250 : Jeff Cohen – Toys for Tots needs your sourcing skills
Jeff and the gang at Seller Labs have focused on a cause. It’s such a great opportunity to use our highly developed sourcing skills to help make a difference in the less fortunate of our society and it can be done in your town too. Their goal is a modest $50,000 in retail value and he asked if we can raise $10,000. This can be a great teachable moment for you to involve your family in making a difference.
Just fill out this form and tell Jeff (or me) that you heard it on the podcast and get ready to make a difference. (Donate over $250 worth and Jeff will send you a shirt!)
Sponsors:
Gaye’s Million Dollar Arbitrage List
Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Stephen: [00:00] Hope your Q4 is going good. It’s a great time to be selling and sell a lot. Watch watching repressors. I just got whacked on one last$15 a unit. I didn’t lose I lost in profit because I should a blocked one wasn’t paying attention so please do me tell you by a couple sponsors you know scope from solar labs. If you’re not using it to even decide to take your wholesale accounts of course you got to use it for private label. Right. You need to understand the keyword you want to understand a keyword go look at your competitors get their keywords and then use them. That’s smart business right because they already have proven that proof of concept but take the same approach to your wholesale accounts. Make sure that those key words are in there. If not upload those changes many times you can but many times you can’t take advantage sculped from Sellar labs go to Silver labs dot com slash scope use the code word momentum save a few bucks get a few keywords get your listings found.
Stephen: [00:57] Got to find that keyword and scope will be the product that will help you there. Solutions for e-commerce. Karen Locher you know again you hear me talk about her because she is my account manager she’s been doing a great job. Again I had some stranded listings and I noticed them down there on the bottom right hand corner. They’re gone. I look back and they’re gone and I see stuff submitted. I see stuff return. It’s such a great process because I don’t have to pay attention to I can pay attention to the other parts of our business solutions for e-commerce slash momentum.
Stephen: [01:26] Save you 50 bucks. Lowest price she offers. And you still get the inventory Health Report. Take a look at it. Set up for 2018. Now tell Karen I sent you. When you think about Q4 lists and hope you don’t use them just Q4 I hope you use them all year long again you want to learn how to fish right. And so the best thing to do when you’re buying a list is look at what they’re doing and how they’re doing it and then figure that out on your own. That’s the approach that gay lesbian uses and a million dollar arbitrage list. It is closed for the rest of this year however I have asked them and they have said they would do it if there’s an opening. They will pull from the waitlist. OK so I have the link out on my site.
Stephen: [02:11] On this episode Fadl have a link that’ll take you right on to the waitlist. So get on the waitlist if there’s something that your interest members are going to give you a 7 day free trial so there’s nothing to lose. But then once you get in there take advantage learn how to fish right sharp in your tool you know sharpen your skills I guess is the right phrase I should use. OK so again I have that link out on this episode. So jump out there and get on that list. You know go daddy and grasshopper are both national sponsors of the show. I’m very fortunate. I have a third one coming on in February. Very excited about that. But go daddy. I use them. This was somebody who had a great idea for and for a domain and I’m like.
Stephen: [02:53] Use my link. Save 30 percent 30 percent yes they pay me. We all know that. However 30 presents real I use it myself because I want to save the 30 percent. So it’s Try Go Daddy dot com slash momentum right try Go Daddy Dotcom’s slash momentum and you’re going to save 30 percent grasshopper’s the same deal. Try grasshopper dot com slash momentum and you’re going to save 50 bucks. I saw somebody else signed up for it. The service makes you a professional. All of a sudden your business has a phone number has a vanity phone number you can kind of create your own one if it’s available but you don’t need a second phone. And I think that’s the big thing it’s not Google Voice which is choppy Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. This is professional stuff. Press one for customer service press two for my Amazon account manager which we go to Karen’s team. I mean this is a great opportunity. So it’s Try grasshopper dot com slash momentum save fifty bucks. Welcome
Cool voice guy: [03:50] to the e-commerce momentum good guys. Well we focus on the people the products and the process of Commerce selling today. Your host Stephen Peters and welcome back to the e-commerce woman and podcast. This
Stephen: [04:06] is episode 250 isn’t that crazy. 250.
Stephen: [04:10] That’s awesome Jeff Cohen.
Stephen: [04:13] Man oh man oh man I’m excited. And I’m excited about this episode is it’s a good backup. You know normally it would have somebody and we talked about in this episode. And normally it would have somebody of record and it be kind of a milestone or somebody would interview me and all that kind of jazz.
