I’m a frequent buyer from Bry on Whatnot. He is a top notch seller. He is one of the few that I routinely buy from. Good deals, good books and excellent service and transparency. I can’t recommend him enough.
Been apart of whatnot for a very long time... use to buy a bunch of pops and moved to comics. I spend money too easily on it so I have to pace myself.lol. it's actually fun and has an awesome community.
Being the “little guy” on WhatNot does suck. Sometimes your are giving stuff away, even when it’s not the “giveaway”. I’ve been with your for years and really enjoy what you are doing. Keep grinding bro!✌🏼
I was just approved for a seller account today, which I applied for after watching your auction at the end of last week. Just starting this video but want to thank you in advance for your thoughtful commentary.
well sais ! Your channel has always been honest and that's why you are so successful . Your audience gets to see themselves in you as a collector . You selflessly show people how to do it themselves .
I have to admit my experience as a buyer so far its been very entertaining. I do find it hard to find sellers that have books im looking for and most are just selling filler 1 dollar books. I have to say i did feel like sdcc what not streams did seem glitchy and easily manipulated due to fomo and hype. There were a few sudden death auctions that seemed rigged because you can bid up really high with seconds left and trap others in a much higher bid
Most buyers and sellers can recognize and denounce troll bids during sudden death. After that, most chats I've been in have had rather helpful audiences who would then point you towards the process of canceling an order more often than not with the buyers where withal and participation in order to get the show moving. Sellers and moderators can also kick and ban at their discretion. Sudden death is actually the more rare form of transaction on whatnot with people actively requesting it when its a known occurrence on someone's show. Best chance of steals with sudden death.
I saw a ton of people selling snake oil, books that will be worthless very soon. I think people that don't have much experience are buying those books. Just because a book is made out of something special doesn't mean its going to be worth much.
The toughest part starting out is the battle of selling cheap books to avoid huge losses and selling higher value books to get people in the show. I have never had more than 20 people in a show so it’s a scary proposition throwing up a decent key. You can start them at $20 like Bry said, but then you end up selling nothing and people leave because they like the $1 starts. When I first started selling a year ago there weren’t a ton of comic sellers. It took 3 months to get approved to sell. Now, you’ve got 10 other people to fight for viewers at almost all decent hours of the day. Sometimes more. Hopefully the number of buyers is scaling up with the number of sellers.
Love What Not! Ive been a small seller on there since May this year. I do it as a side hobby outside my normal work. I just run on Sundays early but even as a small seller i really enjoy the community and the repeat buyers i get.
One more thing, you’re videos have inspired my wife and I to start a small, side gig comic business! We are having a lot of fun and your videos convinced me it’s possible to make money as a small dealer. I really appreciate all of the help you have given on this RU-vid channel. Thank you! I also recognize how you really try to be very fair in your pricing. You aren’t trying to screw people. Respect for you!
As a buyer, I don't like Whatnot. IMO, the format lends itself to less valuable books/ more modern books. Unless I know and trust a seller, such as yourself, Whatnot is no good for buying a book that is not brand new or in a pristine slab. If I'm bidding on a silver or bronze book, or one >$50, I want high quality photos of the important parts of the book (corners, spines, staples, etc) to examine. The FOMO/ getting caught up in the time restriction to punch the bid button is not what's best for me as a buyer. And God awful, loud music makes my ears bleed.
I just started whatnot as a new seller and it has been a positive experience for me , I definitely am trying to put more work into every show , and every show has gotten better , thx for your tips and support, iv followed your journey from beginning, been amazing seeing how far you've come, good luck in the future
Great info Bry. Did the SDCC WhatNot live stream rounds and feel I got what I wanted, but can see the hype and FOMO will break the undisciplined. Had a troll in one bidding up their own bids but thankfully got called out and blocked fairly quickly. Thanks for the seller perspective!
Really enjoy your content and found you on Whatnot a couple weeks ago! Your videos have helped me start working on a following of my own. Keep up the awesome work my man! ✊🏾
1 Buyer regulation that is really important - rate your experience. If they suck, make sure you rate that experience. Any seller that sends me a book in a bubble envelope will never get another dollar from me. Any seller that sends me a book outside of a bag/board, never get a penny.
Fantastic overview of the platform. As a user for well over a year I agree with your points as well as some of these comments. Hopefully the app will grow and allow more people to enter the selling community. 🤙🏻
I’ve been following you for a very long time and you consistently put out good information. You have earned the way to the top and if you are successful on WhatNot, it’s the testimony to your many years of hard work. Thanks for another great video. Leo.
eBay actually announced that they will be tackling the live auction realm. Definitely will be a strong contender with an already strong built in customer base - I will say the ease and comfort of using whatnot comes with its own set of problems (tech and bad apples) - but it’s still a very new business and there will be growing pains.
