Transcription
So, today's video should be fairly interesting if you are interested in this kind of stuff. A couple weeks ago, Haley and I did our biggest Whatnot show ever in terms of individual items. It was 252 things, and it was also one of our more profitable shows ever. And I asked people in that Whatnot show, and over on our Instagram page, if they would be interested in a deep dive into this particular show: like how we planned it, how we executed it during the show, and then the total numbers, like our profitability and cost and everything like that. And the response was overwhelmingly positive, so that's what we're going to be doing in today's video. If this is not your cup of tea, just hit the like button and get the heck out of here. But if you are interested, this should be fun. I'll also mention that we did live stream this Whatnot show to our YouTube channel, and that video is still available to watch. So, if you want to see the whole show, or any part of the show that we talk about in today's video, I'll have that video linked in the description of the video down below.
So, first things first, let's quickly talk about what Whatnot is, just in case there's somebody watching this video who doesn't know what we're talking about. So, Whatnot is a live auction selling app. We do it on our phone, and I've always compared it to like QVC and eBay mixed together. You go live on camera, and then you hold up your items one at a time and sell them to the people that come to your show. It's super fast-paced. All of our auctions are usually like 15 to 20 seconds. So, we sell, you know, in the 252 items we sold in this show that we're breaking down in today's video, that took us about 4 hours. So, 250 items in 4 hours, that's pretty fast! I will have a link in the description of the video down below if you guys want to sign up for Whatnot from a buyer or seller perspective. New buyers do get $15 off your first purchase and $25 in free shipping, and new sellers get their first $150 in sales matched by Whatnot that you do in your first week. So, pretty good incentives; definitely check it out if you're interested.
I'll also mention that this 250-item show was significantly larger than what we normally do over on Whatnot. Normally, it's two to three shows per week with 30 to 50 items per show, depending on how many things we find that week or what we can scrounge up in the warehouse. And our average selling price in our normal shows is just under $10, like $9.85. So, we're getting stuff at the Goodwill bins or at the flea market for 25 cents up to like three, four, five dollars, and we're selling those items for $8 on the low end, all the way up to like $12 to $15 on the high end. So, it's not a ton of profit per item, but if you can, you know, spend two bucks on something and triple your money, and you do that 150 times a week, that's where it becomes profitable. But we wanted to do a bigger show with better items, hopefully a better average selling price, and get people really excited about this particular show. So, that's where we get into the plan.
So, throughout the last three years of selling on Whatnot, Haley and I have learned that if you schedule a show out in advance by at least a week, maybe even two or three weeks, and you spend a little bit of time advertising that show—like sharing it on your personal Facebook page, or in a Facebook group with other resellers, or on your Instagram, or something like that—you'll almost always get more bookmarks for that show. This is where people go and save it, and it tells Whatnot to remind them when you go live. And more bookmarks leads to more viewers, and usually more viewers leads to more customers and higher average selling prices, which was the plan here. So, we tried to heavily advertise this show. I think I talked about it in two different YouTube videos, and I also posted about it on our Instagram stories, I think three times: maybe once like a week before the show, once two or three days before the show, and once like several hours before the show. I just wanted people to know, "Hey, we're selling really good stuff this date and time! You definitely don't want to miss it!" We also decided to give away an iPad in the show as a buyer giveaway, which was kind of an expensive item. But I thought, you know, 250 items, the iPad was like 250 bucks. So, if the idea of maybe winning an iPad encouraged people to bid at least one more dollar per item that we run, that extra dollar bid would pay for the $250 iPad. And spoiler alert: I think it worked! And just in case you guys don't know, a buyer's giveaway on Whatnot is kind of exactly what it sounds like. It's a giveaway that you do at the end of your show where the only people that are allowed to enter that giveaway are the people that were customers—people that bought something during that show. So, it's a way to reward your customers and maybe incentivize people to buy an item that maybe they wouldn't otherwise.
We also included in our advertising that all of the auction items we had would have a starting bid of just $1, which is exciting. Unless you're selling like small stuff that's worth, you know, $5 or $10 on eBay, people don't really care about that. So, I also included the fact that we were loading in really high-quality inventory to that show and still starting that stuff out at $1. Stuff like Nike Foamposites, like $140 Fox Motocross Racing boots. We had a Tory Burch wallet worth like 150 bucks. We had several Coach purses and Doney & Burke, and all this like really high-quality stuff that on another website, like eBay or something, would sell for $50 to $150. And when we advertise that we're starting those auction items off at a dollar, that's generally pretty exciting. Even if that stuff ends up selling for close to market value, it's still exciting to see an auction where it at least starts at a dollar. And usually, people see that and they get excited enough to at least bookmark the show, and that's what we were going for.
