Transcription
Last weekend, I had my very first Whatnot show and ended up grossing just under $1200. So, even though I'm just a beginner, I have a lot to share with you guys. If you are prepping for your very first Whatnot show, what's up? My name is Air Leah, otherwise known as Marty Chick, and on this channel, we talk about reselling tips, sourcing trips, and everything in between. If you like reselling, you would fit in perfectly here, so make sure to hit that little subscribe button down below. And of course, if you guys learned anything from this video, make sure to give it a big thumbs up for the YouTube algorithm. Let's get into it.
So, kicking it off, this is Step Zero of starting a Whatnot account, and that is actually to have a Whatnot selling account. I know a lot of you have not had success getting in, so I did want to share a little tip with you that helped me in my process. I have a link down below for a seller referral link. Now, I'm not gonna fool you guys, I do get compensated for this link, but again, this is how I got in so fast. So basically, you're gonna use that link down below if you haven't been approved yet, and then just DM me. You could write in the comments, you could DM me on Instagram, whatever you want to do, and let me know that you used that link, and I will actually email Whatnot on your behalf. Finally, it took me three days, and that is exactly what I did. So, if you guys want to use that link and get approved faster, feel free.
But beyond that, the next thing that you have to do is actually set up your Whatnot account. So, when you go in, there are a few things that you'll want to edit in your profile. So, the first thing I'm going to do here is hit "Edit Profile," and then my image will come up, as well as my name, username, and my bio. Your bio is really important, just like it is on Instagram and other social media platforms. So, the first thing you're going to want to do is write in your name. So, I did, you know, write in my name, and then your username, which is whatever you signed up with, and then the bio. So, the first thing I say is, "Hey, it's Air Leah," so that way everyone knows, yes, this is me. Um, but you can write any little quirky quip that you want to in the first part just to get people's attention. Then I'm going to say what I'm selling. So, I sell women's mid-tier to high-end clothing. So, I wrote, "Mid-tier to high-end women's clothing auctions." Those are the types of things that I will be auctioning. So, you need to decide if you're going to do luxury, you need to put luxury in there. If you sell mall brands, you're going to want to say, "I'm selling Victoria's Secret Pink or American Eagle or something like that," just so people know why they should be following you and watching along for your auctions. Then I just put a little siren thing going on. I say, "Follow along to snag the best." You're going to want to have some call to action, so that way people are actually encouraged to follow you when they look at your bio. And then lastly, I just promoted my Instagram and my YouTube. You can add your Instagram if you don't already have a following, or if you do, it doesn't really matter, but I always try to encourage people to follow me on different things because some people only know me on YouTube, some people only know me on Instagram, and I don't want people to only know me on Whatnot. So, that is just something I added. Those are the basics into what goes into a good bio.
Up next is the second step, and that is to set up your show. So, this is actually the easiest part in the whole process. What you're going to want to do is click the little plus sign at the top of the Whatnot app when you are on your user profile, and you can hit "Schedule a Live Show." So, I'm going to tap that right now, and then it'll come up with all of the different criteria for that show. So, the first thing is the show title. If you guys don't follow Ashley Wheeler on Ashley Wheeler of 8, I'll leave her account down below, but she gave me a great tip when I was first starting out to name your title with all of the brands that you're going to be including in that show. This tip is helpful because then whenever someone is searching for a brand in the Whatnot search, your show will come up. So, personally for me, what I've been doing is having styled shows or just a specific category of shows. So, I do have a jeans show coming up, a sweater show, I could have dresses show. I just did my first show, which was my "Fall Vibes" show, and then now I'm having an "All Girly" show. So, what that means for the girly stuff is silks, polka dot, florals, tie-dye, all of that good stuff, and lots of pink, as you can tell, pink and orange. So, those are the things going into that type of show. So, if I was renaming this show behind me, I would write, "Um, girly things with some cute emojis or something." And then what I would do, even though you can't see it as a user, it will come up in search, is I would add each of these individual brands in the title name. So, if I wanted to add something in there, I would say, "Love Shack Fancy" in the title, so that way it's searchable. But I also have some Anthropologie, Free People, Urban Outfitters, and then some designer brands. So, I have Cinq à Sept, Diane Von Furstenberg, and then lastly, I have a Prada top that I do want to put in that show. So, if I want everything to be seen on the app, I do have to include all of those brands in the title name, and there is no character limit, so you could just keep going with all of these brand names that way you can come up in search more easily for users.
