Zac: Jason Soward, six and a half thousand followers on Whatnot. You've sold over eighteen thousand items. You sell a bunch of different stuff.

Jason soward: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Zac: Not one thing particular. Cool. So quick background on what we're trying to do. So we've been putting content out for resellers. We've been in the liquidation space for about fifteen years. ⁓ I have I started off thrifting. I've sold on just about every possible platform. And our goal is just to really help newer sellers. ⁓ really sellers of all sizes expand how they want to expand, but Our goal this week is to talk to as many what not sellers as we possibly can from every type of category possible, every size possible. Kind of get a feel for how everybody's doing what they're doing. Everybody has a different kind of model method. and you know, I like to take bits and pieces of what other people do well and put it, you know, we we stopped selling on the app about a year ago. it doesn't fit our model.

Jason soward: Yeah. I'm gonna get myself situated.

Zac: But I think it's super helpful for people to kind of hear what others are doing and kind of adapt their own thing to it. ⁓ so eighteen thousand items, when did you start when did you start? So what how how how long did it take you to sell eighteen thousand items?

Jason soward: They're all I started on whatnot on December nineteenth of this year. ⁓ my first show, I brought a lot of followers from Facebook that followed me over there. So I honestly had really good success on my first show. ⁓ I don't really remember what the numbers were because you know it's kind of all mishing together right now. But ⁓ on average I'm selling about a thousand items a week. ⁓ some weeks a little more, some weeks a little less.

Zac: Okay.

Jason soward: that's where I've kind of ramped up to in the last since December nineteenth. ⁓ I've become better with it, I have been able to lower the timer to do more items per hour. ⁓ at first I was doing like a 30 second timer to kind of give myself space. ⁓ and I I've learned that you know I've been averaging probably about a hundred customers per show, ⁓ show that I do, and around a hundred viewers right now.

Zac: Hundred people are standing on your show the whole time.

Jason soward: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ I definitely have a little background in this prior to coming to whatnot. I I've been live selling for five and a half years. ⁓ but I was doing it all on Facebook myself. I created a group on Facebook f almost six years ago, and I just sick quit my management job and I said, Hey, I'm gonna live sell ⁓ through a group my own Facebook group. And it took me a little while to build that, which is a tremendous task to build a Facebook group because ⁓

Zac: ⁓ huh.

Jason soward: The and I I don't mean to talk negative about any platforms, ⁓ but to brand yourself on Facebook is much tougher than whatnot. ⁓ and after doing it five and a half years on Facebook, I I did about half a million dollars in sales last year through my Facebook group, all myself without a team. But I was running into 10 to 15% of the customers were becoming non-payers or they would ghost me.

Zac: Well.

Jason soward: ⁓ the amount of time it took me to invoice the customers, send out the invoice, make sure they got the payment to me. It just there was a lot of extra work that whatnot simplified. And I should have listened to people and made the shift probably two years ago. ⁓ but I was reluctant and a lot of people are, because taking a risk is tough. ⁓ but by transferring to whatnot, I am averaging ⁓ every four hour show I gain an average of fifteen new customers every show since I've been on the app. And it's it might be a little more, a little less than that, but that's about my standard. ⁓ and the fact that you can give ⁓ cheaper shipping on whatnot. My customers pay a max fee of seven dollars. I don't care what they get in my show. I I'll eat the rest of the shipping cost. Even if I took that away, it would only be $9.81, which is an amazing savings for the customers. And then the networking, being able to raid into other shows. I do the fossil category, and when I just kind of put myself in there, the fossil category kind of embraced me for whatever reason. ⁓ they were glad to have a new seller. They invited me to be part of the first raid train.

Zac: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jason soward: that I had never even heard of, you know, and this will be my third raid train this Saturday and for the last two raid trains I've been the last seller on it that kind of ⁓ you know, finalizes the whole thing and thanks everybody. I'm sorry that was a really long response.

Zac: No, that's hey, listen that's a great response. And it we just got off somebody else and you know, we see going back to kind of your beginning, you started off on Facebook, you brought the following with you, and I tell people we sold on whatnot for about four months. We had the same thing. We had a following on Facebook that we were able to bring over, so a lot of these Yeah, a lot of the like the posts you see on the whatnot groups, it's like first show sucked, it was a dud, nobody showed up. We didn't have that pain. That was one of the few growing pains on the app we didn't have. We always had customers day one. And the last girl we had on, she did a she's her her method to get people

Jason soward: Yeah.

Zac: before she started, but she was just big on the app as a buyer networking before she went and started her own. So she didn't have the problem either. She did a lot of prep work networking before her first show ever started. So I think a lot of people, you know, they they they focus on the product and they focus on being organized and they forget to like promote your show versus just posting on the whatnot groups. Hey first show come hit me up. No, you have to like it's a it's a

Jason soward: Yeah.

Zac: sale, it's an event, you need to promote yourself. No one knows about you until they know. And it's like you're vying for all these eyes. You have to do some of the legwork to get that part

Jason soward: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Zac: Obviously you came with it from Facebook and same thing, we we when COVID hit we had the same we did Facebook Live and we I think we had a higher non paying rate than you I think we always average like thirty percent. So the nice thing about whatnot was you see the green check and they're paid and it's like that part is worth its weight in gold. I don't think people realize like how much effort that that just saves you from not having to sit there and

Jason soward: Okay. Absolutely.

