6-Figure Sports Card Business (Started With Just $700)
would you like to know how don turned his passion for cards and collectibles into a six-figure business while only starting with 700 [Music] in this episode we are talking to don josh who's the owner of dj sports cards don has managed to grow his store's revenue to a high six figures with only seven employees their store did so well that they received the nationwide coveted award from upper deck the steve james award sometimes i'm making 100 200 markup on the new product don't feel like you always have to be the cheapest what are you spending on advertising per month nothing nothing this card is selling for four thousand dollars today don is going to share with you guys how he actually got started how you too can get started with very limited investment some of the things that prevented him from scaling the business earlier in his career and how you can optimize your business for maximum returns a big mistake people make when valuing collectibles is they go onto the internet and find a random website and get a price for it don't do that i'm selling through everything i can get and it's a struggle to keep my shelves full okay and the margins are tremendous we would greatly appreciate it if you would help us get to 200 000 subscribers by subscribing to our channel hit that like button and the bell so that you don't miss any videos and without further ado you guys let's go meet don you must be done yeah good morning welcome to dj sports cards awesome let's get into it all right all right you guys we're here with the owner don thank you for joining us my pleasure to share his story his business and all the tips and tricks with you guys so don tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up starting dj sports cards well when i was younger i actually grew up in this very neighborhood that my stores and i've spent my whole life here and i was a big collector of like comic books and my brother had a baseball card collection so i was always kind of in that world okay and when i was probably 12 or 13 a comic and card store opened right down the street from here in our neighborhood and that was like a dream come true because you know we'd have to drive to seattle to visit a specialty store right and uh i collected very seriously for a few years and i got more serious into baseball cards but when i turned 16 i decided i wasn't going to collect cards anymore they used to have a local card conventions where you could rent a table and sell your cards so i went and did that i went to a card convention not far from here sold pretty much all my good cards for 500 i went back and told the uh the owner of that store at the time how i made 500 bucks selling cards and a couple days later he called me and offered to sell out the baseball card portion of his comic and card business to me for 500 pay a portion of the rent each month and start my own business and at the time i was still in high school i had a job at the grocery store so i figured if it went belly up i'm not out much it was a good low-risk way to get into business that is pretty cool [Music] so you started with a pretty minimal budget let's talk about that and how you allocated the funds that you had to officially get started yeah at the time i had the 500 that i made at the card show and then whatever i was making at the grocery store which is probably i don't know 100 a week or so and basically what i did is took all the money i was getting from my grocery store job and i would put that into inventory for my cards the inventory was pretty depleted when i came to that store so i started carrying supplies to store people's cards and i started carrying the newer packs i started buying collections from people that came in i put everything i had into building up my inventory if you're watching this as a business owner who's operating a collectibles card business keep watching the video because dj is going to share an amazing hack that will help optimize your business you've been in this business for a long time what mistakes can you share with us that you've done and why do you think sports cards and collectible stores fail sometimes i know a big one for me early on was if someone came into my store and said i saw a cheaper price at another store that really bothered me and i felt like i had to lower my price and i finally learned i can't do that i need to put the best price i can but i'm not always going to be the cheapest on things so i had to learn profit margin profit markup just a quick example if i if i buy something for 100 and i sell it for 150 that's only a 33 margin on the profit you need to make sure you're at least making a 33 margin when you're selling things don't feel like you always have to be the cheapest okay [Music] what you did when you opened in 1990 is quite different than what you're doing now in terms of customer building right let's talk about what you're doing today to build your customer base and retain it okay one thing i do is i have a kids club i have a little card that i give to all the kids that come in and every month they can bring it in and get a free sports card up to two dollars or a free lego minifigure so every time a new family's coming in i'm handing those right over and i don't make them sign up email nothing i just hand it over i use the internet a lot to draw people into my store a lot of dealers back years ago shut down their stores and went more just totally internet and i remember thinking i want to use the internet but i still want to have my store too so i use the internet to draw people to my store i'm constantly daily loading my website with new collections we've picked up new products that have just arrived special events and we just had an autograph authenticator here yesterday and people could bring their autographs and get them authenticated we put that on our website you paid for that obviously yeah they pay two but yeah there's a fee to get it done so i'm using facebook instagram twitter my website everything i can not necessarily to sell product okay but to show what's in the store and draw people here my big goal is still that