Stephen: [04:28] But in this case we’re talking about giving back and we want you to use a skill set that you have developed that you take for granted. You are gifted you are amongst a very gifted group of people who knows how to find a deal knows how to negotiate probably better than most people and you refine it every single day you scan or you go online or use a tactical arbitrage or you are a great wholesale negotiator or you’re a trade show guy like me or you’re a private label developer like Liron Master Yoda. I mean those kind of things those skill sets that you have this is a great opportunity to use them and you use them. And I I talk about and I think teachable moments. I really hope you find a way to create a teachable moment. I might do it my grandkids and take them out and give him a chance to do something and maybe have a little bit of an impact so that you might see a picture of me and my grandkids in the stores because this is a great opportunity to change lives and change their attitudes because they are so fortunate.
Stephen: [05:29] You’re so fortunate.
Stephen: [05:30] You’ve got a gift. So Jeff Cohen from Silver labs loved the idea and I just think it’s such a great opportunity let’s get into the podcast. All right we’ll come back to the e-commerce movement a podcast very excited about today’s guest. This is your third visit to my show. But actually you know it’s funny I talk about Sellar labs every single week. This is Jeff Cohen from Sellar labs. Welcome Jeff.
Jeff : [05:54] Hey Stephen how are you. What’s the record. What’s the most anyone’s ever been on your show.
Stephen: [05:58] It’s probably Andy and I take grief for people saying that I love Andy so much but you know what. What do you do with your own your best friends. I mean what am I going to do. You know and I love what he does. You know I tell people this too and you’re the same way. I mean I can reach out to you and Tyler I can send a personal message. Karen Locher Andy I mean it’s one of the things it’s quite frankly one of the reasons that I allow you to sponsor my show and I hope that you get benefit from my show is because of that. Right you’re so accessible to me and it allows me to just send you know hey you know because somebody was saying something they couldn’t get in touch with Karen the other day I sent her personal and she goes yeah I have a messaging system I wouldn’t even know it I’m like could take care of it. She’s like on it boom. You guys are exactly the same and so is A&E. And
Stephen: [06:44] to me that’s the benefit of having a sponsor that you can connect with. You get what I mean.
Jeff : [06:51] Yeah let’s take that a step further because I don’t know that that’s because we’re sponsors right. I think we’re friends and I think that’s because of the relationship that you build as you attend live events and you get to meet people and you get an opportunity to get to know you know you know my daughter right. You you have. You have helped my son get a Nintendo switch. So this is beyond this is beyond a simple business relationship and it’s moved into a personal relationship because we’ve attended so many different events together we’ve gotten to know each other.
Jeff : [07:28] And that is I think why you know I try to impress upon people in this industry as the value in getting out and meeting people. I know that’s not the point of today’s show but like that’s what comes from it is that is that you know you want to do something to help me which is why we’re having this podcast today and hopefully this is going to help a lot more people than just you and me. But it’s because you know me it’s because you know Sally labs it’s because we’ve met and hung out and spent time together that you’re more willing to help broadcast a message and today’s message isn’t about buying software it’s about helping others. And you know that’s how you meet a lot of your guests right from outstanding shows.
Stephen: [08:15] You know I have two more comments about it one. I just had rich Psylocke on right. And Rich does a monthly meet up has been doing it for years. And he says that’s where he learns the most is for hearing from newbies coming in and saying well why use that. That way and then you get to question right. And so those relationships that’s where he’s doing his learning. And the other thing I would say to you too though is it’s consistency. Now I’ve known you for a couple years and I get to watch how consistent you are because we’ve all seen people come and go flash in the pan Oh this is a new industry I’m coming in like oh this I’m the best thing ever to come into e-commerce. And before that they were in what set were they you know mass e-mail everybody write whatever that’s called.
Stephen: [08:58] You know it just that kind of world. And now all of a sudden marketing and stuff and now all of a sudden no e-commerce world and then next I’m moving onto Bitcoin or whatever it is that lack of consistency is what turns me off. It’s watching people over time consistently give the same message give the same service. And when there is a problem and there’s always a problem there to fix it and you guys have been a good example that and so is Andy and so is Karen. Quite frankly that’s why you guys I mean I’m so lucky to have you guys a sponsor but it’s a two way street. I mean I’ve turned away some people and it’s just nothing personal. It’s just I look for that consistency.