Zac: Ask for emails and invoices and follow ups for a you know, an eight dollar sale. It's it's a joke. ⁓ so I'm curious what mostly 'cause we so we we did about a thousand items a day We ha with a team. We had a team of we had, you know, people selling stuff. We had pickers and packers. So we had a team behind us selling that much. You're doing a thousand items a week, which is an incredible amount. How are you ki what's your organ I'm curious, it looks like you're in your whatnot area. Yeah, so from show to pack, how are you keeping it organized? 'Cause it I don't think you s it sounds like you sell a lot of variety of stuff. So how are you

Jason soward: I'm in my living room.

Zac: Keeping it organized during the show and picking and packing after the show where you're not missing orders.

Jason soward: Okay, what I what I personally do, and I just kind of integrated my Facebook method, was I would cut I cut up note cards and at the end of the auction I'm writing down their name, putting their item on top of the note card and putting them in trays that are behind me on metal racks that move around. Going forward with that, that is a great introductory way. ⁓ but if you're doing the amount of work that I'm doing. You know, because whatnot gives you the video feed on what a the customer bought, so you can double check your mistakes. Going ahead with that, I've learned of Norbot or these other programs that spit out a ticket out of an another printer ⁓ simultaneously when you're making the sale live, that therefore reduces your time on writing the name. It's already assigning a box for each customer. I'm not to this step yet because I need to get the expensive computer to run the ⁓ the program and whatnot through it at the same time. ⁓ but for somebody that is doing a high number of items, that's the next step. because then that would save me about ⁓ I probably spend six hours a week on Mondays ⁓ putting the orders together in their trays to then have be boxed up, you know, and out the door they go. ⁓

Zac: Yeah. Yeah, that was probably the most time consuming part for us was it's the packing. The fun is like the fun is over when, you know, the auction ends and the real work starts when you gotta get all this stuff packed and shipped, you know, packed on time, packed professionally. I can't you know, in the beginning we I don't think we use enough packing paper. Like it was enough in my mind, but not enough for the customers. You're getting complaints on, you know, my stuff's not packaged well enough and you know, it's a lot of ⁓ a lot o there's a lot more to it than people realize. It's customer service. When you're selling a thousand items a week, you're getting I guarantee your messages are blowing up. Where's my stuff? You know, why hasn't it shipped yet? ⁓

Jason soward: I don't I don't get that. ⁓ maybe like one in every thousand items or so many thousand items will get a miss up or it broke or something happened. And my philosophy in the past was just keep the customer happy. I don't care what's wrong with it. I don't care if the postman kicks it and it breaks. I'll refund your money. I'll take care of you as the customer because I want you to continue to buy from me and support me. And I I don't

Zac: Keep one ⁓ yeah.

Jason soward: And going back to when you said that ⁓ people definitely come on the app and they think it's just a magical place where you can just go live. You definitely have to brand yourself. And it's not just about selling stuff. It's also like an entertainment factor. ⁓ for the raid train last month and this month, I don't sell anything. I create a game show. I do nothing but forty giveaways and I give away a ⁓ two hundred dollar megalodon tooth. a Mosasaurus tooth, you know, stuff that's that I sell. And that's for my giveaways too. I don't give away stickers. I don't give away BS stuff. We only give away stuff that you could buy here that's on the table. ⁓ and that kinda gives helps you give grow your collection in my eyes, ⁓ from a fossil or mineral standpoint.

Zac: Yeah. So I have I have several follow-up questions, but really quick, explain to me what you sell. ⁓ like break it down. I saw collectibles, I got some notes on you, but like you mentioned the fossils, the teeth, what do you sell? And then without giving away too much, but how do you source that?

Jason soward: Yeah. ⁓ one of my main product lines is Megalodon teeth. ⁓ my cousin has been a scuba diver full-time for a living that dives for megalodon teeth for the last 10 years. So that's kind of where I get some of it. But I also sell another line of fossils, minerals, and Indian artifacts. And sourcing is one of the biggest things that are problems that I see from other sellers that have re even reached out to me.

Zac: Mm-hmm.

Jason soward: asking me to wholesale or to help them find wholesalers, which is which is definitely ⁓ a big part of the legwork. ⁓ I don't know if that answered that, but that's my main product line is, you know, fossils

Zac: No, it does. I mean like the fact that you got the brother in that is scuba diving is like the coolest thing that I've heard in a long time. Like dude found it. I'm sure he's taken video of him finding it. You probably could put the video with the fossil. I don't think we've thought about that. But that's that is cool right there from

Jason soward: Ha ha ha. Another friend's a scuba diver. She knows where a wreck is. I had her go dive out and get some shipwreck items. And then we created a little tag with them that tells what about the wreck with the item. You know, and it it always varies up. I've sold a giraffe leg, a taxidermy giraffe leg one night. ⁓ but bringing different items all the time kind of creates this whole show or kind of like a circus, I call it, because I want you to be interested in me and what am I gonna have next?

