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00:00You saw the title and thumbnail. Sounds clickbaity. Well, it's not. Yes, mom, $110 an hour.
00:06I swear, I'm not lying. Okay, bye. How do I make this much money reselling used clothes?
00:12Just some clothes, a computer, and a little bit of grade A organic elbow grease. If you want to
00:17learn how or potentially want to do this yourself, stick around. Real quick, please do not forget to
00:27obliterate the like button down below for the YouTube algorithm and subscribe to my channel if
00:30you're not already. It would really help me out a lot. Thank you guys. All right, you might be
00:34wondering, first impression, how do I even calculate this $110 profit an hour when the art of reselling
00:41is such an imperfect process run by humans and it's really drawn out. There's a lot of different steps.
00:45Let me tell you. The short answer is I Ford Model T'd my process. And what does T stand for?
00:51It stands for tailor. I model tailored my process. But let's start from the beginning. So five months
00:56ago, when I first started reselling, just as a hobby, something fun to do to fill my time while
01:00I had this basically gap year, I was not efficient. I would take an item out of my closet, photograph it,
01:06model it, edit the photos, and then list it online. And then I would do another one. I just did it as a
01:10hobby. It wasn't really an efficient, systematized process at all. I was just doing it for fun. And at
01:15the time that seemed totally fine. I was just learning the business. I was having fun with it,
01:19procrastinating a little bit here and there, but really just learning how to sell on Poshmark and eBay and
01:23kind of how the business worked. So I don't really care about being all that efficient in the beginning.
01:27However, when I started to make more sales and really scale my business, I wanted more of my
01:32time back because a lot of the time I would kind of do this inefficient process and really start to
01:37think, am I making like $5 an hour? Because I felt like I was procrastinating a lot and was really
01:41curious, okay, what am I actually making per hour here? Am I just wasting my time? And when I thought
01:46about it, I realized, okay, I am procrastinating a lot. I'm being pretty lazy most of the time. So how can I
01:51be better? How can I make this more efficient? There must be a better way. So I Ford Model T'd
01:57my process. What does this mean? To better understand my process, here is a 30 second history lesson.
02:02Before 1913, Ford cars were made one at a time, meaning one crew of men would work on one car at
02:08a time, complete it, and then work on assembling another car. Ford realized that this was an
02:13inefficient way to produce these cars. And in 1913, he introduced the assembly line to produce the Ford
02:19Model T cars in the most efficient way yet. With this new assembly line, each worker would
02:24specialize in one task. The cars would move on a conveyor belt and the workers would stay stationary,
02:29performing their specialized task on each car as it moved on the conveyor belt in front of them.
02:34This helped to cut down on wasted time caused by switching in between processes. While it's of course
02:39not the same exact thing with reselling, I realized that I could still adopt some of Ford's principles and
02:44apply them to my own business. All right, so I was actually always fascinated at how this conveyor belt
02:49and batch working process really revolutionized manufacturing. That sounds very nerdy, but I
02:53always thought it was pretty cool. I remember learning about it in history class. And anyway,
02:57I wanted to incorporate this into my own business. So one night when I was feeling extra lazy or not
03:02extra lazy, but where I, it really hit me that I was procrastinating a lot and the fear dawned on me
03:08that I might be making $5 an hour without even knowing it. So after having this existential crisis,
03:13I decided to try to find a way to apply Ford's principles to my own business. The first thing I did
03:18in this one night was I wrote down every single step of the reselling process in a very granular
03:24fashion. And this sounds boring writing it all down, but I would argue that this step is arguably
03:29more important than the actions themselves. And let me explain why. So I sat down and wrote out all the
03:35steps exactly how I do it. And when I started writing it out, I actually realized a lot of the places
03:40that I could cut out time and be more efficient. So when I wrote it all out, I thought about the steps in
03:44terms of steps that could be batch worked. So what I mean by that is same thing as for model T-ing it,
03:49model tailoring it. If I take 30 items of clothing, what is a step that I could do to all 30 items of
03:55clothing at once? And then another step I could do to all 30 and so on and so forth. So the list,
04:00at least how I do it came down to eight steps. One is sourcing, two processing, three photographing,
04:05four cataloging, five editing the photos, six drafting the items, seven listing the items,
04:12and then eight shipping the items to the customers. So all of these steps were things that I could do
04:16all at once to let's say 30 items, except for shipping, because I'm not going to sell all 30
04:20items at once, but every other step really could be batch worked. And once I wrote these steps out,
04:24it was time to start timing myself to see how long each step of the process took me. So let's break it
04:29down by time spent per item. So beginning with sourcing, step number one, that really varies for me,
04:34but usually I'd say on average, I spent about three hours per sourcing trip. And I usually come home with an
04:39average of 60 items or so. If it's a dollar tag day, I'll come home with like a hundred items.
04:43And if it's a different kind of day, I'll come home with maybe 40, but about an average of 60 items.
04:48So that's about three minutes per item on sourcing. The second step is processing. And what that means
04:53for me is one, taking a picture of the Goodwill tag, the price tag. So I know exactly how much each item
04:58costs me, cutting it off, and then throwing that article of clothing into a designated bin to categorize it.
