you don’t make your Let’s say you buy an ETB, right? And let’s say, like, a Paldan Fates. And, you know, you open the box, It’s like 9 booster packs, I think you get in that. And, let’s say you get a Gardevoir EX special illustration card.
And it’s worth, like, I think 60 right now on the market. And an ETB is 44. Okay. You just made your money back plus a little bit of profit. Cool. You got lucky. Cool. [00:25:00] I wouldn’t advise doing that all the time because that’s very, very, very rare. But 40 is all you really need. 40, 50 is all you need to get this thing snowballing and build that capital.
The more capital you have, the more. Buying power you have in order to, you know, use that buying power to buy collections and be the middleman for, you know, people to, because I sell singles, most of my store is just singles. I’m helping the person that is seeking out singles for their collections. And, you know, that’s just kind of like fulfilling, I guess, for me, that, you know, some, I get so many good feedback on my thing, on my eBay of people, like, wow, I, I’ve been looking for this car for a long time, had a good, you know, had a good price, blah, blah, blah.
And that’s another thing, too, people, people are always looking for the best price for the, you know, for the, you know, for their, Whatever card they’re looking for, because you go on TCGplayer, there’s so many different variations of prices on one card. And, I think I offer the most [00:26:00] fair prices, I think, on my, on my store.
And, because I understand where the buyer’s coming from, so I want to do my best to provide that service for collectors. So, that’s just kinda, you know. I would say, to answer your question, after a long winded answer, capital is the second hardest. Like I said, you don’t need a thousand bucks, you just need an ETB worth of money.
And just get that snowballing. And once you get that snowballing, let’s say you do for a year, let’s say that 50 bucks turns into a thousand bucks. You wouldn’t have that thousand dollars if you didn’t start, right? It’s all about a snowball effect. It’s all about, it’s all about momentum at the end of the day, you know?
So
Oliver: I see. So let’s say you do have a thousand bucks to get started, which is going to be uncommon, maybe not a thousand, maybe you have a few hundred and to throw it back a little bit to where you said sourcing. How would you source Pokemon cards to flip and sell on eBay? I’m [00:27:00] going to assume that you don’t want to go by sealed product because in my own experience, it’s a, you know, a terrible return.
Joseph: Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. I know I don’t advise people to buy like sealed product on retail. It, no, unless you want to hold onto it as an investment. Sure, but if you are trying to resell it, no, it’s not going to happen.
Oliver: So do you go on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and secondhand markets like, like that? Is that where you’re sourcing these cards from?
Joseph: Yes. So it’s no secret. You can go on my channel and find that. I source from Facebook Marketplace, I source from OfferUp, I source on even eBay sometimes. You know, wherever, whatever other secondary market that provides a, a huge supply of that, that’s where you want to find them. Even garage sales, even if, you know, even if you ask a buddy of yours, like, like, at work.
I’m talking to the audience, like, you know, if you work with a buddy at work, like, you’d be surprised. Like, a lot of people have Pokemon collections that they don’t want, [00:28:00] or just have in their, in their garages and binders. Everyone, literally, Pokemon is so Popular that everyone has heard of Pokemon at some point in their lives So you like people like you can ask co workers like hey Are you in the Pokemon and talk about it and stuff like that like spur it’ll spark up the conversation Just create a thing creative things like that.
But most the time you’re gonna find Facebook Facebook marketplace offer up local You know Facebook marketplace locally even eBay sometimes Let’s talk about the seal product really quick because I have a video too of how to find supplier. So, and that’s, this was the main objection when I first started my channel, when I was at like 100, 200 subscribers, like that was the main objection was, how can I start a Pokemon store without a distributor?
That was the main objection back then. And honestly, at that time, I didn’t have, I didn’t have an answer. I was like, okay, that’s actually a good question. Like I’m only have a couple hundred subscribers. I, they’re right. I don’t have a distributor and just, you know, distributions not taking any more [00:29:00] online sellers anymore because.
Once everything reopened after COVID and everything like that, once the business was back up and a hundred percent, you know, you know, LG, or not LG as a distributor, the distributions were like, yo, and we’re not taking any more online sellers. We’re only working with brick and mortars and the current contracts that we have right now.