Zac: Yeah. Yeah.

Jason soward: Why are you gonna come keep coming to my show every Friday and Saturday night? You know, it has to be fun. It has to be entertaining. ⁓ in my eyes.

Zac: Yeah. No, that's why that's no, that's you know, it's such a different world, right? 'Cause like from where we come from, it's we we're in liquidation. And so what I deal with all day is I work with a lot of brands and retailers that are discontinuing items or for whatever reason, unclaimed inventory. So like I get to deal with ⁓ we bought five thousand Yeah, we do a lot of volume, it's a lot of consumer goods, a lot of stuff you see, it's all stuff you see online.

Jason soward: You're pushing volume.

Zac: You know, it's some cool stuff, right? But it's not like I've never bought a giraffe leg. I've never seen, you know, like Megalodon T like that's not the whole different world than what your people are c my people are when they came to our whatnot shows, it's about cheap product fast. You know, your stuff is completely different and it's super unique. It's

Jason soward: Yeah. And I'm a gambler too. So a lot of my products I started with three buck and go. I don't care what it costs me, I'm gonna attract enough people that hopefully you're gonna run it up just like the liquidation guys that start stuff at a dollar. I'm on the same kind of philosophy. But then as I've grown, I've I've learned that spending two hours on Thursday and listing so many items, pre listing them that are the higher dollar items with a higher starting price.

Zac: ⁓ yeah. Exactly.

Jason soward: it kind of helps form the crowd where they can pick out things that they really like. And and then if Yeah, and if they can't be there, they can pre bid on it ahead of time, including if it's a one of a kind item. And it just helps, you know, it helps evolve this whole thing.

Zac: They get pumped. Yeah. No, we did the same thing. We'd get, you know, an iPad or something, you we'd get some high end stuff. You always we we did random pulls, but we would put the highest ticket item. We'd save it till the end, but it would get people to bookmark us, to jump into the show, to to recognize, you know, what we're selling. ⁓ so you mentioned a couple of things. I'm gonna try to go back to one of them being and I asked this question at the end of my last conversation, but you brought it up already, giveaways.

Jason soward: Yes.

Zac: ⁓ obviously with whatnot, a lot of emphasis gets put on the giveaways, buyer giveaways, follower giveaways, Gibby Goblins. You mentioned how you do the giveaways, I think on your on your raid train show, but on a regular show. Are you doing giveaways? How do you feel about giveaways? You know, what's your opinion?

Jason soward: Giveaways are how you get new customers. That's how people follow you. Regardless of however high a percentage is Givey Goblins or whatever, I've embraced that. And I'm trying to bring the most viewership to this fossil community that's definitely a smaller niche area. ⁓ so in six months, that's why I'm the number two seller in the fossils category, competing with number one. ⁓ And that not that it's about that at all. It's more about just let's bring as many people as we can, get as many followers. I give away 30 to 40 giveaways every show. And and I'm just picking the items off the table. It could be the item that I just ran, this ammonite that was worth twenty dollars. Nobody really liked it. We're just gonna give it away. ⁓ sometimes I've just started the shows and given away a hundred dollar megalodon tooth just off the get-go, just to create that excitement. ⁓ and I think it's the best thing, you know. I I I really do. I I did it on my previous in the book of the the Facebook world and at the end of the auction I would end with four giveaway bags and I had to write down everybody's number they pick and it was ⁓ this is so much easier. Yeah.

Zac: A hundred percent. Yeah, no. I think, you know, people have and I get it, like you want people that that support you to win, but at the end of the day It ju I think giveaways we do it we do a lot of different stuff or we have in the past and it just creates that like positive feeling right away when you open the show, you're giving stuff away. Yeah, regardless of who wins, I think the app help it promotes your show when you're giving stuff away. And so it's cost of doing business, don't worry about who wins it. Someone else mentioned like if I r have some really great buyers, I'll sprinkle some extra stuff in into their package, whatever, but like

Jason soward: Absolutely. No.

Zac: The fact that your promo that's your cost of promotion. I think we got more out of that. Of out of we would run a giveaway every 15-20 minutes, because we're giving away it's cheap stuff. It doesn't matter. But it got more people to follow us than like paid promotions did. I had zero luck with the paid promotion. I had great luck giving away, yeah, some five even $10 gift cards for us because it was a little bit more relatable than you know a shark tooth. Obviously, like it's our category is a bit different, but

Jason soward: Absolutely. Me too. Yeah.

Zac: doesn't have to be a huge giveaway, just people want to win. I I've joined some late night shows just to like be in the giveaway 'cause when there's five people in a room, your odds are good and I people like to win. No matter what it is, you know, you still support the people. If you're I you know, I always if I win something, I'm always at least trying to bid. I might not always win, but at least you're you're you're participating. ⁓

Jason soward: That's true. Exactly. And how many people that win something out of the auction? They may not be a buyer right then, but a month down the road, I've seen them, they've won a couple times. Now they're making purchases. I've turned them into a customer, you know, and you're right. It's just the cost of doing business, just advertising and paying for that whatever promotion thing. I've had my audience do it. I've done it. I tell them do not do that. That doesn't really help at all. I don't see the sales off of it. I I don't think it's a great method. ⁓ for me.