in-store experience and and i found with sports cart stores people are very loyal since there's not many of us out there if they come in and find you and they like you they will keep coming back and they'll tell their friends customers for life yes [Music] what do you expect your sales revenue to be for 2021 what can you tell us on that just curious it's looking really good it will the not the profit but the actual sales will probably be in the high six figures okay but you don't know these deals no i hand that all over to my wife and she takes care of it all right i truly don't know awesome okay [Music] uh dj let's talk about the percentage of sales online versus brick and motor here at the store okay and what platform are you using specifically for e-commerce to sell your product uh most of my sales are in store again i use the internet extensively to draw people to my store and i really want a good in-store experience my best inventory is here at the same time the online has been great and given me a platform to get rid of maybe inventory that did just sat around here didn't sell or things that would sell better in other regions of the country or even different parts of the world i sell on ebay.com good platform fees are high and it's not a magic bullet it takes a lot of work you deal with customers that want to return stuff because they'll claim there's a scratch on it i also sell on beckett.com beckett beckett has been the leading price guide for sports cards for decades and they also have a platform where you can sell your cards through their website and they have some great tools where i can list things quickly using all of their data for pricing and checklists and they also have a neat feature where i can take a card like this i can list it on my becket.com store and on ebay at the same time they get the same card the same card they'll let me launch thousands of cards at a time from my beck it's my beckett store to my ebay store and if this sells on ebay it'll take it down off the other site oh wow so i don't double sell it and take it out of my inventory what's the percentage of sales though like in-store is it 80 90 yes easily easily 80 or more percent in store and more 20 online but there's been times when it's been higher over the years and one thing that's been good is by by kind of diversifying like that by having your feet in both waters if the store's slow your online sales might be doing good and that carries you through tougher times or even vice versa maybe the online slows down but maybe your store's having a good stretch so i definitely encourage doing both [Music] what other mistakes that come to mind that are really important that people can hopefully avoid getting into this business when i first moved to this location i did not want to spend the money on a sign i was kind of watching my pennies and i didn't put up a sign for a while and a lot of people didn't find me when i finally put the money in and got a good sign my business really got better so i would say get good signage not just to sign on top of your store but find out what your city's rules are for sandwich board signs banners get whatever permission you need to and get nice banners made nice sandwich board signs made get them out there so people driving by see you there you go guys that's a big tip how much was the sign i'm curious because you were trying to save money at the time it was about five thousand dollars and that was 30 years ago so probably at least double that now but it's worth every penny worth every penny okay by the way you guys uh uh our today's sponsor is a company that makes business signs it's two daybanners.com check them out in the description below they're going to give our viewers a special discount all the information is in the description [Music] i know you mentioned it any other questions but like valuing different cards right can we look at maybe some of your best sellers profit margins on that particular product sure well i'll start with this new product is extremely hot right now okay there were many years in this industry where i struggled to get a 33 margin on new product and there was very stiff internet competition now the opposite is true there's so much demand for new product that i'm selling through everything i can get and it's a struggle to keep my shelves full okay and the margins are tremendous and now sometimes i'm making 100 200 markup on the new product but as soon as i run out they're gone and there's many cases where i would have to pay more to restock it than what i sold it for so the trick is trying to get as much as i can directly from tops and panini and the direct distributors put the best price i can on it factoring in what it's going to cost me to restock and then try to have enough until the next new product comes in but right now the margins on this stuff is incredible a challenge you will have if you're opening a new store is trying to get accounts with tops and panini because years ago they were begging people to open accounts and open the store now so many people want accounts they don't have enough product to go around so it would be very challenging to be able to get an account with tops and panini but it's possible if you get your store open and you can show them you're doing unique things it's possible you'd be able to get that okay so this business is really unique because you can't really go take a three-month class and all of a sudden become an expert in collectibles and so on you've been doing this for a long time right any suggestions on people that just have a passion for they don't know where to start they don't know as much as you know now i would say to get you get your feet wet by selling at a card show do some online selling you know get a little bit of experience being a buyer and a seller after that if you want to continue to pursue that i would get an account on dealernetb2b.com it's a great community