That’s it. If you’re a brick and mortar, cool. You can, you know, Send a, you know, send, send a request to, you know, inquire with our distribution services. But if you’re not an LGS, or if you’re not an LGS, then sorry, we can’t help you. That’s basically what distributions basically said, which was in the beginning of last year.
So that was everyone’s objection back then. I don’t have a distributor. How can I get a hold of Pokemon cards? Okay, cool. So I had to figure out that solution by myself. So, what I ended up doing was I followed PokeAnnie’s advice. And, he’s a very, I like PokeAnnie a lot, you know, hopefully once my YouTube channel You know, hopefully it gets bigger.
I would love to do a podcast with him one day and really, you know, and really pick his [00:30:00] brain. But all PokeAnnie did during the pandemic, during the, during the peak of the pandemic was he took the opportunity to find Japanese, find Japanese suppliers. And it’s really easy. All he, all he did was go on Instagram, go on Instagram, you know, type in hashtag Japanese Pokemon.
Or Pokemon Japanese or whatever, right? And you’ll find so many Japanese suppliers, Japanese sellers, wherever the case may be. And that’s exactly what I did. I still have my, I still have my Japanese supplier and you know, that’s exactly what I did. And I sold a lot of Japanese boxes last year. I did. I sold like a few hundred of them last year in 20, 2023 after I did all that.
Then I made a video of, of, of overcoming the objection. You don’t need a distributor. You can find a supplier in Japan, sell Japanese. Japanese product is really booming right now. In my opinion, we’re at a little bit of a bear market right now with [00:31:00] Japanese right now, but nonetheless, Japanese is here to stay.
In the American markets and the Western markets for sure. And that’s a huge opportunity for a lot of people if you know how to do it the right way. But yeah, so I overcame that objection pretty, you know, on my own and I just showed people the proof that like, yeah, I have a supplier. This is how I got my supplier and that’s exactly what I did.
And you know, and then the next objection was, okay, well how do I get hold of singles? Okay, well, at that point I couldn’t answer that at that time, so, I just, I just did trial and error, you know, I, I, I I was like, okay, I mean, garage sales, okay. I don’t know where to find garage sales, blah, blah, blah. Try garage sales, you know, in like my local area, try to find garage sales, not that much stuff asking friends, asking, you know, coworkers at work, you know, I did all of that.
And then I came across OfferUp, which is, you know, a second, it’s a secondary market where it’s like Craigslist, like [00:32:00] their people just sell their stuff, like they’re getting rid of their stuff, I don’t want anymore, there’s a lot of Pokemon stuff on there, and people are just liquidating their stuff at really discounted prices, and this stuff’s near mint stuff, near mint binders, it’s basically new, you know, and then I did that, you know, and then I found Facebook Marketplace, you know, you go locally for Facebook Marketplace, you’ll find a lot of people that are just getting rid of their Pokemon cards.
Or their binders or whatever. And you know, and then after that, I’m like, yeah, I created a video, how to find Pokemon collections or whatever the case may be. And I made that video and I overcame that objection. So I don’t get those objections anymore of how to find a distributor or how to find singles, because I overcame them myself and I recorded that experience.
Of how to overcome that. And now I don’t have, I don’t have those objections anymore because it’s all on my channel at this point right now of how to basically do all of that stuff on your own. So.
Oliver: That is amazing. It’s amazing. That’s where all your value comes from too, in my opinion, is problem [00:33:00] solving, which you’re obviously skilled at and documenting it online for, for people like me who find your channel and, and maybe are not as good at problem solving.
Joseph: No, it’s, it’s, I’m going to tell you what, TCG is a very hard business model to execute. It’s very hard because there is a lot of nuance to TCG, to be having a TCG store. And there’s a lot of ways to mess it up. There’s more ways to mess it up, mess up a TCG store than there are successful ways. There’s only a couple successful ways to really have a really good, robust Pokemon storefront or TCG storefront, magic, whatever the case, whatever.
Whatever the person’s into whatever the case, right? And that it’s hard. It really is hard. And you just have to be extremely patient and you just have to be really, you really have to realize your mistakes and learn from your mistakes and just realize that, okay, like [00:34:00] I got, okay. I, you know, you gotta just, you gotta be, you have to be very, like you have to pay attention to your expenses, your overhead, you know, Is the collection that you buy even worth it, but you just got to be very, very careful.
