Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Q&A #3 [Is Udemy Dead, Amazon Payouts, eBooks, Depop, & More]

all right so we're running a little bit late on this week's Q&A so we're gonna

jump into the questions here in a second but if you guys want to make sure to get

your questions answered for next week's Q&A you can either drop a comment down

below on this actual video or you can obviously turn on post notifications and

keep an eye out for the community post tab that I post randomly every single

week asking for questions okay I usually answer about the first three to five

questions in each space so if you want to make sure that your questions answer

next week turn on post notifications and obviously be one of the first people to

comment a question okay so let's jump into these now the first question right

here is do you think udemy is still a viable option for making courses

what would you jump straight into teach full-sized skills hit skill share or any

others if I was starting from scratch in 2020 so first and foremost yeah I think

udemy is definitely still a viable option for making courses 100% okay I

just made a udemy course a brand-new one earlier this week I still do it all the

time now for me specifically it really depends on where you are in the content

creation process and where you are in the kind of you know curating an

audience you know process okay so if you're just starting you don't have any

followers or any audience udemy skill share stat commerce Amazon

video Direct places like those are gonna be your best bet because you can

monetize your courses very very easily utilize their audience to actually

siphon off people to your own audience so you can monetize while building an

audience okay so I would make courses for you to me in that specific aspect

and then repurpose those same exact courses and upload them to other places

as well right you can monetize in all of those places now if you're starting and

you already have an audience well then you really kind of need to analyze you I

still upload with an audience to you to me in all those other places but you

kind of need to analyze if you're creating one or two courses you know

where's the best ROI on both your time and where you're gonna you know monetize

the easiest and the quickest okay so if you have a big audience then too

teachable or kajabi or think ethic or somewhere like that where you can kind

of control your audience a little bit more control your pro your prices and

offer more value with the actual courses might be your best bet so it really

depends on where you're actually at but for 99.9% of people yeah I'd say udemy

as well as the other places and just uploading that same exact course just

slightly altered for each platform is probably your best bet so moving on to

the next one and is I'm having a hard time understanding

Amazon's payout schedule is there a video or a training on this is there

best practice to track monthly sales profits etc so Amazon

Amazon's payout schedule is every two weeks now there is something called pay

ability and there's other saw other not other software's but there's other

programs and other things out there that you can sign up for to get paid like

daily or weekly I don't recommend those because they're literally gonna kill

your profit margins so they're gonna they're gonna charge you an arm and a

leg to have the ability to get paid every single day now for some people

that works if your margins are super high but for most resellers like myself

and even a lot of private label sellers or especially wholesalers that's not the

getting the name of the game for you right you want to be you want to acquire

you know quality inventory gauge of the competition the sales velocity all that

good stuff right and then keep your margins so that you can reinvest that

profit back in a more quality inventory right you scaled that way okay or you're

looking at this way you scale that way okay so in most aspects I wouldn't get

the the pay ability or the want to every single day even though it's gonna give

you access to quicker payouts and quicker money it's gonna kill your

profit margins okay now the next question is in this is is their best

practice to track monthly sales profits etc there's two ways to basically go

about it you can either use an inventory tracking software that also does like

your profit and stuff which a good example that might be like inventory lab

that's one that a lot of people use although there are a couple out there

for me specifically since I do a bunch of different business models I'm not

just like just doing wholesale or just doing arbitrage from like retail sites

right I literally do six different forms of arbitrage one of them is wholesale

it's a little bit more scalable all the way down to like the coupon arbitrage

which is super beginner friendly so for me specifically I usually track with an

automated spreadsheet right and Auto calculating spreadsheet I'll literally

put the item in there and it just adds it up what I paid for it then what I

sold for it what my net profit is Tally's it all up and tells me exactly

what it is that way I can look back on the spreadsheets for each month to be

like okay this is what I spent on this business model and these items this is

what I made this is my profit margin etc etc so for most people something like

inventory lab might be good if you're only doing like one or two business

models but for somebody that's kind of spacing it out and doing the bunch of

them and you want to see like which one's the most profitable which ones you

know kind of got the best ROI on your money and stuff like that it might even

be better to do it yourself and set up an auto

calculating spreadsheet okay now I offer auto calculating spreadsheets for my

students in online arbitrage pro but if you want you can just shoot me an email

I popped my email up on the screen right now let me know the business model

because sometimes people email me and be like hey can I get your Auto calculating