where dealers buy and sell you'd have to have your business license for this but you can buy and sell inventory there as well as talk to other dealers that are that are great about sharing information and tips and then i would consider attending the industry summit that's held yearly all the manufacturing major manufacturers are there hundreds of dealers attend and the this this dealer community has always been great about sharing ideas and supporting each other there we went through a lot of tough times together and we're all very strong and supportive and helpful to each other what's the summit called is there a title or is it changing every year uh it's called the summit uh sometimes called the industry summit we could follow up and get more information on that okay awesome [Music] you mentioned buying inventory buying cards let's talk about where you source these things do you do you yourself go to ebay and find something and buy it to resell it here customers let's talk about that almost everything i get is stuff that walks in my store here when the phone rings and people say are you buying i say yes there were many years when the industry was struggling and people were constantly being told we're not buying cards we're not buying cards i always told people yes i want to see what you have for sale even the most seemingly junky collection will usually have something in it that's unique or fun that i can sell so let people know that you are buying treat people fair don't take advantage tell them what you're going to sell it for and what you're willing to pay be honest about everything you don't want them to you don't want them to see you put something on your website for a high price later and you cheated them on it yeah treat everybody honest i've had many people come and tell me that they heard they came to bring a collection to me because they heard someone else sold a collection here and they were treated right so make it known that you're buying and and pay well treat people honest and then use the internet to get real-time prices to see what things are worth a big mistake people make when valuing collectibles is they go onto the internet and find a random website and get a price for it don't do that find a website that shows you actual sold prices to see what things are really selling for ebay completing listed completed listings is good also a site called sellthepeak.com sell the peak collectibles shows you actual sold prices for what things are selling for so use that so you have an accurate idea of what things are worth and what you should be selling them for okay hi dj let's talk briefly about you know just your relationship with the employees over the last 30 years what have you learned in terms of finding good employees where to find look for them how to retain them what do you offer them in terms of benefits to keep them just anything and everything about that i you know i try to pay a decent wage i try to be very flexible if they need time off or vacations i try to be a kind boss if they if they need some training and stuff to try to do that patiently and not be make people feel bad that maybe there's an area they need to improve so just to try to treat them nice and and keep them happy any specific training you do for them with them you send them anywhere or is it pretty straightforward no it's all kind of experience through the store i think the big thing i need is someone that is comfortable just helping customers that can look people in the eye and be friendly and say hello and even if you're not good at that you're willing to at least work on that and get better at it you can practice and make the effort and uh don't steal from me i've had i sell inventory that's very small and you're usually hiring people that have some kind of interest in collectibles right i've had a lot of employees at steel so if you're just honest and can do a decent job i love you and you love what you're doing yes they have that passion yep okay anything you do different in terms of your competitors other stores or maybe that they're not doing that's helping your business and helping the atmosphere etc for for your customers this industry went through a lot of tough times and many stores kind of went to other things to stay and float you know gaming cards or memorabilia i really tried to stay focused on cards and even when new product was not selling well at the time i tried to buy and sell a lot of collections and deal in a lot of single cards and i have single cards in every budget you could come in here with a dollar and still find something neat to buy or if you want high end i've got that too and everything in the middle but i tried to have a large selection of all kinds of memorabilia single cards bobble heads programs everything that there's there's plenty of things to look at a lot of people say it's like coming into a museum when they come in yeah i know i got lost too i see you've got a bunch of legos stuff that you're selling that's pretty cool yeah and i try to branch out too i try to have something for everybody in the family i've got legos i've got beanie babies i've got something that should appeal to everybody so that there's not one person interested and everybody else in the family's saying hurry up i want to go right out of the platforms that you mentioned what is giving you the best return that you noticed and specifically let's dive into what you're doing on those platforms how you're doing it any tips tricks probably my website again getting it i hear from people all the time i like your website because i can get on every day and see what's new and every i'll post things and sometimes within minutes the phone will start ringing people say put this aside i'm going to be in an hour to pick that up or can you ship this to me getting new product up and i've also been told that the more you update your website the more you'll get pushed to the top of google search engines they like to see fresh content being loaded all the time and they'll give you better search results if you do that and traffic obviously yes um what about facebook twitter how are you using those platforms to show uh what are you doing there just posting pictures that's a lot of what i do and sometimes i'll do other fun things too like i'll do a card of the day i'll pick an interesting trading card maybe from the past or something