There’s little details, little, little, little details that would put your business under if you’re not paying attention. So it’s not easy. It’s not easy. Running a TZ business is not easy. There’s a lot of nuance to it, a lot. So yeah, it’s definitely not easy for sure.
Oliver: So let’s throw it back a little bit to the Japanese sealed product because I have some, actually I have a personal question for me.
When you go to source. And you get a Japanese supplier to, to clarify you’re purchasing in bulk and that’s how you’re getting a discount. Correct?
Joseph: Yes. Now you gotta be very careful with this because since Japanese is very, uh, Japanese is here to stay in the wet and in our, in our Western atmosphere, [00:35:00] right?
It’s, it’s here, right? There’s suppliers now that are English suppliers that are here in America. Those suppliers, I will not actually trust the suppliers more in Japan. That I would hear in America, Canada, doesn’t matter, right? Because, like I said, like, those suppliers from, those English suppliers that are here, like in America, U.
S., so it doesn’t matter, right? More than likely, their stuff is going to be hiked up compared to the actual person that’s actually on the ground in Japan. The person that’s actually on the ground in Japan. It’s gonna give you way cheaper quotes than if you come across somebody that’s a supplier here in North America.
And yeah, uh, this, this discount and not really, if you really know the prices in the market of actual Japanese, I wouldn’t trust English suppliers in my opinion. That’s just my personal opinion. So, yeah, I just wanted to throw that point out there. That it’s, I think it’s very crucial to find a supplier that’s on the ground in Japan.[00:36:00]
Oliver: Yeah, from my experience, I’ve been buying Pokemon cards for, you know, the majority of my life and Purchasing from Japanese sellers on eBay and every individual is different. Obviously, I’m not gonna say all North Americans are You know, X, Y, or Z Japanese sellers, you get thank you cards, you know, like handwritten notes, they sort of stickers in there and it’s always packaged up so nicely.
Sometimes I’ll buy like a 3 card and it comes in like 2 worth of, you know, like top loaders, card savers, team bags, like all kinds of stuff like that. And just from, from my personal experience, Japanese doing business with Japanese is. Generally better. I’ve had a better experience. So my gut feeling would be to find an actual Japanese supplier.
For someone who’s looking to find a supplier for, for Japanese, or let’s say they have found a [00:37:00] supplier for Japanese. Is there a step to take, or is there a process from, from growing your store from a Japanese supplier to English cards? Because that seems to be the hurdle in my eyes is yeah, I can get a Japanese supplier.
I can sell Japanese and if I succeed there, how the heck do I start selling English? Cause that seems to be a lot harder.
Joseph: Let me ask you a question. So you, so you’re saying that English is a lot harder or you think Japanese is harder?
Oliver: I think getting an English supplier is.
Joseph: That’s selling Japanese seal product or just, and just in general, just selling this product, just English doesn’t matter.
Oliver: Specifically English product. Good question.
Joseph: Okay. So, let’s go ahead and talk about that. Let’s talk about, let’s touch up on that. So, yes, if you want to just have a strict Japanese store, that’s possible. If you want to do it that way, just sell the sealed product, you know, find someone on the ground. Like I just described, find someone on the ground in Japan, you know, find a supplier, make sure they’re trustworthy.
You know, [00:38:00] there’s a lot of things I go over in my videos of how to, like, make sure to mitigate as much risk as possible because there’s scammers too in Japan, there’s scammers here in North America, there’s scammers everywhere, right? So, yeah, that’s good. So you gotta, you know, there’s a lot of risk, you know, mitigating risk factors that you can utilize to mitigate your risk of not getting scammed in Japan, right?
So that’s a completely different subject, but let’s go ahead and talk about your question that you just mentioned about the English supplier. So, I don’t have an English supplier. All I do is I buy product from somebody that does not want their collection anymore. That’s it. And that’s where you’re going to find liquidations of people.
Just like, Hey, I have a binder. I have a, let’s say for example, I have a brilliant star binder that I don’t want. Let’s say the market price for that entire binder is like, I don’t know, 1, 100, something like that. Just for sake of example. And they’re giving away for like, 750. It’s a pretty good deal, right?