Stephen: [09:34] Well I don’t know. I don’t know if your audience realizes how much you really put an energy and effort into who you bring onto your podcast. I know it’s something every time we see each other you’re asking me Do you know this seller. Do you know that seller. Are they legit. They bring a good message. Did they have they grown up the right way so to speak. Even people you’ve interviewed in the past. If you hear something bad about them you’re like well should I have had them on. Were they the right person to have on and I think that is something that I don’t know of anybody else in this space that does that because I think to you it’s extremely important that you bring in the right people on to share the right information with your audience and I think that’s pretty impressive in and of itself.
Stephen: [10:27] And I appreciate that it’s very important to me that I don’t want to lead people down the wrong way because it’s so easy to get taken. And I just don’t want anybody to ever you know connect me in any way with that because I just want to be the voice of reason to say you know check them out a little bit it’s funny again I tell this about credit I don’t borrow money so I don’t want to encourage people. However I understand that you know when you run into big business cashflow is a big problem and you’ve got to do it. I get it. I just choose not to. So therefore I turn away every sponsor that ever wants to loan you money. You never heard one on my show because I’m not interested in it. And it’s funny that lawyer from Chicago cliff he’ll be coming up.
Stephen: [11:08] He’s I love the way he said that Stephen has Who who is interesting to him on his show and I thought is that a criticism or is that a compliment. I don’t know. Probably both right. But it’s true. I don’t want to be somebody I’m not. I mean I just don’t want to pretend to be somebody I’m not you know God we meet with each other so many times. I don’t want to pretend to be somebody I’m not. I’m just a regular guy who. So who cares so. And quite frankly that’s the reason we’re here. I was so excited about this because 250 for me is a big number. That’s what this episode’s number 250 It’s a big number it’s a pretty cool thing. And usually I would have somebody on some become memorable or something like that to celebrate and the opportunity came up because we were together a week or so ago and we got talking about.
Stephen: [11:54] And you didn’t just talk about it. Oh my God. You were selling it not to come on the show you were just selling how much you believe in what you’re doing. And I’m so excited about it because it’s like oh my god it’s like the planets aligned when he he’s like Steve this is the perfect that I’m like oh my gosh you’re right this is perfect. So let’s talk about why we’re here at episode 250 rather than talking about you know software and all the rest the junk we’re here talking about given back.
Jeff : [12:24] Yeah I think as humans right we all have a nature to want to help others.
Speaker 10: [12:31] And you know hopefully we all do.
Stephen: [12:34] And we all we all do charity in different ways right. I know that when my wife and I look at our charity budget and we typically have a line item for the things that we want to do and then we have kind of this other bucket which is like kind of you whenever your friends ask. You’re going to give you know 25 bucks here 50 bucks there depending on what they’re asking for and what the charity is. And we you know at sell our lives when we were kind of looking at what kind of impact can we make in this community not just the community that we work in but the community that we live in. And so we decided in 20 17 that we wanted to partner with Toys for Tots. And if you’re not familiar with Toys for Tots it’s a U.S. Marine Corps program that collects you know new toys during October November December and then is going to distribute those toys to less fortunate children and communities all across the country.
Jeff : [13:41] And we have had kind of two different impacts with this organization that kind of led us to selecting this and then I’ll kind of tell you why I think we as e-commerce sellers can make a big difference. So a much bigger arsenal one the first one is personal so I have a son he’s 7 years old when he was born he had a virus that put him in the hospital when he was three months while we were in the hospital we had two older children. So my wife was in the hospital with him during the day and you know I would come by and then she would sleep there at night and it was the week of Christmas. Right.
Stephen: [14:21] Like right before the week right before Christmas and every day either the local police fire or the U.S. Marines came through the hospital ward the children’s area and would cart around and pass out age appropriate gifts to every kid who was in the hospital the week before Christmas. And I had a three month old. And obviously it was a very scary time because you know we had a new baby. He had a virus. We you know we were in the hospital our kids were at home. But this act of generosity was something that really made you stop and think and appreciate what you have in life. And while my wife and I didn’t need the toys right we had a three month old the toy didn’t really matter to us that he wasn’t going to play with it. It was the thought of what they were doing.
Stephen: [15:18] That gave us additional comfort but to see all of the other children who maybe didn’t even have their family there because their family had to go work during the day that we’re getting these toys every day and the joy that that the Marines were bringing to these children who are in the hospital at this point in time really made my wife and I think you know this was a great organization that really did the right thing for the right purpose. And what we did personally as a family was we were Jewish and Hanukkah is eight nights. And so one of the nights of Hanukkah instead of giving our kids gifts our kids donate one of their gifts to Toys for Tots. And we typically bring it up to the local fire station and they give it to the firefighters and they kind of have participated in Toys for Tots by kind of giving one of their gifts you know to the program and it was kind of our way of giving back to you know when you sit and think about you know those kids don’t.
