How much time does reselling actually take?

Summary

Somebody slid into the messages and asked a really good question: how much time does it actually take to source, wash, mend, make, list, post, and respond to everything? So I tracked a couple of days, checked my screen time, and then yapped about it for thirty minutes while doing my hair (which, spoiler, did not go well after I tried the no-conditioner diffuser experiment).

This one is a full look at what a day actually looks like for me and JR — his 5 a.m. listing routine, my crosslisting from bed, the day job next to the sewing machine, and the two hours of "me time" my therapist keeps reminding me is supposed to actually be for me. Plus a very long tangent about the apps and affiliate programs that keep this whole operation upright.

• JR lists five items every single day on eBay before most people are awake. I import them into Vendoo from bed and crosslist to Depop, Whatnot, eBay — and Poshmark and Mercari when I'm relisting older stuff.
• The tool stack: Vendoo for crosslisting, Metricool for social in one place, CapCut for editing, Repurpose for cross-posting, QuickBooks for the money (about 1–2 hours once a month), and Claude for a morning briefing.
• Trial reels are a game changer — they only go to people who don't follow you, so you can test hot takes and new formats on strangers first.
• Affiliate links add up. I only sign up for things I actually use and stand behind. Fifty people bought Restoration through a link on an old post and that's real money for zero extra work.
• Write once, use everywhere. Shoot the long-form horizontal, but frame the good bits center so they cut down into verticals. Batch the filming, edit through the week, keep silly drafts on deck.
• Also: laundry never ends, City Thrifted needs to chill out with the $50 stained dresses, and we watched the new Evil Dead.

Transcript

Hi. Hello. Good morning. Uh, get ready with me while I yap about how much time I actually invest in all of this mess. Someone reached out and they were like, "Hey, curious. How much time does it take you to source, wash, mend, make, list, post, respond, etc." Maybe I'll include like a magic overlay here that has the message. Um, and I thought that's a really good question. So, for a couple days, I kind of tracked my time and I checked my phone's screen time and I just thought about it and I hadn't like thought about it in a long time. [laughter]

Um, so here's what a day looks like for us. Um, my sweet darling angel baby husband wakes up at like 5:00 am or some ungodly hour. He gets up, gets his coffee, goes upstairs, and lists five items. We list five items every single day, no matter what, with the asterisks of if we can help it. Um, he will take pictures, write descriptions, and get five things, post it on eBay, and then he will come downstairs, usually bringing me a coffee like the darling angel baby he is, and he will say, "Good morning, Angel. I got my items listed." And then I pull out my computer that's usually tucked away under the bed and open up the Vendoo app, import those items into there and then crosslist to all the other platforms. Our most common, like the ones we use the most are Depop, Whatnot, and eBay. But when I am relisting older items, which is an entire tangent of its own, um, we do Poshmark and Mercari and the others. I don't know why I do it that way instead of to all of them at once every time. I just have like found my favorites and I'd rather deal with those.

Um so I get items crossposted and then while I'm doing that I will also be like checking comments. Um, sometimes I do it through like Meta Business Manager, which is like a weird hub that kind of combines Instagram and Facebook's messages and comments into one place. I don't like it for a million reasons. Uh, if anyone at Facebook is watching this, please, please schedule an interview with me and I can tell you everything about the Meta Business Manager that needs to change. I know you guys hire smart UX professionals. How have we ended up in such a disaster area? Truly. Um, so sometimes I use that, but within Facebook's Business Manager, Meta Business Manager, whatever, you can't see pictures or like videos. So when people message me with a link or to show me a cool thing they made, like I can't see it from there. So then I need to go to another app and find it, uh usually like the original app. Um it's frustrating and it annoys me. I don't like that.

I do use an app called Metricool. They have a paid version and they have a free version. I am still on the free version though I do see the merits of the paid and I may upgrade before long. But Metricool takes all of your data from all of your places and puts it in one spot. So you can see — if I invest the time in this video, I'll include an overlay [laughter] — but you can see uh like your follower count, your views and watch hours, and your comments and messages all from within this app, and you can reply to them there. Sometimes it's a little bit glitchy. I think it's more on Facebook Meta's end than it is on Metricool's end, but generally it can save me some time because I can just reply to all the platforms from one place. Um, but that's not — I mean I go into each app every day because I'm going to scroll and doom scroll and joy scroll and sew scroll, but uh, you know, reply to comments, all that. Oh my god, what a [ __ ] tangent I've gone on.