spreadsheet and I'll be like which one I have like six of them okay so specify

the business model or the business models that you want the spreadsheet for

and I'll just link it to you for free I want to help you out okay on top of that

guys like I said I do six forms of arbitrage I actually put together an

entirely new case study basically documenting what those forms are and

examples of products that I bought and sold for profit so you can literally see

exactly what I bought and sold and kind of take that information and put it into

your own reselling business as well and learn a little bit about each one I put

together an entire case study that will show you that that's gonna be linked

down in the description it'll be the first link in the description for those

of you that want to check that out okay next one is Aliexpress or Alibaba safe

to order so it really depends on what you're asking for now if your drop

shipping which it sounds like you are cuz you're also asking about Aliexpress

what I would say is probably avoid that now there's two ways to basically avoid

that if you're in the US or you're in a country that has suppliers near you so

for example let's use the US right if you're drop shipping from the US right

there's two ways to basically do it you can either drop ship from like China or

like other places like that and then your shipping times are gonna be

completely terrible or you can obviously drop ship from the US supplier so if you

go to Aliexpress and you sort through spot like you type a product and you're

go to a product category there's actually things where you can sort

through and look exactly throat for the suppliers in your country or close to

you that's what I probably and for you so if you're doing that then yes it's

still viable and safe if you're not you're your own contract kind of drop

shipping from you know China in this current climate I'd probably stay away

from that so next one is just getting started on retail arbitrage early in

March I was hitting up goodwill but since that has been halted I used your

videos as a great starting off point for online arbitrage thank you and keep the

videos comment just a quick question any tips on keeping shipping costs down more

tips for shipping I recently took your advice from one of the videos and made a

free shipping on most my items okay so it really depends on where you're

actually selling and this was a specific aspect so if you're selling on Amazon

then yes idrac you know just creating a free shipping

template and then matching the by box right so that way you're kind of getting

the similar results as an FBA product but then obviously if they account to

make sure that your profitable shipping lies now if you're talking about Macari

Poshmark or ebay well first and foremost let's

not got Poshmark because the buyer pays the shipping on Poshmark unless you make

a free shipping offer so that's a 99% of the time you don't have to pay the

shipping on Poshmark yourself so then that leaves either eBay or Macari that

you're probably talking about okay so in those specific aspects what I would

recommend do is start off with you know you can either offer free shipping like

I recommend and then kind of you know start sourcing items that are cheap to

fulfill yourself so items that aren't big items that don't weigh a lot right

there's a lot of those out there okay now if you're you you are sourcing for

example bigger bulkier heavier items then that might be an item that you want

to charge shipping on for example right so all of your it's just recommendation

all of your actual individual listings don't all have to be the same I usually

have it set up that way but like 95% your listings can be marked up a little

bit with free shipping and then some of them if they're bulky or heavier can you

know actually charge shipping on those okay so that's probably the way that I'd

go about it and that's kind of how I recommend doing that next one is hey

Brian or hey Brian do you think think that writing an e-book on fitness can be

a good way for passive income or is it a just a waste of time so um books I don't

