All-time best month during the pandemic would be in the month of September.
I made, I would say at least $20,000 or so.
There are a lot of people in the reselling world that are high school age, college
age. And it's really pretty impressive that so many young people that are
typically excluded from the business world are suddenly included.
My name is Max Hayden.
I'm 16 years old.
I live in Hopewell, New Jersey, and I made about one hundred and ten thousand dollars
selling gaming consoles
and pools during the
pandemic. Max started selling things like candy and fidget spinners during middle
school to his friends.
He then turned to reselling sneakers where he saw major success.
But it wasn't until 2019 when his reselling business really took off.
Although the pandemic is really terrible, I was able to take advantage of the
opportunities that I saw.
There was just everything selling and selling out in stores and reselling for a
higher price online.
So whether it be dumbbells or webcams are now swimming pools.
Max created an Amazon seller account and set up shop in his parent's garage as a
temporary warehouse and officially became an Amazon product reseller.
Good, so we've just got a sale to Columbia.
Oh, Columbia, South Carolina?
No, Columbia, South America.
My family has always been very supportive, but they're also a little stressed out when
I had turned our house into a distribution center temporarily.
It started out with a lot of my birthday money, things like that.
However, a kid gets some money, but I really didn't have the opportunity to
borrow money from my parents.
His upfront costs were low when he started his business.
All he needed to get started was a laptop, tape and a printer.
That's good.
Since then, he's scaled his business and splits the cost to work in a shared
warehouse with other resellers.
In 2020, we sold just over $1.7 million dollars on Amazon.
And our profit for 2020 was roughly $110,000 dollars.
My reaction when I was making this kind of money, it was just kind of like
astonishment.
Max tries to sell items that are in high demand with low supply.
Once he identifies where the items are restocked, Max buys them in bulk and sells
on Amazon. He says he typically buys his products directly from retailers.
Sweet. You got it.
He's also part of several groups on an instant messaging app called Discord, which
notifies him of restocks.
I sold things like Nintendo Switch consoles and webcams for people with kids so that
they could work from home and attend school from home.
A lot of these items were all selling out, as well as home exercise equipment and even
sometimes sewing machines and bread makers.
The things that people were doing after they were stuck at home and the home
exercise equipment was reselling because people were staying home and the gyms were
closed. And then later in the summer, there were swimming pools that resold
because a lot of community pools were closed due to covid.
But not everyone is happy about his reselling business.
The pandemic drove prices up and certain products that were once cheaper now cost
more money.
There have been definitely some conflicts with customers in the past.
Some people who see advertisements and are kind of angered by the price of our
products. And I'm really just taking advantage of the market where the market
drives the prices and the demand for the items.
So far this year, Max has made about five hundred thousand dollars in revenue with
thirty thousand dollars in profit.
Since starting the business, he's gotten used to a busy routine.
Everyday routine has been a little different ever since I've gotten out of
school. I've had a lot more time to focus on my business.
Max hired two of his friends to help out with his business.
He pays them each fifteen dollars per hour to help with bookkeeping, packaging, and
fulfilling orders.
I usually wake up around 10:00 in the morning, eat breakfast and then check my
communications. Whether that be with fellow resellers or with customers.
I try to make sure I answer customer communications messages as soon as
possible. So I try to knock all of those out and solve everyone's problems.
And as orders come in throughout the day, I'll be able to keep track of what orders
are coming in. And around three o'clock I'll usually start packing up orders that
need to go out. That day I'll print a shipping label for them and then give the
buyer the tracking number.
So I just put that back in the envelope and put the packing slip in as well.
And then I'll call UPS to come out to my house and they usually come out every day
to pick up products that have sold and then they get sent up to the buyer.
Max says product research is one of the most important parts of his business.
Product
research can go on all hours of the day.
Most importantly is how much the product retails for and how much the product
resells for.
Although Max spends a significant amount of time on his retail business, he still tries
to balance that with his 16-year-old lifestyle.
In the spring, had to pause his business to focus more on schoolwork.
An opportunity
cost of shutting down my business for a couple of months is worth getting my grades
back on track. There's definitely been a lot that I've missed out on in terms of a
typical high school experience because of my business definitely takes a lot of time
out of my day. Maintaining a really active social life is kind of difficult when
you're also, you know, managing a really active business life.
I don't come from a family of money.
So it was really impressive to both my parents and I was able to make this much by
myself in high school.
We're looking to move into a warehouse and at least a commercial space exclusively for
our business. It's definitely been a big, privilege placed in my hands after
operating this business.
I'd say that so long as you have the drive and you have the goals of becoming a
successful business person, you can be able to go after it, even if you're a young
person. Boom.