So, I'm still in bed. I've crossposted five items. I'm moving over to social. I'm checking my messages. I'm checking my comments. I'm seeing what's new. Then I have uh every morning I get what I call a morning briefing. I use Claude. I know, I know we hate AI, but my day job is in tech, so I use it for work and I'm good at it. And listen, use the robots to make your life easier, not to take creativity and joy away from yourself is what I'm saying. Like there's no — we're not going to do that. We're not doing that video. You guys know I hate AI. So it pains me to tell you that I lean so heavily onto it, but it's embedded in everything we do anyway. Uh no matter what app you use to manage your calendar, there's AI involved. So, I use Claude and Claude runs a check for me every morning of my Shopify, which is where I sell the handmade items, of open orders from the night before, email, calendar events, and things from my content calendar that I'm supposed to post that day. Um, usually it's very helpful. It helps me like know what I need to do. Some days it pulls like old information or we'll be like, "You still need to post the towel dress." And I'm like, "Bitch, I posted the towel dress. Why aren't you seeing that?" So, it's not without flaws, but it is a nice — it's called my morning briefing. And that's what it does. It kind of catches me up on what happened overnight and what actions I need to take this morning. Um, and because it's connected to my email, it'll also be like, "Yo, [ __ ] your property taxes are due." And you know that's helpful.

Um, okay. So, we are done replying to comments and now it's time for me to get moving out of bed. So, I get up. Some mornings I come straight to my bathroom to brush my teeth and talk to you guys. And sometimes I just go out there into the world into my dining room and start sewing or working on some other project. Uh, and then I'll do that for a couple hours and then it'll be time for me to go to work. Um, I think all of you guys, you know, you know I have a job. Y'all know this. I work from home and my office is next door to my sewing machine. And by next door, I mean literally the next chair. So, dining room table. The chair on the right is for sewing. The chair on the left is for working. And I keep both computers open. And the one on the left is for work and the one on the right is for this, the other job.

And also I should mention by this time every morning usually at like 8:15 my sweet angel baby husband has left and he has gone to do his uh route for the day. Um, vintage is his full-time job. And so he has all in here, like a route that he goes every day. He is friends with workers at all of these places. And it's always funny because people will come into the store and like think he works there because he's always there. Uh, but he does that from 8 to 12ish and then he usually comes home, brings me a snack, shows me what he got. He'll pack up any orders that have come in since he left in the morning, when he actually also takes the mail with him when he goes. So everything gets shipped first thing. Then he comes home at lunch, hangs out for a bit. If I'm not in a work meeting, we'll like eat lunch together. If I'm doing work stuff, he'll very quietly try to show me his haul from the other room. And I'm just like, I love that. But I'm like covering my mouth so they don't see me on the meeting talking to them — like I love them all, baby. They look great. Um, then he goes back out, mails a second round of packages, hits his other round of thrift stores, and then usually by the time he makes it home, I'm wrapping up my work day.

We'll do a quick dinner, and then um some nights I'll sew, some nights I'll create content. Once every like six months I have real plans with a real human and I go out in the world and do stuff. Uh if the kids want to hang out like obviously that's what I do, but evenings I try to make a point every day to do at least one thing for me, you know? And sometimes that thing for me is making a new outfit. Sometimes that one thing for me is laying on my back and staring at the sky. Um, but several of my therapists have told me that I have to prioritize me and that um some of the things that I think I'm doing for me are actually not for me and I need to make sure that they are. Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh, basically what she's saying is that I have a tendency of deciding I'm doing things for myself when they're actually to benefit someone else and not like the thing I really want to do. I'm working on it. Sorry.