Zac: No. No, I agree. I don't think so. It never helped us. You know, even you know, back to the giveaways, even if the person who wins doesn't buy, you need be excited because that person will tell someone else that they won a tooth off your show, right? Or whatever you're giving away, they're gonna tell somebody, hey, I won this off whatnot. ⁓ what what show is that? Well it's so and so's show. Or you're gonna be pissy at you you won, you didn't buy, you're a jerk. They're gonna have the same ⁓ gonna go tell people about that too. So it's just important

Jason soward: Yeah.

Zac: You know, it's a positive thing. It's a fun thing to give away. No one's giving away, you know, don't give away stuff you're not willing to give away. It doesn't matter who gets it. ⁓

Jason soward: I don't ever do a buyer's giveaway because of the fact that due to the gambling laws, anybody can realistically enter that. So to combat that, I make everybody's shipping $7 max fee. So every buyer of mine's getting a discount that I'm giving them that nobody else is doing. Whether that's helping me gain more customers or just losing my, you know, bottom line, I don't really know, but it's something that I've always done.

Zac: Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Well no, that's cool. I think anything you can do that's consistent that people can start to to kind of put that with you. This guy does this for me. Like you're associated with that disco on top of more discounted shipping, like you're associated with even cheaper shipping. And people remember that. They come back to your show because of that. How often are you going live and how consistent are your shows? I think a lot of people ask what they can do to get more people to their shows and I've always told them consistency. People want to know that you're going live at the same time every week. So we always did, you know, our shows at the same time. Are you doing that? Are you jumping around at all? Or what have you found works best?

Jason soward: Yes. ⁓ absolutely scheduling shows the same time every week, to create that routine. And that's something I've done for years. You know, I run every Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday night. ⁓ then I also do pop on. I keep my regular schedule, but if I'm bored this week or on Sunday I want to make a little extra money, I'll pop on with a pop-up show. And it also generates new customers at different times that aren't expecting you. Your true hardcore followers are still gonna pop in. But I recommend creating a schedule and then, you know, messing with your free time and doing shows at different times to create new customers. ⁓ that's my that's you know, I I definitely wouldn't want to just always just pop on because I would rather preload shows and target a premiere show, you know, a month down the road that I can tell my fans to save that

Zac: ⁓ huh.

Jason soward: You can check out that inventory. I got some of the best finds for the last month preloaded in there, you know, and create a higher event that people can look forward to.

Zac: Sure. How much do you think having a Facebook following helps your whatnot? Even today, obviously, like they transferred over, a lot of them transferred over, but like you're promoting your show. I'm guessing you're s you're cross promot promoting. You're not just uploading your show and going on the whatnot group saying, Hey, I have a show. How are you promoting your show to get you have a hundred people coming and you said every time it sounds like? So how are we getting those people like we're doing more than just things? What are we what are we doing?

Jason soward: Yeah. I was at first putting it all blast in my Facebook page, blasting my Facebook group, but you know, in the end only a certain percentage of those people made the swap. ⁓ some of ⁓ are not gonna make it for whatever reasons they wanna give you. But as time has progressed, I've posted less and less. And I don't really even need that because I'm still gaining

Zac: Okay. Yeah. Doesn't it?

Jason soward: You know, whatnot is still bringing in so many new customers each week that or each show. It's not just each week, it's each show that ⁓ I don't even really have to rely on any advertising or, you know, it's just if I feel like it, I get paid for promo for posting on Facebook. So I try to put stuff out there, but ⁓ I I think Facebook gets a little overflooded with the links of everybody's shows. Everybody just wants to post that show, ⁓ and hope people

Zac: It's still game. Yeah.

Jason soward: Click on the link, but ⁓ in the end I think it's worth more of just writing up about it, creating ⁓ something for them to read and then having the link in the comments.

Zac: Yeah, you gotta give some value to the post. You can't just put don't just post your link and expect people to figure out what you sell. I don't know, take a clip from your last show, show the most exciting items that were on the last show, show you do discount and shipping, give ⁓ reason to come to your show versus the other thousands of shows that are live at one time. ⁓ are you selling anywhere else right now? So you had you

Jason soward: Absolutely. And and I've tried I've tried going into different categories like the storage units, because I'm a fossil guy. So I mean, granted, I've been a seller for a long time, ⁓ in a lot of different markets because I'm an oddities guy, but l some categories are much more harder on competition, you know, and there could be forty storage units running at all times. But if you're selling beta fish, there's only two people selling beta fish, and it's crazy how many beta fish they're selling.

Zac: Yeah. Okay.

Jason soward: Or the guy that owns the butchery selling meat straight from his Florida meat factory or something. Yeah, it's just S some categories are a lot tougher to establish yourself in, to grow from, you know, naturally on whatnot, and are definitely gonna take a little help from social media.