And leading up to the show, I was doing a lot of research into actual retail establishments like Costco, and how many different pricing and shopping strategies they implement into their stores. And you'd be surprised how much stuff is going on that the average consumer is not aware of. For instance, when you walk into Costco, usually one of the first things you see is like a $5,000 flat-screen TV, because that's one of the most expensive things they have. They put that right at the front door because if the first thing you see is a $5,000 TV, everything else in the store seems cheap in comparison, leading you to probably purchase more of it. Same thing with their loss leaders: obviously, they're losing money on their $4 rotisserie chickens and $1.50 hot dog combos. But they hope that while you're in there getting that stuff, walking all the way to the back where they put the rotisserie chicken, that hopefully you'll grab some other stuff when you head to check out. So, there's a lot of different strategies that are implemented by real businesses nowadays that I think us as small business owners would be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't take a similar approach in our own businesses.
There were some other things that went into the planning phase of this Whatnot show. For instance, I made this graphic here, which was our thumbnail on Whatnot. This is just a static image that people would see as they're scrolling through. I made sure to put "Free iPad" in there to get people's attention, and I also added some other recognizable name brands of items that we were selling that were all starting at $1. I'm not sure if the thumbnail is super important, but I do think it's a good idea, especially if you're already going out and advertising the show heavily. Just use a website like Canva and just make something like that graphic image totally for free. So, out of the 250 items we had in our show, I'd say only about 50 of them were considered high-value items—stuff that was worth, you know, maybe $50 to $150 that we would very likely lose money on, or at least not sell for full market value. But our hopes were that they created excitement in the advertising, they got people to the show, and when people came to the show to get good deals on that stuff (which pretty much it did sell for a really good deal), they would buy other stuff as well—some of the other 200 items that we had available that were far more profitable. That was the plan.
We also had to get 200 more items. So, as we were planning for the show, I bought a big Funko Pop lot. I had an opportunity with my friend Shane; he reached out, he had 67 Funko Pops for 250 bucks, which was a good deal regardless, like less than $4 per pop. So, we bought those. We had a bunch of stuff left over from our Disney haul last year, which we've already made way more; we've made our money back, we're well into the profit on that, so it's almost free if you think about it. We also had just a bunch of random stuff we got at the Goodwill bins and another thrift trip, so it's very low cost of goods into this show. I'd say when you put the Funko Pops, the iPad, you know, the Disney stuff, and all the bin stuff together, we probably had a total of about $1,000 worth of inventory into this show. So, $1,000 in sales, that was our break-even point. Everything after that, once we sold everything, that would be our profit. I think that covers all the planning portion of this show. Now, we can talk a little bit about the execution of the show.
Stuff we do during our show to make sure our viewers are having a good time, because if viewers have a good time, they become buyers. And if buyers have a good time, they become repeat buyers, and that's what a successful Whatnot channel is all about. I think one of the easiest things that we do in our shows that you could do in your show to kind of make it seem more fun is just wearing a cool hat, a little silly hat, or something. Something like this: we actually have a whole rack of Halloween costumes that we'll wear sometimes. I usually wear costumes a little bit more than Haley, but she's been known to don one sometimes. So, if you're scrolling through Whatnot and everybody's just dressed normal, normal, normal, normal, and then you see somebody with a Viking hat on, or dressed like a big wavy tube man, or something, that catches your attention. If you catch their attention, you have a chance to entertain them and make them have a good time, and then they might buy something from you. Generally, that's how it happens for us. Do you want to be peanut butter or jelly? I think we got these last Halloween. We've used them maybe three or four times, but literally every time we are in a show and we dress up, it's all the chat talks about. It's fun! There you go, look at this, especially if you add a cool hat. Her head's a little oblong. It's more like a cool hat. Look at us! Who wouldn't want to buy an $8 Funko Pop?
We also usually play a little bit of music during our shows, not super loud, 'cause I think loud music is more of a distraction than anything else. But it's also really difficult to just stay in front of a camera and talk to yourself, especially if you're by yourself, if you don't have a beautiful spouse by your side helping you out. Um, so I think just playing a little bit of background music just makes it easier on you as a seller and maybe cuts some of the dead air or whatever that may happen in a common Whatnot show. Since we're talking about costumes, let's show off Moses's costume! Oh yeah, that Kim and family bought him, and it's really cute. It is really cute! Come here, little shark boy! Look at him! He's a shark! This is his fin. There he goes! [Humming Jaws theme song]. But I don't know, I think being entertaining on Whatnot is obviously super important, but it's also very individualistic. Like, you have to find something that works for you, something that you're comfortable doing that also the chat enjoys. I've seen some shows where it's kind of cringe, like the seller is trying to be funny or whatever, but the chat doesn't see it that way. So, play with it a little bit. The only thing you don't want to do is just sit there and don't do anything. Like, even have some music, just do a little dance or something, just to make it a little bit more interesting for your buyers. The more fun you have as a seller, generally, the more fun your viewers are going to have. And again, if your viewers are having fun, they're going to turn into buyers. And if your buyers have fun, they're going to be repeat buyers, and that's what it's all about. So, we talked about the planning, we talked a little bit about the execution. I think I've covered all the bases there. If you guys have any questions about anything that I haven't covered yet in the video, be sure to drop a comment on this video, and I'll be happy to go through and answer any questions you guys have.