Um, okay. So, during my day job, I try to stay off of socials and all of that because I like to be focused. I'm ADD as you well know and uh that's hard for me and if I like go on a side quest it's hard for me to get back into the work flow. So I try to keep them very separate and only like take conscious breaks from work — like okay I'm on a 15-minute break, I'm going to go sit over here and play on my phone or sew this collar or whatever. Um, and then evenings I do a thing for me and then I get in bed usually at like — okay, listen, I like to be in bed by 10:00, but because JR wakes up so early, he likes to be in bed by like 7:45 or 8:00 p.m. So, a lot of times if I go to bed at 7:45 or 8 so that I can hang out with him, I'm going to bring my computer in there and start working on things for the next day, editing videos, replying to more comments and messages, um, all of that. So there's usually like a two-hour me-playing-on-my-phone-and/or-computer situation where I am like concepting, brainstorming, responding. This is so long-winded. I'm sorry for who I am.

Also, this hair right now — somebody suggested when I did that hair tutorial, they were like, "Hey, next time you do your hair, don't use any conditioner," and then use the diffuser and see what happens. And I was like, I have a feeling it's gonna be really bad. And um this is what happened. So, it's actually not like really bad. It's just very poofy. And I mean, you can tell like the curls have come out cuz it's been clipped up overnight. But, um, I don't like totally hate it, but it doesn't feel as good as when it's conditioned.

Uh okay. So, let's see. Where was I? Get back to it. How much time do you spend? We are always doing laundry. There is always a load of laundry going in the washer and the dryer and there's almost always at least two buckets with uh [ __ ] soaking in there. It's a constant. We do our own laundry, of course, and then constantly doing laundry from the bins and the thrift. Um it never ends. Like truly, it never ends. And then when it's like electronics or shoes and stuff that doesn't go in the washing machine, we're spending time dusting those, wiping them down, trying to make them look a little fresher, a little nicer.

And then we have, you know, um accounting, all of that stuff. I honestly do it once a month. We use QuickBooks to manage everything. Our business account is separate and like at a different bank and everything from our personal account. So, we keep all the money separate. Um, and QuickBooks tracks our miles that we drive cuz that's a write-off, our receipts, incoming, outgoing money, all of that. And then like once a month, I pop in there, make sure everything is accurate and linked. It usually takes like one to two hours to get it all like good to go, but it's once a month, so it's not a big deal.

And then um what else? We've talked about Vendoo, the crosslisting app. I think we've talked about Vendoo. Yeah, we have. He lists things on eBay. I import them into Vendoo. I check some boxes. I fill out a couple more lines and then they all go to the other platforms. He spends about an hour and a half, maybe an hour in the mornings doing that and then it takes me maybe 15 minutes to get them everywhere else. And that's just because some of the platforms require more information than eBay does. So I just go in and make sure it's all there.

Um, the comments and stuff — I mean according to my phone screen time, I think I spend like 2 and 1/2 hours a day on average on social media, but that's just from my phone. That's not counting the time I spend on the computer. I use CapCut to edit my videos. I use Metricool. We talked about that one. Um, Repurpose is a really good app uh for cross-posting. With their free version, you can take everything from everywhere and put it onto YouTube. And with their paid version, you can take anything from anywhere and put it anywhere. Uh the only thing it doesn't do is connect Instagram stories to TikTok stories, which aggravates me because I really don't want to have to do both. It's dumb. Uh, I'm hoping they'll get an update, but otherwise it's great because I can post [ __ ] as trial reels from other apps.

Um, should I say more about that? I guess I should. I don't know if all Instagram accounts have this or if you have to have like a creator or business account. But trial reels are such a game changer. And what they are is you post your reel as a trial and it only goes to people who don't follow you. So your followers don't see it. It's a great way to try like uh hot takes or experimental content, things that are maybe a different format than your followers are used to, because you can see like if this resonates with strangers, perhaps it will resonate with my friends. It's also good because um new eyes and only new eyes see your things. So with Repurpose, I'm using it right now to take anything that's ever been posted on TikTok, which is everything because I've used Repurpose to sync it all up. So it's taking all of the TikTok shorts and posting them three a day like at a certain schedule over to Instagram as trials. So, all of that old content, anything that I've posted this year will get reposted as a trial reel, which means more people will see my things and hopefully follow me.

