redcell

DId that friend get shut down or is he still able to sell?

Cue the reseller masterminds on social media doing a hard pivot to preaching the importance of diversification in 3…2…1… I feel bad for the folks who were/are just getting into reselling and, based on all of the advice peddled by the content creators, are sitting on Amazon quantities of inventory without access to the platform. Competition will be rough on other platforms.

Take it to jeff@amazon.com

A month or so ago, Amazon starting brand gating sellers that had been inactive for some period of time along with new sellers. It's not clear whether it is temporary and will lift after Q4 or is permanent (or at least as permanent as Amazon ever is).

Do you have the actual option to apply for approval or does it say that they’re not accepting applications at this time?

It's still listed as 2025 in the US.

You have to pick your poison. To minimize shipping fees, you maximize placement fees. To minimize placement fees, you maximize shipping fees. I've just been using Send To Amazon to create shipments and swallowing the new fees, which are painful.

It's funny that you would mention that because it's always stuck out to me that he's never done any content (at least that I've seen) where he shows any of his actual inventory or warehouse operation beyond a handful of sets put up in the background of his videos. I've always figured that there was a good bit of puffery going on there.

Count me as interested too, but I realize that you've already shared quite a bit more than most would under the circumstances. I'm curious about how you two originally got into business together. If you had the channel at the outset, what did he do that would make him think he is entitled to $60k at the point of separation. Was that aspirational or irrational or both?

He probably would have walked away from Brick Bucks and he'd now be the Wolf of Bricks.

You beat me to it.

I question whether the numbers presented are profit or sales...quoting sales always provides a more eye-popping number than the actual profit generated off of those sales. Still, you're right, not too shabby, but, also, not too hard to achieve if you've got the capital to invest.

I could see how someone just starting out could get sucked into something like this and it might be helpful to them, but I continue to marvel at the shortsightedness of it all. But, then again, I guess he's probably only been reselling for 3-4 years...not long enough to really see and understand the longitudinal effects of increased competition on the market. Maybe he's making enough money selling information that he doesn't really care as much about making money on actual reselling.

I wonder when he'll learn that there isn't a bottomless pool of demand for retired LEGO and that he's shooting himself in the foot in the long run by creating more and more competition. I guess some lessons are harder learned than others.

Silly me. I always think too small.