After that, you can write a show description. I don't really write this. Um, I'm not really seeing a big difference in writing this or not. You could also put the brands in the description, but as a beginner, I really don't know how this one works yet.
The next thing is moderators. If you don't know what a moderator is, it is someone that is in the comments and they are moderating the comments and questions that come in. They have this little yellow controller emoji next to them in the chat, that is how you can find a moderator, and basically, they are just helping the show host with their logistics. Now, you don't have to set this up now. When you first get into your live, if you see some friends that you recognize, you can obviously add them as moderators right then. You just have to click on their account and hit "Add Moderator," and it should go through. Right now, we won't worry about that unless you already have people that say they're coming to your show and they want to moderate.
Then you're going to choose a date and a time. I would highly recommend not changing this once it's already set up. People can get confused, especially if they already added it to their calendar. So, I would not mess with that once you set it up.
And then repeat. Do you want the show to continue repeating? Say you have a premium brands show every single week, you could set this up weekly, you could set this up daily, you could say "Does not repeat." A lot of mine do not repeat. And right now, you don't have to worry about adding the thumbnail or or adding a preview video unless you already have them planned out, but I'm going to show you also how to set up a thumbnail for your show if that helps.
Scrolling down, there is also a category. So, you will have to actually physically click the category for it to be selected. That's why it doesn't let you move forward, but you could choose multiple different categories. You don't have to just sell in one.
Then our tags. So, there aren't a lot of tags to choose from yet, but if I chose some of mine, I would choose "Women's Designer," and I think that's all the tags I can actually choose right now. But if I want to do size parties, I could absolutely do that with small, medium, large, extra large, or petite, or whatever the size of that show would be.
And then there's content settings. So, whether you are a private individual or someone that's on social media and has hit it really big, I would actually highly encourage you have muted words. I would say some muted words that you'd want to put in are curse words, your current location. Some people really don't value privacy, I do, so I wouldn't want anything like that in there. So, anyways, after all of that, you can schedule your first show, and it'll already be up.
But now you're probably wondering, Air Leah, how do I create a banner for my show? Something most successful banners I have seen are just images with the brands that are going to be in that show on them. So, as an example, I made this one that I'm going to be pulling up on Canva all right now. I'm sure there are a million different ways to create these banners, but Canva was just the easiest thing for me to use. Basically, I just imported a photo in the background, and then just added a little rectangle shape with some corners on it, and added the name of the show as well as the brands that are going to be in that show. So, in this one, I said, "Prada, Ganni, Cinq à Sept, Revolve Brands," because I feel like that is what the show really encompasses. The dimensions for this were 1080 by 1920 pixels. Make the text very tiny. Um, when it pulls up onto the Whatnot platform, it actually makes it like blown up. So, just remember that, try to make sure your text is tiny and in the center of the screen in front of the photo, and you should be good. But once you add that into Whatnot and add it as your show banner, you will be able to see if it was blown up or not and make some tweaks here and there.
Up next is the third tip here, and that is to promote yourself. I'm going to be honest, I was very pleasantly surprised by how many of my family and friends wanted to join my Whatnot live show. One of the things that I have heard from people when I've talked to them about Whatnot, even before I started selling on Whatnot, is that Whatnot is a popularity contest. Whatnot is not a popularity contest, it's a contest on who wants to work the hardest to find an audience. Now, I'm not discarding that people have an upper hand when they have an audience, however, I have seen people make their audience and find their audience through the Whatnot app. Basically, what you can do is go through the home page or search up some of your friends that are on Whatnot and join their lives. Go in the comments, talk to the host, talk to other people on that live, tag them, make jokes, just make friends as a whole, and your following will continue to grow. Especially if you're in a bigger live stream and you're commenting quite regularly. Literally, that's at least what I've noticed. Anyways, anytime that I am in a show with a lot of people and I just comment, I immediately get follows from said comment. Just so you guys know, that is another way to grow your audience and just grow the community on Whatnot for yourself. There's a lot of great people on Whatnot, and I don't want you guys to miss out on that just because other people are telling you that you can't be successful on it.