And I don't give a [ __ ] about follow count. I truly don't. But what I do give a [ __ ] about is getting paid. I want these tech giants to compensate me and I don't want my followers to. So, I keep saying no to the subscriptions and like no to all of these other little things where I can nickel and dime y'all because I want them to pay. So, I'm trying to get more followers so that they will pay me. Um, I just want to be clear — like I'm not like I need followers to feel validated. Like, I felt great when I had 2,000 followers for a very long time with the business account. It wasn't till I posted the Snow White backless dress that I started to get traction and still. Anyway, I digress. Point is, what is the point? Actually, that's the [ __ ] point. I've lost the plot, gang. [laughter] I don't even know what I'm going to do with this hair today.

Um, okay. What other apps do I use? This is definitely going to have to be a video that gets edited way down. Um, oh, I should talk about affiliate links too. Um, okay. So, anything that I buy, anything that I subscribe to and enjoy, I check to see if they have an affiliate program. For me it's important that the things that I am like an affiliate for are things that I stand by. Not everyone is that way. Uh I'm not here to tell you what you should do, but I think it's shitty to promote products that you don't actually believe in. Just throwing that out there. But if it's something I have that I'm already using, I always look to see: is there an affiliate program or um a referral program or any sort of invite-a-friend and get-some-cash situation. Real into those.

Um, I mean you know what this is, right? You know what an affiliate program is. You know how referrals work. I don't have to explain this — just in case, just in case. Uh basically with affiliate links when someone clicks your link they don't pay any extra and the rules kind of vary by platform, but they click your link and then you make a small amount of money based on any purchase they make. So if I include a link to Singer sewing machines and it's the one that I have and I'm like shop my affiliate link — when you buy the same machine I have using my link, I get 1% of the purchase price as a commission and then it adds up over time, right? So, I do those where I can.

Uh, I do not particularly care for Daddy Bezos over at Amazon, but I mean I shop there. Like I'm so [ __ ] convenient. Like I would rather buy directly from small businesses every day. But let's be real, I use Amazon. I'm an Amazon Prime member. It is what it is. And I'm an Amazon Associate. So — oh, here's a great example because I just actually realized that this happened. Uh, through Facebook, you can become — like you click a button and then you're an affiliate. And I actually don't remember how I set it up. It couldn't have been hard. It had to be like three clicks. But it connects your like Amazon affiliate account to Facebook and you can tag products in your posts. And sometimes it just tags products automatically without even asking you. And it's weird.

But I post all the time about Restoration. It's this thing I use. It's like OxiClean on crack. It's so good. It gets the grossest stains out of vintage. I live for it. Um, they don't pay me. I actually reached out to them and was like, "Hey, would you be interested in some sort of partnership? Because I talk about you on my platform a lot and I think that a lot of my followers would be into it. Like, please." Also, it's like 50 bucks for a thing and it adds up over time. Like that stuff's expensive. Give me one free here and there, right? It's all about me. So, anyway, uh I went back on some of the videos I had posted about Restoration and I added a product link. "Is that Restoration? Get it here." And 50 people — that can't be right. I think 50 people have bought Restoration using that link. I've gotten, or will get because I haven't gotten a payout yet, but I can see in the thing, which maybe I'll overlay here if I remember, if I ever even post this. Um, but I've made like 20 bucks uh from people clicking the link and buying stuff. So, it adds up. It might be a couple pennies per purchase, but it adds up over time. And it's a way to like maximize my return on this stuff, I guess.

And if you are doing the same kind of thing I am — if you're a content creator or a reseller or just, I don't know, anyone — everyone should be using these kinds of links, because even with your friends and family, like if oh they like your shoes, go find an affiliate link for those shoes and be like here, buy them using this link, and then you get a little bit and it doesn't cost them any extra. Um, you know I love a coupon. I just kind of look at it like coupons.