I'm thinking eBay is going to die soon and now they're charging GST and HST when I sell something and when I buy something they get me coming and going I'm done with eBay
I took about a six month break from Whatnot and just opened it for the first time this past weekend. It was crazy how many angry and bad sellers were on there. A drunk husband and wife even stopped their stream because they were about to get in a fistfight. Highly entertaining, but not the people I would want to buy books from. Same thing with the guy whose books looked PERFECT, but he was smoking in his shop during the stream while his girlfriend presented the books. They looked amazing, but I can't even imagine what they smelled like.
Completely agree with everything you said as myself being a seller on Whatnot (as well as a buyer). There are alot of sellers and have seen books that are retail $2 being sold for $8.....they will disappear. Thanks bry!!
Loving Whatnot as a buyer, haven’t looked into becoming a seller. But its really gotten me back into buying more books and also led me to finding your channel and many other sellers. Which has been great.
I have really enjoyed your content. I'm getting back into collecting after being out of it since the late 1990's when I stopped cold turkey. I have been sitting on about 16 long boxes that start from the mid 1980's. Keep up the good work!!
I totally agree with your analysis man. I enjoy using the app, and I am dabbling on selling on the platform.. My initial drive to get on is to get rid of my raw books I don’t really want or need anymore.. Now I’m using it as a avenue to grow my comic hobby in both selling and buying. Being very organized and expressing full transparency are factors I am noticing that are producing positive results for me.
I’ve been selling on whatnot for about 3 months and I’ve gotten to the point where I tend to have enough people on the room so that buyers are competing with each other for books - most sell for around FMV and occasionally a couple of folks will get FOMO and drive that price up. I’ve had a lot of success with themed auctions (X-Men, Spider-Man, Conan, etc). I also use IG to post videos of me flipping through the books that will be for sale, that’s been very successful.
I live in an area with limited access to comics and it is nice to go to whatnot, and bid on things at reasonable prices. Graded aren’t always accurate, but I haven’t had a bad experience yet.
Since I’ve found whatnot I’ve spent a lot of time and money watching streams. It’s overall a great experience. My only complaint is being in Canada the shipping varies widely. I buy from several sellers as far away as LA and the first book is $15. If I go into someone else’s stream shipping for the first book (not slab) can be as much as $41. It all seems kind of random and not at all affected by distance. Keep up the good work 🤙
As a buyer on WhatNot I absolutely do not watch channels that don't list out the books they are going to be putting up in their auction. If they have their list as Comic 1, Comic 2, Comic 3... then I'm out.
It's a whole different ballgame . Different customer , lots of moderns , I basically only bid on your stuff. I've gotten too much garbage from others and lately it glitches costing bids. Honestly if it would get better I might be a cheerleader for it lol
I have yet to experience Whatnot, I feel I've been having an old man "get off my lawn" moment in my laggard ways in that I'm like here's another platform to follow🤦♂ But I'll say that's there's at least 3 other comic enthusiast/collectors/sellers I follow on IG that have been promoting their Whatnot. I give props in that I've been sure to comeback to this channel as I feel there's reliable consistency in the craft and content being provided🤙
I know a lot of buyers love the excitement of a live auction, but I'm not one of them. I find live auctions more anxiety-inducing than anything. That said, I've been jumping into a couple of the sales here and there just for the experience, and I'm sure at some point I'll become comfortable with it.
Some sellers are just plain fun to hang out with! I’ve had many belly laughs watching Skeff and the only thing I ever bought from him was “beard oil” which was actually just a way to donate money to him 😂😂
Until there's a way I can easily look at the current auctions going on at any time of the day and know which streams will have the books I'm interested in, I will stick to my regular sources. I don't have time or patience to go through each auction one by one, and do not buy modern books which seems to be the bulk of the auctions at this moment.
I enjoy Whatnot a lot, tons of great sellers, I suggest just watching shows before you start buying to learn who you can trust and where to get consistent good deals, it's best to have a 2nd device (or page) open to an app for price checking so you don't ever overpay, I've seen a lot of people pay way over what things sell for elsewhere, that FOMO will get you if you aren't vigilant, but they have no one to blame but themselves. The SDCC shows were rampant with this, the same book would go for $26 on one person's show & $150 or more on another running at or near the same time, it's crazy.