Stephen: [16:26] Like you said you’re fortunate enough you guys didn’t need it but those kids that didn’t have anything. And all of a sudden they get that and it looks like they give about$18 million toys to about seven million kids last year. So it’s tough to point something right to point something toys to each kid roughly. And you think about the age. Like you say. Age appropriate. Right. And you think about eight hundred communities where this is done consistently and that changes for so many families that just changes their world.
Stephen: [16:56] Right because they would have nothing. And so to see it done at that level that you did it had to be very moving. I mean had to.
Stephen: [17:04] Yeah I mean it’s it’s you know it’s kind of like one of those. What’s the little thing that you can do to make a small difference right. My kids aren’t going to have the worst holiday ever because they get one less one less gift. And you know coincidentally Brandon had been very active with Toys for Tots as well. He had been working at one of their distribution centers helping them sort gifts with his family. So we both kind of had a connection to the Toys for Tots community. And really this is what it came down to. We as sellers in the e-commerce world we know how much it really costs to buy a toy. Most of the toys when they raise money they go out and they buy them at retail. And that kind of bothered Brandon and I because we’re like wait a minute we could get three toys for the price of a retail price.
Stephen: [18:00] And when we started the effort when we came up with the idea it really was around this idea that as e-commerce sellers you might be doing an R.A. OK you might be doing post-sale you might have your own private brand. That means that you have access to inventory you have access to products you have products that you bought at some point and you can no longer sell. You have products that you can get for a really low price and you can make your donation go further because you’re giving it at the manufacturer cost instead of the retail cost. And so our whole kind of mission and doing this campaign was what can we do with a group a community that has access to essentially manufactured or heavily discounted products to bring a higher retail value to an organization that’s going to do good with all of these products so Sellar labs committed ten thousand dollars as a base for the collection of$50000 in retail value toys.
Stephen: [19:16] And we’re using that$10000 in a whole bunch of different ways and that could be like if you have a palette of products that you want to donate maybe we’ll cover the shipping if you have if you have a pallet if you have a couple of products that you want to donate. Maybe we’ll buy them for you at your cost. Right. So there’s all different ways that we’ve decided to go forward with the use of our ten thousand dollars. And the response so far from the community and only you know a couple of weeks of us talking about this has been quite unbelievable. And you know I think going back to the dinner that we just talked about that we were at dinner and I was talking it passionately about it with you.
Stephen: [20:07] You looked up and said oh my god I want you know I want to have him on my podcast. The guy who is sitting next to me said I have these products that I bought and I can no longer sell them because they’re now restricted. I’ll donate them. Andy was at the dinner and Andy said I have this product that’s been sitting in my attic. It’s brand new. In the box. I think it’s got a$1500 retail used value and he has a new version of the product he’s like. I would rather give it to Toys for Tots than try to sell it. And we’ve had people just say hey we’d like to give some cash to be able to buy more toys.
Stephen: [20:47] And so you know these are all the things that have started this cycle of giving and our hope is that we can we can give more. We can kind of challenge the community if you will to dig deep and think about this and think about what they can do.
Stephen: [21:08] I think you know when we were talking you said about you know hey look if anybody can write a check for 100 bucks but take that hundred dollars and go buy as you said you know three hundred dollars worth of toys or more because you have a skill set. We all have this skill set. This is our opportunity to pay back 3 x 4 x that’s a better investment plus I think there’s something more rewarding from actually going up and making the purchase and then following it through and then sending it you know what I mean rather than just run it I mean a you take money of course but that’s not really the goal. And I think that that marries perfectly with what we do. So when you are saying and I’m like oh my God that’s like genius because this is what we’re good at.
Stephen: [21:51] You can hold hundreds and hundreds and hundreds that you know between thousands that we know people that do this all the time. And so what’s the goal. The goal is to raise$50000 worth of retail. That doesn’t mean I got to buy a toy and then ship it to down to Georgia to your place or what’s that mean no.
Jeff : [22:11] So we’re working with Toys for Tots nationally. If you want to ship it you can you can ship it down to us if you want to donate it in your local Toys for Tots you can donate it to your local Toys for Tots. What we’re asking is that if you donate it locally and we’ll help you coordinate that. So if you donate it locally they’ll give you a donation letter. Send us the donation letter that will say what the retail value was and what the donated value was. And that will give us the ability to kind of add it to our registered total.