Um, speaking of affiliate links, I use them also with Whatnot. I'm in their — and I think any Whatnot seller can get in their affiliate program. They probably call it something different. I can't remember exactly, but um you have your little links and when you share those links and people click them, you get something like 3 to 5% of whatever they buy for the next 3 days. So you might send them the link to your show and be like, "Hey, I'm going live today. Like, come hang out." And the link you share is the affiliate link. They click it. They go to your show. Maybe they don't buy anything. Maybe they do. It doesn't matter. But then they get done watching your show and they go into some other guy's show, or they never make it to yours, but they go spend a bunch of money in a bunch of other places on Whatnot — can't talk — you get a little chunk of that and it doesn't cost them any extra, but you make money. And doing that over the past couple months, I think I've gotten like [sighs] like 200 bucks or something. It hasn't come to me yet. They hold on to these amounts for a long time, like payouts like 120 days after or something, but um it's free money. And so every couple days I like go through and make sure that I have those links where they should be.

What else? CapCut. Impact — Impact.com, that's where I signed up to be an affiliate for a lot of places. Um, but it's like a marketplace and there's a lot of sketch businesses on there. So, I just search for ones I know. Usually, I start with Google and I'll look for like "referral program" or "affiliate program" and then um go there to sign up for it. [sighs and gasps] I'm sure I'll think of more stuff in a minute. Let me get this eyeliner on. I didn't mean to be yapping at you. I meant to be getting ready uh for my day.

What am I doing today? Great question. I'm sewing mostly. That's the plan at least. I want to get ready for this fashion show and I have all these ideas, but I haven't created a single thing. [snorts] And then I also need to take everything down from the website cuz I'm going to put it in my friend's shop. And then I guess I'm not going to have another website drop for like two months. But I do plan on doing a lot of sewing. [snorts]

Um, oh, another thing that I do to optimize my time is the same principle that I take over from like my day job in content design and content strategy, which is: you want to be able to write once, use everywhere. And at work, what that means is write the message once and use the same message in multiple places. Duh. Here it means shoot one long-form video horizontal format and while you're recording think about things that would make sense to be a vertical format reel and ensure that those segments are filmed in the middle of the screen and not over here, so that it's easy to reuse that content for more things. I also try to like film in batches, make a bunch of videos at once, edit them over the course of the week, and then um have like little silly meme things kind of saved as drafts ready to go anytime I don't have substantial content ready.

I also try to keep to a content calendar where I post like certain themes in certain orders to help me balance it out, because I know most people are following me because they like sewing. They like sewing and upcycling. I also really love those things. But these accounts were created for our vintage business. So, I have to make sure that I'm still focusing on my core audience, those 2,000 people that were hanging out with me before I went viral. Like, and also that's my core passion. So, I try to balance things out where uh the stuff I know you want gets posted, the stuff that I know I want gets posted, that I'm thinking about like my hopes and dreams as well as your hopes and dreams — because um I mean isn't that why any of us work for ourselves, right? Like we do our own thing cuz we're tired of making other people's dreams come true. I'm tired [clears throat] of making other people's dreams come true, but I also want to make your dreams come true. So, uh yada yada yada. Let me throw some clothes on and then we'll be back.

Yeah, I definitely forgot to come back to this. Sorry about that. Instead, what I did was record a video for Grabby because I'm supposed to do that every day. I traced some vintage shorts and then I practiced cutting a little bit. Then we went to an oddities market. Also, before we went to the oddities market, JR used to show me — what a lot of cool stuff here. A lot of bones, a lot of things I didn't want to uh grace you with unexpectedly, but I did buy this cool thing and this cool thing. JR wanted you to see his CD.

Then we went thrifting. I got like this one adorable little dress uh for the kids show. It's precious. I love it so much. But then I got mad. Here that is. Somebody's got to tell those folks at City Thrifted, chill the [ __ ] out. The vintage market I'm at has great prices. $50. This is absolutely insane. Actually, look. Oh, nice. $20 on a dry rot. 30, 40, 50, 40, 30, 30. Again, we are at the thrift store and all of these were 30 to 52. Stained. [laughter] Look at the tag on the Gaultier. People stay mad at resellers, but we don't even sell the [ __ ] for this much money. Jesus.

And we came home. I cut out some things. I sewed some things. We watched the new Evil Dead movie. I didn't remember to record anything. And all of the stuff you see here will eventually be a real video that I actually edit and then post. I already missed yesterday and I didn't want to miss today, too. I love you. Bye. Have a great night. Sweet, sweet dreams. Thanks for wasting your time with me. Waste more time by liking and subscribing and watching another video. Thanks.