05:03So I'll throw all tops or shirts into one bin, all bottoms and jeans into one bin, that kind of thing.
05:08So that way, when I get to the photographing step, I know I'm taking out, okay, we're going to do 30
05:12tops today. We're going to do 10 bottoms today. So the processing step only takes about 10 seconds
05:17per item. Cause it's really just cutting a tag off and throwing it in a bin. It's easy.
05:20The third step is photographing. So here I combine the steps of me modeling the item,
05:25as well as taking actual photos of the item itself. And this process, combining those two actually only
05:30takes about two minutes. And that includes me taking off the top and changing into another top.
05:35So I've really cut down a lot of time in this category. And in fact, I made a video
05:39on how I model my items. And in that video, you can kind of tell that I have the same five poses
05:43down for when I model items. So it really is a quick process for me. The fourth step is cataloging
05:47the item. So what that means for me is weighing each item, putting it into a bag with a number on
05:52it, and then inputting that into my Excel spreadsheet. And that takes about 44 seconds per item.
05:56The fifth step is editing. So I use Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos. I have created a preset
06:02myself that works really, really well for pretty much all the photos that I use. In fact,
06:06I'm going to have it up for sale very soon because people have been asking me about it. So
06:10might even have it for sale by the time this video goes out. I'll let you know.
06:13But basically in Lightroom and using my preset, I can literally just copy and paste the same setting
06:17on every single photo. So that only takes about 10 seconds per item to edit the photos. Not bad.
06:22The sixth step is drafting. And what that means for me is taking all the photos and putting them into,
06:27I use Vendoo, which is a cross listing platform. So from Vendoo, I can post on Poshmark, Mercari and
06:32eBay all at once. In fact, I have a link down below for Vendoo. If you want to use it, you get 25%
06:36off your first month. And then during the drafting stage, I also input the weight as well as my cost
06:40of goods. So what I paid for the item. And that takes about 40 seconds per item to draft. Seventh
06:45step is listing. And of course, what that means is filling out the description, filling out the color,
06:49all this item specifics, and then listing it on Poshmark, Mercari and eBay. And for me,
06:54that takes about two minutes and 30 seconds per item. And then finally shipping once the item
06:58actually sells, and then I pull it out of my inventory and then ship it to the customer,
07:02that only takes about 50 seconds per item. So the total adding up all these steps is 10 minutes
07:08and four seconds per item. For simplicity, let's call that 10 minutes. By the way, in case you're
07:12thinking about doing this, which I think you should, we'll get into pros and cons in just a little bit.
07:16But if you're thinking about doing this, I do not recommend timing yourself when you're doing it at robot
07:20speed. So all of these speeds that I just, and timing that I just explained to you guys,
07:25was not me doing it at an unrealistic speed. I was sure to time myself when I was doing it at a,
07:30you know, a good speed, but a sustainable speed, because there's no point in like trying to race
07:35the clock when you're timing yourself for this, because you know, you're not realistically going
07:39to be able to work that fast all the time. So that's how long it took me in each of these steps.
07:42If I was working robot speed, I probably could have cut these times in half, but that's not realistic.
07:46I'm never going to work super fast. Now let's get into the fun stuff. So I average about $18.40
07:53profit per item that I sell. Profit, not sales. My average sales price is about $30. Average profit,
08:00$18.40. So if I can, from start to finish, source an item, photograph it, get it listed,
08:06ship it out, all that good stuff that I just explained in 10 minutes per item average, which means
08:11I can do six of those an hour because 10 minutes and then 60 minutes an hour, I can do six of those
08:17an hour. Then six items per hour times an average of $18.40 profit per item equals a little over $110
08:26per hour. Yes, I realize this is assuming that all of my items will sell. So let's take a look at my
08:31sell through rate. Technically speaking, your sell through rate is the ratio of items that you sold
08:35over the items that you received from a manufacturer and business and how it's used in reselling
08:39practically is pretty much the same. It's just, you know, the items that you sell over the amount
08:42of items in my case that I listed in a certain period of time. And for me, I'm looking at my
08:47sell through rate in a 60 day window. So that's two months. You could use any amount of time for
08:51your sell through rate. You can use one month, 30 days. That makes a lot of sense too. But for me,
08:54I'm using 60 days, a two month period. And for me within a 60 day window, I sell about 80% of the items
09:01that I list within 60 days. So my sell through rate within 60 days is about 80%. And that varies
09:07month to month, but about 80%. So if you take 80% of my average profit of $18 and 40 cents,
09:13you get $14 and 72 cents. So within the very moment that I list an item on Poshmark eBay Mercari,
09:19I could realistically say that I could expect $14 and 72 cents of profit within 60 days. However,
09:26I'm confident that eventually all of my items will sell. So that's why I'm using kind of this 100%
09:31sell through rate and using my $18 and 40 cents profit per item to arrive at that $110 per hour.