Now, for those of you with an Instagram following, I would really recommend that you put this in your stories and you either scroll through the racks or you post behind-the-scenes content about your Whatnot show and you use the little link button. This is how I got a lot of conversions to my very first show. I noticed that the night of my show when I posted about it, I got a lot more bookmarks, and the more bookmarks you get, the higher up in the Whatnot feed you are going to be. So, that is just another thing to keep in mind.
And the last tip goes for if you have a following or if you don't, and that is still again to tell your friends and family. They care about you, so they want to see you do well, they want to see you be successful at something that you love. I think there are a lot of different ways that you could go about promoting your show and marketing it, but overall, I think that these are the top three ways that I've gotten people into shows and that I can say positively that work for me.
Up next is Step Four, and that is actually logging your items. This is where I think some people miss the mark when it comes to making a profit on Whatnot. So, the first thing that I want you guys to do is make an Excel spreadsheet. I logged each item, what I paid for it, what I'm going to start the bid at, and then what I did was I estimated my total earnings in that show as if everything in my show sold at its starting price. So, that was one big thing I was noticing trending a lot at the beginning of Whatnot gaining popularity, and that was people complaining that they got too little for an item. You need to start your items where you would like them to sell. This doesn't mean that I think you should put luxury items for $3000 on Whatnot. I mean, I haven't seen that have success very often, but I'll give you an example. This is a Love Shack Fancy little sweatshirt. Now, I think I have this listed for around $80 on Poshmark and eBay. However, this item, I didn't necessarily pay a lot for, and I would be happy if it went for $30. So, if I put $30 as the starting bid, I would feel comfortable if that sold for that asking price. But if there are more people in that stream that want this sweatshirt, it'll go higher than that. That's just what I would tell you to do when you are creating your own shows, whether it is $30, whether it's $5, $8, $10, or well over $100. You need to figure out, number one, what your audience is willing to pay for, but then number two, what you reasonably want your item to sell for, and how much profit per item on average you want to have. So, that way your show can be successful for you. So, for example, if you only choose 10 items to sell and they give you a $10 profit a piece, so you have a sellout show, you're going to make $100 on that show. When you are adding up your numbers and figuring out what you want your starting bids to be, I would have a total at the top to figure out if you sold out of everything, how much you'd be happy for at the end of that show.
Another great benefit of having an Excel spreadsheet for everything, not only for accounting and taxes, is to have everything set up so that way you can copy and paste it into Whatnot when you're logging your items. So, when I do this, I usually just split view everything, and I have my Excel spreadsheet on one side and my Whatnot app on the other side, and I just copy and paste. And once I'm done with all the titles and descriptions, I will go back in on my phone and put in all of the cover photos and the additional photos that I want to add.
There are four things that I would suggest you add to all of your listings, however. The first is your starting bid in the description of your item. When you're actually in the live stream, there is no other way to figure that out, and you might just be going on the top of your head what you think that item will sell for. So, if you don't want to lose any potential profits, I would actually just write that in the description. Description, so that way the live goes a little bit smoother.
Another thing to add to your descriptions is the MSRP of your item. So, if it's brand new with tags, or even if it's not, having customers see the MSRP of an item is very, very successful in getting them to bid. I remember in my first show, I had a Rag & Bone $100 wool sweater, and the MSRP on the item was $545, and I started it at $40. I was still making a heck of a profit, but that boosted all of the offers coming in because they're like, "Oh my gosh, this is a $500 sweater." So, I think that really helps in getting people to bid on something, especially if they know the value of that item. If they're resellers, they will want to resell that item. It's just helpful for everyone involved.
Another thing I would suggest you add, just because it'll help the show go a little bit faster, is putting in the measurements. I know that this is not for everyone because I see y'all on Poshmark and on eBay not putting your measurements in your items. I've seen a lot of live shows happen where someone has to run out of the room to go and get their tape measure and measure an item really quick before the auction is over, and if you have a shorter timer for yourself, you might not be able to get the measurements in before that timer runs out. You could have potentially missed out on a sale. So, just for everyone in your auction, I would really highly recommend putting in the measurements for each item so that way customers know exactly what's going to fit them in the moment.
