- Hey everybody and today we are back
with another (mumbling) and quiz video.
(kids cheering)
Everybody's favorite Wholesale Ted video series.
Yes, today I'm gonna be showing you
five products that you should never sell online,
because instead of these products making you money,
if you try to sell them,
you will instead loss money.
For some of these products,
if you try to sell them, they're going to lose you money
because you will have extremely unhappy customers.
They will demand refunds and potentially
even submit charge backs against you.
And for other items on the list,
if you try to sell them, you will risk being sued.
Because selling them is illegal.
And for other products on the list,
while you might be legally able to sell them,
it's not a good idea to do so
because nobody wants to buy them.
And if you try to sell them,
not only will you be destined to loss the time
that you invested into your business
but there's a really high chance
that you will also lose money as well.
Luckily though, as you'll see,
by following the simple advice in this video,
avoiding all of these things is super simple.
And also to keep this video a little bit more
lighthearted and fun,
I have to decided to make it a bit more interesting.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you
the product on screen, that you shouldn't sell
and then I'm gonna give you five seconds to guess
why that is.
And if you guess right, you will win points.
(bell dings)
Yay!
Play along and see how many points that you can win.
And let me know how many points you won
in the comment section below.
All right, here's the first product
that you should never ever sell.
Why do you think that is?
Now this is a bit of a warm up question
because my long time subscribers
are likely to know the answer to this
but trust me guys,
I had to include this.
For our warm up question today,
we are playing for five points.
So, you have five seconds to guess
why you shouldn't sell this.
Go.
(clock ticking)
(bell dings)
All right, time's up.
Drum roll please.
The answer is because little adorable Baby Yoda
is copyrighted by Disney.
Yes, I'm sure a lot of my subscribers
who have heard me talk about copyrights
are thinking, wow Sarah,
that was an obvious inclusion in this video.
But here is the thing.
I've recently had a big influx in new subscribers
who were also new to the world of selling online.
And as such, I also had a really big influx
of subscribers who have been asking me questions like this:
Hi Wholesale Ted, I'm in a tough situation starting out.
I uploaded two two tee shirts,
I'd gotten drawn by a gig on Fiverr of Baby Yoda.
Everything was fine on Redbubble for a few days
until I got both shirts taken down.
I was really disappointed that I spent all this time
getting the shirt ready.
I'm hoping you might have some advice
on what I need to do, thanks.
And I saw this comment and I was like,
like what did you think was going to happen?
The insanely adorable Baby Yoda
from the new Star Wars TV series
is massively trending right now.
And it's extremely popular,
so I've seen a lot of people try to use it
to sell merchandise
and leave me comments about how they
are trying to sell it.
For the record, right now if you're confused
about whether something copyrighted or not,
the moment that somebody creates a piece of art,
it is by default copyrighted.
The moment that Disney drew
this adorable Baby Yoda character,
it was by default copyrighted.
And not only that, but the Star Wars brand
has a million, billion trademarks to its name.
And surprise surprise, Yoda's name has been well trademarked
by Disney and Lucas Film.
And keep in mind, these rules,
they apply to fan art too.
It does not matter if you redraw the Baby Yoda character
in your own art style
and you don't just rip it from a TV series.
If it is clearly Baby Yoda,
it is copyrighted.
And let me tell you now,
Disney is one of the most aggressive companies
at predicting its IPs.
Think about it, they didn't pour literally billions
of dollars into the Star Wars franchise
so that you could make money selling
your own Baby Yoda dolls.
They did it so that they could make money
selling their own Baby Yoda dolls.
And even if you see that some people online
are getting away with it right now,
that doesn't mean that you are going to get away with it.
I was recently reading the Etsy SubReddit
when I came across this post.
I received a copyright infringement
from Disney for making a Baby Yoda crochet doll.
Though there are literally hundreds of crochet
and patch sales on Etsy for Baby Yoda.
It's fine, I didn't know about copyright
and I learned my lesson.
And that is why, even though I have discussed this topic
a lot of times on this channel,
I wanted to discuss it again
because when I saw this comment,
I genuinely felt for the user
because it can be really confusing.
Because it's true, if you go onto Etsy
and type in Baby Yoda doll,
you will see a ton of listings
of people selling it.
And so it's easy to think,
oh, it's okay to sell it, right?
But just because they are selling it,
it doesn't mean that you are allowed to.
And the moment that Disney decides to shut you down,
you are gone.
Along with all of the work
and money that you put into your business.
And so, while you might be able to get away with it
in the short term,
why build a short term business
when you can instead build a longterm business.
Build a longterm business that you know
you can put trust into.
That you know you can make money from in the future.
And saying that though, there is one really big exception
out there for all of you talented artist
who are watching.
And that is this, the Redbubble Partner Program.
This is a super nifty feature
that Redbubble as created,
where they have teamed up with a bunch
of popular IPs,
they're letting artist create fan merchandise
and sell it on Redbubble.