Stephen: [22:49] Right. And so you know there’s different ways to do it. Some people they just want to like ship the products out and they don’t want to deal with that. That’s totally fine. We will help you with that. If you have we can find local distribution center for you to bring it to a local shipping center for you to ship it to we will help you get that all but you know what are the things you just said Steve was the impetus for this whole thing was was what can we do as a community. And I was thinking you know I had planned on being in on any podcast to talk about this. I mean the whole point of doing this wasn’t really to do that but I was trying to think kind of leading up to this interview and I was like maybe let’s do like an E you know an e-commerce momentum challenge. Right
Jeff : [23:37] . So if you don’t pressure Steve if you donate$250 worth of toys we have a seller labs care solar labs Keres is kind of our overall organization for doing philanthropic events. We do everything from you know soup kitchens serving meals to things like Toys for Tots will send us sell our lives care’s shirt.
Stephen: [24:01] But I was thinking like maybe we could do something really fun with your audience where they can host maybe in the show notes what they were like who you know you can brainstorm this with because I didn’t set this up with you but maybe it’s something like who can make their money go the furthest. And I don’t want to restrict it and say oh spend$100 and see who can get the most retail. I think it’s more of like a percentage of what can you buy and what’s the retail value of that. That would kind of you know give you the percentage of the value you are able to add. Does that make sense now.
Stephen: [24:41] I mean any again. I think once you get bitten by the bug for helping others and you start to see like you know you saw those kids eyes in the hospital right that that.
Stephen: [24:51] That’s magic. That’s magic. And to tie it into something that we all take for granted that we’re really good at it makes it. I mean it almost fills in the rest of your life whether you’re spiritual or not it doesn’t matter. It gives you that peace of your life where you’re giving back without expectation. To me that’s exactly that’s what I’m called to do and I think a lot of people are called to do. I think this is a great opportunity to do it. So percentage would be awesome. I mean I have no worries somebody wants to send me a personal note. I’ll keep track of them.
Stephen: [25:23] If you don’t want to if you don’t want to post what you did. And one thing that you just said Stephen as you feel it is a personal calling. I totally understand. We are all asked to give. We all have our favorite organization. If this isn’t the right thing for you just think about it this time of the year giving is good. Think about the other people who are less fortunate. Right. So I’m not going to shame anyone into saying like you have to participate and Toys for Tots this is just an opportunity that I think is an interesting one. And you know we can make a little fun game of it. And I’d be willing to give away a free annual subscription to scope to whoever the winner is so that’s a you know 400 dollar value to it to whoever whomever the winner is.
Jeff : [26:16] And I’ll even add this if your group of e-commerce momentum participate and send you any information or let us know if you don’t want to let Steve know just let us know. Hey I heard on e-commerce momentum when you send in your donation if the total donations from e-commerce momentum can equal. I
Jeff : [26:36] don’t know what to pick a number. Ten thousand dollars in retail. Sure if they can equal$10000 in retail then I’ll do two scope subscriptions for us to give away to your audience. That would be awesome. You know I love the people that are motivated in different ways.
Speaker 11: [26:55] They are motivated different ways and I just hope that they dig deep just because it’s the right thing to do to for themselves. I mean I love the teachable moment to involve your kid and say hey we’re going shopping. You know I’ve done the coats for them and I think about all the different ones we do. And you just when you involve your family in these kind of things this is the teachable moments this is how you can lead others and demonstrate to others either in your family or even in your in your little mastermind groups as an opportunity a mastermind group wants to collectively pull together in Wentworth that’s you and our group of 20 that would be a good thing for our group because there are some power sellers and there would be need if everybody could collectively contribute something to see if we can make a difference so he wants ten grand from us. And I think I think that’s a very simple opportunity for us to what you have is maybe you have somebody who’s really good at online arbitrage.
Jeff : [27:49] So you’re going to pool some money together for that person to see what they can do or you know go out in your warehouse and see what you have sitting around now. Let’s make sure there’s a couple of things one.
Stephen: [28:01] Toys for Tots does not need a bunch of crap toys. OK so don’t go out and just try to buy out of the dollar bin to fill it. And remember these are toys that we want to give to kids. So think about like you know whether a kid would want this particular toy too. Quantity is not always a quantity is appreciated but it’s not always needed. And so what Toys for Tots needs is they need toys for all different age appropriate groups. They need toys for boys and girls and they need an open toys. Right. So that’s all very important. This does not include clothing. Right. So they are not a. This is not a clothing drive in any way shape or form. But you know that’s that’s what they’re looking for. If for some reason you have a palette of things right.
