739: $5k in a Weekend Selling Other People’s Stuff

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1:07That's W-H-A-T-N-O-T, whatnot.com slash sell. Whatnot.com slash sell. Could you make$5 ,000 this weekend selling other people's stuff? Estate sales happen all the time. There's a steady flow of buyers. There's a steady flow of sellers. In this episode, you're going to learn how to insert yourself between the two and help pull off a successful sale. My guest is a longtime listener. She's been doing consignment, eBay, estate sales, auction sales for the last 10, 20 years. From auctionmastery.com, Sue Antinoro, welcome to The Side Hustle Show. Thanks for having me on, Nick. Nice to see you. Likewise, I appreciate you tuning in and appreciate you reaching out with this unique side hustle around helping people clear out their stuff in this estate sale business.

1:58And my understanding is the last one that you did, two-parter, two-part auction, brought in$17 ,000. That is right. Yes, it was very exciting. It was a house full of stuff. And they had so many items that we had kind of a two-part auction. Everything got picked up in the same day, but the total auction grossed$17 ,000 because it did so many things. It was amazing. It was very exciting. Your typical split is half goes to the homeowner or to maybe the kids who are executing the estate sale? Typically. Roughly half goes to, in this case, it was the niece of the person. So a person had passed away and the niece, I assume, was the executor.

2:37So it went to her. That's often how it goes. Sometimes it's a downsizing auction. So the people, actually yesterday we did one and we called it the castle house because these people lived in a house that really looked like a castle. Okay. It had like a turret. It was just gorgeous. Beautiful home. But they were moving. They were downsizing. You know, they're getting older and they were going to move out of state. And that auction, I'm sure, is going to go very, very well. But again, typically it's about 50%. We do have a lower take for silver and gold items, which is like 35 % to us. Okay. Got it.

3:10Got it. But in any case, you came in, you took the pictures, you sold the stuff. We'll get into all that. And to call it eight grand for a couple of weekends worth of work in this case. Yep, that's right. Now, estate sales services have been around forever. And I kind of have a picture of it in my mind from when my grandma and grandpa passed away or downsized out of their house. And it was like an in-person thing. Like people were walking through the house and saying, you know, I want that or claiming it. the piano or the dining room table or whatever it was. That's right. This is a little bit different, right?

3:44Yes. And I wish I knew about this when my parents passed away because it's so efficient process. So instead of the traditional estate sales, like you said, where people are coming in, you're not having a bunch of strangers coming to your house and just willy-nilly looking at things. Maybe some things might go missing. Who knows? The difference in this process is I would come in and usually in a day, take pictures of everything. We go home and catalog it. It could go online in maybe two days. The auction runs for a week. At the end of the week, only the winning bidders would show up to get their items.

4:20And usually there's a one-day pickup period, maybe four hours. And then that's it. It's very efficient, quick. Again, you don't have a bunch of strangers coming in. The only time people really come into the house is if they need to move out maybe a big piece of furniture. or something like that. Okay, so this is part of the pitch or maybe part of the benefit to the homeowner. It's like, look, you don't want to have a bunch of strangers walking through your stuff. We're going to put it all online. And this is like a week-long eBay auction. What's going on? It's similar to eBay, yes. So I just set an auction go live today.

4:49So it goes live, runs for a week, typically ends. So the auction that went live today is going to end next Tuesday, I believe. And it starts to end at 7 p.m. Eastern time. And it's a rolling close. So that means lot number one starts to close and every 20 seconds it closes each item. So if you're bidding on a couple of different items, you have a different time. This is not eBay. This is like an estate sale specific one? Yes. It's called Auction Ninja is the third party platform that we used. There's a couple of them out there. Auction Ninja just happens to be the one that I use. Okay. So if I'm coming in and saying, I'm thinking down the road to, okay, I would kind of gently put my name out there to real estate agents or to moving services, maybe somebody who would be helping people kind of in this transition stage of life.

5:40You need to clear this stuff out. Right. To get my name into the ring as a potential estate sale helper person. But other companies have been doing this for years. It's a service that's been around forever. So what's the opening pitch or what gets you selected over everybody else? Honestly, a lot of people don't know about this. My thing is, first of all, we're taking the overwhelm off of you and it's hands free for the customer. You're not having all these strangers coming in the house. So I just talked to a woman today and she was like, I don't want anybody coming in. You know, she was very adamant about that.