You need to apply and be accepted
and have your art pre-approved
but I've had friends that have been accepted.
So, it's very much possible.
You can also only create fan art for the IPs
that you get accepted for
and you can only sell it on Redbubble.
But if you've been wanting to legally sell
that Pickle Rick t-shirt that you've created,
this is how.
Did you get it right?
If so, congratulations.
If you didn't though, that's okay
because we are playing for another prize
and this time it is a big one.
We are playing for 20 points.
Okay, here is the next product
that you should never sell online, these leggings.
Why do you think that is?
You have five seconds to guess, go.
(clock ticking)
(bell dings)
All right, times up.
Drum roll please.
The answer is because these leggings are a scam.
Yeah, I'm gonna make a video in the future
that goes more in-depth onto this at some point
but these leggins are from a multi-label marketing company,
otherwise known as MLM and that MLM is LuLaRoe.
And if you don't know what an MLM is,
I'm gonna try to explain as quickly as possible
but again, it's really for another video.
But basically, here is how MLMs work.
I'm gonna explain it using one of the most
notorious MLMs, Herbalife.
Herbalife is company that in theory sells food supplements
like shake powders.
They sell them direct to independent resellers,
who then resell them direct to customers for them.
Anyone is allowed to sign up
to become a reseller of them.
All they need to do is pay $59 to get a member's pack
and then hundreds to thousands of dollars
to buy a bunch of wholesale Herbalife products to resell.
So, how do you find out about the opportunity
to resell these Herbalife products?
Well, it's simple,
you find out from other Herbalife resellers.
And if they can convince you to sign up
to buy hundreds to thousands of dollars
of Herbalife products to resell,
they will get a commission on that sale.
The problem, MLMs almost always have
Herbalife included, insanely highly priced products.
Like, way more than expensive than the competition
who are selling the exact same thing.
And so what happens as their new recruits
struggle to actually sell the hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of supplements
that they bought to resell.
So, to recoup their initial investment
of buying all of these supplements
that they can't sell,
they instead up to recruit new Herbalife resellers.
And that is why MLMs are a legal pyramid scheme.
People quickly figure out that they'll make
a lot more money recruiting new sellers
to buy hundreds of dollars worth of inventory
and getting a commission cap on that,
rather than try to sell these supplements
to legitimate customers.
The products technically exist
and technically are sold
but they are only ever sold to new recruits.
So, yes, I obviously have a lot of strong opinions
about the subject that are probably gonna get
this video disliked but nevertheless.
Back to why you should never sell these leggings,
it's because they are sold by LuLaRoe,
which is an MLM that sells clothing.
And no joke, here's how it works.
When you signup for the low, low price of $499,
they will send you a box of,
and I can't believe this.
65 random pieces of clothing.
Yup, it is completely random.
You have no choice over what products
you get sent.
You could get this pair of ugly leggings
or you could get this pair of ugly leggings.
Which ones will you be stuck with?
Who knows?
For a fraction of $499,
you could set up your own online store
that sells your own clothing brand
with clothes that you choose,
thanks to print on demand.
Print on demand refers to companies
that will let you print products,
like clothing on demand, like these two here.
Printify and Printful.
You simply upload your design to their website
to create your own custom clothing,
such as leggings or skirts or t-shirts.
And this t-shirt cost $8 to print and create with Printful.
You can then list these products for sale
in your own website for a markup.
You can then set up an online store for just $29 a month,
plus $14 for a domain name with Shopify.
And then each time a customer comes
and buys a piece of clothing,
Printful will then print your design
onto the clothing, package the clothes up
and then ship it out to the customer.
Automatically without you having to do anything,
All you need to do is pay for the base price
of the clothing that Printful creates,
which in the case of that t-shirt there, was $8.
But if you're strapped for cash
and you can't afford $29 a month,
or to pay for the clothing up front,
then there are even commission based
print on demand websites like Redbubble,
that will do all of this for free,
instead of paying per product, as customers order them,
Redbubble will remove their fees from the sell
and pay the profit to you as a commission.
So, not only do you save money,
if you create and sell your own products,
but it also gives you control over what you sell.
My friend Adrian Morrison
has made millions of dollars online
selling print on demand clothing.
He created like leggings and t-shirts.
And guess what, all of those clothing
targeted a very specific type of customer.
It was all designed to appeal to dog owners
and dog lovers.
Scaling to millions of dollars in his online store
was so much easier because he could design products
to appeal to his specific customer.
If you owned a pug, then Adrian had a pair of leggings
that featured pugs, just for you.
If you owned a Labrador, Adrian had a pair of leggings
featuring Labradors calling out for you to come
and buy them.
And here is a store that some of you might recognize,
as I highlighted this in a video last month.
It's one of the stores that I own
on my e-commerce portfolio,
Its sold over three million dollars
with print on demand, mostly clothing.