have a huge experience on ebooks I know that they obviously I have friends that

make good money with ebooks although they've written them you know probably

like in fairness like two years ago at least so can it be a good source of

passive income yes although in my experience the majority of ebooks don't

really earn that much because it's just like such a flooded market so to answer

your question yes but you have to define what good is to you can it bring you in

a couple of extra hundred bucks every month potentially yeah but will it bring

you a couple thousand probably not so next one is hey Brian in your course you

mention that we shouldn't buy products if they aren't prime eligible then vipin

seems to have great deals but hardly any products I'm finding are prime eligible

what's your advice I'm looking to scale to at least 10 flips a day but it's

difficult finding products PS i also bought jungle scouts so actually

remember this question and I asked the follow-up question with this person to

figure out which online arbitrage course they were actually in because I

have a bunch of them on udemy that are kind of like beginner courses right so I

actually have my main obviously my main premium course online arbitrage pro

always link down in the description but he's actually in one of my beginner

courses on udemy where it's coupon arbitrage and so I list all the coupon

sites so honestly VIP on is one of the worst coupon sites now there's probably

I don't know 15 to 20 that I recommend and kind of source almost every day no I

don't buy from them every day but I usually check to see if there's good

products on them so the entire coupon arbitrage business model is not as

lucrative as it used to be although it is still great place to source quality

inventory super super cheap and then kind of you know scale up that way and

build the initial nest egg so two things on that I would source the other sites

that aren't VIP on I still find them on VIP on every once in LA but very very

rarely VIP on is not one of the good sites anymore but if you guys want those

there's a cheat sheet down in the description that literally has all the

sites that I source art from and all the coupon sites I would just sign up for

that grab that it'll be emailed to you and then you can literally start

sourcing all those sites that aren't the pond so next one is do you have any

recommendations of similar things for deep hop users so for me specifically I

don't really sell on deep pop I actually outlined a video that has like the the

top 20 sites for resellers and deep hop is one of them okay but it's one of the

ones in I think tier 3 where it's like hey it might be you know it's

potentially on the up-and-coming but like I don't waste my time

really listing on it now because it just I find other you know better sales on

other platforms like eBay Poshmark Macari and amazon obviously so while I

don't sell on depop so I don't actually have any recommendations for it myself

if it's working for you I just say continue to do it although in my

specific experience Macari Poshmark and ebay just completely outperform depop

you know thread up trade see all those other ones okay Brian are you a Philly

guy so yes I am a Philly guy living right outside of Philly as you can see

with the the pictures behind me always so answer to that is yes next one is

good video man how are you listening your fbm orders can you make a video on

how to price a product with shipping and all that so how do I pray how do I list

my FBM orders the same way as I let them list my FBA orders I just don't ship

them into FB I so I priced them with a free shipping template now you don't

have to do that you can charge shipping but for me I think it looks a lot better

actual landing page if you're competing free shipping against FBA he's obviously

asking now where you know with the economic climate that we're in currently

you know that it makes sense that you can't ship items into FBA right so

because it's not open so in my specific aspect for that I usually just create a

free shipping template so you can do that if you're a professional seller you

can go into your settings shipping settings and create a brand new template

that offers free shipping and apply it to all your current inventory as well as

new inventory as well when you create a listing okay so that's kind of how I do

it and that makes it super easy to just match the buy box price if it's an FBA

listing great and honestly a lot of the the online arbitrage items and wholesale

listings that I get on now there aren't many FBA offers because there's just not

a lot of people that are able to ship in FBA and currently right now there's not

a lot of FBA inventory so I offer free shipping templates I think that works

the best it's not hard to set that up if you have any questions specifically just