6:09And, you know, sometimes older people don't want that. I think a lot of people like, not that this is anything, it's kind of hard to say, but people like that we're all women in the job that I do. Do you find yourself competing with other services like, oh, they're going to offer me a 60 % take versus 50 % or something like that? Yes, that's true. I will say that typically we're a little less picky about the things we'll put in. So I think that's what sets us apart because around here anyway, a lot of these competitive companies are more, you know, they're going for the big bucks. So they might look at a house and go, you know, we're not going to do that because they're not finding a lot of high value items.

6:49So I will say that is something that sets us apart. Okay. We'll take everything. Yeah. You just want it gone. Yes, exactly. They just want it gone. Is that part of the process? Like, look, if it doesn't sell, we'll handle the disposal, the removal? Almost everything sells because with that process, the bidding starts at only a dollar. So it's very rare that things don't sell. As far as we don't really do like a junk clean out, but we do have referral partners. So we will offer that up to people as well as like cleaning companies, that kind of thing. But for the most part, everything sells. It's great.

7:26And people love to bid. My fear would be like, well, I put it up there and I guess it sold for a dollar. And maybe I was hoping to get a little bit more for it. Do you have customers coming in and say, well, there's got to be a reserve for this item, this item, this item, something like that? That's funny. Yeah, I just had a woman tell me that today. She wants to sell some artwork. And so there are reserves if you want. We generally tell people you can put five things up for reserve. So in this particular auction ninja, people go crazy about bidding. It's like the secret sauce, they love to bid.

7:59It's like a winning thing. I can't tell you how many winning bidders have come up to me and they're like, yeah, I won it. So that's like this particular buying base. They love to win, you know? And we always say all it takes is two people who really want something really bad. Like we had this vintage bugle from the 1800s. I don't know anything about instruments, but we had a bidding war that went on for hours and it sold for almost$5 ,000 for a bugle. And I heard from the losing bidder and she was like, oh gosh, I want to buy this as a birthday present for my husband. Okay. There's enough of a built-in audience of auction lovers here on the auction ninja site where stuff is unlikely to go.

8:38So the customer could set a reserve on a handful of specific items, but it's more like, look, trust our process. We're going to put it up there for a dollar. Enough people are going to see it, or if it's really worth anything, it'll sell. Trust us. This particular audience, they don't like reserves. We did an auction for a gentleman who lost his wife, and he had absolutely beautiful things, gorgeous pieces of furniture. And he was an older gentleman. He's like, I paid X dollars for this. And he put reserves on my five pieces of furniture and they never sold. And then we had to do a second auction and we put them at a dollar.

9:11And of course they didn't sell for a dollar. So we try to tell people not to put reserves, but you can do that. So like I see that silverware, I'm telling you, everybody's bringing out their grandmother's silverware lately. Yeah. Check this out. 4 ,200 bucks. And there's still five hours left on this for this Sterling silverware set. We've sold at least four or five Sterling silverware sets over the last month. And they've all gone for at least$4 ,000. Okay. So they tell you the weight on it here. What's the raw metal worth on this? You know, that's a great question. We do weigh out in grams. I don't know.

9:45I'm not a metals girl. You know, I don't know if they're melting it down. Yeah, yeah. 41 bids here. And in your case, most of the buyers are local. So in contrast to eBay, we're going to be shipping everything. It's like most of the people, look, we have a dedicated pickup day next weekend. You can come by and grab the thing. That's partly true, although we've expanded our shipping lately and we ship maybe 10 % of the items. The silverware, I can tell you, will likely get shipped. It's mostly local buyers. I would also say maybe like 40 % of our buyers are resellers. Like they have little stores or maybe they sell on eBay or things like that.

10:21Yeah, we have a signed, framed Barry Sanders jersey from the Lions. Current bid,$71. 27 bids going back and forth on this one so far. I imagine for the right fan with the right man cave, Lions fan, we pay more than$71 for that. I think you're right. It's fascinating the things you can find on Auction Ninja, too. And some things will sell and will go like, who knew that thing was worth so much money? But I always say, you know, the market will set the price. They will find you as long as you title it correctly and whatnot. and take great pitches. Okay. So that may be the step. So you get the house under contract or an agreement to do this.

10:58And then the next stage of the process, kind of cataloging everything that's in there, but it's still like really tedious to do that and then take multiple pictures of each and every one. What's your process like for that? So the process is we look at everything and we try to pick up the nice high value items first because you go into a house and there's a million things. So, and that comes with getting to know, maybe some people know that, maybe some people don't, but you do want to kind of get to know that. So try to pull out the high value things first. Those are singles. And again, you want to take great pictures.