Stephen: [28:57] You’re clearing out a warehouse. You’ve got some stuff to liquidate. You’ve got a pallet of things what Toys for Tots does. This is actually pretty cool. They do two things. One they share with different toys for tots around the country.
Jeff : [29:11] So if you give to your community and you give them 200 they’ll actually like use that is like trading with another Toys for Tots to get some of the stuff that they need in their particular community and to they’re able to actually bank some of these toys for future years because they realize that some toys are hot and will have value over a longer period of time. And so they’ll actually use that and not necessarily give all of them away this year but give away some this year and some next year because they’re constantly kind of looking at the spread of the age spread of the male and female the spread of the the types of toys that are necessary. And you know ultimately these kids want to get toys the same way as your kids and my kids want to get toys that they just can’t be as picky about what they get.
Jeff : [30:02] But if the kid wants a football they want to give the kid a football. Right. So they try to match the kids specifically with what they’re asking for but in all instances that’s not possible they just try to say OK this is a 14 year old girl. This is an age appropriate gift for a 14 year old girl. This is what we’re going to give her this is a three year old boy. It’s an age appropriate for a 3 year old boy.
Speaker 11: [30:28] I’m sitting here thinking about you know all the toys. You know the stuff that I’ve liquidated over time and I’ve never gotten the mileage from it. I mean you get 10 cents on the dollar. Cause I’ll send stuff to auction. You know when I get 10 cents on the dollar and the challenges is that usually the auctioneer takes 30 percent. You know on top of it right. So we’re 20 percent depending which one to use. And so I think about the little bit of mileage I got from that. I mean you got to cut back. You know if you buy I always say I get$200 from an auction I’ll bring a truckload of stuff I get 200 bucks. I don’t care what it is. Seems like if it was gold bars I’d get 200 bucks. Man imagine taking that and using that too to make somebody think of the Barbies.
Speaker 11: [31:07] I mean I’ve sold a lot of Barbies but I just think stuff like that you know where you can really make a difference and these are new in the box wholesale probably most cases you know that kind of thing. And I didn’t take the mileage from it so this is a great opportunity to think differently and you know interesting start thinking differently about other organizations too. Don’t just limit it here. I mean we want to do this because this is a big goal and it’s a great opportunity. But this hopefully is a mindset shift for some people to sit back and say you know what. The shoes right. How many think about shoes right rather than liquid down for nothing. Is there an opportunity for things like that. And so somebody has another big charity a big idea coming up in the future let me know.
Speaker 11: [31:47] I would consider talking about it because I just think this is a great again when Jeff said it I was thinking myself oh my god I never thought about the skill set that we have and using it to full advantage we are ninjas when it comes to this stuff. And yet we just take it for granted. And I think it’s genius and I immediately wanted to be on board.
Stephen: [32:08] So yeah I think I mean listen we’ve had a lot of the sellers we’ve already started connecting with our private label sellers who have products in the in the toy arena who have donated you know several hundred to several thousand dollars worth of their toys. And it’s awesome. Right. But I think there’s a huge opportunity like you said and what we can do with the arbitrage side of this when when you’re sitting there at a store and your math is telling you only to buy five of these because you don’t want to be. You don’t want to many but they’re 80 percent off and you can pick up an extra five of them for another hundred dollars. Just think about it and consider putting an extra hundred dollars in and donating those toys. Like you said whether you do it through our program of toys for tots or whether you just drop it off at Toys for Tots.
Jeff : [32:59] The winner exists right. And so we made it very clear when we set this whole thing up where if you want to give a cash donation you give the cash donation directly to Toys for Tots. When you if you want to ship the products then we’re going to help you ship them directly to Toys for Tots. We didn’t want to become a distribution center where everything has to come to us. That’s that’s not necessarily the point. We actually are a drop off location so in our local community we can collect toys from the local community. And we’ve had some people ship the toys to us which is kind of fun to get all these boxes of toys into our office. But overall what we’re looking for is what you can do and if you want to give it more to your local community we’re totally OK with that.
Speaker 11: [33:44] And so again we just get a letter and then send a copy letter for you. And like you said you’re not trying to keep score.
Jeff : [33:53] We have to let you have a go. We have a Web site Sellar labs Dotcom’s t for t t for the number.
Speaker 12: [34:00] The number. Yes the number 4. So T. That’s it. OK.