And the final thing I would suggest that you add when you are making a listing on Whatnot is to add a number on the title of the item. So, basically, I have these little number tags instead of figuring out where each item is in my rack, I will number all of the hangers. So, that way I can either go in order, or if someone has a request, I could pick out a specific number and know where it is. So, if you want your show to have a distinct flow, I would really recommend putting numbered tags. I got these at Target, they were in the gift tag section, and they were really cheap. That way I can just number each item and I don't really have to worry about figuring out what person wants me to re-pull things. That way everything is just numbered and it's easy.
Hold on, I feel like I just told you guys to write everything down on a sheet, and then I didn't actually explain how you could add an item on Whatnot. So, let's do that right now. So, this is my Whatnot page. If I go down to the show where I want to add an item, I can click it right here, and it's going to show up with my banner, and then there's this little plus icon down at the bottom here. So, what you're going to want to do is hit the plus icon, and you can add your listing. Now, if I had copied and pasted my descriptions and my titles already, there would be something in my store. So, if you click out of this and you go back to your store, right under that plus sign button, you can find your auction, your buy it now, your giveaways, and your sold. Now, some people do like to have buy it nows in their store. We did it with my mom for buy the dog some treats, and that was actually really successful. But then you can add some giveaways as well. But what you're going to want to do when you already have items in here is just to click the item that comes up after you've already uploaded them from your computer onto Whatnot.
Now, just for the sake of this video, I will go in with a blank listing just to show you guys how I would set up this one for this hoodie back here. So, I would say that this title of the item should be, "Love Shack Fancy Tie-Dye Hoodie." I think it's a size small. But then in the description, what I'm going to do is write the size again right at the beginning. I would put in the pit-to-pit measurements, just like you would in your regular listings, and then the length of the item as well, because that is also what I regularly include on my measurements. I would put in the MSRP because I think this hoodie actually is just under $200. So, whatever the MSRP of that item would be, I would stick that in there as well to encourage people to bid. And then my starting bid, I'm just going to abbreviate as SB, and I would write in that it was $30. So, that way when I go in during show time and I look on my computer and I can see the description says "Starting bid $30," I can add manually that it's $30 instead of accidentally starting it at a different number.
After that, you can put in the quantity of the item. I only have one of them. And then comes the weight. So, I would say that this is about one pound. I actually don't have a scale. It's funny, I'm a reseller, and I feel like I'm the only one that doesn't have a scale because I feel like I'm very good at estimating weights of items. But I will say that soon enough, I'm going to have to have a scale because this could be under a pound and I could be overcharging people for shipping, which is something that I don't want to do. So, for right now, I'll put in that it was a pound, but I definitely need a scale.
And then for your photos. So, I would recommend that you just add a cover photo of the item or a stock photo. I really don't recommend that people add stock photos to their regular listings like on Poshmark or eBay because that could get your account removed. But I will say on Whatnot, since things are going so fast, I really don't think that there's any controversy over using them. So, after that, you'll just hit submit, and that is your very first Whatnot listing.
Another thing I want to remind you guys of is that you actually don't need a high-tech setup. That cabinet is the same cabinet that usually sits over there when I'm doing my listings. I have this $5 little ring light I got from the thrift store, and then my huge box light on the top here that I usually use for my listing photos. If you can see that tiny hook up there, I'm lucky because I also have these can lights all throughout my living room, and they offer a lot of bright light. Lighting is your issue, I actually would recommend the ring light if you don't have one already. But overall, I just think that you can make it work yourself. You don't need anything fancy.
And the last tip about setting up your first show is actually in regards to a next step we're going to talk about, which is shipping. I would really, really recommend that you guys get your shipping game in order before you have your show, probably about a few days before, because you never know how much you're going to sell. So, I would really recommend ordering extra tape for yourself, extra labels for your printer, or extra paper for your printer, ink, etc., and also getting boxes delivered. Some people do like to bundle for single items or smaller items. I would recommend getting a poly mailer bag. These are seriously the easiest things to use. They have the self-seal adhesive label to them, so I would really recommend that you get all of those things in order. I did not realize how many labels were going to be printed when I was printing these orders. So, for Whatnot, they do have a packing slip that you include in your packages. So, for each item, I was printing out three or more labels, which is a lot when you have a lot of sales going out. So, just make sure that you have enough of each item that you need before you start your show.