Zac: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good point. You know, the liquidation space has really saturated the market on whatnot. ⁓ you know, they're they're everywhere. I mean, our industry or our segment of the industry just like they it it started and then just like everybody and their brother that we know just p hit the app at one time. And so you'll have you're so much competition on our side because we're selling, you know, everyday items. We're not selling anything unique or special. It's easy to source. And the trade-off of that is there is a lot of competition in those spaces. So you have to do a lot of unique things to to get people to your show. A lot of giveaways, you're selling cheaper stuff.

Jason soward: Yeah. Yeah.

Zac: better handling time, bigger, you know, bigger giveaways. You know, a lot of ⁓ we've seen people in our space give away cars, right? Because there's so many people vying for those eyes. You know, if you if you decide to get a little bit more into a smaller niche, you might find that you don't have to do all these things. You get to sell fossils. Honestly, it sounds like a lot cooler to deal with than, you know, the crap that we sell. It's just more consumer stuff that winds up in the landfill. You know, I would love to like

Jason soward: Yeah. Yeah.

Zac: be talking to somebody about sourcing pirate treasure than ⁓ the crap that we you know we get to deal with plastic pirate swords is what we s we we get to sell. We don't get to deal with ⁓

Jason soward: And I I think a high percentage of customers may not even know fossil category exists. You know, there's a bunch of people that I'll I'll go into a different category and I'll tell them, you know, this isn't my normal place to sell. I'm usually in fossils, I sell this and this, and they're like, I didn't even know that existed. You know. So it, you know, and that's that's what I'm trying to do is get the ⁓ get the word out, you know. And and and there's a lot of different hosts that are really great at what they do in a lot of different categories.

Zac: I didn't. Yeah.

Jason soward: ⁓ and as we've looked at the future of you know, where do we go from here? It's almost like creating a warehouse with maybe five or ten sellers like myself, because my biggest problem is I can only run so many hours a week and I wear my voice box out. You know. You know, you know, so you ⁓ you can only do physically so much of the live streaming. I'm getting my charger, I'm sorry.

Zac: Yeah. ⁓ You're good before you have to Yeah, so what so what's the plan for expand or are you thinking about expanding? It sounds like you are. ⁓ what's the plan?

Jason soward: ⁓ we're always thinking about the future and how to grow for sure. You know, because this has been a journey. ⁓ and where to take this. ⁓ because of the massive growth rate and experiencing the what, you know, what not and what technology can do for this, it it definitely opened up my eyes to ⁓ man, we're really on the cusp of something here. Cause if we can do, you know.

Zac: Yeah. No, you got to. Yeah.

Jason soward: Easily half a million to three quarter a million dollars in sales with one person doing this. If we had two or three more people and could run, you know, create a shows that ran almost simultaneously throughout the day, because there's always people shopping. it it definitely could turn into a serious, you know, full time or or either creating a warehouse where I give you the place to sell at, I got the shipping taken care of for you. And here you go. Here's a hub that maybe I rent you a space or something like that for other people that are ready to go to the next level. ⁓ I I do it out of my house. ⁓

Zac: Yeah. That's interesting. You're saying like a warehouse where I come in, I sell, and you're saying you pack and ship it? Like almost a three thousand live sellers almost?

Jason soward: Maybe I Yeah, maybe I have four or five live seller spaces where they have their inventory in their own little places, but then we have a team that helps take care of the shipping. ⁓ I haven't really, you know finalized this idea, but it's it's it's like that's where I'm at. I'm at I don't have a living room at my house. I don't have a garage. You know, all these things are taken up from the business.

Zac: No, I lot like That's great.

Jason soward: ⁓ so I I'm at the verge of going to the next step too. ⁓

Zac: Yeah. No, that's a unique I love the idea because we we so we do a lot of real estate ⁓ as well. That's what we've done since we started reselling. We took all of our profits from we started fifteen years ago and I knew I didn't want to resell forever. I love doing it, but it's a constant hustle and so we the last fifteen years we've just we've taken all of our profits. We've bought real estate with it and one of the areas that we're in that I really like is ⁓ it's flex space. So we've got you we've got warehouses that are Small office in the front, warehouse in the back. Right. I see a lot of that's what you know, you don't need a lot of square footage. You it sounds like you need about fifteen hundred to two thousand square feet where you can have your office where you're selling in the front and your warehouse space in the back. But I love what you ⁓ what your idea was 'cause there's there's a few warehouses we're in Atlanta and there's a few warehouses that do that where they they rent you even smaller like sp spaces. ⁓

Jason soward: Yes. Yeah.

Zac: But it'd be unique to have it geared towards online live selling where you know you have a community of people who just they need help, right? They don't have quite the the capital yet to invest in a big team. Also, a lot of people are still doing it on the side, it's not their full time gig, you know, but they they want to get out of their house. And that's like the biggest thing. You know, we started in my parents' apartment basement and the did that for two years. And it was like we're we're s we've got a two year old at At the house, we're stepping on toy, we're stepping on screw, we're stepping on stuff. It's time to get out. And so our biggest thing was like, how do we get out of, you know, how do we get out of this and get into a real space? Because you then you get your life back. Then you get to leave that stuff of that stuff somewhere else. I mean, we never get to shut it all off, but like it's nice to leave the stuff somewhere else and have your personal space at home. But I I ⁓ I'm really curious. I I mean we're gonna check in

Jason soward: Yeah. Yeah.