So that’s all I am doing. I don’t have an English, I don’t have an English supplier. It’s actually a really good question because I like to get a lot of [00:39:00] people assume that I’m getting, I have a English supplier that is supplying me all my singles. That’s not the case. I’m actually just buying people’s liquidations that they do not want anymore.
They just want cash and that’s all I’m doing. So I think, you know, to me, in my opinion, I think once you know how to like get your supplier in Japan, and then once you start buying liquidations from people. It’s really like a, it’s just, it’s just a clockwork. It’s just clockwork at that point. It’s really easy.
You know, you just have to just put in systems in place of, you know, having a schedule for yourself and being disciplined that really take the time to source. Cause I know sourcing is hard. Like if people have never like sold on eBay before, you know, sourcing is a full time thing to find the best like items to put in your eBay store, just in general, just eBay in general.
And you know, you have to, you know, Take the time to really [00:40:00] source. You have to, you know, go to the garage sales, go to Facebook marketplace, go to offer up, whatever the case may be. And if you see something that’s at a good price that you think will be a good flip, then, you know, tackle it. Right. But yeah, as far as like a supplier supplying, like, English cards.
That’s, I mean, that’s not a, I don’t think that’s a thing. It might be a thing in the future. That’d be kind of, I don’t know how that would work. But yeah, that’s kind of like how, that’s all you’re doing. That’s literally, that’s all how reselling is on, that’s how reselling is in general. You’re just, you’re buying something at a discounted price.
Most likely a thing that someone doesn’t, someone doesn’t want anymore. You’re taking that one thing, and you’re flipping it for a higher price than what you bought it for. And, that’s basically what all I’m doing with my singles. I’m just like, I’m sourcing every single day, every other hour. I’m on, you know, these websites, on these second hand, you know, secondary marketplaces.
And, just sniping [00:41:00] for 25 percent of the value. So, that’s, that’s kind of like, you know, that’s what I’m doing, you know. As far as like sourcing.
Oliver: So when you are sourcing old collections, are there any red flags you look for when, when you’re viewing the listing? Anything that’s going to,
Joseph: Oh, absolutely. And there’s, and I’ll actually, I want to make a video too about that.
Cause I haven’t made, I haven’t made it make it. I’ve not made a video like that yet, where how to basically, how to, how to basically mitigate your risk of getting scammed. And there’s, there’s a lot of strategies you can utilize to. Basically not get scammed because that’s a lot of people’s concerns. Like they don’t want to get scammed on, you know, they don’t want to get scammed like in everything like that.
And I actually have a good video topic on that. I’ve had another good scam just steps that I utilize every single time I do a transaction. I utilize these steps and I’ve, I don’t get scammed, you know, because I know I can tell if someone’s scamming, I can tell if they’re a little fishy and there’s like actual like Like tell, tell signs at this person [00:42:00] scamming you or not.
And yeah, like it’s kind of hard to explain right here, right here, right now, but I’m going to make a video about that on my YouTube channel. I thought I’m going to get your risk from getting scammed from these people. But yeah, like once, you know, Once you have these like systems and you have these tactics that know if someone scam you or not, you don’t even, that doesn’t even cross your mind anymore.
Once you’re like, like I said, it’s clockwork. You don’t even think about that because you’re so seasoned and you’re a veteran at this point where you can tell when a collection is overpriced, if someone’s overpriced in it, or if it’s not real, if it’s fake cards, the collection’s fake. There’s one thing I will say though, I will never buy.
I’ll give you example. Evolving Skies is booming right now. The, the actual booster box is booming right now. The box right now, market price right now is at like a $480, I think for a booster box. Sheesh. I would never buy a booster box off of like, just second, like just secondhand, like secondhand, like places like Facebook.
I would never do that [00:43:00] because that right there is how the scams begin buying booster boxes. Of people selling evolving skies booster box for only, only four 50, you know, $450. It’s a little fishy to me. Like, okay, like, you know, I don’t even like 10th, I’m not even tempted by that. ’cause I don’t want to like, I don’t wanna get scammed.
That’s where most of the scams come from, which is the sealed product, the resealing of the of, of the booster box and stuff. I just stay away from that completely, even if it’s not a scam. Even if the person’s really authentic and they’re telling the truth. I just stay away from buying sealed boxes. Off of second, you know, secondary markets.