I saw a well-known vinyl dealer FALL APART on his first WhatNot show. What perplexed him was that he hadn't filled out international shipping and entered too high a weight for USA shipping. In other words, he made some errors, and when asked "why is this" he just LOCKED UP his brain and couldn't answer, or even speak in whole sentences.
Very informative video Bry.. Some people like pictures, videos or 'whatnot' 😉.. How about a point of view video of one of your episodes so some viewers can get a taste of the format and how it works.. Thanks Bry.
My niche is too specific, so WhatNot doesn't fit my needs. I did catch your Daredevil WhatNot stream. You did great. I like that you know your books well, good interaction with chat, and upbeat during the whole stream - no overhyping or I jus woke up vibes. If you ever have a ASM (230-289) sale, I'll pop in and buy. Good luck!
It's really interesting...they saw a gap in the market and went all in. Ebay coming in to tackle this will be interesting. To be competitive I think they'll need to create a department solely for attending events/cons etc.
From what I’m seeing WN has been great. I’m considering doing my own show - dollar books bundles and stuff just clear out my collection and some sort of bigger books that I’m offloading either because I’ve upgraded or putting that $$$ to a bigger key. There have been streams that I just join with no real intention of buying but are just fun to watch. The one that had the AF15 was just cool to see.
I’ve enjoyed whatnot so far, my wallet not so much. I’ve bought from you also and your show is pretty solid. Glad you’re fearless in trying new things on the app without any bad feelings after the bad sales. I’ve seen a show where a seller started calling buyers cheap lol.
Just got approved myself to sell. Super excited to do it regardless of the downsides…to have such a great opportunity, I am humbled. Even if I can only use this platform to fund this great hobby, I think it’s a win win.
Great video, Bry! I’ve spent the last couple of weeks watching auctions on WhatNot including yours. There seems to be a lot of unprofessional or annoying sellers. I like your live auctions and ComicTraders come across as real pro’s (if maybe a little boring). I really value good deals and information on each comic - spec, grade, artist, writer, etc. I hate the sellers that milk a giveaway for 20 minutes. You have a lot of goodwill in your community.
Interesting comments. From a buyers point of view. It’s fun. But dangerous. Easy to get caught up on things and not realize how much you spend but a simple an easy solution is to write down a running total. Haven figured out how to win sudden death yet. You would think it would be easy but I find it’s not. I do appreciate the work you guys put in. I do like your channel a lot. Very cool stuff, good commentary, you treat people with respect which is very important to me.
I’ve only had one bad experience on whatnot. I got berated by a seller for “wasting his time” because I didn’t buy a book I’d asked to see. He started it way over what even anyone on eBay was asking. Other than that every seller has been awesome.
I was addicted to Whatnot for about six months, but have pulled back dramatically to the point I rarely participate in a show as a buyer. It hit the wallet, no doubt, but the majority of the comics presented are fillers. The condition of the comics are also a lot to be desired. What typically looks near mint ends up being VF. Condition accuracy on eBay is much more reliable.
I think the more I’m on Whatnot the more I understand a lot of people are there for the social experience and feel they can get more steals on the app than ebay, social media, etc. I think it make selling harder on other apps the more popular it gets.
I'm happy to hear your response in regards to the app. I wasn't sure where you would stand. I figured Instagram was more your preferred platform. I definitely think Whatnot is a game changer. I started out small with cheaper items and started building a following. I like the ease of selling things quickly versus the time it takes making listings on ebay and waiting for a sale. I've noticed somethings sell better on Whatnot and other things dont. I think you gave solid advice.
I’m new to whatnot but I’ve enjoyed the few shows I’ve gone to ..you can definitely find some good deals ..I got kinda screwed on a mystery box show though
All good points you bring up - I agree I think Whatnot is a force and will be there for a long time -thanks for the info - as far as me selling I don’t think it’s a good idea for the little guy - people like you will do just fine
As a day 1 seller. I feel for new sellers. Very hard to have success unless you're already established in the IG or YT community. The App feels oversaturated and im a seller with 10k+ followers across all social media.. The App itself, the experience, is great tho. I'll gladly pay a fee for the convenience on the backend. Whatnot is great and I can def see it being around for a while. Like most apps it has its pros and cons but the pros def outweigh the cons for me at this point.
With the price of fuel and how far some comic book stores are away from us Whatnot is pretty good. There is some messed up sellers on there, I just stick to the ones that Iv had good experiences with like Bry. Great selection his packaging is by far the best and turnaround time.
over time Whatnot will improve and get better. Feels like its mainly US though, and postage is huge elsewhere. They may need to put money back in to make this fully global