unusual a guy blowing a big bubble on a baseball card or something i'll say this is dj sports cards card of the day and talk about that i'll try to do some other things that aren't just here's what i have to sell i'll try to post just some interesting things to get some hits that way what are you spending on advertising per month currently on those platforms et cetera nothing nothing no yeah i haven't you're not doing paper you know paper clicks etc things like that okay [Music] what other cards or or categories probably sell the most or sell well and have pretty high profit margins it's pretty much across the board you've got four main sports they all sell well there are times where certain ones will do better than others like basketball is extremely hot right now but right now everything is selling even even weird sports like racing olympics things that years ago people wouldn't even bother with people will buy that too uh wnba cards struggle for a long time those sell like crazy now just because people enjoy collecting cards so much okay i want to show our audience the card that you have the the michael jordan one just curious in terms of numbers right you guys like this card dj is selling from four thousand dollars dj are you willing to share with us like where you acquired how much you paid for it bought it from a collector that i'd known for years i paid him twenty eight hundred dollars for it so good high-end singles i will pay anywhere from 50 to 75 if it's something i know will sell quickly so if you've got someone coming in with a really hot card pay them well for it again get a real value off the internet see what things are really selling for but pay a good percentage when you get more of a lucy goose collection a big mix of a lot of cards and it's dollar two dollar stuff and a lot of it's not going to sell you know do a lower number because you're going to have a lot of labor and a lot of stuff that won't sell through but on good hot cards pay at least half if not 70 to a 75 percent yeah this business is tricky in the sense that your profit margins are all over the place right you mentioned that earlier you could have 100 there you can have 10 there does it average out to somewhere in the range of what 40 50 percent yeah yeah if you're being smart with things absolutely okay those are pretty darn good margins [Music] dj let's talk about the knowledge and skills that you need to successfully run a sports card and collectibles business okay well i think the big thing for me is i've got to run it like a business i've got to make sure my profit margins are there and that i'm doing things wisely but at the same time i want to run it like i'm a collector i'm trying to set up my store like the stores that i enjoyed going to when i was a collector too my favorite dealers you know the ones that had the good selections the ones that treated me well their pricing was good i'm always trying to recreate the best of what i enjoyed when i was a collector okay any skills i think what you're talking about is more like knowledge and experience any particular skills that really stand out for people like you who enjoy this and do it very successfully i think know your uh know your market know your customers remember what they're collecting look for those things when you're buying collections that you know you have buyers that may want this know your product i mean i've been doing sports cards for over 30 years i remember stuff from the past i've got to keep on with what's current who are the hot players what are the hot products know know your inventory and know what people are looking for okay all in all what has contributed the most to your success your revenue being in this industry for so long i i just thank god for providing for my kid i used to tell people it was proof that there was a god that the fact that i could feed 20 kids running a baseball card shop this was during the lean years of course that seems silly now but there were a lot of years people could not believe i could actually take care of that many kids just by running a baseball card store but again just just doing the things we talked about treating people honestly paying your taxes not cheating nothing that i have to go to bed at night and worry about that this is going to get uncovered someday just treating people right and praying for god to provide and here we are that's amazing you've got 20 kids yeah the popularity that's incredible you guys um awesome okay on another note we've interviewed other sports card and collectible businesses you guys make sure you check out those videos on our channel as well and if you haven't already we'd appreciate if you subscribed right now hit the like button and thank you for watching [Music] now let's talk about your culture here at the store right you've got seven employees um how do you create a positive culture for your employees and also most importantly for your customers what keeps them coming back uh i i this is a fun place i've heard it said where you know grocery shopping the gas station that stuff people have to do coming to a card store that's something people get to do they look forward to it they're generally in a good mood and it's usually fun we a lot of our customers are our friends and we you know so part of the employees having a good time here as well as the customers is we we know each other we're friends we get along a customer might come might come in and say hey is mike here today or or something like that so just it's a very friendly fun atmosphere people are doing something they enjoy doing and they're in a good mood we just have a good time [Music] guys it's blitz time with dj dj let's just dive into the questions uh if you could come up with a slogan for the year 2020 what would it be cards boomed while the world suffered okay um you you mentioned 20 kids what's the best part about being a down to 20 kids i'm never lonely i always got someone that wants to hang out with me okay where did you adopt the kids from i've got kids from probably almost every continent i've got we've done guatemala africa bulgaria okay yeah from all over the world yeah all