The only time I’ll ever buy a booster box is if, if it’s on eBay where someone has a lot of great feedback, it has to be like near perfect for me to be able to trust this person to buy a booster box from somebody on the internet or it’s an LGS. That’s it. Other than that, I don’t, I don’t fool around with.
With booster boxes on [00:44:00] Facebook or Instagram. It doesn’t matter what it is.
Oliver: I see. So is it not worth your time to go meet that person in person and check if the booster box has been tampered with? No, it’s not worth it. Just not worth it. No,
Joseph: in my opinion, it’s, it’s not worth it because that is more like, if you’re just, if you’re trying to buy one booster box, that’s more towards investing.
You’re trying to buy, you’re trying to buy a booster box, like, you know, while, you know, while Evolve in the Skies is pumping right now, I don’t advise people buying the box right now, because it’s, it’s pumping right now, it’s not, at some point this price is going to stabilize, or it may correct, I don’t know, I’m not a fortune teller, I don’t have a crystal ball, but right now, you know, in the beginning of the year, you know, Evolve in the Skies was like 420, now in the last month and a half, it’s almost 500.
- 500. It’s a little sketchy for me. So as far as market, you know, as, as the market, you know, as a market analyzer, I’m not into investing in [00:45:00] some of that, but just simple, just simple steps of just looking at the market and stuff like, yeah, it’s pumping right now. I don’t think it’s a good idea to buy evolve in skies right now.
That’s just my personal opinion, not financial advice, but I personally will not buy evolve in skies right now because it’s pumping. Right. But if I’m going to buy seal product, I want to buy a lot of it. Buying one box, two boxes, three boxes. That’s not, that’s more towards investing. That’s more like, okay, you want a few boxes to hold on to and you just want to see in the next two to three years how well that box is going to perform.
But to have like a good business, you need bulk. You need a not bulk. I’m not talking about like Pokemon bulk. I’m talking about you need a good amount of inventory. Having two or three items. Sitting on an eBay store is not going to be enough. You know, if I’m going to buy a booster box, you know, let’s say if I do buy a booster box, right, I want to buy like five cases.
You know, just to make it worth it. But the buy two, three boxes, that’s more towards like investing, I would say. [00:46:00] So yeah, I don’t, I don’t even fool around with that. Most people don’t have, you know, two, three, four, five cases. And even if they did, I’m still skeptical if, whether it was tampered or not, because a lot of resealing of cases and booster boxes, it’s getting really, like people are doing a very well.
It’s really hard to tell the difference between a real one and a fake one. And at that point, at this point, it’s just not worth it. You know, this is my personal opinion. So,
Oliver: yeah, it’s a, it’s definitely a little sketchier there. I mean, look at Logan Paul, right. With his, with the, with the GI Joe cards he got.
Yeah, that was I remember that yeah, that was that was a lot of a lot of fun From our end right just watching that on YouTube. So I want to ask you you’re doing well on eBay I want to ask you about your personal website. Was it gempols. com? Is that right?
Joseph: Yes [00:47:00]
Oliver: How is that going? And would you recommend someone actually takes that route or should they just stick to eBay and TCG player or Or should they split it up?
Joseph: That’s a good question. So the reason why I started that website was because I actually just wanted to see like how this website would do. I’m not certain if I’m going to keep that website up for next year, but I’m doing consignments. I don’t know if you know what that is. It’s basically taking someone else’s stuff and selling it for them and I get a commission.
Now, You know, right now I think that is kind of just, that’s at like bare bones. It’s not really like, I haven’t had any people or any inquiries of people, you know, wanting to sell their stuff and funnel it through me and I get a commission and stuff like that. But I just wanted to see if people were interested in like, in that service.
So I just provided it, I made the website and, you know, if somebody wants to consign with me and, They want to, you know, sell their stuff, but they don’t want to do all the work, you know, I’ll do the work for them and stuff. So, that’s why I have my own website, and [00:48:00] it’s a good place to contact me and stuff.
You know, my email’s in there and everything like that. As far as your question about, like, you know, should someone, you know, start their own website, you know, like a Shopify account, or like a Wix account, or Wix website, Shopify website, or should they stick with eBay? My personal opinion is, it depends on your goals, you know.
