AF233 - A Gamechanger for resellers ebay Fulfillment with eBliss - Guest Episode with Laurie and Dave

This week I have two amazing guests, Dave and Laurie Bilyeu, who run eBLISS, a storage and fulfillment center for eBay and Poshmark sellers. They’re here to talk about how their fulfillment service can boost your reselling business by reducing the time and stress of dealing with your back-end. I kick things off by asking how Dave and Laurie got into e-commerce and eBay, and Dave shares how he started out flipping items he found in Goodwills before Laurie came on board, and they grew into a full-time business. They then talk about scaling up by hiring staff, setting up dedicated space, and setting up systems and processes to help manage your business and any new people you bring on board.

Next, Dave and Laurie go into more detail about eBLISS and the gap it fills by providing fulfillment services for eBay, something that resellers have been sorely lacking. They explain their process and pricing structure and how eBLISS removes the storage bottleneck that is such a major hurdle to eBay sellers growing their businesses. We also discuss the eBLISS philosophy, which is to restore the joy in reselling by giving you back the freedom to go out and source treasures to resell. And finally, we talk about one of my favorite subjects, time as money, and break down how outsourcing your back-end will give you more time to spend on the money-making aspects of your business.

You can find out more about running an eBay business from the Amazon Files and Mommy Income community by joining our Facebook group, where you can learn more about bundling, ask questions, and participate in the conversation with other sellers. And if you’re ready to take your business to a whole new level, visit MommyIncome.com/Coach to schedule your one-on-one coaching call today.

This week on the Amazon Files:

• Mommy Income is coming to a city near you, including Grand Rapids and LA, with workshops and tradeshow walkthroughs
  
• How Dave and Laurie got started in e-commerce and eBay
  
• How to scale up your eBay business by hiring people
  
• Setting up systems and processes for your business
  
• Dave and Laurie’s eBay fulfillment service
  
• The process of eBay and Poshmark fulfillment
  
• The storage bottleneck
  
• Fulfillment and freedom
  
• eBLISS’ pricing structure
  
• Dealing with long-tail items and handling inquiries
  
• The challenges Dave and Laurie have experienced
  
• The benefits of outsourcing your back-end
  

“This is such a needed thing in this world, to be able to grow and scale.”

- Kristin Ostrander

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Quotes:

“I love wholesale, and wholesale just makes life so much easier. It’s not complicated. It’s not scary. It’s not hard, you can do it.”

“I found myself going to Goodwills and finding North Face jackets in Colorado for $4 at a Goodwill and flipping them on eBay for like $50 or $60. And I was hooked.”

“We hired a couple part-time listers and shippers so that we could fully source 100% of the time and really built our inventory up from when, I think I started, you might have had twelve hundred listings, we quickly almost tripled that in probably a year-and-a-half or so.”

“The whole managing of people is very daunting because it takes a certain kind of personality and skill set to be able to manage other people well.”

“It comes down to systems and processes. You need to map this out for yourself and for anyone else that would want to come on board and help.”

“I think everybody should have their processes in their brain written down.”

“I think the biggest bottleneck for a lot of eBay sellers is they love the treasure hunt. They love the buying part. And then they have what I call the death piles or the, you know, overflowing eBay closet where they love to buy it and got it for a great deal. But then it’s not being listed because that’s the time-consuming part.”

“We allow them to free up anywhere from three to five to seven hours a week because they no longer have to ship. And they use that time to source more and list more, and they get their death piles done, they get all that stuff lifted and sent into our warehouse. And when it sells, we ship within the same or next business day.”

“It’s so fun to me to source with other resellers because they have knowledge over here, and I’ve got knowledge over here, and between that, like, we’re all making a lot of money.”

“The level of genius that a lot of sellers have is in their eye for the thrift, their eye for the treasure, realizing this is going to make money. And that could just be a wealth of knowledge someone has about a specific category, or they could be like a freak of nature, which I’ve been called when it comes to thrifting.”

“I think our clients really appreciate the time they save, the fact that they can scale without worrying about cluttering up their own home. Because I mean, let’s be honest, everybody has some space limitations at some point.”

“At the time, there was honestly no fulfillment service, and I think there still isn’t, that caters to this kind of reseller, the reseller who buys one-off, used, thrifted items of many sorts, whether it’s clothes, books, games, electronics.”

“We love to restore the joy in reselling to all of our clients.”

“We don’t have spikes in storage like Amazon FBA. We’re not going to gate people from selling anything.”

“Basically, the higher your ASP, average selling price of your items, the less our service is going to cost you as a percentage of your overall sales.”

“I’m going to resurrect the eBay business that I have because of you guys. And now I know that I can have the location freedom that I want to not have to ship those things, that’s going to kind of resurrect that.”

“Since we are resellers, we understand that there’s value in long-tail items.”

“We love the fact that we deal with all types of clients, those that just want those items out of their house and don’t plan on growing and those that want to grow. And we have the ability to accommodate them if they want to scale.”

“We’d like to speak to everyone prior to signing on with us because we are resellers. We want to hear about their goals, their objectives. And if we’re a great fit, awesome. If not, not a problem.”

“We wanted to be able to provide the service for resellers. We’re not really interested in housing people’s items who just want to source, and they don’t want to do the work of actually being a reseller. So that’s why it’s called reseller solutions because we feel like we are a solution for a lot of these issues that resellers have, not the casual thrifter-flipper.”

“You guys are just innovators. You’re, like, ready to solve the next problem before people even ask the questions.”

“That’s business. You have to adapt whether you’re a reseller or someone like us with eBLISS, you have to adapt, and it’s okay to adapt.”

“I suggest you outsource, if anything, you outsource the back-end of that first, which is the storage and the shipping. Because there’s no money to be made in there.”

“You can’t write off your own time that you’re doing this yourself on your taxes, right? But if you outsource it, that is an expense that you can write off. So you’re actually even saving money even more by having somebody else do it.”

“Reselling is our first entrepreneurial experience ever. And it’s been the most fulfilling experience in my life. Fulfilling, no pun intended.”

Related Content:

• 2022 Workshops - Coupon code: workshop50
  
• Wholesale Bundle System
  
• Email questions
  
• Learn With Us
  
• Coaching
  
• The Amazon Files Hub
  
• More info about eBLISS
• eBLISS on Instagram
  
• eBLISS on YouTube
  
  

Grow Your Amazon Business!

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of The Amazon Files, the show to help Amazon sellers along their business journey one step at a time with Amazon expert and your host, Kristin Ostrander. If you enjoyed this episode, head over to Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show and leave us your honest review. Don’t forget to share your favorite episodes with your friends on social media! Use the codeword eBLISS to join us on Facebook. Each week, Kristin hosts a live discussion on how to grow your Amazon business. Don’t forget to check out our website and subscribe to our mailing list for even more resources.