right if you could go back in time to meet your 17 year old what would you tell yourself back then as advice or whatever when i was 17 i could have bought cases of 86 87 flare basketball with the michael jordan rookies and everybody else for 120 they sell for almost 3 million today i would have filled my closet oh my gosh okay can you tell us your feelings when you look up your revenue i i'm very thankful that's awesome um what would you tell you i'll just say this real quick too it took me till i was 49 years old to finally get out of business debt i mean we went through a lot of tough years but i'm thankful now that we are finally having getting out of all that that's awesome okay all right last but not least when you wake up every morning what what what you have to have absolutely you can't start your morning without uh there's usually some errand i gotta run but if i don't have to do anything i just wanna sit read my bible hang out with my wife and sit my kid's next to me that's awesome how important is location for a collectibles card store such as yours and any tips and tricks on sort of identifying that and i i think you know on one hand collectible stores like this people will find you and now with the internet and places like that it's uh people will find a good collectible store but at that time there what it was harder to get people to find you and i i looking back i remember thinking this spot was a bad one because you couldn't see it very well from the road and i still get people that come in here and say wow i never knew you were here my spot is kind of hidden by a big bank and a medical building and there's people that just don't see me okay so i think get something that's very visible if you can yeah man location is key [Music] this is the hack we mentioned in the beginning of the video and dj's got more than one he's got three so let's dive into that let's start with the kids club this has been really great in getting whole families to return to the store again you're giving out free inventory but at the same time you're getting return visits constantly i remember being a kid not having much money and what a thrill it was when i had like a radio shack free battery card or a free card from mcdonald's where i could get a burger and it made me those businesses kind of my favorite and when i was older and had money i continued to frequent them this is kind of the idea here and at the same time i've seen a lot of families in braces where the dad collects and now the kids are coming in with dad excited to be here because they're getting something too so this is a great tip number two try to have stuff in your store for everybody in the family you don't want to diversify too much outside of your main focus but at the same time have some things that interest other people i buy new and used collectibles i decided to start carrying lego recently have some things for the younger girls i carry beanie babies some fun toys have something that interests everybody also have something to keep mom or the visitor that's stuck along for the ride in your store keep them busy we have free video games that people can come up and they don't got to put a quarter in but now they're being entertained and they're not in a hurry and wanting everybody else to leave in a hurry everybody's relaxed and having a good time in your store my final tip and this is the most important try to recreate the experiences that you had as a collector at your favorite stores maybe it was a dealer that had great selection his prices were good he threw you in a free bonus once in a while try to recreate your favorite dealers and your favorite experiences that you had when you were a collector that's awesome i see that passion execute on those tips and hacks and your business will grow [Music] i know we've touched on this a little bit but like building a loyal community of customers right in here community other cities that they come in to your store what are you doing what's really bringing them back anything else you you treat everybody like you would want to be treated you treat people honestly you give them the best price you can you trade with them you make deals with them i remember knowing a dealer in the past that if he could sell something to you for ten dollars and make a good profit and make you happy or he could sell it to you for 20 and make a big profit but later on you're gonna get mad and never come back again he would take that 20 and you'd never see you again and i thought that doesn't make any sense i want to keep people long-term keep them coming back the best thing you could do is when people walk in your door and they want to do business with you you treat them right and give them experience after experience that's awesome well clearly you're doing a great job being here for what 31 years now 32 yep that's amazing [Music] we've got a lot of entrepreneurs looking at this video our channel what would your advice be to them just in general they're getting started or they want to get started in some kind of business industry what would be a couple of pieces of advice from you i think just get started there's so many opportunities where you can get your feet wet like like we talked about earlier you know start off small with a card show or do some selling online even if you're young you could be a teenager like i was when i started there's opportunities for you to start your business now with the internet and with small scale shows and things like that just do something and give it a try and even when you fail those experiences you get will help you do things better in the future so don't give up and think i can't do this take those experiences and use them to help you do it right next time all right you guys well that's a wrap with dj sports cards i hope you enjoyed his story his advice to you guys we hope that you execute on everything you hear we're here to help your business be successful and thank you for watching if you haven't already subscribed take a second do rat right now hit the like button and the bell and watch every other video that we have on our channel thank you so much
2021-09-22 15:16