09:37I hope that makes sense. So what if I made this a full time job? Well, $110 profit per hour times,
09:43let's say a 40 hour work week times, let's say 50 weeks a year to account for two weeks of doing
09:47nothing. That equals $220,000 a year profit. All right. Is this realistic? Absolutely not. For one,
09:55personally, I would get burnt out AF if I was working eight hours a day on reselling. Personally,
10:01just personally, especially in this like very efficient and systematized fashion. Yeah, no,
10:06couldn't do it. It already takes a little bit of the magic and the fun out of reselling if you do it
10:10in this model tailored, systematized fashion. So this kind of begs the question, what are the pros
10:15and cons of model tailoring your system? Spoiler alert though, I think there are more pros,
10:19but let's get into them. Pro number one, you can literally know exactly pretty much how much you're
10:24making and profiting per hour of your labor. Not that you should always be looking at reselling
10:28like on an hourly wage basis, but I personally think it's really helpful to look at it that way,
10:32especially because that one night when I was worried about, oh my God, I'm procrastinating so
10:37much. I'm only making $5 an hour. This literally tells you how much you're making per hour. And it was
10:42more than $5. Two, and I think this is the coolest one. You can literally predict how much fruit you can
10:47reap from your labor when you sit down and actually do it. Meaning if you sit down and list 30 items and you
10:52know your average profit per item and your sell through rate, you can pretty confidently say,
10:56wow, I just sat down and listed 30 items. Now within 60 days or 30 days or two days,
11:01I can expect X dollars of profit from the work that I just did. Sick. And this is especially useful
11:06in the business of reselling, which is a very delayed gratification focused business because,
11:11you know, your items don't usually don't sell the next day. It usually takes a month or two months
11:16or whatever it is for you. It takes time for items to sell. So this delayed gratification,
11:20it's really nice to be able to kind of predict your profit from sitting down and doing work now,
11:24predicting your profit that you'll see within a month or within two months. So there is that delay.
11:28And this is a really helpful tool to have knowing that there is that delay, if that makes sense.
11:32It's also cool because if you're ever saying, Oh, I don't feel like photographing. I don't feel like
11:37I don't feel like it, which I get. I almost never feel like it. You can tell yourself, well,
11:42I could work for 10 minutes or I could work for an hour and make $110 profit, or I could forego that and not
11:48make any money and be a potato. So that's a pretty big pro. Third, this is a little bit more of a
11:52flowery reason, but you really do learn about yourself, your business and kind of how you run
11:56it as a person. Plus, you can also identify bottlenecks and see where you could maybe outsource
12:00a certain step. A con is that, as I said before, it kills the magic just a little bit because, you
12:05know, reselling, at least for me, it started as a hobby. And when I started to really systematize and
12:10model tailor my process, it became more of a business for sure. I still have fun with it, but it definitely
12:14became more of a, okay, how can I look at this from a business and, you know, efficiency
12:18perspective? Because there is something kind of fun about listening to music and wasting a little
12:22bit of time here and there when you, you know, do your thing. And I still do plenty of that. Don't
12:26get me wrong, but that is a con. But personally, in case you can't tell yet, I think that this con
12:31pales in comparison to those big pros that I already mentioned. And I've learned a lot about myself as a
12:36business person and how I run my business and how I can outsource things and all that good stuff
12:40from doing this model tailoring process. So am I saying all this to brag $110 profit per hour?
12:47Maybe a little bit. But I'm also making this video and saying this to you guys because I know
12:51seeing this video would have been very helpful to me when I first started reselling. Because like I
12:55said, I used to lollygag a lot. I mean, I still do. But when I actually feared that I was making $5
13:00an hour, I needed this. I needed to systematize my process and really look at where I could cut out
13:05wasted time. So yes, I would recommend that you also go through this process, even if you have your
13:09business model already really nailed down. I still think there's a lot of value to be gained
13:13by model tailoring your business. Not that you should be aiming for the same exact time or same
13:18exact profit per item that I'm getting. Yours might be a lot higher than mine. But I still, like I said,
13:22think it's very helpful to do this to learn more about yourself as a business person, but also to be
13:26able to know your expected profit when you sit down and actually list an item. I think that's a really
13:30powerful thing to know. Sounds cheesy. And is it realistic to always be working in a 100% efficient way?
13:36Of course not. I really don't time myself anymore because I already know my baseline from doing this
13:40experiment. And a lot of the time I still find myself going down a YouTube rabbit hole when I
13:44should be listing items. But it is helpful to know my potential and to know that when I actually buckle
13:49down and do the work, I'm profiting about $110 per hour of my labor. Like I said, please obliterate the
13:55like button down below for the YouTube algorithm. I'd really appreciate it. And subscribe to my channel
13:59if you're not already. Again, big thank you to all of you guys who are here from watching me on
14:04Graham Steffen's podcast, The Iced Coffee Hour. I'll link it above if you haven't seen it already.
14:08I had a really nice time with them and it gave me a whole new audience, which is awesome. And as
14:13always, would love to hear from you guys in the comments. I respond to almost every single comment
14:16now. I'm getting a lot from my new audience members, which is so nice, but I love hearing from
14:21you guys. So leave me a comment down below as well. Whatever you want to say, just say hi. I don't
14:25care. But anyway, I will see you guys next time and thanks again for watching. Peace.
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