Jeff : [34:05] Yeah and and on that page we have kind of brandin story of why toys for tots is important to have some details about the program. And then we have a form you can fill out where we kind of say like What are you looking to do and how can Sellar labs help you. And and so if you’re looking to kind of learn a little bit more or you’re looking to seek some help. That’s the best place to do it. So Toys for Tots does look for toys that are infant to 16 years old. The most challenging age group is females 12 to 16. So if you want the super challenge look for toys for females 12 to 16. Now I have a 12 year old. So my guess is that that’s challenging because most 12 year old girls don’t want toys they want make up and all this other type of stuff.
Jeff : [34:58] But that’s the that’s the challenge that that’s the air the area. They get the least amount of toys. Females 12 just 16 but they will take it for both boys and girls. Infant all the way up to 16 years old.
Stephen: [35:13] Love it. All right. I’m on the site. I’m looking at the details. I love it. It makes Lovie’s you guys are so smart about making this stuff easy. So I’m going to have the link. So it’s so celeb’s dot com slash t for t. That’s easy right.
Speaker 11: [35:28] Again if you make a donation and you heard it from the podcast just send him a note because he’s challenge us to come up with 10 g’s and collectively we can do that. I want to make sure we hit that goal and then he’s going to give me a couple scope a couple of scope things that I can give away subscriptions. And if you donate to$250 in value you just again send him a note or send me a note with that note with that letter and I’ll get it to him and he’ll get you a shirt. I appreciate that too. I mean you write little things like that motivate people differently and that’s cool.
Stephen: [36:02] That’s not that’s not wrong to do it. I just think it’s neat. It’s a nice little clip. Check it and I can move on.
Jeff : [36:10] OK. So that means people you know listen I mean a lot of people have said we don’t even want the shirt and I don’t care if you want the shirt or not have you want the shirt we’d be happy to send it to you. Like you said some people get motivated in different ways and we just really wanted to create the shirts internally for our employees and then some people saw them and thought they were cool. I mean I know you’ve seen some of our other stuff and keep asking me to ship it to you. Hello. So get ready. Say it. You know we interact with each other as brands. And so some people enjoy having that and having that little badge say that they did it. Some people don’t care. I completely agree with you. It really doesn’t matter.
Jeff : [36:53] That’s up to each of you individually. We just want the letter that the donation letter from Toys for Tots as we have our banner on the site that shows how much we’ve collected we can add to that number by knowing that your donation was counted towards that. Awesome. OK.
Speaker 11: [37:12] All right. So we got to we got a little bit of work to do people. OK. So again we’re going to collectively try to get 250 bucks. It would be awesome to have to hit the 10000 at that level just person by person that would make it very cool you know.
Jeff : [37:26] But the goal being to get a break we’ll get the Bernie Sanders or outright everybody everybody do everybody. You want one gift that$25. You know go out and see what you can buy for$25 can you can you buy 50 to 100 dollars worth of toys for 25 bucks. It’s not on a bottle. It’s not about spending hundreds of dollars as a community. There are thousands of us. You get thousands of downloads. Hopefully this has motivated you to want to do something fun. And like I think Steven and I both said whether that something is Toys for Tots or whether that something is just in your own community or whether that something is giving that$25 to your kids and bringing them to the store to see what they can do with it. That’s the spirit of what we’re alternately trying to push here. The spirit that makes all of us kind of wake up in the morning and say I did some good for somebody else you know that would be very cool too.
Speaker 11: [38:24] As you’re doing that with your kids to take a picture or two and send it to me and I’ll include it on the Web site because that again is such a great building future. Right
Stephen: [38:34] you’re taking kids and teaching them that there’s more to it. I mean we’re so fortunate. The other thing. I was just talking about that this weekend with someone we buy so much stuff. I’m oblivious to stuff anymore. I don’t want any stuff because all I do is buy stuff right.
Stephen: [38:48] And we’re so fortunate we can do that and to teach your kids that probably have a lot of stuff that they can give to somebody less fortunate. And man and the feelings that they will get from that and the oh love it love it love it. OK. So solar labs come tea for tea. OK.
Speaker 13: [39:09] Tell Jeff that you heard it on this podcast. I’m going to shoot it out to my e-mail list. You’re going to hear from me a whole bunch of different ways and one of my followers on Instagram and I’m going to try and help us get there because I just think it’s awesome. So the goals 50000 you’re more than you’re not halfway there yet are you.