Zac: down the road with you on that 'cause I love the concept of having a specific spot geared towards live sellers with the assistance on packing, shipping, and a central hub that, you know, they can unload their product. They've got it stored there. They get to come in, do their thing, le I love I love that it's geared towards that. You get enough people at once, you know

Jason soward: Then your costs reduce, you know, because I I can't buy a semi load of bubble wrap or boxes to get the costs low enough. But if I have a warehouse and everybody doing this together, now we've reduced the costs as a team. It might be a paid service or something, but it's enabling you to lower your costs and to maybe get over some of the hurdles that you yourself have or who am whomever.

Zac: Right.

Jason soward: ⁓

Zac: ⁓ 100%. If you can get enough people down, I mean just the savings on your boxes alone could pay for the the the space itself at some point. Because I mean boxes aren't cheap. We've we we tried a few different ways. We tried, you know, sourcing boxes like leftover boxes from shipments. And you know, we're spending so much time trying to find the right box that fits the right item. You know, we we we did the track I've got a tractor trailer load of boxes that we don't know what to do with.

Jason soward: Yeah.

Zac: Because we don't sell on what nine anymore, it's sitting there. But it worked out great because we had twenty different size boxes. It was way easier to to pack stuff. ⁓ but that's the way to get ⁓ 'cause I mean, like, we're paying, you know, a nickel a box at that point versus when you're buying two twenty boxes, you're paying three or four dollars, you know, volume.

Jason soward: Ha ha. Yeah. And your and your time. Your time wasted in having to get these materials or track this down every week. It just as you expand it, I need to be using my time wisely and I need to be using it to sell instead of out here getting nonsense or you know every week.

Zac: A hundred percent. No, sales is the key. Sales solves everything, ⁓ is what I've always told people. But no, that growth creates growth is great, but growth creates its own problems. ⁓ and a lot of that, you know, I think can be streamlined with more people. ⁓ and then you get to ba it's no fun, you know. I did I've done most of what I've done by myself and it's always more fun when there's people, other people involved. You get to bounce, you know, l bounce ideas off of like minded people.

Jason soward: Yeah.

Zac: you get to get feedback, you know, that your friends and family can't always give you because they don't know what you're dealing with. And other researchers do. And so they understand like the struggles and the the the pain points and like I said, some people have ide I love it when someone has a better idea than me. It's my favorite thing. ⁓ 'cause that means they're listening to what I'm like struggling with and they give me feedback. ⁓

Jason soward: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. This this whole journey of me started of me copying somebody else that was doing a Facebook auction, but they wouldn't they only accepted money orders. And I was like, why would you do that? They only wanted money orders or cash in the mail. And I just copied their idea and said, I'll take any form of payment known to man because I'm here to make money. You know, I don't care. I'll deal with the tax man and that that end of it. But, you know, I'm not gonna push away a customer because I don't take their form of payment.

Zac: Yeah.

Jason soward: ⁓

Zac: No, I want make it as easy as possible for you to give me money. Like that's like give it to me. I'll make it easy for you. Whatever you want me to take, I'll take it. ⁓ I actually I prefer electronic payment anymore. You know, ten years ago we were a huge cash business. That's like ninety percent of our our sales were cash. I hate cash today. Like people are ⁓ I'll give you cash. Like I really don't want the cash. Now I gotta go to the b I'll take it, but I don't want an extra trip to the bank 'cause it's just a headache.

Jason soward: Absolutely. Yeah.

Zac: Zell me. It's my favorite is is Zell. You know. ⁓ so what ⁓ I think I asked earlier and we were in the middle of another back and forth, but are you strictly selling on whatnot today? Are you selling on any other platforms ⁓ besides besides

Jason soward: Yeah. I got you on that. One 100% whatnot since I started. Every once in a while, Blue Moon, if I get a fresh batch of Megalodon teeth, I'll put a little board out on Facebook where they can buy it now and pick the one for X amount. But honestly, I hate doing that because it's a time consuming thing. ⁓ if I had more time personally and I wasn't selling as fast as I am, I would. cross list on other platforms. I have seen other people doing that where they're listing stuff on several different sales platforms where they're not having to live stream at this, you know, to sell it. And I think that's a great way to build yourself if maybe you don't have a massive following or are working at a hundred and ten percent already.

Zac: Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. I'm curious like so what what do you think your biggest roadblock is right now to the next the next growth point in your business?

Jason soward: My my biggest hurdle is the capital of gaining the capital to make the moves because renting a warehouse in Southwest Florida is not a cheap, it's not worth the four thousand a month for me to rent one of those flex places, like you said. I just can't find one that's affordable. And then I'm wasting a lot of time each week going to get my product from my wholesaler every week I drive. six hours and spend a day and s and invest four thousand dollars, three thousand, five, you know, whatever. I need to have more capital to be able to do that all at one time where I can get a month's worth at at the at that time. But then it also leads to where you're saturating in the same product. So you're not getting new stuff as much. So it's kind of like a push-shove thing.