Like Adrian's store, this one also targets
one specific niche customer
that is passionate about one specific thing,
which makes it much easier to market,
as I could target them directly.
So, cut out the MLMs and start designing
and choosing the products that you sell instead.
Rather than having random products thrown at you
to sell and market to who knows who.
Sourcing products directly from suppliers
and print on demand manufacturers
is something that I teach in my free ebook.
The 6 Steps That Six Figure Online Stores Follow
to make over $10,000 a month.
And if you would like to get that ebook for yourself,
you'll find a link to download it
in the video description below.
Did you get it right?
If so congratulations, 20 points to you.
If you didn't though, that's okay
because we are playing for more.
This time, it's for 10 points.
All right, if you were searching for products
to list and sell in your online store
from AliExpress and you saw this product,
it would be a very, very bad idea to sell it.
Why is that?
You have five seconds to guess.
Go.
(clock ticking)
(bell dings)
All right, time's up.
Drum roll please.
The answer is because
the reviews for this product are not good.
A lot of people would see this and go, ah,
visually appealing product
that targets a niche market
and look, its had 660 orders.
That's a trending product, whoo!
While they completely ignore that it has a 4.3 rating
from its customers.
And that the store has an overall rating
of just 85.3%.
Ouch.
One of the awesome things about sourcing products
from AliExpress compared to a lot of other products
sourcing methods,
is that you can see reviews from other customers
and see if the supplier is able to consistently
send out great products.
And if we take a look at the reviews for this product,
we can see that they have indeed had a lot of customers
who were not happy,
which means that you are going to have
a lot of customers that are not happy.
So, if you're sourcing products from AliExpress,
stick to products that are well reviewed.
And lots of products maintain high ratings
on AliExpress.
You never have to sell products
with a 4.3 rating.
Did you get it right?
If so congratulations, but if you didn't
that's all good because it's quiz time again.
And this time, we're playing for five points.
Here is a product that you should not sell online.
Can you guess why that is?
You have five seconds to guess, go.
(clock ticking)
All right, time's up.
Drum roll please.
The answer is because this product
is incredibly boring and generic.
Yes, I won't spend too much time laboring this point
because I know my regular subscribers
have heard me talk about this before.
But again, I've recently had a huge influx
of new subscribers, a ton of them have left comments
asking for me to review their stores
and most of the time,
when I click on them,
I just melt because 95% of the stores
are selling disorganized, boring, generic products.
I received this comment from a fellow (mumbling) Jamie
and when I clicked on the store,
I was pretty much like, oh, no.
Honestly Jamie,
when I saw your website, I was genuinely confused.
Why is someone going to say, yes, I think it's great idea
to spend $37.68 on three collectable containers
and waiting two weeks for them to arrive?
When I can instead go to Walmart
and buy four of them for $19.99 right now.
There might have been something special
about your containers Jamie
but honestly, I can't figure out what makes them any better
from Walmart's based on this product page.
Because look, here's the reality.
The reason why the store sold millions of dollars
of products and the reason why
Adrian store sold millions of dollars of products,
because both of the stores that we own,
they are selling products that you literally cannot buy
from stores like your local mall.
When people see advertisements for Adrian's leggings,
they have an incentive to actually buy them
because they don't have another option
to buy them anywhere, except from him.
Choosing unique, interesting products
to sell like this,
is something I provide training on
in my premium curated video tutorial series:
The Econ Clubhouse.
If you're interested in gaining access to it,
I have a link to it in the video description below.
Did you guess it right?
If so, congratulations, you won five points
but if you didn't, that's okay
because we've got another chance to win.
This time we're playing for 10 points.
Here is a product that you should not sell.
Can you figure out why?
You have five seconds to guess, go.
(clock ticking)
All right, time's up.
Drum roll please.
The answer is because this product
features embroidery.
Yep, this is an indeed a print on demand hat
that I created using the print on demand platform, Printify.
There's just one problem, most print on demand products
that you get made,
will be printed onto products using this.
A DTG printer.
This digitally prints your products onto say, a t-shirt.
Because it's being digitally printed,
they can print every single color.
But for some products,
such as this, they can't do DTG printing.
And so instead, they will stich your designs
onto the product itself.
AKA is embroidered onto it.
And well, finally enough,
they don't have infinite thread colors
available to them.
For this Printify hat,
they can only use these 16 colors
and so, if I went ahead and tried to print this design,
onto this hat, it wouldn't come out
looking like this at all
because the picture is using colors that simply,
well, it don't have any threads to match them.
So, if you ever wanna sell print on demand products
that feature this,
be sure to find out what color threads they have available
and only use those colors
in your designs and pictures that you create
to be printed onto clothing,
featuring embroidery.
So, how many points did you win?
Let me know and if you enjoyed playing this quiz
and you would like even more quiz videos,
then you're in luck.
So, after you go and hit that subscribe button,
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