I’ll tell you mine. Personally, I don’t think I could ever picture myself really ever having my own store on Shopify or any of those, those services, I would say, that have a website. It just depends. It depends. Like, if I end up getting like, you know, 100k, you know, YouTube subscribers one day, then of course, then yeah, I will definitely consider that.
But, you know, that’s the hardest part about having, I would say, a, you know, So like, like a Shopify or a Wix, that’s a challenging part is the, is generating organic growth, organic traffic, because they’re not providing you the, the, the traffic on, on [00:49:00] those. Whereas eBay, eBay is providing you the traffic. Now you got to pay fees.
I know people, you know, say the fees are really high, but you’re trading, you’re paying a little bit more. You’re paying actually a lot more, but if you do everything right, you’re, you’re still able to profit off your inventory. But I’m trading that for the traffic. And if you look at the impressions, because, you know, there’s analytics on eBay and stuff.
eBay really does a great job of sending out your stuff to people out there, like thousands and hundreds of thousands of people out there who could be interested in your product, right? That, to me, is more worth it right now. Then I mean, then the start, like my own Shopify store. And like I said, if I ever have a hundred K subscribers one day, then it’s a possibility.
Cause I have a lot of, you know, that’s a lot of subscribers, but as far as like just getting, you know, which one is better, I don’t [00:50:00] think there’s no, there’s not a, there’s no better avenue. It just depends on your goals. If you want to be more of like a, Influencer type person on, on YouTube and you want to have a big audience and you’re doing openings and stuff like that, then sure.
Like, yeah, you can have your own website. You can do your own mystery pack, you know, packs and stuff like that. You can do your own kind of like a, what’s his name on Danny Phantom. That’s what Danny Phantom basically does. He’s a great, great YouTuber, in my opinion. I’m a big fan of him. Someone like Danny Phantom, who does that.
That’s kind of like his style, I think. I don’t know if he has an eBay or a TCD I think he has a TCD player, I don’t know if he has an eBay, but he has his own website and he sells his own mystery packs and he sells a whole bunch of different things. So, that being said, he has over 100, 000 subscribers.
He’s justified of doing that. Someone like me, who has like, no, not that many, you know, subscribers, that doesn’t make any sense. I’d rather pay a little bit more on eBay to where I get those impressions. And I get those sales because at the end of the day, when you’re running a business, you got to generate cashflow.
Cashflow is what’s going to continue your business to [00:51:00] be able to continue your business and operate at the scale that you want to operate at. So, this is my explanation.
Oliver: Great explanation. So basically what you’re saying is traffic is key because obviously if there’s no traffic, you can’t make sales.
eBay provides that for you. Yes. Can’t agree more that Mickey Mouse card. I sold this morning. It sold within Minutes of me hosting it like it. I was like, holy crap, man. That’s good, man But that’s awesome. That’s exactly it. Like if I put that up on my own website, how many years would that have sat there for?
Yeah, the fee was high But it’s sold within minutes, man, you can justify it easily. I come from an SEO background. I really understand. And for anyone listening, do you want to reiterate that traffic is key? eBay has traffic when you list on eBay or even TCG player or Amazon or anything [00:52:00] like that, for that matter, you’re taking advantage of their massive amount of traffic.
And, and yeah, like you said, that’s why the fees are high. That being said, if you are a social influencer or, or you have great SEO, which is search engine optimization for anyone wondering, then maybe a personal website could do the trick. Do you, do you agree with me?
Joseph: Oh, absolutely. I, I, I
Oliver: a hundred percent for sure.
So when it comes to your website, is it, you just couldn’t find that you had the traffic. It is that right?
Joseph: Like I said, like I made that website in the beginning of the year. It’s a service. If you want to utilize it, they can, if they don’t, it’s no biggie, right? It’s just an extra service. It’s like a little feature.
It’s not going to, it won’t make or break my business, but I just want them to see, you know, everything that I’ve done at this point in my, in my journey of, [00:53:00] of, of having a TCG store has been. Okay, let me try it this way. Let’s see what happens. You know, trial and error. See if it works. If it doesn’t work, okay, cool.