Stephen: [39:27] Well so we only post when we actually have the donation letters. If we talk about commitments people have made we’re probably right around halfway there. But I don’t want to you know I don’t like the cash count the cash until it’s in the bank so to speak. And so I appreciate the commitments people have made to us. And you know I honestly think we should blow this number out of the water. I think that as I’ve talked to more and more sellers they think about things like well I have a warehouse I’m sure I could go through and find a bunch of stuff that I don’t need anymore or I have these toys that are sitting around that have value but I can’t sell them. And if everybody just takes 10 minutes out of their day and thinks about it in that way and processes and ships them you know we can hit we can easily hit this number and we can blow it out of the water.
Stephen: [40:19] OK. Love. All right. So again several Rebstock 240 Jeff at Sellar labs.
Speaker 12: [40:27] If Jeff Cohen whereas I think it both actually work both actually work. So Sanjay often no. If you have more questions but you know what I like about this too is your whole team is involved. Having met your whole team this has really got to you know pump people up. I mean that’s exciting. I
Jeff : [40:43] mean we’re doing an ad we’re doing an office day of service where we’re going to go to the starting center and start again. And you know we try to do at least one charitable event each quarter as a company just because it’s important to us that as you know we’ve always talked we’ve talked about this before us even like as a company giving back to our own local community is just as important as growing a successful company and that’s always been a foundation of what we do at the company. And so this is just really taking what we’ve been doing locally and trying to expand it to make our reach a little bigger.
Speaker 13: [41:20] You know just sitting there thinking about we just came back from e-commerce Chicago would have been a perfect thing to do is to bring a toy or something like You know it’s just one of those things that more conferences have to consider. I’ll challenge Jeff. He’s got a conference coming up in May just as a challenge. These are the things you want to start thinking about is there an opportunity when you get a group of people together to get a common mission. Again it gives us something to talk about gives us some way to connect with each other. I think this is an opportunity so I hope this is the start of something even bigger as these things that this need doesn’t just happen at Christmas. And I think that’s important to note too. This need is all year long but this is a great way to get started.
Speaker 13: [41:58] So I’m excited. I’m thrilled to be part of it. Thankful to be part of it. I’m so fortunate and I know you are too Jeff. OK. So we’ve got all the info. I’ll have a ton of information on the Web site. Please please please. Let’s see if we can hit the$10000 number send me a note if you do anything send Jeff a note make sure that you include. You heard it on the podcast. I’m going to challenge our little teemed in what you’re in charge. Get that together let’s see what we can do. To Andy Salomon’s see if we can hit that big number. All right.
Stephen: [42:30] Anything else any parting thoughts no I mean I think just take a couple of minutes you know as Steve Steven as you’re reflecting on your you know milestone that you’ve hit with your podcast which is I mean I remember in the early days I think I was you know sub 30 or something original podcast. You know what we’re doing all the stuff that we’re doing is for our own personal reasons. And most of us have kind of something else that drives us that mission that drives us beyond the work we do on a daily basis. And you know the impact that we can have on our greater community on our greater society and you know there’s so much ugly and bad in the world that gets glamorized on a on a nightly basis the news cycles move so super fast. You know this is really a time of the year where it’s a good good point to sit back and reflect and understand where we’re at and where we’re looking to go.
Stephen: [43:43] And you know how we can make a difference and other people as we’re still being successful and the things that we’re doing I followed up with give without expectation this is such a good thing.
Speaker 11: [43:56] Dude I thank you so much. I’ll have all this out there I’m going to pump it out and I really hope people hear it and take it to heart and say you know what. We have a skill set.
Stephen: [44:05] Let’s use that skill set to 10x to 10x that gift. It’s awesome. Thank you so much. Wish you nothing but success. Take care. Thanks David.
Stephen: [44:17] What a great great opportunity for us all. I hope this really gets you thinking differently and I’m going to think about this differently all year long. I don’t want it to end or end here. I think this is such a great chance to maybe do a quarterly kind of thing. It’s a great opportunity to get back think back to your corporate career. Right we all are in the corporate world and this kind of stuff United Way and all the rest of those things that just became part of the culture. We don’t have that in our culture in our little e-commerce culture and this is a great opportunity to start it. And I just I’m excited that celeb’s is leading it in this scenario. And just imagine how big it could be you know with all of us putting forth our efforts and make it local.
Stephen: [44:56] You know I love the way he said you just do it locally and that way you benefit your local community yet collectively we get to you know show that we do have an impact in the community. We’re not all just here for profit. We
Speaker 12: [45:07] are here to give back e-commerce momentum to e-commerce momentum dot.com. Take care. Thanks
Cool voice guy: [45:13] for listening to the e-commerce momentum I guess. Bobolinks mentioned today can be found that the Gomer’s momentum dot.com under episode number. Please remember to subscribe and like us on iTunes.