Zac: Yeah.

Jason soward: and my biggest mistake on that was running all the capital and the business through my personal checking account and not doing it through a business account. Had I have done that when I started whatnot, I could already get the loans and be to the next step. But it's always a learning curve. You know, you're always learning. You you make mistakes.

Zac: For sure. Yeah, no, you're gonna make mistakes. I think that's one of my biggest things for for our content that if we can save someone else the mistake that we made, they're still gonna make mistakes. Like you're gonna make your own, and that's cool. But I've already paid for my mistake. ⁓ my dad when I was growing up, he's like, When you're you know, you're a kid, you make a mistake, you know, whatever, you got you learn lesson when you're adult, usually costs you money. It's a stupid tax. And so I've already paid the stupid tax on a ton of things. Maybe some of my experiences having done all the stuff we've done can save someone else that stupid tax, at least that part and they can they can further theirs. So you made a good point. You know, as soon as you're ready to make the the the decisions to run a business, make it a business. 'Cause that's what it is. You know, I I I run into a lot of people who are like, When should I, you know, when should I make it a business? How long have you been selling? ⁓ two years. Well, you should have done that two years ago. There's a lot of benefits to having it be a business. ⁓

Jason soward: Yeah. Yeah.

Zac: and you just named one of them and that's being able to get a loan and showing the revenue that you're doing, 'cause I mean, half a million dollars in sales is not nut it's a lot. Like, especially solo in that category, I was not expecting that number. I mean that's a to me that's a huge number and especially I mean in that it's just a huge number at all for someone selling solo on on whatnot. That's a huge number in that category too. You know, like you hit the nail on the head. Capital is it's

Jason soward: Appreciate that.

Zac: Yeah, you're s you're spending six hours a week trying to get product. I mean you make a good point. I c I imagine you can oversaturate a little bit in your market. Like there's only so many before it the prices start I mean it's every market, but like you gotta find the buyers.

Jason soward: I have a huge product line, but you can only have so many of each. You know, how many little boxes of coral can I sell a weekend, you know, or high right chunks, you know, you just run into that. And and honestly, I when I first started, I sold a hundred percent of the items on the table every show I did for probably I can't tell you how long.

Zac: Yeah. Yeah.

Jason soward: ⁓ until then I after s you know, almost six months, a few of the products maybe don't sell as well because I have sold so much of that. ⁓ and then I also notice that pe some of the people that buy it, a certain percentage are re are resellers on whatnot. So my product is full circling everywhere. ⁓ so we also do make new product each week or we try to come up with new items in these little I call them little perky boxes, but they're little small space savers.

Zac: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jason soward: if I had one here, I'd show it to you, but ⁓ creating new product, you know, to to those old customers that have already bought the whatever items I sell. I need to have something new so they can add to their collection. ⁓ in my eyes.

Zac: Yeah. What do you think I'm curious now that we have the Sharktooth and the Coral, what's the average ⁓ price per unit that you sell?

Jason soward: ⁓ total my total average since I've been on there, my average is about $14. now I have one product line that I I try to get to five to six dollars on. That's all I want. I want five to six dollars on these little perky boxes that I sell. Sometimes I get three where I start them at, sometimes I get twenty-one. So they kind of go all over the place. The megalodon teeth.

Zac: Okay. Yeah.

Jason soward: ⁓ can go. I've sold them for upwards of fifteen hundred dollars. ⁓ I've sold, you know, I've sold broken ones for 30 to 40. So they're all over the place on value on those. ⁓ and it just kinda I've kind of been focusing on trying to take over the top number of sales in my category. because I know the competition has been doing it a a long time, a lot longer time than I have, maybe two or three years.

Zac: Right. Gotcha. Yeah.

Jason soward: And ⁓ I'm about five to six thousand items away from being the number one. And I don't know why that's important to me, but I just that's just the inner goal in me is to to be number one.

Zac: Yeah. Everybody wants to be number one. Number one's the best. You ain't first your last will be forever, you know, our slogan over here.

Jason soward: In the end, I I don't think the three dollar items are a great way to don't be like me. Don't do three dollar items. It's way easier to sell stuff for thirty and sixty dollars and get the h you know, where you're making a higher profit margin. I'm not wearing myself out on packaging and and all this other stuff. But that's just the mature side of me.

Zac: No, you make a good point, you know, what when we first started I started off selling baby clothes. ⁓

Jason soward: Okay.

Zac: We would Facebook Marketplace wasn't a thing yet. It was still the Facebook groups. And we would go after people who were selling trash bags of baby clothes. And we would sort the baby clothes out. We'd pull out the high like the you know the name brand stuff. We'd sell that on eBay. And I realized this sucks. This is a really slow way to make a lot of money. And so what can we sell that's like a little bit more expensive? And then we found liquidation palettes and we started selling items by the palette. ⁓ and then I had people come up to me, they were like, Can I just buy the whole palette? And I was like,

Jason soward: Yeah.