We can move on. If it does work, okay, we may have, we may have something here, right? So, you know, with my website, you know, it’s there for anyone that wants to take advantage of the service. If not, that’s fine. That’s absolutely fine. I’m gonna create another service, too. I think another, and once I pass a thousand subscribers on my eBay, I’m definitely gonna create another service for people to utilize.
And I think that service, the idea that I have in my mind, I think people are gonna want to really utilize it. That service way more than the consignment because consignment is a completely different animal. I’ve studied the business model pretty well, but it’s, it’s, if you have a consignment business and you’re getting a lot of traffic where, you know, you’re, you’re auctioning like thousands of like greater cards a week, then you’re doing really well, very well.
And you know, consignment is the, the only hard part about consignment. It’s not about, you know, it’s a completely different animal, but [00:54:00] the hardest part is building that trustworthy. You gotta be trustworthy and that’s something that’s really big in the TCG world. Cause there’s so much, there’s a lot of scam.
I’m not gonna say there’s so much, but there are definitely a good portion of the time there’s gonna be, you know, scams, there’s going to be untrustworthy people and everything like that. You know, you see it all the time of like people that get busted for doing some type of scam on, You know, doing a scam and then it ends up being on, on YouTube and stuff like that, people getting exposed for their, for being a con artist in this, unfortunately, you know, in our TCG community.
And that’s the biggest thing about anything I would say is the build that trust with the community. Is expose yourself and put yourself out there and to be as authentic, truthful and have integrity as much as possible. And people are going to, people will sense that if people think you’re a con artist, if people get the vibe that you’re a gimmick and you’re not who you say [00:55:00] you are, you are going to sense that that’s the internet.
You know, people are not stupid. So in the TCG world, I think being trustworthy is going to be the most important thing when it comes to stuff like that, having your own website where it’s completely separate from eBay, please separate from TCG player. You got to build a lot of trust. And right now, I’m a, like I said, I’m a small, I’m a small store still.
I’m a very small, small, small store. I’m a small YouTube channel. So, it could be where people don’t trust me yet, and that’s completely fine. It just takes time to build that reputation, and reputation means the most to me. I never, like, when I pack all my orders, I make sure I pack my orders for all my eBay people that buy my stuff from me.
I make sure that it’s all packed correctly. Very, very well. And that card is not going to get damaged. And I take a little bit, you know, a little bit of effort to make sure that my card is in a top loader and a penny sleeve in a team bag and it’s sealed and it’s [00:56:00] ready to go. And you know, I know that definitely is a little bit more money on my part on my expenses for shipping.
But that’s worth it because the card is going to arrive safely and not damaged. Little things like that creates trust and creates that good feedback and reputation. So that’s just my, that’s just how my take, I would say, as far as my own website, it could be just building the trust. I’m still in that phase, I think, in my opinion.
So it just takes time. It’s like anything. So
Oliver: great answer. And thank you. Cause I feel like I really stumbled through that question.
Joseph: Nah, it’s okay, it’s Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of nuance. Like I said, there’s a lot of nuance to all of this. You know, I can go on for hours of just the nuance of this business model.
It’s quite fascinating to me, in my opinion, quite fascinating.
Oliver: So we’re at an hour now. I’m going to push it a little bit because I do have one more [00:57:00] question for
Joseph: you. Ask
Oliver: away.
Joseph: That’s
Oliver: fine. How do you handle customer support?
Joseph: That’s a very good question. So how do I handle customer support? The best way to handle customer support is Is you have to be able to, you need to be very responsive.
You need to be quick, not quick. Like you can just like reply right away. Cause I work a full time job, so like I can’t reply right away. You know, right now I would say like my store is a side gig or a part time job. I’m not doing this full time yet. But I will say you want to be responsive. If you have people messaging you on like eBay, for instance, and you just don’t reply to customer service right away, you know, it’s definitely going to, you know, if someone has a question about a product in your store and you don’t reply right away, that just makes you look bad.
Right? So the best thing you can do is As far as customer service is, you know, just be upfront with your customers. If they have a question about a certain product in your thing, you just, you’re very respectful. [00:58:00] Even if people, you know, ask you like really like kind of questions are obvious to you, but not obvious to them.