drop a comment and I'll point you in the right direction but I believe it's off

the top of my head I think it's settings up in the right-hand corner and seller

central then shipping settings and then literally create new shipping template

and you just offer free shipping in that template okay next one is I've got one

related question is it possible make wholesalers send in products to Amazon

directly and how would I approach this scenario by wholesalers he means okay so

yeah it's a hundred percent possible I do it all the time in fact 19 I would

say 99 percent but it's probably not that high about 95 percent of the time

with liquidation or wholesale where I'm buying with the intention of shipping it

into FBA I just order it directly into FBA right a lot of liquidation companies

and a lot of wholesale companies will literally send it directly into FBA for

you and they have their in own warehouses so there are some that won't

but the majority of them will obviously that's just something that you

orchestrate and set up with your wholesale supplier relatively easily and

if they're a legitimate wholesale supplier they'll know there'll be one

expecting that question and two they'll let you know super easily and super fast

if that's something that they can do and how if it is how you guys can go about

doing that next one is I left a message on your other video is simple Pasta the

same as closet assistant so I've never actually heard a closet assistant but if

you say it looks the same it might be so simple posture is the the automation

tool that I use for Poshmark to share and kind of build my closet and make

more say so I don't believe that they're the same

but I don't I've never heard of cause and assistant before okay

so does it matter if you have a ton of shares versus followers thank you for

all the tips so meaning if you don't have a high follower account but you're

sharing a lot does that you know kind of set off posh marks algorithm and no I

would say that doesn't I don't have specific experience doing that because

when I had a little bit of followers I wasn't using automation at that time

that said I have an entire course you know not just a Poshmark course not just

like many many courses on udemy like we talked about but also a premium course

online arbitrage Pro linked in the description where I teach people how to

use that automation software to sell on Poshmark easier and quicker and nobody

has ever had an issue with it regardless of the amount of followers that they

have so short in short I don't believe that the simple posture and closet

assistant are the same although I've never heard of it and no I don't believe

that it matters you know share to follow ratio next question is do you compare

your listing price on Amazon before I listed on other places and do I do it

based off the research so most of the time no I don't usually like price them

specifically with it the way that I do it in most cases is if it's like

liquidation or if it's cash back well not so much always liquidation if it's

liquidation and there's not an Amazon listing to go off of then you need to do

product research and you know marketplace research on other platforms

a great way to do that is sell hounds so it'll show you you know if you type

something in like a keyword or a specific product it'll literally show

you here's all the listings and here's what people are charging for it so in

that aspect you need to do market research and then price accordingly for

me specifically most of the items that I buy from liquidation have a

corresponding Amazon listing most of the items not not most all the items that I

buy cashback and coupon have a corresponding Amazon listing so in that

aspect what I usually do myself and teach others to do is list it a little

bit higher than Miyama Amazon listing so that you can list it high be patient

accumulate interest and then make offers a little bit lower than that obviously

to simulate urgency and value okay so that's my best approach but I usually

don't you know kind of try to price accordingly with Amazon I'll literally

price it higher that way it seems like there's more value in the listing when I

drop it make an offer okay I hope that makes sense are you on insta brother so

yes I am that's always also linked the description with all my social media

I'll pop my Instagram handle up on the screen as well though next one is I've

been following you a while already with my other account I would love to know

how you deal with offering the same items on multiple sites how do you track

them is it easier is an easier way to be listing them on multiple sites at once

okay so the way that I dug I've actually answered this question before but it's a

good one because people always ask it because it's just smart business right

like you're selling on eBay why wouldn't you list on at on Amazon or

if you can obviously we're on Poshmark and Macari right so what I recommend

people and what I use is lists perfectly it's a super easy to set up a multi

channel listing software that that way you don't have to actually spend the

time listing on Poshmark and then list it on eBay and then list it you get the

picture right you can just list it almost perfectly which will then cross

post it to all of them at once now you do need to make sure that if you sell it

on one you take it off of the others right so it's really easy to do that the

way that I use that is it for example let's say you have an item on ebay

Poshmark and Macari at the same time right and you have like multiples of

that item right well on eBay and Poshmark you can keep the quantity of

that item in your actual listing right so if I sell it on one of those then I

know hey I'll just reduce the quantity on the

other and if I have more I want to leave it on the cart right if I sell it on

Macari for example then you can only make one listing on Macari you can't

have multiples of that listing or multiple quantity so in that aspect if I

have more well I'll just relist it again looking at Poshmark and eBay seeing that

I have more that inventory and I'll do it that way so that's the short answer

if you sell it on one make sure to take that or that quantity off of another one

but I use either Poshmark or eBay to kind of track my inventory quantity but

if you just have singles of everything then just take it off the other

platforms okay and that basically sums up the Q&A guys so I really hope all

those questions helped you I like kind of doing these because it kind of you

know challenges me to think and kind of come up with answers for you guys on the

spot I don't set this up I don't plan these answers out at all and I think it

kind of gives you a raw take on how I would approach different you know

problems or situations right it doesn't have to be online arbitrage you saw

content questions in there you sometimes you see marketing questions broad

general entrepreneurship stuff like that so if you have any questions at all drop

them in the comment section below I would love to answer them for you and if

you want to make sure that you get your question answered on next week's Q&A

sure to turn on post notifications and look out for the actual post in the

community tab where I asked for questions

for the QA okay with that being said I'll see in the next one