11:32We, you know, I have a method for that. What's an example, like obviously the Sterling silverware and what else would qualify as like high value for you? Some art pieces. Lately, art has been doing very well. Signed art, limited edition art that's been doing great and we've been shipping on a lot of artwork unique little you know mcm mid-century modern things you know things you can never find anymore it could be anything it could be like a brass cat figurine or something i will tell you people love cats again gold jewelry goes with even costume jewelry people love costume jewelry things that are unique you know glass is one thing we're like no glass unless it's marked like Waterford, but in general, you'll get the people that will come up and, oh, what about my china?

12:18It's lovely. And it is lovely, but it just doesn't sell that well. And you have to be kind of tactful and have empathy towards people. Yeah, they've kept this in their home for 50 years. They have some sentimental value. Yeah, yeah. You have to be like, well, you know, it's just not as sought after as it used to be. That's if you're dealing with the people are still alive. You know, Obviously, if it's the children dealing with maybe their parents' stuff, they've already come in the house. They've taken what they wanted, and they're just like, we want it all gone. Right. Trying to put myself in the mindset of the buyer.

12:51And I guess you said most of the buyers are resellers, so they're trying to pass it on to somebody else. But just there's not a ton of shelf space or desire to have knickknacks filling up the space. But maybe certain people would be more into it. You know what? Little old ladies love buying knickknacks. I mean, maybe that sounds funny, but they do. They still buy it. And there's still a lot of people that love buying. And obviously things like, you know, power tools, like expensive tools are great because all that stuff is so expensive to buy now. So we'll sell generators or ride on lawnmowers.

13:25Things like that are wonderful. Okay. You said the high value items, those are going to be single listings. Like we saw the silverware set. We saw the Barry Sanders jersey, single item. Yep. Alternative, I assume, is lots, like a bundle of things that are similar. Exactly. So we might even do like a cabinet lot of dishes and mugs and whatnot. But typically, if it's a house that, again, maybe someone's lived there for 50, 60 years, you're going to find some treasures in there and unique things that you just don't see anymore. People really like that kind of stuff. Or nostalgia. I always say nostalgia always sells.

14:01You know, someone will come in and go, oh, I had that. But my grandmother had that when I was a kid or, you know, that kind of thing. Older toys sometimes do well. Fisher-Price toys sometimes. Older, you know, pre-1980 kind of a thing. Yeah, still made out of wood and, you know, higher quality. They don't make them like they used to. Right. What's your process like for taking the pictures? Are you doing that kind of in place in the house? Or you had to take it back to your light box studio setup? Sue's response, plus how to get the most eyeballs on your listings. Coming up right after this. When you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break.

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16:24Shopify helps you find your customers with email and scroll stopping social media campaigns too. And what if you get stuck? Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24-7 customer support. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash side hustle. Go to shopify.com slash side hustle. That's shopify.com slash side hustle. Everything's done in the house. So we'll bring lighting, we'll bring foam boards to have like maybe black and white. So if it's glass, we want to put it on a black foam board. If it's a dark item, you want to put it on white.

17:06You kind of want to have an idea of how to take a good photo, obviously. And lighting is very important. We'll work through the rooms, you know, everything in the dining room. We'll take everything there and everything stays where it is for the most part, unless the client for some reason needs it moved, whatnot. And then everything's given an identification number. You know, one through 50 is in the kitchen. Okay. Are you putting stickers on them like a moving company or just kind of in your own internal inventory tracker? Yes. Our own internal thing. Exactly. Is it a spreadsheet or what do you use for that?

17:36So Auction Ninja will actually assign numbers to you. So if you're using Auction Ninja, You just print off the numbers you assign, basically. Okay. As you go through room by room, item by item. Yes. So we preprint the numbered labels and we just stick it on there. Yeah, I will say you want to get a tag or sticker that doesn't leave a residue. That's a big no-no. Especially on older vintage things. Yeah, you just ruined my mid-century thing with your sticker. Seriously. Like one time I had a box of, okay, this is something I myself got into a bidding war. This is another thing people will say all the time.

18:11You know what? I never knew I needed this thing. They were called cheese mice. Never heard of them before. They were the cutest thing ever. These little wooden mice that people would put, you know, you're serving a crudite. And I was like, I had to have these. So I had put the sticker on the box and it was a very old box. And sure enough, a little thing had come off of it. And I was like, oh, I should have known better. But I did not end up winning the cheese mice, by the way. But the woman who came to pick them up, I was like, I was bidding against you. And she was like, I had no idea I needed these so bad.

