Money the Easy Way on Whatnot
I was shocked when I made a couple of hundred dollars on Whatnot with only a few hours' of investment. Here are some tips I used to make it easier for myself.
In this article, you will find:
Easy item setup
Pricing advice
Shipping basics
Tips for live shows
I’m not a flipper. I don’t make things to sell. I came to this through the minimalist life. I was on a mission to clean out my house. Every week, the night before it was picked up, I made a point of filling my garbage container to the top. A month into the project, I made all the easy decisions. The remaining stuff I was willing to part with that had value. So I decided to sell it.
Setting Up Shop
The first things I wanted to sell were books and board games. Between the two, I had well over 100 items to sell. The thought of sitting down and typing out hundreds of books, pricing, and all that was daunting. Thankfully, Whatnot offers spreadsheet import, and Google Sheets has AI formulas you can use to generate content for the values.
To get the spreadsheet started, I used my phone’s voice input. Instead of typing in all of the books, I read all of the titles, saying “comma” between titles. Just a couple of minutes later, I had a nice comma-separated list of the books. From there, it was easy to put that into a spreadsheet.
Now we get into the magic of AI formulas in Google Sheets. They handled most of the data entry. As always with AI, you’ll need to check for quality.
The voice transcription of the titles wasn’t great, so I wrote a formula to clean them up.
=AI(”The item in the cell is the possible misspelled or partial book title and author what is your best guess on the books title” & A5)
Then I used a formula to fill out the description.
=AI(”Give me a four sentence description of this book” & A5)
Formulas helped with pricing as well. I got the typical price range for the item.
=AI(”what is the list price for this book, just give the number” & A5 )
Then I spot-checked it, especially for some of my higher-value items. From there, I adjusted for condition and set my price a little low. I was prioritizing selling over getting the highest price. It made selling easier because I could honestly claim the best price they could find.
I don’t have much magic for the pictures. After uploading your spreadsheet, you go through each product to upload the photo. There is a column in the spreadsheet for an image URL. I chose not to go that route.
Shipping
I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with shipping. I thought it would be a hassle. I was wrong. The platform makes it easy.
You will need a scale to weigh your items. You can set the weight in the import spreadsheet or in the app before you activate your product.
Whatnot uses the weight to let customers know how much they will pay for shipping. When you make a sale, you will have a button to generate and print a shipping label.
Almost everything I’ve sold has been via US Priority Mail or Media Mail (for books). Priority mail is fantastic. It covers the cost of the boxes, envelopes, and other shipping supplies. For media mail, I’ve been going to Walmart for bulk shipping envelopes and boxes.
If your customer is local, you will have to sell to them through a show if they don’t want it shipped. Outside of a live show, they have to pay for postage.
Tips for Live Shows
Whatnot is Twitch meets eBay. You can sell without shows, but shows attract much more attention on the platform. You should do a few. It doesn’t have to be intimidating.
I’d recommend doing one as soon as you have inventory. Start a show to learn the controls. Within a show, you can highlight items so they appear as an overlay on the screen. You can set up flash sales, run auctions, and of course, interact with people watching the show. If people join, just let them know you are kicking the tires and ask if there is anything they are looking for.
Once you are comfortable with how shows work, it’s time to schedule a show where you focus more on selling. Set the schedule far enough in advance to give yourself time to promote your sale. The platform has a referral program. If you get friends to join the platform and they purchase anything, they get $15 in credit toward their purchase, and you get a $5 fee.
Whatever plan you have for your show, remember that your potential customers are all that matters. When people are watching, interact with them as much as you can. Ask them what they’re interested in. It’s not about you pushing what you want to sell. It’s about finding out what that person wants and selling what you have that matches.
You don’t close sales, you open a relationship.
Keep in mind that people are interested in the types of goods you have, so that’s at least one thing you have in common. Work those angles. You can meet some interesting people and draw people in enough to make a purchase.
Wrapping It Up
Now you are in business. Set the technology aside and remember to focus on providing good service.
When people are in your show, interact with them. When they buy something from you, thank them. Ship sales fast, let your customers know when it’s shipped. When it’s all said and done and the sale is final, thank them again and ask for a review.
Building a good customer experience does not happen by accident. I happens by design.
Side hustles will increasingly become a normalized part of everyone’s income stream. Society is evolving that way. It is nice to have a little more money and better sales skills. I’m glad I checked it out. For my needs, it’s working well.
Items are selling now without me having to do shows. I haven’t done one in 3 or 4 weeks, but like clockwork, I get a few sales a week.
If I tried harder, I would sell more, but that’s not really the hustle that I want to put my time into. Some of the stuff that hasn’t sold, I wasn’t that interested in selling anyway.
Anyone up for a game of Terraforming Mars?
Referral and Resource Links
Want to buy something on Whatnot?
Start Here → https://whatnot.com/invite/travisretzlaff
Want to become a seller on Whatnot?
Start Here → https://www.whatnot.com/invite/seller/travisretzlaff