But before we get to shipping, I do have some show tips for you guys. So, one of the most common things that I have been asked over on Instagram is actually what to do if you're an introvert. And I can totally relate to that. I can talk to a camera as long as I'm alone. So, if someone else is sitting in the corner over here, I would feel really awkward, even if it was someone like my mom, who's known me since the day I was born. So, one of my tips to the introverts out there is, you know, you could just slide your body off-screen and just hang things on a hook. I've seen people do that. But another thing that I would actually really recommend you do is just to be in a room where you're alone and talking to your camera like you talk to a friend on FaceTime. You're not seeing other people's faces, so it's not like you have to feel like you're surrounded in a room by people. They're all online, and they're also probably hiding in the comments as well. Try to relax. I know I had tea on my first one just because I wanted something to hold. In any networking event, I feel like I always have to just have a drink in my hands to be able to make it through. So, if you guys see me with more drinks in my Whatnot shows, you know what's going on. But those are my tips for introverts. I love being alone, holding some water. And again, if you don't want to put your face out there on the internet, you can always just do the old wall trick. But I will say that people connect to a real person better.
This leads us to one of the final parts of selling on Whatnot, and that is the shipping. I was very confused when it came to shipping. So, basically, I don't think that there is a way to do it wirelessly and print out labels from your phone yet. I could be wrong, but you can go onto the Whatnot desktop app, and if you click the little person icon in the top right-hand corner, you can go down to "My Seller Dashboard." And when you click that, your lives are going to show up on the left-hand side. So, you're going to want to click the one that you had sold items in. So, as you guys can see, this is the one that I started on the second, and I sold just under $1200. It says "Total Earned" is negative four because I did have one gift card giveaway, and that was the shipping for that giveaway. These are your seller settings. So, if you have a thermal printer like a Rolo or a Dymo, what you're going to want to do is change your shipping label format, and you can choose the regular printer or the 4x6 label. There are no other labels available, but these are the ones that most people use anyway. So, if you have a thermal printer and you're worried about that, that is where that is.
But then after that, this is where things went wrong for me. So, I accidentally hit the "Bulk Generate Labels" button on the top here, and I didn't realize that you could actually change the weight and dimensions of each box for each customer before you bulk generated the labels.
The next thing that I would suggest to you guys is to generate a scan label. If you don't know what a scan sheet is, it basically has every item that you had printed a label for, and it's just one scan. So, if you're embarrassed at the post office like I am, coming in with a million packages, you can just do a scan sheet. So, that way it's easier. And then after that, you can "Bulk Confirm Package Drop Off." So, this is just so that way your customers know, "Hey, your item is on its way." And so, if something doesn't scan, Whatnot still says, "Hey, you shipped this out today." So, I think that's everything that you need to know about shipping.
All right, well, Loki, I kind of just want to tell you guys about my personal experience selling on the platform. So, I'm going to set you guys up right in front of me here. So, I have a list here of everything that I've experienced and kind of what my strategy is moving forward with Whatnot. The first thing that I have down here is "List multiple brands in one show for search." So, if you guys remember when we were forming our first show, I recommended that you guys add in all the different brands that you were going to include in that show so that way people found it and it was searchable. And that's exactly why I would recommend that you add different types of brands into your show. That way, if someone's looking for MadeWell, or looking for Anthropologie, if they're looking for one specific designer brand, they will be able to find it.
Another thing that I did for success in my very first show was actually organize my rack from lowest cost to highest cost. What I ended up doing was having lower cost tank tops and skirts at the beginning, so that way people felt like they could get, number one, a really great deal on some layering pieces, but number two, they'd have discounted shipping for the rest of the show. And I think I had just under 50 items in that first show, so there was a lot to choose from, and people could bundle. But that being said, I had just under 50 items in my very first show. I really thought that I would get through that in one hour, and it took me around two hours to show all of that. I will say most people dropped off. People have lives, things to do. Also, with TikTok and Shorts and Reels and everything, our attention spans are just not what they used to be. So, in coming shows, I will make them shorter than my very first show, probably around 30 to 35 items or less, so that way I can fit everything within that hour mark.
Let me know down in the comments if you guys have any more suggestions for Whatnot, Whatnot growth, any other tips that you found that work for you. And if you found this video helpful in absolutely any way, make sure you give me a big thumbs up for the YouTube algorithm, and don't forget to subscribe. I will see you guys in my next video. Bye!