18:42But she didn't really need them, but she wanted them. And the way you're describing it, is there, I assume, like a bulk upload for these images? Or is it really like, OK, one by one if I'm taking five or ten pictures of each thing? The way I do it is you have all your photos on your camera. Unfortunately, Auction Ninja doesn't have an app for some reason. But I'll put all the photos on my computer and then I'll just drag and drop. So, you know, item number one, drag them. And it's pretty quick. And then I use Google Lens to identify. I mean, most of the stuff I know what it is anyway, but Google Lens is great.

19:16So you can just right click Google Lens and then copy and paste the title. Okay. This is to identify items without a barcode, without a label. Okay. That's a smart way to do it. Because you're like, I don't know what this thing is. Yeah. Ask the AI to tell you. Yeah. It's very time efficient. Okay, so the pictures go up, the listings go up, and then the fun starts, then the auction starts. Everything starts at a dollar. It's a week-long thing, and if it's anything like any of the auctions I've paid attention to, all the action happens at the very end, or do people start bidding right away? Everything happens in the last few hours.

19:50It's fascinating to watch. Which has got to be so stressful for the owners. It's like, dude, we've got no action on this. It's so stressful. So many times, like, nobody's bidding, nobody's bidding. And then they get a little nervous. And we're like, just you wait. Just watch. And all the magic happens at the end. Yeah. And the way you described it was the timer kind of resets if there's a bid towards the end. Is that true? Yes. If you have two people bidding on the same thing, if somebody bids within the last five minutes, it resets to another five minutes. Okay. To prevent sniping at the last second.

20:25I don't know why that happens. I think it's auction engine maybe wants some more money. But that happened to me one time. I was selling a Bose stereo system. So I'll put my own stuff in the auctions. And I remember I was going out to dinner with my daughter. It was only up to like$50. And I kept watching it on my phone. And somebody with two people clearly were bidding on it. And three hours later, it finally ended. And it got up to like$350. I was so excited. All right. Yeah, that's a little bit better than the$50 initial sale. So sometimes that week-long auction could get extended maybe by quite a bit if people are really going after a particular item or two.

21:06In theory, yeah. But for the most part, people tend to like Peter out. I don't think it's ever gone over like past midnight kind of a thing. Okay. They hit their limit at some point. Would it allow you to say, look, my top bid is$100 for this thing? Just walk away or like bid up until that point. We tell people that all the time. I tell myself that. Just put your top bid in. So you can do that. It's very similar to eBay, I believe, where you just – you can start at$1. You can say, okay,$20. But then it will say, oh, you're the high bidder at$1. So it won't go up to$20 only unless somebody bids$19 against you, if that makes sense.

21:44Talk to me about some of the marketing relationships. I think we've got an idea of kind of the mechanics of how this is going to work once we get into a house. But how about on the getting people to sign up with us in the first place? Some of the partnerships that worked or some ways you found effective to kind of get your name out there? Definitely realtors are a great source because they have these people coming to them. We're getting ready to sell this house. So realtors are a great partnership as well as people who work in maybe like an assisted living community. And they're dealing with these older folks coming in and they're selling their house to get into the assisted living community.

22:24So those are good people to have relationships with. I also have a wonderful relationship with a woman who does house staging. She's staging these multimillion dollar homes and these people have to get all this stuff out. And so that's also a great person. Okay, so before the staging comes in, because she's like, I'm only going to take the listing pictures. It's kind of a few steps earlier in the process in that case. Yes, so she's good to know. We've also been lately dealing with clean-out companies. So that's around here. They're everywhere, these clean-out companies. That's more in the consignment model.

22:58So that's typically they're cleaning out a house. They have all this stuff. And, you know, they don't want to put it in the trash. And they come to realize, hey, some of this stuff is worth money. So they're partnering with us because we have a separate consignment division. Oh, OK. That's another way to, you know, we had 1-800-GOT-JUNK on the show. And I remember asking him, like, well, do you resell any of this stuff? Some of our franchisees have tried for a while, but ultimately not really worth it. Really? Oh, my gosh. They must have so many good things. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, I always thought that would be interesting.

23:30Because in their case, they're getting paid to take the stuff away. So it's like, oh, you get inventory for better than free. But not their model. So on that note, that's another great selling point because I had a friend who had to get out of her house quickly. The house was being sold. She had to find a new place. And she's like, you know what? I'm just going to rent a dumpster. And I'm like, no, don't do that. Let me sell it. So I had an auction at her house. And not only did she not have to rent a dumpster, but she made money. So, you know, I'm saving her all this money from not renting a dumpster.