Zac: Well, this is even better because now instead of selling a $20 microwave, I'm selling a $500 pallet. Okay, well, how can I make more? Well, let's sell the whole truck. And then we've graduated to sell, we do a lot of close out. So now I sell, instead of selling one air conditioner, I sell 2,000 air conditioners. So like I like to sell, I look at it like how can I get to a million as fast as possible? And I like selling like bigger, like the bigger thing, right? It's like because it takes me just as much effort to sell, you know, a

Jason soward: Wow. Mm-hmm.

Zac: two of something as it does two thousand of something. So we just decided that I want to get really good at selling a lot of things all at one time. ⁓ and so we find customers that can can handle, you know, that volume. ⁓ but I love, you know, I love people that just especially when they're just getting started out, 'cause I think like you're getting a lot of people, it sounds like, are asking about you wholesaling your stuff because it sounds like a very unique ⁓

Jason soward: That very true.

Zac: a unique niche that's difficult to source. So I think you have a really cool opportunity to like to be that person to expand the niche. It sounds like you're super ⁓ it sounds like you're super hyped about it. I mean, I don't know how when you sell are you giving like a history, like how much of how much of Like how much knowledge of the product do you have when you're selling? I got we're gonna watch your show at the end, we're gonna have like tell us your shows are live so we can promote your show for you. ⁓ but also we're gonna tune in because again, I like I didn't know people sold this stuff on whatnot. ⁓ we you know, we're trapped in our industry and not we don't, you know, get to talk to too many people outside of it. ⁓ but like how much knowledge do you have of the stuff that you're selling?

Jason soward: Yeah. High percentage, you know, a very good ⁓ a good knowledge. You know, I've been doing it for so long that I I know what I'm selling. If if you don't know what you're selling, it kinda is hard to make the customer connect to you believing in it. You're almost like you're BS and you know, some people are good at that, but you know, and and I don't know everything. There's stuff that I'll I'll source from some of my wholesalers that I don't really know what that mineral is. I don't take the time to look it up. And generally it doesn't make as much money if I'm not

Zac: Yeah.

Jason soward: Giving the detail or it doesn't invest the buyers as much. ⁓ but as it's gone on, some of the things kind of become repetitive, like we're still selling shark's teeth, and there's a lot of them. So I still will give the history of where it's found, how old it is, ⁓ I'm selling it. ⁓ so I'm trying to kind of do it both at the same time. Maybe as the timer's running is when I'm talking about it ⁓ or telling a story about where it was found in the field.

Zac: Yeah. Yeah.

Jason soward: when it all started, I was selling Native American artifacts that I personally found in North Mississippi. My dad owned a golf course. I grew up in in family business ⁓ whole life. And once my mom sold the golf course ⁓ off probably 10 years after my dad died, I chose to walk away and start my own thing. So I had hunted arrowheads. I had amassed this huge collection of Indian artifacts, and I just decided I'm not going back to golf course. I'm gonna sell this, I'm gonna start my own thing. And that that's kind of where it all started. ⁓ but ⁓ ⁓ I was doing that, being able to go out and find the airhead, take the video of finding it, and then show that to the customers on Facebook, then sell it that night, that created, you know, the whole story. And that's the one thing on whatnot that it's kind of missing is how do I tell a little bit about the product before I go live? ⁓

Zac: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

Jason soward: There's a few features, but I wish it just had a little bit more on those aspects.

Zac: Yeah. No, I think that to me that if you can show me like your friends scuba diving for the shark tooth that I'm about to bid on, I am paying more for that 'cause then I can take the video, I can show my friends, look, this is what this is where it came from. The shipwreck thing is like the coolest thing I have heard. I don't even been a long time. Like that's cool. so but yeah, ⁓ it is one fifty. ⁓ I try not to take too much people's time, but

Jason soward: Ha ha. Pretty cool. Yeah. You're okay.

Zac: Before we get off and appreciate you spending a lot of time with us, ⁓ remind us your your username again and the times you go live, we're gonna put a thing up so we can promote it and then we're gonna I'm gonna ta like I Taylor, our producers on, she's watching, but I'm if she doesn't, I'm gonna hop on because I think it sounds awesome.

Jason soward: ⁓ my name is Unforgettable Oddities. It's all one word. ⁓ I run on Friday and Saturday nights starting at 7 p.m. but I think the industry that you're in, the palette industry, is definite if you're still in that, that is a huge growing market because there's a lot of people out there that are looking for, okay, I'm into this, I'm seeing success. Where do I go get my product? Where where can I buy these palettes at? You know, I think that's a great

Zac: No. It's a low very low barrier to entry market. You know, I I get with resellers that are starting out all the time and I'm like, if you don't know where to start and you just want to start reselling, it's a super easy market to get into. There's a lot of information about it online. You know, to your point, you need to learn your product. This is some really easy product to learn about because you can Google all of it, you can scan all of it. It the stories are a little bit Not as exciting as a shark tube, but it it's a really easy thing to get into. So I highly encourage any resellers that you know that watch us learn about liquidation because it's really easy. It's not very hard. ⁓ not very exciting, but at least it gets your feet wet on you can work out the kinks on how to get get going.