But now we can talk about the numbers behind the show. So, we sold 252 items. It was 250 sold auction items, and we did two giveaways. One giveaway was at the beginning of the show, it was like some Hello Kitty earrings or something, and then the iPad giveaway at the end of the show. So, between those 252 items, we had an average order value, an average selling price, of $22.24. And if you guys remember at the beginning of today's video, I said our normal average selling price was less than $10, like $9.80 something. So, we more than doubled our average selling price. So, that's the first sign that this show did really well.
Something else that was really interesting in this show is that we had a total of 153 buyers, meaning that numerous people bought multiple things, which is always good. And out of those 153, 49 of them were first-time buyers on Whatnot, meaning they've never bought from us on Whatnot before. So, that's always nice when we get new people that come in. I also tried to mention that in the chat several times. I was like, "Guys, if you're watching right now for the first time, you don't know who we are, we've never seen us on Whatnot, let me know in the chat!" And numerous people, like 12, 15, 20, 25 people, were in the chat saying, "Yeah, first time! First time! This is so fun! I love this! I'm addicted!" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it was really cool to see that the work we put into the show not only worked for our current buyers, but also got new buyers excited to follow us for future shows.
The show duration was 3 hours and 57 minutes, which was slightly more than we thought. Talking with Haley before the show, I was like, "I think it's going to take like two and a half, maybe three hours." But I talk a lot on Whatnot. I do too many impressions, you know, too much, too much is going on. I get on little soapboxes here and there. So, 4 hours for 250 items, what's the math on that? Like, if we sold one item a minute, it would take 250 minutes, divided by 60, would be 4.16 hours. So, maybe like 45 seconds per item. We start things out at 15 seconds, but if the bids keep coming, it'll add a little bit of extra time. So, between 45 seconds and a minute per item, overall, I think that's pretty decent. Our max concurrent viewers, meaning the most people we had in our show watching at one given time, was 530, which is like within our top 10 most popular Whatnot shows we've ever done in the last three years. Which means that our advertising we did on YouTube and Instagram worked; it got people to bookmark, it got people to show up to the show. So, 530 at one time was the most we had, and overall, throughout the entire 4-hour period, we had 6,158 different people tune into the show at one point. So, that is awesome! There are thousands of people on Whatnot. I know a lot of people don't know about the app and they think it's kind of small, but there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people shopping on Whatnot at any given time. This was just in one 4-hour period on a Monday night, so, you know, there's definitely some opportunity there.
And now for the number you've all been waiting for: the total sales for this show was $5,650. This was gross sales, so this is before Whatnot fees, before any shipping adjustments or coupon spend with our Whatnot rewards members. But after all that is taken out, we had a total revenue, what we actually got paid from the show, of $4,006. And if you remember at the beginning of today's video, I told you that we had about $1,000 worth of inventory and the iPad invested into the show, meaning our total profit is about $3,900 bucks. Not too bad for, you know, four hours worth of work. We did have extra hours involved in shipping. Our helper, Kim, came and shipped everything over the course of two days, so we probably have like six, seven hours worth of her wage. It was $25 bucks an hour, so, you know, maybe that'll bring our profit down to $3,750 or whatever that is. You know, I think overall, the plan played out almost exactly as we thought. Like, several things sold for a little bit less than they were worth, like the Nike Foamposites and those motocross boots. But then other things sold for way more than they were worth, way more than we could get on eBay. And that happens in a Whatnot show; you never really know what's going to happen when you auction stuff at a dollar. Like, it might work out, it might not. And I would usually not recommend starting stuff at a dollar, you know, for most sellers. But if you have a big show where people are excited and there's, you know, three, four, five hundred people in your room at one time, you can get away with starting stuff at a dollar.
I also want to say that I'm well aware that our social media following on YouTube helps us be successful on Whatnot. But I'm also wanting to tell you guys that you can grow an organic following directly on the Whatnot app. You don't have to have a previous social media following. If you look at somebody like Noah Baller on Whatnot, or Anaf, there are dozens of sellers that I know personally that have no social media following at all, and they're doing way more than $5,600 a show. You know, these people are doing $10, $20, $30,000 a week easily on Whatnot. Some of my favorite sellers are Renzy (R-N-Z-Y). They do shows every single day, I think it's just Monday through Friday, but his average show over the course of like four hours is like $12,000. It's, I mean, it's crazy! They used... I think my microphone died that last clip, and I don't remember what I was saying, but you guys get it. Just, you know, you don't have to have a pre-existing social media following to be successful on Whatnot; you can build it right on the app itself.
But thank you guys so much for watching today's video. Mo and Haley appreciate your time as well, right? We're actually kind of nervous about making this video because I know it's like kind of a niche topic or whatever, and it's not super interesting for most people. But if you made it this far and you enjoyed it, I definitely appreciate your time. Hit the like button, just, I don't know, in case... What's going on? There's a deer right over there! Oh yeah, look at! Hold on, let me flip the camera around. Right there's a [Music] deer, right? You see him? He's moving. Hey, buddy! There he is! Do you think he's a subscriber? Probably not, but you could be!