You want to be respectful and you just want to answer it in a very respectful way and just be very nice. That’s really, that’s all you got to do and just be very nice. That’s kind of like how I handle my customer service. Like if people just, most of the time people are asking me if they, you know, if they can get a discount on a certain product and sometimes I’ll do it.
Sometimes I won’t. It’s just depends on, it just depends on my expenses for that month. It depends how much I’m invested in that month. I’m much, you know, Capital. Did I spend that month? Can I afford to do this discount? If I can afford to do the discount, sure. I’ll give you a little bit of a discount and we can, you know, customers are happy if they can get a little bit of discount.
And if I tell them I can’t do a discount, I’m sorry. And then, you know, apologize for the inconvenience. They understand, they understand. They’re just like, they’re asking if they, you know, if they can, you know, it doesn’t hurt to ask. That’s the kind of like the mindset that these [00:59:00] customers come to you with.
It doesn’t hurt to ask in as a, as in, um, As a seller on eBay, you have to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and just understand where they’re coming from, you know, and, and, you know, just. Be respectful, be kind and be professional to be very professional too. And, and yeah, and the biggest thing I would say that attracts a lot of customers is good feedback.
Like your feedback is, is your, is your backbone, your backbone on, on eBay. People see that they see that you have a very good feedback, great reputation. People are going to trust you. People are going to, you know, feel a lot more comfortable with you. So that’s the, you know, you have to definitely, you know, as a seller, you have to keep that in mind that your feedback.
The whole entire experience for the customer is going to be from if they message you. The time they buy from you, the time that you shipped your order to them, that’s the whole customer experience. And you have to fulfill that at a hundred percent and any little [01:00:00] slip up. Well, you know, customers, you know, customer satisfaction, they’ll, they’ll let you know if they’re satisfied or not.
So that’s my answer. My long winded answer.
Oliver: Great answer. Yeah. As a, as a long time buyer on eBay, I appreciate those sellers, the sellers like you. It does a lot.
Joseph: Yes. It goes a long way. I know it’s like very, like, it doesn’t, um, I know that people think, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s not a big deal. Well, it is a big deal.
Like, you know, it’s. Your customers are the ones that are going to keep your store, your feedback from your customers is going to keep your store running. If you continually get bad feedback, you have like an 80 percent rating, let’s say, on eBay, which is terrible. It’s horrendous. I’ve seen feedback like that before and I’m like, yeah, no thanks.
Even a 90 percent is still very bad. In my opinion, if you’re above like 98%, that’s pretty good, but you want to aim for like 99%. If you have a 99%, you’re [01:01:00] doing very well. And if you have a lot of like feedback and stuff, and if you have a 99%, you’re doing very well. That is going to, that right there, the reputation of other customers is what’s going to dictate your success, I feel like.
And yeah, that’s a very good question that you asked. I really like that question.
Oliver: Cool, man. Well, for anyone listening or watching right now, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Gempull’s YouTube channel is full of so much value. If you are interested in selling Pokemon cards, or other TCGs for that matter, online, you’ve got to check out this guy’s channel.
It’s a small gold mine that’s gonna help you. Get your goals. So Joseph, let us know where we can find you, where we can follow you. My
Joseph: YouTube is gem poles. That’s my YouTube. That’s where you can find me. I don’t have a social media yet. I don’t have Twitter. I don’t have an Instagram, but you’re going to find me on gem poles on YouTube.
That’s where you’re going to find most of [01:02:00] everything. So, you know, eBay, my eBay link is going to be inside my YouTube channel. If you guys want to just check out my store and look at it, you know, And see how I got, how my, how I run my store. And yeah, you can find me on YouTube on Genpols. That’s where you guys can find me.
Oliver: Awesome. And I will drop some links in the description for Genpols YouTube channel and the eBay store. So if you want to just head down there, you can click on that. Joseph, thank you so much for coming on today. I. I appreciate it so much. I value your time. So let’s wrap this up.
Joseph: It was, it was a pleasure.
It was a pleasure. I really enjoyed this. We can do this another time. I’m really, I love doing this, you know,
Oliver: I am open to checking in on the future to see how far you’ve really come, both in terms of your YouTube channel and your eBay business. So again, thank you so much and I’ll see you later, man. Thank you.
Have a good day.